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TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - Spiritual Knowledge and its Practical Results (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Spiritual Knowledge and its Practical 2
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III. Now, thirdly, let us see in the text a lesson concerning THE PRACTICAL RESULT OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
understanding; that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” See, see the drift of his prayer?—“Tha Paul prays for his friends “that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritualt you may walk.” Not that you might talk; not that you might sit down and meditate and enjoy yourselves, but, “that you might walk.” He aims at practical results! He desires that the saints may be instructed so that they may walk according to the best model. By walking worthy of the Lord Jesus, we do not understand in any sense that he expected them to possess such worthiness as to deserve to walk with the Lord—but he would have them live in a manner that should be in accordance with their communion with Christ.
You would not have a man walk with Christ through the streets, today, clothed in motley garments, or loathsome with filth—would you? No, if a man is a leper, Christ will heal him before He will walk with him! Let not a disciple walk so as to bring disgrace upon his Lord! When you walk with a king, you should be, yourself, royal in gait. When you commune with a prince, you should not act the clown. Dear Friends, may you know so much of Jesus that your lives shall become Christ-like, fit to be put side by side with the Character of Jesus, worthy of your perfect Lord!
This is a high standard, is it not? It is always better to have a high standard than a low one, for you will never go beyond that which you set up as your model. If you set a low standard, you will fall below even that! It is an old proverb, “He that aims at the moon will shoot higher than he that aims at a bush.” It is well to have no lower standard than the desire to live, over again, the life of the Lord Jesus—a life of tenderness, a life of self-sacrifice, a life of generosity, a life of love, a life of honesty, a life of holy service—a life of close communion with God. Mix all virtues in due proportion and that is the life of Jesus towards which you must press forward with all your heart.
Next, the Apostle would have us get knowledge in order that we may so live as to be pleasing to our best Friend— “worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” Is not that beautiful? To live so as to please God in all respects! Some live to please themselves, while others to please their neighbors. Some live to please their wives; some to please their children, and some live as if they wished to please the devil! But our business is to please Him in all things whose servants we are.
Without faith it is impossible to please Him—so away with unbelief! Without holiness no man shall see Him, much less please Him—therefore let us follow after holiness and may the Lord work it in us! “Unto all pleasing”—so that we may please God from the moment we rise in the morning to the time when we lie down! Yes, and please Him even when we are asleep! That we may eat and drink so as to please Him; that we may speak and think so as to please Him; that we may go or stay so as to please Him; that we may rejoice or suffer so as to please Him—“walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.”
Oh, blessed is the man whose life is pleasing to God in all respects! The Apostle Paul desires that we may be filled with knowledge to this very end. If I do not know the will of God, how can I do the will of God? At least, how can there be anything pleasing to God which is ignorantly done without an intent to do His will? I fear that many children of God grieve their heavenly Father through sins of ignorance—an ignorance in which they ought not to remain a single day!
Be it clearly understood that sins of ignorance are truly sins. They have not about them the venom and the aggravation which are found in sins against the Light and knowledge of God, but they are still sins, for the measure of our duty is not our light, but the Law of God itself. If a man pleads that he follows his conscience, yet this will not excuse his wrongdoing if his conscience is an unenlightened conscience and he is content to keep it in the dark. You are to obey the will of the Lord—that will is the standard of the sanctuary.
Our conscience is often like a deficient weight and deceives us. It is ours to gather a clear knowledge of the Word of God, that we may prove what is that perfect and acceptable will of God. The law makes no allowance for errors committed through false weights. When a man says, “I thought my weights and measures were all right,” he is not, therefore, excused. The law deals with facts, not with men’s imaginations! The weights must actually be correct, or the penalty is exacted. So is it with conscience—it ought to be instructed in the knowledge of the Divine will—and if it is not, its faultiness affords no justification for evil. Hence the absolute necessity of knowledge in order to true holiness. God grant us Grace to know His will and then to obey it “unto all pleasing.”
Look at the text again—“That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful.” Paul would have us producing the best fruit. Without knowledge, we cannot be fruitful—at least in the points where we are ignorant we must fail to bring forth fruit. Therefore he would have us to be taught well, that we may abundantly produce fruit unto God’s Glory. He says, “fruitful in every good work,” and this means much. He desires us to be as full of good works as we can be. Some are hindered in this because they do not know how to set about holy service. How can a man be fruitful as a preacher if he does not know what to preach? True, he may preach the elementary doctrine of the Cross, but even that he will be apt to set forth in a blundering manner. For certain, a man cannot teach what he does not know. The zealous, but untaught man, would be much more fruitful if he had a clearer understanding of Divine things.
In daily life, if in knowledge you are ignorant as to the things of God, you will be ready to become the prey of any false teacher who may chance to pick you up. In hundreds of ways, ignorance will make you run risks, lose opportunities of usefulness and fall into dangerous mistakes. Knowledge is food to the true heart and strengthens it for the Lord’s work. Oh, to have knowledge placed like good soil around the roots of the soul, to fertilize the mind that thus the clusters of usefulness may be as large as those of Eschol—beautiful, plentiful, sweet and full. May our Lord, the King of Israel, to whom the vineyard belongs, receive an abundant reward for all His labor for the vines which He has planted!
I have seen a tree so grafted that it produced four kinds of fruit at one time, but I remarked that it was a poor business in reference to two of the varieties, for one of the grafts, more natural than the others to the parent stem, drew off most of the sap and flourished well, but robbed the other branches! The second sort of fruit managed to live pretty fairly, but not so well as it would have done on its own stem. As for the third and fourth, they were mere attempts at fruit of the smallest size. This tree was shown to me as a great curiosity—it is not likely that practical gardeners will be encouraged by the experiment! But what would you think of a tree upon which you saw grapes, figs, olives, apples and all other good fruits growing at one time? This is the type of what instructed Believers will become—they will produce all sorts of goodness and graciousness to the honor of their heavenly Father!
