Sermon Tone Analysis

ON LAYING FOUNDATIONS

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 21ST, 1883, BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.

But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.”—Luke

6:46–49.

THESE parables describe two classes of hearers; but they say nothing of those who are not hearers.

Their position and prospects we must infer from what is said of hearers.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to tell us of the Father’s love, and never man spake as he spake, and yet there are many who refuse to hear him.

I do not mean those who are far away, to whom the name of Jesus is well-nigh unknown, but I mean persons in this land, and especially in this great and highly-favoured city, who wilfully refuse to hear him whom God has anointed to bring tidings of salvation.

Our Lord Jesus is proclaimed, I was about to say, upon the house-tops in this city; for even in their music-halls and theatres Christ is preached to the multitude, and at the corners of our streets his banner is lifted up; and yet there are tens of thousands to whom the preaching of the gospel is as music in the ears of a corpse.

They shut their ears and will not hear, though the testimony be concerning God’s own Son, and life eternal, and the way to escape from everlasting wrath.

To their own best interests, to their eternal benefit, men are dead: nothing will secure their attention to their God.

To what, then, are these men like?

They may fitly be compared to the man who built no house whatever, and remained homeless by day and shelterless by night.

When worldly trouble comes like a storm those persons who will not hear the words of Jesus have no consolation to cheer them; when sickness comes they have no joy of heart to sustain them under its pains; and when death, that most terrible of storms, beats upon them they feel its full fury, but they cannot find a hiding place.

They neglect the housing of their souls, and when the hurricane of almighty wrath shall break forth in the world to come they will have no place of refuge.

In vain will they call upon the rocks to fall upon them, and the mountains to cover them.

They shall be in that day without a shelter from the righteous wrath of the Most High.

Alas, that any being who wears the image of man should be found in such a plight!

Homeless wanderers in the day of tempest!

How my soul grieves for them!

Yet, what excuse will those men invent who have refused even to know the way of salvation?

What excuse can the tenderest heart make for them?

Will they plead that they could not believe?

Yet they may not say that they could not hear; and faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Oh my friend, if the word of God comes to you, and you decline to hear it, and therefore do not believe in Jesus, but die in your sins, what is this but soul-suicide?

If a man die of a disease when infallible medicine is to be had, must not his death lie at his own door?

If a man perish of hunger when bread is all around him and others feed to the full, and he will not have it, will any man pity him?

Surely not a drop of pity will be yielded to a lost soul wherewith he may assuage the torment of his conscience, for all holy intelligences will perceive that the sinner chose his own destruction.

This shall ever press upon the condemned conscience, “You knew the gospel, but you did not attend to it: you knew that there, was salvation, and that Christ was the Saviour, and that pardon was proclaimed to guilty men, but you would not afford time from your farm and from your merchandise, from your pleasures and from your sins, to learn how you could be saved.

That which cost God so dear you treated as a trifle.

Ah, my dear friends, may none of you belong to the non-hearing class.

It is not to such that I shall this morning address myself, and yet I could not enter upon my discourse without a word of loving expostulation with them.

Let me part with them by quoting the warning word of the Holy Spirit, “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.

For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.”

Our earnest attention will now be given to those who are hearers of the word, and are somewhat affected by it.

All hearers are builders of houses for their souls: they are each one doing something to set up a spiritual habitation.

Some of these go a considerable distance in this house-building, and even crown the structure by publicly confessing Christ.

They say unto him, “Lord, Lord”: they meet with his followers, and join with them in reverence to the Master’s name; but they do not obey the Lord; they hear him, but they fail to do the things which he says.

Hence they are mistaken builders, who fail in the foundation, and make nothing sure except that their house will come down about their ears.

Others there are, and we trust they will be found to be many among us, who are building rightly, building for eternity; constructing a dwelling-place with basis of rock, and walls of well-built stone, of which the Lord Christ is both foundation and corner-stone.

I am anxious to speak at this time to those who are just beginning to build for eternity.

I am indeed happy to know that there are many such among us.

May the Holy Spirit bless this sermon to them.

I. Our first subject will be A COMMON TEMPTATION WITH SPIRITUAL BUILDERS.

A common temptation with hearers of the word, according to the two parables before us, is to neglect foundation-work, to get hurriedly over the first part of the business, and run up the building quickly.

They are tempted to assume that all is done which is said to be done; to take it for granted that all is right which is hoped to be right; and then to go on piling up the walls as rapidly as possible.

The great temptation, I say, with young beginners in religious life, is to scamp the foundation, and treat those things lightly which are of the first importance.

