From the Heart of Spurgeon

Humility (S365)

A penetrating sermon preached in anticipation of the move into the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon identifies the need for a comprehensive humility (before, during and after any act of service), thoughtfully talks about the ways in which humility is tested (both by favours given and denied), offers means of cultivating humility, and then calls himself and his congregation to pursue such a spirit as they move forward together. It is a terrifying thing to preach against pride, because pride so easily rears its head in the very act. Spurgeon, whose many advocates often suggest that he must have struggled greatly with pride, shows us that he is aware as any man of the dangers of the heart being lifted up. It is too easy to wonder about his struggles, and to overlook the challenges to our own hearts.

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BONUS EPISODE: The Earnest of Heaven (S358)

This delightful sermon on the operations of the Spirit is full, at the front end, of comforts and joys. Spurgeon considers that the Holy Spirit is given as the earnest—the foretaste and guarantee—of heaven to come, and considers what it is about his ministry to us and in us that gives us a true sense of what lies ahead of us as saints. It is a sweet reminder of the spiritual realities enjoyed by the people of God. But Spurgeon is a true evangelist. As well as drawing men to Christ by holding up his beauties and offering his mercies through the Spirit, he also warns men of what it is like to live and die without the Spirit of God. There is a liveliness and an intensity that runs through this sermon: the preacher’s soul is bubbling over as he extols the wonders of redeeming love, and mourns the miseries of those who do not know what it is to have the Holy Ghost dwelling within them.

A Sermon for the Week of Prayer (S354)

This sermon on prayer is simple and scriptural, tied tightly to the text. The preacher exhorts us to continue, to watch, and to give thanks in connection with prayer. Sometimes we make prayer an exercise beyond the grasp of an ‘ordinary Christian’, as if one needs a special gift in order to draw near to God, or requires a certain key to open the heavenly lock. Spurgeon’s points are more prosaic and straightforward: continue in prayer, watch in prayer, and give thanks in prayer. That is not to say that any of these things are easy—all require faith, all demand effort. Nevertheless, here is a prescription against prayerlessness and hopelessness and thanklessness, which ought to stir our souls to come to God, to draw near to the throne of grace persistently and consistently, with holy expectation, and with grateful hearts.

Preaching! Man’s Privilege and God’s Power! (S347)

Are you grateful for the opportunity to hear the Word of God preached? Do you go to the services of worship with relish? Do you consider yourself blessed by God to sit under the ministry of faithful men? Spurgeon wants to teach us how favoured we are to hear preaching, wants us to understand the responsibility we have as hearers to receive the Word of God with faith, and then urges us to come prepared to hear it—not because God relies on our preparation to make the truth effectual, but because if we recognise the value of our blessings, we will seek to make the most of them. To read a sermon like this puts us at a distance from the actual act of preaching, true, but let us read, and—as God gives us opportunity—to hear our own ministers, with a holy relish for the preaching of the Word of God, man’s privilege and God’s power.

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Self-Sufficiency Slain (S345)

“Without me, you can do nothing.” Spurgeon preaches these words as someone who believes this both as a man and as a minister, and it is reflected both in what he says and how he says it. He speaks to the saint, to the sinner, and to the saint in relation to the sinner. He assaults the idea of self-sufficiency at every point. Truly the saint can do nothing apart from Christ, cannot begin any work, cannot complete a work begun, cannot do a small work. That being so, how much less the sinner, dead in trespasses and sins. Spurgeon seeks, in dependence on the Spirit, to drive the sinner to self-despair. That sets the scene for his last point, a reminder that all spiritual labour depends on Christ for its success. The sermon is a little uneven in structure, but even that rather proves its own point: it is not human polish but divine power upon which the church relies!

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Struggles of Conscience (Sermon 336)

For so experimental a preacher as Spurgeon, this is an important sermon on the triumph of faith over feeling in the matter of the forgiveness of our sins. From his text, “Make me to know my transgression and my sin,” he draws some consolation for those who are praying such prayers; then there is instruction as to the way God answers such prayers; then there is discrimination between the work of the Spirit and of the devil with regard to the sense of sin; finally, there is exhortation to come to the Christ who can cleanse from every sin. Striking particularly at hyper-Calvinism, and with many plain pastoral counsels, this is a sermon to blow apart some false notions of spiritual experience, and to bring us in faith to Christ for enduring comfort and peace.

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True Prayer—True Power! (S328)

Where does the church of Jesus Christ obtain its power? In prayer to the God of all grace. But what is prayer? Do we really pray? What are we really seeking and expecting? Spurgeon spares us not in this sermon. With penetrating bluntness he exposes the poverty of our praying, addresses our shortcomings, and with straightforward honesty he points us to the remedies we need, and the prospects of blessing held out to us, if only we will go to God to receive them. You may not enjoy this sermon, but heed it well, and you will—you must!—profit by it.

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Contentment (S320)

This is not Spurgeon’s usual approach to a sermon. He opens with a sort of rolling consideration of his text, Philippians 4:11, teasing out some leading thoughts concerning Paul’s learning of this holy art of contentment, and the experience that it encompassed, and the faith that lay behind it. Having completed this survey, Spurgeon applies the text to the rich, to the poor, and to the sufferer. It shows something of the variety of the preacher’s skill to handle the text in a different way, and also shows something of the preacher’s heart for the variety of people under his care, that the different classes of experience should all be addressed, and that we might learn, like Christ, and then like Paul, to be content with the Lord’s dispensations toward us.

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Lively Reading: A Sense of Pardoned Sin (Isaiah 38:17)

A true gospel preacher never holds back the goodness of the good news. In this masterful blend of faith and feeling in the life of the saints, Spurgeon declares the wonder of knowing that God has cast all the sins of every believer behind his back. This is an objective reality and should be a subjective delight! He teases out what this means for us, first as sinners in relation to God as Judge, and then also as children in relation to God as Father. In this, he shows himself a true shepherd as well as an earnest evangelist. His customary assault upon the hearts of those who are lost does not in any way dilute his typical delight in the blessings of those who have been found.

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Full Redemption (S309)

Spurgeon’s rich sense of Scripture is on display here. Not many preachers today might think of preaching from Exodus 10:26, that “there shall not a hoof be left behind.” But Spurgeon draws a line between the complete redemption that God accomplished in bringing his old covenant people out of Egypt and the salvation that he accomplishes when he saves each chosen man, all chosen men, and all that is in those he has chosen, as well as the creation itself, through Christ’s great redemption. No doubt many a modern exegete would cast our preacher aside at this point, but there’s a delightful consistency in his approach that helps us appreciate portions of God’s Word in a new light.

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