Thoughts on Evangelism from Charles Spurgeon

“John Bunyan gives a portrait of a man whom God intended to be a guide to Heaven; have you ever noticed how beautiful that portrait is? He has a crown of life over his head, he has earth beneath his feet, he stands as if he pleaded with men, and he had the Best of Books in his hand.

“Oh! I would that I were, for one moment, like that pattern preacher; that I could plead with men as John Bunyan describes. We are all of us ambassadors for Christ, and we are told that, as ambassadors, we are to beseech men as though God besought them by us. How I do love to see a tearful preacher! How I love to see the man who can weep over sinners; whose soul yearns over the ungodly, as if he would, by any means and by all means, bring them to the Lord Jesus Christ!

“I cannot understand a man who stands up and delivers a discourse in a cold and indifferent manner, as if he cared not for the souls of his hearers. I think the true gospel minister will have a real yearning over souls something like Rachel when she cried, ‘Give me children, or else I die’; so will he cry to God, that he may have his elect born, and brought home to him.

“And, methinks, every true Christian should be exceedingly earnest in prayer concerning the souls of the ungodly; and when they are so, how abundantly God blesses them, and how the church prospers! But, beloved, souls may be damned, yet how few of you care about them! Sinners may sink into the gulf of perdition, yet how few tears are shed over them! The whole world may be swept away by a torrent down the precipice of woe, yet how few really cry to God on its behalf! How few men say, ‘Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I may weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!’ We do not lament before God the loss of men’s souls, as it well becomes Christians to do” (Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography).

Longing with you for more passion for the lost,
Pastor Charlie