Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle… – Job 29:2,4

Let me enquire whether there are not many of us whose zeal is almost gone? We once loved the Savior intensely, and His cause we eagerly sought to serve, but now we take matters easily, and do not travail in birth for souls. Some rich men were wont to give most freely to the cause of God, but now covetousness has palsied the hand of generosity. Even poor Christians are not always so ready with their two mites as they were in better days. You were wont to labor, too, but that Sunday School class sees you no longer; no street preaching now; no tract distributing now; all forms of Christ’s service you have renounced, for you fancy you have done enough…Let none of us talk of finality, for we have not yet attained. Till life is over, our zeal should still glow, and our labors for Christ should multiply. Is not brotherly love, in many Christians, very questionable? Have they not forgotten, altogether, the family ties which bind all Christians to one another? And, with brotherly love, has not love to the Gospel gone too, so that now with many, one doctrine is almost as good as another? If a man can talk well, and is an orator, they enjoy his ministry whether he advocates truth or error. Once they could go to the little meeting house, where Christianity was preached faithfully though in an uncouth style, but now they must have the help of organs or they cannot praise God; and there must be millinery and genuflexions, or else they cannot pray to Him; and they must listen to oratory and elocution, or else they cannot accept God’s Word…Might not many of us blush, if we were to think how low our graces are, how weak our faith, how few our good works, and our gracious words with which we should bear testimony to His name. Yes, in thousands of cases, Christians need not be stopped if they were to commence this mournful cry, “Oh that I were as in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1011.cfm