Luke 14:28-30

The Improvident Builder.

Building here is the image of the Christian life, regarded in its positive aspect: the foundation and development of the work of God in the heart and life of the believer. The tower, a lofty edifice which strikes the eye from afar, represents a mode of living distinguished from the common, and attracting general attention. New professors often regard with complaceney what distinguishes them outwardly from the world. But building costs something; and the work once begun must be finished, under penalty of being exposed to public ridicule. One should therefore have first made his estimates, and accepted the inroad upon his capital which will result from such an undertaking. His capital is his own life, which he is called to spend, and to spend wholly in the service of his sanctification. The work of God is not seriously pursued, unless a man is daily sacrificing some part of that which constitutes the natural fortune of the human heart, particularly the affections, which are so deep, referred to, Luke 14:26. Before, therefore, any one puts himself forward as a professor, it is all important that he should have calculated this future expenditure, and thoroughly made up his mind not to recoil from any of those sacrifices which fidelity will entail. Sitting down and counting are emblems of the serious acts of recollection and meditation which should precede a true profession. This was precisely what Jesus had done in the wilderness. But what happens when this condition is neglected? After having energetically pronounced himself, the new professor recoils step by step from the consequences of the position which he has taken up. He stops short in the sacrifice of his natural life; and this inconsistency provokes the contempt and ridicule of the world, which soon discovers that he who had separated himself from it with so much parade, is after all but one of its own. Nothing injures the gospel like those relapses, the ordinary results of hasty profession.