Maidenbower Baptist Church: Recent Episodes
Adoption may be one of the overlooked blessings of salvation taken as a whole, but the apostles do not neglect it. Paul speaks of this heavenly blessing in Ephesians 1:5, telling us that God has "predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." This teaches us something about the nature, the source, the communication, and the purpose of this gospel privilege.
This world does not satisfy our bodies. It certainly cannot satisfy our souls. In Psalm 81 the Lord offers to satisfy the souls of those who are seeking some needful thing, revealing his goodness, his grief, and his grace. Taking his offered mercies as gospel emblems, here is God offering out of himself both substance and sweetness, and so delighting the hungry soul forever.
This is Spurgeon at his most heartfelt, delighting in grace and urging to holiness. Taking quite a substantial text, and holding fast to its substance and arrangement, he brings us face to face first of all with what we are by nature, what we once were in the evils of our minds, our pursuits, and our hearts. Here he urges us to tears of repentance as he ploughs up our souls. Then he considers what the Lord has done for us, ranging over the wonderful declarations of grace contained in the text, and stirring us up to grateful joy, considering not least the merciful works of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit toward us. Then he brings us to the practical punch, that we should be careful to maintain good works. Here he robustly dismisses any suggestion that this is mere legalistic preaching, making clear that to the unbeliever he calls not to good works, but to Christ only. The exhortation to live as a cheerful servant goes not to the slave but to the son, to those who have been redeemed by grace. Inaction here, careless or passive living, brings dishonour to the Lord who has saved us, and so we must embrace this "faithful saying," and show by our good fruit the sweetness of our new root.
Jesus Christ has come. Do you care? Jesus Christ is calling? Are you coming to him? Consider for whom he came—not for the righteous, but for sinners, a doctor for the sick. Consider how he acts, calling sinners to himself in his gospel, urging them to come for healing and salvation. Consider what he calls us to—to leave sin and all its misery, and to come to God and all his blessing.
Surveying the mighty works of a gracious God, we pause to consider the blessing of redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God's grace. This is a blessing purchased by Christ, and so possessed by the saints, and sweetly portrayed by the apostle, under the Spirit's influence.
Throughout this sermon, Spurgeon complains that he is falling short of the subject which he has taken. I think other preachers, reading and responding to what he says, might long for such a failure as this! The text itself is a casket of pearls, and Spurgeon, after giving us a survey of them, urges us to ponder them more carefully for ourselves: "Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all my heart and with all my soul." Having considered some of what that means, perhaps the high point of the sermon then comes as Spurgeon considers the fact that this whole-hearted, whole-souled demonstration of practical love comes from the triune God, and is manifest in all the dealings of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Those paragraphs are worth soaking in! Finally, he offers consolation and exhortation to the people of God, as we consider God's heart toward us and examine our own hearts toward him. The whole closes with a heartfelt plea from the preacher for those who do not yet know God's love in this way to come to him and receive all that is held out. I would urge you to read the whole sermon. I am persuaded it will do much good to our souls.
Spurgeon turns us to the field of the lazy man, the vineyard of the sluggard, to learn lessons for our souls and for our lives. While I suppose the sermon could have descended into mere moralism, Spurgeon keeps it from doing so by connecting the life we live to the state of our souls, and by constantly drawing parallels between our attitude to our lives and our attitude to our spiritual well-being. Emphatic about not just the fruitlessness of the natural heart, but about its proper tendency to abound in things vile and pestilential, he urges us to use every proper means to root out what is ugly and to cultivate what is beautiful in God's eyes. He pleads with us to look to our own fields—our own hearts, the homes over which we are called to govern and in which we serve, the congregations for which we care and the classes which we teach, the towns and cities where we dwell, and the world in which we live. Good intentions produce nothing—the sluggard only wants a little more sleep, a few more minutes in bed, and he will make everything good…but he never quite gets up and gets round to anything. So Spurgeon calls us not to vague assertions of action to come, but of immediate practical engagement, for the sake of our own souls, and the souls of all those around us.
Christian comforts do not make believers passive and placid, but rather stir them to lively hope and therefore a hopeful life. We need to know, then, the comforts we have after death. Some come immediately, both for those who fall asleep in Jesus, and for those who remain. Some come eventually and ultimately, when Christ returns, and all his people are glorified together with him. All come substantially, being real, personal, and certain. The alternatives are dreadful to consider, and give us every reason to offer Christ to the lost, and for the lost to come to Christ for hope now and eternally.
Exodus 34:6 is God's own revelation of himself, a declaration to which prophets and preachers return again and again, as here, in Psalm 85:15. As we again delight in the divine declaration, we should appreciate the contrast between God in his faithful mercy and mankind's typical aggressive cruelty. To do that properly, we must contemplate the Lord, "a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth." Then we can accumulate the comforts, casting ourselves upon this God and Saviour as we know him in Christ Jesus to find his help and comfort.
1 John 5:13 reveals the purpose for which the apostle wrote his first letter: "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." Again emphasising that the Scriptures are written by the Holy Ghost for our profit, and to be received as such, Spurgeon then gets closer to his text. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, John has written with a particular purpose, and this is a purpose which we ought to pursue. The bulk of the sermon is given over the first heading, as the same Spirit who gave the Word carries along its preacher, exploring the assurance of the believer in connection with the faith which is in the believer's heart. This being thoroughly established, Spurgeon also insists that we ought to follow up on John's purpose. If the apostle so wrote, we ought not to neglect what he has said, and the direction he has given, but rather to rejoice in the prospect and engage in the pursuit of this assurance. It is a rich sermon, doctrinally careful and experimentally full, with a practical edge.
This is God's world, and it is God's weather. We accept that man as a steward of God's world may have some influence on climate, but we acknowledge God as the Master. That means that mankind is not the original or terminal authority or responsbility for the weather. It is God's weather absolutely and rightly, and he has established the stable framework and sends the particular elements. It is God's weather generously and graciously, because he cares for the world which he made and the people who dwell in it. And, it is God's weather purposefully and sovereignly, as he sends it for blessing and mercy, or in cursing and judgment. We, then, must take care how we think about, speak of, and respond to God's weather, but most of all we must ask about the relationship we sustain to the God of the weather, the God who made this world.
Do Christian comforts last for life and evaporate at death? According to Asaph in Psalm 73:24, addressing the Lord, he says, "You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." A Christian's life is not easy, but it is secure, and our death is full of hope, our confidence grounded in the Christ who has overcome death. So we here consider death without Christ, death in Christ, and death for a Christian, full of grace and hope, leading to glory.
There are a number of sermons which touch on this topic, or deal with it directly, during this season of Spurgeon's ministry. It is not a change of emphasis so much as a change of tone. He often, throughout his ministry, celebrates the reliability and clarity of the Word of the Lord. In the background here, though, is the Downgrade Controversy, the increasing theological liberalisation of Christianity, revealing where real faith and mere nominalism divide. That context means that some of Spurgeon's sermons, while remaining essentially pastoral, also become more polemical. Some take on an edge, as this one does, as the preacher considers what it means that "the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." This is our warrant for teaching scriptural truth; this is the claim of God's Word upon your attention; this gives to the Word of God its distinct character; this makes the truth of Scripture a ground of great alarm to many; and, this makes the Word of God the reason and the rest of our faith. While there is conviction to establish and comfort the child of God, so there is a persistent resistance to and assault upon the errors that were becoming current, and sadly remain so, undermining the confidence that we may and must have in the Scriptures as the breathed-out and written-down Word of God.
A Christian is a joyful and peaceful person, with a life marked by certainty and security. Christians do not claim easy lives, but they do enjoy happy lives, marked by comforts in life, at death, and beyond death. What are our comforts in life? Though they are too many to catalogue, one way to summarise them is to say that our unchanging God is our unerring guide who gives us an unshaking hope: "For this is God, our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even to death" (Ps 48:14). Through all the changing scenes of life, the believer in Christ is led in love, watched over and provided for at every step and stage, with not a moment apart from the covenant care of the eternal God of grace. This is a faithful love that brings us to and even through death itself.
Why does someone get baptised? What does church membership declare? How does someone become a Christian, and what does that mean? John gives the answer when he tells us that "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn 1:12–13). The end of this chain of three links is our identity as children of God, a privilege granted to those who receive Christ. So this receiving and believing come before this identification. Then, behind the faith that looks to and embraces Christ, lies the sovereign work of God in making the heart new. This is the spring of life, and this is the grace of God.
A thoroughly experimental sermon, in which Spurgeon takes Job as something of a template for all believers, suggesting that Job was favoured (as others may sometimes be) with particularly vivid impressions of God, some striking sense of his majesty and the glory of his perfections. Such views of the Lord truly make an impression upon us, bringing us low in ourselves. This is no generic sense of lowness, according to Spurgeon, but rather a profound consciousness of sin, which in turn leads to a heartfelt repentance, which our preacher unpacks in some detail. Here, particularly, Spurgeon brings the truth of God's Word close to home, pressing it into your hearts, and asking how we hope to deal with God if such a man as Job was so profoundly humbled by this glimpse of his glory. Of course, his answer lies in the righteousness of Christ alone, by whom only we can stand accepted before God, our sins put away and a righteousness established for us in which God himself delights. Incidentally, it might be worth a glance at the texts read before Scripture noted, as usual, at the end of this sermon. Usually, it would be a chapter, or a portion of one. On this occasion, it is the bulk of two chapters, with a selection from two others. If nothing else, this reminds us that Spurgeon is conscious of the broader context of the texts which he preaches, and seeks to situate each sermon within the broad sweep of Scripture, the book in question, and the immediate scope of the text itself.
John wants his beloved spiritual children not to be deceived by those who claim righteousness in the heart but show none in the life. He emphasises the Lord Jesus as the standard of righteousness, the Man who showed love to God and to men in all his life. He underscores the fact of righteousness, that a Christian is righteous just as Christ himself is righteous. So what is the proof of that righteousness? It is doing righteousness, it is living out one's union by faith with the Lord Jesus.
Everyone is sowing some kind of seed: "he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life" (Gal 6:7–8). Paul exhorts the disciples of Christ to follow their Lord in doing good. This is a holy labour, living as Christ in the power of his Spirit. He offers a needed warning, against weariness and faintness. He supplies a needed encouragement, reminding us that sowing now brings an eventual reaping which will be the happy reward of the righteous. All this leads to a broad exhortation, that saints are to sow in season, doing good to all, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
This sermon is numerically significant on several levels. It is the two thousandth sermon, the last sermon of Volume XXXIII in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, and a sermon prepared to be read on the first day of the year of 1888. As so often with these 'major marker' sermons (ones that break through particular numerical boundaries), and all the more so when those markers are loaded up like this, Spurgeon deliberately returns to the very core of his ministry and the delight of his own soul—the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. The sermon is itself is of the utmost simplicity, as Spurgeon seeks to come to the text, and to come at the congregation. He shows how, in the verse in question, God treats sin as a disease and provides a cure for that disease in the stripes of the Lord Christ, a disease which is immediately and completely effective wherever it is applied. In truth, Spurgeon never strays very far from this theme, but an occasion like this makes it all the more imperative for him to state once more the touchstone of his ministry.
It is easy to shame people over prayer; it is harder to stir people to prayer. Daniel's example as an old man in Babylon, a prime minister and a prophet, should help us. Despite his position, pressures, and privileges, he pondered his Bible and was stimulated to pray. Even then, he did not rush into the divine presence, but prepared himself, setting his face toward the Lord God, both body and soul primed for his approach to the throne of grace. Finally, he prayed, mingling adoration, supplication, and confession. Thus Daniel pondered, prepared, and prayed, and so might we.
What can cause an outburst of holy joy? God himself is the source, the theme, the object of such praise, especially in his gracious dealings with sinners. To get to the root of the matter, we must look first at the blessings bestowed, the great mercy poured out and the pardon of transgressions granted. Then we must look at the scope which is expressed—a mercy as great as the heavens are above the earth, a pardon that removes transgressions as far as the east is from the west. Then we must consider the people who are favoured with such mercy: those who fear the Lord, who have felt the weight of their sin and have found the sweetness of divine pardon.
This briefer sermon is 'intended for reading', which usually indicates a sick man writing or editing a previous address for distribution. Brevity here does not undermine simplicity, clarity, or pungency! The text is short: "My son, give me your heart." The sermon is straightforward, looking at the love which lies behind the request for wisdom, then at the wisdom which guides the loving request, and then a pressing application to be wise by attending to this wise admonition. Here the more practical elements of the sermon come to the fore, although—as we often see with Spurgeon—he usually sows fruitful seeds of thought along the way, quite apart from any more formal element of application. The last paragraph confirms our earlier expectations as well as informing our understanding: the sermon is an 'occasional address' (delivered on a specific occasion), in this case an appeal for funds for hospitals (when such were typically privately and charitably supported). Now we know not only when the address came, but we appreciate more fully why Spurgeon has been pressing for the heart—because once our heavenly Father has our heart, he has our hands, too, in cheerful dispensation of our good things. In addition, the final appeal is pleasingly quirky—before the plate is being passed round for the collection of money, Spurgeon passes around his own invisible plate, for the collection of hearts.
Solomon, the son of David, stood before the temple as it was filled with the glory of the Lord, and led Israel in blessing the Lord their God. His heart was full with the fact that the Lord God of Israel had "fulfilled with his hands what he spoke with his mouth" to his father David. We can follow this Solomon as he contemplates the promises that God made and the performances which followed, leading to the praises of the inheritor. At the same time, we must recognise that this is even more wonderfully true of the Son of David who has built a spiritual temple, and in whom God has wonderfully accomplished his covenant with David to a glorious degree.
