The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
Martha and Mary.
A sermon delivered on Lord's Day morning, April
24th, 1870 by C.
H.
Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
Luke 10, verses 38-42.
Now it came to pass as they went,
that he entered into a certain village, and
a certain woman named Martha received him into
her house.
And she had a sister called Mary, which
also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his
word.
But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and
came to him and said, Lord, dost thou
not care that my sister hath left me
to serve alone?
Bid her therefore that she help me.
Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha,
thou art careful and troubled about many things,
but one thing is needful, and Mary hath
chosen that good part, which shall not be
taken away from her.
It is not an easy thing to maintain
the balance of a spiritual life.
No man can be spiritually healthy who does
not meditate and commune.
No man, on the other hand, is as
he should be, unless he is active and
diligent in holy service.
David sweetly sang, He maketh me to lie
down in green pastures.
There was the contemplative.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
There was the active and progressive.
The difficulty is to maintain the two, and
to keep each in its relative proportion to
the other.
We must not be so active as to
neglect communion, nor so contemplative as to become
unpractical.
In the chapter from which our text is
taken we have several lessons on this subject.
The seventy disciples returned from their preaching tour
flushed with the joy of success, and our
Saviour, to refine that joy and prevent its
degenerating into pride, bids them rather rejoice that
their names were written in heaven.
He conducted their contemplations to the glorious doctrine
of election, and that grateful thoughts might sober
them after successful work.
He bids them consider themselves as debtors to
the grace which reveals unto babes the mysteries
of God, for he would not allow their
new position as workers to make them forget
that they were the chosen of God, and
therefore debtors.
Our wise Master next returns to the subject
of service, and instructs them by the memorable
parable of the Good Samaritan and the Wounded
Man.
And then, as if they might vainly imagine
philanthropy as it is the service of Christ
to be the only service of Christ, and
to be the only thing worth living for,
he brings in the two sisters of Bethany.
The Holy Ghost meaning thereby to teach us
that while we ought to abound in service
and to do good abundantly to our fellow
men, yet we must not fail in worship,
in spiritual reverence, in meek discipleship, and quiet
contemplation.
While we are practical like the Seventy, practical
like the Samaritan, practical like Martha, we are
also like the Savior to rejoice in spirit
and say, Father I thank Thee.
And we are also like Mary to sit
down in quietude and nourish our souls with
divine truth.
This short narrative, I suppose, might be paraphrased
something after this fashion.
Martha and Mary were two most excellent sisters,
both converted, both lovers of Jesus, both loved
by Jesus, for we are expressly told that
he loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
They were both women of a choice spirit.
Our Savior's selection of their house as a
frequent resort proved that they were an unusually
gracious family.
They are persons representative of different forms of
excellence, and I think it altogether wrong to
treat Martha, as some have done, as if
she had no love for good things and
was nothing better than a mere worldling.
It was not so.
Martha was a most estimable and earnest woman,
a true believer and an ardent follower of
Jesus, whose joy it was to entertain Jesus
at the house of which she was the
mistress.
When our Lord made his appearance on this
occasion at Bethany, the first thought of Martha
was, here as our most noble guest, we
must prepare for him a sumptuous entertainment.
Perhaps she marked our Savior's weariness or saw
some traces of that exhaustion which made him
look so much older than he was, and
she therefore set to work with the utmost
diligence to prepare a festival for him.
She was careful about many things, and as
she went on with her preparations, fresh matters
occurred to ruffle her mind, and she became
worried.
In being somewhat vexed that her sister took
matters so coolly, she begged the Master to
upbraid her.
Now Mary had looked upon the occasion from
another point of view.
As soon as she saw Jesus come into
the house, she thought, what a privilege have
I now to listen eagerly to such a
teacher and to treasure up his precious words.
He is the Son of God.
I will worship, I will adore, and every
word he utters shall be stored in my
memory.
She forgot the needs both of the Master
and his followers, for her faith saw the
inner glory which dwelt within him, and she
was so overpowered with reverence and so wrapped
in devout wonder that she became oblivious of
all outward things.
She had no faults to find with Martha
for being so busy.
