The Weapons on the Wall
Analogy★★★★Brothers! who is there amongst us that has worked and fought up to the edge of his capacity? There is no more wasteful instrument, they tell us, than a steam-engine; so little motive power comes out for so much heat applied, and such a quantity is lost. So it is with us. All the warmth that radiates from Jesus Christ is poured into the icy deadness of the reservoirs of our hearts, and the effect is only to raise the temperature such a very little, and to get two or three feeble strokes of the piston.
We hang our weapons on the wall, as they do in baronial mansions, for ornament, instead of taking them down for use. None of us can plead “not guilty” to the charge of neglected opportunities and unused powers, and talents hid in a napkin, and there are some of us to whom this charge of my text comes with a very special weight of accusation and condemnation. What a dead mass of idle people there are in every Christian congregation and Church! (Ps. lxxviii. 9)
The point
An exhortation that compares Christians to a steam engine wasting heat and to warriors hanging their weapons on the wall for ornament, challenging listeners to use the power and talents God has given them.