AI-assisted analysis for orientation; read the source transcript or listen to the sermon to evaluate the interpretation.
The sermon presents Christian hypocrisy and worldliness as instruments Satan uses to comfort sinners and discredit the gospel. Spurgeon condemns greed, anger, unbelieving anxiety, scandalous conduct, silence, and indifference among professing believers. At the same time, he refuses to let unbelievers use Christian inconsistency as an excuse for their own rebellion; each person must answer to God personally. The church is therefore called to repentance, separation from sin, fervent prayer, renewed holiness, and faithful allegiance to Christ.
Theological center: God holds each person accountable for personal sin, while the church’s holiness and consistency serve as a serious witness to the truth of the gospel.
Applications: Confess compromising conduct · Reject excuses for unbelief · Live consistently and honorably · Awaken the church through prayer
Primary texts: Ezekiel 16:54 · 1 John 2:19 · 2 Corinthians 6:17
“That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them.” Ezekiel 16:54 IT is not a comfortable state to be at enmity with God, and the sinner knows this. Although he perseveres in his rebellion against the Most High and turns not at the rebuke of the Almighty, but still goes on in his iniquity, desperately seeking his own destruction, yet is he aware in his own conscience that he is not in a secure position. Hence it is that all wicked men are constantly on the look out for excuses. They find these either in pretended resolutions to reform at some future period, or else in the declaration that reformation is out of their power, and that, acting according to their own nature, they must continue to go on in their iniquities. When a man is willing to find an excuse for being God’s enemy he need never be at a loss. He who has to find a fact may find some difficulty, but he who would forge a lie may sit at his own fireside and do it. Now, the excuses of sinners are all of them false, they are refuges of lies, and therefore we need not wonder that they are exceedingly numerous, and very easy to come at. One way in which sinners frequently excuse themselves is by endeavoring to get some apology for their own iniquities from the inconsistencies of God’s people. This is the reason why there is much slander in the world. A true Christian is a rebuke to the sinner, wherever he goes, he is a living protest against the evil of sin. Hence it is that the worldling makes a dead set upon a pious man. His language in his heart is, “He accuses me to my face, I cannot bear the sight of his holy character, it makes the blackness of my own life appear the more terrible, when I see the whiteness of his innocence contrasting with it.” And then the worldling opens all his eyes, and labors to find a fault with the virtuous. If however, he fails to do so, he will next try to invent a fault, he will slander the man, and if even there he fails, and the man is like Job, “Perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil,” then the sinner will, like the devil of old, begin to impute some wrong motive to the Christian’s innocence. “Does Job serve God for nought?” said the devil. He could find no fault with Job whatever, his character was untainted and unblemished, “But,” says he, “he keeps to his religion for what he gets by it.” I reckon it to be a glorious accusation when we are falsely charged with being religious for the sake of gain. It shows that our enemies have no other charge that they can…