Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) on Ezekiel 33:11

“Turn ye, turn ye.” See, the Lord puts it twice. He must mean your good by these repeated directions. Suppose my man-servant was crossing yonder river, and I saw that he would soon be out of his depth, and so in great danger; suppose I cried out to him, “Stop! stop! If you go another inch you will be drowned. Turn back! Turn back!” Will anybody dare to say, “Mr. Spurgeon would feel pleasure if that man were drowned”? It would be a cruel cut. What a liar the man must be who would hint such a thing when I am urging my servant to turn and save his life! Would God plead with us to escape unless he honestly desired that we should escape? I trow not. Every sinner may be sure that God takes no pleasure in his death when he pleads with him in these unrivalled words, “Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?” There is what the old divines used to call an ingemination, an inward groaning, a reduplication of pleading in these words, “Turn ye, turn ye.” He pleads each time with more of emphasis. Will you not hear?

C. H. Spurgeon, “Pleading and Encouragement (No. 1,795),” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, 63 vols. (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1884), 30:455; Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; “Pleading and Encouragement,” in Return, Oh Shulamite! and Other Sermons Preached in 1884 by the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1885), 180.

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Spurgeon is clearly saying that God “means” the “good” of “every sinner” when “he pleades” with them to turn and live. He says that God “honestly desires” their “escape.” Those are some of the essential components of a well-meant gospel offer. Compare this quote by Spurgeon to statements made by William Greenhill (see his #3 observation), who served as a divine at the Westminster Assembly.