Wednesday, April 6, 2011

As soon as we get out of the dust



If the church expects small results from missions, I readily concede that she is acting consistently with her anticipations; and if she has indeed given up the work as a hopeless case, I think she is doing about as little as she could consistently with the bare appearance of obeying her Lord’s commands to evangelize the nations.

May the day come when her spirit shall revive, when she shall feel that the earth belongs to Christ, and shall hear her Master’s voice pealing like thunder within her conscience, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” May she rise to the dignity of her position, and perceive that her field is the world, since the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. All things are possible to him that believeth; may we yet receive the faith which subdues nations. When the church is ready for great events they shall occur to her. God has blessed us already up to the full measure of our fitness to be blessed, and perhaps a great deal beyond it; we have seen more gracious results than we could have expected from our poor efforts, but when the whole church shall become fired with the love of Christ, when every man’s heart shall glow with a furnace heat of ardent desire for the glory of Jesus, then like molten lava from the red lips of a volcano, the current of church life shall burn a passage for itself. As soon as Zion shakes herself from the dust and goes forth to war in the strength of her Lord, she shall cause her enemies to flee before her, as Midian fled before the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Triumph of Christianity," delivered April 21, 1872. Image by Zach Dischner under Creative Commons License.

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