posted by Phil Johnson
The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Carnal Mind Enmity Against God," a sermon delivered 22 April 1855 at Exeter Hall.
do fear, my brethren, that very often when we consider our state, we think not so much of the guilt as of the misery. I have sometimes read sermons upon 
the inclination of the sinner to evil, in which it has been very powerfully proved, and certainly the pride of human nature has been well humbled and brought low; but one thing always strikes me, if it is left out, as being a very great omission; viz.—the doctrine that man is guilty in all these things. If his heart is against God, we ought to tell him it is his sin; and if he cannot repent, we ought to show him that sin is the sole cause of his disability—that all his alienation from God is sin—that as long as he keeps from God it is sin. I fear many of us here must acknowledge that we do not charge the sin of it to our own consciences. Yes, say we, we have many corruptions. Oh! yes. But we sit down very contented. My brethren, we ought not to do so. The having those corruptions is our crime which should be confessed as an enormous evil; and if I, as a minister of the gospel, do not press home the sin of the thing, I have missed what is the very virus of it. I have left out the very essence, if I have not shown that it is a crime.
5 comments:
A great evangelistic sermon, that was. I went and read the whole thing. I liked this clip especially:
"We must have more preaching of the Holy Spirit, if we are to have more conversion work. I tell you, sirs, if you change yourselves, and make yourselves better, and better, and better, a thousand times, you will never be good enough for heaven, till God's Spirit has laid his hand upon you; till he has renewed the heart, till he has purified the soul, till he has changed the entire spirit and new-made the man, there can be no entering heaven."
Nothing like the wisdom of CH Spurgeon before church.
Peter fell at the Lord's knees, and said, depart from Lord, for I am a sinful man.
Peter is the one who said to the Lord that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Peter denied the Lord three times.
And Peter also when he saw the Lord on the shore, plunged from the boat into the water, and with great desire, went to his Lord.
We all need to take heed to this great truth:
Spurgeon Sayes:
The having those corruptions is our crime which should be confessed as an enormous evil; and if I, as a minister of the gospel, do not press home the sin of the thing, I have missed what is the very virus of it. I have left out the very essence, if I have not shown that it is a crime.
May we not be guilty of this crime!
This message is lacking today and
would not be tolerated in most "churches".
Thanks Phil for this great post.
People don't like to hear about their sinfulness. They tell themselves that they are "a good person". Total depravity is a hard doctrine to preach, even at church.
I followed Johnny Dialectic's lead and read the whole sermon. Wow!
Spurgeon appeared to take great pains to describe this carnal mind as being that of the unredeemed sinner. Even as a believer, however, there are days when I feel as if much of what he wrote could apply to me.
All the better reason to repent to God day after day.
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