By October of 1887 the Downgrade Controversy—the battle against doctrinal decay in the professing church of Christ—was in full swing. Letters had appeared in The Sword and the Trowel over the previous months, and Spurgeon himself had entered the fray through August and into September. The sermon which we consider today is clearly the fruit of that conflict, with Spurgeon feeling "as if the text had been newly written for the present occasion, for it is in every syllable most suitable to the immediate crisis." That text is Zephaniah 3:16–18, where the Lord calls his people to faithful labour and promises his saving and succouring mercies to them. Spurgeon handles the text by looking at the present trials of God's people, the glorious consolation which they have in the midst of those trials, and the brave conduct which ought to characterise them in the face of those trials. Many of us see the unhappy inheritance of the theological liberalism which took root at the end of the nineteenth century. While we may not be of the generation which saw the downgrade, we can—if we continue to heed Spurgeon's call to arms—be a generation which seeks to recover some of the lost ground.
In this fourth sermon on the means of grace, we have to consider that these things are not merely mechanical. We do not merely go through the motions and collect grace. God's grace is made known in Christ, and our approach must be relational, eager to know more of the Saviour by the means provided for us.
Psalm 13 begins low and ugly, but rises to beauty. The pain of the opening verses gives way to the prayer of the second short section, concluding with the praise of the last few lines, from which vantage point we can look back and see several things. First, the direction of praise, which is toward the Lord to whom he has looked and to whom he has cried. The expression of praise is strong and substantial and sweet, as the psalmist sings of God's salvation. That leads us to the foundation of praise, the bountiful dealings of a gracious God.
It is by no means deliberate that the last few sermons have not had the 'classic' Spurgeon three point structure, but I hope that it at least undermines the weary assertion that this preacher 'invariably' has three points. This sermon has an interesting balance, because it has two main divisions but is still divided into thirds. The sermon finds us on the Emmaus road, with two disciples who are thinking foolishly, "slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." Spurgeon is blunt and forceful in dealing with this matter. Speaking first to the true believer, he asserts, first, that unbelief is folly, and, second, that unbelief arises from slowness of heart. The preacher simply explores those two assertions arising from the text, analysing and anatomising our dull hearts. He closes that portion of the sermon with an encouragement—that slowness of heart is not the same as hardness of heart, and that those who weary of their doubts should abandon them for the faith that not only saves but also secures. Then, with that element of the sermon concluded, Spurgeon asks his believing congregation to pray as he speaks directly to the unconverted. The last third of the sermon is a sustained plea to those who do not yet believe, seeking to expose and to correct the folly and dullness that grips such hearts, concluding with warnings and pleadings. The sermon is striking in its directness and in the arrangement which serves as a vehicle for that direct address, looking first the doubting believer and then the unbeliever in the eye with affection and concern, and speaking to the soul.
In this third sermon on the means of grace, we have to consider that these things are not merely mechanical. We do not merely go through the motions and collect grace. God's grace is made known in Christ, and our approach must be relational, eager to know more of the Saviour by the means provided for us.
Why are you not a Christian? We think first of the gracious invitation to the kingdom, the feast of fellowship with God in Christ Jesus, the readiness of our Lord to receive guests. Then we look at the tragic excuses that are so often and so easily made, by us as much as by others. Then we have to press the question home, as we consider the person who invites us, what is at stake, and the uncertainty of further opportunity to come.
"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies." So writes the man of God in Psalm 25:10, and so preaches the servant of God in this sermon. In another simply structured sermon—remember, Spurgeon deliberately seeks to avoid complexity—he first paints the portrait of the covenanter, the man who keeps the covenant and testimonies of the Lord. As you might imagine, the preacher takes the opportunity to portray a truly Christian man, one thoroughly persuaded of his own sin and misery, but equally delighted with the provision God has made in Christ Jesus for sinners, and so committed to the Saviour and to the way of the righteous. But the man is no static saint: he walks that road, and find it to be paved with mercy and truth, not so much on his account, but on the Lord's. Spurgeon emphasises that this is the way by which the Lord draws near to the covenanting man, and these are the blessings which he showers upon him. Thus the experience described is less that of the covenanter seeking the Lord, and more the Lord favouring the covenanter. So the preacher both encourages the saint to keep God's covenant and testimonies, and challenges the sinner as to the misery and emptiness of life without God.
Having seen that our Lord Jesus is the fountain or reservoir of grace, full of grace and truth, next we ask how we come to enjoy the fullness of grace that is found in him. By what means does God show Christ to us? By what channels does God pour out, or communicate to us, the grace that is in Christ? How do we enjoy communion with him? The pattern of the early church is clear, and the pursuit of Christ in the various means of grace which they embraced from the beginning: the word, the sacraments, and prayer.
The simple structure of this two-pronged sermon by no means provides for any shallowness. The bulk of the address is given over to a careful consideration of God's thoughts toward us, thoughtfully mined from the text. In this respect, it is a masterpiece of exegetical clarity, simply considering the implications of the specific words of Scripture, allowing the phrases to have their full weight, and working out not only their obvious meanings but also their more subtle suggestions. The second element of the sermon considers our attitude toward God in the light of his thoughts toward us, and here the tone is more applicatory, wisely suggesting how divine truth calls forth an appropriate response. There are no real verbal fireworks, no sustained flights of soaring rhetoric. Rather, we have sweet and solid gospel logic that carries us smoothly and forcefully toward the ultimate purposes that God in his mercy has for his beloved people.
The apostle Paul had a holy dread of the Philippians sliding away from the faith of Jesus Christ. Spurgeon says he does not doubt the victory, but neither would he have it lost. Being "in the Lord," these believers are in their right place, and Spurgeon explains what that means for the Philippians and for others who have entrusted themselves to Jesus Christ. Furthermore, they need to keep their right place. If they are in the Lord, then that is where they need to "stand fast," in faith, in life, in experience, in holiness, without wearying or warping or wandering. But it is all very well to exhort a saint to stand fast—how is he or she to do so? What motives enable and sustain such endurance in the faith? Spurgeon often challenges us in the light of particular encouragements, or encourages us in the light of particular challenges: here he does the latter, reminding us of our citizenship in heaven, our expectation of Christ's return and our transformation, and the resources at our disposal in this pilgrimage. So, with our eyes firmly fixed on Christ and the fulness that is in him, we press toward the prize, holding firmly to Christ and his truth, standing fast in the Lord.
Here we seek to follow Christ along the path of duty, remembering that we are unlike him in some things and like him in others. As Christ enters Gethsemane, he faces a legitimate distress, raises a heartfelt plea, and demonstrates an entire submission. Walking in his footsteps, and appreciating that we do not drink the cup he drank, nor face the sorrow he faced, yet still there is for us a real distress, a painful dilemma, and a humble duty.
In Christ is all the fulness of God, and grace for grace, and so all that a sinner needs for all of life is found in him. There is grace for living, there is grace for growing, there is grace for serving, there is grace for dying, and there will be grace for glory, too. Let no sinner despair, and let no saint doubt—in Christ is all that we need, by God's gracious design, for all our salvation.
After a brief survey of the ways in which Psalm has been a blessing to true believers through the century, Spurgeon tells us how he intends to use it—to speak on the confidence of the saints, on the courage with grows from that confidence, and the way in which that courage will be tested. Each of those three points hangs upon an element of his text. However, in the background of the whole sermon hangs the fact of the Ligurian earthquake, with an associated tsunami, which struck northern Italy and the French Riviera (including Spurgeon's beloved Mentone) a few days earlier. It was a significant enough event to mean that the thought of the shaking earth and the roaring seas would have been close to the minds of the preacher's congregation, increasing their interest and the impact of the truth on their souls. It is, then, not only a fine example of a sermon well-grounded in a text, but also of a sermon which takes account of current events, and uses them to draw the attention of the hearers to eternal truths.
When asked about salvation, Paul and Silas point immediately, clearly, unreservedly and, unequivocally to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of a sinner. They make clear the quality of the Saviour of a sinner, his names and titles giving us the essence of his person and work. They show the centrality of the Saviour of a sinner, arrow in in on Christ Jesus. This reminds us of the exclusivity of the Saviour of a sinner, for there are no others in the running or the reckoning. It emphasises the sufficiency of the Saviour of a sinner—none other is offered because none other is needed. This is our Saviour to believe and to proclaim.
What is a sinner's experience of being saved? While the precise details might differ, the essential contours will be the same, whether or not you are Lydia the seller of purple or the jailer in Philippi. Looking at his experience, we see that a sinner expresses a deep sense of his own need, grasps a rich promise of divine salvation, receives a broad offer of heavenly mercy, hears a sweet explanation of God's grace, shows an immediate change of heart and life, testifies to his new-found faith in baptism, and rejoices in the favour he has been granted in Christ Jesus. There is no other path. All must come to the same salvation by way of the same Saviour.
From time to time Spurgeon preaches a sermon from multiple texts. Some of these are by way of development, some by way of contrast, some by way of confirmation and reiteration. This sermon belongs to that last category. The same phrase occurs in each text: "Lay hold on eternal life." Emphasising first the vital important of knowing and obtaining this life, and therefore the need for every man to lay hold upon it, the preacher then begins to plead and enforce the exhortation. We are to believe in it as it is presented in the Scriptures and impressed upon us by the Holy Spirit—it must be more than an idea to us. We must possess it, laying hold of it by putting our faith in Jesus Christ and working it out in all our actions. We must watch over it, for it is too easily shrivelled and undermined. We need to fulfil it, living here as those who have this life everlasting in our souls, with its realities conditioning our use of our time and strength. Then, we need to expect it—we must eagerly anticipate it as something that we enter fully before very long. How much do we consider eternal life? Perhaps even as Christians it tends to fade into the background. Spurgeon rescues it from neglect, and sets it before our eyes, front and centre, and very much within present grasp.
The text is Genesis 32:12, part of Jacob's prayer to the Lord his God: "For you said, 'I will surely treat you well…" In Spurgeon's translation, it is, "I will surely do thee good." After something of a meditation on Jacob's privilege, and ours, of having the living God as our God, Spurgeon emphasises the further blessing of being able to come before him in prayer. This leads him into a sermon about praying, the kind of sermon to which he often returns, pressing home not only the wonder but the necessity of calling upon the Lord. Here Jacob's prayer becomes first our memorial, for we need to remember what the Lord has said, studying out the distinctive elements of his particular promises to us. We ought to consider this prayer next as God's bond—his promise holding him fast to a particular course of action. Everything that is in God secures the assured outcome. And so this ought to be our plea in prayer also: "You said!" What a childlike plea! How earnest and how expectant! Here is a way to plead which will bring the pledged result to everyone who comes with faith to the God who has promised blessing to those who call upon him. And so we still learn, from Jacob, how to pray.
The Lord speaks by Isaiah to offer rest and refreshment to weary souls, the prophet communicating industriously, simply, patiently, progressively, and attractively, a model for the teacher and preacher of gospel truth. That rest and refreshment are described, the language telling us that this gospel blessing is fitting, effective, and available. But, tragically, this very rest and refreshment was resisted by those to whom it was merely childish babbling, and to they brought judgment on themselves. Will we resist or receive God's rest in Christ?
What happens when you pray? What should you expect? The foundation of our prayers is laid in God himself, in his faithful love, his gracious plan, and his precious word. The expression of our prayers, springing from that foundation, is in a calling upon the Lord and praying to him, an expectant looking. Then the expectation of our prayers is that, framed by God and his plan and his promises, he will respond readily and richly, and so bless his people, not because of any good thing in them, but because of his own goodness toward them.
Spurgeon's gospel logic is uncomplicated, in principle and in practice, and it shows here. Our Lord says, "If you love me, keep my commandments." It is clear from this sermon that the straightforwardness of this statement was as objectionable then as now, and caused as many problems. Beginning with a stimulating survey of all the 'ifs' in the chapter, the preacher then settles on this simple statement as a very serious 'if', having to do with the very question of love in the heart of a man, the presence or absence of faith's affectionate attachment to Christ as Lord and Saviour. Spurgeon next makes clear that the test of love is judiciously chosen: obedience as a demonstration of love cuts through so much fluff and stuff, and gets to the core of things. Spurgeon explains the wisdom of this test, and why it is such an appropriate and clear indication of whether or not there is love to the Lord in the heart. Running out of time, he gives us just a couple of lines to assure us that love will endure this test, before closing with a brief series of potent applications, exhorting the saints to discover and hold to the commandments of Christ as they come to bear upon us, and challenging unbelievers to face the fearful consequences of declaring that they do not have any love to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners.
Here is another probing sermon, profitable even when painful. Here is the Christ walking among the Ephesian church in Revelation 2, first of all perceiving their hearts and lives and concluding that while he knows their works he still has something against them. The Lord therefore issues a prescription, to remember from where they have fallen, and to repent. This leads to our Lord's persuasion, in which he issues both a threatening warning and a sweet promise. You can see that the intention is not at all to crush, but there is still a challenge to our souls in the first heading, as we are forced to face the possibility of declining love for Christ in our hearts. The prescription comes to us clearly and helpfully, in three yoked commands: remember, repent, and return. Again, this is not difficult to understand, but it is not necessarily easy to obey. Finally, Spurgeon presses in some motives with our Lord's persuasives, his warning and his promising, both designed to put us back in the way of love. To decline in love to Christ is the Christian's wasting disease; to grow in love for Christ is the Christian's foretaste of glory. So we are obliged to look into our own hearts, not in hopeless despair, but in order that we might, at Christ's direction and invitation, address any drifting away from him whom our souls love.
The disciples were not inclined to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. They were intelligent men, they were convinced Jews, and they were learning disciples, and were resistant to the idea of a risen Jesus. In the face of their suspicion, the Lord gave them a great deal of instruction. They heard his voice and words, they saw his hands and feet, they touched his flesh and bones, they gave him fish and honeycomb, and they thought about the truth which they had been taught. All of this provides a great deal of instruction: a rebuke to unbelief, an offer or life, a gift of peace, a prompt to fellowship, and a glimpse of hope.
