Charles Spurgeon Commentary Matthew 10:33

"But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven." — Matthew 10:33 (ASV)

Him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

The attempt, therefore, to avoid all publicity in religion—to endeavor to slink into heaven by the back gate, to somehow or other find an underground road to salvation—is a futile attempt.

Christ requires that we should own him, since he so graciously owns us. He puts it as a solemn command, and I would press it upon the conscience of any believer here who has never confessed his faith.

You miss, at any rate, the promise here. You miss some others besides. You are walking in the path of disobedience. You are, to some extent, guilty of putting Christ to shame. For if others see that you are ashamed of him, they conclude that there is something to be ashamed of in him. Your timidity dishonours him.

Why should you hold back? Are you not going to take your place among his people? You tell me that they have many faults.

Have they more than you? If you never join a church until you find a perfect one, you will never join one this side of heaven. And if the church were perfect when you joined it, it would certainly cease to be so then, for you would bring your shortcomings and imperfections into it.

I have lived among the people of God for many years now, and I, as pastor of this church, have had to mourn over many a man for his faults. But still, there is no people like God's people, and of his house I will say:
“Here my best friends—my kindred—dwell;
Here God my Saviour reigns.”

Some of the best and noblest spirits that ever lived have not been ashamed to associate with their fellow-Christians, though they perceived their errors, but have rather cast in their lot with them, poor and despised as they were, and have accounted it even their honour if they might only be numbered with the redeemed among men.

But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Not to confess Christ is practically to deny him, not to follow him is to go away from him; not to be with him is to be against him.

Looking at this matter of confessing Christ in that light, there is cause for solemn self-examination by all who regard themselves as his disciples.