“ALL THE DAY LONG” – Charles Spurgeon
ALL THE DAY LONG
“Let not your heart envy sinners: but be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end, and your expectation shall not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:17, 18.
LAST Lord’s-Day, we had for our texts two promises [Everlasting Love Revealed, #2149.] I trust they were full of comfort to the tried people of God and to souls in the anguish of conviction. Today we will consider two precepts so that we may not seem to neglect any part of the Word of God, for the precept is as Divine as the promise. Here we have a command given by the Holy Spirit through the wisest of men, and therefore, both on the Divine and on the human side, it is most weighty.
I said that Solomon was the wisest of men, and yet he became, in practice, the most foolish. By his folly, he gained a fresh store of experience of the saddest sort, and we trust that he turned to God with a penitent heart and so became wiser than ever—wiser with a second wisdom which the Grace of God had given him—to consecrate his earthly wisdom. He who had been a voluptuous prince became the wise preacher in Israel—let us give our hearts to know the wisdom which he taught. The words of Solomon to his own son are not only wise but full of tender anxiety. They are worthy, therefore, to be set in the highest degree as to value and to be received with heartiness as the language of fatherly affection.
These verses are found in the Book of Proverbs—let them pass current as Proverbs in the Church of God as they did in Israel of old. Let them be “familiar in our mouths as household words.” Let them be often quoted, frequently weighed, and then carried into daily practice. God grant that this particular text may become proverbial in this Church from this day forward. May the Holy Spirit impress it on every memory and heart! May it be embodied in all our lives!
If you will look steadily at the text, you will see, first, the prescribed course of the godly man—“Be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long.” Secondly, you will note the probable interruption of that course. It occurred in those past ages, and it still occurs—“Let not your heart envy sinners.” We are often tempted to repine because the wicked prosper. When we do, the fear of the Lord within us is disturbed, and envious thoughts arise—which will lead on to murmuring and to distrust of our heavenly Father unless they are speedily checked. So foolish and ignorant are we, that we lose our walk with God by fretting because of evildoers.
Thirdly, we shall notice, before we close, the helpful consideration which may enable us to hold on our way and to cease from fretting about the proud prosperity of the ungodly—“For surely there is an end, and your expectation shall not be cut off.”
I. THE PRESCRIBED COURSE OF THE BELIEVER
“Be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long!” The fear of the Lord is a brief description for true religion. It is an inward condition causing hearty submission to our heavenly Father. It consists very much in a holy reverence of God and a sacred awe of Him. This is accompanied by a child-like trust in Him which leads to loving obedience, tender submission, and lowly adoration. It is a filial fear. Not the fear which has torment, but that which accompanies joy when we “rejoice with trembling.”
We must, first of all, be in the fear of God before we can remain in it “all the day long.” This can never be our condition except as the fruit of the new birth. To be in the fear of the Lord, “you must be born again.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as we are taught by the Holy Spirit, who is the sole Author of all Grace. Where this fear exists, it is the token of eternal life and it proves the abiding indwelling of the Holy Spirit. “Happy is the man that fears always.” “The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him.”
This holy fear of the living God is the life of God showing itself in the quickened ones. This fear, according to the text, is for all the day and for every day—the longest day is not to be too long for our reverence, nor for our obedience. If our days are lengthened until the day of life declines into the evening of old age, still are we to be in the fear of God—yes, as the day grows longer, our holy fear must be deeper. This is contrary to the habit of those persons who have a religion of show. They are very fine, very holy, very devout—when anybody looks at them—but this is the love of human approbation, not the fear of the Lord.
The Pharisee, with a half-penny in one hand and a trumpet in the other, is a picture of the man who gives an alms only that his praises may be sounded forth. The Pharisee, standing at the corner of the street, saying his prayers, is a picture of the man who never prays in secret but is very glib in pious assemblies. “Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.” Show religion is a vain show! Do nothing to be seen of men or you will ripen into a mere hypocrite.
Neither may we regard godliness as something off the common—an extraordinary thing. Have not a religion of spasms. We have heard of men and women who have been singularly excellent on one occasion, but never again—they blazed out like comets, the wonders of a season—and they disappeared like comets, never to be seen again. Religion produced at high pressure for a supreme occasion is not a healthy growth. We need an ordinary, common, everyday godliness, which may be compared to the light of the fixed stars, which shines forevermore.
Religion must not be thought of as something apart from daily life—it should be the most vital part of our existence. Our praying should be like our breathing, natural and constant. Our communion with God should be like our taking of food, a happy and natural privilege. Brethren, it is a great pity when people draw a hard and fast line across their life, dividing it into the sacred and the secular. Say not, “This is religion and the other is business,” but sanctify all things.
II. THE PROBABLE INTERRUPTION
It has happened to godly men in all ages to see the wicked prosper, and they have been staggered by the sight. You see a man who has no conscience making money in your trade while you make none. Sometimes you think that your conscientiousness hinders you—and I hope it is nothing else. You see another person scheming and cheating—to him, honesty is mere policy and Sunday labor is no difficulty, for the Word of God is nothing to him. You cannot do as he does and therefore you do not seem to get on as he does.
But let not his prosperity grieve you. There is something better to live for than mere money-making. If your life pleases God, let it please you. Never envy the ungodly. Suppose God allows them to succeed—what then? You should no more envy them than you envy fat bullocks the ribbons which adorn them at the show. They are ready for the slaughter! Do you wish yourself in their place? The fate of the prosperous sinner is one to be dreaded—he is set on high to be cast down.
III. THE HELPFUL CONSIDERATION
The text says, “For surely there is an end, and your expectation shall not be cut off.” First, then, there is an end of this life. These things are not forever—on the contrary, all that we see is a dissolving view. Surely, every man walks in a vain show—even as a show it is vain. You talk of spiritual things as though they were shadows, but in very truth, these are the only substance! Temporal things are as the mirage of the desert. The things about us are such stuff as dreams are made of, and when we truly awake, we shall despise their image.
In all wealth and honor, there is a worm and a moth. Think of the sinner’s end and you will no longer be troubled when he spreads himself like a green bay tree. Next, there is an end of the worldling’s prosperity. He makes his money. What then? He makes more. What then? He makes more. What then? He dies, and there is a little notice in the newspaper which says that he died worth so much, which, being interpreted, means that he was taken away from so much which he never possessed but guarded for his heir. There is an end in death and after death the judgment—“for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing.”
May the Holy Spirit speak these things home to your hearts! Christian people ought to be exceedingly glad, for if they have but a small estate, they have it on an endless tenure! The worldling may have a large house, but he has it only upon a short lease—he will soon have nothing. But the Believer has a freehold. What he has is his without reserve. “Their inheritance shall be forever.” By faith, grasp the eternal! Treasure the spiritual! Rejoice in God and “be in the fear of the Lord all the day long.”
God grant you this in His great Grace, for Christ’s sake! Amen.