Apprising Ministries is pleased to present the timely words of Charles Spurgeon, which follow below. O how, at this late hour, the Church desperately needs some real men filled with Christ as Spurgeon was in this gelatinous generation of jellyfish and effete evangelical leaders so afraid of their own spiritual shadow.

Notice in the Scripture Spurgeon uses — standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents. There is to be a “striving” for “the Gospel” because there will be “opponents.” No way around it. There’s an analogy once used by A.W. Tozer, which is helpful here:

When I was a young fellow in Pennsylvania, in order to save the field of corn from the crows, we would shoot an old crow and hang him by his heels in the middle of the field. This was supposed to scare off all of the crows for miles around.

The crows would hold a conference and say, “Look, there is a field of corn but don’t go near it. I saw a dead crow over there!” That’s the kind of conference that Satan calls, and that is exactly what he has done.

Men and women, this is exactly what the Devil has done within the American Christian Church spreading his unflattering caricature of what genuine Christians believe. To do so the enemy has raised up his minions to use who are contaminating our pulpits in order to speak from the viewpoint of the world, [so that] the world listens to them (1 John 4:5).

But this is an exhortation to stand up against these man-pleasing postevangelicals and the emerging church posers like Rick Warren and Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. I, for one, couldn’t care less that they are embarrassed by the Cross because I have read where it is written: I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16)

The time has now arrived, ye soldiers of the Cross of Christ Jesus, to—right now—pick up your Swords and go to war. Let’s send these semi-pelagian postevangelicals in their Emergent Church rebellion against the authority of the Word of God right back into the den of vipers from which they originally slithered into the Body of Christ. Soli Deo gloria!

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. (Philippians 1:27-28, KJV)

God knows what godliness is, for He created it, He sustains it, He is pledged to protect it, and His delight is in it. What matters it whether you are understood by your fellow men or not, so long as you are understood by God? If that secret prayer of yours is known to Him, seek not to have it known to anyone besides.

If your conscientious motive be discerned in Heaven, mind not though it be denounced on earth. If your designs—the greater principles that sway you are such as you dare plead in the Great Day of Judgment, you need not stop to plead them before a jeering generation.

Be godly, and fear not; and if you be misrepresented, remember that should your character be dead and buried among men, there will be “a resurrection of reputations” as well as bodies. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43, KJV).

(Charles Spurgeon, At the Masters Feet, February 13)