Sunday Spurgeon

Remember, O children of God, that there are many things that should make you valiant for God and for His Truth. The first thing I will bring to your remembrance is the fact that this warfare in which you are engaged is an hereditary warfare. It is not one which you began but it is one which has been handed to you from the moment when the blood of Abel cried aloud for vengeance. Each martyr that has died has passed the blood-red flag to the next and he in turn has passed it on to another.

Every confessor who has been nailed to the stake to burn has lit his candle and handed it to another and said, “Take care of that!” And now here is the old “sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Remember what hands have handled the hilt. Remember what arms have wielded it. Remember how often it has “pierced to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow.”Will you disgrace it? Will you disgrace it? There is the great banner—it has waved in many a breeze. Long before the flag of this our land was made, this flag of Christ was borne aloft. Will you stain it? Will you stain it?

Will you not hand it to your children, still unsullied and say, “Go on, go on. We leave you the heritage of war. Go on, go on and conquer. What your fathers did, do again. Keep up the war, till time shall end”? I love my Bible because it is a Bible baptized with blood. I love it all the better because it has the blood of Tyndal on it. I love it because it has on it the blood of John Bradford and Rowland Taylor and Hooper. I love it because it is stained with blood.