A SERMON TO OPEN NEGLECTERS AND NOMINAL FOLLOWERS OF RELIGION – Charles Spurgeon

A SERMON TO OPEN NEGLECTERS AND NOMINAL FOLLOWERS OF RELIGION

“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not:’ but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ and went not. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to Him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Verily I say to you, that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.” Matthew 21:28-32.

THE DIFFICULT TASK OF SEPARATION

The sight of this vast arena, and of this crowded assembly, reminds me of other spectacles which, in days happily long past, were seen in the amphitheatres of the old Roman Empire. Around, tier upon tier, were the assembled multitudes, with their cruel eyes and iron hearts; and in the center stood a solitary, friendless man, waiting till the doors of the lion’s den should be lifted up, that he might yield himself up a witness for Christ and a sacrifice to the popular fury. There would have been no difficulty then to have divided the precious from the vile in that audience. The most thoughtless wayfarer who entered into the amphitheater, would know at once who was the disciple of Christ and who were the enemies of the Crucified One. There stood the bravely-calm disciple, about to die, and all around, in those mighty tiers of the Coliseum, or of the amphitheatre of some provincial town, as the case might be, there sat matrons and nobles, princes and peasants, commoners and aristocrats, senators and soldiers—all gazing downward with the same fierce, unpitying look; all boisterous for their heathen gods, and all vociferous in the joy with which they gazed upon the agonies of the disciple of the hated Galilean, butchered to make a Roman holiday. Another sight is before us today, with far more happy associations; but alas, it is a far more difficult task this day to separate the chaff from the wheat, the precious from the vile, than in the day when the apostle fought with beasts at Ephesus. Here, in this arena, I hope there are hundreds, if not thousands, who would be prepared to die for our Lord Jesus; and in yonder crowded seats, we may count by hundreds those who bear the name and accept the gospel of the Man of Nazareth; and yet, I fear, that both in these living hills on either side, and upon this vast floor, there are many enemies of the Son of God, who are forgetful of His righteous claims—who have cast from them those cords of love which should bind them to His throne, and have never submitted to the mighty love which showed itself in His cross and in His wounds. I cannot attempt the separation. You must grow together until the harvest. To divide you were a task which at this hour angels could not perform, but which one day they will easily accomplish, when at their Master’s bidding, the harvest being come, they shall gather together first the tares in bundles to burn them, and afterwards the wheat into Jehovah’s barn. I shall not attempt the division, but I shall ask each man to attempt it for himself in his own case. I say unto you, young men and maidens, old men and fathers, examine yourselves this day whether you are in the faith. Let no man take it for granted that he is a Christian because he has helped to swell the numbers of a Christian assembly. Let no man judge his fellow, but let each man judge himself. To each one of you I say, with deepest earnestness, let a division be made by your conscience, and let your understandings separate between him who fears God and him who fears Him not. Though no man clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side, shall go through the midst of you to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry for all the abominations of this city, let conscience take the inkhorn and honestly make the mark, or leave the favored sign unmade, and let each man question himself this morning, “Am I on the Lord’s side? Am I for Christ, or for His enemies? Do I gather with Him, or do I scatter abroad?”

DIVISION AMONG THE UNCONVERTED

“Divide! Divide!” they say in the House of Commons; let us say the same in this great congregation this day. Political divisions are but trifles compared with the all-important distinction which I would have you consider. Divide as you will be divided to the right and to the left in the great day when Christ shall judge the world in righteousness. Divide as you will be divided when the bliss of heaven, or the woes of hell, shall be your everlasting portion! If the whole of us were thus divided into two camps, and we could say these have made a covenant with God by sacrifice, and those on the other hand are still enemies to God by wicked works, looking at the last class we might still feel it necessary by way of personal application to make a division among them; for although all unbelievers are alike unpardoned and unsaved, yet they are not alike in the circumstances of their case and the outward forms of their sins. Alike in being without Christ, they are still very varied in their mental and moral condition. I trust I was guided by the Spirit of God to my text this morning, for it is of such a character, that while it enables me to address the whole mass of the unconverted, it gives me a hopeful opportunity of getting at the conscience of each by dividing the great company of the unconverted into two distinct classes. O that for each tribe of unbelievers, there may be a blessing in store this day. First, we shall speak to those who are avowedly disobedient to God; secondly, to those who are deceptively submissive to Him.

