Spurgeon: December AM
* 12/04/AM
"I have much people in this city."
--Acts 18:10
This should be a great encouragement to try to do good, since
God has among the vilest of the vile, the most reprobate, the
most debauched and drunken, an elect people who must be saved.
When you take the Word to them, you do so because God has
ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and
they must receive it, for so the decree of predestination
runs. They are as much redeemed by blood as the saints before
the eternal throne. They are Christ's property, and yet perhaps
they are lovers of the ale-house, and haters of holiness; but if
Jesus Christ purchased them He will have them. God is not
unfaithful to forget the price which His Son has paid. He will
not suffer His substitution to be in any case an ineffectual,
dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not
regenerated yet, but regenerated they must be; and this is our
comfort when we go forth to them with the quickening Word of
God.
Nay, more, these ungodly ones are prayed for by Christ before
the throne. "Neither pray I for these alone," saith the great
Intercessor, "but for them also which shall believe on Me
through their word." Poor, ignorant souls, they know nothing
about prayer for themselves, but Jesus prays for them. Their
names are on His breastplate, and ere long they must bow their
stubborn knee, breathing the penitential sigh before the throne
of grace. "The time of figs is not yet." The predestinated
moment has not struck; but, when it comes, they shall obey ,
for God will have His own; they must , for the Spirit is not to
be withstood when He cometh forth with fulness of power-- they
must become the willing servants of the living God. "My people
shall be willing in the day of my power." "He shall justify
many." "He shall see of the travail of His soul." "I will divide
him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with
the strong."