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SUBJECT: 01 REV 2:4 Declension from First Love
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Declension from First Love
September 26, 1858
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)
"Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first
love."- Rev_2:4.
It is a great thing to have as much said in our commendation as was said
concerning the church at Ephesus. Just read what "Jesus Christ, who is the
faithful witness," said of them-"I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy
patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast
tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them
liars: and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast
laboured, and hast not fainted." Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, we may
feel devoutly thankful if we can humbly, but honestly say, that this
commendation applies to us. Happy the man whose works are known and accepted
of Christ. He is no idle Christian, he has practical godliness; he seeks by
works of piety to obey God's whole law, by works of charity to manifest his
love to the brotherhood, and by works of devotion to show his attachment to
the cause of his Master. "I know thy works." Alas! some of you cannot get so
far as that. Jesus Christ himself can bear no witness to your works, for you
have not done any. You are Christians by profession, but you are not
Christians as to your practice. I say again, happy is that man to whom Christ
can say, "I know thy works." It is a commendation worth a world to have as
much as that said of us. But further, Christ said, "and thy labour." This is
more still. Many Christians have works, but only few Christians have labour.
There were many preachers in Whitfield's day that had works, but Whitfield
had labour. He toiled and travailed for souls. He was "in labours more
abundant." Many were they in the apostle's days who did works for Christ; but
pre-eminently the apostle Paul did labour for souls. It is not work merely,
it is anxious work; it is casting forth the whole strength, and exercising
all the energies for Christ. Could the Lord Jesus say as much as that of you-
"I know thy labour?" No. He might say, "I know thy loitering; I know thy
laziness; I know thy shirking of the work; I know thy boasting of what little
thou dost; I know thine ambition to be thought something of , when thou art
nothing." But ah! friends, it is more than most of us dare to hope that
Christ could say, "I know thy labour."
But further, Christ says, "I know thy patience." Now there be some that
labour, and they do it well. But what does hinder them? They only labour for
a little season, and then they cease to work and begin to faint. But this
church had laboured on for many years; it had thrown out all its energies-not
in some spasmodic effort, but in a continual strain and unabated zeal for the
glory of God. "I know thy patience." I say again, beloved, I tremble to think
how few out of this congregation could win such praise as this. "I know thy
works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them
which are evil." The thorough hatred which the church had of evil doctrine,
of evil practice, and its corresponding intense love for pure truth and pure
practice-in that I trust some of us can bear a part. "And thou hast tried
them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars."
Here, too, I think some of us may hope to be clear. I know the difference
between truth and error. Arminianism will never go down with us; the doctrine
of men will not suit our taste. The husks, the bran, and the chaff, are not
things that we can feed upon. And when we listen to those who preach another
gospel, a holy anger burns within us, for we love the truth as it is in
Jesus; and nothing but that will satisfy us. "And hast borne, and hast
patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted." They
had borne persecutions, difficulties, hardships, embarrassments, and
discouragements, yet had they never flagged, but always continued faithful.
Who among us here present could lay claim to so much praise as this? What
Sunday-school teacher have I here who could say, "I have laboured, and I have
borne, and have had patience, and have not fainted." Ah, dear friends, if you
can say it, it is more than I can. Often have I been ready to faint in the
Master's work; and though I trust I have not been tired of it, yet there has
sometimes been a longing to get from the work to the reward, and to go from
the service of God, before I had fulfilled, as a hireling, my day. I am
afraid we have not enough of patience, enough of labour, and enough of good
works, to get even as much as this said of us. But it is in our text, I fear
the mass of us must find our character. "Nevertheless I have somewhat against
thee, because thou hast left thy first love." There may be a preacher here
present. Did you ever hear of a minister who had to preach his own funeral
sermon? What a labour that must have been, to feel that he had been condemned
to die, and must preach against himself, and condemn himself! I stand here
to-night, not in that capacity, but in one somewhat similar. I feel that I
who preach shall this night condemn myself; and my prayer before I entered
this pulpit was, that I might fearlessly discharge my duty, that I might deal
honestly with my own heart, and that I might preach, knowing myself to be the
chief culprit, and you each in your measure to have offended in this respect,
even though none of you so grievously as I have done. I pray that God the
Holy Spirit, through his renewings, may apply the word, not merely to your
hearts, but to mine, that I may return to my first love, and that you may
return with me.
