From the Heart of Spurgeon

The Middle Passage (S1474)

Both sobering and cheering, this sermon carries us to the prophet Habakkuk, who saw all the dangers associated with ‘the midst of the years’ and the impending judgments of God upon a sinful, sliding, sleeping people. Transposing it to a church which has enjoyed twenty-five years of God’s blessing in association with the ministry of God’s word, Spurgeon highlights tellingly the prophet’s fear of the slackness and slowness that can afflict us in the middle passage (a clever title, for it also refers to the grief-ridden, wearisome part of the sea voyages of certain vessels, including slavers). He moves on to the prophet’s prayer, that the Lord would revive his own work, and what that means for our own hearts and our knowledge and sense of the living God. Then there is the prophet’s plea, primarily that God would in wrath remember mercy. Then Habakkuk, his heart at rest in his God, returns to his labour and gets on with his work content in the knowledge that God will be his God regardless of what the future holds. It is a potent sermon for those in the middle years of life, or of labour, for churches resting on their lees, for those concerned about the stagnation of religious life in a region or nation. May God set our hearts again to plead for a blessing in the midst of the years!

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Prayer Perfumed with Praise (S1469)

This delightful sermon blends the twin beauties of prayer and praise from Philippians 4:6—“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” After an extended introduction which suggests that the preacher’s soul it fully taken up with his topic, Spurgeon first underscores the reasons why Christians should mingle thanksgiving with prayer, urging us to “illuminate your prayers; light them up with rays of thanksgiving all the way through,” so that even if grief and sorrow are the burden of the prayer, it has at least some sparkles of gratitude. Then he turns the same thought in another direction, showing the evil of the absence of thanksgiving in our prayers, showing just how selfish and wilful that ungrateful pleader is. Finally, Spurgeon suggests that, according to the context, peace is the result of mingling thanksgiving with our prayers, together with warmth of soul and expectant hope. The sermon as a whole is not just an incentive to pray, but an incentive to a certain kind of praying, prayer in which pleading and praising are woven together, in which our intercessions are given a sweet aroma by being perfumed with thanksgiving to the God of all mercies. I hope it is as stirring to you as it seems it was to Spurgeon as he preached it.

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The Seven Sneezes & Eyes Opened (S1461)

The beginning of Volume XXV has curious numbering, reflecting the fact that Spurgeon is very sick in Mentone while these sermons are being produced and published. There are combinations of letters and mediations from his sickbed with shorter sermons preached on different occasions. Most of them, taken together, are the same length as his regular output, but following the pattern can be a touch confusing. These sermons share a certain approach: taking a physical experience and drawing a spiritual parallel. So you have here a nose and eyes! The nose belongs to the child whom God raised from the dead by Elisha, and that child’s seven sneezes become a parable of the simple, unpleasant, monotonous, and sure indications of spiritual life in a newly-regenerated man or woman. The eyes belong to Hagar, and—just as the Lord opened her eyes in the wilderness to see the water which she needed for the life of her and her son—so we need our eyes opened. Spurgeon wonders at what remarkable things we might see if our spiritual eyes could see the past, the future, the angels, or the coming glory. He thinks of the things that darken our eyes to spiritual reality, and yearns for God to open the eyes of the inwardly blind, before thinking of the things which a believer might see at the communion table: Christ near at hand, our standing in Christ, and our happy prospects. May God open the eyes of us all, to see Christ for salvation, and to know our joy in him!

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Peace: A Fact and a Feeling (S1456)

There is a state of peace and there is a sense of peace. Spurgeon does not confuse or confound the two. In a distinctly pastoral sermon, he begins with the priority of the objective state of peace, secured by Jesus Christ and received and enjoyed by faith in him. He steps us through the stages of our experience in obtaining this peace, not just describing but directing the guilty sinner to Christ. He underscores the certainty and security of a peace granted by God for Christ’s sake. Then he moves to the secondary and subjective sense of peace, grounded in the objective reality of our standing before God pardoned through Christ’s blood and clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Here again the shepherd’s heart is very much in evidence, as Spurgeon thinks about the way a child of God might complain about or query his own feelings. The preacher reminds us that we do not expect to have peace with the devil, with the flesh, with the world, or with our own sin, and so we should not draw the wrong conclusions from those battles. We do have peace with God, however, and we are told what that looks like and how that operates, in our communion with him and confidence in him in all things.

