- Jan 1, 2024
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Spurgeon:
That “but” is placed there because the apostle had been mentioning certain works of the flesh, all of which he winnows away like chaff, and then sets forth in opposition to them “the fruit of the Spirit.” If you will read the chapter, you will notice that the apostle has used no less than seventeen words (see Gal 5:19-21), I might almost say eighteen, to describe the works of the flesh. Human language is always rich in bad words, because the human heart is full of the manifold evils which these words denote. Nine words are here used to express the works of the flesh—see how many are gathered together!
The first set of these works of the flesh which have to be winnowed away are the counterfeits of love to man. Counterfeited love is one of the vilest things under heaven. That heavenly word, love, has been trailed in the mire of unclean passion and filthy desire. The licentiousness,1 which comes of the worship of Venus, has dared to take to itself a name which belongs only to the pure worship of Jehovah. Now, the works which counterfeit love are these: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness.” To talk of “love” when a man covets his neighbour’s wife, or when a woman violates the command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exo 20:14), is little less than sheer blasphemy against the holiness of love. It is not love, but lust; love is an angel, and lust a devil. The purities of domestic life are defiled, and its honours are disgraced when once the marriage bond is disregarded. When men or women talk of religion, and are unfaithful to their marriage covenant, they are base hypocrites. Even the heathen condemned this infamy; let not Christians tolerate it. The next fleshly work is “fornication,” which was scarcely censured among the heathen, but is most sternly condemned by Christianity. It is a wretched sign of the times that in these corrupt days some have arisen who treat this crime as a slight
offence, and even attempt to provide for its safer indulgence by legislative enactments. Has it come to this? Has the civil ruler become a panderer to the lusts of corrupt minds? Let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints. “Uncleanness” is a third work of the flesh, and it includes those many forms of foul offence which defile the body and deprive it of its true honour; while to bring up the rear we have “lasciviousness,” which is the cord which draws on uncleanness, and includes all conversation which excites the passions, all songs which suggest lewdness, all gestures and thoughts which lead up to unlawful gratification. We have sadly much of these two evils in these days, not only openly in our streets, but in more secret ways. I loathe the subject. All works of the arts which are contrary to modesty are here condemned, and the most pleasing poetry if it creates impure imaginations. These unclean things are the works of the flesh in the stage of putridity—the very maggots which swarm within a corrupt soul. Bury these rotten things out of our sight! I do but uncover them for an instant that a holy disgust may be caused in every Christian soul; and that we may flee therefrom as from the breath of pestilence. Yet remember, O you that think yourselves pure, and imagine you would never transgress so badly, that even into these loathsome and abominable criminalities high professors have fallen. Ay, and sincere believers, trusting in themselves, have slipped into this ditch from whence they had escaped from pollution—have so fallen that they have had to be saved so as by fire! Oh, may we keep our garments unspotted by the flesh; and this we cannot do unless it be in the power and energy of the Spirit of holiness. He must purge these evils from us, and cause His fruit so to abound in us that the deeds of the flesh shall be excluded for ever.
The winnowing fan is used next against the counterfeits of love to God. I refer to the falsities of superstition—“Idolatry” and “witchcraft”. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Alas, there are some that fall into idolatry; for they trust in an arm of flesh, and exalt the creature into the place of the Creator; “their God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame” (Phi 3:19). The golden calf of wealth, the silver shrines of craft, the goddess of philosophy, the Diana of fashion, the Moloch of power, these are all worshipped instead of the living God. Those who profess to reverence the true God, yet too generally worship Him in ways which He has not ordained. Thus saith the Lord, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Exo 20:4-5). Yet we have Christians (so called) who say they derive help in the exercise of devotion from images and pictures. See how their places of assembly are rendered gaudy with pictures, and images, and things which savour of old Rome. What idolatry is openly carried on in certain buildings belonging to the National Church! What sensuous worship is now approved? Men cannot worship God nowadays unless their eyes, and ears, and noses are gratified. When these senses of the flesh are pleased, they are satisfied with themselves; “but the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Love is the most perfect architecture, for love buildeth up. Love is the sweetest music, for without it we are become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Love is the choicest incense, for it is a sacrifice of sweet smell. Love is the fittest vestment—“Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col 3:14). Oh, that men would remember that the fruit of the Spirit is not the finery of the florist, the sculptor, or the milliner, but the love of the heart. It ill-becomes us to make that gaudy which should be simple and spiritual. The fruit of the Spirit is not idolatry—the worship of another god, or of the true God after the manner of will-worship. No, that fruit is obedient love to the only living God.
