I do not wonder that so many are deceived, when I see the careless way in which they deal with their souls. When men have to do with their estates, they are very careful; they pay a lawyer to go back over the title-deeds perhaps for two or three hundred years. In trade they will hurry hither and thither to attend to their commercial engagements; they would not launch into speculations, nor would they run great risks.
But the soul, the poor soul how men play with it as a toy, and despise it as if it were worthless! Two or three minutes in the morning when they first roll out of bed; two or three odd minutes in the evening, when they are nearly asleep, the fag-ends of the day given to their souls, and all the best part given to the body!
And then, with what indifference do you lend your ears too often to the preaching of the Word! It is an old song you have heard it so many times. Heaven has become a trifle to you, Hell is almost a jest, eternity an empty notion, and death but a bugbear!
Alas! it is a marvel that there are not more deceived. The wonder is that any find the gate, that any discover eternal life, when we are so, so mad, so foolish, so insane as to trifle where we ought to be solemnly in earnest; and to play and toy where the whole heart should be given to a work of such everlasting importance. God help us, since it is so easy to be deceived to search, and watch, and look, and test, and try, that we be not found castaways at the last!
[Charles H. Spurgeon]
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Matthew 7:13-14 … Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
2 Corinthians 13:5 … Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
Luke 13:24 … Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.❤