She did not even think of Martha.
She was altogether taken up with her Lord
and with those gracious words which he was
speaking.
She had no will either to censor or
to praise or to think even of herself.
Everything was gone from her but her Lord
and the word which he was uttering.
See then that Martha was serving Christ and
so was Mary.
Martha meant to honor Christ and so did
Mary.
They both agreed in their design.
They differed in their way of carrying it
out, and while Martha's service is not censored,
only her being cumbered comes under the censor,
yet Mary is expressly commended as having chosen
the good part.
And therefore we do Martha no injustice if
we show wherein she came short and wherein
Mary excelled.
Our first observation will be this.
The Martha spirit is very prevalent in the
Church of God just now.
In the second place, the Martha spirit very
much injures true service.
And in the third place, the Mary spirit
is the source of the noblest form of
consecration.
The Martha spirit is very prevalent in the
Church at this period, prevalent in some quarters
to a mischievous degree, and among us all
to a perilous extent.
What do we intend by saying that the
Martha spirit is prevalent just now?
We mean first that there is a considerable
tendency among Christian people in serving Christ to
aim at making a fair show in the
flesh.
Martha wanted to give our Lord a right
worthy entertainment which should be a credit to
her house and to her family, and herein
she is commendable far above those Slovenes who
think anything good enough for Christ.
So also among professing Christians there is at
this present a desire to give to the
cause of Christ buildings notable for their architecture
and beauty.
We must have no more barns.
Our chapels must be correctly Gothic or sternly
classical in all their details, both without and
within.
As to the service, we must cultivate the
musical and the tasteful.
We are exhorted not to be barely decent,
but to aim at the sublime and beautiful.
Our public worship, it is thought, should be
impressive, if not imposing.
Care should be taken that the music should
be chaste, the singing conformed to the best
rules of the art, and the preaching eloquent
and attractive.
So everything in connection with Christian labor should
be made to appear generous and noble.
By all means, the subscription list must be
kept up.
Each denomination must excel the other in the
amount of its annual funds, for surely everything
done for Christ ought to be done in
the best possible style.
Now, in all this, there is so much
that is good, so much that is really
intended to honor the Lord, that we see
no room to censor, but yet show we
unto you a more excellent way.
These things ye may do, but there are
higher things which ye must do, or suffer
loss.
Brethren, there is something better to be studied
than the outward, for though this may be
aimed at with a single eye to God's
glory, and we judge no man, yet we
fear the tendency is to imagine that mere
externals are precious in the Master's sight.
I throw, he counts it a very small
matter, whether your house be a cathedral or
a barn.
To the Savior it is a small concern
whether you have organs or whether you have
not, whether you sing after the choicest rules
of psalmody or no.
He looks at your hearts, and if these
ascend to Him, He accepts the praise.
As for those thousands of pounds annually contributed,
He estimates them not by the weights of
the merchant, but after the balances of the
sanctuary.
Your love expressed in your gifts He values,
but what are the mere silver and gold
to Him?
Funds and encouraging accounts and well-arranged machineries
are well if they exist as the outgrowth
of fervent love, but if they are the
end-all and the be-all, you miss
the mark.
Jesus would be better pleased with a grain
of love than a heap of ostentatious service.
The Martha spirit shows itself in the censoring
of those persons who are careful about Christ's
word, who stand up for the doctrines of
the gospel, who desire to maintain the ordinances
as they were delivered unto them, and who
are scrupulous and thoughtful and careful concerning the
truth as it is in Jesus.
In newspapers, on platforms, and in common talk,
you frequently hear earnest disciples of Jesus and
consistent believers in His doctrines snubbed and denounced
as unpractical.
Theological questions are scouted as mere impertinences.
Go in for ragged schools, certainly.
Reclaim the Arabs of the street, by all
manner of means.
Pass a compulsory education bill, certainly.
Soup kitchens, free dinners, all excellent.
We can all join in these, but never
mention creeds and doctrines.
Why, man, you cannot be aware of the
enlightenment of our times.
What importance can now be attached to mere
biblical dogmas and ordinances?
