The Church Needs a Revival

"That kind of preaching is just what is missing in these times; where is the intensity now?"

"It is neither in the pulpit nor even in the pew, in the measure that we desire; and it is a sad, sad age when intensity is scoffed at, and when that very zeal which ought to be the prominent characteristic of the pulpit is regarded as fanaticism. I pray to God that he would make all of us fanatics that most men would laugh at and that many would despise. To my mind, it is the greatest fanaticism in the world to go to hell, and the worst folly on earth is to love sin better than righteousness; and I think that they are anything but fanatics who seek to obey God rather than man, and to follow Christ in all his ways. To me, one sad proof that the Church needs revival is the absence of that solemn earnestness and intensity which was once seen in Christian pulpits..."

--Charles Spurgeon, Spiritual Revival, the Need of the Church, November 11, 1856