THOSE WHO ARE AVOWEDLY DISOBEDIENT TO GOD

I. First, we have a word for those who are avowedly disobedient to God. There are many such here. God has said to you as He says to all who hear the gospel, “Son, go work today in My vineyard.” And you have replied, perhaps honestly, but certainly very boldly, very unkindly, very unjustly, “I will not.” You have made no bones about it, but given a refusal point-blank to the claims of your Creator. You have spoken your mind right out, not only in words, but in a more forcible and unmistakable manner, for actions speak far more loudly than words. You have said, over and over again, by your actions, “I will not serve God, or believe in His Son Jesus.” My dear friend, I am glad to see you here this morning, and trust that matters will change with you before you leave this hall; but at present you have not yielded even an outward obedience to God, but in all ways have said, “I will not.” Practically you have said, “I will not worship God, I will not attend a place of worship on Sunday—it is weariness intolerable to me. I shall not sing the praise of my Maker—I will not pretend to bless the God for whom I have no love. In public prayer I shall not join—I have no heart for it. I shall not make a pretense of repeating morning and nightly prayer in private—what is the good of it? I will not pray at all; I do not believe in its efficacy, and I will not be such a hypocrite as to follow a vain practice in which I have no belief whatever. As for what is called sin, I love it and will not give it up.” You are proud of being called an honest man, for you acknowledge the claims of your fellow men upon you, but you scorn to be thought religious, for you do not admit the rights of your Maker. To the righteous requests of others you yield a cheerful obedience, but to the just and tender requests of God you give a plain and evident denial. As clearly as actions can speak, you say by your neglect of Sunday, by your disregard of prayer, by your never reading the Bible, by your perseverance in known sin, and by the whole course of your life, “I will not.” Like Pharaoh, you have demanded, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” You are of the same mind as those of old who said, “It is vain to serve God, and what profit is there if we keep His ordinances?” Moreover, my friend, you have not as yet given an assent to the doctrines of God’s Word; on the contrary, intellectually as well as practically, you go not at God’s bidding. You have set up in your mind the idea that you must understand everything before you will believe it—an idea, let me tell you, which you will never be able to carry out, for you cannot understand your own existence; and there are ten thousand other things around you which you never can comprehend, but which you must believe or remain forever a gigantic fool. Still you cavil at this doctrine and that doctrine, railing at the gospel system in general; and if you were asked at a working man’s conference, why you did not go to a place of worship, you would perhaps say that you kept away from worship because you did not like this doctrine or that. Let me say on my own account, that as far as I am personally concerned, it is a very small consideration to me whether you like my doctrine or do not; for your own sake I am anxious above measure that you should believe the truth of God as it is in Jesus; but while you live in sin, your dislike of a doctrine will very probably only make me feel the more sure of its truth, and lead me to preach it with more confidence and vehemence. Do you think that we are to learn God’s truth from the likes or dislikes of those who refuse to worship Him, and need an excuse for their sins? O unconverted men and women, it is very long before we shall come to you to learn what you would have us preach, and when we fall so low as to do that, you, yourselves, will despise us. What? Shall the physician ask his patient what kind of medicine he would wish to have prescribed? Then the man needs no physician, he can prescribe for himself. Show the doctor out at the back door directly. What is the use of such a physician? Of what service is a minister who will cater to depraved tastes and sinful appetites, and say, “How would you like me to preach to you? What smooth things shall I offer you?” Ah souls, we have some higher end to be served than merely pleasing you! We would save you by distasteful truths of God, for honeyed lies will ruin you. That teaching, which the carnal mind most delights in, is the most deadly and delusive. With many of you, your beliefs, and tastes, and likes must be changed, or else you will never enter heaven. I admit that in a measure I like your honesty in having said outright, “I will not serve God.” But it is an honesty which makes me shudder, for it betrays a heart hard as the nether millstone. Again, you have said, “I will not serve God,” and up to this time it is very possible that you have never been in the humor to repent of having said it, for the ways of sin are sweet to you, and your heart is fixed in its rebellion. You have never felt that conviction of sin which the Holy Spirit has worked in some of us; if you had felt it, you would soon have been shaken out of your “I will not.” If God’s power of divine grace, of which thousands of us bear witness that it is as real a power as that which guides the stars or wings the wind—if God’s almighty grace should once get a hold of you, you would no longer say, “I do not believe this or that,” for as tremblingly as any of those whom you now despise, you would cry out, “What must I do to be saved?” Up till now you have never felt that power, and therefore I cannot wonder that you do not acknowledge it, although the testimony of honest witnesses ought to have some weight with you. You are practically, intellectually, and avowedly not a Christian; you have never deceived yourself and others by making a profession which you do not honor, but you have gone on in your own chosen path, saying with more or less resolution, in answer to every call of the gospel, “I will not.”

