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Like swine in their stye?
(edited from Spurgeon's "Compassion for Souls")
Is it our object in life merely to live comfortably?
Are we such brute beasts that comfort is
all we care for; like swine in their stye?
No, brethren! let us recall to our memories the
tens of thousands of our race who are passing
constantly into eternity!
Look at them!
Do not close those eyes!
Does the horror of the vision make your eyeballs ache?
Then look until your heart aches too!
Look down into hell a moment; open wide the
door; listen, and listen yet again. You say you
cannot, it sickens your soul. Let it be sickened!
It is a matter of fact that in this congregation many
are going down to hell; that in this city there are
multitudes who are hastening as certainly to perdition
as time is hastening to eternity.
Hell is no dream, no fiction of a fevered brain!
Since assuredly there is a dreadful hell, do not shut
your eyes to it. Come and look, come and look, till
your hearts break at the sight. Hear the groans of
spirits who are feeling the sure consequences of sin,
where sin's cure will never avail them.
You tell me I preach dreadful things. Yes, but they
are needed, they are needed! Have we done all that
it is possible for us to do for the unconverted
around us? Can you say, "If a soul perishes, I, at
least, will have done all in my power to reclaim it."
Were there ever such sleepy people as ourselves?
O dear friend, if you love Jesus, burst the bonds
of timidity, or it may be of laziness; snap all fetters,
and from this day feel that you cannot bear to think
of the ruin of a soul, and must seek its salvation.
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