My Year With Spurgeon #41

Awake! Awake!
Charles Spurgeon
1857
1 Thessalonians 5:6

Brethren, if we be saints, let us not be ignorant as are others. Let us search the Scriptures, for in them we have eternal life, for they do testify of Jesus. Let us be diligent; let not the Word depart out of our hearts, let us meditate therein both by day and night, that we may be as the tree planted by the rivers of water. “Let us not sleep as do others.”

Behold ye, how many professing Christians there are that are asleep in this sense! They are inactive. Sinners are dying in the street by hundreds; men are sinking into the flames of eternal wrath; but they fold their arms, they pity the poor perishing sinner, but they do nothing to show that their pity is real. They go to their places of worship, they occupy their well-cushioned easy pew; they wish the minister to feed them every Sabbath; but there is never a child taught in the Sunday-school by them; there is never a tract distributed at the poor man’s house; there is never a deed done which might be the means of saving souls.

Oh, what a vast amount of sleeping we have in all our churches and chapels; for truly if our churches were once awake, so far as material is concerned, there are enough converted men and women, and there is enough talent with them, and enough money with them, and enough time with them, God granting the abundance of his Holy Spirit, which he would be sure to do if they were all zealous — there is enough to preach the gospel in every corner of the earth. The church does not need to stop for want of instruments, or for want of agencies we have everything now except the will; we have all that we may expect God to give for the conversion of the world, except just a heart for the work, and the Spirit of God poured out into our midst.

There are you! You know the world is sick with the plague of sin, and you yourself have been cured by the remedy, which has been provided. You are asleep, inactive, loitering. You do not go forth to “Tell to others round, What a dear Savior you have found.” There is the precious gospel: you do not go and put it to the lips of a sinner. There is the all-precious blood of Christ: you never go to tell the dying what they must do to be saved. The world is perishing with worse than plague: and you are idle! And you are a minister of the gospel; and you have taken that holy office upon yourself; and you are content to preach twice on a Sunday, and once on a week-day, and there is no remonstrance within you. You never desire to attract the multitudes to hear you preach; you had rather keep your empty benches, and study propriety, than you would once, at the risk of appearing over-zealous, draw the multitude and preach the word to them.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible