The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent: A Complete Course of 66 Short Sermons, or Full Sermon Outlines for Each Sunday, and Some Chief Holy Days of the Christian YearBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent: A Complete Course of 66 Short Sermons, or Full Sermon Outlines for Each Sunday, and Some Chief Holy Days of the Christian Year
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Anglican Communion -- England -- Sermons; Church of England -- Sermons; Church year sermons; Sermons, English
CONCLUSION.--Try, then, to look upon your life as a time of building up
the work of your salvation, and at every day as contributing something
towards it. Ask yourself each day, What have I done to-day towards
this work set me? And if I have done anything towards it, how has it
been done? Moreover, try to do all things well, to be zealous and
thorough in every thing you undertake.
Also, offer all you do to God, and ask Him to prove it, and to cut off
from it all that is faulty, and to enable you to do better in time to
come.
When Nehemiah had rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, and restored much that
was cast down, and put right many abuses, he prayed, "Remember me, O my
God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done."
Let this also be your prayer, that He may look on all you do for Him
and bless it, and remember it for good, in the day when He tries every
man's work of what sort it is.
L.
_ZEAL._
13th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Luke x., 23.
"What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
INTRODUCTION.--The Kingdom of Heaven, said our Lord, is like unto a
treasure hid in a field. One day a man is turning over the stones
which lie in a heap in a corner of the field, and he finds under them
an iron chest, and this chest he believes to be full of gold. Then he
carefully covers it up again with stones and earth, and goes off in the
greatest excitement to the owner of the field, and offers him a price,
and when that is refused he sells his house, and garden, and everything
he can turn into money, and gives that to the owner in exchange for the
field.
I fear this is rather a picture of what ought to be than what is. No
doubt whatever that we ought to show just as great eagerness to gain
the Kingdom of Heaven, as did that man to buy the field. No doubt we
ought to be just as eager to cast away everything that stands in the
way, to divest ourselves of every thing we have, in order that we may
gain the Kingdom of Heaven,--but, as a matter of fact, we show very
little eagerness about it, and we are very indifferent whether we gain
it or lose it.
SUBJECT.--What we need is more zeal, more enthusiasm, more earnestness
in our quest.
I. King Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem. He was engaged on it
seven years, and after that, he built his own house, and on that he
spent thirteen years. He therefore spent very nearly twice as much
time and labour, and I doubt not, money over his own house than he did
over the work of God's house; he was wise and good, and he did a great
deal for God, but he did more for himself, and not only for himself,
but for his wives, since he built for them as well.
It is just so with us, we are ready to do something of God's work, to
seek a little the Kingdom of Heaven, but we do not put our heart in
that work, all our heart and zeal is reserved for our own worldly
affairs and our temporal interests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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