“Nothing in the harvest-field can be done without the sweat of the face, nor in the pulpit without the sweat of the soul.”
The man whom God means to be a labourer in His harvest must not come with soft and delicate words, and flattering doctrines concerning the dignity of human nature, and the excellence of self-help, and of earnest endeavours to rectify our lapsed condition, and the like. Such mealy-mouthedness may God curse, for it is the curse of this age.
The honest preacher calls a sin a sin, and a spade a spade, and says to men, “You are ruining yourselves; while you reject Christ you are living on the borders of hell, and ere long you will be lost to all eternity. There shall be no mincing the matter, you must escape from the wrath to come by faith in Jesus, or be driven for ever from God’s presence, and from all hope of joy.”
The preacher must make his sermons cut. He is not to file off the edge of his scythe for fear it should hurt somebody. The gospel is intended to wound the conscience, and to go right through the heart, with the design of separating the soul from sin and self, as the corn is divided from the soil.
Our object is to cut the sinner right down, for all the comeliness of the flesh must be slain, all his glory, all his excellence must be withered, and the man must be as one dead ere he can be saved.
Ministers who do not aim to cut deep are not worth their salt. God never sent the man who never troubles men’s consciences.
Such a man may be an ass treading down the corn, but a reaper he certainly is not. We want faithful ministers; pray God to send them.