THE POSSIBILITY OF REPENTANCE AND SALVATION

We said just now that the answer of the son to his father as recorded in our text was very plain; it was not, however, very genuine, or such as his father might have expected. His father said, “Son, go work today in my vineyard,” and the son rudely said, “I will not, that is that,” and without another word of apology or reason went his way. This is not quite as it should be, is it? Even so, my friend, you may have been too hasty and so have been unjust. Is it not very possible you have denied to God and to His gospel the respect which both really deserve? You have spoken very plainly, but at the same time very thoughtlessly, very harshly to the God who has deserved better things of you. Have you ever given the claims of the Lord Jesus a fair consideration? Have you not dismissed the gospel with a sneer quite unworthy of you? Have you not been afraid to look the matters between God and your soul squarely in the face? I believe it to be the case of hundreds here. I know it to be the case of thousands and tens of thousands in London. They have put their foot down, and they have said, “None of your religion for me! I have made up my mind and I will never change; I hate it and will not listen to it.” Does no small voice within ever tell them that this is not fair to themselves or to God? Is the matter so easily to be decided? Suppose it should turn out that the religion of Jesus is true—what then?

What will be the lot of those who despised Him? My hearer, the religion of Jesus is true, and I have proved its truth in my own case; do, I pray you, consider it, and do not trifle away your immortal soul. Thus says the Lord, “Consider your ways.” It is now time for me to tell the openly ungodly what is his real state. You have been more than a little proud of your honesty; and looking down upon certain professors of religion you have said, “Ah, I make no such pretenses as they do, I am honest, I am!” friend, you cannot have a greater abhorrence of hypocrites than I have; if you can find a fair chance of laughing at them, pray do so. If by any means you can stick pins into their wind bags, and let the gas of their profession out, pray do so. I try to do a little of it in my way, you do the same! You and I are agreed in this, I hope, in heartily hating anything like sham and falsehood; but if you begin to hold your head up, and think yourself so very superior because you make no profession, I must take you down a little by reminding you that it is no credit to a thief that he makes no profession of being honest, and it is not thought to be exceedingly honorable to a man that he makes no profession of speaking the truth. For the fact is, that a man who does not profess to be honest is a professed thief, and he who does not claim to speak the truth is an acknowledged liar; thus in escaping one horn you are thrown upon another, you miss the rock but run upon the quicksand. You are a confessed and avowed neglecter of God, a professed despiser of the great salvation, an acknowledged disbeliever in the Christ of God. When our government at any time arrests persons suspected of Fenianism, [a member of a secret revolutionary organization in the United States and Ireland in the mid-19th Century, dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland] they have no difficulty about those gentlemen who glory in wearing the green uniform and flaunting the big feather. “Come along,” says the constable, “you are the man, for you wear the uniform of a rebel.” Even so when the angel of justice arrests the enemies of the Lord, he will have no difficulty in accusing and arresting you, for, laying his hand upon your shoulder, he will say, “You wear the uniform of an enemy of God; you plainly, and unblushingly, acknowledge that you do not fear God nor trust in His salvation.” No witnesses need be called concerning you at the Last great day; you will stand up, not quite so bravely as you do today, for, when the heavens are on a blaze and the earth is rocking to and fro, and the great white cloud fills the field of vision, and the eyes of the great Judge shall burn like lamps of fire, you will put on a different manner and a different carriage from that which you maintain before a poor preacher of the gospel. Ah, my ungodly hearer, with such a case as yours there shall be no need to judge, for out of your own mouth shall you be condemned. Yet I came not here to tell you only of your sins, but to help you to escape from them. It is necessary that this much should be said, but we now turn to something far more pleasant. I am in hopes this day that some of you will listen to that little word in the text, “afterward.” He said, “I will not; but afterward he repented and went.” It is a long lane which has no turning, let us trust that we have come to the turning now. There is space left you for repentance; though you may have been a drunkard, or a swearer, or unchaste, the die is not yet cast, a change is yet possible. May God grant that you may have reached the time when it shall be said of you, “Afterward he repented; he changed his mind; he believed upon Jesus, and obeyed the Word of the Lord, and went.”

