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THE SPARROW AND THE SWALLOW

BY C H SPURGEON

FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 NO 3

WHEN DAVID was far away from the services of the tabernacle, he envied the birds that had built their nests near the sacred shrine. It seems that these birds had found two things: firstly houses for themselves, and secondly nests for their young. Both these things Christians find in Christ, and also, in a sense, in congregations of believers gathered for public worship.

Our first question shall be, What were those creatures that found a house? Well, they were only sparrows, yet they found a house near the altars of God, and therefore David envied them. Sparrows are very insignificant things. ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?’ said Christ to His disciples.

You and I, dear friends, when we really see ourselves as we are in God’s sight, because of our sin, feel even more insignificant than sparrows, and realise that to be blotted out of the universe would be a gain rather than a loss. What unworthy creatures we see ourselves to be, once God pours upon us the bright light of His Word!

Then we think that any mercy is far too good for us to receive. Yet, as the sparrows were permitted to find their house under the eaves of God’s tabernacle, so we, worthless as we are, may come and build under the shelter of His great house of mercy. There we may find a safe refuge and a perfect security for all time, and for all eternity.

You who think yourself despised and forgotten, remember that the sparrow has found a house on God’s altar. Come, then, and see if there is not space there also for you! Jesus said, ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out;’ and the apostle Paul says, ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the . . . base things of the world, and things which are despised . . .’ Therefore, though you feel yourself to be a nobody, come to the Saviour with confidence, for He will not reject you.

The sparrows were not only very insignificant, they were also very needy. They needed a house, a place of shelter, and they found it at God’s altar. How needy also are we! Though we are insignificant, our wants are anything but insignificant. How much we need! Were it not for God’s superabounding mercy, we should all be in hell. Were it not for His unspeakable goodness, we should this day have no hope of grace, no prospect of pardon, no assurance of a holy, happy Heaven hereafter.

Our wants are countless, and every moment brings a fresh one, and all the supplies of the past and the present are not sufficient to meet the voracious demands that will come upon us in the future. The sparrow, needy creature that she was, having nothing to bring to God’s house, found there a place freely given to her; and, in our case, the infinite supply of divine mercy, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, is freely given to us.

You need not bring anything with you when you come to Christ, only come and trust Him, but come, flying with the wings of faith, to find a house and a home in Him. At the great altar where Christ was offered as the one sacrifice for sin for ever, the most needy soul that ever lived on the face of the earth will find a welcome.

These sparrows were uninvited guests, yet they found a house and took possession of it, and they were never criticised for doing so. But, my dear hearers, you who have never come to the Lord Jesus Christ, are not uninvited guests. The Gospel invitation rings through this building every Sabbath day -

‘Come and welcome,
Come to Jesus, sinner come!’

We not only invite you, but we earnestly press you, in Christ’s name, to come and put your trust in His great sacrifice, assuring you that if you do so you shall find an everlasting and blessed home for your souls. The sparrows were bold enough to find a house when no one told them to do so; so will you not be bold enough, fearful though you may be, to take the divine mercy freely proffered to you?

The Lord delights to have great things thought of Him; and if you will only think great things of His love and mercy, I will warrant you that you will never think thoughts that shall outstrip the reality.

Let us learn, then, from the sparrow finding her house near to God’s altar, that although we are inconsiderable and insignificant, although we are full of needs, and although we may even deem ourselves to be uninvited, yet we are at liberty to come to the Saviour, and find in Him our eternal dwelling-place.

Next, what does the text tell us that these sparrows did? The text says, ‘Yea, the sparrow hath found an house.’ Clearly, then, she looked for it. The sparrow wanted a house, and she searched to see where she could find it.

One reason why many do not find salvation is because they do not look for it. Many of them do not even know that they need it, or, if they know it as a matter of doctrine, they do not believe it enough to look for it, and appropriate it as their own.

I am persuaded that no one ever sincerely sought salvation through Jesus Christ, without finding it. I do not believe that among all the lost there is one who will be able to tell the Lord that he honestly and earnestly sought His mercy, yet could not obtain it.

