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 New Park Street Pulpit, volume 5, sermon number 264, "How saints may help the devil."
"One way in which sinners frequently excuse themselves is by endeavouring to get some apology for their own iniquities from the inconsistencies of God's people."
Nay, is it not possible that some
of you Christians have helped to confirm men in their sins and to destroy
their souls? It is a master-piece of the devil, when he can use Christ’s own
soldiers against Christ. But this he has often done. I have known many a case.
Let
me tell a story of a minister—one which I believe to be true and
which convicts myself, and therefore I tell it with the hope that it may also
waken your consciences and convict you too.
There was a young minister
once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had to walk some
four or five miles to his home along a country road after service. A young
man, who had been deeply impressed under the sermon, requested the
privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest hope that he might
get an opportunity of telling out his feelings to him, and obtaining some
word of guidance or comfort.
Instead of that, the young minister all the
way along told the most singular tales to those who were with him, causing
loud roars of laughter, and even relating tales which bordered upon the
indecorous. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man with him, and
the whole evening was spent in frivolity and foolish talking.
Some years
after, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a
dying man. He hastened thither with a heart desirous to do good. He was
requested to sit down at the bedside and the dying man, looking at him, and
regarding him most closely, said to him, “Do you remember preaching in
such-and such a village on such an occasion?” “I do,” said the
minister. “I was one of your hearers,” said the man, “and I was deeply impressed by
the sermon.” “Thank God for that,”
said the minister. “Stop!” said the
man, “don’t thank God till you have heard the whole story; you will
have reason to alter your tone before I have done.”
The minister changed
countenance, but he little guessed what would be the full extent of that
man’s testimony. Said he, “Sir, do you remember, after you had finished
that earnest sermon, I with some others walked home with you? I was
sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night; but I heard you
speak in such a strain of levity, and with so much coarseness too, that I went
outside the house, while you were sitting down to your evening meal; I stamped
my foot upon the ground; I said that you were a liar, that Christianity
was a falsehood; that it you could pretend to be so in earnest about it in the
pulpit, and then come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a
sham; and I have been an infidel,” said he, “a confirmed infidel, from that day
to this.”
“But I am not an infidel at this moment; I know better; I am dying,
and I am about to be damned; and at the bar of God I will lay my damnation
to your charge; my blood is on your head;”—and with a dreadful
shriek, and one demoniacal glance at the trembling minister, he shut his
eyes and died. Is it not possible that we may have been guilty thus?
The bare
idea would make the flesh creep on our bones; and yet I think there
are few among us who must not say, “That has been my fault, after all.” But
are there not enough traps, in which to catch souls, without your being
made Satan’s fowlers to do mischief? Hath not Satan legions enough of devils
to murder men, without employing you? Are there no hands that may be red
with the blood of souls beside yours?
O followers of Christ! O believers in
Jesus! Will ye serve under the black prince? Will ye fight against your
Master? Will ye drag sinners down to hell? Shall we—(I take myself in
here, more truly than any of you)—shall we, who profess to preach the
gospel of Christ, by our conversation injure and destroy men’s souls?
No comments:
Post a Comment