…beginning at Jerusalem. – Luke 24:47

It is hard work, dear friends, to preach to certain people. They have been preached to so long, like the people at Jerusalem. They know all about the gospel. It is hard to tell them anything fresh, and yet they have felt nothing, but remain wedded to their sins. The Jerusalem people had been taught in vain for centuries, and yet Christ’s disciples were to speak to them first. We must not pass the gospel-hardened, we must labor for the conversion of those who have enjoyed privileges but have neglected them, those who have had impressions and have crushed them out, those who seem now as if they had sealed their own death warrants and will never be saved. Do not hesitate to go to them. The Lord has already done much. It may be that He has laid the fire, and you are to strike the match and set it all alight. Many people have a love to the gospel, a love to the house of God, a love to God’s people, and yet they have no saving faith. What a pity! Do not hesitate to address them…The Savior’s disciples were to begin where the prophets had prophesied, and had been put to death, where sinners had rejected God’s voice times out of mind. Therefore do not pass by your fellow seat holders. Perhaps you say, “Sir, I have spoken to them a great many times, but I cannot make anything of them.” No, you cannot, but God can. Try again. Suppose that for 20 years you were to sit in this Tabernacle side by side with an unconverted person, and you were to speak to that person twice every Sunday and twice in the week, and all the twenty years it should be in vain? Yet if the individual were brought to Christ at last, would not his conversion repay you? Is your time so very precious? Is your ability so very great? Oh, my dear friend, if you were an archangel it would be worthwhile for you to work a thousand years to bring one soul to Christ! A soul is such a precious jewel that you would be abundantly rewarded if a century of service only brought you one conversion. Wherefore, in working for Christ, do not hesitate to go to those who have refused the gospel up to now, for you may yet prevail. ~ C.H. Spurgeon