‘BATTLEMENTS’ or Spiritual Parapets
by C H SpurgeonFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No
1
What is the relevance for today of the ‘law of battlements’ which appears in
Deuteronomy 22.8? In a typically vigorous article written in 1869, C H Spurgeon
explains the spiritual principle enshrined in this commandment and provides rich pastoral
application. At a time when the time-honoured methods of spiritual interpretation need to
be re-emphasised, this article supplies a masterly example of ‘spiritualisation’ of the order
employed by the Reformed and Puritan traditions.
Abridged and adapted by Peter Masters
In Deuteronomy 22.8 we meet with an interesting law which in
its letter was binding on the Jewish people, and in its spirit furnishes an admirable rule for
us upon whom the ends of the earth are come:
‘When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy
roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.’
It is hardly necessary to inform readers that the roofs of Eastern dwellings
were flat, and that the inhabitants were accustomed to spending much of their time on them,
talking during the day, and sleeping at night.
If their roofs were without any fencing or protection around the edge, it
might often happen that little children would fall off, and grown-ups also might
inadvertently take a false step and suffer serious injury.
Where there were no railings or low walls around the roof accidents
frequently occurred, and so God commanded His people while they were still in the
wilderness, that when they came into the promised land and proceeded to build houses, they
should take care in every case to build an adequate railing.
No man has a right to do anything which must inevitably lead to the death or
to the injury of those by whom he is surrounded, but he is bound to do all in his power to
prevent any harm coming to his fellow men. That seems to be the moral teaching of this
ordinance.
But if ordinary life is precious, how much more is the life of the soul.
Therefore it is our Christian duty never to do anything which imperils either our own or
other men’s souls. To us there is an imperative call from the great Master that we both care
for the eternal interests of others, and that so far as we can, we prevent their exposure to
temptations which might lead to a fatal fall into sin.
We shall now lead you to a few meditations which have, in our mind,
gathered around this text.
God has battlemented His own house. Let this serve as a great truth with
which to begin our thinking. God takes care that all His children are safe. There are many
high places in His house, and He does not deny His children the enjoyment of these high
places, but He makes sure that they shall not be in danger there. He sets a balcony round
about them lest they should suffer some calamity when in a state of exaltation.
God in His house has given us many high and sublime doctrines.
Timid minds are afraid of these, but the highest doctrine in Scripture may be
perfectly safe because God has battlemented it. Just as no man need be afraid in the East to
walk on the roof of his house when the battlement is in position, so no man need hesitate to
believe the doctrine of election, the doctrine of eternal and immutable love, or any of the
divine teachings which circle around the covenant of grace.
Take for instance the doctrine of election. What a high and glorious truth this
is, that God has from the beginning chosen His people unto salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and the belief of the Truth! Yet that doctrine has turned many simpletons dizzy
through looking at it without its allied teachings.
Some have wilfully leaped over the battlement which God has set about this
doctrine, and have turned it into Antinomianism, degrading it into an excuse for evil living,
and reaping just damnation for their wilful perversion. But God has been pleased to set
around that doctrine other truths which (when left in position) shield it from abuse.
It is true He has a chosen people, but Scripture says that it is ‘by their fruits
ye shall know them. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’ Though He has chosen
His people, yet He has chosen them ‘unto holiness’; He has ordained them to be ‘zealous
for good works’. His intention is not that they should be saved in their sins, but
saved from their sins; not that they should be carried to Heaven as they are, but
that they should be cleansed and purged from all iniquities, and so made meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
Then there is the sublime truth of the final perseverance of the saints. What a
noble height is that! A housetop doctrine indeed! What a view is to be had from the summit
of it! It would be a great loss to us if we were unable to enjoy the comfort of this truth.
There is no reason for fearing presumption through a firm conviction of the true believer’s
safety. Mark well the battlements which God has built around the edge of this truth.
We read warnings such as - ‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall’ - and we see how God has made a parapet around this tower-like truth, so that
saints may ascend to its very summit, and look abroad upon the land that floweth with milk
and honey, and yet their brains need not whirl, nor shall they fall into presumption and
perish.
That wonderful doctrine of justification by faith, which we all hold to be a
vital truth, is quite as dangerous by itself as the doctrine of election. In fact, if a man means
to sin, he can break down every bulwark and turn any doctrine into an apology for
transgression.
The battlement to the doctrine of justification by faith is the necessity
of sanctification. Where faith is genuine, through the Holy Spirit’s power, it works a
cleansing from sin, a hatred of evil, an anxious desire after holiness, and it leads the soul to
aspire after the image of God. Faith and holiness are inseparable. ‘If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature.’
Good works are to be insisted on, for they have their essential purpose.
James never contradicts Paul after all; it is only that we do not understand him. Both the
doctrinal Paul and the practical James spoke as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. Paul
builds the tower and James puts the battlement around it.
Let us consider some of the other battlements which the Lord puts around
our Christian lives. The Lord guards the position of His saints when endowed with
wealth. Some of God’s servants are, in His providence, called to prosperous
circumstances in life, but prosperity is full of dangers. It is hard to carry a full cup without a
spill.
Yet we may be well assured that if God calls any to be prosperous, and
places him in an eminent position, He will see to it that suitable grace is given
and the necessary affliction for that elevation.
The Lord will put battlements round His child, and these will certainly not
commend themselves to our carnal instincts. Things will seem to be going along very nicely
when we will somehow be brought to a dead stop. We will kick against this hindering
disappointment, but it will not move out of our way. We shall be vexed with it, but there it
will remain.
Oh, how anxious we will be to go a step further, for then - or so we think -
we will be supremely happy. But it is precisely that ‘perfect happiness’ so nearly within
reach that God will not permit us to attain, for then we would receive our portion in this
life, forget our God, and despise the better land.
That bodily infirmity, that sick child, that suffering wife, that embarrassing
partnership - any one of these may be the battlement which God has built around our
success, lest we should be lifted up with pride, and our souls should not be alive and healthy
in us. Does not this ‘battlement-principle’ cast a light upon the mystery of many a painful
providence? ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy
word.’
The same care is manifested by our Lord towards those whom He has seen
fit to place in positions of eminent service. Those who express great concern
for prominent ministers, because of their temptations, do well, but they will be even more in
the path of duty if they have as much solicitude about themselves.
I remember one whose pride was visible in his very manner. He was a person
unknown, of little service in the church, but as proud of his little badly-ploughed, weedy
half acre, as ever a man could be. He informed me very pompously on more than one
occasion that he trembled lest I should be unduly exalted and puffed up with pride. Now,
from his lips, it sounded like comedy, and reminded me of Satan reproving sin.
God never honours His servants with success without effectually preventing
their grasping the honour of their work. If we are tempted to boast He soon lays us low. He
always whips behind the door at home those whom He most honours in public.
You may rest assured that if God honours you to win many souls, you will
have many stripes to bear, and stripes you would not like to tell another of, they will be so
sharp and humbling. If the Lord loves you, He will never let you be lifted up in His service.
Do not shrink from preparing yourself for the most eminent position, or from
occupying it when duty calls. Do not let Satan deprive God’s cause of your best service
through your bashfulness. The Lord will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all
your ways. If God sets you on the housetop, He will place a battlement round about you.
It is the same with regard to the high places of spiritual
enjoyment. Paul was caught up to the third heaven, and he heard words unlawful for
a man to utter: this was a very high, a very, very high place for Paul’s mind, mighty brain
and heart as he had; but then, there was the battlement - ‘Lest I should be exalted above
measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the
flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.’
The temptation, if we are happy in the Lord, is to grow secure. ‘My
mountain standeth firm,’ we say, ‘I shall never be moved.’ Even much communion with
Christ, though in itself sanctifying, may be perverted into a cause of self-security.
Thus it is that just as surely as we have high seasons of enjoyment we shall
sooner or later endure periods of deep depression. Scarcely ever is there a profound calm on
the soul’s sea, without a storm is brewing. Lest the soul should be beguiled to live upon
itself, and feed on its frames and feelings, and by neglect of watchfulness fall into
presumptuous sins, battlements are set round about all hallowed joys, for which (in eternity)
we shall bless the name of the Lord.
