Duty to be Performed at all Costs – Charles Spurgeon

A CHRISTIAN man is sometimes bound by duty to perform an action which, to all appearance, will destroy his future usefulness. I have often heard men urge, as a plea for remaining in a corrupt church, that they have obtained an influence in its midst, and by reason of their position, which they might lose if they followed their conscience and were true to God. They are bound to lose all their supposed influence and renounce their apparent vantage ground sooner than commit the least trespass upon their conscience; as much bound to do so as Abraham was bound to offer up Isaac, in whom all the promises of God were centered. It is neither your business nor mine to fulfill God’s promise, nor to do the least wrong to produce the greatest good. To do evil that good may come is false morality, and wicked policy. For us is duty, for God is the fulfillment of his promise, and the preservation of our usefulness. Though he dash my reputation into shivers, and cast my usefulness to the four winds, yet if duty calls me, I must not hesitate a single second, for in that hesitation I shall be disobedient to my God. At the behest of God Isaac must be offered, though the heavens fall, and faith must answer all politic suggestions by the assurance that what God ordains can never, in its ultimate issue, produce anything but good; obedience can never endanger blessings, for commands are never in real conflict with promises, for God can raise up Isaac and fulfill his own decree.