Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (63 page)

Give Jesus your hearts beloved friends, for wisdom bids you do it at once because it will please God. Have you a friend to whom you wish to make a present? I know what you do: you try to find out what that friend would value, for you say, "I should like to give him what would please him." Do you want to give God something that is sure to please him? You need not build a church of matchless architecture--I do not know that God cares much about stones and wood. You need not wait till you shall have amassed money to endow a row of almshouses. It is well to bless the poor, but Jesus said that one who gave two mites, which made a farthing, gave more than all the rich men who cast in of their wealth into the treasury. What would God my Father like me to give? He answers, "My son, give me thine heart." He will be pleased with that, for he himself seeks the gift.

If there are any here to whom this day is an anniversary of birth or of marriage, or of some other joyful occasion, let them make a present to God and give him their hearts. It is wonderful that he should word it so. "My son, give me thine heart." I should not have dared to say such a thing if he had not said it, but he does put it so. This will please him better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs, better than smoking incense in the silver censer, better than all you can contrive of art or purchase by wealth, or design for beauty. "My son, give me thine heart."

For notice, again, that if you do not give him your heart you cannot please him at all. You may give God what you please, but without your heart it is all an abomination to him. To pray without your heart is solemn mockery; to sing without your heart is an empty sound; to give, to teach, to work without your heart is all an insult to the Most High. You cannot do God any service till you give him your heart. You must begin with this. Then shall your hand and purse give what they will, and your tongue and brain shall give what they can; but first your heart--first your heart--your inmost self --your love--your affection. You must give him your heart or you give him nothing.

And does he not deserve it? I am not going to use that argument because somehow if you press a man to give a thing, at last it comes not to be a gift but a tax. Our consecration to God must be unquestionable in its freeness. Religion is voluntary or else false. If I shall prove that your heart is God's due, why then, you will not give but rather pay as though it were a debt; so I will touch that string very gently, lest in seeking to bring forth music I snap the chord. I will put it thus: surely it were well to give a heart for a heart. There was One who came and took human nature on him and wore a human heart within his bosom, and that human heart was pressed full sore with sorrow till it is written that he wept. It was pressed still more with anguish till it is written, "He sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground." He was still further overwhelmed with grief till at last he said, "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness;" and then it is written, "One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." A heart was given for you, will you not give your heart? I say no more.
I was about to say that I wished I could bring my Master here to stand on this platform, that you might see him; but I know that faith comes by hearing, not by seeing. Yet would I set him forth evidently crucified among you, and for you. Oh, give him then a heart for a heart, and yield yourself up to him! Is there not a sweet whisper in your spirit now that says, "Yield thy heart"? Hearken to that still small voice and there shall be no need that I speak farther.

Believe me beloved friends, there is no getting wisdom except you give your heart to it. There is no understanding the science of Christ crucified, which is the most excellent of all the sciences, without giving your heart to it. Some of you have been trying to be religious. You have been trying to be saved, but you have done it in an off-handed sort of style. "My son, give me thine heart." Wisdom suggests to you that you should do it, for unless your whole heart is thrown into it you will never prosper in it. Certain men never get on in business; they do not like their trade and so they never prosper. And certainly in the matter of religion no man can ever prosper if he does not love it, if his whole heart is not in it. Some people have just enough religion to make them miserable. If they had none, they would be able to enjoy the world; but they have too much religion to be able to enjoy the world, and yet not enough to enjoy the world to come. Oh, you poor betweenities--you that hang like Mahomet's coffin, between earth and heaven--you that are like bats, neither birds nor beasts--you that are like a flying fish that tries to live in the air and water too and finds enemies in both elements--you that are neither this, nor that, nor the other, strangers in God's country, and yet not able to make yourselves at home with the devil--I do pity you. Oh, that I could give you a tug to get you to this side of the border-land! My Master bids me compel you to come in; but what can I do except repeat the message of the text? "My son, give me thine heart." Do not be shilly-shallying any longer. Let your heart go one way or the other. If the devil be worth loving, give him your heart and serve him; but if Christ be worth loving, give him your heart and have done with hesitation. Turn over to Jesus once for all. Oh, may his Spirit turn you, and you shall be turned, and his name shall have the praise!

