Suffering for Christ – Charles Spurgeon

OH! what ought we not to suffer for our Lord! I feel as though I could blush scarlet that I should have to say a word to any of you about suffering for Christ, because what is it, what is it that we have to suffer? Pshaw! It is not to be talked of! Those were sufferings when women like Blandina were set in the red hot chair, or enveloped in a net and tossed upon the horns of bulls. Those were sufferings when they scraped the flesh from off the martyrs’ bones. Those were sufferings when every bone was dislocated, and every sinew stretched upon the rack; or when, like the martyrs at Smithfield, men stood upon the burning fagot until each finger blazed like a candle, and yet shouted, “None but Christ!” Yes, those were tribulations indeed! But we are poor feather-bed soldiers. We have comparatively nothing to endure, and yet, young man, last week you were ashamed to own that you are a Christian, because—yes, because they chaffed you in the shop! And you, young woman, blushed to own that you had avowed your Lord in the despised ordinance of baptism when your friends were jeering you. O men and women, how little is your faith! And yet my Master is not angry with you. You little ones, he will comfort you, and strengthen you, and give you more faith, but still do you not feel ashamed to think you should ever have been ashamed of him?