2334. Our Service For Christ Never Finished

No. 2334-39:541. A Sermon Delivered On Thursday Evening, September 19, 1889, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, November 12, 1893.

But which of you, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will say to him eventually, when he is come from the field, “Go and sit down to eat” And will not rather say to him, “Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me, until I have eaten and drunk; and afterward you shall eat and drink?” Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I do not think so. So likewise you, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, “We are unprofitable servants: we have done what was our duty to do.” {Lu 17:7-10}

 For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1541, “Unprofitable Servants” 1541}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2334, “Our Service for Christ Never Finished” 2335}
   Exposition on Lu 17:1-10 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2334, “Our Service for Christ Never Finished” 2335 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Lu 17:1-10 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2963, “Unmitigated Prosperity” 2964 @@ "Exposition"}

1. These words are not addressed to the general congregation. You notice that the chapter begins, “Then he said to the disciples.” Even they felt as if Christ’s words were too heavy for them, and so, when you get to the fifth verse, you read, “And the disciples said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith,’ ” as if only the very strongest of them were able to receive his teaching just then; he was describing such difficult duties, and prescribing so particular a path. Notice that, he was not laying down the way of salvation, but pointing out a path of service for those who were already saved. We must be saved first, and must serve afterwards. To hope to serve Christ in order to win salvation, is a fallacy, a delusion of our proud hearts; but to be saved by his grace as a matter of pure favour, and then afterwards to serve him, having gratitude for our great motive, is the right order, and a very different thing from self-righteousness. It is to disciples, then, that the words about which I speak tonight are addressed.

2. We must not recoil at the sight of the service which is required of us. It is our highest honour that we are allowed to be the servants of our Saviour; and being servants, unless we are so only nominally, and not really, we must not be offended by anything that is demanded of us. We must try to fill up the word servant, and show the world what a servant can be. It is the duty of every Christian to turn each common silver word into a golden one. Whatever “husband,” or “father,” or “son,” may mean in reference to ordinary society, it must mean something more when it gets into the Church of God. We must fulfil it, we must fill it full; we must make something more of it than it used to be. So with regard to servants. If we are servants of Christ, let us be servants, as the mathematicians say, to the nth degree, to the very highest possible degree. Let us elevate and enlarge our calling until, if men want to know what a servant is, they will only have to ask Christ, our Master, and he will point to us, and say, “These are the kind of servants that my love and my grace can produce. Money could not buy such; and no rate of wages could secure such service as they are prepared freely to render.”

3. With those two thoughts on your minds, that, being saved, you are servants, and being servants, it is your intense desire to make that word mean all it possibly can mean, follow me while I try to bring out the teaching of the passage before us.

4. I. First, WE ARE, ADMITTEDLY, THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST.

5. If the word doulos here is translated “slave,” as it certainly might be, we are quite willing to be known as the bondslaves of Jesus Christ. Like Paul, we have no objection even to be branded with the slave-mark; and with him we dare even to say, “From now on let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

6. We are the servants, the slaves of Christ, and we rejoice to be so, because in this lies our deliverance from the bondage of sin. No man can really be his own master; he will serve either one lord or another. We are such dependent creatures that we must give ourselves up to be either the servants of sin, or the servants of righteousness. We were once the servants of sin; we were “children of wrath, even as others.” We found ourselves born into hereditary bondage, which we also freely chose, for the iron entered into our will, and our will chose the bondage of evil passions and corrupt desires. One way or another, though each of us differently, we resolved to be the servants and the serfs of the prince of darkness, that evil one who still rules over the children of disobedience. Now that we have become the servants of Christ, we are freed from the bondage of sin; his service is our freedom. There was no other method of setting us free from the bondage of the black prince than that of bringing us under a divine and blessed servitude to Emmanuel, the Prince of holiness and peace. We therefore rejoice in being his servants, because it means deliverance from an older servitude, even the service of sin and Satan.

7. Our being Christ’s servants is the absolute result of redemption. We are bought with a price; therefore we are not our own. Standing on Calvary, and gazing with wonder at those purple founts from where flow our salvation and eternal life, we feel that “if One died for all, then all died,” and that, inasmuch as Jesus Christ bought us with his precious blood there, we are his inalienable property, and belong to him, body, soul, and spirit, for ever. Such a price, paid by such a One, in the midst of such circumstances of shame and derision, binds us as his for ever and ever. We do not want to be our own; our purchase by Christ is our delight, and we willingly yield ourselves up to him who has paid for us a price infinitely more than we could ever be conceived to be worth. Hence our service is founded on our deliverance from the bondage of sin, and it is also the direct result of our redemption by the blood of Christ.

8. Moreover, as you sang just now, you helped me to another point, we are Christ’s by our own pledge. You remember your declaration, —

    ’Tis done! the great transaction’s done;
    I am my Lord’s, and he is mine.

You added to that the further resolve, —

    High heaven, that heard the solemn vow,
    That vow renew’d shall daily hear:
    Till in life’s latest hour I bow,
    And bless in death a bond so dear.

If we were not Christ’s tonight, we would not rest an hour until we were. We wish to be his, we wish to be perfectly his; our prayer is that even every thought may be brought into captivity to him. Our soul pines after the perfect liberty of complete subjection to the will of God in Christ Jesus. Is it not so, brethren? Have you not lifted your hand to heaven so that you cannot go back? And what is more, has not every desire to go back ceased out of your heart? If you had been mindful of the place from where you came out, you might have had abundant opportunity to return; but you desire something beyond, your motto is, “Onward, upward, homeward, heavenward.” You want to get away from the place where you came. You belong to Christ; you confess the impeachment tonight, wondering much that you should have the joy of daring to feel that you belong to Christ. Have you any sweeter hymn in the whole répertoire of your heart than this,

    Oh! I am my Beloved’s,
    And my Beloved’s mine?

Do you not sing that in your happiest moments, in the quiet of your spirit? If so, then you are admittedly the servant of Christ.

9. We regard this service as a great gift of the free grace of God. We look back to the eternal counsels, and we see the Father choosing us in Christ Jesus, and giving us to his dear Son before the foundation of the world. We see our Lord Jesus undertaking, on our behalf, to present us to the Father, faultless, in the day of his appearing; and it is a great delight to us to feel that it is because God willed it that we are now the property of Christ. God decreed it; God laid plans for it; it was in the purpose and covenant of unchangeable grace that we should belong to Christ. In this we rejoice, not as a bondage imposed, but as a grace given. Oh, what would we not have given, years ago, when first we were awakened, if we could have even hoped that we belonged to Christ? And now that we know that we are his, and no one else’s, and that he will keep us to the end, it is the highest delight of our spirit. Do not think, dear friends, any of you, that we consider ourselves demeaned by submitting to a very slavery to Christ. We wish to make the bondage as tight as it can possibly be; we do not desire to have any will, or any wish, or even any imagination that would go flying over the divine boundaries of God’s will. We would be entirely his; that is our honour, our crown, God’s best gift to us.

10. More than that, we find that the service of Christ is its own reward. What if he never smiled on me? If he would let me serve him, I would consider the fact of service to be a smile. If he should drive me from his presence, if he would only let me glorify him, I would be satisfied to make that my heaven. To be completely given up to live for God, and to glorify Christ, what greater happiness could a redeemed creature desire? There is reward enough for us in being permitted to release the latchets of his sandals, or to be engaged in his farm work, as the text says, ploughing, or feeding cattle, as long as it is only done for him.

