Charles Spurgeon

"Now there are many professing Christians who do not think that you ever can know that you are forgiven while you remain in this world. They are not of this mind merely because they are ignorant of the gospel, but because that gospel is beclouded with errors. Their teachers throw dust into their eyes, or envelope them in mist. They see men as trees walking, and no more. They are brought up in orthodox fashion to repeat a mournful litany, and to call themselves “miserable sinners,” in stereotyped phrases. They are taught to go on for ever asking for pardon as if they had never received it. They are made to look upon themselves still as needing to be dealt with as lost sheep, and reconciled as rebels. Their standing is always at the foot of Sinai, they are not taught that the Lord has forgiven us all trespasses. Their Church, as if to chasten it for its alliance with the State, has lost the jubilant tone of faith, and made its daily service rather a wail for sinners than a song for saints."

"it is not always easy to be calm and prudent when you are provoked, and to be quite restful when everybody speaks ill of you, or tries to lay traps to catch you. But the child of God should try so to master himself that all the dogs that bark can no more disturb him than the baying of a hound would turn the moon out of her nightly course."

"But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill.

Never be happy unless you are truly resting in Jesus."

"Are you in very deep trouble tonight? Do all God’s waves and billows go over you? Does deep call unto deep at the noise of His waterspouts? Then expect that now some great blessing will come of it. That stone on the lapidary’s wheel has been cut, and cut, and cut again. That other stone in the corner of the shop is but a common pebble and he never vexes it upon the wheel, for it is worthless. But the more precious the stone is in His esteem, the more diligently does He cut its facets."

"And lastly, canst thou say that Jesus Christ is in thee? If not, thou art reprobate. Sharp though that word be, thou art a reprobate. But if Jesus Christ be in thy heart, though thy heart sometimes be so dark that thou canst scarcely tell he is there, yet thou art accepted in the beloved, and thou mayest "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.""

"If man could wear his sins on his forehead, he would pull his hat over his eyes. That old Roman who said he would like to have a window into his heart that every man could see within it, did not know himself, for if he had had such a window he would soon have begged to have a pair of shutters, and he would have kept them shut up I am sure; for could he ever have seen his own heart, he would have been driven raving mad."

"So one poor man, one ignorant man, one weak man, even one backsliding man, may be the means of the conversion of a whole nation. Who knows but that you who are nothing now, may be of more use than those of us who appear to stand better before God, because we have more gifts and talents? God can make a spark set a world on fire—he can light up a whole nation with the spark of one poor praying soul. You may be useful yet; therefore be of good cheer."

"He will not cast thee away, poor Ephraim; only come back to him—he will not despise thee, though thou hast plunged thyself in the mire and dirt, though thou art covered from head to foot with filthiness; come back, poor prodigal, come back, come back! Thy father calls thee. Hearken poor backslider! Come at once to him whose arms are ready to receive thee."

"To those who are weary and spent, the word "rest" is full of heaven. We are always in the field of battle; we are so tempted within, and so molested by foes without, that we have little or no peace; but in heaven we shall enjoy the victory, when the banner shall be waved aloft in triumph, and the sword shall be sheathed, and we shall hear our Captain say, "Well done, good and faithful servant.""