“Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel
which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that
is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed
to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground,
so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul.”-Charles Haddon Spurgeon 1834 – 1892
There is a part of me that embraces these words from Charles Spurgeon. It is called my spirit. There is another part of me that rejects them. It is called my flesh. This is a daily battle. The Gospel is a hard message for us to accept in our flesh. It calls us to die to ourselves, to surrender to the will of our Lord and creator.
Matthew 16:24
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
In this quote Spurgeon addresses the attempts made by men to soften the Gospel message in an attempt to win more souls. But their attempts are folly, although not a surprise, as the scriptures warn that such things will happen.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
It is not until we realise the depths of our sin and its abhorrence in the sight of God that we can begin to comprehend our need for a saviour. And it is only when we are presented with the true Gospel that we can come to this realisation.
Proverbs 5:22-23
22 His own iniquities entrap the wicked man,
And he is caught in the cords of his sin.
23 He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
The same Gospel that kills our flesh makes us alive again through the spirit and so we should seek it with all our being and as Spurgeon says “so pray the Lord to let His gospel soak into your soul.”
Originally posted 2009-02-19 16:48:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
PDF Possibly related posts:
