Teaching Resources International

Working for Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

“I must work the works of him who sent me …” John 9:3

So I introduce you tonight to the first topic of the present discourse, which is THE WORKER.  I give that as a well-earned title to the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the worker, the chief worker, and the example to all workers.  He came into the world, he says, to do the will of him that sent him and to finish his work.  On this occasion, when he is pursued by his enemies, he is still a worker, a wonder-worker with the blind man.  There are many in this world who ignore sorrow, who pass by grief, who are deaf to lamentation, and blind to distress.  The easiest thing that I know of to do with this wicked, wretched City of London is not to know much about it.  They say that half the world knows not how the other half lives.  Sorely if it did know, it would not live as carelessly as it does, or be quite so cruel as it is.  There are sights in this metropolis that might melt a heart of steel and make a Nabal generous.  But it is an easy way of escaping from the exercise of benevolence to shut your eyes and see nothing of the abject misery, which is groveling at your feet.

“Where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise;” so said some easygoing ignoramus of old time.  If beggars are importunate, then passersby must be deaf.  If sinners are profane, it is a simple matter to stop your ears and hurry on.  If this blind man must needs sit and beg at the gate of the temple, then those who frequent the temple must just slip by as if they were as blind as he.  Crowds pass by and take no notice of him.  Is not that the way with the multitude today?  If you are in trouble, if you are suffering heartbreak, do they not ignore you and go their way to their farm and to their merchandise, though you lie down and starve?  Dives [the Rich Man in Luke 16] finds it convenient to remain ignorant of the sores of Lazarus.  It is not so with Jesus.  He has a quick eye to see the blind beggar if he sees nothing else.  If he is not enraptured with the massive stones and the beautiful architecture of the temple, yet he fixes his eyes upon a sightless mendicant at the temple gate.  He is all eye, all ear, all heart, all hand, where misery is present.  My Master is made of tenderness: he melts with love.  O true souls who love him, copy him in this and ever let your hearts be touched with a fellow feeling for the suffering and the sinning.

There are others who, though they see misery do not diminish it by warm sympathy, but increase it by their cold logical conclusions.  “Poverty,” they say, “yes: well: that of course is brought on by drunkenness and by laziness and by all sorts of vice.”  I do not say that it is not so in many cases; but I do say that the observation will not help a poor man to become either better or happier: such a hard remark will rather exasperate the hardened than assist the struggling.  “Sickness,” say some, “oh, no doubt, a great deal of sickness is caused by wicked habits, neglect of sanitary laws,” and so on.  This also may be sadly true, but it grates on a sufferer’s ear.  A very kind and pleasing doctrine to teach in the wards of our hospitals!  I would recommend you not to teach it till you are ill yourself, and then perhaps the doctrine may not seem quite so instructive.

Even Christ’s disciples, when they saw this blind man, thought that there must be something particularly wicked about his father and mother, or something especially vicious about the man himself, which God foresaw, and on account of which he punished him with blindness.  The disciples were of the same spirit as Job’s three comforters, who, when they saw the patriarch on a dung-hill, bereft of all his children, robbed of all his property, and scraping himself because he was covered with sores, said, “Of course he must be a hypocrite.  He must have done something very dreadful, or he would not be so grievously afflicted.”  The world will still stick to its unfounded belief that if the Tower of Siloam falls upon any men they must be sinners above all sinners upon the face of the earth.  A cruel doctrine, a vile doctrine, fit for savages, but not to be mentioned by Christians, who know that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and even his best beloved have been taken away on a sudden.  Yet I do see a good deal of this cruel notion about, and if men are in trouble, I hear it muttered, “Well, of course they brought it on themselves.”  Is this your way of cheering them?  Cheap moral observations steeped in vinegar make a poor dish for an invalid.  Such censures are a sorry way of helping a lame dog over a stile; nay, it is putting up another stile for him so that he cannot get over it at all.

Now I mark this of my Lord: that it is written of him that he “giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”  When he fed those thousands in the wilderness, it would have been most just if he had said to them, “Why did you all come out into the wilderness, and not bring your provision with you?  What have you to do out here without something to eat?  You are unthrifty and deserve to hunger.”  No, no, he never said a word of the sort, but he fed them, fed them all and sent them home filled.  You and I are not sent into the world to thunder out commandments from the top of Sinai: we are come unto Mount Zion.  We are not to go on circuit as if we were judge and hangman rolled into one to meet all the sorrow and misery in the world with bitter words of censure and condemnation.  If we do so how different we are from that blessed Master of ours who says not a word by way of rebuke to those who seek him, but simply feeds the hungry and heals all those who have need of healing!  It is easy to criticize, it is easy to upbraid, but ours should be the higher and nobler task of blessing and saving.

I notice yet again that there are certain others who, if they are not indifferent to sorrow, and do not pitch upon some cruel theory of condemnation, nevertheless speculate a good deal where speculation can be of no practical service.  When we get together there are many questions which we like to raise and dispute upon which are of no practical value whatever.  There is the question of the origin of evil.  That is a fine subject for those who like to chop logic by the week, without making enough chips to light a fire for cold hands to warm at.  Such was the subject proposed to the Savior: foreseen guilt, or hereditary taint? – “Who did sin, this man, or his parents?”  How far is it right that the sin of parents should, as it often does fall upon the children?  I could propose to you a great many topics equally profound and curious, but what would be the use?  Yet there are many in the world who are fond of these topics, spinning cobwebs, blowing babbles, making theories, breaking them, and making more.  I wonder whether the world was ever blessed to the extent of a bad farthing by all the theorizing of all the learned men that have ever lived.  May they not all be put down under the head of vain janglings?  I would rather create an ounce of help than a ton of theory.