In the first place, what was our first love? Secondly, how did we lose it?
And thirdly, let me exhort you to get it again.
I. First, WHAT WAS OUR FIRST LOVE? Oh, let us go back-it is not many years
with some of us. We are but youngsters in God's ways, and it is not so long
with any of you that you will have very great difficulty in reckoning it.
Then if you are Christians, those days were so happy that your memory will
never forget them, and therefore you can easily return to that first bright
spot in your history. Oh, what love was that which I had to my Saviour the
first time he forgave my sins. I remember it. You remember each for
yourselves, I dare say, that happy hour when the Lord appeared to us,
bleeding on his cross, when he seemed to say, and did say in our hearts, "I
am thy salvation; I have blotted out like a cloud thine iniquities, and like
a thick cloud thy sins." Oh, how I loved him! Passing all loves except his
own was that love which I felt for him then. If beside the door of the place
in which I met with him there had been a stake of blazing faggots, I would
have stood upon them without chains; glad to give my flesh, and blood, and
bones, to be ashes that should testify my love to him. Had he asked me then
to give all my substance to the poor, I would have given all and thought
myself to be amazingly rich in having beggared myself for his name's sake.
Had he commanded me then to preach in the midst of all his foes, I could have
said:-
"There's not a lamb amongst thy flock
I would disdain to feed,
There's not a foe before whose face
I'd fear thy cause to plead."
I could realize then the language of Rutherford, when he said, being full of
love to Christ, once upon a time, in the dungeon of Aberdeen-"Oh, my Lord, if
there were a broad hell betwixt me and thee, if I could not get at thee
except by wading through it, I would not think twice but I would plunge
through it all, if I might embrace thee and call thee mine."
Now it is that first love that you and I must confess I am afraid we have in
a measure lost. Let us just see whether we have it. When we first loved the
Saviour how earnest we were; there was not a single thing in the Bible, that
we did not think most precious; there was not one command of his that we did
not think to be like fine gold and choice silver. Never were the doors of his
house open without our being there. if there were a prayer meeting at any
hour in the day we were there. Some said of us that we had no patience, we
would do too much and expose our bodies too frequently-but we never thought
of that "Do yourself no harm," was spoken in our ears; but we would have done
anything then. Why there are some of you who cannot walk to the Music Hall on
a morning, it is too far. When you first joined the church, you would have
walked twice as far. There are some of you who cannot be at the prayer
meeting-business will not permit; yet when you were first baptized, there was
never a prayer meeting from which you were absent. It is the loss of your
first love that makes you seek the comfort of your bodies instead of the
prosperity of your souls. Many have been the young Christians who have joined
this church, and old ones too, and I have said to them, "Well, have you got a
ticket for a seat?" "No, sir." "Well, what will you do? Have you got a
preference ticket?" "No, I cannot get one; but I do not mind standing in the
crowd an hour, or two hours. I will come at five o'clock so that I can get
in. Sometimes I don't get in, sir; but even then I feel that I have done what
I ought to do in attempting to get in." "Well," but I have said, "you live
five miles off, and there is coming and going back twice a day-you cannot do
it." "Oh, sir," they have said "I can do it; I feel so much the blessedness
of the Sabbath and so much enjoyment of the presence of the Saviour." I have
smiled at them; I could understand it, but I have not felt it necessary to
caution them-and now their love is cool enough. That first love does not last
half so long as we could wish. Some of you stand convicted even here; you
have not that blazing love, that burning love, that ridiculous love as the
worldling would call it, which is after all the love to be most coveted and
desired. No, you have lost your first love in that respect. Again, how
obedient you used to be. If you saw a commandment, that was enough for you-
you did it. But now you see a commandment, and you see profit on the other
side; and how often do you dally with the profit and choose the temptation,
instead of yielding an unsullied obedience to Christ.
Again, how happy you used to be in the ways of God. Your love was of that
happy character that you could sing all day long; but now your religion has
lost its lustre, the gold has become dim; you know that when you come to the
Sacramental table, you often come there without enjoying it. There was a time
when every bitter thing was sweet; whenever you heard the Word, it was all
precious to you. Now you can grumble at the minister. Alas! the minister has
many faults, but the question is, whether there has not been a greater charge
in you than there has been in him. Many are there who say, "I do not hear Mr.
So-and-so as I used to,"-when the fault lies in their own ears. Oh, brethren,
when we live near to Christ, and are in our first love, it is amazing what a
little it takes to make a good preacher to us. Why, I confess I have heard a
poor illiterate Primitive Methodist preach the gospel, and I felt as if I
could jump for joy all the while I was listening to him, and yet he never
gave me a new thought or a pretty expression, nor one figure that I could
remember, but he talked about Christ; and even his common things were to my
hungry spirit like dainty meats. And I have to acknowledge, and, perhaps, you
have to acknowledge the same-that I have heard sermons from which I ought to
have profited, but I have been thinking on the man's style, or some little
mistakes in grammar. When I might have been holding fellowships with Christ
in and through the ministry, I have, instead thereof, been getting abroad in
my thoughts even to the ends of the earth. And what is the reason for this,
but that I have lost my first love.
Again: when we were in our first love, what would we do for Christ; now how
little will we do. Some of the actions which we performed when we were young
Christians, but just converted, when we look back upon them, seem to have
been wild and like idle tales. You remember when you were a lad and first
came to Christ, you had a half-sovereign in your pocket; it was the only one
you had, and you met with some poor saint and gave it all away. You did not
regret that you had done it, your only regret was that you had not a great
deal more, for you would have given all. You recollected that something was
wanted for the cause of Christ. Oh! we could give anything away when we first
loved the Saviour. If there was a preaching to be held five miles off, and we
could walk with the lay-preacher to be a little comfort to him in the
darkness, we were off. If there was a Sunday-school, however early it might
be, we would be up, so that we might be present. Unheard-of feats, things
that we now look back upon with surprise, we could perform them. Why cannot
we do them now? Do you know there are some people who always live upon what
they have been. I speak very plainly now. There is a brother in this church
who may take it to himself; I hope he will. It is not very many years ago
since he said to me, when I asked him why he did not do something-"Well, I
have done my share; I used to do this, and I have done the other; I have done
so-and-so." Oh, may the Lord deliver him, and all of us, from living on "has
beens!" It will never do to say we have done a thing. Suppose, for a solitary
moment, the world should say, "I have turned round; I will stand still." Let
the sea say, "I have been ebbing and flowing, lo! these many years; I will
ebb and flow no more." Let the sun say, "I have been shining, and I have been
rising and setting so many days; I have done this enough to earn me a goodly
name; I will stand still;" and let the moon wrap herself up in veils of
darkness, and say, "I have illuminated many a night, and I have lighted many
a weary traveller across the moors; I will shut up my lamp and be dark
forever." Brethren, when you and I cease to labour, let us cease to live. God
has no intention to let us live a useless life. But mark this; when we leave
our first works, there is no question about having lost our first love; that
is sure. If there be strength remaining, if there be still power mentally and
physically, if we cease from our office, if we abstain from our labours,
there is no solution of this question which an honest conscience will accept,
except this, "Thou hast lost thy first love, and, therefore, thou hast
neglected thy first works." Ah! we were all so very ready to make excuses for
ourselves. Many a preacher has retired from the ministry, long before he had
any need to do so. He has married a rich wife. Somebody has left him a little
money, and he can do without it. He was growing weak in the ways of God, or
else he would have said,
"My body with my charge lay down,
And cease at once to work and live."
