Cowardice Leads to Contempt

Today I am considering the words of great pastor/preacher Charles Spurgeon. What he wrote of his day seems doubly so for mine.

Our cowardice has subjected the gospel to contempt. Jesus was humble, and his servants must not be proud, but Jesus was never mean or cowardly, nor must his servants be. There was no braver man than Christ. He could stoop to save a soul, but he would stoop to nothing by which his character might be compromised, or truth and righteousness insulted. To preach the gospel boldly is to deliver it as such a message ought to be delivered. Blush to preach of a dying Savior? Apologize for talking about the Son of God condescending to be made man, that he might redeem us from all iniquity? Never! Oh, by the grace of God let us purpose with Paul "to be yet more bold," that the gospel may be yet more fully preached throughout all ranks of mankind. 
-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

I'm also working through the thoughts of Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, 


Dr. Ironside came to Dallas Seminary many years ago for a month of meetings, as he used to come once a year. He sat down and he read through the Talmud in that month, one of those months. But the other thing about Dr. Ironside was this, that he read through the Bible -- I want to say religiously -- he read through it spiritually. He read through it with zeal, at least once every year. And yet, at the end of his life he can say, “My only regret is that I’ve not read this book more and other books less.”

Now, that’s one of the reasons why we, as a church, are suffering today. We’re not reading the Bible. Christians are not reading the Bible. Evangelical Christians are not reading the Bible. All you have to do is to hear a discussion among evangelical Christians and know they’re not reading the Bible. In fact, the average evangelical Christian thinks that he can obtain the information that he knows by appealing to some preacher. But if you’re in preachers’ gatherings, you know they’re not reading the Bible either. Oh, they’re reading some parts of the Bible, but they’re not reading the Bible.