“…In this very place, I once urged those who were undecided to go home, and write down, either the word “Saved,” or “Lost,” and sign their name to the paper. One man, when he got into his house, asked for pen and paper; and when his wife enquired why he wanted it, he said he was going to do what the parson said, and write down “Lost.” She refused to fetch him the paper if he was going to do that. So he got it himself, and put down a capital L, when his little girl climbed up in the chair behind him, and said, “No, father, you shan’t do that, I’d rather die than you should do that”; and the child’s tears fell on his hand as she spoke. What my sermon had failed to do, those tears accomplished; the strong man was bowed, and yielded himself to Christ; and when they got up from their knees in that little room, he took the pen, and changing the L into an S, wrote “Saved.” He was saved because he came face to face with the fact that he was lost. His ill answer startled both himself and his child. May God work the like change in you, both for your own sake and also for the sake of your loved ones!...
… I think sometimes God treats men as Benjamin Franklin treated the man who stood loafing in his bookshop, and at last took up a book, and said, “How much is this?” Franklin replied, “A shilling.” “A shilling?” he said, “a shilling?” and he would not give the price. After staying about ten minutes, he said: “Come, Mr. Franklin, now what will you take for it?” Franklin answered, “Two shillings.” “No,” he said, “you are joking.” “I am not joking,” said Franklin: “the price is two shillings.” The man waited, and sat a while, thinking. “I want the book,” he drawled out; “still, I will not give two shillings. What will you take for it?” Franklin said, “Three shillings.” “Well,” the man said, “why do you raise your price?” To which Franklin responded, “You see, you have wasted so much of my time that I could better have afforded to take one shilling at first than three shillings now.” Sometimes, if men come to Christ at the very first invitation, it is a sweet and easy coming. See how dear young children often yield themselves to Christ, and how peaceful is their entrance into the rest of faith! But when people wait, when they postpone believing, when they violate conscience, when they tread down all the uprising of holy thoughts within them, it becomes much harder for them to trust in Christ than it would have been when he was first preached to them. I come, therefore, to you again, and say, “If ye will deal kindly and truly with my Master, tell me: and if not, tell me; and tell me now.”
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, An urgent request for an immediate answer
http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols37-39/chs2231.pdf
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