The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

Luther and Zwingli, and Calvin, and to endeavour to accommodate them to polished tastes. You might go into a Roman Catholic chapel nowadays and hear as good a sermon from a Popish priest as you hear in many cases from a Protestant minister, because he does not touch disputed points, or bring out the angular parts of our Protestant religion. Notice too, in the great majority of our books what a dislike there is for sound doctrine! the writers seem to fancy that truth is of no more value than error; that as for the doctrines we preach, it cannot matter what they are; still holding that

      He cannot be wrong whose life is in the right.

      There is creeping into the pulpits of Baptists and every other denomination, a lethargy and coldness, and with that a sort of nullification of all truth. While they for the most part preach but little notable error, yet the truth itself is uttered in so minute a form that no one detects it, and in so ambiguous a style, that no one is struck with it. As far as man can do it, God’s arrows are blunted, and the edge of his sword is turned in the day of battle. Men do not hear the truth as they used to. The velvet mouth is succeeding to the velvet cushion, and the organ is the only thing in the building which gives forth a certain sound. From all such things, “good Lord deliver us!” May heaven put an end to all this moderatism; we want out-and-out truth in these perilous days; we want a man just now to speak as God tells him, and care for no one. Oh! if we had some of the old Scotch preachers! Those Scotch preachers made kings tremble; they were no men’s servants; they were very lords, wherever they went, because each of them said, “God has given me a message; my brow is like adamant against men; I will speak what God bids me.” Like Micah, they said, “As the Lord my God lives, whatever my God says to me, that will I speak.” Heroes of the truth, soldiers of Christ awake! Even now there are enemies. Do not think that the fight is over; the great warfare of truth waxes more hot and fierce than ever. Oh! soldiers of Christ! take your swords from your scabbards! stand up for God and for his truth again, lest a free grace gospel should be forgotten.

      9. Let me just say, once more, concerning this war, that it is one that is to be of perpetual duration. Let us remember, my beloved, that this war between right and wrong must be continued, and never must cease until truth has the victory. If you suppose that our forefathers did enough for truth and for God, and that you may be idle, you have made a great mistake. Until that day when the might with the right, and the right with the might shall be, we must never sheathe our swords; until that happy hour when Christ shall reign, when he shall be Master of all lands, when “swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks,” and men shall not learn war any more; until that day the conflict is to be kept up. Let no man think we are in such a position that we have no need for watchfulness: terrible as the war has been before, it is as terrible now, though in another manner. We do not now have to resist to blood, striving against sin, but we have need of as stern a power of resistance as ever was possessed by martyrs and confessors in days gone by. Brethren, we must awaken, the army must be aroused, the soldiers of the Lord must be quickened to a consciousness of their position. Now, now, we blow the trumpet; rush to the fight you slumbering soldiers! Up, up, up! Let your banners wave, and let your swords be taken from your scabbards; it is a day of battle — a day of war and contention.

      10. I cannot, however, conclude this section of my discourse without remarking that it is not merely error in religion with which we have to fight, but error in practice. Oh! beloved this world is a wicked world still, and London is an abominable city still. We have a fine gloss everywhere — a fair exterior, but, alas, within the hidden parts sin is still dominant. This is the great city of pretence, the gaudy house of sham, the foul home of pollution. Our streets are lined with fair houses; but what have we behind them? what have we there, in the very vitals of our city? This city is a colossal culprit, it is a behemoth sinner, and everywhere there are those who live in the vilest of vices, and yet go unchecked and unreproved, for it is unfashionable to tell men of their sins and there are few who have the spirit to speak out plainly about men’s sins. When we consider the mass of female profligacy which numbers its devotees by tens of thousands, are we not driven to conclude that the same sin must be rife enough with men. And ah! that it should be needful to utter it. Are not the men who ensnare and seduce the poor unfortunates, allowed to enter society as respectable and moral? What is this but abominable hypocrisy! We are greater sinners in London than many suppose. Everything is painted over. But do not think that you can deceive God in this way. Sin is stalking through the land at a horrible pace; iniquity still runs down our streets, covered up, it is true, not open sin, but equally offensive to God and to good men. Oh! my brethren, the world is not good yet; it is filmed over, but all the while the loathsome disease lurks within. Up, again, I say, soldiers of Christ; the war against sin is not finished, it is scarcely begun.

      11. II. But now, secondly, we have to notice, briefly the APPOINTED MEANS OF WARFARE. When Amalek came out against Israel, God appointed two means of combating them. If he had chosen, he could have sent a wind and driven them away, or have cut off their hosts by the blast of the pestilence; but it did not so please him; for he wished to place honour upon human effort, and, therefore, he said to Joshua, “Choose your men, and go fight with Amalek.” It is true Joshua might, by God’s strength, have overcome the foe; but God says, “While I honour human effort, I will still make men see that God does it all. Moses! go up to that hill; stand there in prayer, hold up your rod, and while the soldiers of Joshua rush into the battle, Moses shall plead, and you shall be unitedly successful. Your prayer, oh Moses, without the sword of Joshua, shall not prosper, and the sword of Joshua, without the rod of Moses, shall not be effectual.” The two ways of fighting sin are these — hard blows and hard prayers.

      12. First, the church must employ hard blows and hard fighting against sin. It is of no use for you to shut yourselves up in your houses, and pray to God to stop sin, unless you go and do something yourselves. If you pray away until you are dumb, you shall never have a blessing unless you exert yourselves. Let the farmer pray for a harvest; will he ever have it, unless he ploughs the field and then sows his seed? Let the warrior pray for victory, and let his soldiers stand peacefully to be shot at, will he gain a triumph? No, there must be an active exercise of the power given by God, or else prayer without it will be of no avail. Let us, then, brothers and sisters, each in our spheres, give hard blows to the enemy. This is a battle in which all can do something who are the Lord’s people. Those who halt upon their crutches can use them for weapons of war, as well as the mighty men can wield their swords! We have each an allotted work to do, if we are the Lord’s elect; let us take care that we do it. You are a tract distributor; go on with your work, do it earnestly. You are a Sunday School teacher; go on, do not stop in that blessed work, do it as to God, and not as to man. You are a preacher; preach as God gives you ability, remembering that he requires of no man more than he has given to him; therefore, do not be discouraged if you have little success, still go on. Are you like Zebulun, one that can handle the pen? Handle it wisely; and you shall strike through the loins of kings with it. And if you can do only a little, at least furnish the ammunition for others, that so you may help them in their works of faith and their labours of love. But let us all do something for Christ. I will never believe there is a Christian in the world who cannot do something. There is not a spider hanging on the king’s wall that does not have its errand; there is not a nettle that grows in the corner of the churchyard that does not have its purpose; there is not a single insect fluttering in the breeze that does not accomplishes some divine decree; and I will never have it said that God created any man, especially any Christian man, to be a blank, and to do nothing. He made you for a purpose. Find out what that purpose is; find your niche, and fill it. If it is ever so little, if it is only to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water, do something in this great battle for God and truth. Joshua must go out and take his men. I think I see him; he appears to have been a man of war from his youth; but what a motley host he had to choose from! Why, they were a set of slaves; they had never seen a sword in their lives, except in the hands of the Egyptians; they were poor, miserable creatures; they were cowards when they saw their old enemies at the Red Sea, and now their weapons were those which were washed up from the Red Sea, and their regimentals were of all descriptions upon earth. Joshua, however, chooses the strongest of them, and says, “Come with me.” It was indeed, as one called it, a “ragged regiment” with which he went to fight: and yet the ragged regiment