And let any man here present who was a Sunday-school teacher and who has left
it, who was a tract distributor and who has given it up, who was active in
the way of God but is now idle, stand to-night before the bar of his
conscience, and say whether he be not guilty of this charge which I bring
against him, that he has lost his first love.
I need not stop to say also, that this may be detected in the closet as well
as in our daily life; for when first love is lost, there is a want of that
prayerfulness which we have. I remember the day I was up at three o'clock in
the morning. Till six, I spent in prayer, wrestling with God. Then I had to
walk some eight miles, and started off and walked to the baptism. Why, prayer
was a delight to me then. My duties at that time kept me occupied pretty well
from five o'clock in the morning till ten at night, and I had not a moment
for retirement, yet I would be up at four o'clock to pray; and though I feel
very sleepy now-a-days, and I feel that I could not be up to pray, it was not
so then, when I was in my first love. Somehow or other, I never lacked time
then. If I did not get it early in the morning, I got it late at night. I was
compelled to have time for prayer with God; and what prayer it was! I had no
need then to groan because I could not pray; for love, being fervent, I had
sweet liberty at the throne of grace. But when first love departs, we begin
to think that ten minutes will do for prayer, instead of an hour, and we read
a verse or two in the morning, whereas we used to read a portion, but never
used to go into the world without getting some marrow and fatness. Now,
business has so increased, that we must get into bed as soon as we can; we
have not time to pray. And then at dinner time, we used to have a little time
for communion; that is dropped. And then on the Sabbath-day, we used to make
it a custom to pray to God when we got home from his house, for just five
minutes before dinner, so that what we heard we might profit by; that is
dropped. And some of you that are present were in the habit of retiring for
prayer when you went home; your wives have told that story; the messengers
have heard it when they have called at your houses, when they have asked the
wife-"What is your husband?" "Ah!" she has said, "he is a godly man; he
cannot come home to his breakfast but he must slip upstairs alone. I know
what he is doing-he is praying. Then when he is at table, he often says-
"Mary, I have had a difficulty to-day, we must go and have a word or two of
prayer together." And some of you could not take a walk without prayer, you
were so fond of it you could not have too much of it. Now where is it? You
know more than you did; you have grown older; you have grown richer, perhaps.
You have grown wiser in some respects; but you might give up all you have
got, to go back to
"Those peaceful hours you once enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still!"
Oh, what would you give if you could fill
"That aching void,
The world can never fill,"
but which only the same love that you had at first, can ever fully satisfy!
II. And now, beloved, WHERE DID YOU AND I LOSE OUR FIRST LOVE, if we have
lost it? Let each one speak for himself, or rather, let me speak for each.
Have you not lost your first love in the world some of you? You used to have
that little shop once, you had not very much business; well, you had enough,
and a little to spare. However, there was a good turn came in business; you
took two shops, and you are getting on very well. Is it not marvellous, that
when you grew richer and had more business, you began to have less grace?
Oh, friends, it is a very serious thing to grow rich? Of all the temptations
to which God's children are exposed it is the worst, because it is one that
they do not dread, and therefore it is the more subtle temptation. You know a
traveller if he is going a journey, takes a staff with him, it is a help to
him; but suppose he is covetous, and says, "I will have a hundred of these
sticks," that will be no help to him at all; he has only got a load to carry,
and it stops his progress instead of assisting him. But I do believe there
are many Christians that lived near to God, when they were living on a pound
a week, that might give up their yearly incomes with the greatest joy, if
they could have now the same contentment, the same peace of mind, the same
nearness of access to God, that they had in times of poverty. Ah, too much of
the world is a bad thing for any man! I question very much whether a man
ought not sometimes to stop, and say, "There is an opportunity of doing more
trade, but it will require the whole of my time, and I must give up that hour
I have set apart for prayer; I will not do the trade at all; I have enough,
and therefore let it go. I would rather do trade with heaven than trade with
earth."
