Sermon in Candles

I have a candle here and I want to light it. What shall I do? Before me I see a candle burning very brightly, and I will take a light from it. I have not succeeded. How is it that I have altogether failed? I cannot succeed in lighting my candle, and you are all laughing at me, and you whisper that I must be overmuch stupid to try to light a candle while an EXTINGUISHER is upon it. I subside. Do you not think that very many persons go with an extinguisher on to hear a minister preach?

Just so. That is a very effective extinguisher. Once make up your mind to refuse a doctrine or a command, and you will not see it where God Himself has written it as with a sunbeam. Kick against a truth, and the arguments for it will seem to have no existence. Let prejudice of any sort wholly cover the candle of your mind, and, whatever you do, there is no likelihood of your receiving the light.

Here is an hour-glass and a candle. As the hour-glass runs and the candle burns, we mark how the time passes away. In the old Puritan pulpits there used to be an hour-glass, and the preacher was expected to preach as long as the sand of the hour-glass was running; which of course, was just an hour. A witty preacher, having on one occasion only reached to "eighteenthly" when the hour-glass had run out, and having thirty points to dilate upon, turned the machine upside down and cried "Brethren, let us have another glass."

Whether we preach or hear, time is hastening on. Our sands of life will soon run out … we are being carried away by the resistless course of time. How it flies to a man of middle age! How exceedingly fast to the aged! We may say of the hours, as of the cherubim, "each one had six wings." If everything is made secure by faith in the Lord Jesus, we need not wish it to be otherwise; for the faster time passes, the sooner we shall be at home with our Father and our God. We feel, as we watch the decreasing candle and the falling sand, that WE, at least, have no time which needs killing. What we have is all too little for our high and holy purposes. We want not cards, and dice, and scenic displays for a pastime: our time passes all too rapidly without such aids.

THIS TAPER which I hold in my hand is in itself a poor thing as an illuminator, but it has created quite a splendour in the room by the light which it has communicated others. Andrew was not a very great personage, but he called his brother Peter, and led him to Jesus, and Peter was a host in himself. Never mind how small a taper you may be; burn on, shine at your best, and God bless you. You may lead on to grand results despite your feebleness. He that called Dr. John Owen is forgotten: I might almost say, was never known: he was a small taper, but what a candle he lighted! These holy women as they talked together as they sat in the sun at Bedford were a blessing to John Bunyan; but we know not the name of even one of them. Everywhere the hidden ones are used of the Lord as the means of lighting those who shine as stars in the churches.

I have a bottle here full of black material, which is to fall upon the flame of this candle. When I tell you that this bottle contains a quantity of steel-filings, you will at once prophesy that the light will be put out. Let us see what will happen! Why, well, instead of putting the candle out, I am making it disport itself as candle never did before. Here we have fireworks, which, if they do not quite rival those of Crystal Palace, have a splendour of their own. Do you not think that often when Satan tries to throw dust upon a Christian by slander, he only makes him shine the brighter. God grant that it may be so with us in all time of tribulation! May we turn the filings of steel into flashes of light!