Who can plumb the depths of our Lord's sorrows, or scale the heights of his joys? It was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross and despised the shame. So we will ask what was it that Jesus did when he so endured and so despised. We must consider how he did this, and what was that joy which sustained him. Finally, we will assess whether or not Jesus has entered that joy, or in what sense he already enjoys or still anticipates that joy that was set before him. This is the Christ whom we are called to consider as we run the race that is set before us.
I doubt that anyone who reads Spurgeon with any consistency and seriousness thinks of him as a soft preacher. Some may have a notion of him as some genial Victorian pulpiteer, but a few sermons will quickly dispel the image, and reveal a man whose compassion is matched with his conviction, whose kindness is rivalled only by his courage. The result is sermons which bite and sting, and sometimes constitute a sustained assault upon the Christian conscience. This sermon is one such, a penetrating study of Numbers 32:23 and the suggestion that Gad and Reuben might have held back when the time came to conquer the Promised Land. Spurgeon transfers the principle to those professing believers who do not go up to spiritual war with their brothers, who sinned against their brothers and their Lord by the great sin of doing nothing. Spurgeon holds nothing back in pressing this principle into the conscience of his hearers, and our own, by extension. This, he makes clear, is a sin that will find us out. There is, of course, a danger that sermons like this will trouble the feeble and stir up a false guilt, but there is an equal need for sermons which fearlessly probe both our motives and our intentions, and call us to consider whether or not we are serving God and his people as we could and as we should.
"These are days of great looseness; everywhere I see great laxity of doctrinal belief, and gross carelessness in religious practice. Christian people are doing to-day what their forefathers would have loathed. Multitudes of professors are but very little different from worldlings. Men's religion seems to hang loosely about them, as if it did not fit them: the wonder is that it does not drop off from them. Men are so little braced up as to conscientious conviction and vigorous resolve, that they easily go to pieces if assailed by error or temptation. The teaching necessary for to-day is this: 'Gird up the loins of your mind,' brace yourselves up; pull yourselves together; be firm, compact, consistent, determined. Do not be like quicksilver, which keeps on dissolving and running into fractions; do not fritter away life upon trifles, but live to purpose, with undivided heart, and decided resolution." So Spurgeon describes the reason for preaching this sermon, and what more can we say by way of introduction? It expresses the preacher's profound concern and earnest plea. The sermon develops as the sustained exhortation of a pastor confident that the motives which the gospel supplies will be sufficient to establish and encourage the people of God in a lukewarm and watery age.
What distresses a true Christian? What makes a believer weep? In Psalm 119:136 we see a child of God grieved over sin. It is a constant grief, it is a great grief, it is a personal grief, and it is distinctly a godly grief, a Christlike sorrow that arises out of the dishonour done to a holy God and the misery brought upon sinful men. As it is Christ who gives us the prime example of such grief, so it is to Christ that we must go for our obtaining and expressing of this grief.
Repeatedly, insistently, joyfully, earnestly, Spurgeon pounds away on the same drum: "Rejoice evermore!" His introduction is unusually long, situating, explaining, illustrating, and enforcing the command of the text. Only then does he come to the quality of the joy which a Christian is commanded to feel and express. He moves on to the object of this joy, considering God and his covenant as causes of joy, and encouraging us to stir up joy by holy exercise. Then he gives us more reasons for rejoicing—that it wards off temptation, shuts out worldly mirth, encourages saints, and attracts sinners. In a sense, the sermon is worth reading for the spontaneous outflow of thought and encouragement contained in (or bursting out of!) the introduction. One almost wonders if Spurgeon suddenly took a breath, and realised half his time had gone before he had even begun his first point! With marvellous sermonic control, not rattling things off, but with a kind of condensed fervour, he covers his ground tersely and intensely, pressing home flashes of insight and exhortation. It is a wonderful theme, well-handled both in terms of its matter and its manner.
Out of his comfort in his Father's sovereign grace, and his pleasure in revealing his Father, the Lord invites to come to him all who labour and are heavy-laden, and he will give them rest. This shows us something of Christ's delight in salvation, that he urges people to come to him. It points us to Christ's concern in salvation for all those who labour and are heavy-laden. It emphasises Christ's offer in salvation: the gift of rest, now and eternally, to all who come to him.
If you ever feel besieged, the Thessalonian believers would have sympathised with you. Paul, himself assaulted, nevertheless expressed his concern for and confidence about the saints in Thessalonica. He is realistic about the real danger that Christians face, the evil one who seeks in all things to hinder and harm us. He is confident because of the faithful Lord whom Christians trust. He relies on the gracious care that Christians have as the Lord establishes and guards his beloved people.
Racing through his text, throwing light upon it from various angles, Spurgeon gives us a sermon full of hope, because full of Christ. He begins by showing us that the gospel of faith is evidently a gospel for those who are lost. Then we are reminded that this gospel has to do with Christ Jesus, and him only. The faith which saves makes a particular confession about this Christ. This faith in Christ brings with it a great comfort to enjoy. Faith also has a sure promise to rest upon. There is a rising intensity through this sermon, as Christ comes more and more into view as the object of faith, and the preacher pleads with his congregation to get to grips with Christ as confessing believers and believing confessors. The risen Christ is the only hope of every sinner: "This is the ship which has carried thousands to heaven. We who go on board shall get to heaven by it. If it could go down, we should all sink together; but as it floats safely, we will all sail together to the Fair Havens. There is no second vessel on this line; and there is no other line. This one chartered barque of salvation by a confessing faith now lies at the quay. Come on board! Come on board at once! God help you to come on board at this very moment, for Jesus Christ's sake!"
A true child of God serves out of love, not for a carnal reward. Nevertheless, the Lord in his mercy makes certain promises toward those who serve well. As we conclude our brief survey of the character and work of deacons, we ask, "What does the church expect of deacons?" The answer is, we expect them to serve, and to serve well. So we must consider first the service that deacons render, and what it means to serve well. Then we can ask about the reward that deacons enjoy—a good standing with God and with men, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Do the deacons we have model this service? What other men are developing or demonstrating such a spirit? Are all God's people marked by hearts and hands compelled by his grace?
A simple division and a thorough exposition form the bedrock of a sermon urging the saints to pray. Rising from Paul's plea to the Romans at the end of the fifteenth chapter of that letter, Spurgeon emphasises the need even of an apostle for the intercessions of the saints, highlighting the demands and dangers that he faced, and underlining the humility shown in seeking such help. The bulk of the sermon is then given over to a step-by-step exposition of the prayer requested, Spurgeon breaking down the petition phrase-by-phrase. It is a simple but effective approach, and Spurgeon's persistent pressing home of its practical lessons prevents it becoming a shallow slide across the surface of the text. The preacher addresses both the general desires and the specific details of the apostle as he asks the saints to engage with him in prayer. Then, briefly but pointedly, he turns to the blessing given in answer to the prayer, urging his hearers to seek the same mercies for the same reasons. As he closes, he brings his applications close to the congregation, reminding them that they too face demands and dangers similar to those of the apostle, and must have the same response: to go to the God of peace to obtain the help that he alone is able to give.
The Christian life involves a growing depth of experience of and appreciation for the Lord Christ, a growing appetite to be like him. This issues in a spirit of prayer to which wonderful assurances are attached. Here we consider a particular promise about prayer, that the believer should ask as he wills, and it will be done to him; then a particular condition for such prayer, that it must come from one who abides in Christ and has Christ's word abiding in him; finally, there is a particular pursuit in prayer, a wonderful circularity in which the man who is in Christ wants more of Christ and gets more of Christ.
Do you not love the broad, deep, clear promises and patterns of God's word? The ones that speak with simplicity and sufficiency to every situation? Here is a wonderful example: "O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for you. Be their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble" (Is 33:2). This prayer gives us a comprehensive request for the tender mercies of a faithful God. It reveals an expectant desire, a spirit of faith and hope because of who God is—we are waiting for Christ to show his hand. Then it expresses our perpetual dependence, our reliance on our Redeemer all our days and in the worst of days, to defend and deliver all who call upon him.
In this brief address, Spurgeon acknowledges that his text—"Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God"—fits best those who are already saved. However, appreciating that it involves a little straining, he still wants to apply it also to those who are not yet converted. The exhortation as a whole gives us a lively sense of Spurgeon's appetite for the Lord God, and his appetite for others to have such an appetite. There is a concentration and consecration of all the faculties on the glorious person and personal glory of the God of heaven, a present desire to draw near to him and to enjoy him. Spurgeon more or less runs through the same trajectory for each of the two basic classes of people in his sights as he preaches, pressing upon us all the immediate necessity and blessed prospect of drawing near to God.
It is easy to reason from poverty that we should hold on to what we have. It is easy to reason from wealth that we should hoard what we have gathered. The divine economy works on a different basis. Proverbs 11:25 contains a promise made, that the soul who blesses will be blessed, that the waterer will himself be watered. We should consider that promise applied to Christian life and service, and then the promise embraced, the challenge of faith to individual Christians and Christian churches to take God at his word, to be flowing waters rather than stagnant pools, in anticipation that in blessing, we shall be blessed, and so able to bless again.
This is another simple sermon in two parts. Whereas the previous sermon offered a stark contrast between the wages of sin and the gift of life, this provides a sequence. After an introduction in which Spurgeon suggests a difference between happiness and blessedness (the former being a good thing, but essentially being of this world, while the latter has a heavenly quality about it), he exposes the world's suggestions of where blessedness—true and lasting happiness—can be found. Then he turns us to the somewhat surprising text of James 1:12 to look at blessedness in this life and in the life to come. Yes, there are heavenly joys even now for the man who endures temptation—the man who, out of love to God, holds fast in the storm, and whose faith and hope and love are demonstrated to be real and true. And then there are joys to come, the crown of life which the Lord bestows upon those who do not turn away or fall away. Sustained and strengthened by his grace in Christ Jesus for every good work, their heavenly reward shall only make their appreciation of God's favour all the richer and riper. Spurgeon gets happily expansive, almost carried away, as he considers the blessedness of the blessed in the glory to come, urging all to make sure that they enjoy this crown, awaking in the likeness of Jesus Christ, our resurrected Lord and King.
Due to a technical error there is no video for this sermon. David—his soul probed and prodded by the Lord—felt his sin to be ever before him. He was afflicted by its grievous roots, its ugly details, its painful effects, its damning strength, and its offensive nature. And what does all this mean for his relationship with God? David knows that God alone can put away sin, and so—his conscience agitated—he cries out to God for cleansing through sacrifice, a prayer that finds its fulfilment in the death of Jesus, who put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Spurgeon is not a mindless preacher, stuck in a rut of structure, though he is always recognisably himself in style. Here he begins with a brief introduction, before launching into a study in contrast between the wages of sin, which is death, and the gift of God which is everlasting life in Jesus Christ our Lord. In each case (particularly the first) he goes beyond a scant understanding of the words, and begins to dig out their sense, and press home their substance, and plead in the light of what he has to say. The first part of the sermon is a pressing development of the misery of sin and its consequences, manifestly weighing down the very heart of the preacher as he speaks. In the second half he moves into light and joy, setting forth the wonders of redeeming grace in Christ, and the free favour of God. He closes with applications for the believer, pressing home what it means to receive this life and to live as those who live indeed, but also encouraging every child of God to believe in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, the same power by which Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. By the grace of God, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ will yet secure life for those who are dead in sin, to the praise of his glory. It is a simple structure, and a striking sermon, and it should leave us feeling the horrible weight of sin and its awful wages, the wonder of God's grace in Christ, bestowing life on the hell-deserving.
Having thought about why the church needs deacons, we turn next to the qualities which a church must look for in deacons. Among the things to look for, a potential deacon must be credible, available, responsible, reliable, practical, charitable and spiritual. These qualities will show themselves in the things to look at: his life, his wife, his home. These are the things a man must be if the church is to recognise him as a deacon.
Sin deserves judgment. Your sin deserves God's judgment. In the first chapter of Isaiah, God declares his righteous judgment against the sin of Israel. Taking verse 27 as a general principle, applicable to God's dealings with sinners today, we look at the redemption promised, a ransom price paid, a deliverance accomplished. Then we turn to the redemption described in terms of the justice and righteousness of God displayed. Finally, we look at the redemption bestowed on the penitents. Where does a sinner find such a redemption? Where does God show himself both just and the Justifier, if not at the cross of Jesus Christ?
Here is Spurgeon at the heart of his ministerial and pastoral calling: glorying in the cross of a crucified Christ. Here is the essential power of all his preaching, and here is the delight of his own soul. Unpacking the sermon methodically, and finding his time running out as he expands upon this theme, Spurgeon begins with the cross itself, and what the apostle meant when he thought of it and spoke of it. He had in mind the fact of the cross, the bare reality of the incarnate Son of God dying for sinners. He had in mind the doctrine of the cross, and all it means, and the cross of the doctrine, the very centre and core of true Christianity. And why did Paul glory in this? Spurgeon ranges across the attributes of God, highlighting the ways in which God is manifested and magnified in the salvation accomplished in the death of his beloved Son, as well as speaking of the particular delights and comforts and stirrings which it brings to those who glory in it. And then, says our preacher, Paul had felt all its impact on his own soul and on his own life. The world had been emptied of all its attraction, all its enticements, all its glories, by the glory of the cross. Oh that the glory of the cross would have the same impact on us today, that the death of Christ would slay in us both self and the world, and so hold our hearts that no-one and nothing else would ever draw us, but that Christ in all the matchless mercy of his atoning sacrifice would be and remain our all-in-all.
The Lord Christ should be ever more glorious to us, his blood ever more precious, his salvation ever more wondrous. The simplest truths should delight our hearts. In Hebrews 1:3 we are told that the Son of God incarnate "He had by Himself purged our sins." We must take note of the Actor who does the work, his separation to the work, the essence of the work, the beneficiaries of the work, and the certainty of the work.