Again: do you not think also that perhaps you may have lost your first love
by getting too much with worldly people? When you were in your first love, no
company suited you but the godly; but now you have got a young man that you
talk with, who talks a great deal more about frivolity, and gives you a great
deal more of the froth and scum of levity, than he ever gives you of solid
godliness. Once you were surrounded by those that fear the Lord, but now you
dwell in the tents of "Freedom," where you hear little but cursing. But,
friends, he that carrieth coals in his bosom must be burned; and the that
hath ill companions cannot but be injured. Seek, then, to have godly friends,
that thou mayest maintain thy first love.
But another reason. Do you not think that perhaps you have forgotten how much
you owe to Christ? There is one thing, that I feel from experience I am
compelled to do very often, viz., to go back to where I first started:-
" I, the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me."
You and I get talking about our being saints; we know our election, we
rejoice in our calling, we go on to sanctification; and we forget the hole of
the pit whence we were digged. Ah, remember my brother, thou art nothing now
but a sinner saved through grace; remember what thou wouldst have been, if
the Lord had left thee. And surely, then, by going back continually to first
principles, and to the great foundation stone, the cross of Christ, thou wilt
be led to go back to thy first love.
Dost thou not think, again, that thou hast lost thy first love by neglecting
communion with Christ? Now preacher, preach honestly, and preach at thyself.
Has there not been, sometimes, this temptation to do a great deal for Christ,
but not to live a great deal with Christ? One of my besetting sins, I feel,
is this. If there is anything to be done actively for Christ, I instinctively
prefer the active exercise to the passive quiet of his presence. There are
some of you, perhaps, that are attending a Sunday school, who would be more
profitably employed to your own souls if you were spending that hour in
communion with Christ. Perhaps, too, you attend the means so often, that you
have no time in secret to improve what you gain in the means. Mrs. Bury once
said, that if "all the twelve apostles were preaching in a certain town, and
we could have the privilege of hearing them preach, yet if they kept us out
of our closets, and led us to neglect prayer, better for us never to have
heard their names, than to have gone to listen to them." We shall never love
Christ much except we live near to him. Love to Christ is dependent on our
nearness to him. It is just like the planets and the sun. Why are some of the
planets cold? Why do they move at so slow a rate? Simply because they are so
far from the sun: put them where the planet Mercury is, and they will be in a
boiling heat, and spin round the sun in rapid orbits. So, beloved, if we live
near to Christ, we cannot help loving him: the heart that is near Jesus must
be full of his love. But when we live days and weeks and months without
personal intercourse, without real fellowship, how can we maintain love
towards a stranger? He must be a friend, and we must stick close to him, as
he sticks close to us-closer than a brother; or else, we shall never have our
first love.
There are a thousand reasons that I might have given, but I leave each of you
to search your hearts, to find out why you have lost, each of you, your first
love.
III. Now, dear friends, just give me all your attention for a moment, while I
earnestly beseech and implore of you to SEEK TO GET YOUR FIRST LOVE RESTORED.
Shall I tell you why? Brother, though thou be a child of God, if thou hast
lost thy first love, there is some trouble near at hand. "Whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth," and he is sure to chasten thee when thou sinnest. It
is calm with you to night, is it? Oh! but dread that calm, there is a tempest
lowering. Sin is the harbinger of tempest: read the history of David. All
David's life, in all his troubles, even in the rocks of the wild goats, and
in the caves of Engedi, he was the happiest of men till he lost his first
love; and from the day when his lustful eye was fixed upon Bathsheba, even to
the last, he went with broken bones sorrowing to his grave. It was one long
string of afflictions: take heed it be not so with thee. "Ah, but," you say,
"I shall not sin as David did." Brother, you cannot tell: if you have lost
your first love, what should hinder you but that you should lose your first
purity? Love and purity go together. He that loveth is pure; he that loveth
little shall find his purity decrease, until it becomes marred and polluted.
