“Let Us Go Forth”

Spurgeon opens by demolishing the popular idea that Christianity can be lived without conflict — tracing the comfortable, cringe-and-conform religion of his day as a smooth road that leads to the wrong destination — before insisting that Scripture from Genesis to Revelation describes a narrow, persecuted, costly road, and that Christ himself was not carried to his throne on a bed of ease but was hated, mocked, ejected from his own nation's religion, and crucified by it, so that any disciple who expects a better reception than his Master has simply not read the terms of service. He then unpacks "going forth outside the camp" in four areas: open public confession of faith (refusing to be a secret disciple whose silence functions as denial), separation in company (choosing the saints as bosom friends rather than the merely moral or worldly), separation in pleasures and maxims (where honest trading, consistent holiness, and a different ruling principle make the Christian visibly unlike his neighbors), and — most controversially — separation from corrupt organized religion, where he calls on faithful ministers and members still inside the Church of England to come out rather than lend their respectability to a body that simultaneously houses evangelical truth, Puseyism, and outright infidelity. He closes by cataloging the reproach the separated Christian must bear — being called bigot, fanatic, self-righteous fool, rebel against progress, and friend of the poor and uneducated — and answers every charge by pointing out that every one of them was first leveled at Christ himself, before ending with three reasons for bearing this reproach willingly: because Christ bore it first and fellowship with him requires a shared experience, because the Head's separation from the world is the pattern and purpose of every member's separation, and because the crown waiting at the end is so staggeringly disproportionate to any momentary shame that the Scottish Covenanting women drowned in the rising tide for a theological detail most men would not die for even the whole Bible — and urges his congregation to take that cross up with joy. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on June 26, 1864. Listen for free on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1Rndn9d... Podcast Index - https://podcastindex.org/podcast/7491057 iHeartRadio - https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-da... Podcast Addict - https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/dai... Castro - https://castro.fm/podcast/fc718d93-28... Castbox - https://castbox.fm/channel/6814639?co... Deezer - https://www.deezer.com/us/show/100221... PlayerFM - https://player.fm/series/daily-sermon...