Live Your Testimony, Give Your Testimony

I have so to speak on God’s behalf that those about me may see what religion is by watching my life. Whatever my lot, condition, or occupation, I have a witness to bear; for those who never read the Bible may read me, and those who never think of Christ may at least think of one of his disciples, and see in some degree what the Master is by what the servant is. Let this object tone and tune your lives, my brothers and sisters; and let the members of this church especially bear in mind that they are bound from morning to night in all that they are and all that they do to be speaking on the behalf of God.

But, further, we are bound to do this by giving instruction. All of you who have been taught should also teach, and I am sure there is a great want of instruction in this age: instruction, I mean, upon the things of God. We have probably more present need of instruction than of exhortation. We have many who exhort, but few who edify. Do, dear friends, whether you teach in the Sunday-school, or stand up at the corner of the street, or talk with friends and comrades, try to make known the name and nature and attributes of God; show his claims, the perfect righteousness demanded by his law, and the penalties due to disobedience; speak on God’s behalf of his gospel’s freeness, fullness, and sureness; speak on God’s behalf concerning the doctrine of his providence and the great truths of his grace and sovereignty. Do not let those around you die for lack of knowledge: make the name of the Lord to be known as much as lieth in you.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "God's Advocates Breaking Silence," delivered March 17, 1878. Image by Bob Jagendorf on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

You have been my help!

...I beg you, do not, for the glory of God and for the comfort of tried saints, keep back your testimony, but say, “I was brought low, and he helped me, and, therefore, blessed be his name.” We do not talk enough about our deliverances. When you get home this afternoon, after dinner, if a friend or two should call in, you will go over your bad times and your troubles, but you will not recapitulate your mercies. Have we not had enough of complaining? let us touch another string, and bless the Lord for all his lovingkindness.

 What a tale some of us could tell of his mercies! No novel that was ever composed could possibly equal in interest my own experience of God’s goodness, and I think there are many here of whose lives the same could be said. Rich with incident, crowded with wonders, crammed full of miracles have our lives been, for God has dealt so well with us that we often stand astonished at what he has done. “Thou hast been my help.” Oh, yes, I will sum up the whole of my life in the one sentence, and, as we have seen a portrait sketched in a few lines, so will I give you my whole career in miniature: “Thou hast been my help.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Mighty Plea," delivered November 23, 1873. Image by itslegitx on Flickr under Creative Commons License.