The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The following excerpt is from Speeches at Home and Abroad, pages 38-39, Pilgrim Publications."Brethren, we must be earnest, because we are ourselves so greatly in debt to the rich, free, and sovereign grace of God."
What preachers we should have made if we could have been put into a pulpit there and then! What household visitors should we have been if we could have been sent at that very moment to go and tell to a family what Christ had done for us! And then, brethren, we were only in debt to Christ for one item; and now, the bill is so long we cannot measure it.
And do we love him less now than we did then? When he had only healed our iniquity we loved him; and now that he has been pleased not only to heal our diseases, but to satisfy our mouth with good things, so that our youth has been renewed like the eagle’s, shall we love him less? I say, God forbid!
And yet I query, brethren, whether any of us go to our work now as we should have done if this were the first day of our conversion. Come, I say now, recall the place where you were; think of the hole of the pit and the miry clay. Think also of where you are.
Put your foot down upon the Rock of Ages now, and feel that you are safe in Christ. Look at your covering now,—arrayed in his righteousness. Look at your sustenance now,—fed with the bread from heaven, and made to eat of the body and blood of Christ. Think of your end, and of that which has been provided for you,—the mansions of the blessed in the land of rest hereafter. And will not these things make you feel that you are drowned debtors to Christ—over head and ears in debt to him?
Oh, what do we not owe thee, Jesus,—what do we not owe thee! If we could give our bodies to be burned; if this flesh could be eaten of dogs and rent piecemeal from the bones, ‘twere small sacrifice for thee. And, could we give up heaven for thee; if we could be kept out of it for ages to preach, and teach, and suffer for thee, we might well be content, and think it two heavens to lose heaven for awhile if we might but the better show our love for thee.
If there be a man among you who is not in debt to Christ, this plea can have no power with you. If there be one among you who is not washed in his blood; if there be one among you who will be saved by his own merits, or by his own strength, you have no call to be in earnest; there is no need that you should give your heart to Christ. But such a man there is not; therefore spend and be spent each one of you: and may the Lord accept the sacrifice, through Christ, the great High Priest!
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