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 The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 13, sermon number 742, "A sermon to open neglecters and nominal followers of religion."
"As clearly as actions can speak, you say by your neglect of the Sabbath, by your disregard of prayer, by your never reading the Bible, by your perseverance in known sin, and by the whole course of your life, "I will not.'"
Like Pharaoh, you have demanded, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” You are of the same mind as those of old, who said, “It is vain
to serve God, and what profit is there if we keep his ordinances?” Moreover, my friend, you have not as yet given an assent to the
doctrines of God’s Word; on the contrary, intellectually as well as practically,
you go not at God’s bidding.
You have set up in your mind the idea that you
must understand everything before you will believe it—an idea, let me tell
you, which you will never be able to carry out, for you cannot understand
your own existence; and there are ten thousand other things around you which you never can comprehend, but which you must believe or remain for ever a gigantic fool.
Still you cavil at this doctrine and that doctrine,
railing at the gospel system in general; and if you were asked at a working man’s conference, why you did not go to a place of worship, you would perhaps say that you kept away from worship because you did not like this
doctrine or that.
Let me say on my own account, that as far as I am personally concerned, it is a very small consideration to me whether you do like my doctrine or do not; for your own sake I am anxious above measure that you should believe the truth as it is in Jesus; but while you live in
sin, your dislike of a doctrine, will very probably only make me feel the more
sure of its truth, and lead me to preach it with more confidence and vehemence.
Think you that we are to learn God’s truth from the likings or
dislikings of those who refuse to worship him, and want an excuse for their sins. O unconverted men and women, it is very long before we shall come to you to learn what you would have us preach, and when we fall so low as to
do that, you yourselves will despise us.
What! shall the physician ask his patient what kind of medicine he would wish to have prescribed? Then the man needs no physician, he can prescribe for himself. Show the doctor
out at the back door directly. What is the use of such a physician?
Of what service is a minister who will truckle to depraved tastes and sinful appetites, and say, “How would you like me to preach to you? What smooth things shall I offer you?” Ah souls! we have some higher end to
be served than merely pleasing you.
We would save you by distasteful
truths, for honeyed lies will ruin you. That teaching which the carnal mind most delights in, is the most deadly and delusive. With many of you, your
beliefs, and tastes, and likes, must be changed, or else you will never enter
heaven. I admit that in a measure I like your honesty in having said outright, “I
will not serve God;” but it is an honesty which makes me shudder, for it
betrays a heart hard as the nether
millstone.
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