Why contend as to whether baptism shall be
performed upon a babe or upon a believer,
whether it shall be by sprinkling or by
immersion?
What matters the law of Christ in such
a case?
These things would do for the schoolmen of
the dark ages to fight about, but what
can be the importance of such trifles in
this highly enlightened nineteenth century?
Yes, that is the exaggeration of Martha.
Mary, treasuring up every word of Christ, Mary,
counting each syllable a pearl, is reckoned to
be unpractical, if not altogether idle.
That spirit, I fear, is growing in these
times and needs to be checked.
For after all, there is truth and there
is error, and charitable talk cannot alter the
fact.
To know and to love the gospel is
no mean thing.
Obedience to Jesus and anxiety to learn his
will so as to please him in all
things are not secondary matters.
Contemplation, worship, and growth in grace are not
unimportant.
I trust we shall not give way to
the spirit which despises our Lord's teaching.
For if we do, in prizing the fruit
and despising the root, we shall lose the
fruit and the root too.
In forgetting the great wellspring of holy activity,
namely personal piety, we shall miss the streams
also.
From the sincerity of faith and the fervor
of love practical Christianity must arise, and if
the food that faith and love feed upon
be withdrawn, if sitting at the feet of
Jesus be regarded as of secondary consequence, then
both strength and will to serve the Lord
will decline.
I dread much the spirit which would tamper
with truth for the sake of united action,
or for any object under heaven, the latitudinarian
spirit which sneers at creeds and dogmas.
Truth is no trifle.
Not so thought our fathers when at the
stake they gave themselves to death, or on
the brown heather of Scotland fell beneath the
swords of Claverhouse's dragoons for truths which nowadays
men count as truth.
Truth was not unimportant, but which being truths
were to them so vital that they would
sooner die than suffer them to be dishonored.
Oh, for the same uncompromising love of truth,
would to God we could be both active
and studious and both learn with Mary and
work with Martha.
The Martha spirit crops up in our reckoning
so many things necessary.
Martha believed that to make Christ an entertainment
there must be many things prepared, as to
leaving one of those things out it could
not be.
Our Lord would have been satisfied enough with
the simplest fare.
A piece of fish or of a honeycomb
would well have contented him.
But no, according to Martha's judgment there must
be this and there must be that.
So is it with many good people now.
They have their ideas of excellence and if
these cannot be realized they despair of doing
anything acceptable for Christ.
I believe in educated ministry to be desirable,
but nonetheless do I deplore the spirit which
considers it to be essential.
In the presence of the fishermen of Galilee
we dare not subscribe to the necessity which
with some is beyond doubt.
You must not, according to the talk of
some, allow these earnest young people to set
about preaching and your converted colliers and fiddlers
should be stopped at once.
The Holy Ghost has in all ages worked
by men of his own choosing, but some
churches would not let him if they could
help it.
Their pulpits are closed against the most holy
and useful preachers if they have not those
many things with which the church nowadays cumbers
her ministers and herself.
Then, my brethren, to carry on a good
work it is thought needful to have a
society and large funds.
I also approve of the society and the
funds.
I only regret that they should be so
viewed as prime necessaries that few will stir
without them.
The idea of sending out a missionary with
a few pounds in hand as in the
days of Carius set down in many quarters
is absurd.
How can you save souls without a committee?
How can London be evangelized till you have
raised at least a million of money?
Can you hope to see men converted without
an annual meeting at Exeter Hall?
You must have a secretary.
There is no moving an inch till he
is elected, and know you not that without
a committee ye can do nothing?
All these and a thousand things which time
fails me to mention are now deemed to
be needful for the service of Jesus until
a true-hearted soul who could do much
for his Lord scarcely dares to move till
he is put on soul's armor of human
patronage.
O, for apostolical simplicity, going everywhere, preaching the
word, and consecrating the labor of every believer
to soul winning, to bring us back to
first principles, one thing is needful, and if
by sitting at Jesus' feet we can find
that one thing, it will stand us in
better stead than all the thousand things which
custom now demands.
To catch the spirit of Christ to be
filled with himself, this will equip us for
godly labor as nothing else ever can.
