Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1383
Delivered on Thursday Evening, November 8, 1877
“Let us not be weary in doing good: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9.
[At a Convention of the Sunday School Union.]
THIS verse occurs in the Epistle to the Galatians, which so plainly sets forth the grand doctrine of Justification by Faith and teaches us most plainly that salvation is not of works, but of Grace. As if to confuse forever those who say that the doctrine of Free Grace is unpractical, the Apostle, before he closes his Epistle, exhorts Believers to labor. And in the verse before us gives us a sentence worthy to be printed in letters of gold and hung up forever before the eyes of all Christian workers, “Be not weary in doing good.” It is true, my Brothers and Sisters, that you are not to save yourselves by doing good. Your motive is not selfish, but because you are saved already, you desire to manifest the power of gratitude and to prove to all the world that those who receive a free salvation are the very men who most cheerfully labor to please God and to bring glory to His name. O you who are debtors to infinite mercy, “Be not weary in doing good.”
The Apostle, at the time he wrote our text, had in his mind’s eye the doing good which, by its alms, does good unto all men and, also, that kindness which leads hearers of the Gospel to communicate in all good things unto him that teaches. Truly it is easy to be weary in these matters. Giving alms is certainly disheartening work. One is so continually being deceived that giving to the poor becomes a weary business. Impostors abound on all sides! This city of London swarms with impostors who would deceive Solomon himself. I do not wonder that men are driven to organize their charity—but which frequently means bringing it to an end!
The tendency is to excuse themselves because at some time or other they have been victimized. A cruel hardness is abroad which talks philosophy and renounces giving alms for fear of disturbing our delightful social economy. Alms giving, if we are to believe some men, has become a crime and the truly good man is he who never interferes with the work of the poor. To these people it seems odd that our Lord should have commended anything so inconsistent with political economy as giving to the poor! According to the modern school, we may expect those to be blessed who see people hungry and give them no meat, thirsty and give them no drink, sick and in prison and never visit them because hungry people should go to the parish and thirsty people to the pump!
I trust, however, that the Christian spirit which is pitiful to the poor will never die out among us and that, notwithstanding all the difficulties under which we may have to labor, we may not be weary in doing good, for despite all deceits and impositions, in due season we shall reap if we faint not. I am sure I shall not be wrong in taking the text from its immediate connection and applying it to the work of Sunday schools, for, first of all, I am sure, Brothers and Sisters, that your work is well described in the text—it is doing good.
Secondly, I am equally clear that you are liable to the evils mentioned here, which are common to all Christian service—weariness and faintness. And it is equally clear that the consolation and encouragement of the text may truthfully be enjoyed by you. “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
I. First, then, I know you will all agree with me that YOUR WORK IS WELL DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT. It may be set forth in so many words as doing good. You entered upon it because you felt it to be so and you continue in it for the same reason. Another description of Christian work is implied in the promise of reaping—your work is sowing. Take the two ideas of doing good and sowing and they will both be found to be exceedingly well embodied in holy labor among the young. Sunday school work is doing good. How can it be otherwise, for it is an act of obedience! I trust you
have entered upon it because you call Jesus your Master and Lord and you wish to fulfill the great command, “Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
You find children to be creatures—fallen creatures—but still lovable little things, full of vigor, life and glee. You see them to be a component part of the race and you conclude at once that your Master’s command applies to them. You are not like the disciples who would put them back, for you have learned from their mistake and you remember the words of their Master and yours, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not.” You know, too, that “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He has ordained strength because of the adversary,” so that you are sure that He included the little ones in the general commission when He said, “Preach the Gospel to every creature.”