Luke 14:18

Luke 14:18

That God's call is often disobeyed is a matter of fact, of which our consciences cannot pretend to be ignorant. But the nature of the excuses given is well worthy of our consideration.

I. One of these excuses arises from a feeling that our common work is not a matter of religion; and that therefore it is not sinful to neglect it. Idleness and vice are considered as two distinct things; and it is very common to say, and to hear it said, of such a one that he is idle, but that he is perfectly free from vice. Idleness is not vicious, perhaps, but it is certainly sinful; and to strive against it is a religious duty, because it is highly offensive to God. This is so clearly shown in the Parable of the Ten Talents, in that of the Sower and the Seed, and even in the account of the Day of Judgment, given by our Lord in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, that it cannot require a very long proof. In the description of the Day of Judgment, the sin for which the wicked are represented as turned into hell is only that they have done no good. It is not mentioned that they were vicious, in the common sense of the word; but they were sinful, inasmuch as they had not done what God commanded them to do.

II. Another excuse more nearly resembles the excuses made by the men in the parable: you do not attend to the call of God, because there is some other call which you like better. You complain, or rather you say to yourselves, that the work is very irksome to you, and you cannot see the use of it. It is likely enough that the work is irksome; for so corrupt is our nature that God's will is generally irksome to us, because He is good and we are evil. But is this such an excuse as God will allow for not doing what He has commanded us? Is it not here rather that we should learn to practise our Saviour's command, "Let a man deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me"? What is denying ourselves, but doing what we do not like, because it is the will of our Master? What is to take up our cross daily, but to find and to bear daily some hindrance in ourselves or others, which besets and would close up our path of duty? Against idleness, no less than against other sins, the Christian has the only sure means of victory. The natural evil inclination, the weak and corrupt flesh, still finds duty painful; but the regenerate spirit, born again of the Spirit of God, and sharing in its Father's likeness, finds the will of its Father more pleasant than the flesh finds it painful; and so the will of God is done, and the man is redeemed from the bondage of sin and misery.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 93.

References: Luke 14:18. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. x., No. 578; E. Blencowe, Sermons to a Country Congregation,vol. ix., p. 198; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,2nd series, p. 154.Luke 14:22. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 263; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 129.