How may a young man know...(Part 2)

...whether he is called or not?

How diligently the Calvary officer keeps his sabre clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember you are God's sword, His instrument - I trust, a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name.

It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. For the herald of the gospel to be spiritually out of order in his own proper person is, both to himself and to his work, a most serious calamity; and yet my brethren, how easily is such an evil produced, and with what watchfulness must it be guarded against!

Travelling one day by express from Perth to Edinburgh, on a sudden we came to a dead stop, because a very small screw in one of the engines - every railway locomotive consisting virtually of two engines - had been broken, and when we started again we were obliged to crawl along with one piston-rod at work instead of two. Only a small screw was gone. If that had been right the train would have rushed along its iron road, but the absence of that insignificant piece of iron disarranged the whole. A train is said to have stopped on one of the United States' railways by flies in the grease-boxes of the carriage wheels.

The analogy is perfect; a man in all other respects fitted to be useful, may by some small defect be exceedingly hindered, or even rendered utterly useless. Such a result is all the more grievous, because it is associated with the gospel, which in the highest sense is adapted to effect the grandest results. It is a terrible thing when the healing balm loses its efficacy through the blunderer who administers it.

You know the injurious effects frequently produced upon water through flowing along leaded pipes; even so the gospel itself, in flowing through men who are spiritually unhealthy, may be debased until it grows injurious to the hearers. (8)

Source: Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon