Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3108
“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting.” Ecclesiastes 7:2.
THE maxim that happiness lies between two extremes is, I believe, the dictate of prudence and has the sanction of God’s Word. The ancients always spoke of this as being the most happy state of life. Somewhere between the two extremes of ecstatic joy and doleful melancholy lies the thing we call, “happiness.” Ancient poets used to sing of the via media, or the middle way. We know that Agur, an Inspired writer, prayed to God that He would give him “neither poverty nor riches,” that he might walk in the middle way of life. And as the medium with regard to wealth is to be preferred, so I believe the middle way is to be chosen with regard to happiness. In the green plains between two high hills is the place where happiness generally resides. The man who is not often lifted up with joy, nor often depressed in spirit through grief—who walks through the world in a calm and quiet atmosphere, bearing about with him a holy complacency, a calm serenity and an almost uniformity—that man is a happy man! He who journeys along without mounting up as an eagle, or without diving down into the depths of the sea—he who keeps along the even tenor of his way to his death is entitled to the name of a happy man.
But, my Friends, I think it falls to the lot of very few of us to always stay there. I know it does not fall to my portion to always walk between the two extremes. I cannot always sing in the vale, like Bunyan’s shepherd boy—I wish I could live there, but I cannot. There is a high mountain on that side of the valley, and another on this side—and I have to climb the steep sides of both those mountains. On the brow of the hill on that side there stands a fantastic structure, very much like those fairy palaces which we fabricate in our dreams by the aid of the architect of fancy. And this is called “the house of feasting.” On the other side of the valley of mediocrity stands a gloomy castle overhung with damp weeds and moss. It looks like one of those desolate places where superstition has fabled that old giant used to live—it is called “the house of mourning.” We have, most of us, to go alternately to each of these houses. Sometimes we are rejoicing in “the house of feasting.” At other times we are weeping in the castle of mourning, hanging down our heads like bulrushes and crying, “Alas, alas!”
Standing thus, in the middle of the plain, as I profess to do this morning, I am about to speak to you of both those places—of that fantastic structure there and of the gloomy castle here. And though bright-eyed cheerfulness would prompt me to say that “it is better to go to the house of feasting than to go to the house of mourning,” with the Word of Inspiration before me I trust to be able to show that “the Preacher” spoke the Truth of God when he said, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting.”
In order that I may set this Truth of God in as clear a light as possible, I shall first invite you to go with me to “the house of feasting’” Then to “the house of mourning’” And after that we will examine two or three verses which succeed the text and look at the wise man’s reasons for preferring “the house of mourning” to “the house of feasting.”
I. First, WE WILL GO TO “THE HOUSE OF FEASTING,” and I am sure that I shall have abundance of company if I invite you to go there!
You never need go alone to a feast. Simply blow the trumpet of announcement. Simply tell the people we are going to “the house of feasting” and they are all ready to go there! There is a joyous spark in every man’s breast which at once ignites his soul and he says, “If you are about to go to a feast, I will go with you! If there is joy in any cup, let me drink of it!” I am going to “the house of feasting” and I shall take you to it in three steps. We shall go to the house of sinful feasting, first of all. Then to the house of innocent feastingand, after that, we will go to the house of spiritual feasting. I trust that we shall find something good in some of those houses, but we shall find nothing as good as in “the house of mourning.”
We are going, first of all, to the house of sinful feasting. No, we are not going inside, but we will look at the outside of the house and hear a little of its history. I would have none of you cross the threshold of that place! But we are going together up the side of the hill to that “house of feasting.” What a crowd I have around me and I seem to be half ashamed of myself! There is the low drunkard and here comes the vile profligate—and they are going to the same house. “Where are you going, Drunkard?” I ask. “I am going to the house of feasting,” he says. “And you, bloated one, where are you going?” “I am going to the house of feasting.” I begin to be ashamed of my company. I fear that whatever the house may be, the people going there are not very choice spirits, and I hardly like to proceed further. I begin to think that the gloomy “house of mourning” is better than “the house of feasting” after all, considering the company that frequent it. I fear that I must turn back at once—I cannot enter there, for I love good company. I would rather go to “the house of mourning” with the children of God! I would rather be chained in a dungeon, wrist to wrist with a Christian, than I would live forever with the wicked in the sunshine of happiness! The company I meet makes me suspect that it is true that “the house of mourning” is better than “the house of feasting.”