Going Home

Delivered on Sunday morning, December 21, 1856, by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon

Republished in FrontLine • November/December 1999. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.

“Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.”—Mark 5:19

The case of the man here referred to is a very extraordinary one. This poor wretch being possessed with a legion of evil spirits had been driven to something worse than madness. He fixed his home among the tombs, where he dwelt by night and day, and was the terror of all those who passed by. The authorities had attempted to curb him. He had been bound with fetters and chains, but in the paroxysms of his madness he had torn the chains in sunder and broken the fetters in pieces. Attempts had been made to reclaim him, but no man could tame him. His fierce nature would not yield. He was a misery to himself, for he would run upon the mountains by night and day, crying and howling fearfully, cutting himself with the sharp flints, and torturing his poor body in the most frightful manner.

Jesus Christ passed by; He said to the devils, “Come out of him.” The man was healed in a moment, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, he became a rational being—an intelligent man, yea, what is more, a convert to the Savior. Out of gratitude to his deliverer, he said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest; I will be thy constant companion and thy servant; permit me so to be.”

“No,” said Christ, “I esteem your motive; it is one of gratitude to me; but if you would show your gratitude, ‘go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.’”

Now, I will tell you the reason why I selected my text. I thought within myself, there are a large number of young men who always come to hear me preach; they always crowd the aisles of my chapel, and many of them have been converted to God. Now, here is Christmas-day come round again, and they are going home to see their friends. When they get home they will want a Christmas Carol in the evening; I think I will suggest one to them—more especially to such of them as have been lately converted. I will give them a theme for their discourse on Christmas evening; it shall be this: “Go home and tell your friends what the Lord hath done for your souls, and how He hath had compassion on you.”

For my part, I wish there were 20 Christmas days in the year. Though I have no respect to the religious observance of the day, yet I love it as a family institution, as one of England’s brightest days, the great Sabbath of the year, when the plough rests in its furrow, when the din of business is hushed, when the mechanic and the working man go out to refresh themselves upon the green award of the glad earth. We are going home to see our friends, and here is the story some of us have to tell. “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for them, and hath had compassion on thee.”

First, then, here is what we are to tell. It is to be a story of personal experience. You are not to repair to your houses and forthwith begin to preach. You are not to begin to take up doctrinal subjects and expatiate on them and endeavor to bring persons to your peculiar views and sentiments. You are not to go home with sundry doctrines you have lately learned and try to teach these, but you are to go home and tell not what you have believed, but what you have really known to be your own; not what great things you have read, but what great things the Lord hath done for you. Tell them how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with you, how you bowed your knees and poured out your soul before God, and how at last you leaped with joy, for you thought you heard him say within you, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for my name’s sake.” Tell your friends a story of your own personal experience.

It is not, “Tell thy friends how great things thou hast done thyself,” but “how great things the Lord hath done for thee.” He says nothing about his own doings, or willings, or prayings, or seekings, but he ascribes it all to the love and grace of the great God who looks on sinners in love, and makes them His children, heirs of everlasting life. A man who is grateful is always full of the greatness of the mercy which God has shown him; he always thinks that what God has done for him is immensely good and supremely great. May God grant that you may tell a grateful story. No story is more worth hearing than a tale of gratitude.

And lastly, it must be a tale told by a poor sinner who feels himself not to have deserved what he has received. “How he hath had compassion on thee.” It was not a mere act of kindness, but an act of compassion towards one who was in misery. I have heard men tell the story of their conversion and of their spiritual life in such a way that my heart hath loathed them and their story too, for they have told of their sins as if they did boast in the greatness of their crime, and they have mentioned the love of God not with a tear of gratitude, not with the simple thanksgiving of the really humble heart, but as if they as much exalted themselves as they exalted God. When we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with deep sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things.

Tell your story, my hearers, as lost sinners. Do not go to your home, and walk into your house with a supercilious air, as much as to say, “Here’s a saint come home to the poor sinners, to tell them a story”; but go home like a poor sinner yourself.

In the second place, why should we tell this story? I hear many of my congregation say, “Sir, I could relate that story to any one sooner than I could to my own friends; I could come to your vestry, and tell you something of what I have tasted and handled of the Word of God; but I could not tell my father, nor my mother, nor my brethren, nor my sisters.” Come, then; I will try and argue with you, to induce you to do so, that I may send you home this Christmas-day, to be missionaries in the localities to which you belong and to be real preachers, though you are not so by name. Dear friends, do tell this story when you go home.

