16 July 2012

Effectual Calling

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from Sermon #73, a sermon preached on Sunday morning 30 March 1856 at the New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

It is said, especially, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Now that is not the effectual call which is intended by the apostle, when he said, "Whom he called, them he also justified." That is a general call which many men, yea, all men reject, unless there come after it the personal, particular call, which makes us Christians.

You will bear me witness that it was a personal call that brought you to the Saviour. It was some sermon which led you to feel that you were, no doubt, the person intended. The text, perhaps, was "Thou, God, seest me;" and the minister laid particular stress on the word "me," so that you thought God's eye was fixed upon you; and ere the sermon was concluded, you thought you saw God open the books to condemn you, and your heart whispered, "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord." You might have been perched in the window, or stood packed in the aisle; but you had a solemn conviction that the sermon was preached to you, and not to other people. God does not call his people in shoals, but in units. "Jesus saith unto her, Mary; and she turned and said unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master." Jesus seeth Peter and John fishing by the lake, and he saith unto them, "Follow me." He seeth Matthew sitting at the table at the receipt of custom, and he saith unto him, "Arise, and follow me," and Matthew did so.

When the Holy Ghost comes home to a man, God's arrow goes into his heart: it does not graze his helmet, or make some little mark upon his armour, but it penetrates between the joints of the harness, entering the marrow of the soul. Have you felt, dear friends, that personal call? Do you remember when a voice said, "Arise, he calleth thee." Can you look back to some time when you said, "My Lord, my God?" when you knew the Spirit was striving with you, and you said, Lord, I come to thee, for I know that thou callest me." I might call the whole of you throughout eternity, but if God call one, there will be more effect through his personal call of one than my general call of multitudes.




4 comments:

Jamie said...

Ok, I'll be the one to do it...

"A formal analysis will quickly show that a structural dynamic analysis adds considerable urgency to the relevant dynamics of Luke-Acts."

Sorry, I just had to do it.

ali said...

Oh how clearly I remember the night, the hour, the second that the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin - all I could say though my tears is 'My God, What Have I Done.'

If we is what we were, We Aint.!!.

That about says it all.

donsands said...

Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe.

Jesus seemed to bring Simon Peter along with Him for a while, and when they went fishing, that is when Peter fell before his Savior and God and said: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

Thanks for the Spurgeon. His way of sharing the truth is always exceptional.

Anonymous said...

Excellent!!! When I read these Spurgeon thoughts, I always wonder how the Lord has blessed him with wise thinking. Innovative and always convicting.