Ripe Fruit

A couple of snippets from Spurgeon in his sermon Ripe Fruit:  We always look back at the 1800's as an innocent, better time.  But I see here the same struggles we deal with today in the church.

“What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat: my soul desired the first ripe fruit." Micah 7:1

The nation of Israel had fallen into so sad and backsliding a condition, that it was not like a vine covered with fruit, but like a vineyard after the whole vintage has been gathered, so that there was not to be found a single cluster. Not one righteous man could be found, not one to be trusted or found faithful to God. The whole state had become like a field that has been closely reaped, in which nothing remains but the stubble; like a vineyard that has been completely stripped, in which there remains no vestige of fruit. The prophet, speaking in the name of Israel, desired the first ripe fruits, but there were none to be had. The lesson of the text, as it stands, would be that good men are the best fruit of a nation, they make it worth while that the nation should exist, they are the salt which preserves it, they are the fruit which adorns it and blesses it. Pray then for our country, that God will continually raise up a righteous seed, a faithful band, who, for his name’s sake, shall be a sweet savor unto God, for whose sake he may bless the whole land. But I mean to apply our text in another connection, and use it as the heading of a discourse upon ripeness in grace. I think we can all use the words of Micah in another sense, and say, “My soul desired the first ripe fruit.” We would not be merely the green blade; we desire to be the full corn in the ear. We would not merely show forth the blossoms of repentance and the young buds of struggling faith; but we would go on to maturity, and bring forth fruit unto perfection, to the honor and praise of Jesus Christ. This morning, then, I speak about ripeness in grace, maturity in the divine life, fruit ready to be gathered. The church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thoroughgoing, well-instructed, and confirmed believers.

Many an aged Christian is not an experienced Christian, for all his experience, though it may be the experience of a Christian, may not have been Christian experience of an advanced kind. An old sailor who has never left the river is not an experienced mariner. An old soldier who never saw a battle is no veteran. Remember it is in the kingdom of God very much as it is with God himself, one day may be as a thousand years. God can, as Solomon tells us, give wisdom to the simple, and teach the young man knowledge and discretion. Years with grace will produce greater maturity, but what I want to say is, that years without grace will produce no such maturity. The mere lapse of time will not advance us in the divine life. We do not ripen necessarily because our years fulfill their tale. Grey hairs and great grace are not inseparable companions. Time may be wasted as well as improved, we may be petrified rather than perfected by the flow of years.

Here it may be well to note that there is no reason why a young Christian should not make great advance towards this maturity, even while young. The Lord’s grace is independent of time and age; the Holy Spirit is not limited by youth, nor restrained by fewness of days. Young Samuel may excel aged Eli; a holy babe is riper than a backsliding man. Timothy was more mature than Diotrephes. Jesus can lead you, my youthful brother, to high degrees of fellowship with himself; he can make you to be a blessing even while yet you are young; I pray you aspire to the nearest place to Jesus, and like young John, lie in the Master’s bosom.

Truly, the aged have the help of experience, and in any case they deserve our reverent esteem, but let neither old nor young imagine that the merely natural fact of age has any influence in the spiritual life. God’s work is the same in old and young, and owes nothing to the merely natural vigor of youth, or equally natural prudence of age.

The church needs in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thoroughgoing, well-instructed, and confirmed believers. We are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked by so-called reformers, who would reform it all away to ruin. I expect to hear tidings of some new doctrine once a week. So often as the moon changes, some 'prophet' or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for the gospel...They may muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them whither they would, but for confirmed believers they sound their bugles in vain.

Children run after every new toy; any little performance in the street, and the boys are all agog, gaping at it; but their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other matters at home; your drum and whistle will not draw them out.

For the solidity of the church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and infidels, and for her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces for Christ, we want not only your young, hot blood, which may God always send to us, for it is of immense service, and we cannot do without it, but we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced. hearts of men who know by experience the truth of God, and hold fast what they have learned in the school of Christ.

May the Lord our God therefore send us many such; they are wanted.