Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1936
“They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept.” Song of Solomon 1:6.
The text is spoken in the first person singular—“They made me.” Therefore let the preaching, tonight, be personal to you, dear Friends—personal to the preacher, first, and then to each one of this mixed multitude. May we at this hour think less of others than of ourselves! May the sermon be of practical value to our own hearts! I do not suppose that it will be a pleasing sermon. On the other hand it may be a saddening one. I may bring unhappy memories before you, but let us not be afraid of that holy sorrow which is health to the soul. Since the spouse in this text speaks of herself, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept,” let each one of us copy her example and think of ourselves.
The text is the language of complaint. We are all pretty ready at complaining, especially of other people. Not much good comes of picking holes in other men’s characters and yet many spend hours in that unprofitable occupation! It will be well for us, at this time, to let our complaint, like that of the text, deal with ourselves. If there is something wrong at home, let the father blame himself. If there is something evil with the children, let the mother look to her own personal conduct as their instructor. Do not let us lend out our ears, but let us keep them at home for our own use. Let us clear out an open passage to the heart so that everything that is said shall go down into the spirit—and purify our inner man. Let us from the heart make the confession—“They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not
kept.”
Let us make the text practical. Do not let us be satisfied to have uttered the language of complaint, but let us get rid of the evils which we deplore. If we have been wrong, let us labor to be right. If we have neglected our own vineyard, let us confess it with due humiliation, but let us not continue to neglect it. Let us ask God that holy results may flow out of our self-lamentations so that before many days we may begin to keep our own vineyards carefully by the Grace of God! And then we shall better carry out the office of keeper of the vineyards of others, if we are called to such an employment.
There are two things upon which I am going to dwell at this time. The first is that there are many Christian people—I hope they are Christian people—who will be compelled to confess that the greater part of their life is spent in labor which is not of the highest kind and is not properly their own. I shall point out the worker who has forgotten his heavenly calling. And when I have done with this case—and I am afraid that there will be much about it that may touch many of us—I shall then take a more general view and deal with any who are undertaking other works and neglecting their own proper vocation.
I. First, then, let me begin with THE CHRISTIAN WHO HAS FORGOTTEN HIS HIGH AND HEAVENLY CALLING. In the day when you and I were born again, my Brothers and Sisters, we were born for God. In the day when we saw that Christ died for us, we were bound, from that day on, to be dead to the world. In the day when we were quickened by the Holy Spirit into newness of life, that life was bound to be a consecrated one. For a thousand reasons it is true that, “You are not your own: you are bought with a price.” The ideal Christian is one who has been made alive with a life which he lives for God. He has risen out of the dominion of the world, the flesh and the devil. He reckons that “if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not, from this day on, live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” This you will not deny. Christian Friends, you admit that you have a high, holy and heavenly calling!
Now let us look back. We have not spent our life idly—we have been forced to be keepers of the vineyards. I hope I am not addressing anybody here who has tried to live without employment and labor of some kind. No, we have worked and we have worked hard. Most men speak of their wages as “hard-earned,” and I believe that in many cases they speak the bare truth. Many hours in the day have to be spent upon our occupations. We wake up in the morning and think of what we have to do. We go to bed wearied at night by what we have done. This is as it should be, for God did not make us that we might sport and play like leviathan in the deep. Even in Paradise man was told to dress the garden. There is something to be done by each man and specially by each Christian.
Come back to what I began with. In the day when we were born again, as many of us as are new creatures in Christ Jesus, we began to live to God and not to ourselves. Have we carried out that life? We have worked, we have even worked hard—but the questions come to us—What have we worked for? Who has been our master? With what objective have we toiled? Of course, if I have been true to my profession as a Christian, I have lived and worked for God, for Christ, for the Kingdom of Heaven. But has it been so? And is it so now? Many are working very hard for wealth, which means, of course, for self, that they may be enriched. Some are working simply for compensation which means, if it goes no farther, still for self. Others work for their families, a motive good enough in its way, but still only an enlargement, after all, of