3393. Wheat in the Barn

A Sermon Published On Thursday, February 12, 1914.

Gather the wheat into my barn. {Mt 13:30}

1. “Gather the wheat into my barn”: then the purpose of the Son of man will be accomplished. He sowed good seed, and he shall have his barn filled with it at the last. Do not be dispirited, Christ will not be disappointed. “He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” He went out weeping, bearing precious seed, but he shall come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

2. “Gather the wheat into my barn”: then Satan’s policy will be unsuccessful. The enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, hopeful that the false wheat would destroy or materially injure the true; but he failed in the end, for the wheat ripened and was ready to be gathered. Christ’s garner shall be filled; the tares shall not choke the wheat. The evil one will be put to shame.

3. In gathering in the wheat, good angels will be employed: “the angels are the reapers.” This casts special scorn on the great evil angel. He sows the tares, and tries to destroy the harvest; and, therefore, the good angels are brought in to celebrate his defeat, and to rejoice together with their Lord in the success of the divine husbandry. Satan will make a poor profit out of his meddling; he shall be thwarted in all his efforts, and so the threat shall be fulfilled, “On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust.”

4. By giving the angels work to do, all intelligent creatures, of whose existence we have information, are made to take an interest in the work of grace: whether for malice or for adoration, redemption stirs them all. To all, the wonderful works of God are obvious: for these things were not done in a corner.

5. We forget the angels too much. Let us not overlook their tender sympathy with us; they behold the Lord rejoicing over our repentance, and they rejoice with him; they are our watchers and the Lord’s messengers of mercy; they bear us up in their hands lest we dash our foot against a stone; and when we come to die, they carry us to the bosom of our Lord. It is one of our joys that we have come to an innumerable company of angels; let us think of them with affection.

6. I. At this time I will keep to my text, and preach from it almost word by word. It begins with “but,” and that is: — A WORD OF SEPARATION.

7. Here note that the tares and the wheat will grow together until the time of harvest shall come. It is a great sorrow of heart to some of the wheat to be growing side by side with tares. The ungodly are as thorns and briars to those who fear the Lord. How frequently is the sigh forced out from the godly heart: “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” A man’s foes are often found within his own household; those who should have been his best helpers are often his worst hinderers: their conduct vexes and torments him. It is of little use to try to escape from them, for the tares are permitted in God’s providence to grow with the wheat, and they will do so until the end. Good men have emigrated to distant lands to found communities in which there should be no one but saints, and, alas! sinners have sprung up in their own families. The attempt to weed the ungodly and heretical out of the settlement has led to persecution and other evils, and the whole plan has proved a failure. Others have shut themselves away in hermitages to avoid the temptations of the world, and so have hoped to win the victory by running away: this is not the way of wisdom. The word for this present time is, “Let both grow together”; but there will come a time when a final separation will be made. Then, dear Christian woman, your husband will never persecute you again. Godly sister, your brother will heap no more ridicule on you. Pious workman, there will be no more jesting and taunting from the ungodly. That “but” will be an iron gate between the God-fearing and the godless: then the tares will be cast into the fire, but the Lord of the harvest will say, “Gather the wheat into my barn.”

8. This separation must be made; for the growing of the wheat and the tares together on earth has caused much pain and injury, and, therefore, it will not be continued in a happier world. We can very well suppose that godly men and women might be willing that their unconverted children should dwell with them in heaven: but it cannot be, for God will not have his cleansed ones defiled, nor his glorified ones tried by the presence of the unbelieving. The tares must be taken away in order for the perfection and usefulness of the wheat. Would you have the tares and the wheat heaped up together in the granary in one pile? That would be poor farming with a vengeance. Neither of them can be put to appropriate use until thoroughly separated. Even so, notice that the saved and the unsaved may live together here, but they must not live together in another world. The command is absolute — “Gather the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.” Sinner, can you hope to enter heaven? You never loved your mother’s God, and is he to endure you in his heavenly courts? You never trusted your father’s Saviour, and yet are you to behold his glory for ever? Are you to go swaggering down the streets of heaven, letting fall an oath, or singing a loose song? Why, you know, you get tired of the worship of God on the Lord’s day; do you think that the Lord will endure unwilling worshippers in the temple above? The Sabbath is a wearisome day for you; how can you hope to enter into the Sabbath of God? You have no taste for heavenly pursuits, and these things would be profaned if you were permitted to partake in them; therefore, that word “but” must come in, and you must part from the Lord’s people, never to meet again. Can you bear to think of being separated from godly friends for ever and ever?

9. That separation involves an awful difference of destiny. “Gather the tares in bundles to burn them.” I do not dare to draw the picture; but when the bundle is bound up, there is no place for it except the fire. May God grant that you may never know all the anguish which burning must mean; but may you escape from it at once. It is no trifle which the Lord of love compares to being consumed with fire. I am quite certain that no words of mine can ever describe its terror. They say that we speak dreadful things about the wrath to come; but I am sure that we understate the case. What must the tender, loving, gracious Jesus have meant by the words, “Gather the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them?” See what a wide distinction exists between the lot of the Lord’s people and Satan’s people. Burn the wheat? Oh! no; “Gather the wheat into my barn.” There let them be happily, safely housed for ever. Oh! the infinite distance between heaven and hell! — the harps and the angels, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth! Who can ever measure the width of that gulf which separates the glorified saint, white-robed and crowned with immortality, from the soul which is driven for ever away from the presence of God, and from the glory of his power? It is a dreadful “but” — that “but” of separation. Please, remember that it will stand between brother and brother — between mother and child — between husband and wife. “One shall be taken and the other left.” And when that sword shall descend to divide, there shall never be any reunion.

10. The separation is eternal. There is no hope or possibility of change in the world to come. But, one says, “That dreadful ‘but!’ Why must there be such a difference?” The answer is because there always was a difference. The wheat was sown by the Son of man: the false wheat was sown by the enemy. There was always a difference in character — the wheat was good, the tares were evil. This difference did not appear at first, but it became more and more apparent as the wheat ripened, and as the tares ripened, too. They were totally different plants; and so a regenerate person and an unregenerate person are altogether different beings. I have heard an unregenerate man say that he is quite as good as the godly man; but in so boasting he betrayed his pride. Surely there is as great a difference in God’s sight between the unsaved and the believer as between darkness and light, or between the dead and the living. There is in the one a life which there is not in the other, and the difference is vital and radical. Oh! that you may never trifle with this essential matter, but be really the wheat of the Lord! It is vain to have the name of wheat: we must have the nature of wheat. God will not be mocked: he will not be pleased by our calling ourselves Christians while we are not so. Do not be satisfied with church membership; but seek after membership with Christ. Do not talk about faith, but exercise it. Do not boast of experience, but possess it. Do not be like the wheat, but be the wheat. No shams and imitations will stand in the last great day: that terrible “but” will roll as a sea of fire between the true and the false. Oh! Holy Spirit! let each of us be found transformed by your power.

11. II. The next word of our text is “gather” — that is: — A WORD OF CONGREGATION.

12. What a blessed thing this gathering is! I feel it to be a great pleasure to gather multitudes together to hear the gospel; and is it not a joy to see a house full of people, on weekdays and Sabbath days, who are willing to leave their homes and to come considerable distances to listen to the gospel? It is a great thing to gather people together for that; but the gathering of the wheat into the barn is a far more wonderful business. Gathering is in itself better than scattering, and I pray that the Lord Jesus may always exercise his attracting power in this place; for he is no Divider, but “to him the gathering of the people shall be.” Has he not said, “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me?”

13. Observe, that the congregation mentioned in our text is selected and assembled by skilled gatherers: “The angels are the reapers.” Ministers could not do it, for they do not know all the Lord’s wheat, and they are apt to make mistakes — some by too great leniency, and others by excessive severity. Our poor judgments occasionally shut out saints, and often shut in sinners. The angels will know their Master’s property. They know each saint, for they were present at his birthday. Angels know when sinners repent, and they never forget the identity of the penitents. They have witnessed the lives of those who have believed, and have helped them in their spiritual battles, and so they know them. Yes, angels by a holy instinct discern the Father’s children, and are not to be deceived. They will not fail to gather all the wheat and to leave out every tare.

14. But they are gathered under a very stringent regulation; for, first of all, according to the parable, the tares, the false wheat, have been taken out, and then the angelic reapers gather nothing but the wheat. The seed of the serpent, fathered by Satan, is separated from the seed of the kingdom, owned by Jesus, the promised deliverer. This is the one distinction; and no other is taken into consideration. If the most amiable unconverted people could stand in the ranks with the saints, the angels would not bear them to heaven, for the mandate is, “Gather the wheat.” Could the most honest man be found standing in the centre of the church, with all the members all around him and with all the ministers entreating that he might be spared, yet if he were not a believer, he could not be carried into the divine garner. There is no help for it. The angels have no choice in the matter: the peremptory command is, “Gather the wheat,” and they must gather nothing else.

15. It will be a gathering from very great distances. Some of the wheat ripens in the South Sea Islands, in China, and in Japan. Some flourishes in France, broad acres grow in the United States: there is scarcely a land without a portion of the good grain. Where all God’s wheat grows I cannot tell. There is a remnant, according to the election of grace, among every nation and people; but the angels will gather all the good grain to the same garner.

16. “Gather the wheat.” The saints will be found in all ranks of society. The angels will bring in a few ears from palaces, and great armfuls from cottages! Many will be collected from the lowly cottages of our villages and hamlets, and others will be gathered from the back slums of our great cities to the metropolis of God. From the darkest places angels will bring those children of sweetness and light who seldom beheld the sun, and yet were pure in heart and saw their God. The hidden and obscure shall be brought into the light; for the Lord knows those who are his, and his harvest men will not miss them.

17. To me, it is a charming thought that they will come from all the ages. Let us hope that our first father Adam will be there, and mother Eve, following in the footsteps of their dear son Abel, and trusting in the same sacrifice. We shall meet Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Daniel, and all the saints made perfect. What a joy to see the apostles, martyrs, and reformers! I long to see Luther, and Calvin, and Bunyan, and Whitfield. I like the rhyme of good old father Ryland: — 

   They all shall be there, the great and the small,

   Poor I shall shake hands with the blessed St. Paul.

I do not know how that will be, but I have little doubt that we shall have fellowship with all the saints of every age in the general assembly and church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.

18. No matter when or where the wheat grew, it shall be gathered into the one barn; gathered never to be scattered; gathered out of all divisions of the visible church, never to be divided again. They grew in different fields. Some flourished on the hill-side where Episcopalians grow in all their glory, and others in the lowlier soil, where Baptists multiply, and Methodists flourish; but once the wheat is in the barn no one can tell in which field the ears grew. Then, indeed, the Master’s prayer shall have a glorious answer — “That they all may be one.” All our errors removed and our mistakes corrected and forgiven, the one Lord, the one faith, and the one baptism will be known by us all, and there will be no more vexings and envyings. What a blessed gathering it will be! What a meeting! The elect of God, the elite of all the centuries, of whom the world was not worthy. I should not like to be away. If there were no hell, it would be hell enough to me to be shut out of such heavenly company. If there were no weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, it would be dreadful enough to miss the presence of the Lord, and the joy of praising him for ever, and the bliss of meeting with all the noblest beings who ever lived. Amid the necessary controversies of the age, I, who have been doomed to seem a man of strife, sigh for the blessed rest in which all spiritual minds shall blend in eternal accord before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Oh! that we were all right, that, we might be all happily united in one spirit!

