Advice for Seeking a Closer Relationship with God
Introduction
There are few questions more serious than the question of salvation. A person may possess wealth, education, influence, good health, family affection, and the respect of others, yet remain uncertain about where he stands before God. He may attend church, read the Bible, pray regularly, admire Christianity, respect Jesus Christ, and sincerely desire to become a Christian while still wondering whether he has truly come to Christ in the manner Scripture requires. That person is a seeker in the deepest biblical sense of the word.
Advice for Seekers was written for such people.
The seeker addressed in these pages is not merely curious about Christianity. He is not approaching the gospel as an intellectual subject to be studied from a safe distance. He has begun to understand that something is wrong between himself and God. Sin has become personal. Judgment is no longer merely a theological doctrine. Christ is no longer merely a historical figure. Salvation is no longer merely something other people discuss. The seeker has awakened to the reality that he personally needs reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.
Yet awakening to one’s need does not automatically produce clarity about how that need is answered. A person may recognize that he is lost and still misunderstand the way of salvation. He may become deeply concerned about his sins and yet imagine that sufficient sorrow will make him acceptable to God. He may pray earnestly and then begin trusting in the earnestness of his prayers. He may repent and unknowingly begin treating the intensity of his repentance as the basis for forgiveness. He may attend Christian meetings, read Christian books, listen to sermons, and surround himself with believers while never placing complete faith in Jesus Christ Himself.
This is precisely why counsel for seekers remains necessary.
The central burden of this book is remarkably direct: the sinner must stop looking for salvation in himself and look to Jesus Christ. Human works cannot purchase what Christ alone could provide through His sacrificial death. Religious effort cannot replace the ransom. Emotional anguish cannot become an atonement. Church attendance cannot reconcile anyone to God. Baptism has its proper place in Christian obedience, but the outward act cannot substitute for genuine faith. Knowledge about Christ is not the same as trusting Christ. Admiration for the gospel is not the same as accepting the gospel. Being near believers is not the same as personally following the Savior.
That distinction runs through these pages with unusual force. Advice for Seekers continually turns the reader away from dependence upon himself and directs his attention toward the One whom God has provided as Savior.
The Seeker’s Greatest Mistake
One of the first obstacles confronted in this book is self-salvation. This error takes many forms, some openly religious and others remarkably subtle. A person may believe that God will accept him because he has lived a respectable life. Another may know that his life has been sinful but hope to repair the past through future obedience. Another may think that God will be impressed by religious devotion, generosity, prayer, remorse, personal reform, or moral discipline.
All such reasoning misunderstands both sin and the sacrifice of Christ.
If fallen humanity could restore itself to righteousness through sufficient effort, the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ would not have been necessary. The gospel does not present Christ as one possible means of salvation among several. His death was not an additional religious aid for people who had almost succeeded in saving themselves. Jesus came because sinful humanity could not remove its own condemnation. He gave His life because sinners required a ransom they could never provide.
The very attempt to earn salvation therefore misunderstands the magnitude of what God accomplished through His Son. The value of Christ’s sacrifice cannot be compared with human religious accomplishment. The Son of God lived without sin, remained obedient to His Father, surrendered His life, and provided the sacrificial basis by which sinful humans can receive forgiveness and reconciliation with God. No accumulation of human works could achieve the same result.
This does not mean that Christian obedience is unnecessary. Scripture repeatedly requires repentance, faith, baptism, righteous conduct, endurance, and obedience to Christ. The distinction is between obeying God as a faithful response to His grace and imagining that our works possess sufficient value to purchase forgiveness. They do not.
The seeker must therefore learn a lesson that human pride finds difficult: salvation begins when the sinner abandons confidence in himself.
Coming Personally to Jesus Christ
Another major emphasis of Advice for Seekers is the difference between being near Christ and actually coming to Him in faith.
