I first published this without explaining that these are only a few paragraphs from a long sermon by Spurgeon.
Sermon by
C.H. Spurgeon, 1891
“Then I
said, ‘Lo, I come.” Psalm 40:7
All religion
which is not spiritual is worthless. All religion which is not the supernatural
product of the Holy Spirit is a fiction. One breath from the Spirit of God
withers all the beauty of our pride, and destroys the comeliness of our
conceit; and then, when our own religion is dashed to shivers, the Lord Jesus
comes in, saying, “Lo, I come.” He delights to come in his glorious
personality, when the Pharisee can no longer say, “God, I thank thee I am not
as other men”; and when the once bold fisherman is crying, “Lord, save, or I
perish.”
If you feel
that you need something infinitely better than Churchianity, or Dissnterism, or
Methodism – in fact, that you need Christ himself to be formed in you – then to
you, even to you, Jesus says, “Lo, I come.”
When man is
at his worst, Christ is seen at his best. The Lord walks to us on the sea in
the middle watch of the night. He draws nigh to those souls which draw nigh to
death. When you part with self you meet with Christ. When no shred of hope
remains, then Jesus says, “Lo, I come.”
The Lord Jesus
is to come a second time; and when will he come? He will come when man’s hope
is a failure. He will come when iniquity abounds and the love of many has waxed
cold. He will come when dreams of a golden age shall be turned into the dread
reality of abounding evil.
Do not dream
that the world will go on improving and improving, and that the improvement
will naturally culminate in the millennium. No such thing. It may grow better
for a while, better under certain aspects; but afterwards the power of the
better element will ebb out like the sea, even though each wave should look
like an advance.
That day
shall not come except there be a falling away first. Even the wise virgins will
sleep, and the men of the world will be, as in the days of Noah, eating and
drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. On a sudden, the Lord will come
as a thief in the night.
Receive him;
receive him at once. Dear children of God, and sinner that have begun to feel
after him, say with one accord, “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.” If he
says, “Lo, I come,” and the Spirit and the bride say Come; and he that heareth
says, Come, and he that is athirst comes, and whosoever will is bidden to come
and take the water of life freely; then let us join the chorus of comes, and
come to Christ ourselves. “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go you out to meet
him!” You who most of all need him, be among the first and gladdest, as you
hear him say, “Lo, I come.”
