By Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"Base things of the world hath God chosen." - 1 Corinthians 1:28
Walk the streets by moonlight, if you dare, and you will see sinners
then. Watch when the night is dark, and the wind is howling, and the
picklock is grating in the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to
yon jail, and walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy
over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at night, and
there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories, and note those who
have betrayed a rampant juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners
there. Go across the seas to the place where a man will gnaw a bone upon
which is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where you
will, you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they are common
enough; you may find them in every lane and street of every city, and
town, and village, and hamlet. It is for such that Jesus died. If you
will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of
woman, I will have hope of him yet, because Jesus Christ is come to seek
and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be
made the best. Pebbles of the brook grace turns into jewels for the
crown-royal. Worthless dross he transforms into pure gold. Redeeming
love has set apart many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the
Saviour's passion. Effectual grace calls forth many of the vilest of the
vile to sit at the table of mercy, and therefore let none
despair.
Reader, by that love looking out of Jesus' tearful eyes, by that love
streaming from those bleeding wounds, by that faithful love, that strong
love, that pure, disinterested, and abiding love; by the heart and by
the bowels of the Saviour's compassion, we conjure you turn not away as
though it were nothing to you; but believe on him and you shall be
saved. Trust your soul with him and he will bring you to his Father's
right hand in glory everlasting.
Evening
"I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
- 1 Corinthians 9:22
Paul's great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to
save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have
men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our
Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great point? Then
let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it be at the last great
day to have taught and moralized men if they appear before God unsaved?
Blood-red will our skirts be if through life we have sought inferior
objects, and forgotten that men needed to be saved. Paul knew the ruin
of man's natural state, and did not try to educate him, but to save him;
he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of refining them,
but of saving from the wrath to come. To compass their salvation, he
gave himself up with untiring zeal to telling abroad the gospel, to
warning and beseeching men to be reconciled to God. His prayers were
importunate and his labours incessant. To save souls was his consuming
passion, his ambition, his calling. He became a servant to all men,
toiling for his race, feeling a woe within him if he preached not the
gospel. He laid aside his preferences to prevent prejudice; he submitted
his will in things indifferent, and if men would but receive the gospel,
he raised no questions about forms or ceremonies: the gospel was the one
all-important business with him. If he might save some he would
be content. This was the crown for which he strove, the sole and
sufficient reward of all his labours and self-denials. Dear reader, have
you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? Are we possessed with
the same all-absorbing desire? If not, why not? Jesus died for sinners,
cannot we live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where our love to
Christ, if we seek not his honour in the salvation of men? O that the
Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the
souls of men.
