ADVICE TO YOUNG BELIEVERS ABOUT SPIRITUAL FOOD
A short discourse by C H Spurgeon, fromThe Sword and the Trowel, November 1876FROM SWORD & TROWEL
1999 No 3
‘Then shall the lambs feed after their manner’ (Isaiah 5.17).
The old Hebrew commentators considered ‘the lambs’ to mean the house of Israel, and
regarded this as a promise that in all times of distress and affliction God’s flock would still be fed.
Whether that be the correct sense or not, I shall use the words as having some such meaning.
Our text deals with the lambs, and to the lambs we intend to speak. Young converts, new-
born souls - these words are for you: you shall feed after your manner.
(1) Our first observation is, that young believers must feed. Simple enough
observation certainly, and clearly to be inferred from the common course of nature, for no sooner is
any living thing created than there are procedures for its feeding. No sooner is a seed cast into the
ground and vitalised than it gathers to itself the particles upon which it feeds. No sooner is an animal
born than it receives food.
Surely the Lord does not create life in the regenerated soul without providing stores upon
which it may be nourished. Where He gives life He gives food.
I have been very anxious, beloved, that you should be diligent in the service of God, and I
have continually stirred you up, not to be sitting listening to sermons when you ought to be doing good.
The consequence has been that some have gone forth to do good whom I should not have exhorted to
do so, because for them it would have been better if they had waited a while; till they had learned
more, both of doctrine and experience.
Young brethren, there is a time for feeding as well as a time for working. We do not allocate
to little children the work of heavy labouring. Some lesser service in the house is suitable for them, and
will do them good; but we do not exact too much from them, for we know that youth is a time in which
they must be learning and growing. Therefore let me say to some of you who know little or nothing of
your Bibles, or of your own hearts: Wait a little, and so do not run before you are sent. Sit still a while
at Jesus’ feet, and learn what He has to say to you, then run as a messenger with a real
message. It could be that at this moment you have more foot than heart and more tongue than brain,
and this is sad.
Let us not forget that our souls need to be fed. Look at many Christian people - what do they
do? What is their reading? The daily paper! I condemn it not, but of what use is this to their souls?
What do they read to nourish the inner life?
And beyond reading, what else do they do to nourish their spirits? Our fathers would go into
their chamber three times a day and take a quarter of an hour for meditation. How many today maintain
such a habit? Is it done once a day?
It was my privilege to live in a house where at eight in the evening every person, from the
servant to the master, would have been found for half-an-hour in prayer and meditation in his or her
chamber. As regularly as the time came round, that was done, just as we took our meals at appointed
hours.
In the old Puritan times a servant would as often answer, ‘Sir, my master is at prayers,’ as he
would nowadays answer, ‘My master is engaged.’ It was then looked upon as a recognised fact that
Christian men did meditate, study the Word, and pray, and society respected the interval. It is said that
in the days of Cromwell if you had walked down Cheapside in the morning you would have seen the
blinds down at every house at a certain hour.
When will God’s people perceive that it is not enough to be born again, but that the life then
received must be nourished daily with the bread of Heaven? It is not enough to be spiritually alive. All
Christians should know that they must sit down to their heavenly Father’s table until He has satisfied
their mouths with good things and renewed their strength like the eagle’s.
The more intensely earnest we are in feeding upon the Word of God, the better. My young
friends, you require to be fed with knowledge and understanding and therefore you should search the
Scriptures daily to know the doctrines of the Gospel, and the glories of Christ.
You will be on the right track if you read the Confession of Faith and study the
proof texts; or learn the Shorter Catechism, comparing it with the Book of God from
which it is derived. Especially in these days, when people are so readily drawn into false teaching, we
need to know what we believe.
Protestantism grew in this land when there was much simple, plain, orthodox teaching of the
doctrines which are assuredly believed among us. Catechising was the very bulwark of Protestantism.
My young friends, may you obtain a spiritual understanding of God’s Word which is more
than knowledge. May you discern the inward sense, compare spiritual things with spiritual, and see the
relation between this truth and the other.
May you also be fed by mingling with the saints of God and learning from their experience.
Many a young Christian gathers from advanced saints what he would never discover elsewhere. As
they tell of what they have felt and known and suffered and enjoyed, the lambs of the flock are
strengthened and consoled. Seek the company of those who can instruct you.
