Readings for Sun 25–Sat 31 Oct: S 2124. Help for Your Sickness M 2125. Hope for Your Future T 2126. Something Done for Jesus W 2127. Love’s Competition Th 2128. Heaven Above, and Heaven Below F 2129. Pleading, not Contradiction Sa 2130. *The Deceitfulness of Sin* #readingSpurgeon #Spurgeon

Never mind what the cold-hearted think, for they cannot understand you. They will say, “Ah! that young person is too fast by half.” Never mind. Be faster still. Wise people cry out, “He has too many irons in the fire.” But I say to you, blow up the fire; get all the irons red hot; and hammer away with all your might. With all your strength and energy plunge into the service of your Master. If you love your Master, you can best show your love by ardent service. The Lord bless you with the utmost degree of love, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen. #Spurgeon #s2127

It is a blessed token for good when our work among men is not so much for the sake of sinners as for love of Jesus. When we love the brethren, it should be because they belong to Christ. It is sweet to serve the Lord Christ himself. #Spurgeon #s2127

If you love him most, do most. Do everything that is possible to humanity, quickened by the Spirit of God. If you have done much, do ten times more. Never talk of what you have done, but go on to something else. #Spurgeon #s2127

Brethren, I hope you all love Christ Jesus more than I do; for I would have him possess the highest love of every human heart: and yet I will not be willingly excelled by any one of you in a competition of love to Jesus. I will run my very best that no man take my crown. #Spurgeon #s2127

I am sorry to say it, but I believe that some make a glory of their shame, and dare to brag of what they used to be. They stand up and make confession without a tear in their eye, or a blush on their cheek. Such testimony ought never to be heard, for it is a positive creator of evil in the minds of those that hear it. I am sorry to have to say it; but I know that it is so. Testimonies are published which are provocatives to vice, and rather tend to make men immoral than to make them turn to God. In certain circles he is treated as a hero who can prove that he has been a great rascal. It was not thus that the prodigal was received by his father: he never hung up his old rags as a trophy. O brethren, when we talk about what we were, we had better veil our faces. Our former follies are things to be confessed to God in secret; and if they must be spoken in public, to the praise of divine grace, there must be a careful avoidance of anything like boasting, for it is a shame even to speak of the things that were done of them in secret. When there is really a deep sense of sin, there is a holy, delicate way of speaking of it. Old sins are not to be talked of as an old soldier shoulders his crutch, and shows how fields were won. A crimson blush is the best colour to wear when we speak of our lost estate. To talk smilingly of injuries done to the delicacy of our own conscience, of awful injuries done to others by a foul example, is not to glorify God, but to enthrone vice. #Spurgeon #s2127

Some of us take that place of eminent obligation on another ground, and yet it is the same ground; for while some of us never were openly profane, or drunken, or immoral, we have to confess the equal greatness of our sin on account of our offending against light and knowledge, against early convictions, against a holy training, against a tender conscience, against singular favours received from God; and therefore with shame we begin to take the lowest room, acknowledging that to us belongs the greatest debt of grateful praise to God. When I was preaching once I said—and I meant it—that I should be the deepest debtor to divine grace that ever entered the gates of glory, and I ventured to say— “Then loudest of the crowd I’ll sing, While heaven’s resounding mansions ring, With shouts of sovereign grace.” #Spurgeon #s2127

Where there has been overt sin, palpable, undeniable—where the outward character has been defiled and stained with it, forgiveness involves us in deep obligation to grateful love. You may stand in the front rank, and love Jesus most. #Spurgeon #s2127

Now, what will come of infinite love, the supreme act of God’s heart to men? What will come out of the gift of his Only-begotten Son, and the putting away of sin through the death of Jesus? What will men do for God after this? How much will they love him? It is an interesting question. What have you to say upon it? #Spurgeon #s2127

If you take exercise, you will increase your sense of warmth; but it will be a far surer thing if you get where the sun shines with equatorial heat: so other means are good, but to get near to Jesus is best of all. In proportion as you live close to the glorious central sun of the love of Christ, you will yourself be warm. #Spurgeon #s2127

If you want to increase your love to Jesus, use it. Do not merely talk about it, but actually serve him under its sweet constraint. It is a very poor Christianity that consists in sitting still and dreaming, and never attempting any practical service for Jesus, our Lord. He that thinks that he will quietly enjoy religion all alone, will soon find that he has very little of it to enjoy; for doubts and fears will breed in swarms in a stagnant atmosphere. Where there is none of the blessed wind of activity, there will soon be mists and damps—perhaps foul gas and fevers. #Spurgeon #s2127

Do you love the Lord with all your heart? If so, strive to have more love, but do not fling away what you have, for you would thus despise what the Spirit of God has wrought in you. #Spurgeon #s2127

A little pearl is a pearl as much as a great one, though every one of us would sooner have the greater pearl. There is the Queen’s image on a fourpenny piece as certainly as there is upon the sovereign: though we would all prefer the golden coin. There is the image of God on all his people’s faith and love, whether great or little. The main thing with the coin is to be sure that it is genuine metal. So, if love be real love, that is the main point. #Spurgeon #s2127

Love is not like a piece of cast iron, fixed and set; but it grows, and has its times of budding, flowering, and leaf-shedding. It is like a fire; at one time it may burn low, and at another time it may be blown up to a very vehement heat. Love rises and falls: I speak not of God’s love to us; but of our love to God. It has its ups and downs, its summers and its winters, its flood-tides and its ebbs; and if we find a change in love, in the same heart, we are not at all astonished that it should differ in different hearts. #Spurgeon #s2127

“He that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him;” and we know that we love God when we love his children. But if in your heart there is no such love to his children, to his Book, to his day, to his house, or to his service, you may rest quite certain, my friend, that your guilt clings to you still. You are unpardoned, and God will require that which is past, and call you to account. #Spurgeon #s2127

The Saviour’s face is to be seen reflected in almost every page, and yet some think that the Bible is more dull than an old almanack; and, though they must keep it in their house—for it is respectable to have a copy of it—yet to read it, and to read it with pleasure—why, that has never happened to them; nor is there any likelihood that it ever will unless they get made anew. #Spurgeon #s2127

To live only by God, and yet to live without him! Strange! Can there exist a man who never does anything for his God, who is constantly doing so much for him? If so, I would say to such a one—You have never been pardoned; for you do not love God, since you never think of him, and you do nothing for him. #Spurgeon #s2127

A man may, in the busy time of the day, think about fifty things; but let him be free from pressing labour and care, and he returns to his love as birds fly to their nests at night. His thought flies to Jesus, because Jesus is the home of his heart. If your hearts love God, your thoughts will run to him as the rivers run to the sea. Yea, and often in the very middle of business, the man who loves his God will be speaking with him. He may not interrupt the conversation, and those in the shop may not know what is on his mind; but his heart will be up above the mountains, where the angels dwell, communing with the great Father of lights. But where there is no thought of God, there is no love to him. #Spurgeon #s2127

That pardoned souls love their pardoning God is a great truth, and a very solemn one in its bearings upon us at this time, for there are persons in this house of prayer who were never forgiven; and we are sure of that unhappy fact, since they do not love God. Their sins must be still upon them, because they have not the token of pardon, inasmuch as they have no love to Jesus Christ our Lord. #Spurgeon #s2127

You cannot be pardoned, and not love God as a result of his loving forgiveness. #Spurgeon #s2127

You know that God does not divide his gifts, and give justification to one and sanctification to another; but the covenant is one, and the blessings of the covenant are threaded on the one string of infinite wisdom, so that when there comes the washing in the blood, there comes also a cleansing with water by the Word. The Holy Spirit washes us from the power of sin, as the blood of Christ cleanses us from the guilt of sin. Where sin is forgiven, there must be love to the God who forgave it, because the Spirit of God makes sure work upon the heart of the believer, and one of his first works is love. #Spurgeon #s2127