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Three Crosses (S1447)

Perhaps your instinct in looking at this title is to go, in your mind’s eye, to Calvary, and to consider our Saviour hanging between the two transgressors. While you have not necessarily followed the intended trail, you have come to the right place. It is not so much the men on either side whom we consider, but the man on the middle cross, for it is by him that the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. These are the three crucifixions of the title: first, the crucified Christ; then, the crucified world; finally, the crucified believer, whether that be Paul or whomever else. Thus we have set before us the glory of the cross itself, as well as the consequences of that glory for God’s people. So Spurgeon considers the way in which the Christian all too often esteems and courts the world, and asks us to look at the world once more under the shadow of the cross. He also counsels the Christian about the way in which the world will now look at us, and how they will despise and disdain those who live under that same sweet shadow. Here Spurgeon shows us something of what it means to preach a crucified Christ—not simply to rehearse another ‘Calvary sermon’ but rather to demonstrate over and over, in the broad sweep and the fine detail of Christian living, what it means to trust and to follow the Lamb of God who was slain.

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A Clear Conscience (S1443)

We do not and cannot keep the law of God in order to obtain peace with God. Any such effort is doomed to failure. At the same time, conversion transforms our attitude and relationship to God’s law. Our Father’s rule has become our highest delight. His parental chastisements for disobedience are real, and his fatherly pleasure in obedience is our happiness. It is this latter principle which underpins this sermon: “Those who are children of God should seek after universal obedience to the divine commands.” The bulk of Spurgeon’s treatment of his text is a sweeping assessment of this believing obedience, its blessedness, its necessity, its range, its substance. He then turns more briefly to the excellent result of such conduct, which is a lack of shame. He thinks about this in terms of the believer’s standing before men, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, when we serve the Lord, when we come to our last day, and in all our relation to God himself. Here again he emphasises that it is not our own obedience which we will plead, but the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. That said, there is a peace and strength in a clear conscience which will enable us to come to our Father with confident hope, for the evidence of a right standing before him is a right walk in his sight.

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What the Church Should Be (S1436)

Spurgeon can be derided as a shallow exegete and a naive theologian, but he is not half so careless or thoughtless as many imagine. Far from being a mere performer, Spurgeon is deeply committed to the truth of God, not least as a true churchman—committed to the house of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. His concern in this sermon is that we understand what the church is in itself, and what she is in relation to God and to his truth. Spurgeon not only steps through his text, developing his case, but builds layer upon layer of pointed application, focusing all the force of the truth he has considered upon the heart. Beginning with a reminder that this letter was written so that Timothy might know how to conduct himself in the house of God, Spurgeon concludes by telling us that we too ought to know how we should behave when it comes to the church. This is a most penetrating treatment of the topic, and calls into question, for every hearer both then and now, whether or not we really know what the church is and ought to be. We often talk a good game when we speak of Christ’s church, but what do our actions really show about our convictions?

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Refined, but not with Silver (S1430)

This is a sermon about suffering, a fast-moving treatment of Isaiah 48:10 which puts us right in the furnace of affliction. Spurgeon emphasises God’s purposeful wisdom and grace in bestowing trials upon his saints. Having considered the distinctive way in which God deals with his people, both together and individually, Spurgeon muses on the furnace as the place where we first meet with God, as a place which does not change the election of God, as the emblem of God’s choice, as the workshop of electing love, as the great school in which we learn election, and as the place where God’s higher purposes in election are revealed. Perhaps this sermon was prompted by trials in the church, or in the lives of particular friends, or his own distinct sufferings. Whatever may have helped to stir the preacher’s soul, the result is an address full of sympathetic wisdom, reminding us that the troubles of the saints are not without purpose and point, and that the Lord—in so dealing with us—is acting always in love, to work sin out of us and grace into us.

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A Sacred Solo (S1423)

This sermon brims over with holy affections. Spurgeon is entranced by the beautiful form of his text and its beautiful content, the blending of the inner and outer man in the possession and expression of wonderful blessings. The Lord himself is the strength and shield of every believer. With sweet certainty, the follower of Jesus can say that we trusted him and received help from him. Our response is deep and true: our hearts greatly rejoice. As so often, Spurgeon wants us to know that the great blessing is God himself, and that to have him is to be blessed indeed. He emphasises the reality of this, the certainty of this—it is no religious fancy, no mere spiritual metaphor. There is similar intensity in the believer’s own attitude toward his Lord: from the very core of our being, we trust in him who is such a God to us. And, of course, the trusting heart is a rejoicing heart, making a proper response to the delights of having God as our God. It is this note of praise, this life of praise, at which Spurgeon aims.

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Believers Free from the Dominion of Sin (S1410)

Holiness is precious to believers, and it is precious to Spurgeon—his concern for vital godliness shines through again and again in his ministry: “Complete consecration of every faculty of mind and body unto the Lord is our soul’s deepest wish.” His text for the occasion is one that have used to undermine the believer’s pursuit of principled godliness: “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). First, he carefully expounds what it means not to be under the law, but under grace. Second, he encourages the saints with the special assurance that sin shall not have dominion over them. Finally, he underscores the remarkable reason for this statement, explaining the relationship between the two parts. He lifts us above a mere legal obedience to a heartfelt pursuit of godliness: “not work for salvation, but being saved, work; being already delivered, go forth and prove by your grateful affections and zealous actions what the grace of God has done for you.”

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