Monday, December 8, 2008

Labor On!



Brethren and sisters, you and I have no right to want to go to heaven till our work is done. There is a desire to be with Christ which is not only natural but spiritual; there is a sighing to behold his face, which if a man be without I shall question if he be a Christian at all; but to wish to be away from the battle before we win the victory, and to desire to leave the field before the day is over, were but lazy and listless;therefore let us pray God to save us from it.

Whitfield and a company of ministers were talking together and expressing their desire to go to heaven. Good Mr. Tennant was the only man who differed from them. He said he did not wish to die; and he thought that if his brother Whitfield would but consider for a time, he would not wish to be gone either; for he said, if you hire a man to do a day’s work, and he is saying all the day, “I wish it were evening, I wish it were time to go home,” you would think,” what a lazy fellow he is,” and you would wish you had never engaged him. “So,” he said, “I am afraid, it is nothing but our idleness that often prompts us to desire to be away from our work.” If there be a soul to win, let me stop until I have won it. Truly some of us might summon up courage enough to say, “I would fain barter heaven for the glory of Christ, and not only wait twenty years out of heaven if I may have twenty years of glorifying him the better, but wait out altogether if I may outside heaven sing to him sweeter songs, and honor him more than I can inside its walls;. for outside heaven shall be heaven to me if it shall help me to glorify my Lord and Master the better.”

From a sermon entitled "A Hearer In Disguise," delivered July 31, 1864. Flickr photo by Sir Mervs; some rights reserved.

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