SELF-IMPORTANT PEOPLE by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Apr 22, 1880

SELF-IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

By Charles Haddon Spurgeon

WHEN they get into a church they feel they are the most important persons in it, and that nothing can possibly go on without them. They think if they were dead the church would go to ruin, and that it would stand up and cry, "My Father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" But it is not so. Don't you know, some of you big brothers that are so great in the little church over which you are deacon or minister, what the Lord does with some of us! He does with us as the captain did with the man who was troublesome on board of the ship which was going to Australia, talking to the sailors and passengers about the dreadful weather, and ever asking whether the ship was unworthy. When a bit of a squall sprang up, this man was doing incalculable mischief. The captain said, "You will assist me; you know a thing or two; we don't know much. I will give you something to do; a great deal may depend upon you. You stand there and hold that rope; you don't know the consequences if you let go." So there stood our friend for a long time holding this rope as firmly as if he felt that the ends of the earth were upon him, and he was the foundation thereof; and at last the captain told him to let go, as the danger was over. Our friend went down stairs feeling grateful to himself. Next day he wondered that nothing was said about what he had done. He half thought they would present him with a piece of plate. He grew so wretched about the general silence, that at last the captain had to tell him the secret—that there had been nothing wrong. "I told you to take hold of the rope to keep you quiet." Yet there are people in God's service who do nothing but hold a bit of rope. Nothing comes of it, but it keeps them quiet.—Spurgeon.