The Tender Inquiry of a Friend No
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Sermon #2025 Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1 THE TENDER INQUIRY OF A FRIEND NO. 2025 A SERMON DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. “How long will you cut yourself?” Jeremiah 47:5. TRAVELERS in the East tell us that among the most melancholy scenes they witness are the follow- ing—Men inflict upon themselves very grievous, voluntary wounds and then exhibit themselves in pub- lic. They even disfigure themselves with gashes and cuts in the presence of excited throngs. I am speak- ing of what has occurred even within the last few years among the Muslims. When some great prophet or emir is coming that way, a certain number of fanatical Mahometans take swords, spears, and other sharp instruments, and gash themselves terribly with them, cutting their breasts, their faces, their heads, and all parts of their bodies. Frequently they have taken care to dress themselves in white sheets, in or- der that, as the blood flows copiously from their bodies, it may be the more clearly seen, that they may become the more ghastly spectacles of misery, or more fully display the religious excitement under which they labor. As everything in the East remains forever the same, this Muslim superstition carries us back to the olden times whereof we read in the Old Testament, when the priests of Baal, having cried in vain to their idol, cut themselves with lances and with knives. Our translators were probably afraid to write the harsher words, and so they translated the passage “knives and lances,” but they might have written swords and spears—sharp instruments of a desperate character. Thus they displayed their inward zeal, and thus, perhaps, they hoped to move the pity of their god. Eastern fanaticism surpasses belief; you would suppose that the raving creatures were about to commit suicide, and yet there is a method in their madness. You could hardly think that men possessed of reason would torture themselves and dis- figure themselves as they do, but they know what they are doing, and are only carrying out their pro- gram. The Lord expressly forbade His people, the Jews, to perpetrate such folly. They were not even to shave the corners of their beards, or to hack their hair, as the Orientals do in the hour of their grief, and then they were further prohibited from injuring their bodies by the command, “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord” (Lev 19:28). Men in Eastern lands, not only in connection with fanaticism, but in reference to domestic affairs, will cut them- selves to express their grief and anguish, or to make other people believe that they are feeling such grief and anguish. We may congratulate ourselves that we are free from at least one foolish custom. The prophet here speaks to the Philistines who were about to endure the tremendous judgments of God, and, indeed, to be crushed as a nation by the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, and he says to Philistia, “How long will you cut yourself?” Gaza was to be made bald by the smiting of Pharaoh, Ashkelon was to be shorn away, and the whole nation was to feel the sword of the Lord, which would not rest in its scabbard. How long would they continue to bring upon themselves such terrible judgments? The expression is used, first, almost in despair . The question is asked with little hope; as if the self- torturer would never have done, but would go on to mutilate himself without end. I intend to use it at this time, in the second place, as a question asked instructively and hopefully, in the hope that some, who have practically been cutting themselves, will cease from this self-torture, and find rest and peace where it is to be had, and to be had at once and forever. May the good Spirit grant our desire! I. First, dear friends, I SHALL ASK THIS QUESTION VERY DESPAIRINGLY—“How long will you cut yourself?”—for many are cutting themselves very terribly, and will have to feel the wounds for a long, long time, neither can we induce them to cease. I allude first, to some professors of religion who have been church members for ten, twenty, or more years, and yet have practically done nothing at all for the Savior. If they were really to awaken to a sense of their neglect, I do not know how long they would be in anguish, or how deep would be their Volume 34 Tell someone how much you love Jesus Christ. 1 2 The Tender Inquiry of a Friend Sermon #2025 distress, for if Titus mourned that he had lost a day when he had done no good action for twenty-four hours, and he but a heathen, what would happen to a Christian if he were really to see his responsibility before God, and to feel that he has not only lost a day but a year—perhaps many years? Have not some of you well-near lost a whole lifetime? What hosts of opportunities you have thrown away! What multi- plied responsibilities you have incurred! Favored as you have been, and so ungrateful! Comforted as you have been, and yet keeping the comfort to yourself, and never seeking out other lonely hearts to share with them the heavenly balm! Instructed as you have been, and yet instructing none in return! With light divine shining upon you, and yet never giving that light to others!— “Can we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high, Can we, to men benighted, The lamp of life deny?” The good Bishop’s hymn asks the question as if it were impossible. But, no, sirs, it is not impossible. It is sadly true, and alas, commonly true! Our churches are made up largely of barren members, and of cumber-ground trees that bring forth no fruit. Oh, if I am addressing such—and honestly in the sight of God I fear I am—then how long will you chasten yourselves for your neglect? It must be long before you can forgive yourselves for such wicked indolence. How long will you afflict yourselves to think that you should have suffered time which you can never recall, and opportunities which you will never enjoy again, to go by you wasted? The miller puts his wheel hard by the stream, and uses its constant flow to grind his corn, but you have a stream of opportunity and power flowing by you, which you have turned to no practical service. Your tears might well be as plentiful as the drops of the wasted stream of life. Some of you stand by, and listen to the hum of the wheel, and admire the liquid music of the falling wa- ters, but nothing practical comes of it. Your taste is gratified, and your conscience is eased by attending religious services, but there is nothing done for Christ—nothing done for the souls of men. Like little children with their toy windmills, you are amused with that which, if you were true men, you would turn to good account. Are you not ashamed to have been playing, while God and heaven, and even Satan and hell, are all so terribly in earnest? You have come to years of discretion, when “Life is real, life is ear- nest,” and you have still trifled. Can you ever be sorry enough for this? How long will you cut yourself? Ah, me! I think I should eternally regret it if up till now I had never preached the gospel of the grace of God. Ah, me! If it had not been God’s good pleasure to let me break out as a soul-winner while yet a boy, I could lay me down upon my bed, and wish that I had never been born. If I had reached the very center of life, and yet had done nothing to reclaim and restore the sons of men, and glorify the Lord my Redeemer, I should tear my hair. Do I address any who have come to the noon of life, and have not yet done a hand’s turn in my Lord’s vineyard? The dew of the morning is gone, and the best hours of the day have glided away; why do you stand here all the day idle? Do I make you feel uncomfortable? I shall thank God if I do, and I shall be happy, indeed, if, instead of cutting yourselves with vain regrets, you lacerate yourselves with my sharp remarks as with spears and knives, and then gird up your loins, and say, “God helping me, there shall never be another wasted year, no, nor another wasted day!” Then I shall be rejoiced, indeed. Oh, how I wish each one of you would pray— “Let every flying hour confess I bring Your gospel fresh renown, And when my life and labors cease May I possess the promised crown!” But, lazy professors, when will you have done with your regretting if your conscience is once aroused? If you are once moved to see what cause you have for shame, surely you will never leave off cutting yourselves with regrets? And yet, what will be the use of your lamentations unless they lead you to amendments, and from sluggards you become laborers? Let us hope it will be so, but I am not very hopeful, for it is hard to make long habits of indolence yield to diligence. The same may be applied, and applied very solemnly, too, to those who backslide —who, in addition to being useless, are injurious, because their example tends to hinder others from coming to Christ.