“Witchcraft” too is a work of the flesh. Under this head we may rightly group all that prying into the unseen, that rending of the veil which God has hung up, that interfering with departed spirits, that necromancy which calls itself spiritualism, and pays court to familiar spirits and demons—this is no fruit of the Spirit, but the fruit of a bitter root. Brother Christians, modern witchcraft and wizardry are to be abhorred and condemned, and you will be wise to keep clear of them, trembling to be found acting in concert with those who love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Idolatry and witchcraft are caused by a want of love to God, and they are evidences that the Spirit’s life is not in the soul. When you come to love God with all your heart, you will not worship God in ways of your own devising, but you will ask, “Wherewithal shall I draw near unto the most high God?” and you will take your direction from the Lord’s inspired Word. The service which He prescribes is the only service which He will accept. The winnowing fan is at work now—I wonder whether it is operating upon any here present?
But next, this great winnowing-fan drives away with its “but” all the forms of hate. The apostle mentions “hatred,” or an habitual enmity to men, usually combined with a selfish esteem of one’s own person. Certain men cherish a dislike to everybody who is not of their clique, while they detest those who oppose them. They are contemptuous of the weak, ready to take offence, and little careful whether they give it or no. They delight to be in minorities of one; and the more wrongheaded and pugnacious they can be, the more are they in their element. “Variance” too, with its perpetual dislikes, bickerings, and quarrellings, is a work of the flesh. Those who indulge in it are contrary to all men, pushing their angles into everybody’s eyes, and looking out for occasions of fault-finding, and strife. “Emulations”—that is, jealousy. Jealousy in all its forms is one of the works of the flesh: is it not cruel as the grave? There is a jealousy which sickens if another be praised, and pines away if another prospers. It is a venomous thing, and stingeth like an adder; it is a serpent by the way, biting the horse’s heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. “Wrath” is another deed of the flesh—I mean the fury of angry passion, and all the madness which comes of it. “But I am a man of very quick temper,” says one. Are you a Christian? If so, you are bound to master this evil force, or it will ruin you. If you were a saint of God to the very highest degree in all but in this one point, it would pull you down; ay, at any moment an angry spirit might make you say and do that which would cause you life-long sorrow. “Strife” is a somewhat milder, but equally mischievous form of the same evil; if it burns not quite so fast and furiously, yet it is a slow fire kindled by the self-same flame of hell as the more ardent passion. The continual love of contention, the morbid sensitiveness, the overweening regard to one’s own dignity, which join together to produce strife, are all evil things. What is the proper respect which is due to poor creatures like ourselves? I mean that if any one of us did get our “proper respect” we should not like it long: we should think that bare justice was rather scant in its appreciation. We desire to be flattered when we cry out for “proper respect.” Respect, indeed! Why, if we had our desert, we should be in the lowest hell! Then our apostle mentions “seditions,” which occur in the state, the Church, and the family. As far as our Church life is concerned, this evil shows itself in an opposition to all sorts of authority or law. Any kind of official action in the Church is to be railed at because it is official; rule of any sort is objected to because each man desired to have the pre-eminence, and will not be second. God save us from this evil leaven! Heresy is that kind of hate which makes every man set up to create his own religion, write his own Bible, and think out his own gospel. We have heard of “Every man his own lawyer,” and now we are coming to have “every man his own god, every man his own Bible, every man his own instructor.” After this work of the flesh, come “Envyings,” not so much the desire to enrich one’s self at another’s expense, as a wolfish craving to impoverish him, and pull him down for the mere sake of it. This is a very acrid form of undiluted hate, and leaves but one stronger form of hate. To desire another’s dishonor merely from envy of his superiority is simply devilish, and is a sort of murder of the man’s best life.
