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 19, sermon number 1,114, "Onward!"
"Never mind though you have run so far, you must let the space which lies between you and the goal engross all your thoughts and command all your powers."
Some people seem to have very good memories as to what they have performed. They used to serve God wonderfully when they were young! They began early and were full of zeal! They can tell you all about it with much pleasure.
In middle life they wrought marvels, and achieved great wonders; but now they rest on their oars, they are giving other people an opportunity to distinguish themselves—their own heroic age is over. Dear brother, as long as ever you are in this world forget what you have already done, and go forward to other service!
Living on the past is one of the faults of old churches. We, for instance, as a church, may begin to congratulate ourselves upon the great things God has done by us, for we shall be sure to put it in that pretty shape, although we shall probably mean the great things we have done ourselves. After praising ourselves thus we shall gain no further blessing, but shall decline by little and little.
The same is true of denominations. What acclamations are heard when allusion is made to what our fathers did! Oh, the name of Carey, and Knibb, and Fuller! We Baptists think we have nothing to do now but to go upstairs and go to bed, for we have achieved eternal glory through the names of these good men; and as for our Wesleyan friends, how apt they are to harp upon Wesley, Fletcher, Nelson, and other great men!
Thank God for them: they were grand men; but the right thing is to forget the past, and pray for another set of men to carry on the work. We should never be content, but “On, on, on,” should be our cry!
When they asked Napoleon why he continually made wars, he said, “I am the child of war; conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me.” The Christian church is the child of spiritual war; she only lives as she fights, and rides forth conquering and to conquer.
God deliver us from the self-congratulatory spirit, however it may come, and make us long and pine after something better!
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