11. Besides, there is a rich reward in store for the righteous, and we may look for it. We remember how Moses “had respect for the reward”; and without being mercenary, we may anticipate our reward. God will not let his people work for nothing; and though the reward is not of debt, but of grace, yet truly there is a reward for the righteous. In that day when Christ shall come in the glory of his Father, he will award to his saints their individual crowns. To those who have been faithful, he will give according to the measure of their faithfulness. “You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.” We consider it a high honour, not to be in the civil service, but to be in the divine service. How ardently some young men are looking for a place “under government.” That is exactly what I have, it is just what every child of God has, a place under divine government. We do not wish for anything better than this. Oh you glorified saints, if we may only come among your thrones, or even lie at your feet, we will make no choice, so that we may only see our Lord’s face; and, meanwhile, if it shall be our lot to do the scullion’s work in Christ’s kitchen, we will think it most honourable employment, and we will do it as for him. This servitude to Christ is to us unutterable freedom. We are never free until Christ binds us. Here I stand tonight, he has bound my heart, and fastened it to himself; he has bound my hands, and they must serve him; he has bound my feet, and they must run in the way of his commands. He has bound my tongue, too. It sometimes speaks amiss, but yet it longs to speak only and entirely for him. My Master, tie my eyes, and my eyelids, too, and bind every filament of my nature, every nerve, and every muscle of my body, and every hair of my head; and let me be entirely yours, in absolute bondage to you, and then I shall cry, “Oh God, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, you have released my bonds.” We never have our bonds released until, like the psalmist, we can twice over notice the absolute servitude to himself into which Christ has brought us.

12. That is my first remark on the text, and there is much in it; we are, admittedly, the servants of Christ.

13. II. Secondly, OUR SERVICE IS NOT FINISHED: “Which of you, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will say to him eventually, when he is come from the field, ‘Go and sit down to eat?’ ”

14. Observe, first, that our service may have been long and arduous. We may have been ploughing. I speak to some here who have had a very hard bit of ploughing; instead of breaking the soil, you have sometimes thought that you would break the ploughshare; and many a time the young bulls, unaccustomed to the yoke, have been very difficult to drive; and some of those that are accustomed to the yoke, have taken to kicking every now and then. You have not found ploughing to be playing, I am sure; no ploughman ever does. He finds that it is tough work. He earns his living well who earns it by his ploughing; and if some of the gentlemen in London, who quarrel with their wages, had to do a ploughman’s work, and to get a ploughman’s wage, I warrant you that they would think themselves better off at the work they have to do now. A good day’s ploughing is about as hard a day’s toil as a man can have. Well, some of us have been ploughing; for the Master has given us difficulties, he has given us trials, he has given us cares; and we have also had to feed cattle. I cannot say that I have been literally feeding cattle; but I have found it more trouble to feed some of you than I should have had in feeding cattle. I had an old friend, who was forty years a shepherd, and he lived to be eighty years old. During the last forty years of his life, he was a minister; and he said one day, “I have had two flocks; the first forty years I fed sheep, and the second forty years I fed men; and the second flock was a great deal more sheepish than the first.” I can vouch for the latter part; not that all of you are sheepish, for there are some of you who are easily fed, but there are others who are not. I remember a young brother, who left the church because he said that I never gave him a bit of bone on which he could try his teeth. Well, now, I thought that, if I took out the bone, and only gave meat, I was doing the best thing possible; but this foolish youth wanted a bit of gristle, not that he could digest it, but he wanted something that he could not digest. I could have given him plenty of that kind of stuff; I had no end of it at home, but I save that for my dogs, and bring the meat for the people I have to feed. You can never please everyone; and there are some people who are like those described in Psalm 107. I think that David said that they were fools, but I will not say that; and further he says of them, “Their soul abhors all kinds of food.” There was no feeding them. I would rather feed cattle than feed them. Cattle will eat what you give them, as a general rule; but we have some in our congregations, dear souls, who are afraid to feed on the promises of God, afraid to feed even on the Bread of life. They are not worthy, they say, which is quite true; but then we are not fed according to our worthiness in the covenant of grace. This feeding of cattle, this feeding of men, is not the easiest thing in the world.