III. And now I close with the third observation. Let us be wise enough at once to attend to this admonition of wisdom. Let us now give God our heart. "My son, give me thine heart."

When? At once. There is no intimation that God would have us wait a little. I wish that those persons who only mean to wait a little would fix a time when they will leave off waiting. They are always going to be right tomorrow. Which day of the month is that? I have searched the calendar and cannot find it. I have heard that there is such a thing as the fool's calendar, and that tomorrow is there; but then you are not fools and do not keep such a calendar. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow; it is a raven's croak of evil omen. To-day, to-day, to-day, to-day, to-day; that is the silver trumpet of salvation, and he that hears it shall live. God grant that we may not for ever be crying out, "tomorrow," but at once give our hearts to him!

How? If we attend to this precept we shall notice that it calls upon us to act freely. "My son, give me thine heart." Do not need to have it led in fetters. It might, as I have already said, prevent a thing from being a gift if you too pressingly proved that it was due. It is due, but God puts it, as it were, upon free-will for once, and leaves it to free agency. He says, "My son, give me thine heart. All that thou hast from me comes as a gift of free grace; now give me back thy heart freely." Remember, wherever we speak about the power of grace we do not mean a physical force, but only such force as may be applied to free agents, and to responsible beings. The Lord begs you not to want to be crushed and pounded into repentance, nor whipped and spurred to holy living. But "My son, give me thine heart." I have heard that the richest juice of the grape is that which comes with the slightest pressure at the first touch. Oh, to give God our freest love! You know the old proverb that one volunteer is worth two pressed men. We shall all be pressed men in a certain sense; but yet it is written, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." May you be willing at once!

"My son, give me thine heart." It seems a pity that a man should have to live a long life of sin to learn that sin does not pay. It is a sad case when he comes to God with all his bones broken, and enlists in the divine army after he has spent all his youth in the service of the devil and has worn himself out. Christ will have him whenever he comes; but how much better it is while yet you are in the days of your youth to say, "Here, Lord, I give thee my heart. Constrained by thy sweet love I yield to thee in the dawn of my being"!

Do it thoroughly. "My son, give me thine heart." You cannot give Christ a piece of a heart, for a heart that is halved is killed. A heart that has even a little bit taken off is a dead heart. The devil does not mind having half your heart. He is quite satisfied with that, because he is like the woman to whom the child did not belong: he does not mind if it be cut in halves. The true mother of the child said, "Oh, spare the child! Do not divide it;" and so Christ who is the true Lover of hearts will not have the heart divided. If it must go one way, and the wrong way, let it go that way: but if it will go the right way he is ready to accept it, cleanse it, and perfect it; only it must go all together and not be divided. "Give me thine heart."

Did I hear somebody say, "I am willing to give God my heart?" Very well then, let us look at it practically. Where is it now? You cannot give your heart up till you find out where it is. I knew a man who lost his heart. His wife had not got it and his children had not got it, and he did not seem as if he had got it himself. "That is odd," say you. Well, he used to starve himself; he scarcely had enough to eat. His clothes were threadbare. He starved all who were round him. He did not seem to have a heart. A poor woman owed him a little rent. Out she went into the street. He had no heart. A person had fallen back a little in the payment of money that he had lent him. The debtor's little children were crying for bread. The man did not care who cried for hunger, or what became of the children. He would have his money. He had lost his heart. I never could make out where it was till I went to his house one day and I saw a huge chest. I think they called it an iron safe. It stood behind the door of an inner room, and when he unlocked it with a heavy key and the bolts were shot, and the inside was opened, there was a musty, fussy thing within it, as dry and dead as the kernel of a walnut seven years old. It was his heart. If you have locked up your heart in an iron safe, get it out. Get it out as quickly as ever you can. It is a horrible thing to pack up a heart in five-pound notes, or bury it under heaps of silver and gold. Hearts are never healthy when covered up with hard metal. Your gold and silver are cankered if your heart is bound up with them.

