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The sermon presents God as sovereign over national upheavals, the collapse of false worship and philosophy, and the eventual triumph of peace under Christ. Spurgeon joins confidence in divine providence with a strong rejection of fatalism: the church must examine its sin, disunity, weak prayer, lovelessness, and inadequate giving. Missionary success requires revived godliness at home, unity among believers, and active support for gospel workers. The congregation is urged to treat every day as a mission day while trusting that God’s purpose for the spread of the gospel cannot fail.
Theological center: God sovereignly overrules history and opposition to advance Christ’s kingdom, while holding the church responsible for faithful obedience, repentance, and mission.
Applications: Unite in missionary labor · Love missions sacrificially · Revive prayer and labor at home · Practice daily missionary obedience
Primary texts: Psalm 46:8-9 · Joshua 7:3
ON BEHALF OF THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY “Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” Psalm 46:8-9 IT seems that everything Christ-like must have a history like that of Christ. His beginnings were small—the manger and the stable. So with the beginnings of that society which we love and which we believe to be the very incarnation of the Spirit of Christ. Its beginnings also were small, but its latter end shall doubtless greatly increase—for has not the end of Christ become exceedingly glorious? He has ascended up on high. He sits at the right hand of God, our Father. And doubtless this agency which God now employs for the conversion of the world shall have its ascension and God shall greatly magnify it. But as Christ was called to suffer, so must everything Christ-like suffer with Him. The Christian who is the most like his Master will understand the most of the meaning of that term, “fellowship with him in his sufferings.” And inasmuch as the Missionary Society is like Christ, and has Christ’s heart, and Christ’s aim, it also must suffer like Jesus. This year we have been made to sip of that cup. The blood of our martyrs has been shed. Our confessors have witnessed to the faith of the Lord Jesus—at the hands of bloodthirsty and cruel men they have met their fate and again the seed of the church has been sown in the blood of the martyred saint. I felt that in addressing you this day, it would be far from me to offer you any advice or counsel, when I am but as the youngest among you all, but that I might be permitted, as sometimes the child does comfort its parents, to utter some few words of consolation which might cheer you in the present distress and nerve your arm for future combat with the great enemy of souls. And upon what subject could I address you which could be more full of consolation than the present? “Come, behold the works of the LORD.” Turn you from man’s bloodshed and behold your God at work. And from the desolations of rebellion, and carnage, and anarchy, turn your eyes here to the desolations which the LORD hathmade in the earth. You see how, though the battle-bow still does twang with the arrow, and though the spear is still imbrued in the heart’s blood of men, yet He breaks the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder, and burns the chariot in the fire. We shall regard this text this morning, first, as a declaration of what has happened, and secondly, as a prom…