15. The text also teaches that our service may change its form. Some of you have been at Sunday School work; others of you have been at slum work; some have been visiting the lodging-houses; others have stood in the streets, and preached for Christ. You have had a good long day of ploughing and feeding cattle; but your work is not done. Oh, by no means! When the man mentioned by our Lord had been out all day in the field, and then came home, he just had to clean himself up, and do a little domestic service; for, in the East, the man-servant, after ploughing in the field, had to gird his loins, and prepare his master’s dinner, and serve at the table, waiting on his lord. Well, now, dear friends, after a good long day’s work, you shall have a change of occupation; but you shall still go on working. You have not finished your service yet. Have you had forty years of it? Well, that is a long day; but you have not finished work yet, there is something else for you to do. If you cannot go out ploughing, you shall go down into the kitchen, and do some cooking; and if you cannot feed the cattle, you shall bring up a dish of food for your Master. This is a change of work for you; but you are to keep on as long as you live. I said, one Sabbath morning, that I feared I might not be able to keep on preaching, meaning that I feared that I should soon be laid aside by illness, which I hope may not now occur; and someone said that I was not going to preach any more, I was going to retire. I shall “retire” when six men carry me on their shoulders to the grave; but not until then, by God’s grace! As long as there is breath in our body, and we are able to say a word for Christ, we certainly shall not give up our service. Nor will any of you, I hope, ever talk about retiring from your Master’s work. If any of you young men ever think of doing so, please remember what happened to Jonah when he “retired” from his Master’s business; and whales are scarcer now than they were then! You had better go down to Nineveh, and work away in your Master’s service as long as you have health and strength. There may be change of service, but no retiring from service.

16. Next, the servant came to service which required greater care. When he was only ploughing, or feeding cattle, he could do that in a rough way, with unwashed hands; but now that he has to wait on his master, do you not see how he cleans himself up, how he has washed his hands and face? He would not be properly waiting on his master if he had any filth on his clothes, or on the plates. And he attends to this service with all his wits about him, he does not fall asleep over it. If the Lord calls you to be his personal servant, to wait on him in close attendance and high communion with him, if he gives you more to do with the souls of men, more to do with the Church of God, as he may do, promoting you to higher service, yet remember that you are still a servant, and you are to prove that you are still a servant by working with greater care, with more of the spirit of a servant, than you ever had before.

17. Dear friends, is it not a mercy for us that our service is not ended? Why should it be finished? Our dependence on our Master is not ended. We burn his candles, so we ought to do his work. Every morning’s breakfast, and every day’s meals are his gifts to us, and the clothes on our back are his livery; should we not, then, continue to serve him? When you can do without Christ, he can do without you. But that will not be “eventually.” You are always depending on his daily bounty, therefore be thankful that your service is not ended.

18. And remember this also. It is a blessed thing that our service is not ended, because it shows that the Lord still has pleasure in his servant. There is a prayer put into verse, that you and I may constantly offer,

    “Dismiss me not thy service, Lord!”

Suppose that he had dismissed us, and said, “Go and sit down to eat, I do not need you any more; I have no poor child for you to nurse, I do not even have any more cattle for you to feed, there is not even a lamb among my flock for you to carry in your bosom,” that would show that he did not love us with the love of satisfaction, or take such delight in us as he once did; but as long as he gives us something to do, we will gratefully do it, because we will take it as a sign of his continual delight in us, and that therefore, delighting in us, he gives us something to do for him. That is my second point, our service is not ended.

19. III. And next, WE DO NOT WISH TO BE TREATED AS IF IT WERE: “Which of you, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will say to him eventually, when he is come from the field, ‘Go and sit down to eat?’ ”

20. That would show that his service was over; but we do not wish our Master to treat us like that. I mean this, we do not expect freedom from trial. Do you? We read of Abraham as being severely tried and wonderfully prevailing, and then we come to this text, “And it came to pass after these things, that God tempted (that is, try, or test) Abraham.” Yes, and after all your years of service, after you have been honoured in bringing souls to Christ, you will still have to be tried. He will not say, “Go and sit down to eat,” but he will tell you to gird yourselves, and come and serve him.

21. Also, dear friends, we are not to expect honour here. After many years of preaching the gospel, one might be tempted to say to himself, “I have a name and some esteem among men; I must take care of them.” That is a temptation from Satan; throw it all away. Serve your Lord, and care nothing about your honour, or your reputation, for it is not for him to say to you, “Go and sit down to eat.” If he still calls you to do some service for him in the defence or proclamation of his truth, do not ask him to treat you otherwise.

