Around the Wicket Gate

It is Charles Spurgeon's short, earnest appeal to those who are lingering just outside the gate of salvation — awakened, anxious, almost persuaded, yet not believing. With his usual warmth and urgency he clears away the difficulties and delays that keep seekers standing at the threshold, and presses them simply to enter in by trusting Christ.

The image comes from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, where the wicket gate is the narrow entrance onto the way of life through which Christian must pass. Spurgeon takes it up as a picture of the moment of faith — the small, plain door of trust in Christ — and writes to all who have come near it but not yet gone through.

For the almost-persuaded: those who are convinced of their need, troubled about their souls, and drawn toward Christ, but held back by hesitation, delay, or misunderstanding. Spurgeon writes not to argue the careless into concern but to help the concerned over the last step into faith.

The familiar ones that keep seekers waiting: procrastination and the 'more convenient season'; trusting to feelings or waiting to feel worthy enough; the fear that one has sinned too greatly; confusion about what faith actually is; and the habit of resting in conviction instead of coming to Christ. He takes each in turn and gently removes it from the seeker's path.

To believe on Christ now — to stop waiting for a better frame of mind or a stronger feeling and simply trust the Saviour who is already inviting them. His constant refrain is that faith is not a work to be achieved but a reliance to be exercised, and that the gate stands open to any who will come as they are.

It is a close companion to it — another of Spurgeon's short evangelistic books, written in the same warm, direct, pastoral voice. Where All of Grace lays out the gospel for the anxious sinner, Around the Wicket Gate is especially for the one who has heard it and is hovering at the very point of decision, and the two are often read and given away together.

Tender and pressing at once. He writes as a physician of souls who has dealt with many anxious seekers, patient with their fears but unwilling to let them delay, because he believes the danger of lingering is real and the invitation of Christ is sure. The urgency is that of love, not scolding.

At the beginning, reading it as the personal appeal it is meant to be. It is very short, and best read slowly by anyone who is seeking, or given by a Christian to a friend standing near the gate — its whole aim is to help such a one take the single step of trusting Christ.