If you have not found Christ, my dear hearer, it is because you have not sought Him, for He said, ‘He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.’ I grant you that the blessing may be delayed for a while. You may be some time in finding peace, perhaps through your ignorance, or through some cherished sin that you have not given up; but if you truly come to the throne of grace, and cry in earnest for mercy, as surely as God is in Christ Jesus, He will stretch out His sceptre toward you, and you shall find grace in His sight.

Be encouraged to persevere in your search after salvation, and ask that the help of the Holy Spirit may be given to you.

Notice that a suitable house existed for the sparrow, or she could never have found it. A traveller in Palestine writes in his journal that, as he was wandering among the ruins on the site of the Temple at Jerusalem, he noticed a little bird - known in the Hebrew as tzippor, or sparrow - fly out of a crevice between two great stones where the mortar or cement had been removed, and he thought at once of these words, ‘The sparrow hath found an house.’

That is just what David meant. The sparrow no doubt found a little vacant place, just what she wanted, and in she went, and there was her ‘house’ ready made for her. Let me say to you who seek rest in Christ, there is rest prepared for you! He Who has prepared your heart to seek Him has prepared that which you long to find. It is not for you to make a salvation for yourself. Your salvation is accomplished and you only have to find it.

It is not for you to make an atonement for yourself; atonement for sin has been made, once for all, on Calvary. It is not for you to make righteousness for yourself; the righteousness that Christ Jesus wrought is perfect, and you cannot add any of your own.

As Bunyan said, ‘Does not your mouth water as you hear this? Do you not say, "Is all this really prepared for me? Then, why do I not have it?"’ Why not indeed? In my Master’s name, I do assure you that ‘all things are ready’ for all who will seek Him, for every soul that will trust Him.

‘Yea, the sparrow hath found an house.’ This also shows that when she had discovered it, she appropriated it. There was the little place, so snug and cosy, just on the warm side of the tabernacle, where the south wind would blow and she would be shielded from the cold, and in went the little bird. She had found it, and she took care to make it her own by personal appropriation.

Now, we may find Christ, in a sense, so as to know much about Him, yet not truly to find Him. The root of the matter is to get Christ for yourself, and in this respect you must be selfish, and you can thus be selfish without being sinful. You must personally lay hold of Christ if you would be saved.

Someone set out to teach a little girl this lesson when the child was waiting upon him while he was ill. ‘Please pour out my medicine, Jane,’ said the sick man; and when it was poured out, he said, ‘Now, take it for me.’ ‘O!’ she said, ‘I would willingly do it, but the medicine would not do you any good if I took it.’ ‘Exactly,’ said he, ‘and as I must personally take the medicine before it can do me good, you must personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because another person’s faith can do you no good.’

Faith is a personal thing. You must repent for yourself, believe for yourself, and lay hold on Christ for yourself. It would have been no benefit to that little bird if all other sparrows had found houses for themselves and she had remained shelterless in the storm. She must take a house for herself.

What exactly did the sparrow find in her house? The word house is a simple one, but it says much. When we find a house for our souls in the Lord Jesus Christ, we find safety in Him, even as the sparrow found safety in her house. When the stormy wind blew around her, she felt safe in her stone fortress by the altar, and when the storm of conscience beats upon us, we feel safe in our hiding-place where Jesus Christ suffered for us.

And when the last dreadful storm of divine judgement shall come, we shall be safe beneath the shelter of the atonement that He offered upon Calvary. When the earth and all its works are burned up, and the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, no hurt shall come to the man to whom Christ is ‘a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest’.

Next to safety, we find in Christ rest.

’Tis done! the great transaction’s done;
I am my Lord’s, and He is mine.

My salvation is finished, my sins are pardoned, my security is established by the promise and oath of God Himself, and ratified by the blood of the everlasting covenant. If this is your happy condition, you can enjoy the blissful composure of those beloved by the Lord, ‘and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’ Just as the sparrow felt perfectly at rest when she had entered her house, so we enjoy complete, absolute, unbroken rest when we have truly believed in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.’

Further a house is a place of abode. The sparrow lived in her house, and whoever finds the Lord Jesus Christ lives in Him. He has heard his Master’s blessed command, ‘Abide in me,’ and he desires to dwell there.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have not a mere temporary lodging-place, out of which we may some day be driven back into the cold world where we used to live. That would be a poor prospect for us, but we can say with Moses, ‘Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.’