May all Christians yet come to put this
one thing first and foremost, and count the
power of deep piety to be the one
essential qualification for holy work.
To have done so much preaching or so
much Sunday school teaching, to have distributed so
many tracts, to have made so many calls
by our missionaries, all these seems to be
looked at as end rather than means.
If there be so much effort put forth,
so much work done, is it not enough?
Our reply is, it is not enough.
It is nothing without the divine blessing.
Brethren, where mere work is prized and the
inner life forgotten, prayer comes to be at
a discount.
The committee is attended, but the devotional meeting
forsaken.
The gathering together for supplication is counted little
compared with the collecting of subscriptions.
The opening prayer at public meetings is regarded
as a very proper thing, but there are
those who regard it as a mere formality
which might be very well laid aside and
therefore invariably come in after prayer is over.
It will be an evil day for us
when we trust in the willing and the
running and practically attempt to do without the
Holy Spirit.
This lofty estimate of mere activity for its
own sake throws the acceptance of our work
into the shade.
The Martha Spirit says, if the work is
done, is not that all?
The Mary Spirit asks whether Jesus is well
pleased or no.
All must be done in his name and
by his spirit or nothing is done.
Restless service which sits not at his feet
is but the clattering of a mill which
turns without grinding corn.
It is but an elaborate method of doing
nothing.
I do not want less activity.
How earnestly do I press you to it
almost every Sabbath day, but I do pray
that we may feel that all our strength
lies in God and that we can only
be strong as we are accepted of Christ
and can only be accepted in Christ as
we wait upon him in prayer, trust him
and live upon him.
Ye may come for sea and land to
make your proselytes, but if ye have not
the spirit of Christ, ye are none of
his.
Ye may rise up early and sit up
late and eat the bread of sorrows, but
unless ye trust in the Lord your God,
ye shall not prosper.
The joy of the Lord is your strength.
They that wait on the Lord shall renew
their strength.
Without Christ, ye can do nothing.
Hath he not told you, he that abideth
in me and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit?
Was it not written of old, I am
like a green fir tree, from me is
thy fruit found.
Once more, Martha's spirit is predominant in the
church of God to a considerable extent now
in the evident respect which is paid to
the manifest and the small regard which is
given to the secret.
All regenerated persons ought to be workers for
God and with God, but let the working
never swamp the believing.
Never let the servant be more prominent than
the son.
Never, because you conduct a class or are
chief man at a village station, forget that
you are a sinner saved by grace and
have need still to be looking to the
crucified and finding all your life in him.
You lose your strength as a worker if
you forget your dependence as a believer.
To labor for Christ is a pleasant thing,
but beware of doing it mechanically.
In this, you can only prevent by diligently
cultivating personal communion with Christ.
My brother, it may be you will undertake
so much service that your time will be
occupied and you will have no space for
prayer and reading the word.
The half hour in the morning for prayer
will be cut short and the time allotted
for communion with God in the evening will
be gradually entrenched upon by this engagement and
the other occupation.
And when this is the case, I tremble
for you.
You are killing the steed by spurring it
and denying it food.
You are undermining your house by drawing out
the stones from the foundation to pile them
at the top.
You are doing your soul serious mischief if
you put the whole of your strength into
that part of your life which is visible
to men and forget that portion of your
life which is secret between you and your
God.
To gather up all in one, I fear
there is a great deal among us of
religious activity of a very inferior sort.
It concerns itself with the external of service,
it worries itself with merely human efforts and
it attempts in its own strength to achieve
divine results.
The real working which God will accept is
that which goes hand in hand with a
patient waiting upon Christ, with heart searching, with
supplication, with communion, with a childlike dependence upon
Jesus, with a firm adhesion to his truth
and an intense love to his person and
an abiding in him at all seasons.
May we have more of such things.
Martha's spirit, though excellent in itself so far
as it goes, must not overshadow Mary's quiet,
deep-seated piety for evil will come of
it.
Secondly, we observe that the Martha's spirit injures
through service.
Service may be true and yet somewhat marred
upon the wheel.
Give your attention not so much to what
I say as to the bearing of it
upon yourselves.
It may be that you will find as
we speak that you have been verily guilty
touching these things.
The Martha's spirit brings the least welcome offering
to Christ.
It is welcome, but it is the least
welcome.
Our Lord Jesus, when on earth, was more
satisfied by conversing to a poor Samaritan woman
than he would have been by the best
meat and drink.
In carrying on his spiritual work, he had
meat to eat that his disciples knew not
of.
Evermore his spiritual nature was predominant over his
physical nature, and those persons who brought him
spiritual gifts brought him the gifts which he
preferred.
Here, then, was Martha's dish of well-cooked
meat, but there was Mary's gift of a
humble, obedient heart.
Here was Martha decking the table, but there
was Mary submitting her judgment to the Lord
and looking up with wondering eyes as she
heard his matchless speech.
Mary was bringing to Jesus the better offering.
With Martha he would in his condescension be
pleased, but in Mary he found satisfaction.
Martha's service he accepted benevolently, but Mary's worship
he accepted with complacency.
Now, brethren and sisters, all that you can
give to Christ in any shape or form
will not be so dear to him as
the offering of your fervent love, the clinging
of your humble faith, the reverence of your
adoring souls.
Do not, I pray you, neglect the spiritual
for the sake of the external, or else
you will be throwing away gold to gather
to yourself iron.
You will be pulling down the palaces of
marble that you may build for yourselves hubbles
of clay.
Martha's spirit has this mischief about it also,
that it brings self too much to remembrance.
We would not severely judge Martha, but we
can see that in some measure she aimed
at making the service a credit to herself
as the mistress of the house.
At any rate, self came up when she
began to grow weary and complained that she
was left to serve alone.
We also want our work to show well
as our work.
We like those who see it to commend
it, and if none commend it, we feel
that we are hardly done by and are
left to work alone.
Now, to the extent in which I think
of myself in my service, I spoil it.
Self must sink and Christ be all in
all.
John the Baptist's saying must be our motto,
he must increase, I must decrease.
For Jesus, shoelatched, we are not worthy to
unloose.
Too much work and too little fellowship will
always bring self into prominence.
Self must be prayed down, and fellowship with
Jesus must keep it down.
Martha seemed to fancy that what she was
doing was needful for Christ.
She was cumbered about much serving because she
thought it necessary that there should be a
noble entertainment for the Lord.
We are all too apt to think that
Jesus wants our work and that he cannot
do without us.
The preacher inquires, what would become of the
church if he were removed?
The deacon is suspicious that if he were
taken away, there would be a great gap
left in the executive of the church.
The teacher of a class feels that those
children would never be converted.
Christ would miss of the travail of his
soul.
But for him, ah, but a fly on
St. Paul's Cathedral might as well imagine that
all the traffic at his feet was regulated
by his presence and would cease should he
remove.
I love you to think that Christ will
do much work by you and to attach
as much weight as you can to your
responsibilities.
But as to Jesus needing us, the thing
is preposterous.
Mary is much wiser when she feels he
desires me to receive his words and yield
him my love.
I would gladly give him meat, but he
will see to that.
He is the master of all things and
can do without me or Martha.
I need him far more than he can
need me.
We spoil our service when we overestimate its
importance, for this leads us into loftiness and
pride.
Martha, under the influence of this high temper,
came to complain of her sister and to
complain of her Lord too as if he
were excusing her idleness.
Dost thou not care that my sister hath
left me to serve alone?
How it spoils what we do for Christ
when we go about it with a haughty
spirit.
When we feel I can do this and
it is grand to do that, am not
I somewhat better than others?
Must not my master think well of me?
The humble worker wins the day.
God accepts the man who feels his nothingness
and out of the depth cries to him,
but the great ones he will put down
from their seats and send the rich ones
empty away.
Activity, if not balanced by devotion, tends to
puff us up and so to prevent acceptance
with God.
Martha also fell into an unbelieving vexation.
Her idea of what was necessary to be
done was so great that she found she
could not attain to it.
There must be this side dish and there
must be that principal joint and there must
be this meat and that wine.
