“That is all we want” by Charles Spurgeon

“Stagnation in a church is the devil’s delight.

I do not think he cares how many Baptist chapels you build, nor how many churches you open, if you have only lukewarm preachers and people in them.

He cares not for your armies if your soldiers will but sleep; nor for your guns if they are not loaded.

“Let them build as much as they like,” says he, “for those buildings are not the batteries that shake the gates of hell.”

What we want is new zeal, fresh energy, more fire; our old Baptist cause has become very slack.

The great mass of Baptists appear to be ashamed of their opinions, and many of our ministers say so little about baptism that people forget that there is such an ordinance of Christ.

If we have held our tongues concerning baptism, we have that sin lying at our door, for which we shall have to give account; and I trust that we shall not continue in it any longer.

If believers’ baptism is an ordinance of Christ,—and we know that it is,—we ought to speak out plainly about it.

I recommend our brethren and sisters to distribute tracts upon the subject, as widely as ever they can; and, especially, to make known the teaching of the New Testament upon this matter.

If Paedobaptist ministers will only preach upon it, I need not do so, for that will send some of their people to search the Scriptures, and that is all that we want.

If our views are not in accordance with God’s Word, let us abandon them; but if they are in harmony with our Lord’s teaching, let us not hold our tongues concerning them.

We have had too much of this guilty silence, let us boldly proclaim the whole truth; and, by terrible things in righteousness, answer thou, O God!

Bring on the clash of arms once again, and let thy Church win the victory!

Give the victory to the right and the true, and let all error be trampled under foot!

So be it, O Lord, and unto thy name be all the glory! Amen.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Lukewarmness,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 48 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1902), 514–515.