A house is also a place of delight. When a man reaches his home, he is at his ease, and can be happy. The sparrow, when she reaches her home, is perfectly content. Her wants are supplied, and she chirps her evening song of joy.

So, when we make our home in Christ, our soul is filled with delight. But the point upon which the psalmist seemed to lay the greatest emphasis was that the sparrow’s house was near to God’s earthly dwelling place; and when we abide in Christ, how near we are to God! No nearness imaginable can be greater than Christ’s nearness to His Father, and if we are in Him we are, in His Person, as near even as He is!

A further meaning which may be found in our text is that believers, like the sparrow, find a house in the assemblies of the saints. Cultivate more and more your love for the assemblies of the saints. We have no reverence for bricks and mortar, for we do not believe in the sanctity of any one place above others. But we have love and reverence for the living temple of God, built up of living men and women whose hearts are sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and we can say of these assemblies -

I have been there, and still will go,
’Tis like a little heaven below.
And we can also say -
My tongue repeats her vows,
‘Peace to this sacred house!’
For there my friends and kindred dwell;
And, since my glorious God
Makes thee His blest abode,
My soul shall ever love thee well.

There are many people here who scarcely ever have any peace except when they are sitting in this house of prayer, and who find here the richest enjoyments they ever know. I know some of God’s afflicted children, who have but little sacred happiness except when the holy hymn goes up in glorious peals to Heaven, and they can join in it -

Then they forget their pains a while,
And in the pleasure lose the smart.

The second main point in our text concerns the swallow. After a person is saved, that person’s first anxiety, if a parent, will be for the children. We read - ‘The swallow [hath found] a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.’ Every Christian should long for the good of the children, and the person who does not labour and pray for the salvation of his own offspring has reason to doubt whether he knows the grace of God himself. The assemblies of believers should be a nest for little ones also.

First, the young are safe there. In the Sabbath School they will be safe. Your children will be like the swallows in this respect, they will be pretty sure to return to the nest even if they do leave it for a while. Though the swallows may fly over the sea to far-away lands, yet when the next season comes they find their way back again to the old nest and home. Though some of our sons and daughters may grow up and leave the house of God for a while, they cannot altogether forget it. The recollection of their father’s prayers and their mother’s tears will follow them wherever they roam.

Refrain your eyes from weeping, mothers: your sons and daughters shall come back again. Possibly, when you sleep beneath the clod they will remember what they heard as children. Words forgotten for fifty years may yet ring in their souls, and lead to their eternal salvation.

In the meantime, associate them as far as you can with all that is going on in their former nest or church, so that they shall feel at home when they return.

How can we lay our children before Christ, as the swallow laid her young before God’s altar? I answer, first, by prayer. The Lord will hear our prayers for our children. Example will also help toward the end we have in view - a godly example at home. And personal instruction will also help. We must talk to our children, one by one, alone, about their souls.

Resolve that, if your children perish, it shall not be through any fault of yours. Brethren and sisters, if you are like the sparrow, and have found a house, now be like the swallow, and find not only a nest for yourself, but a place where you may lay your young, even God’s altar upon which Christ offered His great atoning sacrifice.

I wonder what other birds are represented here in this congregation? I fear that I am addressing some who will not heed what I have been saying. They are not like the sparrow and the swallow but they are like the eagle, that was far too ambitious to think of building her nest anywhere near God’s altar. The eagle was too fond of soaring and struggling, too fond of high and lofty things. But there will come a time when the pride of man shall be laid low.

Possibly there is one here who is like the vulture, far too foul to think of building in God’s house, fond of everything that is unclean, and of sinful amusements and pleasures. The time will come when sin will be as bitter to you as now it is sweet, and far more so, for it ‘will eat as doth a canker’. Or perhaps there is one here who is like the cormorant, who will not build on God’s house because he is far too greedy for gold and to amass property. Have you never heard of the rich fool whose soul was required of him the very night on which he boasted of his wealth?

If you do not care for your own soul, it must seem irrelevant for me to talk to you about your children. Yet I will say to any unconverted person here that it will increase your misery intolerably to see your children lost through your example. May you be saved yourself, with your children, in the spirit of the text - ‘The swallow [hath found] a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.’