Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 830
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, September 13, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not.” Hosea 7:9.
THE Prophet here testified that the kingdom of Israel had learned the way of the surrounding heathen, and had polluted itself with their vices, and consequently the strength of the kingdom had decayed. He declares that he could discern signs of this decay—signs as manifest and certain as gray hairs which mark the decline of life—yet the inhabitants of the realm of Israel had not observed their decline, but had boasted of their strength when all the while it was departing from them. We need not go into any particulars as to that little kingdom which after awhile was swept away by Assyria, but there is no doubt that what happened unto them happens unto many a nation—it may happen unto our own! Before we are aware of it the scepter may depart from Britain. A general laxity of commercial morality may, by degrees, sap and undermine the foundation of our commerce and before we are aware, our industry may be crippled, our trade withdrawn and our position among the nations debased. If so, we shall fall by our sins, and by our sins alone.
Certainly such has often been the case with churches. It was notoriously so with that presided over by the bishop of Rome. The sins of that modern Babylon came not all at once, but by slow degrees. First, it submitted itself to one vain dogma of man’s invention. Then to a superstitious decree of a haughty council. Then to a third invention of a potent pontiff—and so by degrees the church apostatized until it ceased to be a church and became the persecutor of the saints!
Thus after their own fashion has it been with some of our churches at home. Zealous and active, prayerful and united, they grew every day like cedars which the Lord has planted and they were a blessing to the neighborhood in which they stood. But discord crept in, or worldliness, or pride—and by-and-by the Holy Spirit departed—the ministry became barren, the people looked up to the shepherd and they were not fed. Soon the church was scattered abroad, the light was blown out and the place that once was blessed by the Church knew it no more. May this never be written in the history of this church! May gray hairs never come upon its head at all, or if they should come may we have Divine Grace to perceive them at once, and resort unto the Holy Spirit for strength so that we may be saved from driveling into imbecility or apostatizing into error!
But I shall not discourse of nations this morning, nor yet of churches. To handle such extensive themes might rather interest than edify. I shall now speak of individuals. Brothers and Sisters, let us turn our thoughts to ourselves. It is an excellent rule for the hearer as well as the minister concerning a text, to apply himself to the text, and then, secondly, to apply the text to himself. Keep your thoughts to the text, and then when you have drawn out its meaning, let all that it has to say be spoken in your own ears as addressed personally to you. I pray that God the Holy Spirit may stir us up to self-examination—that if any strange sin or evil passion may have devoured our strength—at any rate we may know it and drive out the traitor at once!
First, this morning, I shall endeavor to explain the reason for the ignorance mentioned in the text, “yet he knows not.” Secondly, I shall hold up the glass, that every Ephraim here may see his gray hairs. And then, thirdly, I shall recommend remedies for this gradual decay.
I. Let me EXPLAIN THE IGNORANCE here mentioned, or show how it is that many a man is backsliding and declining in Divine Grace and yet knows it not. I take it that this often is caused by a lack of acquaintance with one’s own soul. It is said that in London we do not know our next door neighbors but it is a stranger thing that we should not know ourselves—that the soul should be so closely allied to the body as to be even married to it—and yet man scarcely gives his nobler part a thought—but lives as if he were a horse or a cow!
You have never seen your soul, and yet it is yourself! How is it you have lived so long, O man, without giving to your immortal spirit some consideration, some hours of thought, some studious moments? And you, O Christian, how is it that you, saved as you profess to be by a price immense—you who have received quickening from the Holy Spirit—that you think so little of soul affairs? We open our eyes in the morning, and right on until we close them at night we scarcely look for anything but that which is external and of the body. Would it not be well if we could open our spiritual eyes, too, and gaze into ourselves and understand what business is going on in the world of souls—what vice increases or what virtue declines within our hearts?