It is a barren thing for a young man to associate only with those who are below him in
experience, and not with those from whose lips pearls drop, because they have been in those deeps
where pearls are found. Be much with experienced Christians and you will be fed by them.
Young friend, much feeding will come to you by meditation upon the truth that you hear. As
the cattle lie down and chew the cud, so does meditation turn over the truth and get the very essence
and nutriment out of it. To hear and hear and hear as some do is utterly useless, because, when they
have heard, it is all over as far as they are concerned. It has gone in one ear and out of the other, and
has left nothing upon the mind. Turn the things you hear over in your mind to explore them.
(2) The text says that the lambs shall feed ‘after their manner’; and that leads us to observe
that young believers have their own way of feeding.
There are several lessons that may be drawn from the way lambs feed. They feed on tender
grass. Young Christians love the simple truths of the Gospel. No father excludes a child from his table
when he is three or four years old because he is not yet able to speak Latin. If the little ones know their
A B C, it is a good beginning.
We think a great deal of the first little verse our babes repeat. They say it in such a strange
way that nobody thinks it is language at all except father and mother, but they are charmed with the
simplest form of speech which infant lips can try. So to see a little spiritual knowledge in new converts
should gratify us, and cause us to love them. Leave the lambs to feed on tender grass, and you older
ones may take as much of the tougher herbage as you like.
(3) Again, lambs like to feed little and often. They are not able to take in much
at a time, but they like to be often at it. I love to see our young people coming to the prayer meetings
and weekday services so continually. You will grow in grace if you are often engaged in the means of
grace. But it is possible to make such things a weariness to the flesh if they become protracted. Strong
saints can bear whole days of devotion, and delight in them, but for young believers, let them have here
a little and there a little, a text and a text, line upon line, precept upon precept - but let them have it
often. ‘Then shall the lambs feed after their manner.’
(4) The lambs, if they feed well, feed after their manner, quietly. If there is a
dog in the field they will not feed. If they are driven about hither and thither, and not allowed to rest,
they cannot feed. I pity young Christians who get into churches where there are disturbances and
troubles. Oh, may we ever be kept at peace! I bless God for the love that has reigned among us. May it
continue, and may it deepen!
Beloved friends, when we fall out with one another we shall find that the Spirit of God has
fallen out with us. We cannot expect to see young converts among us at all, much less can we hope to
see them advance in grace, if we indulge a party spirit, or a controversial spirit within the fold.
All believers should endeavour to maintain a sacred quiet within the church for the sake of
the little ones. Have you never heard of the child who was greatly impressed under a sermon - and had
resolved to pray on reaching home, but he heard his father and mother on the road home discussing the
sermon, and finding such fault with it that the happy season of tenderness passed away from that child,
and in later years he often said that his becoming an unbeliever was due to that conversation. Let the
lambs feed quietly.
There are people about who seem to be cut on the cross, and the only use they are in this
world seems to be to raise irritating questions. They, and the mosquitoes, I suppose were created by
infinite wisdom, but I have never been able to discover the particular blessing which either of them
confer upon us. Those who discuss and discuss, and nothing else, had better be let alone.
(5) Then next, when lambs feed after their manner, they feed in pleasure. A
very disorderly lot the lambs are, if you look over the gate at them. They are never proper and solemn.
An artist can scarcely sketch them for their friskings and gambols. Young Christians ought not to be
told to cease their sanctified humour. They ought not to be expected to groan with those that groan just
yet, but allowed to rejoice with those that do rejoice. Their days of sorrow will come soon enough. For
now let them rejoice in the Lord.
Excited enthusiasm in the church is by no means to be deprecated in young converts. I
remember Dr Fletcher say that he once saw a boy standing on his head, dancing on the pavement, and
displaying all sorts of antics of joy. He said to him, ‘Well, my lad, you seem to be exceedingly merry.’
He replied - ‘I am, and so would you be, Guv’nor, if you had been locked up three months, and had
just got out.’ I thought this very reasonable indeed.
When an unbeliever has felt the grief of sin, and has been shut up in the prison of the law,
and Jesus Christ comes and brings him out, and he begins to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory, should his exuberance and enthusiasm be curbed? ‘Let the lambs feed after their manner.’
(6) Once more, when the lambs feed after their manner, they feed in company.