The list is fitly closed by “murders,” a suitable corner-stone to crown this diabolical edifice; for what is hate but murder? And what is murder but hate bearing its full fruit? He who does not love has within him all the elements that make a murderer. If you have not a general feeling of benevolence towards all men, and a desire to do them good, the old spirit of Cain is within you, and it only needs to be unrestrained and it will strike the fatal blow, and lay your brother dead at your feet. God save you, men and brethren, every one of you, from the domination of these dark principles of hate, which are the works of the flesh in its corruption. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Next time you begin to boil over with wrath, think you feel a hand touching you and causing you to hear a gentle voice whispering, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Next time you say, “I will never speak to that man again. I cannot endure him,” think you feel a fresh wind fanning your fevered brow, and hear the angel of mercy say, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Next time you are inclined to find fault with everybody, and set your brethren by the ears, and create a general scuffle, I pray you let the chimes ring out, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” If you wish to find fault, it is easy to do so. You may begin with me and go down to the last young member that was admitted into the Church, and you will not have to look long before you can spy out holes in our coats. Whenever you are bent on the growling business, pause awhile and hear the Scripture admonish you, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” When you wax indignant because you have been badly treated, and you think of returning evil for evil, remember this text, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” “Ah,” you say, “it was shameful!” Of course it was: and therefore do not imitate it; do not render railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing—for “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
The winnowing-fan is at work: God blow your chaff away, brethren, and mine too!
The next thing which the winnowing-fan blows away is the excess of self-indulgence—“drunkenness, revelings, and such like.” Alas, that Christian people should ever need to be warned against these animal offences, and yet they do need it. The wine-cup still has its charms for professors. Nor is this all: it is not merely that you may drink to excess, but you may eat to excess, or clothe your body too sumptuously, or there may be some other spending of money upon your own gratification which is not according to sober living. Drunkenness is one of those trespasses of which Paul says “that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). The revelling which makes night hideous with its songs so called—call them howlings and you are nearer the mark—the revelling which spends hour after hour in entertainments which heat the blood, and harden the heart, and chase away all solid thought, is not for us who have renounced the works of darkness. For us there is a better joy, namely, to be filled with the Spirit, and “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
A Winnowing Fan
Now, coming to our text, I shall notice the matters contained in it, and the first thing which my mind perceives is a winnowing fan. I would like to be able to use it, but it is a better far that it should remain where it is, for His “fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor” (Mat 3:12). The handle of this winnowing fan is made of the first syllable, “But.” “But the fruit of the Spirit is love”!That “but” is placed there because the apostle had been mentioning certain works of the flesh, all of which he winnows away like chaff, and then sets forth in opposition to them “the fruit of the Spirit.” If you will read the chapter, you will notice that the apostle has used no less than seventeen words (see Gal 5:19-21), I might almost say eighteen, to describe the works of the flesh. Human language is always rich in bad words, because the human heart is full of the manifold evils which these words denote. Nine words are here used to express the works of the flesh—see how many are gathered together!
The first set of these works of the flesh which have to be winnowed away are the counterfeits of love to man. Counterfeited love is one of the vilest things under heaven. That heavenly word, love, has been trailed in the mire of unclean passion and filthy desire. The licentiousness,1 which comes of the worship of Venus, has dared to take to itself a name which belongs only to the pure worship of Jehovah. Now, the works which counterfeit love are these: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness.” To talk of “love” when a man covets his neighbour’s wife, or when a woman violates the command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exo 20:14), is little less than sheer blasphemy against the holiness of love. It is not love, but lust; love is an angel, and lust a devil. The purities of domestic life are defiled, and its honours are disgraced when once the marriage bond is disregarded. When men or women talk of religion, and are unfaithful to their marriage covenant, they are base hypocrites. Even the heathen condemned this infamy; let not Christians tolerate it. The next fleshly work is “fornication,” which was scarcely censured among the heathen, but is most sternly condemned by Christianity. It is a wretched sign of the times that in these corrupt days some have arisen who treat this crime as a slight
offence, and even attempt to provide for its safer indulgence by legislative enactments. Has it come to this? Has the civil ruler become a panderer to the lusts of corrupt minds? Let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints. “Uncleanness” is a third work of the flesh, and it includes those many forms of foul offence which defile the body and deprive it of its true honour; while to bring up the rear we have “lasciviousness,” which is the cord which draws on uncleanness, and includes all conversation which excites the passions, all songs which suggest lewdness, all gestures and thoughts which lead up to unlawful gratification. We have sadly much of these two evils in these days, not only openly in our streets, but in more secret ways. I loathe the subject. All works of the arts which are contrary to modesty are here condemned, and the most pleasing poetry if it creates impure imaginations. These unclean things are the works of the flesh in the stage of putridity—the very maggots which swarm within a corrupt soul. Bury these rotten things out of our sight! I do but uncover them for an instant that a holy disgust may be caused in every Christian soul; and that we may flee therefrom as from the breath of pestilence. Yet remember, O you that think yourselves pure, and imagine you would never transgress so badly, that even into these loathsome and abominable criminalities high professors have fallen. Ay, and sincere believers, trusting in themselves, have slipped into this ditch from whence they had escaped from pollution—have so fallen that they have had to be saved so as by fire! Oh, may we keep our garments unspotted by the flesh; and this we cannot do unless it be in the power and energy of the Spirit of holiness. He must purge these evils from us, and cause His fruit so to abound in us that the deeds of the flesh shall be excluded for ever.
