Illustrations from a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, part III

"… I was once in a country town, and I said to my host, when I went to bed, “I have to be in London to-morrow, and I cannot get up in time for my work unless I leave by a train which I can catch readily enough if you wake me at six o’clock.” Well, my host was an Irishman, so he woke me at five o’clock; and when I sat up in bed, I said, “What is it?” He said, “You have only another hour to sleep.” The consequence was that I missed my train. If he had only wakened me at the proper time, and said, “Now you must get up,” I should have dressed at once; but as he said, “You have only another hour to sleep,” of course I slept that hour, and another one as well, for I was weary. The same principle applies to you. If I say to you, “Go home, and think it over all the week,” I shall be giving you a week in which to remain in rebellion against God; and I have no right to do that. I shall be giving you a week in which you are to continue an unbeliever; and he that is an unbeliever is in peril of eternal ruin, for “he that believeth not shall be damned.” Worse than all, the week may lead to many other weeks; to months, perhaps, and years; perchance to a whole eternity of woe. I cannot give you five minutes. God the Holy Ghost speaks by me now to souls whom God hath chosen from before the foundation of the world, and he says, “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” The Holy Ghost says “To-day, even today.” “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”…

… I believe that the act of faith was very well set forth in the statement of a poor imbecile. They said that he was an idiot; but I think that he had more real sense than many a man who boasts of his intellect. Some one said to him “John, have you got a soul? “No,” he said, “I ain’t got no soul.” “Why, John, how is that?” He replied, “I had a soul once, but I lost it, and Jesus Christ found it, so I have just let him keep it.” There is the whole philosophy of salvation. You have lost your soul; Christ has found it. Let him keep it. God bless you! Amen.”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, An urgent request for an immediate answer

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols37-39/chs2231.pdf