19. III. In the text there is next: — A WORD OF DESIGNATION.

20. I have already trespassed on that domain. “Gather the wheat.” Nothing but “the wheat” must be placed in the Lord’s homestead. Lend me your hearts while I urge you to a searching examination for a minute or two. The wheat was sown by the Lord. Are you sown by the Lord? Friend, if you have any religion, how did you get it? Was it self-sown? If so, it is good-for-nothing. The true wheat was sown by the Son of man. Are you sown by the Lord? Did the Spirit of God drop eternal life into your heart? Did it come from that dear hand which was nailed to the cross? Is Jesus your life? Does your life begin and end with him? If so, it is well.

21. The wheat was sown by the Lord, it is also the object of the Lord’s care. Wheat needs a great deal of attention. The farmer would get nothing from it if he did not watch it carefully. Are you under the Lord’s care? Does he keep you? Is that word true of your soul, “I the Lord keep it; I will water it every moment: lest anyone harm it, I will keep it night and day?” Do you experience such keeping? Make an honest answer, as you love your soul.

22. Next, wheat is a useful thing, a gift from God for the life of men. The false wheat was of no good to anyone: it could only be eaten by swine, and then it made them stagger like drunken men. Are you one of those who are wholesome in society — who are like bread to the world, so that if men receive you, and your example, and your teaching, they will be blessed by it? Judge yourselves whether you are good or evil in life and influence.

23. “Gather the wheat.” You know that God must put the goodness, the grace, the solidity and the usefulness into you, or else you will never be wheat fit for angelic gathering. One thing is true of the wheat — that it is the most dependent of all plants. I have never heard of a field of wheat which sprang up, and grew, and ripened without a farmer’s care. Some ears may appear after a harvest when the grain had shaled {a} out; but I have never heard of plains in America or elsewhere covered with unsown wheat. No, no. There is no wheat where there is no man, and there is no grace where there is no Christ we owe our very existence to the Father, who is the farmer.

24. Yet, dependent as it is, wheat stands in the front rank of honour and esteem; and so do the godly in the judgment of all who are of an understanding heart. We are nothing without Christ; but with him we are full of honour. Oh! to be among those by whom the world is preserved, the excellent of the earth in whom the saints delight; God forbid we should be among the base and worthless tares!

25. IV. Our last point, on which also I will speak briefly, is: — A WORD OF DESTINATION.

26. “Gather the wheat into my barn.” The process of gathering in the wheat will be completed at the day of judgment, but it is going on every day. From hour to hour saints are gathered; they are going heavenward even now. I am so glad to hear as a regular thing that the departed ones from my own dear church have such joy in being harvested. Glory be to God, our people die well. The best thing is to live well, but we are greatly gladdened to hear that the brethren die well; for, very often, that is the most telling witness for vital godliness. Men of the world feel the power of triumphant deaths.

27. Every hour the saints are being gathered into the barn. That is the place where they want to be. We feel no pain at the news of ingathering, for we wish to be safely stored up by our Lord. If the wheat that is in the field could speak, every ear would say, “The ultimate end for which we are living and growing is the barn, the granary.” For this the frosty night; for this the sunny days; for this the dew and the rain; and for this everything. Every process with the wheat is tending towards the granary. So it is with us; everything is working towards heaven — towards the gathering place — towards the congregation of the righteous — towards the vision of our Redeemer’s face. Our death will cause no jar in our life music; it will involve no pause or even discord; it is part of a programme, the crowning of our whole history.

28. To the wheat the barn is the place of security. It dreads no mildew there; it fears no frost, no heat, no drought, no wet, when once it is in the barn. All its growth-perils are past. It has reached its perfection. It has rewarded the labour of the farmer, and it is housed. Oh! long-expected day, begin! Oh! brethren, what a blessing it will be when you and I shall have come to our maturity, and Christ shall see in us the travail of his soul!

29. I delight to think of heaven as his barn; his barn, what must that be? It is only the poverty of language that such an expression has to be used at all concerning the home of our Father, the dwelling of Jesus. Heaven is the palace of the King, but, so far, for us a barn, because it is the place of security, the place of rest for ever. It is the homestead of Christ to which we shall be carried and for this we are ripening. It is to be thought of with ecstatic joy; for the gathering into the barn involves a harvest home, and I have never heard of men sitting down to cry over an earthly harvest home, nor of their following the sheaves with tears. Indeed, they clap their hands, they dance for joy, and shout very lustily. Let us do something like that concerning those who are already housed. With grave, sweet melodies let us sing around their tombs. Let us feel that, surely, the bitterness of death is passed. When we remember their glory, we may rejoice like the travailing woman when her child is born, who “remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” Another soul begins to sing in heaven: why do you weep, oh heirs of immortality? Is the eternal happiness of the righteous the birth which comes from their death-pangs? Then happy are those who die. Is glory the end and outcome of what fills our home with mourning? If so, thank God for bereavements: thank God for saddest severings. He has promoted our dear ones to the skies! He has blessed them beyond all that we could ask or even think: he has taken them out of this weary world to lie in his own bosom for ever. Blessed be his name if it were for nothing else but this. Would you keep your old father here, full of pain, and broken down with feebleness? Would you shut him out of glory? Would you detain your dear wife here with all her suffering? Would you hold back your husband from the immortal crown? Could you wish your child to descend to earth again from the bliss which now surrounds her? No, no. We wish to be going home ourselves to the heavenly Father’s house and its many mansions; but concerning the departed we rejoice before the Lord as with the joy of harvest. “Therefore comfort each other with these words.”

{a} Shale: To free from the shell or husk; to remove, take off (the shell or husk) from a nut, bean, fruit, etc. Obs. OED.

Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Mt 13:1-23 15:13-28 1Co 3:17-23}

Matthew 13

1, 2. The same day Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together to him, so that he went into a boat, and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

So he had a little breathing space between him and the people — a better opportunity for his being both heard and seen. A noble example of open-air preaching. And if our climate would permit, what a blessing it would be if we could get out of these houses and sit in a boat or stand on the sea-shore.

3-9. And he spoke many things to them in parables saying, “Behold, a sower went out to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them up: some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth: and immediately they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched: and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them; but others fell into good ground, and produced fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

On the very surface of it this parable teaches those of us who have to sow that we must not expect to have our choice of the ground, and that we are not even to make a choice of the matter, but we are bound to go, as this sower did, and cast a handful there on the hard-trodden pathway and a handful there among the thorns and nettles, and a handful here, again, where there is no depth of earth, and God be thanked if a handful shall fall on good ground. Still, for us to suppose that we are to sort out the characters, and to select the ground, is a very great mistake. “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” A distinction will soon come. The seed will be the grand detective of the soil. It will show what the soil is. Just as Christ on the cross is the discerner of men’s thoughts, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed, so is the preaching of Christ crucified the test of the human condition. You shall see now who it is who has the honest and good ground, and who has not. Not by a geological inspection, but simply by throwing a handful of seed on it. That will soon discern between the precious and the vile.

10-16. And the disciples came, and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whoever does not have, from him shall be taken away even what he has. Therefore I speak to them in parables: because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, who says, ‘By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s hearts is become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

A judicial blindness and deafness of heart had come over the nation of Israel, so that even when the sun shone in its strength in the person and teaching of Christ, they could not see. And when God spoke more plainly than he ever spoke before, by his Son, yet they could not hear so as to understand. And I sometimes fear that some measure of this judicial blindness has happened to many in our land. Those who take the metaphors of Scripture, and interpret them literally, and dare to take out of the old law excuses for ritualistic observance — what can we say about them but that this people’s hearts have become gross? God has done very much for our country. He has seeded it with the blood of martyrs. The scars of martyrdom have hardly passed away, and, after all this, if men will go back to the fooleries of popish ceremony — if they will put from them the blessed light of the gospel of Jesus Christ — depend on it God will give them up to some kind of hardness of heart, so that they will plunge from one superstition to another, and their last end shall be worse than the first. But blessed are those who, being taught by God, can perceive the spirit beneath the letter, and do not confound the emblems which the Saviour used, but extract the meaning from them as bees do the honey from the flowers.