THE POSSIBILITY OF REPENTANCE AND SALVATION (Continued)

Perhaps the son in the parable thought a little more calmly about it. He said to himself, “I will consider the matter, second thoughts are often best. I growled at my good father and gave him a sharp answer, and I saw the tears standing in the good man’s eyes. I am sorry I grieved him. The thought of grieving him makes me change my mind. I said ‘No’ to him,” he said, “but I did not think about it. I forgot that if I go and work in my father’s vineyard I shall be working for myself, for I am his eldest son, and all that he has will belong to me, so that I am very foolish to refuse to work to my own advantage. Ah, now I see my father had my advantage at heart, I will go as he bade me!” Look, he shoulders his tools, and away he marches to labor with all his might. He said, “I will not,” but he repented and went, and it is admitted by all that he did the will of his father. Oh, I hope that many a man and woman now in this Agricultural Hall will this day cry, “I retract what I have said. I will go to my Father, and will say to Him, ‘I will do Your bidding. I will not grieve Your love. I will not lose the opportunity of advancing my soul’s best interest. I obey the gospel command.”

A FINAL CALL TO REPENTANCE

I will suppose that I see one such before me, and I will speak to him. Perhaps he said, “I will not,” because he really did not understand what religion was. How few, after all, know what the way of salvation is; though they go to church, and to chapel, they have not yet learned God’s plan of pardoning sinners. Do you know the plan of salvation? Hear it and live by it. You have offended God; God must punish sin; it is a fixed law that sin must be punished; how then, can God have mercy upon you? Why, only in this way—Jesus Christ came from heaven and He suffered in the place of all who trust Him; suffered what they ought to have suffered, so that God is Just, and yet at the same time He is able to forgive the very chief of sinners through the merits of His dear Son. Your debts, if you are a believer in Him, Christ has paid on your behalf. If you do but come and rest upon Jesus and upon Jesus only, God cannot punish you for your sins, for He punished Jesus for them, and it would not be just of Him to punish Christ and then to punish you, to exact payment first from the Surety and afterwards from the debtor! My dear hearer, whoever you may be, whatever your past life may have been, if you will trust Christ, you shall be saved from all your sins in a moment, the whole of your past life shall be blotted out; there shall not remain in God’s book so much as a single charge against your soul, for Christ, who died for you, shall take your guilt away and leave you without a blot before the face of God. Read the last verse of my text, and you will see that it was by believing that men entered into the kingdom of God of old, and it is still by believing that men are saved. “Behold the Lamb of God,” said John the Baptist, and if you look to that bleeding Lamb, you shall live. Do you understand this? Is it not simple? Is it not suitable to you? Will you still refuse to obey it? Does not the Holy Spirit prompt you to relent? Do you not even now say, “Is it so simple? I will trust in Jesus—‘Guilty, but with heart relenting, To the Savior’s wounds I’ll fly.’ I will come, by God’s help, this morning, lest death should come before the sun sets. I will trust Christ to save me. Precious way of salvation! Why should I not be saved?” It is possible too, that you may have said, “I will not,” because you really thought there was no hope for you. Ah, my friend, let me assure you—and oh, how glad I am to be able to do it!—that there is hope for the vilest through the precious blood of Jesus. No man can have gone too far for the long arm of Christ to reach him. Christ delights to save the biggest sinners. He said to His apostles, “Preach the gospel to every creature, but begin”—where?—“begin at Jerusalem. There live the wretches who spat in My face; there live the cruel ones who drove the nails through My hands. Go and preach the gospel to them first. Tell them that I am able to save, not merely little sinners, but the very chief of sinners. Tell them to trust in Me and they shall live.” Where are you, you despairing one? I know the devil will try to keep the sound of the gospel from your ears if he can, and therefore, I would “cry aloud and spare not.” O you despairing sinners, there is no room for despair this side of the gates of hell. If you have gone through the foulest kennels of iniquity, no stain can stand out against the power of the cleansing blood.— “There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose ALL their guilty stains.” Oh, I trust, now that you know there is hope for you, you will say, “I will even come at once, and put my trust in Jesus.”