I have no doubt that you will naturally abound most in certain good works for which you have the largest capacity, but still, nothing ought to come amiss to you. In the great house of the Church we need servants who will not be simply cooks or housemaids, but general servants, maids of all work, prepared to do anything and everything! I have known persons in household employment in England who would not do a turn beyond their special work to save their masters’ lives! These are a sort of servants of whom the fewer the better! In India this is carried out to a ridiculous extreme. The Hindu water-bearer will not sweep the house, nor light a fire, nor brush your clothes—he will fetch water and nothing else! You must, therefore, have a servant for each separate thing, and then each man will do his own little bit—he will not go an inch beyond!
When we enter into Christ’s Church, we should come prepared to wash the saints’ feet, or bear their burdens, or bind up their wounds, or fight their foes, or act as steward, or shepherd, or nurse. It has been well said that if two angels in Heaven were summoned to serve the Lord and there were two works to be done, an empire to be ruled, or a crossing to be swept, neither angel would have a choice as to which should be appointed to him, but would gladly abide the will of the Lord. Let us be equally prepared for anything, for everything by which fruit can be produced for the Well-Beloved. Why is it that some are not fruitful in this comprehensive way? Because they are not filled with knowledge in all wisdom! When a man says, “You asked me to do the lowest work! Don’t you know that I am a man of remarkable ability who should have higher work to do?” I venture to assert that he is an ignorant man! Self-assertion is ignorance on horseback!
You have probably rand of a certain renowned corporal in the American service a century ago. A general, as he rode along, saw a body of men endeavoring to lift timber. They were shorthanded and the work lagged, but their famous corporal stood by ordering them about at a magnificent rate. The general passed and said, “Why don’t you lend them help and put your shoulder to it? “Why, Sir,” said the great little officer, “how can you think of such a thing? Do you know who I am? I am a corporal!” The general got off his horse, took off his coat, and helped move the timber—and by his judicious help the soldiers achieved their task. Then he turned to the high and mighty gentleman and said, “Mr. Corporal, next time you need a man to do such work as this, you can send for me—I am General Washington.”
Just so the Lord Jesus Christ, if He were here, would gladly do a thousand things which His poor little servants are too great to touch! I know you, dear Brother—you are too experienced, too old, too learned to help in the Sunday school! I know you are too respectable to give away a tract! Pray get out of such ignorant ways of thinking and ask to be useful in all possible ways! If you have done a little, do much! If you have done much, do more! And when you have done more, ask for Grace to proceed to the highest possible degree of usefulness for your Lord.
IV. And now, fourthly, notice THE REFLEX ACTION OF HOLINESS UPON KNOWLEDGE.
We have only a few moments left—let my few words sink into your hearts. “Fruitful in every good work”—what then? “Increasing in the knowledge of God.” Look at that! It seems, then, that holiness is the road to knowledge! God has made it so. If any man will do His will, he shall know of His doctrine. If you read and study, and cannot make out the meaning of Scripture, get up and do something—and it may be, in the doing of it, you shall discover the secret. Holiness of heart shall increase the illumination of your mind!
Will you kindly observe that this knowledge rises in tone? Paul first prayed that they “might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.” But now he implores for them an increase in the knowledge of God, Himself! Oh, blessed growth! First to know the Law and then to know the Lawgiver! First to know the precept, and then to know the mouth from which it comes! This is the height of knowledge—to see Christ and know the Father, and learn how to say from the heart—“Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” I would call your willing attention to another thought. The Apostle, if he is to be judged according to his outward language, often utters impossible things, and yet his every sentence is not only full of deep meaning, but is strictly correct!
Notice his language here—in the 9th verse he says, “that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will.” Can anything go beyond this? The vessel is filled right up to the brim! What more can it have? Yet the Apostle says, “increasing in the knowledge of God.” What can that mean? If the mind is full to the brim, how can it receive more? If the man is full of knowledge, how can his knowledge increase? Can there be any increase after that? I propose to you the riddle. Here is the answer—make the vessel larger—and then there can be an increase. This solution of the difficulty requires no great wit to discover. So Paul plainly teaches us here, that if we have so increased in knowledge as to be full, he would have us increased in capacity to know yet more!
He would have our manhood enlarged and our powers of reception increased so that we might grow from being children to be young men—and from young men to be fathers, and so may be filled—filled always! Filled with all the fullness of God! The Lord grant unto us to perceive with humility that if we are already full of knowledge, we can still advance, for we “have not yet attained.” Let no man think that he can go no further! “There is,” says Augustine, “a certain perfection according to the measure of this life. And it belongs to that perfection that such a perfect man should know that he is not yet perfect.” To that I heartily subscribe! There is a certain fullness to be found in this life according to the measure of a man. And it belongs to that fullness that the man should know that he can yet increase in knowledge!
Holy Bernard says, “He is not good at all who does not desire to be better.” I also subscribe to that saying! Some might become good if they were not puffed up with the fancy of their own perfection. Others are somewhat commendable, but will never grow because they judge themselves to be already full-grown. I would have you filled and yet have room for more—filled with all knowledge, filled with all holiness, filled with the indwelling Spirit, filled with God— and yet increasing in knowledge, in holiness, in likeness to God and in all good things forevermore to His Glory! The Lord add His blessing for Jesus’ sake. Amen.