It is all too easy to despise the needy, especially when they intrude upon us. Christ and his disciples were seeking privacy and peace in the face of their own weariness and trouble, but when they came out of the boat in which they had travelled, they found a crowd waiting. What did the Lord Jesus see? He saw a great multitude, a mighty mass of needy people all seeking help. How did the Lord Jesus feel? He was moved not with frustration but with compassion, as he is still moved. What did the Lord Jesus know? He knew that the crowd were like sheep which had no shepherd. How did the Lord Jesus act? He began to teach them many things, to tell them about the kingdom of God, in order that they might find peace, protection, and provision under his care.
This sermon sounds a note of concern. The Second Letter to Timothy has a consistent awareness of certain threats to the gospel and its ministers, a series of troublesome individuals who assault the truth of Christ and oppose the servants of Christ. Nevertheless, Paul's "gracious anxiety" does not disturb "the serenity of his faith." He remains confident that the foundation will stand, because of the seal of God upon his people. With this in mind, Spurgeon first explores the way in which false teachers were overthrowing the faith of some, with warnings for God's people in every age. He then considers the abiding foundation of God, the purpose, truth, and work of the Almighty, which are not shifted. Finally, he turns to the seal on the foundation stone, the mark which gives us confidence, of divine election with divine sanctification. We are at least as well-stocked today with false teachers as Paul in his day, and Spurgeon in Victorian London. It is therefore appropriate for us to maintain a gracious anxiety for the sake of Christ and his church, but also a serene faith, confident that the purpose of God shall come to pass, the truth of God shall endure, and the work of God shall proceed.
Why does the church need deacons? To answer this question we consider carefully a division of labour established in Acts 6:1–7. The church needs deacons so that the first things might be pursued without distraction—prayer and the ministry of the Word, carried out by servants of the pulpit. The church also needs deacons so that the next things might be maintained without compromise—works of mercy and necessity under the care of servants of the table. In this way, all the work of the kingdom can be carried out wisely and well.
The first verse of Psalm 34 gives us a catechism of praise, telling us the who, and the what, and the whom, and the when, and the how of our glorifying God, and the whole psalm provides a catalogue which tells us why we can and should do so: because the child of God can say he heard me, he delivered me, he encouraged me, he protects me, he gladdens me, he provides for me, he inspires me, he judges for me, he is near to me, he redeems me, and he justifies me.
A simple sermon, and yet one that hits home. The texts is James 1:21–22, and Spurgeon does little more than run through the text, taking each portion as an instruction as to how we prepare for a sermon, engage with a sermon, and respond to a sermon. But to say that he runs through the text is not to suggest that he just rehearses its words. Rather, the point of hearing is doing, a real heeding of God's word. Spurgeon therefore asks first what are those filthinesses and wickednesses which unfit our souls for listening to the preacher. Further what does it mean to receive the engrafted word with meekness? How does a creature listen to the holy speech of his Creator so as to profit by it? Finally, what do we do afterward? Does the Scripture simply drift away from us, or do we set out to put it into practice, to the honour of God and to the blessing of others? Too often, the people of God undo all the effort of the preacher of his truth and trample on the very word itself. So, let us be hearers, yes, but doers also, and so honour the God who speaks in the Scriptures, and prove ourselves his true children.
Sometimes people ask a hard question: "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" It is not hard to answer, in one sense, but it shows a certain hardness in their soul to suggest that the unchanging God of grace has somehow altered in himself or ceased to be himself. So Spurgeon demands that we give that question all its weight, drag it into the light, and interrogate the question. By the end of the sermon, the question has become less a challenge to God and more a rebuke to ourselves. Spurgeon puts the question first of all in the mouth of a child of God who is cast down. Then he suggests that it might be found on the lips of a seeking sinner. Finally, and briefly, he wonders how it would play in the heart of a dispirited gospel worker. In each case, he forces us to follow the logic of our own doubts, often showing a merciful lack of mercy in pressing the case toward its ugly conclusion, before turning the question back upon us to expose our unbelief and present God to us in all his unchanging faithfulness and abundant grace. It is not easy to be dealt with so robustly, but Spurgeon evidently believes that there is some value in his rigorous dealings with souls. If we have been tempted to cover up our wounds of unbelief with the plaster of high-sounding words, Spurgeon is going to rip off the plaster and instead apply some astringent medicine to our souls—painful, perhaps, but profitable indeed.
Having drawn the portrait of a persecutor from Herod's history in Acts 12, we turn now to Simon Peter and those around him. Tracing Peter's experience, we see his threatening imprisonment, his peaceful night, his angelic deliverance, his happy housecall, his eventual report, and his quiet departure. Along the way we learn various lessons, not least about the preservation, peace, and prayers of the saints, and are assured of the progress of the gospel.
Paul compacts the experience of salvation into one terse declaration. He tells the Galatian Christians what we were (slaves), what we became (sons), what we are now (heirs because sons), and how we entered into this new state: through Christ Jesus. How, then, do we define ourselves? If we are sons, then we should be joyful and obedient because of what Christ has secured for us. If we are still slaves, we need to come to Christ that we might be set free.
Elijah's plea was simple: "Let it be known that I have done all these things at your word." Spurgeon turns it in two directions. First, to obedient saints, it is a firm ground for prayer. He considers the labouring minister, a whole church, an individual Christian, and—departing slightly from his main heading—he asks how it would be used by a seeking sinner. Second, to those who cannot say that they have acted according to God's word, it is a solemn matter for question, a means of self-examination. As he sometimes does, he puts the question to the same categories as under his first heading from the different angle: to the worker he asks about our preaching and our living; to the church, he asks about our motives and our holiness; to Christian people, he inquires about arrogance and hypocrisy. He gives more time here again to the seeking sinner, with a couple of hints to those who may be converted, urging them to embrace the will of God in those things which lead to peace. Spurgeon shows us here how to preach a sermon on two levels to a mixed congregation, blending both comforts and challenges to various kinds of hearers. The result is a striking call to humble obedience, applied across the board.
This psalm weaves together God's high character and man's deep need, not as contrasts but as counterpoints. We do not lose sight of Christ, we do not disconnect from Christ's people. Here, then, is a man who has grasped God's faithful love, God's ready grace, and God's tender mercies. The plea to be heard, for God to turn to the needy man, fits the suffering Son, a seeking sinner, a struggling saint, and a striving servant.
If you are setting off across the desert, you need water. If you are caught in the desert, you need water. If you have or will have a real thirst, you need water. If you have thirst of soul, you need living water—you need the God of grace to shower forgiveness, peace, joy, and strength upon you. That is the condition to which Christ speaks. To all such he offers a solution: "Come to me, and drink." He is the one who supplies the Spirit, who gives all needful for spiritual life and service. The invitation could not be broader: "anyone" who thirsts may come to him and drink. But the question is real: "If anyone is thirsty...." Not everyone feels this thirst, and not everyone responds to Christ when the man of love offers life in himself.
Our Lord Jesus, insists Spurgeon, was not only a man of sorrows, but a man of joys. He knew joys in his humiliation, and he knows joys in his exaltation. He has distinct gladness as the Mediator. Bubbling over with delight, Spurgeon spreads himself in his introduction, delighting to think of the delight which characterises our Lord in glory. Only then does he turn, with particular concentration, to the substance of his sermon, packing in truth because he has less time than otherwise, condensing his study of the distinctive privilege and character of the saints' joy, drawn from their entering into Christ's joy. He holds fast to his text, before expanding upon it in the last few moments of his sermon, as—soaked with Scripture, and with a poetry born of piety—he considers the channels through which the blessings of God flow to us, and then soars into a concluding exhortation to God's people to enter into the joy which the Lord has secured for us. It is a truly happy sermon, and it breeds the kind of happiness which this world cannot offer, but which is received and enjoyed by all who know Christ Jesus as their God and Saviour, and the Almighty as their Father, through him.
A brief devotion in preparation for a season of thanksgiving, considering Habakkuk's resolution to rejoice in the face of the loss not just of the mere delights of life but the very supports of life. However, when all is gone, God is not, and God is still good. Habakkuk therefore, facing the worst of all possible futures in this world, looks up to the God of salvation and resolves to rejoice and so bring glory to God whatsoever comes to pass.
Here is a song for the wilderness, delight for the desert pilgrim. The song has a strong foundation, for it is a song of God reconciled, of peace established. It is a song of endless resources, for to those in fellowship with God the wells of salvation have been opened—gospel truths, gospel promises, gospel ordinances, and gospel experiences. This leads to joyful labour, for we are to draw from the wells of salvation, to return to Christ again and again to obtain strength and sustenance for the way. Then, and only then, can we sing praises to God as we pass through the wilderness.
What may seem to be a slightly twee title contains a very sweet truth: "My God will hear me." With such a brief phrase, Spurgeon simply unpacks it, weaving together doctrine, experience, and practice. Here is a title to relish, "my God," with all it means. Then there is an argument to grasp, that because he is God and my God, he will hear me. Then there is the favour involved, that all-hearing, sympathetic, wise, and righteous ear which is open to our cry, to enter into our experience. And do not forget, says Spurgeon, the person who is heard. Here he pleads not only with the believer who already enjoys this sweet silver bell ringing in his heart, but also the troubled and distressed soul, sin-sick and sorrowing, who has come to desire God as Saviour. The God of heaven, kind and gracious, will most assuredly hear the one who cries out of the depths. What a joyful thought to take away, and what a great expectation to possess: "My God will hear me!"
si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Many of us look forward to gifts, but none leave us speechless. God's gift, though, is indescribable—it exceeds our capacity for speech. So what is this gift? Why can you not describe it? And, what should you do with it? Here we explore the wonder of the Son of God, the Saviour, given to sinners for salvation. He is inexpressible and inexhaustible, and we declare his glory even as we acknowledge that it is beyond all telling!
Simeon was a godly man—just and devout, patient and holy. He was waiting for the Consolation of Israel. Here we consider what Simeon saw in the temple one day, unremarkable by human standards. We also need to know who he identified, the salvation of God and the hope of men. How did Simeon know? He was instructed by the Word of God and guided by the Spirit of God. So what did Simeon do? He embraced the Christ, and blessed God and spoke of the child's saving career. And how did Simeon feel? He knew God's peace and joy, able to live and die delighted by divine mercy. And what of you?
"The Philadelphian church was not great, but it was good; it was not powerful, but it was faithful." Does that describe the congregation to which you belong? Drawing from Christ's words to the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3, Spurgeon identifies the word of praise which Christ offers, the word of prospect, and the word of promise. As ever, the preacher uses this congregation to hold up a mirror in which we may assess our own reflection. Can we receive such praise for our faithfulness in holding to the Word of God? Have we been faithful with what we have received, and so been granted a prospect of further usefulness? And, with all that, can we therefore rest upon the promise, that having kept God's word, we shall ourselves be kept from temptation? A typical blend of encouragement and challenge, all soaked in the savour of Christ, gives us an opportunity to examine ourselves, to aspire to greater faithfulness and holiness, and to take comfort in the goodness and mercy of our Redeemer.
si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Abruptly, woefully, the apostle James dies, murdered by Herod Agrippa. The narrative paints a portrait of a persecutor in all his contradictions and frustrations. But we learn not only about him but from him, drawing lessons about the kingdom of a greater and kinder king, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who governs all things for the good of his people and the glory of his name. His kingdom comes, regardless of the opposition.
The natural desire to see spiritual blessings poured upon those whom we love makes the position of Christian wives with unconverted husbands a particularly challenging one. Peter underlines the general principle of submission to one's own husband, but acknowledges the specific circumstance that not all husbands of Christian women are themselves believers. He therefore identifies the desired outcome for unsaved husbands, and—indeed—all unconverted family members: that they may be won to Christ. He encourages Christian wives to use particular means to accomplish this, under God: even if an unbelieving husband resists the Word of God, the conduct of a godly wife might compel investigation of the gospel which produces a Christlike character the likes of which the pagan world can never produce.
It has become sadly typical to suggest some kind of tension or even opposition between knowing and doing, as if a delight in doctrine somehow chills the soul and cripples the hand, or someone who is earnest and zealous need not or even should not bother themselves with theology. Spurgeon gives the lie to such silliness with this sermon on spiritual knowledge and its practical results. Before he even gets to that specific topic, he is urging us to consider the value of intercessory prayer. Only then does to begin to unpack the value of spiritual knowledge, showing that true knowledge is truly spiritual, and that the saints should desire to be filled with it. Then he comes to the practical results of such knowledge, emphasising that it motivates, transforms, and directs those who possess it. Finally, Spurgeon speaks briefly about the reflex action of knowledge upon holiness, for the holy man is one who increases in knowledge, spurred by appetite and increased in capacity. Thus spiritual knowledge and zealous labour are properly connected, and so we learn better what it means to know and to serve the living and true God.
Apologies for the blurring at one point...a few technical challenges to overcome this week! We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Amasai is not a well-known figure, but the record of his heart and words in 1 Chronicles 12:16–18 marks him out as a true disciple of David. Representing the men of Benjamin and Judah, he and those with him came in faith, believing what God had said about David as his Anointed King. The faced a test, whether they were truly on David's side or had treacherous hearts. They gave a pledge, Amasai speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit, testifying of their allegiance to David. Like Amasai, true Christians come to a greater than David, the Lord Jesus Christ, receiving him as the Lord and Christ from God, though now despised upon earth. Like Amasai, believers face a test as to their faithfulness: are they truly coming to and committed to the Lord Jesus? Finally, believers give a pledge, not least in their baptism, that they belong to Christ and stand with him and for him.
The gospel is good news. That is not so much a question of 'what' as 'who', and the answer is Jesus Christ. Paul summarises the primary gospel realities: this is the Christ who died, and who was buried, and who was raised again, and who was seen by many witnesses. Outside of this Jesus, there is no salvation; Christianity is receiving him in accordance with this truth, standing in the gospel, being saved by this Saviour, and holding fast to him and what is revealed concerning him.
