The Spies

Using the story of the twelve spies sent into Canaan as his framework, Spurgeon argues that every Christian is like a spy reporting back to the watching world about whether religion is truly good — and that the daily conduct of believers either draws people toward God or pushes them further away, far more powerfully than any sermon ever could. He identifies three kinds of "bad spies": the chronically gloomy Christian who makes religion look miserable, the hypocrite whose private behavior contradicts their public piety, and the ordinary believer who occasionally stumbles, and warns that the world will always magnify Christians' failures while ignoring their virtues. Spurgeon then calls every believer — whether a merchant, a suffering invalid, an elderly saint, a wife, or a servant — to live with such consistent joy, honesty, and gentleness that their very life becomes a persuasive testimony that the Christian life is genuinely good, while also reminding the unconverted that blaming Christians for their own unbelief will be no excuse on Judgment Day.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on June 6, 1858.