Do not be like the horse or mule, which have no understanding; they must be controlled with bit and bridle to make them come to you.Don’t be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you.Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding; Whose trappings must be bit and bridle to hold them in, Else they will not come near unto thee.
3 sermons cite this verse
I should prescribe to any Christian here tonight, who feels tempted to pride, to attempt some great work for Christ that is a little above his present strength! And when he has done—to let him try something a little above even that! And if he can do that, to go still further! If you always have something on hand more than you can do, and which puts a strain upon your faith and upon your earnestness, I believe it will be one of the best cures for pride and one of the best things, through God the Holy Spirit's power, to make you see your own insufficiency and to bring your haughtiness down. Well, dear Brothers and Sisters, so base are we naturally that the fourth way of bringing us down is the most common one—not by communion with Christ, nor by activity, so much as by affliction. Must it always be that? Must it always be that? They are bad children who always need the rod, but there are some Christians who seem as if they never would obey without it! "Be you not as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come near unto you." Oh, what hard mouths we have and with what a sharp bit of affliction are we driven—and how we champ that bit, sometimes, and would gladly get it out of our mouths! And if we could do so, we would dash on to our own destruction! The only way that God has to keep us right is to give us, every now and then, a touch with His whip. Blessed be God for it! It is hard to bear, but oh, how profitable it is! Blessed be God for slander! It cuts us to the quick, but oh, how beaded with blessings has it been to us! Blessed be God for depression of spirit! We have groaned under it, some of us, till our life has become a burden to us—but if we had not been so depressed when alone, we would never have been able to bear the prosperity which God has given us abroad! We thank His blessed name, for by all these means, in some way or other, the loftiness of man shall be brought down, the haughtiness of man shall be made low and the Lord alone shall be exalted! …
Have you lingered long upon the road and has the evening come, and has the sun almost touched the horizon, and is the red light gleaming in the sky? Then the Holy Spirit says to you, "O aged Christian, serve God today." I cannot comprehend the postponements of old age, yet do we frequently meet with them. There was an aged man who meant to devote all his substance to the Church of God, but he put it off and the thing was never done. There was another who meant to have spoken to his children. He would gather them together on a certain day and would speak to them and their children, for so had it come about that he was a grandfather, now, but he said he would do it, by-and-by—but the time never came. "Whatever your hand finds to do"—what do the Scriptures say? "Think about it?" No—"Do it." Give God your first and choicest thoughts! Many a man has thought over a good thing till the devil has come in with a second thought and the thing has never been done. I love that blessed thing that made Magdalene, or Mary—whichever it was—break the alabaster box over the Savior. She did not sit down to calculate, or the thing would not have been done! And this is especially incumbent upon the aged. You are not likely to be guilty of indiscretion—your blood is not hot—therefore you may fling the reins on the back of your zeal! You are not likely to exceed in your zeal—therefore go at once, I pray you! …
I will tell you how God deals with His own children and then leave you to infer how He will deal with you if you are not His children. A certain man, to all appearances, feared God. Yes, and did so with a sincere heart. He was once an earnest Christian, a member of the Church and a worker in the service—faithful to his light and fervent in spirit—but he grew cold. He had a farm and it occupied nearly all his time. He was filled with an intense desire to grow rich and, therefore, he devoted his attention to his business till he grew colder and colder in Divine things—and the means of Grace on the weekdays were forsaken. Work for God was dropped, communion with God ceased and the religious professor became to all appearance an utter worldling. But yet he was a child of God and this is how his Father restored him. He took from him the wife of his youth, to whom his heart was knit. But this made him more worldly than before because his wife had been a great help to him in the farm—but now she was gone—so he must stick to it more than ever! Nothing came of the first chastisement except increased sin. He had only one son, for whom he was saving up his money and working his business—and he saw that son cut down with consumption, like his mother. This also made him still more worldly. It ought to have brought him to his knees, but it did not. He carried on the practice of prayer, but with little heart. He said, "Now, my dear son, who was such a comfort to me, has gone, I can hardly get out on Sundays at all. I must look after the cows and attend to the stock." So he sank deeper in the mire. …