I knew a young lady--I think I know several of that sort now --whose heart I could never see. I could not make out why she was so flighty, giddy, frothy, till I discovered that she had kept her heart in a wardrobe. A poor prison for an immortal soul, is it not? You had better fetch it out before the moth eats it as wool. When our garments become the idols of our hearts we are such foolish things that we can hardly be said to have hearts at all. Even such foolish hearts as these, it were well to get out of the wardrobe and give to Christ.

Where is your heart? I have known some leave it at the public-house, and some in places that I shall not mention lest the cheek of modesty should crimson. But wherever your heart is, it is in the wrong place if it is not with Christ. Go, fetch it, sir. Bring it here, and give it into the hand of him that bought it.

But in what state is it? "Ay, there's the rub." For as I told you that the miser's heart was musty and fussy, so men's hearts begin to smell of the places wherein they keep them. Some women's hearts are mouldy and ragged through their keeping them in the wardrobe. Some men's hearts are cankered through keeping them among their gold; and some are rotten through and through, through keeping them steeped in vice. Where is the drunkard's heart? In what state must it be? Foul and filthy. Still God says, "Give me thine heart." What! such a thing as that? Yes, did I not tell you that when he asked for your heart it was all for love of you, and not for what he should get out of you; for what is such a heart as yours, my friend, that has been in such a place and fallen into such a state? Yet still give it to him, for I will tell you what he will do: he will work wonders for your heart. You have heard of alchemists who took base metal, so they say, and transmuted it into gold: the Lord will do more than this. "Give me thine heart." Poor, filthy, defiled, polluted, depraved heart!-- give it to him. It is
stony now, corrupted now. He will take it, and in those sacred hands of Christ that heart shall lie, till, in its place you shall see a heart of flesh; pure, clean, heavenly. "Oh," say you, "I never could make out what to do with my hard heart." Give it now to Christ and he will change it. Yield it up to the sweet power of his infinite grace and he will renew a right spirit within you. God help you to give Jesus your heart, and to do it now!

There is going to be a collection for the hospitals. Stop, you collectors, till I have said my last word. What are you going to give? I do not mind what you are going to put into the boxes, but I want to pass round an invisible plate for my Lord. I desire to pass it round to all of you; and please will you say to yourself when you drop your money into the box, "I am going to drop my heart into the invisible collection, and give it up to Jesus. It is all that I can do."
Collectors, pass round the boxes, and thou O Spirit of God, go from man to man and take possession of all hearts for Jesus our Lord! Amen.

A sermon (No. 3381) published on Thursday, November 20th 1913. Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and to, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down, Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it and received instruction."--Proverbs 24:30-32.

This slothful man did no hurt to his fellowmen: he was not a thief, nor a ruffian, nor a meddler in anybody else's business. He did not trouble himself about other men's concerns for he did not even attend to his own--it required too much exertion. He was not grossly vicious; he had not energy enough to care for that. He was one who liked to take things easily. He always let well alone, and for the matter of that, he let ill alone too, as the nettles and the thistles in his garden
plainly proved. What was the use of disturbing himself? It would be all the same a hundred years hence, and so he took things just as they came. He was not a bad man, so some said of him; and yet perhaps it will be found at last that there is no worse man in the world than the man who is not good, for in some respects he is not good enough to be bad; he has not enough force of character about him to serve either God or Baal. He simply serves himself, worshipping his own ease and adoring his own comfort. Yet he always meant to be right. He was not going to sleep much longer; he would only have forty winks more and then he would be at his work and show you what he could do. One of these days he meant to be thoroughly in earnest, and make up for lost time. The time never actually came for him to begin, but it was always coming. He always meant to repent, but he went on in his sin. He meant to believe, but he died an unbeliever. He meant to be a Christian, but he lived without Christ. He halted between two opinions because he could not trouble himself to make up his mind; and so he perished of delay.