Charels Dickens.....Was In Need Of Hearing....Charles Spurgeon

               The original British film....A Christmas Carol....is an enjoyable Christmas movie to watch. It's a lot like....It's A Wonderful Life. Charles Dickens....great author that he was....was not a Christian....just a quick perusal of a biography will show this....but A Christmas Carol has numerous scenes with a Christian message....but not a Christian salvation message....in fact just as with the Jimmy Stewert film....it gives a false message of salvation through works. Have you ever thought about the message that L Frank Baum gave the children of America in The Wizard Of Oz? The wizard signifies God....and everyone believes in the wizard....but of course he is just a fake....but a nice fake who when exposed gives great worldly advice on how to get a heart and a brain and courage.  A good witch tells Dorothy how to get back home. And what is the most popular movie out today....Wicked....a very apropos title. Ah but that's life....that's what all the people say....that's what Frank Sinatra said anyway.
                Dickens died in 1870. I have to wonder if he ever in the last fifteen or so years of his life....visited or even thought about Charles Spurgeon. He would certainly have known about him. I can't find any references to Dickens in Spurgeon's writings. I myself did reference Dickens a few times in these posts. In one that I titled....More Food Sir....from November 15 of 2009! 

         "The following is a paragraph from Charles Dickens Oliver Twist where the boys who lived at the workhouse were issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and a half a roll on Sundays. The boys cast lots and Oliver was chosen to ask for a second portion of food. Here are Dickens words: The evening arrived; the boys took their place. The master, in his cook's uniform stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered themselves, and winked at Oliver; while his neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'Please sir, I want some more food.' There have been times, in the past, when I have gone up to a pastor after the sermon and essentially said the same thing, More food sir?"

                   Well those were my thoughts fifteen years ago....and the situation is still the same....for our pastors today....the vast majority anyway....still serve thin gruel in their sermons. They give Charles Dickens sermons on salvation....and not Charles Spurgeon sermons on salvation. Dickens would often....in those great books of his....pattern characters and life in London....(A Christmas Carol was written in 1843)....on his own difficult childhood. I can understand the outrage and concern that Charles Dickens had over the plight of poor children in urban industrial revolutionized England.
                   Scrooge was transformed by ghosts taking him back in his life to see the errors that he made....and how greed swallowed him up. George Bailey was given a glimpse....by an angel....of how he was a good person. The Apostle Paul warned us....and repeated his warning because it was so important....that even if an angel of light gave a gospel that they had not already received....then let that angel of light be accursed. An angel instructed Mohammed and Joseph Smith.  The vision the Virgin Mary supposedly gave all those children at Lourdes and Fatima supported false gospels. 
                   There are today in evangelicalism....all kinds of visions that are claimed....and trips to heaven and to hell. These things have become our teachers. We....so very many of us anyway....are convinced that there have been miracles in Donald Trump's life that will put him back in the White House. CBN....(Pat Robertson's news network)....has stories of visions all the time. One just today has Denzel Wahington telling of the vision in the sky that he had. False christs and false teachers and false prophets and false visions are everywhere! 
                   Jeremiah 6:16 has been a verse that I have mentioned at times in these posts....and one that I cling to....

"Thus says the LORD: 'Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls."

                   Unfortunately....we today have repeated the last part of that verse....

"But they said, 'We will not walk in it'."