The winnowing fan is used next against the counterfeits of love to God. I refer to the falsities of superstition—“Idolatry” and “witchcraft”. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Alas, there are some that fall into idolatry; for they trust in an arm of flesh, and exalt the creature into the place of the Creator; “their God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame” (Phi 3:19). The golden calf of wealth, the silver shrines of craft, the goddess of philosophy, the Diana of fashion, the Moloch of power, these are all worshipped instead of the living God. Those who profess to reverence the true God, yet too generally worship Him in ways which He has not ordained. Thus saith the Lord, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Exo 20:4-5). Yet we have Christians (so called) who say they derive help in the exercise of devotion from images and pictures. See how their places of assembly are rendered gaudy with pictures, and images, and things which savour of old Rome. What idolatry is openly carried on in certain buildings belonging to the National Church! What sensuous worship is now approved? Men cannot worship God nowadays unless their eyes, and ears, and noses are gratified. When these senses of the flesh are pleased, they are satisfied with themselves; “but the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Love is the most perfect architecture, for love buildeth up. Love is the sweetest music, for without it we are become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Love is the choicest incense, for it is a sacrifice of sweet smell. Love is the fittest vestment—“Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col 3:14). Oh, that men would remember that the fruit of the Spirit is not the finery of the florist, the sculptor, or the milliner, but the love of the heart. It ill-becomes us to make that gaudy which should be simple and spiritual. The fruit of the Spirit is not idolatry—the worship of another god, or of the true God after the manner of will-worship. No, that fruit is obedient love to the only living God.
“Witchcraft” too is a work of the flesh. Under this head we may rightly group all that prying into the unseen, that rending of the veil which God has hung up, that interfering with departed spirits, that necromancy which calls itself spiritualism, and pays court to familiar spirits and demons—this is no fruit of the Spirit, but the fruit of a bitter root. Brother Christians, modern witchcraft and wizardry are to be abhorred and condemned, and you will be wise to keep clear of them, trembling to be found acting in concert with those who love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Idolatry and witchcraft are caused by a want of love to God, and they are evidences that the Spirit’s life is not in the soul. When you come to love God with all your heart, you will not worship God in ways of your own devising, but you will ask, “Wherewithal shall I draw near unto the most high God?” and you will take your direction from the Lord’s inspired Word. The service which He prescribes is the only service which He will accept. The winnowing fan is at work now—I wonder whether it is operating upon any here present?