It must be cooked just so many minutes.
This must be done to a turn and
so on and so on and so on
and so on.
And now time flies.
She fears yonder guest has been slighted.
That servant is not back from the market.
Many things go wrong when you are most
anxious to have them right.
You good housewives who may have had large
parties to prepare for know what these cares
mean, I dare say.
And something of the sort troubled Martha so
that she became fretful and unbelieving.
She had a work to do beyond her
strength, as she thought, and her faith failed
her and her unbelief went penchantly to complain
to her Lord.
Have we never erred in the same way?
We must have that Sunday school excellently conducted,
that morning prayer meeting must be improved, that
Bible class must be revived, our morning sermon
must be a telling one and so on.
The preacher here speaks of himself, for he
sometimes feels that there is too much responsibility
laid upon his shoulders and he is very
apt in reviewing his great field of labor
to grow desponding in spirit.
But when the preacher confessed that he spoke
of himself, he only did so because he
represents his fellow workers and you also grow
faint and doubtful.
Alas, in such a case the enjoyment of
service evaporates.
The fretfulness which pines over details spoils the
whole and the worker becomes a mere drudge
and scolian instead of an angel who does
God's commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his
word.
Instead of glowing and burning like seraphs, our
chariot wheels are taken off by our anxiety
and we drag heavily.
Faith it is that secures acceptance, but when
unbelief comes in, the work falls flat to
the ground.
At such times when the man or the
church shall become subject to the Martha spirit,
the voluntary principle falls a little into disrepute.
I believe the voluntary principle is the worst
thing in all the world to work where
there is no grace.
But where there is grace, it is the
one principle that God accepts.
Now Martha would have Mary made to serve
Christ.
What right has she to be sitting down
there?
Whether she likes or not, she must get
up and wait like her sister.
Martha's voluntary desire to do much leads her
to think that Mary, if she is not
quite such a voluntary love for the work,
must be driven to it, must have a
sharp word from Christ about it.
So it is with us.
We are so willing to contribute to the
Lord's work that we wish we had ten
thousand times as much to give.
Our heart is warm within us and we
feel we would make no reserve and then
are grieved with others because they give so
very little.
We wish we could compel them to give.
And so we would put their cankered money
into the same treasury with the bright freewill
offerings of the saints as if the Lord
would receive such beggarly pittances squeezed out by
force in the same manner as he accepts
the voluntary gifts of his people.
It were wiser if we left those unwilling
contributions to rust in the pockets of their
owners, for in the long run I believe
they do not help the cause, for only
that which is given out of a generous
spirit and out of love to Christ will
come up accepted before him.
Too readily do we get away from the
free spirit when we get away from the
right spirit.
The fact is the Martha's spirit spoils all
because it gets us away from the inner
soul of service.
As I have said before to the mere
husks of service, we cease to do work
as to the Lord.
We labor too much for the service sake.
The main thing in our minds is the
service and not the master.
We are cumbered and he is forgotten.
Thus have I indicated as briefly as I
could some of the weaknesses of the Martha
spirit.
Now for the Mary spirit.
I have to show you that it is
capable of producing the noblest form of consecration
to Christ.
Its noblest results will not come just yet.
Martha's fruits ripen very quickly.
Mary's take time.
When Lazarus was dead, you'll remember Martha ran
to meet Christ, but Mary sat still in
the house.
Martha wanted her own time.
Mary could take Christ's time.
So after a while, just before our Lord's
death, we find that Mary did a grand
action.
She did what Martha never thought of doing.
She brought forth a box of precious ointment
and poured it on the Lord's head and
anointed him with ointment.
While she was sitting at Christ's feet, she
was forming and filling the springs of action.
You are not losing time while you are
feeding the soul.
While by contemplation you are getting purpose strengthened
and motive purified, you are rightly using time.
When the man becomes intense, when he gets
within him principles vital, fervent, energetic, then when
the season for work comes, he will work
with a power and a result which empty
people can never attain, however busy they may
be.
If the stream flows at once, as soon
as ever there is a shower, it must
be little better than a trickling rivulet.
