“My brethren, the first thing you ought to do is to join the Church. You say you love the Lord Jesus Christ. Very well, if you neglect one duty, that does not excuse you from another.
You are living in a state of sin, as a Christian man, if you omit the duty of joining yourself with the people of God.
May I ask you, when the Church goes to the fight, will you tarry at home? “No,” say you, “I will follow with you; I will do my work; I will go as one of the camp-followers.”
Yes, but somehow or other, those camp-followers are in a very unsatisfactory state, because they are not under the discipline of the officers; and though some of them can fight well a sort of guerilla warfare, yet we should be much stronger if we could have them in the ranks.
Brethren, don’t you think sometimes that the world may imagine that you mean to hold hard till you see which will win. Had you not better cast in your lot with us while the battle rages?
Besides, what does the Master say?—“He that confesseth me before men, him will I confess.” And what does he say to those who do not confess? “He that denieth me before men, him shall be denied of my Father which is in heaven.” You do not wish for that, surely.
Enlist, then; put on your Lord’s regimentals. True, you can fight his battles without them; but methinks you will be more in the path of obedience, and the path of safety, if you put on the garments of Christ and the garments of his salvation.
Come! Whosoever is on the Lord’s side, let him join with the Lord’s hosts. If you be not, stand back and do not dare to come; but if you be, the standard is lifted up, the trumpets sound.
Come, comrades! who is for Christ! Soldiers, who is for the Lord God Omnipotent? Unfurl the standard afresh to-day. Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord, is our banner, and who will stand back?
Let us enroll ourselves beneath him, and say, “O Lord, go forth with our armies and grant success; for the battle is great, and without thee we shall utterly fail, but with thee we shall surely get the victory.”
-Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Church—Conservative and Aggressive,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 7 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861), 7: 368.
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