AN AFFECTIONATE WORD TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS

C. H. Spurgeon

I do not think it necessary to say to you, but I will say it in case it should be necessary, that the same Gospel that saves grown-up people saves children. You must not give to the children a different gospel from that which we have to preach to their parents. Do not give your scholars a diluted gospel, the Gospel and water. I have noticed that children are often told, “You must love Jesus, and then you will be saved.” Yes, but that is not the Bible plan of salvation; it is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” and though, undoubtedly, where love exists in the heart, it is an abundant proof of the exercise of faith, yet you were never sent into the world to tell people, either old or young, that they would be laved by loving Christ; you have altered your Master’s commission, which you have no right to do. Those children need to know what they have to believe in order that they may be saved; and you must tell them that it is in Christ and Him crucified that they have to trust,
and that it is by faith that even little children are brought to Jesus, and saved.

I know you, my dear brethren and sisters, will do that, I have no ear that you will do otherwise; but I do know some Sunday-schools where it is not so, and where the children are taught anything but the truth as it is in Jesus. There are other schools where there is nothing for the scholars but the reading and explaining of those regular orderly lessons that are issued by the Sunday-school Union. I .suppose they are very capital things for those who can use them; but know that my experience was that they were of no use to me. They were so often about David and Goliath, or about Ezra and Sanballat, or about Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar; but I wanted to get away to Jesus Christ at once. Now, whether you use the regular lessons or not, do seek to bring your scholars to Christ at once, and do the best you can to win every one of them for the Saviour, and remember that persuasion is a mighty force with the children.

All of you teachers, I am sure, will get a blessing if you pray for your children one by one, and speak with them one by one. Much
more is usually done by a special, particular, personal word than by a general message delivered to a large number. If you were all bottles, and I wanted to fill you, I should not try to do it by squirting over you all at once; but I should come to you one by one, and pour the liquor into you one by one, slowly and gently. I think that, in your Sunday-school teaching, you can try to do too much, and accomplish nothing. You cannot get a quartern loaf into a child all at once; but it goes in by breaking it up, and putting some nice warm milk with it. So when you have a great mass of truth, and you say to yourself, “How am I to get this loaf into that child’s mind and heart?” break it up small, and give it to them with some nice warm milk of affection; and thus, by God’s grace, you will get it into the children, and they will be built up thereby. That is the way, I have no doubt, you are doing it. Go on doing it in that way; and may God bless you, dear friends, more and more! Amen.