SPURGEON'S EARNEST PLEA FOR
PERSONAL
EVANGELISM [08/09--2005]
I was reading C. H. Spurgeon's sermon this
evening, "Am I Sought Out?" and was impressed by his earnest appeal to
his congregation to engage in getting the message out to the lost. Here is the
excerpt, reproduced from Brother Emmett O'Donnell's website where he continues
to post hundreds of Spurgeon's sermons.
>http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols7-9/chs525.pdf<
C. H.
SPURGEON:
>>
The preaching of the Gospel is God’s grand
instrument of mercy. That is His great magnet. Those of you who can use this
holy weapon, do. You that have ability and have talents, devote yourselves to
God’s cause. Give yourselves up to His ministry. I would to God there were more
of those who are successful in professions, men who either in medicine or law
have attained eminence, would consecrate their talents to the ministry. They
need not fear that in giving themselves to God He will not take care of them.
And as to honor, if it is found anywhere, it is the sure heritage of the
faithful ambassador
of Christ.
If you have been sought out, my
Brother, I do not blush to recommend you to give up the most lucrative
employment to seek out others. If you have the power to stir other’s hearts, if
God has given you the tongue of the eloquent, consecrate it neither to
parliament nor to the bar. Devote it to the plucking of brands from the
burning—become a herald of the Cross and let the whole world, as far as
possible, hear from you the tidings of salvation!
The preaching of the
Gospel is not the only means. It is a way of seeking out most commonly used. But
there are other methods which I will recommend to you this morning. We are not
to preach merely to those who come to listen. We must carry the Gospel to where
men do not desire it. We should consider it our business to be generously
impertinent—thrusting the Gospel into men’s way—whether they will hear or
whether they will not. Let us hunt for souls, first of all, by
visitation. There are thousands in London who never will be converted by the
preaching of the Gospel, for they never attend places of worship. Some of them
do not know what sort of thing a religious service is. We may shudder when we
say it—it is believed there are thousands in London who do not even know the
name of Christ—living in what we call a Christian land—and yet they have not
heard the name of Jesus!
Thank God things are better than they were. But
things are still bad enough. Brethren, you must go and see these things and mend
them. To the lodging houses, young men, you must carry the Gospel, and to those
thickly-peopled habitations, where every room contains a family and not one room
a Christian. I believe there is very much good to be done by house-to-house
visitation. Not by City Missionaries and Bible-women only—may God speed those
noble bodies of laborers—but by all of you! By you that have position in society
among your neighbors—make yourselves free and go and talk to them of Christ in
the little houses that are near to you. As far as your time allows, be a
visitor.
And if there is one dark part of the town known to you as the
haunt of sinners, make it a point to use this agency of visitation from
house-to-house. Let the lost sheep of Israel’s house be sought out. Some
will need special means, before ever they can be found and brought in. How does
one’s heart rejoice over the reformatories and the midnight meetings—over the
attempts to bring that class of souls to Christ. I have often heard it said that
few of the converts from those meetings hold on and prove sincere. It is a great
falsehood—a very considerable portion are reformed and mere reformations are of
little use—but where regeneration is worked and these girls are pointed to a
Savior, you will never find one of them go back.
Has not God been pleased
to give us in this Church scores of instances where those who were decoys for
Satan are now the leaders of others to the Cross of Christ and like Mary, love
much because they have much forgiven? Seek them out. If there is any
other class that is neglected, seek it out. If you happen to know any of the
more degraded part of the population who are only sought for by the policeman
and never hear a word of good advice—except from the stipendiary magistrate—do
seek them out. If Christ sought you out, the inference is strong that you ought
to seek out others!
And if special means are needed, let special
means be applied. You must be very kind. To broken hearts you must speak very
gently. Their distance from God is a distance of fear. The gulf that separates
them is despair. There are some such in this house, perhaps. Seek them out and
if you find them very desponding, writing bitter things against themselves, let
love be shown them. Try if you can, to get the cords of affection around them
and so draw them to Christ. Do not turn from them and say, “They are such
miserable objects, so unbelieving. I will not look after them.” But the more you
find they need a tender heart and a weeping eye to bring them to the Savior, the
more carefully follow them till you bring them to Him.
You will find some
who will want a world of perseverance. Perhaps your child has been for thirty
years unconverted. Your prayers have been unheard till now and the devil tempts
you to give it up. Never do so. If you had to be sought so long—and some of you
needed to be sought for fifty years before you were found—never give up a fellow
creature. Follow your child in all his ingratitude, pursue his footsteps with
your loving kindness and never leave him until you have brought him, at last, to
find joy where you found it—in the wounds of Jesus.
Let me beg you, where
all other means fail, to seek men by your prayers. As long as a man has
one other man to pray for him there is a hope of his salvation. If you, in your
daily supplications, make mention of men—if you select special cases—if you bear
their names before the Lord, you shall have the joy of seeing them turned from
darkness to light. And they with you shall be a people “sought out.”
If
a word of mine shall stir up but one of you to seek the Lord’s hidden ones, my
soul shall rejoice. And if every one of you shall register a vow in this House
of Prayer—“I will seek out some family today and continue my work tomorrow. And
the next day I will be seeking out others. I will not wait till they come to me
to be taught, but go and seek them and compel them to come in that the house may
be filled, that the Church of God may have its full complement of Christ’s
chosen.”
If you will do this, my soul shall be well content. If you have
never been sought, then you will not seek others. If you have never tasted that
the Lord is gracious, I shall not marvel that you neglect this work. But oh, by
the Hell from which you are delivered, by the Heaven to which you are going, by
the blood which redeemed you from death and Hell, by that gracious Spirit which
quickened you and still keeps you alive, by every glorious promise which
stimulates you in your onward career, I pray you spend yourselves and be spent
in seeking souls!
Look at this great mass of habitation, this wilderness
of human dwellings—if we do not work with all our might we can never hope to see
the knowledge of the Lord covering this great world of London—let alone the
greater world outside! O let us be up and doing and let it be told in every
house, in every alley, that Christians care for souls.
If you are the
people sought out, go and seek others. Tell them that, “Whosoever
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.”
From METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE PULPIT, Volume 9, Year 1863, Sermon #525, pages 467, 468.
From
the website:
>http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols7-9/chs525.pdf<
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