The Gospels repeatedly describe crowds surrounding Jesus. People listened to His teaching. They observed His miracles. They discussed Him. Some admired Him. Some followed Him from place to place. Yet physical proximity did not automatically produce discipleship. One could stand within hearing distance of Jesus and remain unchanged.
The same danger remains.
A person may spend years among Christians without becoming a genuine follower of Christ. He may know Christian vocabulary, understand familiar doctrines, sing Christian hymns, listen to biblical preaching, and develop friendships with believers. None of these things should be despised. They can place a person in circumstances where he repeatedly hears the truth. Yet none should be mistaken for personal faith in Jesus Christ.
The book uses the powerful picture of someone entering the crowd around Jesus while never actually reaching out to Him. That image captures the condition of countless religious people. They are near the gospel without taking hold of what the gospel offers. They know that others have found forgiveness in Christ. They hear the testimonies of people who have changed their lives. They may even rejoice when another sinner repents. Yet they continue treating Christ as someone else’s Savior.
The gospel requires something more personal.
Faith is not merely agreeing that Jesus can save sinners. It involves trusting Him as the One through whom God has made salvation available to you. It means accepting the truth about His sacrifice and arranging your life accordingly. It means abandoning rival sources of confidence and following Him as Lord.
The seeker must therefore ask more than, “Do I believe Christianity is true?” He must ask, “Have I personally placed my faith in Jesus Christ and begun following Him?”
When the Seeker Still Walks in Darkness
Some of the most pastorally valuable portions of this book address a painful situation: the person who genuinely wants spiritual light but believes he has not found it.
Such a seeker may have become deeply aware of his sinful condition. He reads Scripture, prays, listens to preaching, thinks seriously about Christ, and longs for assurance. Yet inwardly he remains distressed. Rather than experiencing immediate peace, he becomes increasingly conscious of guilt, confusion, weakness, and uncertainty.
This condition can become dangerous because the seeker may begin interpreting his spiritual distress as evidence that Christ will not receive him.
That conclusion does not follow.
Awareness of darkness is itself different from indifference to darkness. The person who does not care about reconciliation with God is in a very different condition from the one who earnestly desires it. Spiritual concern should not become the ground of assurance, but it should encourage the seeker to continue directing his attention toward the promises of God rather than surrendering to hopelessness.
One recurring error is excessive introspection. The seeker searches within himself for some required emotional state before he believes he may come to Christ. He asks whether his repentance is deep enough, whether his sorrow is sincere enough, whether his prayers are earnest enough, whether his faith feels strong enough, or whether his motives are pure enough.
The more he examines himself, the less worthy he feels.
In one sense, that discovery is accurate. He is not worthy. Neither is anyone else. The error lies in believing that personal worthiness was ever the qualification.
Christ did not come to rescue people who had first made themselves spiritually healthy. He came because sinners were incapable of curing themselves. The recognition of spiritual sickness should therefore drive the sinner toward the Physician rather than away from Him.
A seeker can spend years waiting to become worthy enough to approach Christ. He will wait forever. The gospel invitation is not addressed to people who have already repaired themselves. It calls sinners to repentance and faith.
The Gospel Invitation Must Be Taken Seriously
The invitation of the gospel is not empty religious language. God genuinely commands people to repent and place faith in His Son.
This provides a vital answer to one of the most persistent questions troubled seekers ask: “May I believe?”
Some imagine that they require a special private indication before they are permitted to trust Christ. They wait for an extraordinary feeling, an inward voice, a dream, a mysterious impression, or some unusual experience that will assure them that the gospel invitation applies personally to them.
Scripture does not direct the seeker to wait for such things.
The authority for believing the gospel comes from God’s revealed Word. The sinner does not require an additional revelation informing him that he may repent. God has already commanded repentance. He does not require a supernatural sensation granting him permission to trust Christ. God has already made Christ known through Scripture and commanded faith in Him.