The same temptation comes to us throughout the whole of life, but to young beginners it is especially perilous: Satan would have them neglect the fundamental principles upon which their future hope and character are to rest, so that in a future trying hour, from want of a solid foundation, they may yield to evil, and lose the whole of their life-building.

This temptation is all the more dangerous, first, because these young beginners have no experience.

Even the most experienced child of God is often deceived; how much more the pilgrim who has but just entered the wicket-gate!

The tried saint sometimes mistakes that for a virtue which is only a gilded fault, and he fancies that to be genuine which is mere counterfeit; how, then, without any experience whatever, can the mere babe in grace escape deception unless he be graciously preserved?

Newly awakened, and rendered serious, earnest hearts get to work in the divine life with much hurry, seizing upon that which first comes to hand, building in heedless haste, without due care and examination.

Something must be done, and they do it without asking whether it is according to the teaching of the Lord.

They call Jesus “Lord”; but they do what others say rather than what Jesus says.

Satan is sure to be at hand at such times that he may lead the young convert to lay in place of gospel repentance a repentance that needs to be repented of, and instead of the faith of God’s elect a proud presumption or an idle dream.

For that love of God which is the work of the Spirit of God he brings mere natural affection for a minister; and he says, “There, that will do: you must have a house for your soul to dwell in.

There are the materials, pile them up.”

Like children at play upon the beach, the anxious heap up their sand-castles, and please themselves therewith, for they are ignorant of Satan’s devices.

I am for this cause doubly anxious to save my beloved young friends from the deceiver.

The common temptation is, instead of really repenting, to talk about repentance; instead of heartily believing, to say, “I believe,” without believing; instead of truly loving, to talk of love, without loving; instead of coming to Christ, to speak about coming to Christ, and profess to come to Christ, and yet not to come at all.

The character of Talkative in Pilgrim’s Progress is ably drawn.

I have met the gentleman many times, and can bear witness that John Bunyan was a photographer before photography was invented.

Christian said of him “He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them.

I have been in his family, and his house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour.”

We have too many such persons around us who are, as to what they say, everything that is to be desired, and yet, by what they are proven to be, mere shams.

As tradesmen place dummies in their shops, papered and labelled to look like goods, while yet they are nothing of the sort, so are these men marked and labelled as Christians, but the grace of God is not in them.

Oh that you young beginners may be on the alert, that you be not content with the form of godliness, but are made to feel the power of it.

There is this to help the temptation too, that this plan for the present saves a great deal of trouble.

Your mind is distressed, and you want comfort; well, it will comfort you to say, “Lord, Lord,” though you do not the things that Christ says.

If you admit the claims of Jesus to be Lord, even though you do not believe on him for salvation, and so neglect the main thing which he commands, yet you will find some ease in the admission.

He bids you repent of sin, trust his blood, love his word, and seek after holiness; but it is much easier to admire these things without following after them in your life.

To feign repentance and faith is not difficult, but genuine godliness is heart-work, and requires thought, care, sincerity, prayerfulness, and watchfulness.

Believe me, real religion is no sport.

He that would be saved will find it to be no jesting matter.

“The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence”; and he that is easy about the thing, and thinks it is nothing more than the conjuror’s “Heigh, presto, done,” has made a fatal mistake.

“Strive,” saith Christ, “to enter into the strait gate.”

The Spirit striveth in us mightily, and often works us to an agony.

The crown of eternal glory is not won without fighting, nor the prize of our high calling received without running; yet by just making a holy profession, and by practising an outward form, a man imagines that the same result is produced as by seeking the Lord with his whole heart, and believing in the Lord Jesus.

If it were so, there would be a fine broad road to heaven, and Satan himself would turn pilgrim.

Believe me, dear hearers, this saving of trouble will turn out to be a making of trouble, and, before matters end, the hardest way will turn out to be the easiest way.

This kind of building without foundation has this advantage to back up the temptation,—it enables a man to run up a religion very quickly.

He makes splendid progress.

While the anxious heart is searching after truth in the inward parts, and begging to be renewed by grace, his exulting friend is as happy as he can be in a peace which he has suddenly obtained without question or examination.

This rapid grower never asks, “Has my religion changed my conduct?

Is my faith attended by a new nature?

Does the Spirit of God dwell in me?

Am I really what I profess to be, or am I but a bastard professor after all?” No, he puts aside all enquiry as a temptation of the devil.

He takes every good thing for granted, and votes that all is gold which glitters.

See how fast he goes!

The fog is dense, but he steams through it, heedless of danger!

He has joined the church: he has commenced work for God: he is boasting of his own attainments: he hints that he is perfect.

But is this mushroom building safe?

Will it pass muster in the last great survey?

Will it stand should a tempest happen?

The chimney-shaft is tall, but is it safe?

Ay, there’s the rub.