Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1 Corinthians 13:1)

There is a temptation with each one of us to try to forget that souls are being lost.

I can go home to my house along respectable streets, and naturally should choose that way.

Then I need not see the poverty of the lowest quarters of the city, but am I right if I try to forget that there are Bethnal Greens and Kent Streets, and suchlike abodes of poverty?

The close courts, the cellars, the crowded garrets, the lodging houses—am I to forget that those exist? Surely the only way for a charitable mind to sleep comfortably in London is to forget how one-half of the population lives.

But is it our object to live comfortably? Are we such brute beasts that comfort is all we care for; like swine in their sty? Nay, brethren, let us recall to our memories the sins of our great city, its sorrows and griefs, and let us remember also the sins and sorrows of the wide, wide world and the tens of thousands of our race who are passing constantly into eternity.

Nay, 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, and your spirit breaks forth in vehement agony before the Lord.

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, and in its swooning let it fall back into the arms of Christ the Savior; and breathe out a cry that he would hasten to save men from the wrath to come.

Do not ignore, I pray you, what does exist.[1]

Charles Spurgeon

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End notes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, At the Master’s Feet [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], March 31.

See also:

LET’S LOOK AT THE GOSPEL

THE MARRED IMAGE OF GOD

RICK WARREN AND TEACHINGS OF DEMONS