From the fact of divine care, we proceed by an easy step to the effect of the
commandment upon our conduct: in a word, we ought to have our own houses
battlemented.
Those who profess to be the children of God should, for their own sakes, see
that every care is used to guard themselves against the perils of this tempted life. They
should see to it that their house is carefully battlemented. Every man ought to examine
himself carefully whether he be in the faith, lest professing too much, taking too much for
granted, he should fall and perish.
At times we should close our spiritual ‘wardrobe’ and take stock. A
tradesman who does not like to do that is generally in a bad way. We must do this lest we
should, after all, be hypocrites or self-deceivers; lest, after all, we should not be born again,
but should be children of nature, neatly dressed, but not the living children of God. We
must prove our own selves whether we be in the faith. Let us protect our soul’s interest with
frequent self-examination.
Better still, and safer by far, go often to the cross, as we may
imagine we went at first. Go every day to the cross, still with the empty hand and with the
bleeding heart. Go and receive everything from Christ and seek to have your wounds bound
up with the healing ointment of His atoning sacrifice. These are the best battlements I can
recommend you: self-examination on the one side of the house, and a simple faith in Jesus
on the other.
Be sure that you battlement yourself about with much watchfulness,
and especially, watch most the temptation peculiar to your situation in life and your
personality. You may not be inclined to be lazy; you may not be fascinated by the
silver of Demas into covetousness, and yet you may be beguiled by pleasure.
Watch, if you have a hasty temper, lest that should overthrow you; or if
yours be a high and haughty spirit, set a double watch to bring that demon
down. If you be inclined to indolence, or on the other hand, if hot passions or evil desires
are most likely to attack you, cry to the strong Lord for strength; and as he who guards well
sets a double guard where the wall is weakest, so must you.
There are some respects in which every man should battlement his house by
denying himself some pleasures which might be lawful to others, but which would prove
fatal to himself. Every man, I believe, has a particular sin which is a sin to him but may not
be a sin to another. No man’s conscience is to be a judge for another, but let no man violate
his own conscience.
As each man ought to battlement his house in a spiritual sense with regard to
himself, so ought each man to carry out the rule with regard to his family. Do
maintain family religion, and never let the altar of God burn low in your home. The same
applies in the matter of family discipline. If the child shall do everything he chooses to do,
and if there is no admonition, if the reins be loosely held, if the father altogether neglects to
be a spiritual guide and ruler in his house, how can he wonder that his children one by one
grow up to break his heart?
David never chastised Absalom, nor Adonijah, and remember what they
became. Eli’s sons never had more than a soft word or two from their father. Battlement
your houses by godly discipline; see that obedience be maintained, and that sin is not
tolerated, then shall your house be holiness unto the Lord, and peace shall dwell within.
We ought strictly to battlement our houses because of the very many
evils which are tolerated in this day. I am sometimes asked, ‘May a Christian
subscribe to a lottery? May a Christian indulge in a game of cards? May a Christian dance
or attend the opera?’ Now I shall not comment upon the absolute right or wrong of
debatable amusements and customs. The fact is, that if professors do not stop till they are
certainly in the wrong, they will stop nowhere. It is of little use going on until you are over
the edge of the roof, and then calling, ‘Stop!’
It would be a poor affair for a house to be without a battlement, but to have a
net halfway down to stop people falling. The line had better be drawn too soon than too late.
We should carefully discern between places of public amusement. Some are
perfectly harmless, recreational and instructive - to deny these to our young people would
be foolish; but certain amusements stand on the border land between the openly profane and
the really harmless. We say, do not go to these; never darken the doors of such places.
Why? Because it may be the edge of the house, and though you may not break your neck if
you walk along the parapet, yet you are best keeping well to this side of it.
You are least likely to fall into sin by keeping well away from the edge, and
you cannot afford to run risks. Furthermore, let us not give to our children an example
which will cause them to run that much closer to the edge. Let us so walk that they may go
step by step where we go.
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