The Fainting Warrior

Spurgeon begins by insisting that Paul's cry "O wretched man that I am!" is the authentic experience of a mature believer, not a pre-conversion state, and uses this to dismantle the mistaken idea that great saints like the apostles were somehow exempt from inward conflict — arguing instead that the closer a person lives to God, the more intensely they feel the war between the new nature implanted by the Holy Spirit and the old corrupt nature that remains unchanged, entire, and fiercely resistant. He traces this battle in vivid detail: the two natures are irreconcilable enemies forced to inhabit the same heart, the old nature has the accumulated strength of decades and the reinforcements of the world and Satan, while the new nature must call in the Trinity itself — the eternal decree of the Father, the blood of Christ, and the power of the Spirit — just to hold its ground, making the Christian's inner life a perpetual and exhausting battlefield. He closes on two contrasting notes: first reassuring the fainting believer that the cry of despair is itself the mark of genuine spiritual life, that the Christian falls only to rise again through Christ, and will one day be perfectly free from sin; and then warning the person who feels no such conflict that their undisturbed peace is not a sign of health but of death — for Satan has no reason to fight someone who already belongs to him.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on January 23rd, 1859.