Luke 13:7

Luke 13:7

Fit to Live.

Men ask, "Are you fit to die?" and men hold up death before the sinner's eyes, and men dwell in solemn warning on the world to come, and on far-off images of death. But God asks, "Are you fit to live?" What, then, is life, if we have to answer the question, "Are we fit to live?" We must seek for the answer where we find the question. The Lord of life has taken a fruit tree in a garden as the best example of the nature of life, both here and in the one great judgment type, when He cursed the barren fig tree, and withered it root and branch, to be for ever the emblem of the lost nation.

I. Life is an internal growth; this is the first great truth. The outer world comes to it in forces of all kinds, and it receives them all, draws them into its being, subdues them to itself, lives by and through them, but makes no stir itself; neither moves nor utters sound, nor is violent, nor fills the world with the rush of impetuous strength. But planted by a Master's hand it stays there, drawing from common earth and common air a growth and a beauty new and unknown to them by its own transforming power; and so it goes on, never losing a moment, making all things serve it in turn, be it rain or frost or wind or sun. Rain and frost and wind and sun touch it each with a power of their own, be it in hate or love; but no sooner do they touch it than the life within seizes on the power, masters it, changes it, gives it a new nature, makes it part of a new life, and to take strange new forms of bud and leaf and flower and fruit. The moment the life does not master the forces which come, that moment it begins to lose its own vitality, and therefore silent mastery of an outward world is life.

II. The great question, "Are you fit to live?" takes this form: first, has all the digging and culture and money spent and time been honestly used? Has it ornamented you, and budded into a growth of leaves fair to look on? And, secondly, is there a ripeness of life coming of such a nature as to be food for the living, and a seed of life for fresh planting? Where is the ceaseless inward power that transmutes all that reaches it into luxuriant growths of new and pleasant services, the silent sustained mastery that, come good, come evil, takes it all, and changes it into crop after crop in due season of help for others, life by which others may live? Tried by this test, are you fit to live?

E. Thring, Church of England Pulpit,April 3rd, 1880.

References: Luke 13:7; Luke 13:8. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xi., No. 650; Ibid.,vol. xxv., No. 1451.Luke 13:8. J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons,p. 384; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 48.