Spurgeon is as practical as he is doctrinal and experimental (he often insists on all these being properly represented in public ministry, either within or across sermons). This sermon consists in a great deal of practical pastoral counsel with regard to humility, applying the requirement for humility to our church life, to our behaviour in our afflictions, in our daily dealings with God, and in our seeking forgiveness as sinners (recognising that the last element is more an extrapolation from the text than a explication of it). Perhaps you have read treatments of pride and humility that are clothed in a kind of faux-lowliness. It may well be that Spurgeon struggled with pride (several biographers suggest it was a battle for him) but here he simply goes for the jugular of this sin, putting himself as squarely in the sights of his text as anyone else in the congregation, and preaching with a directness and simplicity that is commendable. Because, as he says, "pride is so natural to fallen man that it springs up in his heart like weeds in a watered garden, or rushes by a flowing brook," the sermon remains as relevant to me and to you as it did to anyone sitting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle that day in or around 1883. May the sermon do as much good to us as we trust it did to them!
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Continuing our exploration of godly femininity in the marriage relationship, we work out some of the dimensions of submission. Its religious nature lies in its being an expression of a godly woman's relationship to the Lord; its broad extent is wide-ranging but not absolute. It could be distorted or perverted in an unrighteous abnegation and effacement, or in a sinful domination and manipulation. This is a spirit which is heavenly, formed by the Holy Ghost, and which he is pleased to bestow on those who seek him for it.
Because of the manner of his preaching over time, it is not unusual to find Spurgeon creating his own connections, contrasts, and counterpoints. You may find little sermon 'runs' as he works through, for example, the stages of Christian maturity in 1 John 2. Sometimes he will say something like, "A few Sabbaths ago we looked at that, but today we must consider this so that we do not lose sight of either." In this sermon, he is building on a previous sermon, seeking to lift up a particular aspect of truth already addressed and press it home in a particular direction. Is Christ the Beloved of the Father? Then what does it mean for us to accepted in the Beloved Son? Spurgeon suggests that this is more a matter for sweet meditation than for didactic instruction, and so proceeds to unpack his text in a series of thoughts which invariably focus on Christ the Beloved, and what it means for God to receive us for his sake. A note of joyful wonder permeates the sermon, as the preacher—ranging far and wide through Scripture and nature for illumination and illustration—digs ever deeper into the delight of being accepted by the Great Father for the sake of his Beloved Son.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The Holy Spirit continues to guide God's elect in the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Cornelius having been primed, the Spirit now readies Peter for his part. In this passage we begin with Peter's prayer as he walks on a housetop, and the vision which he sees. Then there is Peter's pain, his visceral reaction to the prospect of eating unclean food. Then there is his perplexity, his bewilderment as to the meaning of the heavenly vision. Next we come to Peter's prompt, as the Holy Spirit himself gives further direction as to what is taking place and must take place. All this feeds into Peter's progress, as he welcomes Cornelius' servants, the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile beginning to crack under the pressure of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5 not only identifies loving leadership as the keynote of the male role in marriage but also cheerful submission as the keynote for a married woman. This is the primary element, an active and positive, cheerful and joyful yielding and employing one's gifts and graces in one's husband. The specific sphere of this submission is marriage to one's own husband, a general disposition that finds its full expression within the safety and security of the marriage bond.
There is little which excites and delights Spurgeon as much as the preaching of Christ. Christ is not the icing on the cake of his ministry, but its sweet and sustaining bread and butter. There are times when Spurgeon is in poor health or other difficulties, and his preaching sometimes reflects his private struggles; on this occasion, you get a sense of a man whose soul is peaceful and joyful, and who is cheerfully employing his strength in the exaltation of his beloved Saviour. With liveliness and vigour, he presses through his text, each point introduced, expanded, and summarised. In considering the mystery of the gospel, he first simply holds before us Christ, letting us gaze upon our Beloved. Then he digs a little deeper, and reminds us that it is "Christ in you" in whom we take refuge and delight. Finally, he looks up and reminds us what it means to have Christ in his people as the hope of glory. At every stage of this sermon there is a very precious sense of real personality, and of personal relationship. Spurgeon speaks not just of what he knows, but of whom he knows, and we are drawn to see Christ Jesus clearly and happily.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
This is one of the sermons preached "on an evening when the regular hearers left their seats to be occupied by strangers." Imagine asking some five thousand people to vacate their places, only to see another five thousand pressing in to hear the good news of Jesus Christ! On such an occasion, Spurgeon gives himself especially to explaining, demonstrating, reasoning, pleading, and persuading that sinners will turn to Christ Jesus. Thus he here holds up our Lord Jesus as the "marvellous magnet," zeroing in on his crucifixion as that reality, that sight, by which he draws men to himself. So he considers first the attractive force which lies in the crucified Saviour himself. Then he asks how this force is exercised, considering the means and the power by which the Holy Spirit draws sinners to Christ Jesus. Finally, he asks what the implications of all this must be for those who are hearing him, pressing home the claims of Christ upon every soul. As you read it you will find that it is not an unusually short sermon, nor is it crassly simplistic. It is lively and it is direct, and the preacher labours to keep every fixed upon the Redeemer. In this, it is an example of truly evangelistic preaching, without bells or whistles, and with no special measures other than this: that Christ is resolutely at the centre and in the forefront throughout.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The Lord speaks of Messiah and his blessings, one who not only brings liberty to the prisoners and light to the benighted, but who cares for those whom he leads out. Here are promises made to you of blessings bestowed and applied as well as evils restrained and removed. Here is a person close to you, the one who shows mercy in his leading and guiding. Here, too, is the path set for you, as the Merciful One leads you by springs of water, and so refreshes your soul. These are a taste of heaven for the child of God in the wilderness, celestial food and favour on our way to our celestial home.
David concludes his applications with strong contrasts and earnest exhortations. Having first set out the reality of true happiness in his conclusion, and then pressed it home by way of personal illustration, he reminds us here of the sorrows of the wicked, the many, certain, and deserved plagues and pains of the unrepentant rebel. The different comes not from favour earned but from faith's reward, for the sinner must trust in the Lord to receive the undeserved kindnesses he holds out. Such a believer is surrounded by divine mercy, giving him cause to rejoice now and always. True sorrow over sin which leads to repentance brings the believer into the joy of salvation, but the sorrows of the wicked do not end.
There are no themes sweeter than the love of God toward us in Christ Jesus our Lord, and there are few themes upon which Spurgeon is more happy and eloquent. In this sermon he digs into the text of his text, working through the language of love which John speaks. Love begins in and with God: he is its source. That love flows out in the sending of God's beloved Son to be the propitiation for the sins of his people, and then flows over in the people so loved, filling their hearts and spilling out into the lives of others. Here again you will find a familiar emphasis in Spurgeon, that it is love revealed in the gospel which draws out love and secures obedience, something which the law in itself could never do. But there is more, the love with which we have been loved does not just stimulate love of another kind, but produces love of the same kind, drawing from us a Godlike, Christlike love which operates in a similar direction and fashion. So it is that we need to consider and enjoy that love with which God has loved us in Christ Jesus, in order that we might not only appreciate its benefits for ourselves but also demonstrate it in our responses to God himself and to those around us, both in the church and in the world.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
David has given us his conclusion, and from his own life provided an illustration, before offering a series of applications. In this we hear the painful echo of his own experience. We hear something of God's own voice providing instruction, teaching, and guidance, and so David pleads with us not to be stubborn but compliant, not to be obstinate but obedient, to receive God's truth readily, that we may not need less gentle means to bring us into a right way. Too many of God's people are like the horse and the mule, requiring bit and bridle to be brought into the path of obedience, and David pleads with us to take the better and happier way.
With a wonderful pastoral sensitivity, Spurgeon preaches a sermon to a congregation which has recently lost two esteemed, elderly deacons. Without artificiality, and without clumsiness, he takes full account of the sorrow of the congregation, while offering them hope and joy in proportion to their grief. He zeroes in on the gladness for which Moses prayers at the end of Psalm 90, looking at the way in which the Lord is able to supply a gladness to balance out sadness, and at the distinctiveness of the gladnesses which the Lord is pleased to grant his praying people. These joys are both real and enduring, and as he contemplates the future—and asks his people to contemplate a future without two eminent servants of God in their midst—Spurgeon does so with eyes lifted to heaven, fixed upon the hand of Almighty God. So he encourages himself, and them, and us, with the prospect of God's work in and after our days, giving us our own work to do and then smiling upon that work. It is a genuinely encouraging sermon, and I hope that you will find it so.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
David has announced his conclusion and offered the illustration of his own experience concerning the forgiveness of God and the joy that follows. Now he presses home his applications. The first is an encouragement to pray. David's experience gives others a reason to pray; they are to do so in any season of need; they find in the Lord a place to hide; and, he brings them into an atmosphere of praise. If this is true of the godly who sin against the Lord, then there is hope for all who call upon his name.
"A delicious carelessness of holy confidence." That is the beautiful phrase which Spurgeon uses to describe the state he encourages in this sermon. Many people are full of care, and the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, wants them to be without care, not oppressed and flustered by a weight of trouble. And so, following Paul, Spurgeon urges the saints first of all to avoid those states which necessarily involve a burden of care which might be avoided—unwise marriages, immersion in business, public service that overwhelms our capacity, jobs which prevent attending or serving in God's house, and any forms of speculation (risk-taking, gambling). He also tells us to steer clear of those pursuits which necessarily involve this kind of care: pursuing wealth, craving a reputation, desiring respectability, idolising anything in this life. Finally, and very positively and practically, he urges us to exercise a childlike faith in the ever-blessed God. Don't drag your troubles, real or imagined, out of the future and into the present; be content with God's will; be confident in God's love; believe in the power of prayer. Do not live loaded with care, pleads Spurgeon, but ask first of all how you may live to God's glory, and you will live as Christ lived—in a delicious carelessness of holy confidence.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
What is your attitude to the law of God? Spurgeon's is typically Particular Baptist, typically Puritan, with a strong emphasis on the blessings of the new covenant in Christ bringing us into a new, true, happy relation to the law which God wrote on Adam's heart in creation and inscribed on tablets of stone at Sinai. Spurgeon emphasises in this sermon that the law of God is written now on the tablets of our heart. Having given us a few biblical-theological insights by way of introduction, he brings us soundly into the realm of the new covenant, showing us that the same law given at Sinai is now inscribed into the core of the inner man, and becomes a part of every believer. Then he shows us what this writing is, the whole, unaltered law, written so that memory, will, and affection are fully engaged, and he considers how the Holy Spirit uses various means to keep that writing legible. He thinks of God as the one who alone is entitled and able to write perfectly and permanently upon the human heart, and then briefly closes with the result of this writing. Here he presses home both the radical change which occurs, in terms of battle joined against all sin, but also by way of the new principle of obedience which characterises the regenerate soul. By way of this he points us toward the heaven which is prepared for those who love God, those who are themselves prepared for heaven by a lifelong pursuit of that which pleases him. This sermon is a powerful corrective to those who would put aside the law of God at any point, as well as to those who think to impose and enforce it by any means other than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The challenges, rebukes, and encouragements of this sermon all carry their proper weight. Preaching from James 4:2–3, Spurgeon first exposes the poverty of lusting, how all the carnal and self-reliant effort in the world never produces that for which we seek. Then, and painfully, he points out how Christian churches may suffer from spiritual poverty, declining and drifting, neither desiring anything worthwhile nor seeking after it. Such churches are often competing for the wrong things in the wrong spirit, even with bitterness. Where, asks the preacher, is the asking? Where is the praying and the pleading for God's blessing, and for God's glory in the blessing? All this leads to stirring encouragements to take God at his word, and to ask rightly of a God who is only too ready to bestow his favours upon those who seek him. Spurgeon really hammers this point home, exhorting us to persistent prayer to the God of heaven, assuring us that the Lord Almighty stands ready to pour out his goodnesses on those who call upon him. So, shall we believe the Word of God? Shall we give ourselves to prayer? Shall we look for the answer, because we are persuaded of what God himself has said?
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The love of God should be a theme to which we gleefully return, though we can never plumb its depths nor scale its heights. Where do we see this love? It has a distinct manifestation, a full and clear revelation, which involves a person, a place, and a purpose. The demonstration concerns a person, the only begotten Son of God whom the Father sent. The location concerns a place, the world which God made and which had fallen, into which the Son came on his errand of mercy. The intention of God's love concerns the purpose, the grant of life through the Son to those who were dead to all good. This love in Christ is to be believed and to be received.
Having begun with his conclusion, David now describes his experience, the painful path to peace. It was painful not because God required penance, but because David resisted penitence. He maintained a sinful silence, not addressing his sins against the Lord. He felt a heavy hand, the Lord dealing with his erring and stubborn child in chastising love. This brought him to a clear confession, in which he was truly transparent about the depth and breadth of his sin. Consequently, he received full forgiveness, the Lord proving more ready to remove sin than David had been to confess it.
It is very easy—perhaps too easy—for us to accommodate the language of the psalms to ourselves, as if we were the primary reference point. Spurgeon here reminds us that, while it is not wrong to see our own experience written in the psalms, nevertheless we are typically pointed first and plainly to Jesus Christ (indeed, it is this which enables us to interpret our own experience, and learn from it). Thus, here, he takes us to our Lord's deepest trouble, and bids us observe our Lord's behaviour, then to consider our Lord's deliverance, then our Lord's reward for his sufferings, and finally, the Lord's likeness in his redeemed people. The result is a sermon which is vivid and realistic in its depiction of our Saviour's distresses, but which also shows the spirit in which he bore those distresses, and the smile of his Father upon his labours. All this puts our own sorrows in perspective, and helps us to understand Christ's sympathy with us in our distresses, and our confidence that—trusting in him—the God of heaven will also lift us up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The last time Paul refers to 'my gospel' is part of his encouragement to Timothy in the face of distresses and difficulties. Timothy will need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to Paul's gospel. The incarnation and the resurrection, with all implied in them, must be what holds up Timothy's soul. These are the facts upon which a sinner can rely and which a Christian must declare.