It is beautiful to me to see how the Master breaks up the fine speculation, which the disciples are setting forth.  He says somewhat shortly, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,” and then he spits on the ground, and makes clay, and opens the blind man’s eyes.  This was work, the other was mere worry.  “Father,” said a boy, “the cows are in the corn.  How ever did they get in?”  “Boy,” said the father, “never mind how they got in, let us hurry up and get them out.”  There is common sense about that practical proceeding.  Here are these people sunken in vice, and steeped in poverty.  Postpone the inquiries: How did they get into this condition?  What is the origin of moral evil?  How is it transmitted from parent to child?  Answer those questions after the day of judgment, when you will have more light; but just now the great thing is to see how you and I can get evil out of the world, and how we can lift up the fallen and restore those who have gone astray. Never let us imitate the man in the fable who saw a boy drowning, and there and then lectured him upon the imprudence of bathing out of his depth.  No, no, let us land the boy on the bank, dry him and dress him, and then tell him not to go there again, lest a worse thing come unto him.

I say that the Master was no speculator; he was no spinner of theories; he was no mere doctrinalist; but he went to work and healed those that had need of healing.  Now, in this, he is the great example for us all in this year of grace.  Come, what have we ever done to bless our fellow men?  Many of us are followers of Christ, and, oh, how happy we ought to be that we are so!  What have we ever done worthy of our high calling?  “Sir, I heard a lecture the other night,” says one, “upon the evils of intemperance.”  Is that all you did?  Has any action come of that brilliant oration and of your careful attention to it?  Did you straightway try to remove this intemperance by your example?  “Well, I shall think of that, sir, one of these days.”  Meanwhile what is to become of these intemperate ones?  Will not their blood lie at your door?  “I heard the other day,” says one, “a very forcible and interesting lecture upon political economy, and I felt that it was a very weighty science and accounted for much of the poverty you mention.”  Perhaps so: but political economy in itself is about as hard as brass; it has no bowels, or heart, or conscience, neither can it make allowance for such things.  The political economist is a man of iron, who would be rusted by a tear, and therefore never tolerates the mood of compassion.  His science is a rock, which will wreck a navy, and remain unmoved by the cries of drowning men and women.  It is as the moon of the desert, which withers all it blows upon.  It seems to dry up men’s souls when they get to be masters of it or rather are mastered by it.  It is a science of stubborn facts, which would not be facts if we were not so brutish.  Political economy or no political economy, I come back to my point: What have, you done for others?  Do let us think of that, and if any of us have been dreaming day after day what we would do “if,” let us see what we can do now, and, like the Savior, get to work.

Yet that is not the point, which I am driving at.  It is this.  If Jesus be such a worker, and no theorizer, then what a hope there is tonight for some of us who need his care!  Have we fallen?  Are we poor?  Have we brought ourselves into sorrow and misery?  Do not let us look to men or to ourselves.  Men will let us starve, and then they will hold a coroner’s inquest over our body to find why we dared to die, and so necessitated the paying for a grave and a coffin.  They will be sure to make an inquiry after it is all over with us; but if we come to Jesus Christ, he will make no inquiry at all, but receive us and give rest unto our souls.  That is a blessed text, “He giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”  When the prodigal son came home to his father, according to all propriety, as people would do nowadays, the father should have said to his son, “Well, you have come home, and I am glad to see you, but what a state you are in!  How did you get into this condition?  Why, you have scarcely a clean rag on your back!  How is it you have become so poor?  And you are lean and hungry: how comes this about?  Where have you been?  What have you done?  What company have you kept?  Where were you a week ago?  What were you doing the day before yesterday at seven o’clock?”  His father never asked him a single question, but pressed him to his bosom and knew all about it by instinct.  He came as he was, and his father received him as he was.  The father seemed, with a kiss, to say, “My boy, bygones are bygones.  You were dead but you are alive again; you were lost but you are found, and I inquire no further.”

That is just how Jesus Christ is willing to receive penitent sinners tonight.  Is there a streetwalker here?  Come, poor woman, as you are, to your dear Lord and Master, who will cleanse you of your grievous sin.  “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven.”  Is there one here who has transgressed against the rules of society and is pointed at as especially sinful?  Yet, come, and welcome, to the Lord Jesus of whom it is written, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

The physician never thinks it scorn to go among the sick; and Christ never felt it shame that he looks after the guilty and the lost.  Nay, write this about his diadem: “The Savior of sinners, even of the very chief:” he counts this his glory.  He will work for you, not chide you.  He will not treat you with a dose of theories and with a host of bitter abjurations; but he will receive you just as you are into the wounds of his side and hide you there from the wrath of God.  Oh, blessed gospel that I have to preach to you!  May the Holy Spirit lead you to embrace it!