Spurgeon On How Can The Heart Of God’s Servant Be Cold?

Charles H. Spurgeon

Quoting Charles H. Spurgeon:

Are you God’s servant or not? If you are, how can your heart be cold? Are you sent by a dying Savior to proclaim his love and win the reward of his wounds, or are you not? If you are, how can you flag? Is the Spirit of God upon you? Has the Lord anointed you to preach glad tidings to the poor? If he has not, do not pretend to it. If he has, go in this thy might, and the Lord shall be thy strength. Yours is not a trade, or a profession. Assuredly if you measure it by the tradesman’s measure it is the poorest business on the face of the earth. Consider it as a profession: who would not prefer any other, so far as golden gains or worldly honors are concerned? But if it be a divine calling, and you a miracle-worker, dwelling in the supernatural, and working not for time but for eternity, then you belong to a nobler guild, and to a higher fraternity than any that spring of earth and deal with time. Look at it aright, and you will own that it is a grand thing to be as poor as your Lord, if, like him, you may make many rich; you will feel that it is a glorious thing to be as unknown and despised as were your Lord’s first followers, because you are making him known, whom to know is life eternal. You will be satisfied to be anything or to be nothing, and the thought of self will not enter your mind, or only cross it to be scouted as a meanness not to be tolerated by a consecrated man. There is the point. Measure your work as it should be measured, and I am not afraid that your earnestness will be diminished. Gaze upon it by the light of the judgment day, and in view of the eternal rewards of faithfulness. (Lectures to my Students, Volume 3, Lecture 8: “Earnestness: It’s Marring and Maintenance.”)

Human Nature Is Blind To Christ

Thomas Boston

Christians should admire the freedom and power of grace, which came to them in their condition of helplessness and brought them out of the state of sin and wrath. In such a condition they would certainly have perished if God had not been merciful. The natural man is totally unable to muster up the strength to come to Christ, unless he is drawn. Thomas Boston writes:

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. (John 6.44)

A man that is fallen into a pit cannot be supposed to help himself out of it, but by one of two ways; either by doing all himself alone, or taking hold of, and improving, the help offered him by others. Likewise an unconverted man cannot be supposed to help himself out of his natural state, but either in the way of the law, or covenant of works, by doing all himself without Christ; or else in the way of the Gospel, or covenant of grace, by exerting his own strength to lay hold upon, and to make use of the help offered him by a Savior. But, alas! The unconverted man is dead in the pit, and cannot help himself either of these ways; not the first way, for the first text tells us, that when our Lord came to help us, ‘we were without strength,’ unable to recover ourselves. We were ungodly, therefore under a burden of guilt and wrath, yet ‘without strength,’ unable to stand under it; and unable to throw it off, or get from under it: so that all mankind would have undoubtedly perished, had not ‘Christ died for the ungodly,’ and brought help to those who could never have recovered themselves. But when Christ comes and offers help to sinners, cannot they take it? Cannot they improve help when it comes to their hands? No, the second text tells, they cannot; ‘No man can come unto me,’ that is, believe in me (John 6.44), ‘except the Father draw him.’ This is a drawing which enables them to come, who till then could not come; and therefore could not help themselves by improving the help offered. It is a drawing which is always effectual; for it can be no less than ‘hearing and learning of the Father,’ which, whoever partakes of, come to Christ (verse 45). Therefore it is not drawing in the way of mere moral suasion, which may be, yea, and always is ineffectual. But it is drawing by mighty power (Eph. 1.9), absolutely necessary for those who have no power in themselves to come and take hold of the offered help.

Hearken then, O unregenerate man, and be convinced that as you are in a most miserable state by nature, so you are utterly unable to recover yourself any way. You are ruined; and what way will you go to work to recover yourself . . . ?

[A]lthough Christ is offered in the Gospel, yet they cannot believe in Him. Saving faith is the faith of God’s elect, the special gift of God to them, wrought in them by His Spirit. Salvation is offered to them that will believe in Christ, but how can you believe? (John 5.44). It is offered to those that will come to Christ; but ‘no man can come unto Him, except the Father draw him.’ It is offered to those that win look to Him, as lifted on the pole of the Gospel (Isa. 45.22); but the natural man is spiritually blind (Rev. 3.17); and as to the things of the Spirit of God, he cannot know them, for they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2.14). Nay, whosoever will, he is welcome; let him come (Rev. 22.17); but there must be a day of power on the sinner, before he can be willing (Ps. 110.3). (Human Nature In Its Fourfold State, Chapter 3, pp. 183-197)