What a lesson is this to nations! Nations may make a
profession, a loud profession, of religion, and yet may fail
to exhibit that righteousness which exalteth a nation.
Nations may be adorned with all the leafage of civilization,
and art, and progress, and religion; but if there be no
inner life of godliness, and no fruit unto righteousness,
they will stand for a while, and then wither away.
What a lesson this is to churches! There have been churches
which have stood prominent in numbers and in influence; but
faith, and love, and holiness have not been maintained, and
the Holy Ghost has left them to the vain show of a fruitless
profession; and there stand those churches, with the trunk
of organization, and widely-extended branches, but they are
dead, and every year they become more and more decayed.
Brethren, such churches we have even among Nonconformists at
this hour. May it never be so with this church! We may have
numbers of people coming to hear the Word, and a
considerable body of men and women professing to be
converted; but unless vital godliness is in their midst,
what are congregations and churches? We might have a valued
ministry, but what would this be without the Spirit of God?
We might have large subscriptions, and many outward efforts;
but what of these without the spirit of prayer, the spirit
of faith, the spirit of grace and consecration? I dread lest
we should ever come to be like a tree, precocious with a
superlative profession, but yet worthless in the sight of
the Lord, because the secret life of piety, and vital union
to Christ, are gone. Better that the axe clear away every
vestige of the tree than that it stand out against the sky
an open lie, a mockery, a delusion.
This is the lesson of the text; but I do not want you to
consider it only in the gross, in its relation to nations
and churches; but my heart’s desire is that we may learn the
lesson in detail, and take it home each one to his own
heart. May the Lord himself speak to each one of us this
morning personally! In preparing the sermon, I have had
great searchings of heart, and I pray that the hearing of it
may produce the same results. May we tremble, lest, having a
profession of godliness, we should wear it conspicuously,
and yet should lack the fruitbearing which alone can warrant
such a profession. The name of saintship, if it be not
justified by sanctity, is an offence to honest men, and much
more to a holy God. A pronounced and forward avowal of
Christianity without a Christian life at the back of it is a
lie, abhorrent to God and man, an offence against truth, a
dishonour to religion, and the forerunner of a withering
curse.
May the Holy Spirit help me to preach very solemnly and
powerfully at this time!
Our first observation is this–There are in the world cases
of forward, but fruitless, profession; our second
observation will be this–These will be inspected by King
Jesus; and our third remark will be–The result of that
inspection will be very terrible. Help us, O Holy Spirit!
I. First, then, THERE ARE IN THE WORLD CASES OF FORWARD, BUT
FRUITLESS, PROFESSION.
The cases to which we refer are not so very rare. They far
excel their fellow-men. Their promise is very loud, and
their exterior very impressive. They look like fruitful
trees; you expect many baskets of the best figs from them.
They impress us by their talk, they overpower us by their
manners. We envy them, and lash ourselves. This last might
not harm us; but to envy hypocrites can never be otherwise
than injurious in the long run; for, when their hypocrisy is
discovered, we are apt to despise religion as well as the
pretenders to it. Do you not know persons who are in
appearance everything and in reality nothing? O dark
thought! may we not ourselves be such persons? See the man,
he is strong in faith, even to presumption; he is joyous in
hope, even to levity; he is loving in spirit, even to utter
indifference about truth! How very glib he is in talk! How
deep he is in theological speculation! Yet he has never
entered the kingdom by the new birth. He has never been
taught of God. The gospel has come to him in word only. He
is a stranger to the work of the Holy Ghost. Are there not
such persons? Are there not persons who are defenders of
orthodoxy and yet are heterodox in their own conduct? Do we
not know men and women whose lives deny what their lips
profess? We are sure it is so. All vineyards have had in
them fig trees covered with leaves, which have been
conspicuous from the foliage of their profession, and yet
have brought forth no fruit unto the Lord.
Such persons seem to defy the seasons. It was not the time
of figs, yet was this fig tree covered with those leaves
which usually betokened ripe figs. I suppose you all know
what I have often seen for myself–the fig tree puts forth
its fruit before its leaves. Early in the year you see green
knobs put forth at the end and points of the branches, and
these, as they swell, turn out to be green figs. The leaves
come forward afterwards, and by the time the tree is fully
covered with leaves, the figs are ready for eating. When a
fig tree is in full leaf, you expect to find figs upon it;
and if you do not, it will bear no figs for that season.
This tree put forth leaves abundantly before its season, and
therein excelled all other fig trees. Yes, but it was a
freak of nature, and not a healthy result of true growth.
Such freaks of nature occur in forests and in vineyards; and
their like may be met with in the moral and spiritual world.
Certain men and women seem far in advance of those round
about them, and astonish us by their special virtues. They
are better than the best; more excellent than the most
excellent–at least in appearance. They are so zealous that
they are not chilled by the surrounding world: their great
souls create a summer for themselves. The backwardness of
saints, and the wickedness of sinners, do not hinder them;
they are too vigorous to be affected by their surroundings.
They are very superior persons, covered with virtues, as
this fig tree with leaves.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
