Now I will say this to every sinner, though he should think

Host: The chapel stood alone at the edge of the small town, a humble building of stone and candlelight, its stained-glass windows casting fractured rainbows across the worn wooden pews. Outside, the evening fog rolled in like a quiet mercy, and the air smelled faintly of rain and incense. The world seemed to be holding its breath — the kind of silence that only exists where sorrow and hope meet.

Inside, Jack sat in the back pew, elbows on his knees, hands clasped — not in prayer exactly, but in exhaustion. His eyes carried the weight of someone who’d fought too long with himself. At the front of the chapel, Jeeny stood near the altar, lighting a single candle, her expression serene but alert, like someone who knew how easily faith could tremble.

Jeeny: (softly) “Charles Spurgeon once said — ‘Now I will say this to every sinner, though he should think himself to be the worst sinner who ever lived: cry to the Lord and seek Him while He may be found. A throne of grace is a place fitted for you. By simple faith, go to your Savior, for He is the throne of grace.’”

Jack: (quietly, with a half-smile) “Grace. You make it sound so easy when you say it.”

Jeeny: “It’s not easy, Jack. That’s why it’s grace. It meets you where you’ve stopped earning.”

Jack: (looking down) “I don’t think I’ve earned anything but silence.”

Jeeny: “Then that’s where it starts — in the silence. That’s where grace waits.”

Host: The candle flame wavered, catching the gold thread of Jeeny’s hair in its light. The chapel creaked faintly — the soft groan of old wood, old prayers, and old ghosts.

Jack: “I used to believe in that — that someone could forgive you, even when you couldn’t forgive yourself. But somewhere along the line, I got tired of asking.”

Jeeny: “Tired, or ashamed?”

Jack: (after a pause) “Both.”

Jeeny: “Then Spurgeon’s talking to you. To all of us who confuse guilt with punishment. He’s saying: The throne isn’t a courtroom; it’s a refuge.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Easy for a preacher to say. Some of us have done things that don’t wash off in water or prayer.”

Jeeny: “You think grace needs your permission to reach you?”

Jack: (looking up, quietly stunned) “What?”

Jeeny: “Grace doesn’t wait for you to feel worthy. It creates worth in you the moment you accept it.”

Host: The rain began outside, slow at first, then steady, tapping the chapel roof like a measured heartbeat. The sound filled the space — rhythm, reassurance.

Jack: “I’ve spent years trying to rebuild myself — new habits, new paths, new promises. But the cracks always show.”

Jeeny: “They’re supposed to. That’s how the light gets in. Grace doesn’t fix perfection, Jack. It restores the broken.”

Jack: “And what if I don’t know how to ask anymore?”

Jeeny: “Then stop asking. Just cry out. The difference between asking and crying is pride. The throne of grace isn’t for the polished; it’s for the desperate.”

Host: The candle flickered brighter, as if the flame itself had leaned in to listen. Jeeny stepped closer, her voice softer but certain — the calm of someone who’d been broken too and learned how to kneel in it.

Jeeny: “Spurgeon’s words aren’t about theology — they’re about surrender. He’s saying, even if you’re the worst thing you think you are, come anyway. Not because you deserve it, but because He does.”

Jack: “And what if I fail again?”

Jeeny: “You will. We all do. Grace isn’t a transaction, Jack. It’s a relationship that keeps showing up even after you walk away.”

Jack: “You talk like you’ve seen it.”

Jeeny: “I have. The day I stopped running from my own reflection.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming a gentle patter, a lullaby against the stained glass. The colors from the window — sapphire, amber, crimson — spilled across the pews and across Jack’s hands, trembling slightly in the light.

Jack: “You think it’s that simple? Just... go to Him?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Simple doesn’t mean easy. It means honest. It means dropping the armor, the excuses, the need to understand.”

Jack: “So faith is ignorance?”

Jeeny: “No — it’s trust without proof. It’s walking toward light you can’t see yet, but believing it’s there because you can feel its warmth.”

Host: The church bell tolled once — deep, resonant, the sound rolling through the fog outside. It was less a call and more a reminder: time moves, but mercy doesn’t.

Jack: “You make grace sound like a place.”

Jeeny: “It is. That’s what Spurgeon meant — ‘A throne of grace is a place fitted for you.’ It’s not abstract. It’s somewhere your soul recognizes when it finally stops fighting.”

Jack: “And the throne isn’t judgment?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s welcome.”

Host: The flame on the altar flickered, and for a moment, Jack’s face softened — the weary lines shifting into something like release.

Jack: “I don’t know if I can pray.”

Jeeny: (smiling gently) “Then don’t. Just sit. Let the silence pray for you.”

Host: The rain continued, steady and cleansing, like forgiveness falling on the earth itself. Jeeny moved to light another candle — this one beside the first. Two flames now, dancing side by side, each illuminating the other.

Jack watched them, the corners of his eyes wet, though he said nothing.

Jeeny: (softly) “You see, Jack — the miracle isn’t that grace forgives. It’s that it keeps inviting you back, even after you’ve refused the invitation a hundred times.”

Jack: “And the throne of grace?”

Jeeny: “It’s not a place you go to once. It’s where you live once you finally stop running.”

Host: The camera would slowly pull back, the small chapel glowing against the storm — two figures, two candles, one truth. The world outside might still be broken, but inside, something had shifted. The silence was no longer empty; it was full.

And through that holy hush, Charles Spurgeon’s words would echo like a heartbeat of mercy itself:

That even the worst sinner
has a place before the throne of grace —
that redemption does not demand worthiness,
but willingness.

That faith is not perfection,
but the trembling step toward forgiveness.

And that grace —
endless, undeserved, unstoppable —
waits not at the end of holiness,
but at the beginning of surrender.

For the Savior does not sit in judgment above us,
but in mercy among us,
inviting every weary soul to come —
not clean,
but found.