Missions and Leadership

 by Charles Spurgeon

1. If there be any one point in which the Christian church ought to keep its fervor at a white heat, it is concerning missions to the heathens. If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate lukewarmness, it is in the matter of sending the gospel to a dying world.

2. There is a prayer I mean to continue to offer until it is answered, that God would pour out on this church a missionary spirit. I want to see our young men devoting themselves to the work, some that will not be afraid to venture and preach Jesus Christ in the regions beyond.

3. All your wants his love has supplied: there are shoes for your pilgrimage, armor for your warfare, strength for your labour, rest for your weariness, comfort for your sorrow.

4. He that will not serve the Lord in the Sunday-school at home, will not win children to Christ in China. Distance lends no real enchantment to Christian service.

5. Some people seem to be afraid lest we should be the means of saving some of the nonelect—but that is a fear which never troubles either my head or my heart, for I know that with all the effort and preaching in the world, we shall never bring more to Christ than Christ has had given to Him by His Father!

6. If any of you are in positions where you can enjoy Christian fellowship, and you have an opportunity of earning ten times as much money in another position where you must give up that fellowship, do not do it.

7. No man ever succeeds in anything who does not give himself wholly to it: it matters not what it is, concentration is essential to perfection in any pursuit. He who would be eminent in any one direction must forego a great many other things which are perfectly allowable; these he must renounce for the sake of his one object. He will not succeed unless he sacrifices all other things to the one chief thing.

8. There is no person without a talent of some sort or other, no one without some form of power either given by nature or acquired by education. We are all endowed in some degree or other, and we must each one give an account for that talent.