The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ There is one man here; he tempts him to drunkenness. Perhaps that would naturally be his sin, if left without grace in his heart; and Satan knowing it to be his weak point, attempts to overcome him by surfeiting, gluttony, and drunkenness. Another man is utterly impervious to any temptation to that bestial habit; but, it may be, he is easily taken in another snare — the snare of lust; therefore Satan adapts his temptation to the hot blood of the man who naturally would be inclined to live a life of sin. Another one perhaps eschews every lascivious and sensual habit: then Satan comes to him, and adapts his temptation to the shape of pride. The man is naturally a melancholy man, fond of solitude: Satan gets him, if he can, to wrap himself up in a solitary dignity, to say, “I am holy.” “Lord, I thank you, I am not as other men are.” Or if a man is not naturally inclined to a very high degree of pride, Satan takes him with sloth. The man likes an easy life; Satan therefore adapts his bait to him by letting him sit still, fold his arms, and so perish by slothfulness: and notice this, he who sits still in the frost, when the snow is on the ground, in the depths of the wild regions of the frozen zone, must as surely perish by his idleness, as if he drove a dagger into his heart. Satan knows that, and so adapts his bait accordingly. Oh! how often it happens, beloved, that you and I condemn a thing in another person which we allow in ourselves, perhaps without knowing it. We say of such a one, “How proud he is!” Well, our pride is not exactly of that shape; we have got another shaped pride, but the same article; labelled differently, but the same thing. Satan adapts the pride to each particular case. We are rich: he does not perhaps tempt us to the pride of riches, but he tempts us to the pride of mastership, and makes us harsh masters to our servants. Or if he does not tempt us to that pride, he perhaps enchants us with the pride of generosity, and we are apt to boast of our kindness, and of what we have given away. He will always adapt his trap to his man, and his bait to his bird. He will not tempt you all with the same temptation he would tempt me with; nor me with the temptation with which he would naturally assail another. “The snare of the fowler.” We have to deal with a cunning enemy; he knows our weak points; he has been dealing with men for these last six thousand years; he knows all about them. He is possessed of a gigantic intellect, though he is a fallen spirit and he is easily able to discover where our vulnerable places are, and he immediately attacks us there. If we are like Achilles, and cannot be wounded anywhere except in our heel, then at the heel he will send his dart, and nowhere else. He will find out our easily besetting sin, and there, if he can, he will attempt to work our ruin and our destruction. Let us bless God that it is written, “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.”

      6. 3. In the next place, the fowler’s snare is frequently connected with pleasure, profit, and advantage. In the bird’s case it is for the seed scattered on the ground that he flies to the snare. It is some tempting bait which allures him to his death. And usually Satan, the fowler, uses a temptation by which to beguile us. “Oh!” one says, “I cannot give up such-and-such a thing, it is so pleasant. Sir, you never knew the charms of such-and-such a pursuit, otherwise you would never advise me to relinquish it.” Yes, my friend, but it is just the sweetness of it to you that makes it the more dangerous. Satan never sells his poisons naked; he always gilds them before he vends them. He knows very well that men will buy them and swallow them, only if he gilds them beforehand. Take care of pleasures; mind what you are doing when you are doing them. Many of them are innocent and healthful, but many of them are destructive. It is said that where the most beautiful cacti grow, there the most venomous serpents are to be found at the root of every plant. And it is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbour your grossest sins. Take care; take care of your pleasures. Cleopatra’s asp was introduced in a basket of flowers; so are sins often brought to us in the flowers of our pleasures. Satan offers to the drunkard the sweetness of the intoxicating cup, which rejoices him, when his brain is rioting in frolic, and when his soul is lifted up within him. He offers to the lustful man the scenes and pleasures of carnal mirth, and merriment, and delight, and so he leads him astray with the bait, concealing the hook which afterwards shall pain him. He gives to you and to me, each of us, the offer of our peculiar joy; he tickles us with pleasures, that he may lay hold upon us, and so have us in his power. I would have every Christian be especially on his guard against the very thing that is most pleasing to his human nature. I would not have him avoid everything that pleases him, but I would have him be on his guard against it. Just like Job, when his sons had been feasting in their houses, he did not forbid them from doing it, but he said, “I will offer a sacrifice, lest my sons should have sinned in their hearts, and should have cursed God foolishly.” He was more careful over them at the time of their feasting than at any other time. Let us do the same. Let us remember that the snare of the fowler is generally connected with some pretended pleasure or profit, but that Satan’s end is not our pleasing, but our destruction.

      7. 4. In the next place, sometimes the fowler very wisely employs the force of example. We all know the influence of the decoy duck, in endeavouring to bring others into the snare. How very often Satan, the fowler, employs a decoy to lead God’s people into sin! You befriend a man; you think that he is a true Christian; you have some respect for his character; he is a high professor, can talk religion by the yard, and can give you any quantity of theology you like to ask for. You see him commit a sin; ten to one that you will do the same, if you have much respect for him; and so he will lead you on. And notice, Satan is very careful in the men whom he chooses to be decoys. He never employs a wicked man to be a decoy for a good man. It is very seldom, when Satan would decoy a Christian into a snare, that he makes use of an open reprobate. No; he makes use of the man who is pretends to be religious, and who looks to be of the same quality as yourself, and therefore entices you astray. Let a bad man meet me in the street, and ask me to commit sin! The devil knows better than to employ him in any such work as that, because he knows I would pass by directly. If he wants his errand well done, he sends one to me whom I call brother; and so through the brotherhood of profession I am apt to give him credence and pay him respect; and then if he goes astray the force of example is very powerful, and so I may easily be led into the net too. Take care of your best friends; be careful of your companions. Choose the best you can; then follow them no farther than they follow Christ. Let your course be entirely independent of everyone else. Say with Joshua, let others do what they will, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

      8. 5. Note, once more, that sometimes the fowler, when he fails to take his bird by deceit and craft, will go a-hawking after it — will send his hawk into the air, to bring down his prey. It often happens, when the devil cannot ruin a man by getting him to commit a sin, he attempts to slander him; he sends a hawk after him, and tries to bring him down by slandering his good name. I will give you a piece of advice. I know a good minister, now in venerable old age, who was once most villainously lied against and slandered by a man who hated him only for the truth’s sake. The good man was grieved; he threatened the slanderer with a lawsuit, unless he apologized. He did apologize. The slander was printed in the papers in a public apology; and you know what the consequence was. The slander was more believed than if he had said nothing about it. And I have learned this lesson — to do with the slanderous hawk what the little birds do, just fly up. The hawk cannot do them any harm while they keep above him — it is only when they come down that he can injure them. It is only when by mounting he gets above the birds, that the hawk comes sweeping down upon them, and destroys them. If any slander you, do not come down to them; let them slander on. Say, as David said concerning Shimei, “If the Lord has given him commandment to curse, let him curse”; and if the sons of Zeruiah say, “Let us go and take this dead dog’s head,” you say, “No, let him curse”; and in that way you will live down slander. If some of us turned aside to notice every tiny sparrow that began chirping at us, we should have nothing to do but to answer them. If I were to fight people on every doctrine I preach, I would do nothing else but just amuse the devil, and indulge the combative principles of certain religionists who like nothing better than quarrelling. By the grace of God, say what you please against me, I will never answer you, but go straight on. All shall end well, if the character is only kept clean; the more dirt that is thrown on it by slander, the more it shall glisten, and the more brightly it shall shine. Have you never felt your fingers itch sometimes to be at a man who slanders you? I have. I have sometimes thought, “I cannot hold my tongue СКАЧАТЬ