Charles Spurgeon

"But mark you, the day will come when those who were willing to suffer for Christ will be counted to be the only sane persons who ever lived, and when those who looked to the main chance, and cared for self, and disregarded God, and faith in Christ, and love for their fellow men, will be regarded as having been mere idiots and drivellers."

"In these days, every man that can witness for the truth ought to do so: even if he stammers, he must not be silent. So many are decrying the truth, that, if in your heart and conscience you have proved it true, you are bound to give to the Lord the testimony of even a stammerer."

"Some of you have heard, and heard, but have never yet seen. The man who is content with one inlet to his mind, namely, his ears, but never uses his eyes, must imagine that God has made a mistake, and has given him more senses than he needs. Surely this argues a want of sense. Dear friends, you are not only invited to hear the gospel, but the Lord Jesus says to you, as he said to his first disciples, “Come and see.” “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” You are invited to see for yourselves whether these things be so."

"Whenever a Christian man sinks under affliction; when he does not seek grace from God to battle manfully with his sea of troubles; when he does not ask his Father to give him a great weight of consolation whereby he shall be able to endure in the evil day, we may say he does dishonour to the high, and mighty, and noble principles of Christianity, which are fitted to bear a man up in times of the very deepest affliction. It is the boast of the gospel that it lifts men above trouble; it is one of the glories of our Christianity, that it makes us say, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

"The next good point I see in Herod was that he admired the man in whom he saw justice and righteousness, and that is a step further; for you may admire an abstract virtue, and yet when you see it actually embodied in a man you may hate him. The ancients recognized justice in Aristides, and yet some of them grew sick of hearing him called “the just.” A man may be acknowledged to be just and holy, and for that very reason he may be dreaded. You like to see lions and tigers in the Zoological Gardens, but you would not like to see them in your own room; you would very much prefer to view them behind bars and within cages; and so very many have respect for religion, but religious people they cannot bear. They admire justice! How eloquently they speak of it, but they do not like to deal justly. They admire holiness! but if they come across a saint they persecute him."

"Be ye followers of us as far as we are followers of Christ, but in no other respect. It is to Christ you must go: the end of all our ministry is Christ Jesus."

"So many try to dodge between God and Satan. They do not want to fall, foul of either; they hold with the hare and run with the hounds: they admire all that is good, but they do not want to have too much of it themselves. It might be inconvenient to carry the cross of Christ on their own shoulders and become precise and exact in their own lives, yet they never say a word against other people doing so."

"Whenever you are expecting a heavenly favour, expect it from the Father, through his dear Son, by the Holy Ghost. Whenever you are longing, long for nothing more than there is in Christ; and whenever you obtain a mercy, remember that you have received it only because you have by faith received Jesus, and so have become a child of God. Whenever you rejoice in a mercy, take care that you do not so much glory in it as in the Lord from whom it came. Hope still in the Lord, and never have any hope in yourself, for that would be a fruitless, groundless, rootless, sapless hope. You are still to find mercy and plenteous redemption in the Lord alone."

"I have heard that the mothers in the Balearic Isles, in the old times, who wanted to bring their boys up to be good slingers, would put their dinners up above them where they could not get at them until they threw a stone and fetched them down: our Lord wishes us to be good slingers, and he puts up some precious truth in a lofty place where we cannot get it down except by slinging at it; and, at last, we hit the mark and find food for our souls."

"You remember the story of Whitefield's once saying, that there would be some in heaven who were "the devil's castaways;" some that the devil would hardly think good enough for him, and yet whom Christ would save. "

"If you fancy that you have some strength left, you have not yet come where the Spirit will bring you, for he will empty you of all creature pretension, and lay you low and dash you in pieces, and bring you in a mortar and pound you till you feel that you are weak and without strength, and can do nothing."

"I need not expound how Satan is the demon, how in hell you shall curse him and curse yourselves because you procrastinated—how, that seeing God was slow to anger you were slow to repentance—how, because he was great in power, and kept back his anger, therefore you kept back your steps from seeking him; and here you are what you are!"

"He is slow to anger, again, because he is great. Little things are always swift in anger; great things are not so. The surly cur barks at every passer-by, and bears no insult; the lion would bear a thousand times as much; and the bull sleeps in his pasture, and will bear much, before he lifteth up his might. The leviathan in the sea, though he makes the deep to be hoary when he is enraged, yet is slow to be stirred up, while the little and puny are always swift in anger. God's greatness is one reason of the slowness of his wrath."

"To exhibit again an old picture which has often been used, there is a child in a burning house, hanging from the upper window. A strong man stands beneath and offers to catch him, if he will but drop from yonder hot window sill to which he still clings. “Drop, my child,” saith he, “I will catch you.” The child believes the strength of his preserver; that does not save him. He trusts to the strength, he lets go his hold and falls, is caught and is preserved; that is faith. Let go your hold of your good works, your good thoughts, and all else, and trust in Christ. He never did let one soul dash itself to earth yet, that did but fall into his hands. Oh! for grace for every one of us to say in the words of Watts, —

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Christ’s kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all.”"

"Grace does not make us unearthly, though it makes us unworldly. True religion distinguishes us from others, even as our Lord Jesus was separate from sinners, but it does not shut us up or hedge us round about as if we were too good or too tender for the rough usage of everyday life. It does not put us in the salt box and shut the lid down, but it casts us in among our fellow-men for their good. Grace makes us the servants of God while still we are the servants of men: it enables us to do the business of heaven while we are attending to the business of earth: it sanctifies the common duties of life by showing us how to perform them in the light of heaven."

"If those you seek to bless be not saved, yet you have not altogether failed, for you did not teach or preach having the winning of souls as the absolute ultimatum of your work, you did it with the view of pleasing Jesus, and he is pleased with faithfulness even where it is not accompanied with success. Sincere obedience is his delight even if it lead to no apparent result. If the Lord should set his servant to plough the sea or sow the sand he would accept his service."