Psalm 32 is a song of confession and instruction. The Apostle Paul refers to it as a description of the blessedness of the justified man. As we begin studying this psalm, we find it opening with its conclusion: that true and lasting joy consists in the forgiveness of transgression, the covering of sin, the non-imputation of iniquity. These blessings come to the man who is honest with God, and with himself, about the reality of his sin and his need of mercy.
Sometimes you get a sense of the preacher's excitement from the very first sentence of his sermon. It is the case here, as Spurgeon bubbles over from the opening line! With such a verse and theme before him, Spurgeon feels his utter inadequacy to express all that is contained in the exceeding riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus. But, confident that others could preach the gospel better, but could never preach a better gospel, he gives us his best…and what a delight it is! Overflowing with spiritual excitement, his first point really frames the substance along the lines of the text. It is in the second point that his soul begins to soar, telling us that this exceedingly rich grace in Christ is above all limit, observation, and expression, above all our ways of action, our understanding, and all our sins. It is greater than God's promises, greater than anything we have yet received. It is above all measure! What an incitement to come and trust in the Christ through whom all blessings flow! Finally, Spurgeon sets out to illustrate his text just a little more, trying to add a last few strands of thought concerning the patience, the freeness, the effectiveness of divine grace, and its beautiful endurance, carrying us in to eternity future as we wonder how we shall ever be able to tell not just what we now know, but all that we do not now know, as it is unfolded in ages to come.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
We can become so anguished in spirit that doubt speaks with a voice that borders on blasphemy: "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" Asaph pushes the logic of his distress toward its ugly conclusion. In this sermon, we apply his question to three cases: the struggling Christian, the sorrowing backslider, and the seeking sinner. Has God forgotten to be gracious? No, and in each case we must remember the character of God, revealed in Christ, and—rebuking unbelief—rely on the grace of God.
When Paul speaks of 'my gospel' is not a gospel he has crafted for himself, but one he has received from God, relied upon for himself, and proclaimed in obedience. This is the gospel which he preached to the Romans and others, and he puts it in all its context and connections: Christ as its prime preacher, its hidden beauty, its plain revelation, its great scope, its mighty authority, and its saving purpose. By this gospel, the God of heaven is pleased to establish a people, lifting them up and holding them up in Christ, safe and secure in a shifting and passing world.
Spurgeon says that this text overpowers him: "It is a gem of priceless value." Even before he gets to the formal substance of his sermon, his unusually long introduction has turned that gem in the light so that its facets begin to reflect something of the goodness of God, and set us up for the main elements of his address. In fact, he effectively gives us a couple of mini-sermons before he gets to the sermon proper! When he eventually begins to work through five particulars to which he wants to draw our attention, he first considers blessings in their fullness—God as our sun. Then there are blessings in their counterpoise—that God is also a shield. Developing that thought, he then turns us to blessings in their order. Building on that, we have blessings in development and in maturity. Finally, there are blessings in their universality. The sermon is less one of sequence and more one of layering, thought laid upon thought, and insight upon insight, giving us a rich and sweet feast for those who walk uprightly, and closing with urgent entreaties to enjoy and expect the good things that the Lord has laid up for his people.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
There are many who have opportunities to hear the Word of God, some regularly and clearly. When this happens, the devil is painfully punctual, never absent, never late, determined to do harm. The devil is fearfully powerful, taking away the word from the hearers. The devil is fiendishly practical, particularly aiming to keep the word from the heart. The devil is viciously purposeful, intending to prevent people believing and being saved. This reminds us of the power of the Word of God preached, and our dependence on the Holy Spirit, and the danger of a careless or contemptuous hearing of the Scriptures.
Paul refers three times to "my gospel." The first occurrence is in Romans 2:16, where he underlines the certainty of judgment, the measure or substance of judgment, and the agent of judgment. All this, he says, is in accordance with his gospel. How does the gospel of God, received, relied up, and proclaimed by Paul, set forth a coming judgment? Is this your gospel too?
This is a sermon full of life and strength preached by a man full of sickness and weakness. The introduction surveys all the key facts contained in the text, giving us the scope of the whole, and then the preacher zeroes in on the reality of the resurrection, unpacking it in its bearing upon other great truths, its bearing on the gospel itself, and its bearing upon us. The sermon is packed full of theology and of Scripture, as Spurgeon uses the opportunity to join the dots for us, connecting the resurrection of Jesus to various other doctrines, demonstrating how it lies at the very heart of all our gospel hope and joy, and then pressing it home in terms of personal expectation and confidence: we must remember this! His last words are a stirring call to grasp that this risen Jesus is ruling still, and that—whatever may be the eulogies, mournful or mocking, pronounced over the religion of Christ—the Saviour who lives and reigns has obtained and must obtain the victory, and we with him. It is a fine sermon for a sick man to preach, no doubt full of comfort to himself, and so flowing forth from his heart to comfort others also.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
This sermon cuts deeply in order to probe carefully. It is Spurgeon in typically and painfully sober mode. The sermon puts to each hearer the question which Christ asked of his disciples at a season of mass desertion: "Will you also go away?" Searching deeply into our hearts, Spurgeon first asks why Christ asked this question of his twelve disciples, looking at the defections which were taking place. Then he takes the question itself, and this is perhaps the most painful element of the sermon, as Spurgeon points out the contagion of desertion, and how it would cut through the twelve themselves, and the importance of a thoughtful and voluntary attachment to Christ himself. After the wound, the balm: our preacher then considers the three elements of Peter's answer, an answer which we ourselves should give to our divine Leader. So he concludes with the heartfelt plea, "By thy faithfulness, O Lord, keep us faithful!" Is Spurgeon being harsh or hard? Is he trying to unsettle the faithful? Is he deliberately assaulting faith? No, here is a true-hearted minister in difficult times bringing needful warnings to the souls of his congregation, not carelessly undermining but deliberately probing to ensure that we have a good foundation.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
This royal psalm sets out the blessings God bestows on his King and the service the King renders to the Lord. Divine strength is at the beginning and the end of the whole, which points far beyond David to the Lord Christ, the King of kings. In concluding the psalm, we find a good desire for the saints to possess: "Be exalted, O Lord!" There is a good dependence for saints to profess: "in your own strength," at once a confession of our own weakness and an expectation of God's power. There is a good delight for saints to pursue: "we will sing and praise your power!" This is a good response to the wickedness of the world and the weakness of the church, which we should cultivate now and which will be fully realised at the coming of Christ.
In the aftermath of a particular effort on the part of the Tabernacle congregation, Spurgeon calls on the people to consider the spirit in which they have gone about their business: was their service acceptable to God? He is concerned more with the inward disposition of the heart than with any outward activity, energy, or generosity. So he asks whether our service has been rendered out of a sense of our immeasurable obligation to the Lord. Furthermore, has our service been offered up in the power of divine grace, rather than human nature, even at its best? Have we worked with reverence, a holy shame of face, aware of our own personal sins and the failings of what we bring to the Lord? Have we also come in the spirit of holy cheerfulness, with a godly fear? Finally, are we cultivating a profound sense of the divine holiness, a sense of God as a consuming fire? His point is that, whatever service has been rendered to the Lord, if we take credit to ourselves then we are robbing the altar of God. His closing plea would suit any one of us, as we look back upon whatever we have brought to God in recent days: "Let us bring the sacrifices of the last week to him, with repentance for every fault, humbly pleading that of his grace he will accept it, and earnestly desiring that all we have done may redound to his glory through Jesus Christ his Son, to whom be honour, world without end."
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
What is our response when faced with decisions and difficulties? Abraham is a model of obedient faith. It is helpful to consider what he knew negatively—what he did not know when he went out. It is good to remember what he did know—the presence, promise, and protection of the Lord. It is therefore clear why he did what he did, going out as he was called, obeying God out of implicit trust.
This is a shorter sermon, preached on a Thursday evening, and in it Spurgeon contrasts and compares two texts, each speaking of something good. The first is, perhaps, more surprising: it is good when we are afflicted. The second might make more obvious sense to us: it is good to draw near to God. The first is good when it does not sour the sufferer, but forms, spurs, stirs, sanctifies, and instructs the child of God who is afflicted. The second is good because we feel God near us, are moved to greater trust, and out of it we are able to bear good witness to the works of the Almighty. Do we feel the virtues of both sanctified affliction from the Lord and sweet communion with the Lord? Are we prepared to call both of these good? Are we truly thankful for any afflictions God grants for his holy purposes, and for any closeness which he bestows upon us? These are the questions and comforts with which the preacher leaves his congregation.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
This sermon unfolds gradually but surely. We do not know exactly where the preacher will take us, but he is evidently following a planned route, and so we are content to take each development of his theme as he introduces us to it. Considering the fundamental truth that without Christ no Christian can do anything of any spiritual value, Spurgeon first of all considers our Lord's assertion as an aspiration of hope. Then he feels it as a shudder of fear. It presses upon him and us next as a vision of failure. Then we hear it as a voice of wisdom. Finally, it rings out as a song of content. In this way, the same statement is made of various use to those who are or profess to be followers of the Lamb, and each comes in its turn. Even the sequence is interesting: hope comes first, then warning, then instruction, then comfort and joy, so that we are pointed in the right direction, cautioned with regard to the prospect, but then encouraged concerning the final outcome. There is a great deal of discernment, then, not only in the substance of the sermon but in its arrangement, as we walk away impressed with the need for a known and felt union with our Lord Jesus if we are to be fruitful in his service.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Love labours. In doing so, it overcomes a multitude of difficulties. It triumphs over those difficulties in a way which demonstrates the heavenly source of its energies. Spurgeon actually begins the sermon with a meditation on the Holy Spirit as the only one who can work true Christian love in the heart of sinners like us. Christian love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. It contends with and overcomes self, other people, the world, and hell. The middle section on the triumphs of love is quite splendid. In each case Spurgeon shows what is the bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring power of love, applying the principle to our dealings both with believers and unbelievers, and then pointing us to Christ Jesus as the enduring example and demonstration of that aspect of love. It is a powerful and probing part of the sermon. The last section is much shorter, but can afford to be, as the preacher is really just tying off the threads which he laid in his introduction, and which have run throughout the sermon as a whole. As an example of sermonic construction, including adaptation in the act of preaching, it is most helpful. But it is more than a model for preaching; it is a call to loving living, and one that is convicting and compelling and comforting.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
A godly husband is, in essence, a man who has learned Christ sufficiently to follow the Lord in his sacrificial love, loving his own wife just as Christ loved the church. Such love has a purposeful quality, is anchored in union, and actively nourishes and cherishes its object. It rises above both abdication (a cowardly stepping back) and tyranny (a bullying disposition) to do real good by God's own standards, regardless of the cost. It sends those who wish to serve Christ as husbands back to the Lord, for only in him and from him do we find cleansing for our sins and strength for his service.
The atoning death of Jesus Christ is the climax of history, an event at the end of the ages which marked the absolute shift from shadow to substance, from promise to fulfilment. Here the salvation long expected was brought about. What did our Lord do? He himself appeared. Why did he come? It was to put away sin. How did he do this? By nothing less than the sacrifice of himself, a sacrifice unrepeated and unrepeatable, suitable and sufficient for sinners like us.
Though Spurgeon typically preaches from fairly brief texts, he occasionally takes longer sections, and sometimes—as on this occasion—hangs his thoughts on a single phrase. This is not an easy mode of preaching, as it can lead to strained exegesis, shallow substance, or repetitive or tortured structure. While it helps that the phrase in question is the loaded one, "through faith," Spurgeon also avoids these traps by setting his phrase in its context, connecting grace and faith. He then proceeds in a manner both systematic and pastoral, drawing on his rich theological heritage and his concern for troubled men and women. First he asks what faith is, and gives some standard answers in a lively fashion. In particular, he weaves in a number of illustrations to take account of the heat and heaviness of the morning in which he preaches, a good example of a preacher responding to his circumstances. Next Spurgeon answers the question why faith is selected as the channel of salvation. Finally, he asks how we can obtain and increase our faith, closing his sermon with some very down-to-earth counsels. This is, then, a sermon in which theological care and practical counsel is closely bound throughout, all intended to bring sinners to the Saviour and assure them of their security in him.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
We begin with a consideration of marriage more generally, looking at God's union of one man with one woman in a relationship of genuine correspondence, profound cleaving or clinging, total commitment, and a joint commission. From there we move on to begin considering the role of the husband, emphasising first that the keynote for a godly husband, lost in Adam but restored in Christ, is that of love. Love's character is that it is fundamentally Christlike, for we are to love our wives "just as Christ" loved the church. This gives us reason to repent, much to repair, somewhere to return, and something to remember.
While Spurgeon usually preaches on single texts he does not invariably preach isolated sermons. On Sunday 5th June, 1881, he preached from 1 Corinthians 3:6–9 about God's co-labourers. On Sunday 12th June he took up the same theme of labourers on God's farm, this time from Mark 4:26–29, explicitly linking the two sermons together. If the first sermon showed how far human agency is required in the work of the gospel, and how dependent all results are upon the Lord, the second sermon emphasises how far a holy labourer can go, and how far he cannot go: "the measure and limit of human instrumentality in the kingdom of grace." As so often, Spurgeon's structure is fairly simple and repetitive: what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot know, what we may and may not expect if we work for God, and what sleep workers may and may not take. It is an intensely practical sermon of particular encouragement and instruction to Christian workers—and which Christian ought not also to be a worker on God's farm?
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
Timothy was exhorted to let no one despise his youth, but rather to show himself an example to all believers. What Timothy must be as a younger pastor, every Christian should be. So we must identify the season of which Paul speaks, 'youth', which extends further than we might imagine. There are two audiences implied for this season of life, the world at large, and the church in particular. There is a contrast established between the effect of this display, either despite and disdain, or potent example. Paul also identifies the spheres in which this example ought to be set.