22. Then, we are not to think that we cannot do any more. Do I speak to any Christian, who has come in here tonight saying, “I really think that I must give up this service, and give up that?” Please do no such thing; hold on to it as for dear life. Your engagement to your Master is not a five years’ service, like that of a soldier, but you are his for life. Yours is a lifelong bondage to him, a happy apprenticeship to your Lord and Master throughout the whole term of your natural — indeed, of your spiritual life. Do not say that you can do no more; there is much still remaining for you to do. Pick up a new thread, and begin to spin, and he will find you more. Take up a bit of iron you have never tried to work with, put it in the fire, and see whether you cannot make some new instrument with it. Give yourself up continually to serve your Lord even more and more, and do not think that your work is finished.

23. And, beloved, we must not start looking for our reward here. If you think to have heaven this side the Jordan, you are greatly mistaken. Heaven is to be hereafter, but heaven is not “eventually.” This is the place for fighting; out with your sword! This is the field for labour; get to your plough! If such a wish could come to you in heaven, you might desire to get back again to the service of earth, so that you might do even more for your Lord. When I get to heaven, and you get to heaven, if we know that false doctrine is spreading in the world, we shall long to go back and confront the adversary again, if such wishes are permitted in heaven. While souls are perishing for lack of knowledge, let none of us want to be away from the earth; as long as men need us to tell them the way of salvation, let us gladly continue at our work; let us serve God, my brethren, while we have the opportunity, —

    In works which perfect saints above,
       And holy angels cannot do.

Now is our time for preaching; now is your time for teaching the children. Seven heavens could not find us another pulpit when once we get to glory; we might almost wish that they could. What opportunities of praying with the sick, and instructing untaught children you now have! You will not have them when once you are in the other world; therefore use the golden hours you have while you are here below. Your service is not finished, so do not wish to be treated as though it were. Do not ask for honour from men, do not ask even for honour from God, if that were meant to exempt you from further shame, from further suffering, from further reproach, for Christ’s dear sake. The further we go in his service, the more resolved we are to give up everything for him. When we first started, we may have thought of making some reserve; but now we have gone so far into the river of consecration that we find “waters to swim in”; and we can truly say, —

    Yet if I might make some reserve,
       And duty did not call,
    I love my God with zeal so great
       That I should give him all.

May you not only sing it, but may you mean it, and practise it, for Christ’s sake!

24. IV. Now we go a step further. WE ARE ALWAYS TO PUT OUR MASTER FIRST. We are servants, and our work is not done; neither ought we to wish to be treated as though it were done. We ourselves are not to sit down to eat; but we are to hear our Master say, “Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me, until I have eaten and drunk; and afterwards you shall eat and drink.” I will very hurriedly mention these points.

25. First, we are to prefer service to rest. Service is feeding our Master; rest is refreshing ourselves. If we may have a choice, we must always choose what will be most for his glory. If it is necessary to rest for his glory, rest; but if you can better serve him by continued activity, even to death, select the service.

26. Next, we must put his pleasure before our own. I must not want what will please me, but what will please him; it ought always to please us to have the opportunity of pleasing him. Did not Abraham run to the herd, to fetch a calf tender and good, so that he might feed the blessed ones when, under the tree, they came to favour him with a visit? What an honour is bestowed on us when we are permitted to feed Christ, and to wait on him until he has eaten and drunk! I can hardly conceive of myself as having the high honour, on bended knee, of waiting on my Lord. If he would only once come to my house, what would I not do for him? So I have often said; yet all of our life should be used in the service of Christ, our blessed Prince. We should always be seeking to gratify him, to give him to drink what he thirsts for in the salvation of the souls of men, and to give to him to eat of what he delights in, namely, the holiness and consecration of his people. His pleasure is to be put before our pleasure.

27. And, next, his people are to be preferred before ourselves. His people are his body; therefore think more of his body than of your own body. Let the poor saints be very near your heart; let the man in whom you see anything of Christ be loved because of your Lord’s likeness which you see in him. Always put Christ’s people before yourself.

