An All Around Ministry - C. H. Spurgeon
approval of this party, neither must we be silent upon an important doctrine to avoid offending that clique. What have we to do with idols, dead or alive? O brethren, if you go in for pleasing everybody, you have indeed set yourselves a task! The toils of Sisyphus and the labors of Hercules are nothing to this! We must not flatter men; we must speak plain words, and words which conscience will approve. If we please men, we shall displease our Lord; so that success in our self-imposed task would be fatal to our eternal interests. In trying to please men, we shall not even succeed in pleasing ourselves. To please our Lord, though it may seem very difficult, is an easier task than pleasing men. O steward, have your eye alone upon your Master!
3. We shall not be found faithful stewards if we are idlers and triflers. Do you ever meet with lazy ministers? I have heard of them; but when mine eye sees them, my heart abhors them. If you plan to be lazy, there are plenty of avocations in which you will not be wanted; but, above all, you are not wanted in the Christian ministry.
The man who finds the ministry an easy life will also find that it will bring a hard death. If we are not laborers, we are not true stewards; for we are to be examples of diligence to the King's household. I like
Adam Clarke's precept: "Kill yourselves with work, and then pray yourselves alive again." We shall never do our duty either to God or man if we are sluggards.
Yet some, who are always busy, may still be unfaithful, if all that they do is done in a jaunty, trifling manner. If we play at preaching, we have chosen an awful game. To shuffle texts like cards, and make literary essays out of themes which move all Heaven and Hell, is shameful. We must be serious as death in this solemn work. There are boys and girls who are always giggling, but who never laugh; and they are the very image of certain ever-jesting preachers. I like an honest laugh; true humor can be sanctified, and those who can stir men to smile can also move them to weep. But even this power has limits which the foolish soon exceed. It is not, however, of the earnest eccentric that I now speak. The men I mean are sardonic and sarcastic. An earnest brother makes a mistake in grammar, and this they observe with a sneer; another devout believer errs in a classical allusion, this also affords them pleasure. The earnestness and the devotion go for nothing; or, rather, these are the secret reasons for the contempt of these superfine and superficial critics. The gospel is nothing to them; cleverness is their idol. As for themselves, these gentlemen are mainly concerned to find out what will bring them most honor in the philosophical school to which they belong. They have neither convictions nor beliefs, but only tastes and opinions, and the whole matter is a sport from first to last. I pray you, above all things, to keep clear of the scorner's chair and the trifler's campstool. Be seriously in earnest. Live like men who have something to live for; and preach like men to whom preaching is the highest exercise of their being. Our work is the most important under