Looking to Jesus is the way to run the race of faith, a looking away from all else to Jesus Christ alone as he is presented in the Scriptures. This might first be a look of inquiry, then become a look of understanding. It must be a look of contrition, a look of confidence, a look of dependence, a look of desire, and a look of hope. In all this, it cannot be anything but a look of love to the suffering Saviour who has given himself for our lives.
Spurgeon regularly throws a little exegetical advice into his sermons, often at the beginning, and he does so here, encouraging his hearers to interpret each portion of Scripture in its context, which he immediately applies to his text, in which Job claims that "the root of the matter is found in me." Spurgeon first examines this root and defines it in terms of confidence in a living Redeemer. Next, he digs deeper into the matter of something which lies at the root—something which is essential, vital, comprehensive of all the rest. Thirdly, Spurgeon addresses the fact that we can personally discern our possession of this root, not always easily but carefully and comfortingly. Finally, he presses some practical lessons upon our souls, especially considering the way in which we can—in various ways and to various degrees—be guilty of persecuting someone in whom is the root of the matter. It is another example of the remarkable number of directions in which Spurgeon can turn the truth in a single sermon.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The last great watershed in the record of the Acts has arrived. There have been drops and trickles but now the dam is about to burst. God has put the players in their places and all is being prepared. A Roman named Cornelius is introduced, a devout man who desires God's blessing. Cornelius is instructed by an angel of God to send for a gospel preacher. Cornelius is invested in this prospect, and does all he can as quickly as he can to obey the command of the Lord. Are we hungry for divine favour? Are we thankful for gospel clarity? Are we conscious of God's mercy? Are we grateful for Christ's preachers?
A man's heart-longings provide an accurate index of his present and future character. Put simply, "Tell me what a man really wants and I will tell you what he is really like and what he will one day be." Grace gives a man a new and heavenly set of desires for the judgments of God, what Spurgeon calls the saint's absorbing object. Then he considers the saint's ardent longing for those judgments. Finally, he points to the saint's cheering reflections drawn from such desires of the heart. The structure is simple, with that happy repetition which helps both to follow the argument and to fix it in the mind. As so often, Spurgeon moves without fanfare from David's experience to ours, unpacking the inner life of the believer in every age, giving preachers an example of what it means to enter into the mind and heart of his hearers. Spurgeon also excels in encouragements, which he offers both with regard to what a Christian is now and what he will one day be, so closing the loop of his sermon. And, of course, he wants us to be sure that such longing after God's judgments makes Christ himself most precious to the saints.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
How much is joy a feature of your life as a Christian? While he recognizes that the fruit of the Spirit is one cluster, nevertheless Spurgeon wants us to focus in this sermon on joy as part of the believer's spiritual experience. Some have a melancholy disposition which needs to be overcome; others seem to be committed to gloom as a religious essential. Spurgeon would have us understand that joy is a legitimate and inevitable element of the fruit of the Spirit (though varied in the experience of different believers), and also wants us to grasp the singular character of this joy as well as the various forms and circumstances in which a Christian may enjoy it. However, he also includes warnings about the way in which the growth of this spiritual fruit may be hindered, as well as encouraging us to cultivate what he considers to be the obligation of spiritual joy, giving us various reasons why joy is such a blessing which incite us to seek and keep this happy fruit. And there is a practical conclusion, as he calls his congregation to "rise as one man, and sing, 'Then let our songs abound, / And every tear be dry: / We're marching thro' Immanuel's ground / To fairer worlds on high.'"
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The Lord continues to orchestrate all things for the glory of his name and the good of his chosen ones, and that brings us back to Peter's ministry. First, we see grace in Lydda, where a man called Aeneas is healed of eight years of sickness, and the gospel goes out. Next, we see grace in Joppa, where a woman of good character named Tabitha (Dorcas) is raised from the dead, and the gospel goes out. Then, we note that grace goes to many, as Peter is clearly established as an authenticated representative of the Lord Jesus, which helps to establish the coming spread of the gospel to the Gentiles.
God's people are not immune to anxiety, but they possess a true remedy for the disease of troubling thoughts. What causes anxiety to God's people? Such things as their salvation, their trials, their decisions, their service, their death, and the state of the church. Only God's comforts can swallow up our anxious thoughts, because those comforts are divine, true, fitting, stable, enduring, and effective. Therefore we need to know them, believe them, embrace them, consider them, and enjoy them.
This is the last sermon in Volume 26 of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. After a fairly extended introduction in which the preacher sets out to demonstrate that "true penitents do not seek to extenuate or diminish the sin which has been forgiven them, but they own how great it is, and set it forth in all its enormity as it appears before their enlightened eyes," Spurgeon launches into his main substance. Although it has no publication date, it may be selected for the last sermon of the year because of its retrospective emphasis. Look back, says Spurgeon, to excite adoring gratitude; look back to sustain deep humility; look back to renew genuine repentance; look back to kindle fervent love; look back to arouse ardent zeal; look back to make you hopeful for the salvation of others; look back to confirm your confidence for yourselves. Of course, you need not wait until year's end for such a retrospective. Every child of God can consider what they were before, and be stirred up to such deep affections.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
The God who saves is the God who keeps his people for the glory to come. The everlasting life he bestows cannot be conquered even by death. The Lord Christ fully understands and entirely embraces the Father's will—it is his delight to glorify God and to bless men. Here we see the Father's will acknowledged, that salvation is in accordance with the divine purpose from before the foundation of the world. Then we trace the Father's will expressed, described both in terms of divine purpose and human experience—the Father's purposeful gift to the Son, and the beholding of and believing in the Son on the part of those who are given. Finally, we notice the Father's will accomplished, for the Father intends that the Son should raise up those given to him at the last day, and the Son intends that he will raise up all who trust in him. All this leads to great confidence and willing service to the Lord who saves and keeps, who is to be trusted with the beginning, the continuing, and the completing of our salvation.
God draws near in the gospel, revealing himself in Jesus Christ, the Son. Thus God makes a gospel promise, that "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved" (Rom 10:13). We should see the person in the promise, the Lord Jesus Christ. We should understand the condition of the promise, which is calling on the name of the Lord. We should rejoice at the hope of the promise, which is certain salvation in all its fulness. We should marvel at the breadth of the promise, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
In this sermon Spurgeon seeks to plumb something of the depths of Christ's grief over sin. (Interestingly, the following week, and the following printed sermon, is an effort properly to record the joy of our Lord.) The preacher begins with a brief survey of the three occasions on which our Lord wept, revealing his grief over domestic sorrow, national troubles, and human guilt. It is the second of these to which he turns his attention. Spurgeon first of all assesses the Lord's inward grief, looking at the heart from which poured forth such tears. While this might horrify some (and please others), Spurgeon also offers a fairly bold rejection of divine impassibility (which he does a few times over the course of the next few sermons, so it is no passing thought). He is not at his clearest at this point in the sermon, both with regard to Christ's two natures and the nature of God himself, perhaps seeking to communicate something of the depths of the Mediator's sorrow. But the heart which produced these tears of distress also produced words of sorrow, and these allow the preacher to trace something more of the cause of our Saviour's anguish of heart. All this leads to a pointed conclusion, in which the Spurgeon holds out not only the horror of condemnation, but also the opportunity to enter into the new Jerusalem through faith in this same Jesus who wept over the earthly city.
We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology
This is one of those sermons which seems to bubble over in a torrent from the preacher's soul. Rather than broadening out, it narrows down, perhaps a reflection of pressure of time in the preaching, coming to an ever more narrow focus. The sermon begins with the excellence of a humble walk, considering what that means. It moves on to the humble walk as an evidence of salvation, with Christ in his proper place in your heart. This humble walk is also a symptom of spiritual health, calling us to self-examination, including in our response to providences which we may not appreciate. It is also a cause for very great anxiety, by which Spurgeon means that we must take it seriously, because it is too easy to presume upon. Finally, a humble walk is the source of the deepest conceivable pleasure, for "the man that leaves everything to God finds joy in everything." The sermon is a great example of unpacking a very brief phrase in a thoroughly Christian fashion, pressing it into the conscience in a way that both brings us low and lifts us up.
How do we respond when we are weak and our foes are strong? This psalm, full of distress and comfort, offers a plea wide in range and rich in blessing.The plea is made simply, suitably and sufficiently. The plea is directed to a faithful God. The plea is measured by nothing less than the mercy, the covenant love, of the God of heaven. The plea should be improved, by our learning from it, praying it, enjoying it, and glorifying God because of it.
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."
When the Holy Spirit makes someone a new creation in Christ, then the old is gone and gone for good, and everything becomes and remains wonderfully new. That newness is both fundamental and incremental, for a new heart means a new life. There is new faith, new hope, and new love. From the new heart flows an entirely different way of life, no longer dominated by sin and death: there are new appetites, new friends, new guidance, new attitudes, new battles, new standards, new commitments, new labours, new resources, new pleasures, new motives, and new goals—a life of combat with sin and labour for the Lord.In the words of Joseph Hart:How strange is the course that a Christian must steer!How perplext is the path he must tread!The hope of his happiness rises from fear,And his life he receives from the dead.His fairest pretensions must wholly be wav'd,And his best resolutions be crost;Nor can he expect to be perfectly sav'd,Till he finds himself utterly lost.When all this is done, and his heart is assur'dOf the total remission of sins;When his pardon is sign'd, and his peace is procur'd,From that moment his conflict begins.
Spurgeon's handling of the book of Job is always fascinating. He is sensitive to its exegetical challenges, and to the circumstances of its various characters. Here he takes us to Elihu, a man who shows true wisdom in speaking carefully on God's behalf, telling more truth than any of Job's other friends, and also ready to correct Job's misunderstandings and complaints. With lessons for every preacher and for any Christian, Spurgeon helps us to consider the weight of speaking on behalf of the God of heaven, and the necessary disposition for such a work. He also wants us to think about how we ought to go about such a work, and the various elements of character and conduct which give force to the labour. Finally, and briefly, he seeks to demonstrate the very duty he has been pressing upon others by pointed speech on God's behalf to various classes of hearer who are before him as he preaches. The sermon as a whole is a helpful reminder of the duty and privilege of being advocates for God, in whatever small measure, and a call to engage in that work with a right spirit and aim.
How can someone be right in the sight of God? When answering that question in the letter to the Romans, Paul draws attention to Abraham. "What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.'" WIth his fiery logic, Paul considers a relevant question, looks at a confused supposition and a flawed conclusion, delivers an absolute rejection of the error, and then turns to a clear revelation to underscore that Abraham—like all who walk in his believing footsteps—is justified by faith in God's promised Messiah.
This is a very practical and personal sermon. It does not delve deep into theological profundities concerning whether or not God can in fact tempt anyone to sin. Rather, it takes the whole petition from the perspective of the frail and feeble sinner who seeks from God his kindnesses and mercies that we might be spared from any circumstances in which we might be led into sin. So Spurgeon first considers the spirit which suggests such a petition, the frame of heart from which such a desire might rise. Then he ponders the potential trials which trouble someone who is praying in this way, the avenues into sin which they want to avoid. Finally, with time running down, the preacher throws out a few practical lessons, more seed thoughts than developed applications. Throughout, a true believer's sensitivity to sin—even to the prospect of sin—is on careful display. One catches a glimpse into the preacher's soul, and the holy fear which characterised the preacher and which he pressed upon his congregation. Do we hear many such sermons today, in which a holy horror of sin underlies the whole? Perhaps here is a clue to the blessing that rested on Spurgeon's ministry.
Stephen has preached his last sermon. This one provokes not repentance but unbridled rage. A thread of violent hatred runs through the narrative, against the backdrop of which we see Stephen's glorious vision, clear testimony, gracious spirit, and peaceful death. In the background stands another young man, Saul of Tarsus, upon whom Stephen's witness will have a profound testimony.
When the Holy Spirit makes someone a new creation in Christ, then the old is gone and gone for good, and everything becomes and remains wonderfully new. That newness is both fundamental and incremental, for a new heart means a new life. There is new faith, new hope, and new love. From the new heart flows an entirely different way of life, no longer dominated by sin and death: there are new appetites, new friends, new guidance, new attitudes, new battles, new standards, new commitments, new labours, new resources, new pleasures, new motives, and new goals—a life of combat with sin and labour for the Lord.In the words of Joseph Hart:How strange is the course that a Christian must steer!How perplext is the path he must tread!The hope of his happiness rises from fear,And his life he receives from the dead.His fairest pretensions must wholly be wav'd,And his best resolutions be crost;Nor can he expect to be perfectly sav'd,Till he finds himself utterly lost.When all this is done, and his heart is assur'dOf the total remission of sins;When his pardon is sign'd, and his peace is procur'd,From that moment his conflict begins.
This excellent sermon is a study in pride and a lesson in humility. Spurgeon's first concern is to drive home the lesson that "whatever advantages we any of us possess over our fellow men we have received from God." He does this by surveying the advantages we enjoy, and tracing them to their source, almost brutally dismantling any notion we might have that we have somehow made ourselves to be what we are or gained for ourselves any of our blessings. This Spurgeon proves by unrelenting logic, applied to the spheres of nature and of grace. The truths so expressed become the foundation for a series of practical lessons, dealing with both our attitudes and our actions, as we are both humbled in ourselves and then turned toward our God and our fellows, and directed in the way in which we should respond to these things. The simple structure—two points, explication followed by application—does not in any way hinder Spurgeon's pointed and profound handling of the text.
The true Christian wears the helmet of salvation (alongside the breastplaate of faith and love) as he walks soberly through this world, living in the light. Paul explains something of what that means, drawing our attention to a mercy most marvellous—that God has not appointed his people for wrath, but to obtain salvation. He identifies a sacrifice most precious, for this salvation is accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, through his death. This secures a hope most certain, for—if we have life in Christ—then whether or not we wake (live trusting in Jesus) or sleep (die trusting in Jesus), our glory with him is assured.