17-19. For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see and have not seen them; and to hear those things which you hear, and have not heard them. Hear therefore the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then comes the wicked one, and catches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

Do you notice here the importance of the word? But when it is heard, but not understood, you would suppose that the devil might as well let it stay where it was, for what harm could it do to his kingdom for the man to hear it and not to understand it? But he is so frightened at the word of God that he comes, like an evil bird, and takes it away for fear, lest lying even in the dull heart without understanding, yet, somehow, it should create an understanding in the heart. And so he takes it away from the thoughts and the memory, so fearful is he of it. “Nothing makes the devil tremble like the gospel,” said Martin Luther; and I do not doubt that all the churches in the world, with all their ceremonies, are less feared by the devil than one single doctrine or text out of the Word of God; so he comes, like an evil bird, and catches away what was sown in the heart. You must expect to lose a good deal of your teaching. Just as farmers drop several beans in the hole and say, “That one is for the worm; this one is for the crow”; then there is another which they hope will spring up, so we must expect it to be with our teaching, much of which will be lost.

20, 21. But he who received the seed into stony places, the same is he who hears the word, and immediately with joy receives it; Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while: for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, eventually he is offended.

A straw fire blazes fiercely, but does not last long. And so there are some whom we hope are converts who show an extraordinary zeal, and you would imagine that, surely, they would outrun all Christians, but they do not have breath. They are not good stayers. They soon cease in the race. They are soon hot — soon cold. And we may expect to have many disappointments from people of this character, and all the more so among children — readily impressed, but they easily lose the impression.

22. He also who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

Dear friends, who have to teach the young, you have, in their case, less danger in this respect. They have not yet come to the time when the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches will choke the word. You have some advantage over us, though even the little things of a child’s play may make nettles and thorns. Things which we could not consider to be cares — that seem too trivial — are cares for them. It may be that our heavenly Father thinks of our cares very much as we think of our children’s cares, and just as we should smile to see them doubting, so it may be that he smiles and grieves whenever he finds us so, for, notice that, even among God’s own people, God’s Word cannot grow in our hearts at the rate it should, for we have the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches. We must cry to be lifted above these — delivered from the evil influences of the world in which we dwell — or else our good Lord and Master will waste many a handful of good seed on us, though, I trust, that yet out of us he will get some harvest.

23. But he who received seed into good ground is he who hears the word, and understands it; who also bears fruit, and produces, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

For all Christians are not equally fruitful. Oh that they all reached to the hundredfold, and went beyond it! Such seed, and such a sower, and such fruitful seasons as he has given to some of us, and such ploughing, and such tilling, and such fertilizing, and such watering, and such sunshine, and such dew — oh! we ought to produce a hundredfold. Let us chide ourselves, and whenever we have to complain that we do not get a harvest from our sowing, or as much as we could desire, let us look within and say, “My heart, you are like the field I have to sow. My Master, I fear, gets as little out of you as I get when I go unsuccessfully to my work.”

Matthew 15

13. But he answered and said, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.

He did not have any particular tenderness towards them, they were not plants of his Father’s planting: they deserved to be rooted up, and their teaching was so utterly false that, if he had offended against it, he was glad to have done so.