They like to get with others if they can. Sheep thrive best in flocks. I call upon every young Christian
here to get into some part of Christ’s flock. I invite you into this portion of Christ’s church, but if you
find any other where, all things considered, you think it would be better for you to be, go there.
Mind that you join yourself first to Christ, and after that with His people. Do not try to go to
Heaven as a solitary individual. By companies Christian people proceed towards the New Jerusalem.
May you have much love to the visible church, and believe that, notwithstanding all her faults, there is
none like her in the earth.
(7) I must close with the remark that in the worst of times God will see that His lambs
and the rest of His flock are fed. It is said, ‘Then shall the lambs feed after their manner,’ that is,
when the vineyard was destroyed and the hedge broken down; when thorns and briars had come up,
and the clouds had refused to rain, and God had sent desolation upon Israel, and the people were gone
into captivity - even then shall the lambs feed after their manner.
This is a blessed truth, that, come what may, God’s people shall be saved, and they shall
have spiritual meat. There may come persecuting times. Never mind. Never did Christ seem so
glorious as when He walked with His church in the dungeon and up to the stake.
Never were there sweeter songs than those which rose up from the Lollards’ tower and
Bonner’s coal-hole. Never did the church have such marriage feasts as when her members died at the
gallows and the fire. Christ Jesus has made Himself pre-eminently near and dear to a persecuted
church.
Therefore fear not, if you should have your portion of trouble to bear in your family; or
hostility and shame from an evil world, for you shall feed after your manner. Though your
parents should be annoyed by your stand; though your husband should be angry; though your brother
should ridicule; though your employer should scoff, you shall be fed with spiritual meat, and your soul
shall surmount all these ills, triumphant in her God.
‘But I fear,’ says one, ‘that there will come times of sickness to me. I have premonitions of
it.’ Yes, but you shall be fed after your manner. And I for one bear witness that sometimes periods of
sickness are times of the greatest spiritual nourishment. The Lord can furnish a table in the wilderness.
Sickness is certainly a ‘wilderness’ by itself, but God will give you daily manna. He can make you
strongest in heart when you are weakest in body. Therefore fear not, God will feed
you.
‘I am afraid of poverty,’ says one. Are you? That has been the lot of many of God’s people.
For centuries now the Lord has chosen the poor to be His disciples. You need not fear that. Your
Master too experienced it. You will never be so poor as He was, for He had not where to lay His head.
Fear not, He will feed you.
‘Ah, but I fear death,’ says one. ‘Then shall the lambs feed after their manner.’ Even in the
valley of the shadow of death you will find tender grass. Have you never seen others die? Has it not
been a remarkable thing to see some saints depart? I bring to your minds those who have recently
ascended, whom we loved. Was there anything terrible about their deaths? Did they not smile upon us
in their last hours?
I have often seen young persons getting ill with consumption, and heard from them strange
things that made me think them half prophets or seers whose eyes have been anointed so that they
looked within the veil, and saw the glory of the invisible. Oh, how texts of Scripture have been placed
in golden settings by dying saints! How sweetly have they set promises to music!
Do not talk about monks and their illuminated missals! Scripture illuminated by dying saints
is far more marvellous. What amazing joy believers have felt! Some have even said that the joy was
killing them, not their disease. It was as though the great floods of glory had burst their banks, and the
soul was being swept right away to eternal bliss.
It has been such a blessing to die that it is foolish - perhaps wicked - for any Christian to be
afraid to depart. ‘Then shall the lambs feed after their manner’ - feeding near the very scythe of death,
and cropping choice morsels at the grave’s mouth.
We shall soon disperse, as this congregation has done hundreds of times, and go each one to
his home. Shall we ever meet again? Possibly we shall never again see some in the body. But never
forget that we are a flock, and we must gather again in one meeting place before the judgement-seat on
that day of wrath, that dreadful day. Shall we meet then as the sheep of Christ, or be divided, to the
right and to the left, as the sheep of the great King, or the goats condemned to be cast away?
We shall meet there certainly, but will it be an eternal meeting of unending joy? God grant it
may! But there can be no union at the throne, except there first be union at the cross. Will you come to
the cross? Will you trust the Redeemer? Will you bow before Him? Will you be washed in His blood?
Will you be saved with His salvation? If so, we shall all meet in Heaven to see the face of the Lamb in
His glory. And there shall the lambs feed safely and supremely and eternally after their manner.
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