28. And put his name before your own name. I want you to dwell on that. There is always a tendency among us to want to keep up our own respectability; and if we are ministers, to keep up our own name. The temptation has come to men who have been eminently useful to found a denomination for the preservation of their name. George Whitfield was saved from that; when some people wanted him to set up a new sect to be called by his name, he said, “No; let my name perish, but let Christ’s name stand for ever.” So say I, let sect go, and let my name go, and let everything go; but let Christ and his truth be preserved. Make no reckoning between a grain of Christ’s glory and a ton of your own. Always think that everything you have has gone already, and that you yourself have gone, a living sacrifice, entirely given up to your Lord. If you must be made as the offscouring of all things, as the rubbish on the dunghill, so let it be, so that Christ Jesus may be glorious, and every particle of his truth may be set on high in the hearts of men. This is the meaning of the text here; you are not to sit down to eat as yet, you are to gird yourself and serve your Lord; and your eating and your drinking shall be glorious indeed “eventually.” This same Gospel has a phrase in it which has often staggered me; I mean that passage where Christ says that he will gird himself, and come out and serve his servants who girded themselves to serve him. The high reward reserved for you ought to brace you up to the most arduous service as long as you live. May God help you to render such service, for Christ’s sake!

29. V. I close with this remark, WE ARE TO TAKE OUR PLACE LOW DOWN. Read the latter part of the text: “Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I do not think so.” I feel inclined to laugh as I read this verse, “Does he thank that servant?” Only imagine the Lord Jesus Christ thanking you or thanking me for anything that we might do, even if we did all that he commanded us! For him to thank us for what we do, even if we did all we ought, seems utterly absurd.

30. And then, how could he thank us for what we have not done, for we have not done the things which were commanded us? We have left many of them undone, and we have done the things we ought not to have done. What thanks do we deserve? None, I think.

31. Then, besides, dear friends, if we had done all, Christ’s thanks, if they were given to us, would be for so little service compared with what he deserves. We are, at our best, unprofitable servants. Think of what he has done for us, and do not set side by side with that anything that we have ever done for him who loved us to the life, and to the death, who loved us eternally and infinitely. What have we done for him compared with what he has done for us? Our service put beside Christ’s is like one single grain of dust put in comparison with the mighty orb of the sun. This is only a poor comparison; but there is no comparison at all between the little we do for Christ and the great, the immeasurable service that he has rendered to us. Truly, we are unprofitable servants to him.

32. And then, beloved, whatever we have done has all been done in us by him. Whatever fruit we have, Christ can say to us, “From me your fruit is found.” If there is any virtue, if there is any praise, if there is any love, if there is any faith, if there is any zeal, if there is any holiness, was it not all given to us? Are we not all the greater debtors to God, the more we have done? What have we ever profited him? Growing saints think themselves nothing; full-grown saints think themselves less than nothing. You may guess your real weight by the depths to which you sink in self-abasement. You may estimate your true value in the market of heaven by the low estimate you put on yourself. May the Lord give us, therefore, to be his willing, ardent, earnest servants! Oh, never let us have a single lofty thought concerning the service that we have rendered, because, you know, if we once begin to think that we are very fine servants, we shall not like to do some of the work which he gives us. We shall be too proud for that service; and there is many a servant of God who is too tall, too big for his place, and therefore he is not likely to do much for his Master. There is much to be done that flesh and blood will not tolerate, especially in dealing with some of the Lord’s people who are ill-mannered and foolish; but we must learn to clean the saucepans, to do the drudge’s work, the servile work, if we are to be true servants for Christ. We must even select that kind of service, and prefer it, if we would be like our Master, and desire to take the highest place in the ranks of the believers. “These are hard things” you say. They are, to flesh and blood; but the Lord can give us his Spirit, so that we may conquer flesh and blood.

