“To those who make professions of much love to Christ the same caution may be given. With the most of Christians, I am afraid, I must say that “the tune of figs is not yet,” for we are too much like the Laodicean church. But you meet with some men—how much they are in love with Christ! How sweetly they can talk about him! But what do they do for him? Nothing—nothing! Their love lies just in the wind which comes out of their own mouths, and that is all. Now, when the Lord has a curse, he will deal it out on such.
They went beyond all others in an untimely declaration of a very fervent love, and now they yield him no fruit. “Yes,” said one, “I love God so much that I do not reckon that anything I have is my own. It is all the Lord’s—all the Lord’s, and I am his steward.” Well, this dear good man, of course, joined the church; and after a time, some mission work wanted a little help. What was his reply? “When I pay my seat rent, I have done all I intend to do.” A man of wealth and means!
After a little time, this same man found it inconvenient even to pay for his seat, and goes now to a place not quite so full, where he can get a seat and do nothing to support the ministry! If there is a special thunderbolt anywhere, it is these unctuous hypocrites who whine about love to Christ, and bow down at the shrine of mammon.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon in Sermons of Rev. C.H. Spurgeon: Preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1865) 182.