But if the current stream is dammed up
so that for a while nothing pours down
the riverbed, you will in due time, when
the waters have gathered strength, witness a torrent
before which nothing can stand.
Mary was filling up the fountainhead.
She was listening and learning, feeding, edifying, loving
and growing strong.
The engine of her soul was getting its
steam ready and when all was right, her
action was prompt and forcible.
Meanwhile, the manner of her action was being
refined.
Martha's actions were good, but if I may
use the word, they were commonplace.
She must make a great feed for the
Lord Jesus, just as for any earthly friend.
The spiritual nature of Christ she had forgotten.
She was providing nothing for it, but Mary's
estimate of Christ was of a truer order.
She looked at him as a priest.
She viewed him as a prophet.
She adored him as a king and she
had heard him speak about dying and had
listened to his testimony about suffering and, dimly
guessing what it meant, she prepared the precious
spikenard that ere the dying should come, she
might anoint him.
The woman's deed was full of meaning and
of instruction.
It was indeed an embodied poem.
The odor that filled the house was the
perfume of love and elevated thought.
She became refined in her actions by the
process of musing and learning.
Those who think not, who meditate not, who
commune not with Christ will do commonplace things
very well, but they will never rise to
the majesty of a spiritual conception or carry
out a heart-suggested work for Christ.
That sitting of Mary was also creating originality
of act.
I tried two Sabbaths ago to enforce upon
you the duty of originality of service as
the right thing.
That as we wondered everyone his own way,
we should each serve God in his own
way according to our peculiar adaptation and circumstances.
Now, this blessed woman did so.
Martha is in a hurry to be doing
something.
She does what any other admirer of Jesus
would do.
She prepares meat and a festival.
But Mary does what but one or two
besides herself would think of.
She anoints him and is honored in the
deed.
She struck out a spark of light from
herself as her own thought, and she cherished
that spark till it became a flaming act.
I would that in the church of God
we had many sisters at Jesus' feet who
at last would start up under an inspiration
and say, I have thought of something that
will bring glory to God, which the church
has not heard of before, and this will
I put in practice, that there may be
a fresh gem in my Redeemer's crown.
This sitting at the Master's feet guaranteed the
real spirituality of what she did.
Did you notice when I read what the
Master said concerning the pouring of the ointment
upon him?
She hath kept this for my burial.
He praised her for keeping it as well
as for giving it.
I suppose that for months she had set
apart that particular ointment and held it in
reserve.
Much of the sweetest aroma of a holy
work lies in its being thought over and
brought out with deliberation.
There are works to be done at once
and straightway, but there are some other works
to be weighed and considered.
What shall I do, my Savior, to praise?
There is a cherished scheme, there is a
plan, the details of which shall be prayed
out, and every single part of it sculptured
in the imagination and realized in the heart,
and then the soul shall wait, delighting herself
in prospect of the deed until the dear
purpose may be translated into fact.
It is well to wait, expectantly saying, Yes,
the set time will come.
I shall be able to do the deed.
I shall not go down to my grave
altogether without having been serviceable.
It is not yet the time, it is
not yet the appropriate season, and I am
not quite ready for it myself.
But I will add grace to grace and
virtue to virtue, and I will add self
-denial to self-denial till I am fit
to accomplish the one chosen work.
So the Savior praised Mary that she had
kept this, kept it till the fit moment
came before His burial, and then, but not
till then, she had poured out and revealed
her love.
It is not your thoughtless service performed while
your souls are half asleep.
It is that which you do for Christ
with eyes that overflow, with hearts that swell
with emotion.
It is this that Jesus accepts.
May we have more of such service as
we shall have if we have more of
sitting at His feet.
Christ accepted her.
He said she had chosen the good part
which should not be taken from her.
And if our work be spiritual, intense, fervent,
thoughtful, if it spring out of fellowship, if
it be the outgushing of deep principles, of
inward beliefs, of solemn gratitude, then our piety
shall never be taken from us.
It will be an enduring thing and not
like the mere activities of Martha, things that
come and go.
I have thus wrought out my text.
I shall utter but two or three words
upon the general applications of it.
