Isaiah 9:10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. There are three classes of you who are building with bricks, and I will ask you if you had not better build with hewn stones. 1. Take those who make good vows limited by time. There are many such. A man, for example, has said to his father, "I promise I will go to church once a week, for twelve months." It is very good so far as it goes, but it is building with bricks, not with hewn stones. A young man has said, Give me thin paper, and I will pledge myself to abstain from everything that can intoxicate for six months." Very good. I do not pour contempt upon such a resolution; so far as it goes, it is good. But the very limitation of the vow is a source of weakness. Thus — for the first few days you are strong in your purpose, but gradually you begin to count the days that you have yet to serve. The last week comes, and the vow is like a pale figure gradually disappearing; the last day but one comes, where then is the vow? tomorrow you say you will be free. Free what to do? To become a slave again! Now I want you to change that brick wall of temporary resolution for the hewn stone of an eternal vow. 2. Then there is another class building with bricks instead of hewn stones, namely, those who are inspired by inadequate motives. Where the motive is insufficient, conduct must go down. We live in motive. When the motive force fails the machinery must of necessity stand still There is a man who says he will do a certain thing to obtain a reward. That man's virtue is only suppressed vice. He who will do a good thing simply because he will earn a reward, will do a bad thing if you double the premium. The motive is insufficient, and the last state of that man will be worse than the first. Others will come to church to please an admirer. That is not church going. Would that I could speak in sufficiently forceful language to the young about this! Where the motive of church going is inadequate it will always be intermittent, and in the end it will expire. If you go to church because you love to be there, and would have Sunday doubled in its golden hours, then you will always be strong in your religious attachments, affections, and convictions. Then there are those who attempt to do right in order to escape a penalty. This is an insufficient motive. I know that fear plays a very important part in the constitution of the human mind, and in the direction of human conduct. But man can outlive fear. Man can become accustomed to the unexpected. There is but one true motive — a hearty love of God! 3. Then there is the third class to which I refer, — those who have not calculated the full force and weight of temptation. When you build a house, you build for the roughest day in the whole year. That should be the sovereign rule, in the building of the life house. The ship that left for the United States yesterday, probably took out three or fourfold the necessary provisions, according to the season of the year, and probably took out coal sufficient for a double journey. Why this excess? Why take more than is needed for the ten days' voyage? Because of the unforeseen. If, therefore, in such things men make such arrangements, they condemn themselves — I do not hesitate to say the word — as fools, if they leave the spiritual life and the spiritual destiny without more than a transient consideration. Herein is the glory of Christianity, that it builds with hewn stones. Christ's Gospel is full of soundness, life, and indestructible virility. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. |
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