14. Leave them alone: they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

The bad teacher and he who is badly taught, for they are both responsible, shall both fall into the ditch. No man can lay the sin of his being misdirected entirely on his priest or his teacher. He had no business to have submitted to him. At the same time, it is a very serious responsibility for a man who does not know God to attempt to teach the things of God. I know a man who, in a certain place of worship was deeply convicted of sin — the arrows of God stuck in him, and, being in great distress, he went to the minister and told him how he felt the burden of his guilt. The minister said to him, “My dear friend, I really had no intention of making you uneasy — what was it I said? — I will get the sermon — I am very sorry, but really I do not know anything about it.” The man said, “You told us we must be born again.” “Oh!,” said the minister, “that was done for you when a child — your parents did it.” “You know sir, we must be converted.” “Well, really I do not understand it. I am afraid I have disturbed you unnecessarily.” Our friend, however, was not to be so easily put off; he sought and found a Saviour. But how dreadful a thing it is when the blind lead the blind: they shall both fall into the ditch.

15-20. Then Peter answered and said to him “Declare to us this parable.” And Jesus said “Are you also yet without understanding? Do you not yet understand, that whatever enters in at the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come out from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

There is no defilement about that. Cleanliness is to be observed, but not the mere act of washing just for the sake of it every time you eat food, which does not defile a man; but oh! what defilement there is in evil thoughts, in anger which leads to murder, in lust which leads to adultery and fornication, in covetousness which leads to theft, and in a false heart which leads to false witness, and in a profane mind which leads to blasphemy. Oh! that God would cleanse our secret thoughts, the very centre of our hearts, for until the fountain is made clean, the stream that comes from it cannot be pure.

21, 22. Then Jesus went from there, and departed into the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same region and cried to him, saying, “Have mercy on me oh Lord, you son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon.”

“But he answered her not a word.” How painful that silence must have been! In what suspense she was.

23. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, “Send her away: for she cries after us.”

They were mistaken. She did not cry after them: she knew better than that: she cried after the Lord, after the great Son of David, not after them, but, however, she disturbed them.

24. But he answered and said, “I am only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Christ’s personal ministry was confined to the Jews. He came as a Saviour to redeem all mankind, but as a preacher he was a minister to the circumcision, and he came to speak only to Israel.

25. Then she came and worshipped him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

Her prayer got shorter, and she grew more intense, more energetic, more determined to win the blessing. “Lord help me.”

26-28. But he answered and said, “It is not fitting to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” And she said, “True, Lord: yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “Oh woman, great is your faith: be it to you even as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Oh! can you exercise a similar faith in Christ? If so you shall get a similar blessing. Only believe in him, only make up your mind, and, however great the mercy, it cannot be too great for him to give, and believe that he will give it, rest on him to bestow it, and you shall have it. May God grant that many may receive it at this very hour.

1 Corinthians 3

17, 18. If any man defiles the temple of God, God shall destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, so that he may be wise.

Do not let him seek to be considered wise by the philosophers of the period, who are always against the truth of God. Let him consent to be thought to be a fool; yes, let him know in his own heart that he is not wise; and then let him yield himself up to the wisdom of God. Consciousness of ignorance is the vestibule of knowledge, and he who knows very well that he is a fool is on the way to becoming a wise man. He who would pass into the temple of wisdom must first of all confess his foolishness.

19, 20. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He takes the wise in their own craftiness.” And again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

What an amazingly little difference there is, after all, between the very cultured man, who thinks himself so, and the man who makes no pretence to it whatever! The knowledge which the wisest man has is about equal, in the presence of God, to the knowledge which one child of three years old has over a child of two years old. To God we must all seem masses of ignorance; and if you could put the whole British Association and all the doctors of divinity, and all the LL.D.’s, and all the men of high degrees together, the things they did not know would make a great many volumes, and the things they did know would not go very far. “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are vain.”

21. Therefore let no man boast in men.

There really is not anything to boast in, in men. “The best of men are men at the best.” Never need we exalt ourselves or extol others. “Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him?” “Let no man boast in men.”

21. For all things are yours;

Children of God, all men are yours, to serve your highest benefit. All ministers and leaders in Christ are yours to seek your souls’ good. Treat them as bees do flowers, and gather honey from them all. “All things are yours.”

22, 23. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.