THE FINAL URGE TO REPENT

While I would thus encourage you to repent of your neglect of God, let me invite you to come to Jesus, and press it upon you yet again. Ah, my dear friend, you will soon be dying, and though some wicked men, in their stupid insensibility, die very calmly, and as David said, “They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men, but their strength is firm,” yet, whether they perceive it or not, it is a dreadful thing to die with unpardoned sin hanging about you. What will your guilty soul do when it leaves the body? Think of it a minute. It is a matter worthy of your thought. Some of you, in all probability, will die this week. It is not probable that so many thousands of us will march through a whole week and be found alive at the other end of it. Well then, as we may some of us go soon, and all of us must go before long, let us look before us and think a bit. Imagine your soul unclothed of the body. You have left the body behind you and your disembodied spirit finds itself in a new world. Oh, it will be a glorious thing if that separated spirit shall see Jesus whom it has loved, and fly at once into His bosom, and drink forever of the crystal fountain of ever-flowing bliss—but it will be a horrible thing if, instead of it, your naked shivering spirit should wake up to find itself friendless, homeless, helpless, hopeless, tormented with remorse, afflicted with despair. What if it should have to cry out forever, “I knew my duty but I did it not, I knew the way of salvation but I would not run in it. I heard the gospel, but I shut my ears to it. I lived and at length left the world without Christ, and here I am, past hope, no repenting now, no believing now, no escaping now, for mercy and love no longer rule the hour”? Have pity on yourself, my hearer. I have pity on you. Oh, if my hand could pluck you from that flame, how cheerfully would I do it! Shall I pity you and will you not pity yourself? Oh, if my pleading could by God’s grace persuade you to trust in Christ this morning, I would plead with you while my voice, and lungs, and heart, and life held out! But oh, have pity on yourself! Pity that poor naked spirit which so soon will be quivering with utmost agony, a self-caused agony, an agony from which it will not escape, an agony of which it was warned, but which it chose to endure sooner than give up sin and yield to the scepter of Sovereign grace. I would hope that you are saying, “I do now repent, and by God’s grace I will go.” If so, let me tell you there are a great many in heaven who once, like you, said, “I will not,” but they afterwards repented and are now saved. I will give you one picture. Yonder, I see a company of men on horseback, and there is one, the proudest of them all, to whom they act as a guard; they are going to Damascus, that he may take Christians to prison and compel them to blaspheme. Saul of Tarsus is the name of that cruel, murderous persecutor. When Stephen was put to death, God said to this man, Saul, “Go, work in My vineyard,” but Saul said plainly, “I will not.” And to prove his enmity, he helped put Stephen to death. There he is riding in hot haste upon his evil errand, none more set and determined against the Lord. Yet my Lord Jesus can tame the lion, and even make a lamb of him. As Saul rides along, a bright light is seen, brighter than the sun at noonday; Saul falls from his horse, he lies trembling on the ground, and he hears a voice out of heaven, saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Lifting up his eyes with astonishment, he sees that he had ignorantly been persecuting the Son of God. What a change that one discovery worked in him!

CALL TO COME TO CHRIST

That voice, “I am Jesus, whom you persecute,” broke his hard heart and won him to the cause. You know how three days after that, that once proud and bigoted man was baptized upon a profession of the faith of Christ, whom he had just now persecuted! And if you want to see an earnest preacher, where can you find a better one than the apostle Paul, who, with heart on fire, writes again and again, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”? I hope there is a Saul here who is to be struck down this morning. Lord, strike him down! Eternal Spirit, strike him down now! You did not know perhaps, that you had been fighting God, but you thought the religion of Jesus to be a foolish dream. You did not know that you had insulted the dying Savior; now you know it, may your conscience be affected, and from this day forth may you serve the Lord. I must leave this point when I have just said this. If there is one here who after a long refusal, at last relents, and is willing to become a servant of God by faith in Jesus Christ, let me tell him for his encouragement he shall not be one whit behind those who have been so long making a profession without being true to it, for the text says, “The tax collectors and harlots go into the kingdom,” but what else? “Go into the kingdom” before those who made a profession of serving God, but who were not true to it. You great sinners shall have no back seats in heaven! There shall be no outer court for you. You great sinners shall have as much love as the best, as much joy as the brightest of saints. You shall be near to Christ; you shall sit with Him upon His throne; you shall wear the crown; your fingers shall touch the golden harps; you shall rejoice with the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory. Will you come? Christ forgets your past ill manners, and bids you come today. “Come,” He says, “unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON—PSALM 103

Charles Spurgeon