I. Preachers are servants of God. We are God's servants on behalf of souls. The souls of our world are desolate and dead as winter; it is the will of God that a spring-time should be brought out in their history, that they should become verdant and flourishing as the garden of the Lord. We are commissioned to traverse the whole world with a life-giving ministry, and to exercise it on behalf of every soul.
II. There are souls dead. (1) Men are ignorant of the nature of their souls. Men suppose that there is a congruity between their souls and the pleasures and gains of the present world, whereas there is an utter incongruity. If souls know not their own nature, it is not too strong a figure to speak of them as dead. (2) The souls of men are not fulfilling the end of their being. (3) The souls of men are strangers to the peculiar joys of their being. The love of God is the highest of all possible pleasures. The love of God, tasted and enjoyed in everything, is that fine pleasure concealed in everything, concealed expressly for souls, and which only souls can extract. Human souls are dead to this bliss.
III. Therefore, as the servants of the Gospel, the cry of our ministry is, Live. We are charged by God to call upon you to repent, to sue for mercy, and solemnly declare to you that not to repent is to perish. We are to tell you that He who knew no sin died for your sins, and that, therefore, life, eternal life, is offered to you through His death.
J. Pulsford, Preacher's Lantern,vol. ii., p. 567.
References: Ezekiel 16:6. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 190; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 253.Ezekiel 16:9-14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 813.Ezekiel 16:10. Ibid., Evening by Evening,p 358.