I should not like to see you, my dear friends, tried and troubled: I do weep
with them that weep. If there be a child of yours sick, and I hear of it, I
can say honestly, I do feel something like a father to your children, and as
a father to you. If you have sufferings and afflictions, and I know them, I
desire to feel for you, and spread your griefs before the throne of God. Oh,
I do not want my heavenly Father to take the rod out to you all; but he will
do it, if you fall from your first love. As sure as ever he is a Father, he
will let you have the rod if your love cools. Bastards may escape the rod. If
you are only base-born professors you may go happily along; but the true-born
child of God, when his love declines, must and shall smart for it.
There is yet another thing, my dear friends, if we lose our first love-what
will the world say of us if we lose our first love? I must put this, not for
our name's sale, but for God's dear name's sake. O what will the world say of
us? There was a time, and it is not gone yet, when men must point at this
church, and say of it, "There is a church, that is like a bright oasis in the
midst of a desert, a spot of light in the midst of darkness." Our prayer
meetings were prayer meetings indeed, the congregations were as attentive as
they were numerous. Oh, how you did drink in the words; how your eyes flashed
with a living fire, whenever the name of Christ was mentioned! And what, if
in a little time it shall be said, "Ah, that church is quite as sleepy as any
other; look at them when the minister preaches, why they can sleep under him,
they do not seem to care for the truth. Look at the Spurgeonites, they are
just as cold and careless as others; they used to be called the most
pugnacious people in the world, for they were always ready to defend their
Master's name and their Master's truth, and they got that name in
consequence, but now you may swear in their presence and they will not rebuke
you: how near these people once used to live to God and his house, they were
always there; look at their prayer meetings, they would fill their seats as
full at a prayer meeting as at an ordinary service; now they are all gone
back." "Ah," says the world, "just what I said; the fact is, it was a mere
spasm, a little spiritual excitement, and it has all gone down." And the
worldling says, "Ah, ah, so would I have it, so would I have it!" I was
reading only the other day of an account of my ceasing to be popular; it was
said my chapel was now nearly empty, that nobody went to it: and I was
exceedingly amused and interested. "Well, if it come to that," I said, "I
shall not grieve or cry very much; hut if it is said the church has left its
zeal and first love, that is enough to break any honest pastor's heart." Let
the chaff go, but if the wheat remain we have comfort. Let those who are the
outer-court worshippers cease to hear, what signifieth? let them turn aside,
but O, ye soldiers of the Cross, if ye turn your backs in the day of battle,
where shall I hide my head? what shall I say for the great name of my Master,
or for the honour of his gospel? It is our boast and joy, that the old-
fashioned doctrine has been revived in these days, and that the truth that
Calvin preached, that Paul preached, and that Jesus preached, is still mighty
to save, and far surpasses in power all the neologies and new-fangled notions
of the present time. But what will the heretic say, when he sees it is all
over? "Ah," he will say, "that old truth urged on by the fanaticism of a
foolish young man, did wake the people a little; but it lacked marrow and
strength, and it all died away!" Will ye thus dishonour your Lord and Master,
ye children of the heavenly king? I beseech you do not so-but endeavour to
receive again as a rich gift of the Spirit your first love.
And now, once again, dear friends, there is a thought that ought to make each
of us feel alarmed, if we have lost our first love. May not this question
arise in our hearts-Was I ever a child of God at all? Oh, my God, must I ask
myself this question? Yes, I will. Are there not many of whom it is said,
they went out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of
us, doubtless they would have continued with us? Are there not some whose
goodness is as the morning cloud and as the early dew-may that not have been
my case? I am speaking for you all. Put the question-may I not have been
impressed under a certain sermon, and may not that impression have been a
mere carnal excitement? May it not have been that I thought I repented but
did not really repent? May it not have been the case, that I got a hope
somewhere but had not a right to it? And I never had the loving faith that
unites me to the Lamb of God. And may it not have been that I only thought I
had love to Christ, and never had it, for if I really had love to Christ
should I be as I now am? See how far I have come down! may I not keep on
going down until my end shall be perdition, and the never-dying worm, and the
fire unquenchable? Many have gone from heights of a profession to the depths
of damnation, and may not I be the same? May it not be true of me that I am
as a wandering star for whom is reserved blackness of darkness for ever? May
I not have shone brightly in the midst of the church for a little while, and
yet may I not be one of those poor foolish virgins who took no oil in my
vessel with my lamp, and therefore my lamp will go out? Let me think, if I go
on as I am, it is impossible for me to stop, if I am going downwards I may go
on going downwards. And O my God, if I go on backsliding for another year-who
knows where I may have backslidden to? Perhaps into some gross sin. Prevent,
prevent it by thy grace! Perhaps I may backslide totally. If I am a child of
God I know I cannot do that. But still, may it not happen that I only thought
I was a child of God, and may I not so far go back that at last my very name
to live shall go because I always have been dead? Oh! how dreadful it is to
think and to see in our church, members who turn out to be dead members! If I
could weep tears of blood, they would not express the emotion that I ought to
feel, and that you ought to feel, when you think there are some among us that
are dead branches of a living vine. Our deacons find that there is much of
unsoundness in our members. I grieve to think that because we cannot see all
our members, there are many who have backslidden. There is one who says, "I
joined the church, it is true, but I never was converted. I made a profession
of being converted, but I was not, and now I take no delight in the things of
God. I am moral, I attend the house of prayer, but I am not converted. My
name may be taken off the books; I am not a godly man." There are others
among you who perhaps have gone even further than that-have gone into sin,
and yet I may not know it. It may not come to my ears in so large a church as
this. Oh! I beseech you, my dear friends, by him that liveth and was dead,
let not your good be evil spoken of, by losing your first love.
Are there some among you that are professing religion, and not possessing it?
Oh, give up your profession, or else get the truth and sell it not. Go home,
each of you, and cast yourselves on your faces before God, and ask him to
search you, and try you, and know your ways, and see if there be any evil way
in you, and pray that he may lead you in the way everlasting. And if hitherto
you have only professed, but have not possessed, seek ye the Lord while he
may be found, and call ye upon him while he is near. Ye are warned, each one
of you; you are solemnly told to search yourselves and make short work of it.
And if any of you be hypocrites, at God's great day, guilty as I may be in
many respects, there is one thing I am clear of-I have not shunned to declare
the whole counsel of God. I do not believe that any people in the world shall
be damned more terribly than you shall if you perish; for of this thing I
have not shunned to speak-the great evil of making a profession without being
sound at heart. No, I have even gone so near to personality, that I could not
have gone further without mentioning your names. And rest assured, God's
grace being with me, neither you nor myself shall be spared in the pulpit in
any personal sin that I may observe in any one of you. But oh, do let us be
sincere! May the Lord sooner split this church till only a tenth of you
remain, than ever suffer you to be multiplied a hundred-fold unless you be
multiplied with the living in Zion, and with the holy flock that the Lord
himself hath ordained, and will keep unto the end. To-morrow morning, we
shall meet together and pray, that we may have our first love restored; and I
hope many of you will be found there to seek again the love which you have
almost lost.
And as for you that never had that love at all, the Lord breathe it upon you
now for the love of Jesus. Amen.
Provided by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 314
Columbus, NJ, USA 08022
Internet: hyperlink
Email: tony@biblebb.com