Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3381
“I went by the field of the lazy mam, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered its surface, and the stone wall was broken down. Then Isaw, and considered it well: I looked on it and received instruction.” Proverbs 24:30-32.
THIS lazy man did no hurt to his fellow men—he was not a thief, nor a ruffian, nor a meddler in anybody else’s business. He did not trouble himself about other men’s concerns, for he did not even attend to his own—it required too much exertion. He was not grossly vicious. He had not energy enough to care for that. He was one who liked to take things easily. He always let well enough alone and, for the that matter, he let ill alone, too, as the nettles and the thistles in his garden plainly proved! What was the use of disturbing himself? It would be all the same a hundred years hence and so he took things just as they came. He was not a bad man, so some said of him, and yet, perhaps it will be found at last that there is no worse man in the world than the man who is not good, for in some respects he is not good enough to be bad! He has not enough force of character about him to serve either God or Baal. He simply serves himself, worshipping his own ease and adoring his own comfort. Yet he always meant to be right. Dear me, he was not going to sleep much longer, he would only have forty winks more and then he would be at his work—and show you what he could do! One of these days he meant to be thoroughly in earnest and make up for lost time. The time never actually came for him to begin, but it was always coming. He always meant to repent, but he went on in his sin. He meant to believe, but he died an unbeliever. He meant to be a Christian, but he lived without Christ. He halted between two opinions because he could not trouble himself to make up his mind! And so he perished of delay.
This picture of the slothful man and his garden and field overgrown with nettles and weeds represents many a man who has professed to be a Christian, but who has become slothful in the things of God. Spiritual life has withered in him. He has backslidden. He has come down from the condition of healthy spiritual energy into one of listlessness and indifference to the things of God. And while things have gone wrong within his heart and all sorts of mischiefs have come into him and grown up and seeded themselves in him, mischief is also taking place externally in his daily conduct. The stone wall which guarded his character is broken down and he lies open to all evil. Upon this point we will now meditate. “The stone wall was broken down.”
Come, then, let us take a walk with Solomon and stand with him and consider and learn instruction while we look at this broken-down fence. When we have examined it, let us consider the consequences of broken-down walls. And then, in the last place, let us try to wake up this sluggard that his wall may yet be repaired. If this slothful person should be one of ourselves, may God’s Infinite Mercy awaken us before this ruined wall has let in a herd of prowling vices! First, let us take—
I. A Look at This Broken Fence
You will see that in the beginning it was a very good fence, for it was a stone wall. Fields are often surrounded with wooden fences which soon decay, or with hedges which may very easily have gaps made in them. But this was a stone wall. Such walls are very usual in the East and are also common in some of our own counties where stone is plentiful. It was a substantial protection to begin with and well shut in the pretty little estate which had fallen into such bad hands. The man had a field for agricultural purposes and another strip of land for a vineyard or a garden. It was fertile soil, for it produced thorns and nettles in abundance—and where these flourish, better things can be produced—yet the idler took no care of his property, but allowed the wall to get into bad repair and in many places to be quite broken down.
Let me mention some of the stone walls that men permit to be broken down when they backslide. In many cases sound principles were instilled in youth, but these are forgotten. What a blessing is Christian education! Our parents, both by persuasion and example, taught many of us the things that are pure and honest and of good repute. We saw in their lives how to live. They also opened the Word of God before us and they taught us the ways of right both toward God and toward men. They prayed for us and they prayed with us till the things of God were placed round about us, and shut us in as with a stone wall! We have never been able to get rid of our early impressions. Even in times of wandering, before we savingly knew the Lord, these things had a healthy power over us—we were checked when we would have done evil—we were assisted when we were struggling towards Christ. It is very sad when people permit these first principles to be shaken and to be removed like stones which fall from a boundary wall! Young persons begin at first to talk lightly of the old-fashioned ways of their parents. By-and-by it is not merely the old-fashionedness of the ways, but the ways, themselves, that they despise! They seek other company and from that other company they learn nothing but evil. They seek pleasure in places which it horrifies their parents to think of. This leads to worse—and if they do not bring their fathers’ gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, it is no virtue of theirs. I have known young men who really were Christians, sadly backslide through being induced to modify, conceal, or alter those holy principles in which they were trained from their mother’s knee. It is a great calamity when professedly converted men become unfixed, unstable and carried about with every wind of Doctrine. It shows great faultiness of mind and unsoundness of heart when we can trifle with those grave and solemn Truths of God which have been sanctified by a mother’s tears and by a father’s earnest life! “I am Your servant,” said David, “and the son of Your handmaid.” He felt it to be a high honor and, at the same time, a sacred bond which bound him to God, that he was the son of one who could be called God’s handmaid. Take care, you who have had Christian training, that you do not trifle with it! “My son, keep your father’s commandments and forsake not the law of your mother: bind them continually upon your heart and tie them about your neck.”