Post by Eli Brayley on Sept 17, 2008 16:02:06 GMT -7
There is a familiar poem that goes:
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last.
And when I am gone, how happy I'll be
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee."
But I believe it would be better written in the second line:
"Only what's done BY Christ will last."
This snippet from Spurgeon sums this up well.
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Only What God Does Abides
by Charles Spurgeon
"I met with a man some time ago who assured me that he knew a minister who had a very large amount of converting power in him. Speaking of a great evangelist in America, he said, 'That man, sir, has got the greatest quantity of converting power I ever knew a man to have; and Mr.. So-and-so in a neighboring town I think is second to him.'
At that time this converting power was being exhibited; two hundred persons were converted by the converting power of this second best, and joined to the church in a few months. I went to the place some time afterwards—it was in England—and I said, 'How do your converts get on?' 'Well,' said he, 'I can not say much about them.' 'How many out of those two hundred whom you received in a year ago stand fast?' 'Well,' he said, 'I am afraid not many of them; we have turned seventy of them out for drunkenness already.' 'Yes,' I said, 'I thought so: that is the end of the grand experiment of converting power.' If I could convert you all, any one else might unconvert you; what any man can do another man can undo; it is only what God does that is abiding."
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last.
And when I am gone, how happy I'll be
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee."
But I believe it would be better written in the second line:
"Only what's done BY Christ will last."
This snippet from Spurgeon sums this up well.
------------------------
Only What God Does Abides
by Charles Spurgeon
"I met with a man some time ago who assured me that he knew a minister who had a very large amount of converting power in him. Speaking of a great evangelist in America, he said, 'That man, sir, has got the greatest quantity of converting power I ever knew a man to have; and Mr.. So-and-so in a neighboring town I think is second to him.'
At that time this converting power was being exhibited; two hundred persons were converted by the converting power of this second best, and joined to the church in a few months. I went to the place some time afterwards—it was in England—and I said, 'How do your converts get on?' 'Well,' said he, 'I can not say much about them.' 'How many out of those two hundred whom you received in a year ago stand fast?' 'Well,' he said, 'I am afraid not many of them; we have turned seventy of them out for drunkenness already.' 'Yes,' I said, 'I thought so: that is the end of the grand experiment of converting power.' If I could convert you all, any one else might unconvert you; what any man can do another man can undo; it is only what God does that is abiding."
