Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 680
Delivered on Sunday Morning, March 11, 1866
“I do remember my faults this day.” Genesis 41:9.
No single power or faculty of man escaped damage at the Fall—while the affections were polluted, the will was made perverse, the judgment was shifted from its proper balance, and the memory lost much of its power and more of its integrity. Every observing mind will have noticed that naturally we have a greater power for remembering evil than good. Very plain is this in your children. If you mention anything good in their hearing you had need to say it many times and very plainly before they are likely to remember it. But if one ill word shall casually meet their ear in the street, it will not be long before you have the pain of hearing them repeat it.
Our memory is like theirs, only in proportion as it is developed this peculiarity is more manifest. We have a most convenient warehouse for storing the merchandise of evil, but the priceless jewels of goodness are readily stolen from their case. We have a fireproof safe for worthless matters, and enclose the rarest gems in mere pasteboard cases. Our memory, like a strainer, often suffers the good wine to pass through but retains all the dregs. It holds the bad in an iron grasp and plays with good till it slips through the fingers. Our memories, like ourselves, have done the things which they ought not to have done, and have left undone the things which they ought to have done—and there is no health in them.
Among other things, it is not always easy to remember our faults. We have special and particular reasons for not wishing to be too often reminded of them. Few men care to keep their faults in the front room of the house. Underground, in the darkest cellar, and, if possible with the door locked and the key lost—it is there we would like to conceal our faults from ourselves. If, however, the Grace of God has entered into a man he will pray that he may remember his faults and he will ask Divine Grace that if he should forget any excellences which he once supposed he had, he may not forget his defects, his sins, his infirmities and his transgressions. He would have them constantly before him that he may be humbled by them and led to seek pardon for them and help to overcome them.
I do not say that the butler in this case had any work of Divine Grace in his heart, but I shall use him as an illustration and hope by using my watchman’s rattle, to wake up some of your sleepy memories, for there are thieves about, and you are being robbed without knowing it! It will be a healthy result to us all if we shall be compelled to say at the end of this sermon, “I do remember my faults this day.”
In the first place this morning, using the butler as our illustration, we shall state his faults. Secondly, we shall consider the circumstances which refreshed his memory. And, thirdly we shall show the good points in his remembrance.
I. We shall first call your attention to the BUTLER’S FAULTS, for his faults are ours, only ours are on a larger scale. “I do remember my faults this day.” His particular fault was that he had forgotten Joseph—having promised to remember him when it should be well with him—he had altogether overlooked the circumstances which occurred in the prison. Instead he had been enjoying himself and leaving his friend to pine in obscurity.
Here, then, is the first fault—the butler had forgotten a friend. That is never a thing to be said to a man’s praise. We ought to write the deeds of friendship as much as possible in marble—and that man is unworthy of esteem who can readily forget favors received. Joseph had done all that he could to make the butler’s sojourn in prison comfortable. It was hard, that so soon as the butler had escaped from prison his friend Joseph had escaped his memory. Save us from men who can so easily forget!
But you and I have a Friend! We call Him very dear. We are accustomed to speak of Him in very rapturous terms. We declare that no others have such a Friend as we have. We have made our boast that there is none other that deserves the name in comparison with Him whom we call our best Beloved. And yet how many of us have forgotten Him?! His name we know, His nature we understand, His blessings we sometimes rejoice in—but frequently His Divine Person, His blessed self—alas, how cold our love to Him! This fault will not strike the carnal mind as being a great one, but in proportion as our hearts are spiritual and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we shall feel it a great and grievous sin to have in any measure forgotten our best Friend.
The circumstances were these—the butler was in prison, and then this friend came to him and spoke comfortably to him. Do you remember when you were in prison? I never can forget when I was bound in fetters far harder, heavier, and more painful to wear than fetters of iron. It was a dark dungeon, without a ray of light. There was no rest in it neither night nor day. A certain fearful looking for judgment and of fiery indignation haunted that gloomy cell. I struggled to be free, but the more I struggled the more hard did my bondage become. I was as one in the deep mire, who, by every struggle only sinks himself the more hopelessly in it.