But next, this great winnowing-fan drives away with its “but” all the forms of hate. The apostle mentions “hatred,” or an habitual enmity to men, usually combined with a selfish esteem of one’s own person. Certain men cherish a dislike to everybody who is not of their clique, while they detest those who oppose them. They are contemptuous of the weak, ready to take offence, and little careful whether they give it or no. They delight to be in minorities of one; and the more wrongheaded and pugnacious they can be, the more are they in their element. “Variance” too, with its perpetual dislikes, bickerings, and quarrellings, is a work of the flesh. Those who indulge in it are contrary to all men, pushing their angles into everybody’s eyes, and looking out for occasions of fault-finding, and strife. “Emulations”—that is, jealousy. Jealousy in all its forms is one of the works of the flesh: is it not cruel as the grave? There is a jealousy which sickens if another be praised, and pines away if another prospers. It is a venomous thing, and stingeth like an adder; it is a serpent by the way, biting the horse’s heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. “Wrath” is another deed of the flesh—I mean the fury of angry passion, and all the madness which comes of it. “But I am a man of very quick temper,” says one. Are you a Christian? If so, you are bound to master this evil force, or it will ruin you. If you were a saint of God to the very highest degree in all but in this one point, it would pull you down; ay, at any moment an angry spirit might make you say and do that which would cause you life-long sorrow. “Strife” is a somewhat milder, but equally mischievous form of the same evil; if it burns not quite so fast and furiously, yet it is a slow fire kindled by the self-same flame of hell as the more ardent passion. The continual love of contention, the morbid sensitiveness, the overweening regard to one’s own dignity, which join together to produce strife, are all evil things. What is the proper respect which is due to poor creatures like ourselves? I mean that if any one of us did get our “proper respect” we should not like it long: we should think that bare justice was rather scant in its appreciation. We desire to be flattered when we cry out for “proper respect.” Respect, indeed! Why, if we had our desert, we should be in the lowest hell! Then our apostle mentions “seditions,” which occur in the state, the Church, and the family. As far as our Church life is concerned, this evil shows itself in an opposition to all sorts of authority or law. Any kind of official action in the Church is to be railed at because it is official; rule of any sort is objected to because each man desired to have the pre-eminence, and will not be second. God save us from this evil leaven! Heresy is that kind of hate which makes every man set up to create his own religion, write his own Bible, and think out his own gospel. We have heard of “Every man his own lawyer,” and now we are coming to have “every man his own god, every man his own Bible, every man his own instructor.” After this work of the flesh, come “Envyings,” not so much the desire to enrich one’s self at another’s expense, as a wolfish craving to impoverish him, and pull him down for the mere sake of it. This is a very acrid form of undiluted hate, and leaves but one stronger form of hate. To desire another’s dishonor merely from envy of his superiority is simply devilish, and is a sort of murder of the man’s best life.
The list is fitly closed by “murders,” a suitable corner-stone to crown this diabolical edifice; for what is hate but murder? And what is murder but hate bearing its full fruit? He who does not love has within him all the elements that make a murderer. If you have not a general feeling of benevolence towards all men, and a desire to do them good, the old spirit of Cain is within you, and it only needs to be unrestrained and it will strike the fatal blow, and lay your brother dead at your feet. God save you, men and brethren, every one of you, from the domination of these dark principles of hate, which are the works of the flesh in its corruption. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Next time you begin to boil over with wrath, think you feel a hand touching you and causing you to hear a gentle voice whispering, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Next time you say, “I will never speak to that man again. I cannot endure him,” think you feel a fresh wind fanning your fevered brow, and hear the angel of mercy say, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Next time you are inclined to find fault with everybody, and set your brethren by the ears, and create a general scuffle, I pray you let the chimes ring out, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love.” If you wish to find fault, it is easy to do so. You may begin with me and go down to the last young member that was admitted into the Church, and you will not have to look long before you can spy out holes in our coats. Whenever you are bent on the growling business, pause awhile and hear the Scripture admonish you, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” When you wax indignant because you have been badly treated, and you think of returning evil for evil, remember this text, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” “Ah,” you say, “it was shameful!” Of course it was: and therefore do not imitate it; do not render railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing—for “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
The winnowing-fan is at work: God blow your chaff away, brethren, and mine too!
The next thing which the winnowing-fan blows away is the excess of self-indulgence—“drunkenness, revelings, and such like.” Alas, that Christian people should ever need to be warned against these animal offences, and yet they do need it. The wine-cup still has its charms for professors. Nor is this all: it is not merely that you may drink to excess, but you may eat to excess, or clothe your body too sumptuously, or there may be some other spending of money upon your own gratification which is not according to sober living. Drunkenness is one of those trespasses of which Paul says “that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). The revelling which makes night hideous with its songs so called—call them howlings and you are nearer the mark—the revelling which spends hour after hour in entertainments which heat the blood, and harden the heart, and chase away all solid thought, is not for us who have renounced the works of darkness. For us there is a better joy, namely, to be filled with the Spirit, and “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
