Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (4 page)

I. First, keep the heart full. However pure the water may be in the central reservoir, it will not be possible for the company to provide us with an abundant supply of water unless the reservoir itself be full. An empty fountain will most assuredly beget empty pipes; and let the machinery be never so accurate, let every thing else be well ordered, yet if that reservoir be dry we may wait in vain for any of the water that we require. Now, you know many people --(you are sure to meet with them in your own society and your own circle; for I know of no one so happy as to be without such acquaintances)--whose lives are just dry, good-for-nothing emptiness. They never accomplish anything; they have no mental force; they have no moral power; what they say nobody thinks of noticing; what they do is scarcely ever imitated. We have known fathers whose moral force has been so despicable that even their children have scarcely been able to imitate them. Though imitation was strong enough in them, yet have they unconsciously felt even in their childhood that their father was after all but a child like themselves, and had not grown to be a man. Do you not know many people, who, if they were to espouse a cause and it were entrusted to them, would most certainly pilot it to shipwreck. Failure would be the total result. You could not use them as clerks in your office without feeling certain that your business would be nearly murdered. If you were to employ them to manage a concern for you, you would be sure they would manage to spend all the money, but could never produce a bit. If they were placed in comfortable circumstances for a few months they would go on carelessly till all was gone. They are just the flats, preyed on by the sharpers in the world; they have no manly strength, no power at all. See these people in religion: it does not matter much what are their doctrinal sentiments, it is quite certain they will never affect the minds of others. Put them in the pulpit: they are the slaves of the deacons, or else they are over-ridden by the church; they never have an opinion of their own, can not come out with a thing; they have not the heart to say, "Such a thing is, and I know it is." These men just live on, but as far as any utility to the world is concerned they might almost as well never have been created, except it were to be fed upon by other people. Now some say that this is the fault of men's heads: "Such a one" they say, "could not get on; he had a small head; it was clean impossible for him to prosper, his head was small, he could not do anything; he had not enough force." Now that may be true, but I know what was truer still--he had got a small heart and that heart was empty. For mark you, a man's force in the world, other things being equal, is just in the ratio of the force and strength of his heart. A full-hearted man is always a powerful man: if he be erroneous then he is powerful for error; if the thing is in his heart he is sure to make it notorious, even though it may be a downright falsehood. Let a man be never so ignorant, still if his heart be full of love to a cause he becomes a powerful man for that object because he has got heart-power, heart-force. A man may be deficient in many of the advantages of education, in many of those niceties which are so much looked upon in society; but once give him a good strong heart that beats hard, and there is no mistake about his power. Let him have a heart that is right full up to the brim with an object and that man will do the thing, or else he will die gloriously defeated, and will glory in his defeat. Heart is power. It is the emptiness of men's hearts that makes them so feeble. Men do not feel what they are at. Now the man in business that goes heart and soul into his business is more likely to prosper than anybody else. That is the preacher we want, the man that has a full soul. Let him have a head--the more he knows the better; but after all give him a big heart; and when his heart beats, if his heart be full, it will under God either make the hearts of his congregation beat after him or else make them conscious that he is laboring hard to compel them to follow. O! if we had more heart in our Master's service, how much more labor we could endure. You are a Sunday-school teacher young man, and you are complaining that you can not get on in the Sunday-school. Sir, the service-pipe would give out plenty of water if the heart were full. Perhaps you do not love your work. O, strive to love your work more and then when your heart is full you will go on well enough. "O," saith the preacher, "I am weary of my work in preaching; I have little success; I find it a hard toil." The answer to that question is, "Your heart is not full of it, for if you loved preaching you would breathe preaching, feed upon preaching, and find a compulsion upon you to follow preaching; and your heart being full of the thing, you would be happy in the employment. O for a heart that is full, and deep, and broad! Find the man that hath such a soul as that, and that is the man from whom the living waters shall flow to make the world glad with their refreshing streams.

