Next, brethren, have we told what we know? That is a practical point. I speak to quite a number of Christian men and women who would have to confess, “No; I am like Samuel, so far that I fear to tell Eli the vision.” You were going to speak to the person who sat in the pew with you the other Sunday, and you almost got a word out, but it died on your lips. For idle words you will have to give an account. You did mean to pray with your child, mother, but you have not done it yet. What if she dies before you have done so? Good friend, you meant to speak to the man at the next bench in your workshop. Ah, you have meant to do it so many times! I had a friend, a dear friend, who is now I trust in heaven, and there was a man who used to take orders from him for goods, and bring them to him when finished. He was a good and punctual workman, but not a Christian man. Well, my friend intended—ah! he intended for years—to have a quiet conversation with that workman about his soul One day the goods came in, but a woman brought them. She said, “I am So-and-so’s wife. He finished these goods; but he is dead.” My friend said that the words were like a bullet to his heart; for he had so often thought of the man, and often said to himself, “I must and will speak to him the next time he calls;” but somehow, when he came into the shop, business was brisk, and he looked over the goods and paid for them as quickly as he could, and never began a conversation. Now the man was beyond the reach of warning or instruction. Do not let it be so with any person with whom you come in contact. Do as Samuel did: tell the whole of it if they ask you to tell them, or if they do not ask you to tell them. Those who do not ask you are probably those who have the most need of your efforts. There is an art in private conversation, I believe. Certain of our dear friends are always telling out the gospel on all sides, and they seem to do it with much ease. I speak of my Lord also to individuals, but I must confess that it does not come so easy to me to speak to an individual as to preach to thousands. We must school ourselves to it. That art of buttonholing, and coming into close contact with individuals, is one that we must cultivate, and we must not be satisfied until we become expert in it; for it is one of the chief ways in which men are saved.
Lastly, there is one question which I would like to ask, and I have done. Do our children ever rebuke us? Perhaps we have no children now: they are all grown up; but possibly we have grandchildren. This Samuel was to Eli like a grandchild. His sons were grown up, and had left him; but here was this little one brought into the temple to minister there, and the old man came to be rebuked by this little child. I have known some—perhaps they are even now present—who are godless fathers, drunken fathers; and their grandchildren are members of the church, and good, gracious, amiable, lovely, useful children, too. Grandfathers, are you going down to hell while your grandchildren are going to heaven? I charge you by the living God, before whose bar you must surely stand, look at your little ones, and hear their prayers, and hear their hymns; could you bear to be everlastingly separated from them? And, fathers, this should come home closely to you. You know that girl of yours; how you love her! and well you may. Your heart is bound up in your little daughter. She is everything a child can be to a father; but she often weeps because she tries to get you to hear the gospel, and you will not come. Sunday to you is not what it is to her; and that grieves her. You were making a rabbit-hutch last Sunday, were you not? And your child said, “Father, do come to the house of God”; but you would not come; and you pained your child. Will you bear in mind a solemn truth? If your daughter goes to the right, and you go to the left, you are probably parting for ever. It is not possible that the way of sin should end where the way of righteousness will end. Do not choose eternal separation from your dear ones who love the Lord. Do think these things over; because, on a Sabbath-day, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, some of you have to go away, and leave a wife or a dear child behind to commune at the sacred feast. Many thoughts are stirred at that dividing time. I wish that such searching of heart might arise to-night in downright earnest. There will be weeping—there will be weeping, at the judgment-seat of Christ; and if children now rebuke their Christless friends, what will be the thunder of that rebuke when they shall be caught up to the throne of the highest, and their ungodly relatives are cast out for ever into the pit prepared for the wicked? God bless you all richly, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