This protects the seeker from a particularly dangerous form of religious subjectivism. Feelings change. Emotional intensity rises and falls. Human imagination is unreliable. A person may wake one morning confident and the next morning discouraged. If assurance depends primarily upon fluctuating emotional experiences, assurance will fluctuate with them.
God’s Word provides a firmer foundation.
The gospel does not tell the sinner to wait until he feels saved. It tells him to repent, believe, obey, and follow Christ. Faith takes God at His Word. It accepts what He has revealed about His Son. It relies upon Christ’s sacrifice rather than the instability of human emotion.
This does not make Christian faith irrational. Biblical faith is grounded in the truth God has revealed and in the historical person and work of Jesus Christ. Faith does not mean believing without reason. Nor does it mean creating certainty through mental effort. It means trusting the reliable testimony of God concerning His Son.
Something Must Be Set Right
The seeker must also understand repentance correctly.
Repentance is not a payment offered to God. Sorrow cannot purchase forgiveness. Tears cannot atone for sins. Nevertheless, genuine repentance is inseparable from a sincere response to the gospel.
A person cannot knowingly cling to rebellion against God while claiming that he desires reconciliation with Him. The gospel does not invite sinners to receive forgiveness while deliberately preserving the very course of conduct from which God commands them to turn.
Repentance therefore involves a changed mind that produces a changed direction.
The sinner comes to recognize sin as God defines it rather than merely as society defines it. He stops excusing what Scripture condemns. He acknowledges his guilt. He desires forgiveness. He turns from a course of rebellion and begins ordering his life according to the will of God revealed in Scripture.
This will sometimes require difficult changes. Wrong conduct may need to cease. Dishonesty may need to be corrected. Immoral relationships may need to end. Harm done to another person may require appropriate efforts to set matters right where that is possible. Pride may need to be humbled. Resentment may need to be abandoned. Secret sins may need to be brought under control.
None of these actions purchase salvation.
They are the proper fruits of repentance.
The distinction matters because two opposite errors threaten the seeker. Legalism teaches him to trust his obedience as though he could earn acceptance with God. Moral carelessness tells him that obedience does not matter because professed faith is sufficient regardless of how he lives. Scripture supports neither error.
Faith that never affects conduct is dead. Yet the obedient Christian never imagines that his works have replaced Christ’s sacrifice.
The Substitute at the Center of the Gospel
At the theological center of Advice for Seekers stands Christ’s sacrificial death.
Christianity cannot be reduced to moral improvement. Jesus was not merely a teacher who supplied humanity with better ethical principles. He did not come merely to provide an inspiring example of courage, compassion, or devotion to God. His death was not simply the tragic martyrdom of an innocent religious reformer.
He gave His life sacrificially for sinners.
Humanity’s condition required more than instruction because the basic problem was more than ignorance. Humans were alienated from God through sin and stood under the sentence of death inherited through Adam. The problem therefore required a redemptive act that sinners themselves could never accomplish.
Jesus Christ supplied what was needed.
His perfect human life corresponded to what Adam had forfeited. He remained without sin and voluntarily surrendered His life. His death provides the ransom basis for liberation from sin and death. Through His sacrifice, repentant believers can receive forgiveness and reconciliation with Jehovah God.
The seeker must therefore understand that salvation rests upon something objective that Christ accomplished, not upon something subjective that the seeker must manufacture within himself.
This is enormously important for the frightened conscience.
When a seeker concentrates continually on the strength of his own faith, he begins trusting his ability to believe rather than the Savior in whom he believes. When he concentrates continually on the depth of his own repentance, repentance itself begins occupying the place that belongs to Christ. When he studies the quality of his own prayers as though sufficiently powerful prayers could earn divine acceptance, prayer becomes another form of self-dependence.
Faith looks away from itself.
The strength of saving faith does not rest in the psychological force with which a person believes. Its significance rests in the One upon whom faith is placed. A weak hand may receive a valuable gift. The value lies in the gift, not in the strength of the hand receiving it.
Christ is the Savior. Faith receives what God has made available through Him.
Why Luther’s Search Still Speaks to Seekers
The chapter dealing with Martin Luther gives historical form to the spiritual struggle addressed throughout the book.
Luther’s religious efforts did not initially bring him peace. Monastic discipline, penances, ceremonies, and attempts to quiet his conscience through religious performance left the central problem unresolved. The biblical declaration that “the righteous shall live by faith” confronted him with an entirely different foundation.
The significance of the account is not merely historical.
Luther personifies the religious seeker who sincerely wants peace with God but looks for it through the wrong means. His problem was not lack of effort. He exerted extraordinary effort. His problem was misplaced confidence. He sought through human religious accomplishment what could only be received through faith.
That lesson remains necessary because modern people have their own forms of penance.
Some attempt to compensate for past wrongdoing through charitable works. Others become intensely religious for a season because guilt drives them to activity. Some promise God that they will become better people if He will forgive them. Others assume that years of church membership must somehow place them in a favorable position before Him.
The principle remains unchanged: human activity cannot become the ransom price for sin.
Luther’s discovery also demonstrates that genuine faith does not produce passivity. Once his confidence became anchored in Scripture rather than religious works, faith produced action. Conviction moved him to speak, write, teach, and stand against teachings he believed contradicted the Word of God.
That pattern helps correct another misunderstanding of faith. Biblical faith is not inactivity. It is not mental assent detached from obedience. Trust in God gives rise to a life governed by what He has revealed.
Saved Through Faith and Continuing in Faith
The language of salvation must be handled carefully because Scripture speaks of salvation with past, present, and future dimensions. A person may rightly speak of having been delivered from a former course of sin, yet Scripture also commands Christians to remain faithful and places final salvation in relation to endurance.
For this reason, the present edition does not treat salvation as an irreversible condition created by a single moment of belief.
Salvation is a path.
It begins through God’s grace made available through Christ and is received through faith. Yet the Christian is repeatedly commanded to continue believing, obeying, remaining watchful, resisting sin, and enduring faithfully. Jesus said, “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Paul instructed Christians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Hebrews warns against deliberately turning away after receiving accurate knowledge of the truth. The New Testament therefore gives both genuine assurance and genuine warnings.
These are not contradictions.
The believer may confidently trust God while remaining aware of his responsibility to continue in faith. Christian assurance is not careless presumption. Jehovah is faithful. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient. God does not abandon faithful servants. Yet Scripture never gives Christians permission to deliberately return to a life of unrepentant sin while assuming that a former profession of faith guarantees eternal life regardless of subsequent conduct.
This is an important point at which the present edition must distinguish between Spurgeon’s powerful evangelistic appeals and the Calvinistic framework that shaped portions of his theology.
Spurgeon rightly emphasizes the sufficiency of Christ, the necessity of faith, the inability of human works to purchase salvation, and the urgency of coming to the Savior. Those emphases deserve to be heard. At the same time, Scripture does not support the conclusion that a person’s final salvation was predetermined in such a way that genuine apostasy becomes impossible. The biblical warnings addressed to believers must retain their ordinary force.
Appendix A therefore gives sustained attention to conditional salvation. It explains why initial faith must become continuing faith, why obedience matters, why deliberate apostasy carries grave consequences, and why Christian salvation should be understood as an ongoing journey toward eternal life rather than as an irrevocable status acquired at one moment and thereafter incapable of being lost.
This clarification does not weaken the urgency of Spurgeon’s call to believe. It strengthens the biblical responsibility attached to that call.
The seeker is invited to begin following Christ, not merely to experience a moment of religious emotion.
The Simplicity of Faith Must Not Be Confused With Superficiality
Seekers frequently make faith more complicated than Scripture makes it.
They imagine that they must first understand every Christian doctrine. They wait until every question has been answered. They assume that mature faith must exist before elementary faith can begin. Others believe they need extraordinary emotional certainty before they can say that they truly trust Christ.
Faith is simpler than this.
To believe in Jesus Christ is to accept as true what God has revealed concerning Him, trust in His sacrificial work as the basis for reconciliation, repent of a sinful course, acknowledge Him as Lord, and begin following Him obediently.
A person can do this while still having much to learn.
The first-century disciples did not understand every implication of Christian doctrine on the day they became followers of Christ. Growth came afterward. They learned, corrected misunderstandings, strengthened faith, changed conduct, and developed maturity.
The same remains true.
Conversion is not the end of Christian learning. It is the beginning of Christian discipleship.
The simplicity of faith therefore does not mean that Christianity is intellectually shallow. Scripture contains profound teaching concerning God, creation, sin, redemption, resurrection, judgment, the Kingdom, Christian conduct, and the future purposes of God. A faithful Christian should continue growing in accurate knowledge.
But one does not need to become a theologian before trusting the Savior.
The seeker must not use unanswered secondary questions as an excuse for postponing obedience to what he already understands.
The Danger of Waiting for an Experience
One of the most persistent spiritual hindrances addressed by this kind of pastoral counsel is waiting for an emotional experience that Scripture never promises.
Some seekers have heard dramatic conversion accounts. They therefore assume their own conversion must follow the same pattern. If another person experienced overwhelming emotion, they expect overwhelming emotion. If someone describes sudden relief from guilt, they expect the same sensation. If another person remembers an exact hour and minute when his outlook changed, they assume every Christian must possess an equally dramatic memory.
Scripture does not establish one emotional pattern for conversion.
The decisive question is not whether the seeker experiences the same feelings as someone else. The question is whether he genuinely repents, believes the gospel, and follows Christ.
Feelings have their place. A person who understands the seriousness of sin may experience deep sorrow. One who grasps God’s forgiveness may experience tremendous relief. Gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice may produce joy. Yet none of these emotions should become the foundation upon which faith rests.
Faith rests upon truth.
This distinction also guards against claims of private revelation. Christian guidance comes through the Spirit-inspired Word of God. The seeker does not need to wait for an inward voice from the Holy Spirit telling him what Scripture has already said. He does not need mystical impressions, visions, dreams, or supernatural sensations. God has given His written Word, and that Word makes known what sinners must believe and how Christians must live.
The wise seeker therefore learns to distinguish between the authority of Scripture and the instability of personal impressions.
The Seeker Must Eventually Become a Disciple
There is a sense in which seeking must come to an end.
A person cannot remain forever in the position of saying, “I am thinking about Christianity.” At some point, biblical truth demands a response.
Jesus called people to follow Him. That command requires decision. The hearer must either begin following or continue refusing.
There is danger in becoming comfortable as a permanent seeker. Religious concern can become a substitute for obedience. A person may enjoy discussing salvation, reading books about salvation, attending meetings where salvation is preached, and asking endless questions about salvation while continuing to postpone repentance and faith.
Constant examination can become another form of avoidance.
There are legitimate questions, and Scripture welcomes sincere inquiry. Christianity is not afraid of careful examination. Yet there comes a point when the essential truth is clear. Sin separates humans from God. Human works cannot erase guilt. Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom. God raised Him from the dead. Forgiveness is offered through Him. The sinner is commanded to repent, believe, be baptized, and follow Christ.
Once those truths are understood, the central issue is no longer lack of information.
It is response.
This book therefore speaks urgently because the subject is urgent. Human life is temporary. Death is real. The dead are not conscious souls continuing an independent existence elsewhere; death is the cessation of the person’s conscious life. The biblical hope rests in resurrection. Eternal life is not an immortal possession naturally belonging to every human being. It is God’s gift granted through Jesus Christ.
That makes the present response to Christ profoundly important.
The gospel offers life, but it does not encourage endless postponement.
Reading These Pages With the Bible Open
Advice for Seekers should be read with Scripture at hand.
No Christian writer, however gifted, possesses the authority of the inspired Word of God. Spurgeon’s vivid illustrations, forceful appeals, memorable expressions, and pastoral urgency can help the reader understand spiritual realities, but every theological claim must ultimately be measured by Scripture.
The historical-grammatical approach provides the proper discipline. Biblical passages should be understood according to their vocabulary, grammar, literary setting, historical circumstances, and authorial intention. Words should not be detached from context. Emotional preaching should never be allowed to override what a biblical author actually wrote. Traditional doctrines should not be protected when the inspired text corrects them.
This is particularly important in a work drawn from a preacher as forceful as Spurgeon. His rhetoric can be powerful precisely because he presses an argument directly upon the conscience. The responsible reader should appreciate that strength while continuing to distinguish between the inspired authority of Scripture and the theological conclusions of the preacher.
The same rule applies to the editorial material in this updated edition.
Where Spurgeon’s counsel accords with the biblical text, the reader should receive the truth because Scripture teaches it, not merely because Spurgeon expressed it memorably. Where inherited Calvinistic assumptions conflict with the full force of Scripture’s warnings concerning perseverance, apostasy, human responsibility, and the conditional nature of final salvation, Scripture must govern our conclusions.
That is why the appendix belongs naturally with the rest of the book. It allows the reader to benefit from Spurgeon’s vigorous call to Christ without assuming that every feature of his theological system must therefore be accepted.
For the One Who Wants to Find Christ
The title Advice for Seekers identifies its proper audience with unusual precision.
This book is for the person who knows something is missing and has begun looking toward Christ. It is for the churchgoer who has been near Christianity for years but has never personally surrendered his confidence to the Savior. It is for the morally respectable person discovering that morality cannot erase sin. It is for the deeply guilty person who thinks his past has placed him beyond forgiveness. It is for the anxious reader who continually asks whether he is permitted to believe. It is for the one waiting for light, the one burdened by doubt, the one frustrated by his own weakness, and the one who has mistaken religious activity for genuine faith.
It is also for Christians helping others.
Those engaged in evangelism regularly encounter people whose greatest obstacle is not hostility to Christianity but confusion about salvation. Some think they must clean up their lives before approaching Christ. Others suppose that faith requires a mysterious experience. Some trust church membership. Some trust good intentions. Some despair because they think they are too sinful. Others presume upon divine mercy while refusing repentance.
Effective Christian counsel must identify the particular obstruction and answer it from Scripture.
The seeker who believes himself too sinful needs to understand the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. The self-righteous seeker needs to understand that human merit cannot purchase salvation. The despairing seeker needs to hear the gospel invitation. The careless seeker needs to hear the command to repent. The mystical seeker needs to be directed away from impressions and toward the Spirit-inspired Word. The hesitant seeker who asks, “May I believe?” needs to understand that God has already commanded faith in His Son. The person who imagines that one moment of belief makes later apostasy irrelevant needs the biblical warnings concerning endurance.
In every case, the aim is not merely to produce emotional relief.
The aim is to bring the person into obedient faith in Jesus Christ.
That is the enduring value of the counsel contained in these pages. Again and again, the seeker is directed away from excuses, away from self-salvation, away from religious substitutes, away from dependence upon feelings, and toward the crucified and resurrected Christ. The reader is pressed to stop hovering around the edges of the gospel and respond to it personally.
The appropriate response is neither despair nor presumption.
It is repentance, faith, obedience, and perseverance.
Christ has already supplied what no sinner could supply for himself. Jehovah has made the way of reconciliation known through His inspired Word. The seeker does not need to invent another path. He needs to hear what God has said, believe what God has revealed about His Son, turn from sin, place his trust in Christ’s ransom sacrifice, submit to baptism as a believer, and continue faithfully on the path that leads to life.
That path begins not with confidence in ourselves but with confidence in Jesus Christ.
About the Author
EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
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