Signs of a Lukewarm Church According to Charles Spurgeon

Convicting, humbling, and dead-on signs of lukewarm churches from over a century ago.  Hauntingly, still present today.  Excerpts from An Earnest Warning Against Lukewarmness by Charles Spurgeon from July 26, 1874:

• They have prayer-meetings, but there are few present, for they like quiet evenings home.
• When more attend the meetings they are still very dull, for they do their praying very deliberately and are afraid of being too excited.
• They are content to have all things done decently and in order, but vigor and zeal are considered to be vulgar.
• They may have schools, Bible-classes, preaching rooms, and all sorts of agencies; but they might as well be without them, for no energy is displayed and no good comes of them.
• They have deacons and elders who are excellent pillars of the church, if the chief quality of pillars be to stand still, and exhibit no motion or emotion.
• The pastor does not fly very far in preaching the everlasting gospel, and he certainly has no flame of fire in his preaching.
• The pastor may be a shining light of eloquence, but he certainly is not a burning light of grace, setting men’s hearts on fire.
• Everything is done in a half-hearted, listless, dead-and-alive way, as if it did not matter much whether it was done or not.
• Things are respectably done, the rich families are not offended, the skeptical party is conciliated, and the good people are not quite alienated: things are made pleasant all around.
• The right things are done, but as to doing them with all your might, and soul, and strength, a Laodicean church has no notion of what that means.
• They are not so cold as to abandon their work, or to give up their meetings for prayer, or to reject the gospel.

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