I shall apply it to three or four
things very briefly.
Brethren, I believe in our non-conformity.
I believe that if ever England wanted non
-conformists, it is now.
But there is a tendency to make non
-conformity become a thing of externals, dealing with
state and church and politics.
The political relations of non-conformists, I believe
in their value.
I would not have a man less earnest
upon them, but I am always fearful lest
we should forget that non-conformity is nothing
if it be not spiritual, and that the
moment we as dissenters become merely political or
formal, it is all over with us.
Our strength is at the Master's feet, and
I am afraid for our non-conformity if
it lives elsewhere.
I mark so much conformity to the world,
so much laxity of rule, so much love
of novel opinions, that I tremble.
I would we could go back to Puritanism.
We are getting too lax.
There is too much worldliness and carnality among
us.
There is little fear of our being censored,
even by the world, for being too particular.
I am afraid we are too much like
the world for the world to hate us,
as I pray that non-conformity may always
prevail in England, so I earnestly pray that
she may stand because she abides near to
Christ, holds His truth, prizes His word, and
lives upon Himself.
Now the like is true of missions.
Apply the principle there.
God bless missions.
Our prayer goes up for them as warmly
as for our soul's salvation.
When shall the utmost ends of the earth
behold the salvation of our God?
But the strength of missions must lie not
so much in arrangements, in committees, in monies,
in men, as in waiting upon the Christ
of God.
We shall not do any more with a
hundred thousand pounds than with a single thousand
unless we get more grace.
We shall not have more souls, one with
fifty missionaries, than with five unless we get
ten times the amount of power from the
right hand of the Most High.
The waking up in missions needs to begin
in our prayer meetings and in our churches.
In our personal wrestlings with God for the
conversion of the heathen must lie in the
main strength of the workers that go out
to do the deed.
Let us remember this.
Mary shall yet pour the box of ointment
upon the head of the anointed.
Martha cannot do it.
The same thing is true in revivals.
Persons will talk about getting up a revival.
Of all things, I do believe one of
the most detestable of transactions.
If you want a revival of religion, it
is said, you must get Mr. So-and
-so to preach.
With him, I suppose, is the residue of
the spirit.
Oh, but if you want a revival, you
must adopt the method so long in vogue
and so well known as connected with such
and such a revival.
I suppose the Spirit of God is no
more a free spirit then as he used
to be in the olden times.
And where as of old he breathed where
he listed, you fancy your methods and plans
can control him.
It is not so.
It is not so in any degree.
The way to get the revival is to
begin at the Master's feet.
You must go there with Mary and afterwards
you may work with Martha.
When every Christian's heart is set right by
feeding on Christ's word and drinking in Christ's
Spirit, then will the revival come.
When we had the long drought, some farmers
watered their grass but found it did but
very little good.
An Irish gentleman remarked in my hearing that
he had always noticed that when it rained
there were clouds about and so all the
air was in right order for the descent
of rain.
We have noticed the same.
And it so happens that the clouds and
general constitution of the atmosphere have much to
do with the value of moisture for the
herbs.
It is no good watering them in the
sun.
The circumstances do not benefit them.
So with revivals.
Certain things done under certain circumstances become abundantly
useful.
But if you have not similar circumstances, you
may use the same machinery but mischief instead
of good will follow.
Begin yourself with the Master and then go
outward to his service.
But plans of action must be secondary.
So too, lastly, if you want to serve
God as I trust you do, I charge
you first be careful of your own souls.
Do not begin with learning how to preach
or how to teach or how to do
this or that, dear friend.
Get the strength within your own soul and
then even if you do not know how
to use it scientifically, yet you will do
much.
The first thing is get the heart warmed.
Stir up your manhood.
Brace up all your faculties.
Get the Christ within you.
Ask the everlasting God to come upon you.
Get him to inspire you.
And then if your method should not be
according to the methods of others, it will
not matter.
Or if they should, neither will it be
of consequence having the power you will accomplish
the results.
But if you go about to perform the
work before you have the strength from on
high, you shall utterly fail.
Better things we hope of you.
God send them.
Amen.