Are You a Bee or a Wasp?

Let us, dear friends, as a church and people be working people.  Faith works; let us work because we have faith.  I wish that every member of this church were at work for Jesus.  I have very little to complain of, because I do believe that the major part of the dear brethren and sisters associated here are hard at it; but if there are any of you who are not serving the Lord, I pray you bestir yourselves.  You must work, or your faith will be questioned, and your love will be suspected.  We are a hive of bees, but what will happen if instead of making honey the workers all turn to drones?  Why they will next turn to wasps.  If such a change cannot take place in nature it certainly does occur in morals and spirituals, for we have seen companies of good hard-working Christians suddenly break out into factions and quarrel furiously.  When bees turn to wasps there is nothing but fighting.  May our good Lord save us from such a calamity.  I do not mind being like the queen bee in the hive, king of the bees, but a leader of wasps I cannot be.  Dear friends, do get to work for the Master: you, I mean, who stand all the day idle.  Go work today in the Saviour’s vineyard.  Oh, my beloved brethren, I beseech you do not relax your energies.  Continue to be a lively, energetic church.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 – 1892)