Spurgeon takes God's searching question to the Jews — "Did you at all fast unto Me, even to Me?" — as a scalpel for examining every form of religious activity, arguing that God accepts no worship and no deed that is not genuinely aimed at his glory rather than the worshipper's own benefit, and he surveys the many ways self quietly hijacks religion: careless churchgoers who sit in pews with wandering minds, those who worship the means rather than the God of the means, those who attend only out of social custom and would be just as sincere at a mosque in Mecca, those who use chapel attendance to polish their business reputations, and those who pile up prayers and ceremonies as merit toward earning Heaven — all of whom, however different their methods, are really eating and drinking to themselves. He then extends the test to all public religious service, indicting the donor who insists his name be printed at the head of the subscription list, the minister who polishes his sentences more than he drives the gospel home, the Sunday school teacher who comes for the social fellowship, the denomination that doubles its missions only to outpace a rival, and any congregation built by quarrel rather than by love — contrasting all of these with Whitfield who said "let my name perish" and with Milne who counted it honor to clean missionary boots, as models of doing all things truly unto God. He closes with the same question turned into a solemn personal test, first for believers to examine whether pride has smuggled itself even into their prayers and good works, and then with a thundering appeal to those who have never done anything for God at all — reminding them that God has nonetheless fed, protected, and preserved them through cholera and storms and sickbeds — and picturing a Roman judge untying one knot at a time from the bundle of rods, watching the criminal's face for repentance, with the plea that God is even now watching, the last knot may be near, and only turning to Christ can stay the axe of justice.
Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on March 9, 1862.