33. Do any of you here say, “I am no servant of Christ, and I do not want to be one?” The day will come when you would give your eye-teeth to be his servants, even though you had to serve him in the dark throughout your life. I would sooner be the Lord’s dog than the devil’s darling; it is better to have the lowest place in Christ’s house than to have the highest place in the tents of wickedness. If any here are unconverted, I can tell them that the sorrows of Christ are better than the pleasures of sin. Christ’s blacks are whiter than your whitest things. Christ’s servitude is more heavenly than the world’s heaven. A blow from Christ is better than a kiss from the lips of sin. Oh, if you only had one glance, if you could even have only a glimpse at the glory that Jesus has, you would come to him, and beg him first to save you, and then to let you serve him, for it is better to serve Christ in the lowliest capacity than to be the Czar of all of Russia, or even empress of the whole world!

34. May God only give me to have a place where, washed in his blood, I may wear the white garments of an everlasting servitude to him, and he shall have the praise for it, world without end! Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Lu 17:1-10}

1. Then he said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offences will come:

We are so strangely made that even good men do not always agree, and there are so many bad men around that they will cast a stumbling-block in our way if they can.

1, 2. But woe to him, through whom they come! It would be better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck, and he was cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

To do grievous damage to the soul of the very least of Christ’s people, is a great and ruinous sin; nothing can be worse. May God grant that we may not do this even inadvertently! Do not let the strong indulge in what would be unsafe for the weak, lest the weak be led into sin through what the strong brother might find lawful, but which certainly would not be expedient. May none of us ever wilfully grieve any child of God!

3. Take heed to yourselves: If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him; and if he repents,

You shall not believe in his penitence? “No, surely,” you say, “that is incorrect.” Yes, it is incorrect; but that is what many of you do. I was only reading as things generally are; but that is not Christ’s direction.

3, 4. Forgive him. And if he trespasses against you seven times in a day,

That is seven times too often.

4. And seven times in a day turn again to you, saying, ‘I repent’; you shall forgive him.”

Do you say, “That is too many times in a day to forgive him?” Let me ask, — “How many times in a day have you sinned? How many times in a day does God forgive you?” Ah! the seven times a day that you have to forgive your brother are only a small number compared with the innumerable forgivenesses granted to you by our ever-gracious God.

5. And the disciples said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

For this kind of patient forgiving seemed too much for them, unless they had a larger amount of faith; and in this they were right. Strength of faith gives strength of love, and strength of love makes forgiveness easy.

6. And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots, and be planted in the sea’; and it should obey you.

Now, if faith as a grain of mustard seed can do this, what can strong faith not do? What a mercy it is for us that there is so much power in such little faith! A very small piece of dynamite can work great wonders; and within the tiniest morsel of faith, if it is no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, there lies concealed almost omnipotent force. Why do we not exercise that faith more? Nothing is impossible for him who believes. We could blast the very strongholds of Satan with this powerful powder if we would only try it.

7, 8. But which of you, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will say to him eventually, when he is come from the field, ‘Go and sit down to eat?’ And will not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me, until I have eaten and drunk; and afterward you shall eat and drink?’

See, brethren, our position as believers; we are here as servants. It is not the time for feasting yet. Whatever work we have done, even if it is getting towards the evening of our life’s day, we must not think of sitting down yet, and expecting our Master to wait on us. No, we must go on with our service, and still consider it to be our highest privilege to gird ourselves, and wait on him. This is not the place of resting or of feasting; this is the day of our holy servitude. Let us work on, ploughing while we have strength for it; and when the sun goes down in the evening, then waiting like servants at the table of their lord.

9. Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I do not think so.

Do you take off your hat to your servants, and say, “I am very grateful to you for doing your duty?” Not so. And even he who serves God best, may he expect honour as his due? Ah! no; he shall have honour because of the grace of his Master; but it is not his place to look for it, much less is it right for him to expect it as his due.

10. So likewise you, when you shall have finished all those things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants: we have done what was our duty to do.’

And who shall praise us for that? The most self-denying servant of the Saviour, the most ardent labourer for the Lord, will expect nothing of God except to be blessed by his abounding grace. What can we deserve from the dear hands of him who bought us with his blood? Are we not the bondslaves of Christ? “You are not your own; you are bought with a price.” Therefore, whatever service you can render is due to him; and to him let it be freely given without one thought of self-praise or pride because it is done so well.

 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Dedication To God — ‘My Beloved Is Mine And I Am His’ ” 660}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Dedication To God — Jesus, I Am Thine!” 663}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Dedication To God — The Heart Given To God” 658}

Just published. Price One Penny.

John Ploughman’s Sheet Almanac for 1894

Many friends have expressed their fear that they would not see another of their much-prized John Ploughman’s Sheet Almanacs. To such, it will be a glad surprise that we are able to announce that the broadsheet for 1894 is now on sale. The dear one who is best qualified to express an opinion on such a subject, assures us the new Almanac is quite worthy to take its place among its many honoured predecessors; and we hope all our readers, when they have purchased and perused it, will be of the same opinion, and will, therefore, help to speed it on its mission of mercy.

The large central picture will commend the Almanac to all who loved, and still love “John Ploughman.” It is a new view of “The Empty Study at ‘Westwood’, ” showing many of Mr. Spurgeon’s precious books, his well-used chair, his best portrait, his early bust, etc. At the four corners of the sheet there are Eastern illustrations of farm life, drawn by an artist who travelled to Palestine on purpose to be able to give correct representations of the manners and customs of the dwellers in the Holy Land.

As a justification of the title, John Ploughman’s Almanac, we may state that a very large proportion of the proverbs, maxims, and mottoes published here, had been diligently prepared by Mr. Spurgeon, and stored up for future use, while many others have been culled from his own utterances and writings. Every factory, workshop, play-room, kitchen, and office in the land should have one or more of these Almanacs on their walls; and they should also be fastened in the cabins of all those who go down to the sea in ships. — Extract from November “The Sword and the Trowel,” November 1893

Passmore and Alabaster, 4, Paternoster Buildings, London; and all Booksellers.

The Christian, Dedication To God
660 — “My Beloved Is Mine And I Am His”
1 When I had wander’d from his fold,
      His love the wanderer sought;
   When slave like into bondage sold,
      His blood my freedom bought.
2 Therefore that life, by him redeem’d,
      Is his through all its days;
   And as with blessings it hath teem’d,
      So let it teem with praise.
3 For I am his, and he is mine,
      The God whom I adore!
   My Father, Saviour, Comforter,
      Now and for evermore.
4 When sunk in sorrow, I despair’d,
      And changed my hopes for fears,
   He bore my griefs, my burden shared,
      And wiped away my tears.
5 Therefore the joy by him restored,
      To him by right belongs:
   And to my gracious loving Lord,
      I’ll sing through life my songs:
6 For I am his, and his is mine,
      The God whom I adore!
   My Father, Saviour, Comforter,
      Now and for evermore!
                     John S. B. Monsell, 1863.

The Christian, Dedication To God
663 — Jesus, I Am Thine! <7s.>
1 Jesus, spotless Lamb of God,
   Thou hast bought me with thy blood,
   I would value nought beside
   Jesus — Jesus crucified.
2 I am thine, and thine alone,
   This I gladly, fully own;
   And, in all my works and ways,
   Only now would seek thy praise.
3 Help me to confess thy name,
   Bear with joy thy cross and shame,
   Only seek to follow thee,
   Though reproach my portion be.
4 When thou shalt in glory come,
   And I reach my heavenly home,
   Louder still my lips shall own
   I am thine, and thine alone.
                  James George Deck, 1837.

The Christian, Dedication To God
658 — The Heart Given To God
1 Oh happy day, that fix’d my choice
   On thee, my Saviour, and my God;
   Well may this glowing heart rejoice,
   And tell its raptures all abroad.
2 ‘Tis done! the great transaction’s done:
   I am my Lord’s, and he is mine:
   He drew me, and I follow’d on,
   Charm’d to confess the voice divine.
3 Now rest, my long divided heart;
   Fix’d on this blissful centre, rest:
   With ashes who would grudge to part,
   When call’d on angels’ bread to feast?
4 High heaven, that heard the solemn vow,
   That vow renew’d shall daily hear:
   Till in life’s latest hour I bow,
   And bless in death a bond so dear.
                     Philip Doddridge, 1755.