First, for your Master’s sake. It is a strong argument when I say to you, for His dear sake who loved you so much, go home and tell it. What! Do you think we can have so much done for us and yet not tell it? Our children, if anything should be done for them, do not stay many minutes before they are telling all the company, “such an one hath give me such a present, and bestowed on me such-and-such a favor.” And should the children of God be backward in declaring how they were saved when their feet made haste to hell and how redeeming mercy snatched them as brands from the burning? Will you refuse to tell the tale of His love to you? Shall your lips be dumb when His honor is concerned? Will you not, wherever you go, tell of the God who loved you and died for you? This poor man, we are told, “Departed and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel.” So with you. If Christ has done much for you, you cannot help it—you must tell it.

But are your friends pious? If so, then go home and tell them in order to make their hearts glad. What a happy thing it would be if some here who had gone astray should thus go home! Woman! Hast thou strayed from thy family? Hast thou left them long? “Go home to thy friends,” I beseech thee, ere thy father totters to his grave, and ere thy mother’s grey hairs sleep on the snow-white pillow of her coffin. Go back, I beseech thee! Tell her thou art penitent; tell her that God hath met with thee. Go back to thy friends. Go home and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.

Once more, dear friends. I hear one of you say, “Sir, would to God I could go home to pious friends! But when I go home I go into the worst of places, for my home is amongst those who never knew God themselves and consequently never prayed for me and never taught me anything concerning heaven.” Well, young man, go home to your friends. If they are ever so bad they are still your friends. I sometimes meet with young men wishing to join the church, who say, when I ask them about their father, “Oh, sir, I am parted from my father.” Then I say, “Young man, you may just go and see your father before I have anything to do with you; if you are at ill-will with your father and mother I will not receive you into the church; if they are ever so bad they are still your parents.”

Go home to them and tell them for their soul’s salvation. I hope, when you are telling the story of what God did for you, that they will be led by the Spirit to desire the same mercy themselves. But I will give you a piece of advice. Do not tell this story to your ungodly friends when they are all together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one by one, when you can get them alone, and begin to tell it to them, and they will hear you seriously. Reprove a man alone. A verse may hit him. You may be the means of bringing a man to Christ who has often heard the Word and only laughed at it, but who cannot resist a gentle admonition. Oh! that the everlasting God might make use of some of those now present, that they might be induced to

Tell to others round
What a dear Saviour they have found;
To point to His redeeming blood,
And say, Behold the way to God!

There is a third point, upon which we must be very brief. How is this story to be told? First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell more than you know; do not tell John Bunyan’s experience when you ought to tell your own. Tell your experience truthfully; for mayhap one single fly in the pot of ointment will spoil it, and one statement you may make which is not true may ruin it all.

In the next place, tell it very humbly. Do not intrude yourselves upon those who are older, and know more, but tell your story humbly; not as a preacher, but as a friend and as a son.

Next, tell it very earnestly. Let them see you mean it. Do not talk about religion flippantly; do not make puns on texts; do not quote Scripture by way of joke: if you do, you may talk till you are dumb, but you will do no good if you in the least degree give them occasion to laugh by laughing at holy things yourself.

And then, tell it very devoutly. Do not try to tell your tale to man till you have told it first to God. When you are at home on Christmas-day, let no one see your face till God has seen it. Be up in the morning, and if your friends are not converted, wrestle with God for them; and then you will find it easy work to wrestle with them for God. Seek, if you can, to get them one by one, and tell them the story. Do not be afraid; only think of the good you may possibly do. Remember, he that saves a soul from death covereth a multitude of sins, and he shall have stars in his crown for ever and ever. Seek to be the means of leading your own beloved brethren and sisters to seek and to find the Lord Jesus Christ, and then one day, when you shall meet in Paradise, it will be a joy and blessedness to think that you are there and that your friends are there too, whom God will have made you the instrument of saving. Let your reliance in the Holy Spirit be entire and honest. Trust not yourself, but fear not to trust Him. He can give you words. He can apply those words to their heart, and so enable you to “minister grace to the hearers.”

I close by a short, and I think, a pleasant turning of the text, to suggest another meaning to it. Soon, dear friends, very soon with some of us, the Master will say, “Go home to thy friends.” You know where the home is. It is up above the stars, “Where our best friends, our kindred dwell, Where God our Saviour reigns.”

And when we go home to our friends in Paradise, what shall we do? Why, first we will repair to that blest seat where Jesus sits, take off our crown and cast it at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all. And when we have done that, what shall be our next employ? Why, we will tell the blessed ones in heaven what the Lord hath done for us, and how He hath had compassion on us.

Wait awhile; tarry His leisure, and ye shall soon be gathered to the land of the hereafter, to the home of the blessed, where endless felicity shall be thy portion. God grant a blessing for His name’s sake!