Learn then the necessity of keeping the heart full; and let the necessity make you ask this question--"But how can I keep my heart full? How can my emotions be strong? How can I keep my desires burning and my zeal inflamed?" Christian! there is one text which will explain all this. "All my springs are in thee," said David. If thou hast all thy springs in God thy heart will be full enough. If thou dost go to the foot of Calvary, there will thy heart be bathed in love and gratitude. If thou dost frequent the vale of retirement and there talk with thy God, it is there that thy heart shall be full of calm resolve. If thou goest out with thy Master to the hill of Olivet, and dost with him look down upon a wicked Jerusalem and weep over it with him, then will thy heart be full of love for never-dying souls. If thou dost continually draw thine impulse, thy life, the whole of thy being from the Holy Spirit, without whom thou canst do nothing; and if thou dost live in close communion with Christ, there will be no fear of thy having a dry heart. He who lives without prayer--he who lives with little prayer--he who seldom reads the Word--he who seldom looks up to heaven for a fresh influence from on high--he will be the man whose heart will become dry and barren; but he who calls in secret on his God-- who spends much time in holy retirement--who delights to meditate on the words of the Most High--whose soul is given up to Christ--who delights in his fullness, rejoices in his all-sufficiency, prays for his second coming, and delights in the thought of his glorious advent--such a man, I say, must have an overflowing heart; and as his heart is, such will his life be. It will be a full life; it will be a
life that will speak from the sepulcher, and wake the echoes of the future. "Keep thine heart with all diligence," and entreat the Holy Spirit to keep it full; for otherwise the issues of thy life will be feeble, shallow, and superficial; and thou mayest as well not have lived at all.

II. Secondly it would be of little use for our water companies to keep their reservoirs full if they did not also keep them pure. I remember to have read a complaint in the newspaper of a certain provincial town, that a tradesman had been frequently supplied with fish from the water company, large eels having crept down the pipe, and sometimes creatures a little more loathsome. We have known such a thing as water companies supplying us with solids when they ought to have given us nothing but pure crystal. Now no one likes that. The reservoir should be kept pure and clean; and unless the water comes from a pure spring and is not impregnated with deleterious substances, however full the reservoir may be, the company will fail of satisfying or of benefiting its customers. Now it is essential for us to do with our hearts as the company must do with its reservoir. We must keep our hearts pure; for if the heart be not pure the life can not be pure. It is quite impossible that it should be so. You see a man whose whole conversation is impure and unholy; when he speaks he lards his language with oaths; his mind is low and groveling; none but the things of unrighteousness are sweet to him, for he has no soul above the kennel and the dunghill. You meet with another man who understands enough to avoid violating the decencies of life; but still at the same time he likes filthiness; any low joke, anything that will in some way stir unholy thoughts is just the thing that he desires. For the ways of God he has no relish; in God's house he finds no pleasure, in his Word no delight. What is the cause of this? Say some it is because of his family
connections--because of the situation in which he stands--because of his early education, and all that. No, no; the simple answer to that is the answer we gave to the other inquiry; the heart is not right; for if the heart were pure the life would be pure too. The unclean stream betrays the fountain. A valuable book of German parables by old Christian Scriver contains the following homely metaphor:--"A drink was brought to Gotthold which tasted of the vessel in which it had been contained, and this led him to observe: we have here an emblem of our thoughts, words, and works. Our heart is defiled by sin and hence a taint of sinfulness cleaves unfortunately to everything we take in hand; and although from the force of habit this may be imperceptible to us, it does not escape the eye of the omniscient, holy, and righteous God." Whence come our carnality, covetuousness, pride, sloth and unbelief? Are they not all to be traced to the corruption of our hearts? When the hands of a clock move in an irregular manner, and when the bell strikes the wrong hour, be assured there is something wrong within. O how needful that the main-spring of our motives be in proper order and the wheels in a right condition.

Ah! Christian keep thy heart pure. Thou sayest, "How can I do this?" Well, there was of old a stream of Marah to which the thirsty pilgrims in the desert came to drink; and when they came to taste of it, it was so brackish that though their tongues were like torches and the roofs of their mouths were parched with heat, yet they could not drink of that bitter water. Do you remember the remedy which Moses prescribed? It is the remedy which we prescribe to you this morning. He took a certain tree and he cast it into the waters, and they became sweet and clear. Your heart is by nature like Marah's water, bitter and impure. There is a certain tree, you know its name, that tree on which the Saviour hung, the cross. Take that tree, put it into your heart, and though it were even more impure than it is, that sweet cross, applied by the Holy Spirit, would soon transform it into its own nature and make it pure. Christ Jesus in the heart is the sweet purification. He is made unto us sanctification. Elijah cast salt into the waters; but we must cast the blood of Jesus there. Once let us know and love Jesus, once let his cross become the object of our adoration and the theme of our delight, the heart will beam its cleansing, and the life will become pure also. Oh! that we all did learn the sacred lesson of fixing the cross in the heart! Christian man! love thy Saviour more; cry to the Holy Spirit that thou mayest have more affection for Jesus; and then, how ever gainful may be thy sin, thou wilt say with the poet,

The cross in the heart is the purifier of the soul; it purges and it cleanses the chambers of the mind. Christian! keep thy heart pure, "for out of it are the issues of life."

III. In the third place there is one thing to which our water companies need never pay much attention; that is to say, if their water be pure and the reservoir be full, they need not care to keep it peaceable and quiet, for let it be stirred to a storm, we should receive our water in the same condition as usual. It is not so however, with the heart. Unless the heart be kept peaceable, the life will not be happy. If calm doth not reign over that inner lake within the soul which feeds the rivers of our life, the rivers themselves will always be in storm. Our outward acts will always tell that they were born in tempests by rolling in tempests themselves. Let us just understand this first, with regard to ourselves. We all desire to lead a joyous life; the bright eye and the elastic foot are things which we each of us desire; to carry about a contented mind is that to which most men are continually aspiring. Let us all remember that the only way to keep our life peaceful and happy is to keep the heart at rest; for come poverty, come wealth, come honor, come shame, come plenty, or come scarcity, if the heart be quiet there will be happiness anywhere. But whatever the sunshine and the brightness, if the heart be troubled the whole life must be troubled too. There is a sweet story told in one of the German martyrologies well worth both my telling and your remembering. A holy martyr who had been kept for a long time in prison, and had there exhibited to the wonderment of all who saw him, the strongest constancy and patience, was at last, upon the day of execution, brought out and tied to the stake preparatory to the lighting of the fire. While in this position he craved permission to speak once more to the Judge, who according to the Swiss custom was required to be also present at the execution. After repeatedly refusing, the judge at last came forward when the peasant addressed him thus: You have this day condemned me to death. Now I freely admit that I am a poor sinner, but positively deny that I am a heretic, because from my heart I believe and confess all that is contained in the Apostles' Creed (which he thereupon repeated from beginning to end). Now then sir, he proceeded to say, I have but one last request to make, which is that you will approach and place your hand first upon my breast and then upon your own, and afterwards frankly and truthfully declare before this assembled multitude which of the two, mine or yours, is beating most violently with fear and anxiety. For my part I quit the world with alacrity and joy, to go and be with Christ in whom I have always believed; what your feelings are at this moment is best known to yourself. The judge could make no answer, and commanded them instantly to light the pile. It was evident however from his looks that he was more afraid than the martyr.

Now, keep your heart right. Do not let it smite you. The Holy Spirit says of David, "David's heart smote him." The smiting of the heart is more painful to a good man than the rough blows of the fist. It is a blow that can be felt; it is iron that enters into the soul. Keep your heart in good temper. Do not let that get fighting with you. Seek that the peace of God which passeth all understanding may keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Bend your knee at night, and with a full confession of sin express your faith in Christ, then you may "dread the grave as little as your bed." Rise in the morning and give your heart to God, and put the sweet angels of perfect love and holy faith therein, and you may go into the world, and were it full of lions and of tigers you would no more need to dread it than Daniel when he was cast into the lion's den. Keep the heart peaceable and your life will be happy.