Isaiah describes the Messiah as one who made intercession for the transgressors (Is 53:12). With this as his starting point, but turning immediately to the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ for his crucifiers, Spurgeon opens the topic out to a consideration of our Saviour's mediatorial intercession. He asks us first to admire the grace which is shown in Christ's prayers for transgressors. He shows us how our Intercessor fills us with confidence in himself. He urges us to follow his example, because "the life of Christ is a precept" to his disciples. The whole becomes a powerful study in a compassionate heart and voice, pressing us to understand just how merciful it is in Christ to speak on behalf of transgressors, and asking us whether or not we truly appreciate what that means, both for our own blessing and for our own attitude to others.
As Stephen reaches the conclusion of his seminal sermon, he completes his survey of Israel's history and then brings it powerfully into the present.He reminds his congregation of God's presence with them in a tent, divine faithfulness and mercy revealed in the wilderness and in the conquest of the Promised Land, despite Israel's sins. He reminds them that, when the temple was built with men's hands, once Israel had settled the land, it should never have suggested that the Lord was now confined and constrained.Then Stephen points out that the Sanhedrin, far from being defenders of the law and the temple, are the true blasphemers, for they resist the Spirit, persecute the prophets, betrayed Messiah, and reject the law.It is a powerful sermon that presses home the question of whether or not our religion extends beyond the shell of the outer man and penetrates to the depths of our hearts.
When the Holy Spirit makes someone a new creation in Christ, then the old is gone and gone for good, and everything becomes and remains wonderfully new. That newness is both fundamental and incremental, for a new heart means a new life. There is new faith, new hope, and new love. From the new heart flows an entirely different way of life, no longer dominated by sin and death: there are new appetites, new friends, new guidance, new attitudes, new battles, new standards, new commitments, new labours, new resources, new pleasures, new motives, and new goals—a life of combat with sin and labour for the Lord.In the words of Joseph Hart:How strange is the course that a Christian must steer!How perplext is the path he must tread!The hope of his happiness rises from fear,And his life he receives from the dead.His fairest pretensions must wholly be wav'd,And his best resolutions be crost;Nor can he expect to be perfectly sav'd,Till he finds himself utterly lost.When all this is done, and his heart is assur'dOf the total remission of sins;When his pardon is sign'd, and his peace is procur'd,From that moment his conflict begins.
There are vanities and there are verities. There are fancies and there are facts. There are passing things and there are enduring things. There are bursting bubbles and there are lasting beauties. Giving full rein to the force of the apostle's language, Spurgeon assesses what it means not to look at, to mark, to heed, to consider, the things which can only be seen, which are passing away, whether present joys or sorrows. His language digs in quite fiercely, pressing us to ask how much significance we attach to that which is passing away. Then he turns to the things which cannot now be seen, but which are spiritually substantial, the eternal glories which "gleam afar to nerve our faint endeavour." Spurgeon says these need to be grasped by faith as we meditate upon them. They must be considered with delight by God's people, to stir our affections and appetites (though considered with horror by the unconverted, so that they might be turned to Christ before all their delights are ruined forever). They must be dwelt upon with hope, so that we live truly as heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, inheritors together with the saints in light. The striking contrast of the text comes out in the emphatic way in which Spurgeon holds before us the emptiness of a passing world, and the fulness of joy in the world which is to come.
We return to an earlier sermon for this lively reading, preached during the heady days at Exeter Hall, when Spurgeon was still something of a shock to the London scene. This is a sermon on conformity to Christ Jesus according to the divine plan and purpose. It asks and answers three very simple questions: In what sense is a believer to be conformed to the image of Christ? Why should we be transformed into the image of the heavenly man? And, is it possible to be so conformed? Having set out what it means to be like Christ in his character, suffering, and glory, and giving us reasons to desire and pursue such conformity, the last section is a beautiful portion in which Spurgeon puts some earnest, even desperate concerns in the mouths of various inquirers, in each case giving warm and comforting answers. To be sure, there are warnings in his conclusions, but the sermon holds out a glorious, and gloriously-assured prospect to all who are in Christ now, in whom the Spirit is working and will work likeness to our Saviour.
"...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." With these words, Paul defines and describes the true Christian, one in whom a fundamental change has taken place and in whom an incremental progress is occurring, as more and more of the life of Christ is revealed in us. The root of that fundamental newness is a new heart from God. By his power, old things pass away, and we should recognise that this is the case, not being carelessly or despairingly trapped by the past; by his power, a new life has been granted, by which we begin to live in accordance with our new identity in Christ.
The sweet gospel logic of divine reasoning is clear in these verses, showing us the great love of God in Christ. Paul begins with a premise about justification, that every Christian has been justified through the blood of Christ. He goes on to an inference about salvation, our confidence in the face of the day of judgement, for there is no more wrath for us. We can draw, then, several conclusions which teach, warn, encourage, and delight us.
This is a notably textual sermon. Of course, Spurgeon always preaches from a text, and typically draws his structure from that text. However, in this sermon, the exegesis of the text lies on the surface of the sermon and more or less provides its structure, rather than lying in the background. With a little clunkiness at times, though with no lack of clarity, Spurgeon steps through the text, demonstrating why it is so significant that the Lord is here identified as the God of peace, and what he has done in bringing Christ from the dead, and why he has done it, with special reference to the intended holiness of his people, concluding on a note of praise. The lack of sermonic polish does not remove the sermonic power, as the preacher brings the truth to bear upon our souls, turning—with his usual relish—to the finished work of Christ in order to motivate and direct the saints in a path of righteousness, made able to walk it by the gracious Spirit.
In Isaiah 40 we see both a triumphant sovereign and a tender Shepherd. As a shepherd, it is compassionate care which comes to the fore. Three of the Shepherd's concerns are implied: the flock, containing many lambs and nursing ones, is marked by wandering, weakness, and weariness. However, the Shepherd has an arm of gracious strength, a heart of great love, and a way of gentle wisdom. Therefore he gathers the wandering, cradles the weak, and guides the worn, so that all his flock are kept safe. What a Shepherd the believer has! What a Saviour the sinner might obtain!
This sermon has a slightly different structure to Spurgeon's usual offerings. It has two main headings, one in which he proves the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saint, and one in which he improves it (in the Puritan sense of seeking to obtain profit from it). Spurgeon is typically rooted to his text, but in this more doctrinal sermon he proves his doctrine by turning to various other Scriptures in order to demonstrate and defend the truth of Christian perseverance. He offers us seven arguments in total before hitting us with two simple lessons to learn, one for believers and one for those still outside the kingdom. A convinced Calvinist, Spurgeon is concerned not only to clear the doctrine from the slurs of Arminians but also from the misunderstandings of other Calvinists, seeking to give us a biblically-proportioned grasp on this wonderful truth, "not the licentious idea that a believer may live in sin, but that he cannot and will not do so."
Stephen's sermon continues with a long section on Moses, which both disproves the foolish charge that he is blaspheming Moses, and shows that Stephen has a true and accurate grasp on Moses as an example of faith and a type of Christ.In this section Stephen first speaks of all a time of promise, as God proves his faithfulness, prospering his people in Egypt. Then he identifies a deliverer from God, considering the three periods of forty years into which Moses' life can be divided. Then he zeroes in on Moses as a man to consider—a rejected redeemer, a typical prophet, and an oracular preacher.In all this, Stephen is pointing us toward Christ. To know Moses would be to trust Jesus; to trust Jesus is to know God for our salvation.
In the narrative which includes the woman with the flow of blood, Jesus is at the centre. Many are looking to him for help. The experience of the woman teaches us something about sin, something about Christ, something about faith, and something about salvation.
This delightful sermon is taken from Moses' dying words. Spurgeon asks why, given the danger of proclaiming the happiness of man (because of his tendency to exalt himself), Moses should be carried along by the Holy Spirit so to speak? He suggests that dwelling upon our happiness in the right way should console us in our trouble and inspire us for future service. With that in mind, he urges us to chide ourselves for our spiritual unhappiness, if we are Christians, for we have so many good reasons for joy. We are saved, and that by the Lord himself! We are both shielded by God and divinely armed for our spiritual warfare! Our victory is secure! With the bulk of his preaching time gone, Spurgeon spends the last minutes of his sermon hammering home the blessings of grasping our blessings in Christ, running through the impact on ourselves of enjoying God in this way, culminating in the effect it has through us on others, as we commend the grace of God in the Saviour to sinners. He closes by urging the lost to taste and see that the Lord is good, to realise that we have—in our highest flights of heavenly eloquence—failed to tell them the half of the joy the happy spiritual Israel, a people saved by the Lord.
In another sermon from Psalm 119, Spurgeon focuses on spiritual quickening—the enlivening and invigorating of his title—by means of the Word of God brought to bear upon our hearts. It is simple and straightforward in its arrangement, as so often with Spurgeon. He first gives us various reasons why we need such quickening. Next, he points out some motives to seek this enlivening and invigorating of the soul. Thirdly, he mentions some ways in which it is worked in our hearts. Finally, he suggests certain pleas for obtaining this blessing, drawn from the psalm itself. It is, of course, a sermon soaked in grace, for Spurgeon is properly persuaded that there is no spiritual life outside of and apart from Jesus Christ himself. It is also a very realistic sermon, for it takes full account of our need of life at every stage of Christian experience. Indeed, the preacher would have us grasp the three needful blessings in three important phases of the reality of spiritual life. First, that sinners might ask the Lord for life (which would itself indicate that life was coming). Second, that, every Christian would be always praying for invigorating grace, stirring the soul. Third, that every child of God would be marked by a lively appetite for ever-increasing measures of his favour, lifting us ever closer to Christ and into nearer fellowship with the triune God.
This portion of Ecclesiastes can be taken as an encouragement in gospel labour, a reminder that the Lord is able to bless good work done whether the circumstances seem promising or not. So we must begin by admitting our ignorance, for there is so much that we do not know or understand. Then we must declare our confidence in the God who makes everything, convinced of his sovereign care and government. Finally, we must show our diligence, in working morning to evening, doing good at every opportunity, for we do now know what the Lord will make to prosper.
Here we sail into one of the seminal sermons of the Book of the Acts, Stephen's address to the Sanhedrin. The longest recorded speech in the history, it establishes key themes and sounds vital notes in the progress of the gospel, laying a foundation for ongoing kingdom work. While there are various ways in which it could be handled, our intention is to keep those primary themes and issues in mind, while trying to see how they come to light in the constituent parts of Stephen's sermon.Here, then, we begin with the challenge that is raised, and Stephen's response concerning the patriarchs and the promises, emphasising the sovereignty of God's grace, and the fact that he never was restricted to a place, but showed his grace in every place to the people formed by his promise, and showed them mercy despite their rejection of his servants.
Every believer is a student and servant of God, and therefore desires to know God's word. Here Spurgeon moves from the prayer of such a student—to understand the way of the Lord's precepts—to the occupation of the scholar—speaking of the Lord's wondrous ways. Of course, in dealing with these two elements, Spurgeon overflows with gospel delight, taken up with the manner in which God has made himself known in Jesus Christ, and our pleasure in making known God manifest in his Son. But the preacher also wants to drive home that connection between understanding and declaration, between study and service, and so he pleads how the enchantment of divine truth fills our hearts and our mouths with good things. During this season, Spurgeon mentions a couple of times a Tabernacle elder by the name of Mr Verdon, "a mighty soul-hunter before the Lord." He was one of Spurgeon's gospel snipers, lovingly picking off the spiritually wounded after a powerful sermon. Spurgeon seems to have mourned him particularly, and this sermon is intended to bring others into the same spirit and employment. Oh, for more Verdons in our churches!
It is easy for Christians to become weary and discouraged in their souls, ready to lie down and give up. The remedy for this is to consider Christ and the sufferings through which he passed, the bitter words, cruel deeds, and painful griefs of his life and death. We must consider his honour, innocence, dignity, service, courage, faithfulness, triumph, reward, and salvation. In doing so, we shall be enabled to press on in our own race of faith, looking to Jesus as our example and encouragement, as well as the Saviour of our souls.
Stephen, already distinguished among the distinctive, is marked by faith and power in his ministry. It brings him into conflict and triumph, aided by the Holy Spirit in making known Christ. That only exposes him to further lies and hatred, as his enemies bring in false witnesses and make false accusations. Yet even in the midst of all this, Stephen is marked by light and love, by sweetness and strength out of his relationship with God. The man accused of blaspheming Moses and God is a Moses-like man who walks with God and follows Christ to the very end.
In this sermon, Spurgeon—as he sometimes does—takes a verse in its context, and then applies it in a different direction. Interestingly, he takes time at the end of the sermon to return to the text as a whole—the parable of the two sons called to the vineyard in Matthew 21—and to give us a brief exposition of the whole. Conscious of the parallels between Israel as called to work for the Lord, and the exhortation to the church of Christ to labour for their Redeemer, Spurgeon takes the command to "go work" in its most evident and pressing sense. He exhorts the people of God to take note of their character as sons, of the labour to which they are called, of the immediacy of the effort required, and the sphere of that investment—our Father's vineyard. Spurgeon's clarion calls to Christian endeavour pepper his output, and constitute one of the most noteworthy elements of his public ministry.
As Christ reaches the climactic petition of the prayer recorded in John 17, we are given a window into his ongoing intercessory labour. He prayed to his righteous Father that "they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world." Here we find the fact of Christ's desire for his people, the reality of his will for a people given to him; the form of his desire for his people, that they should be in his presence and behold his glory; and, the foundation of his desire for his people—the eternal love that the Father has for him.
Asaph exemplifies his own exhortation. In a psalm with much to say to children and to parents, especially fathers, Asaph is a model teacher. Introducing his song of divine goodness and faithfulness, he makes clear that God has established a testimony, that God has commanded a parent, that God has intended a blessing, and that God has provided a warning, all of which are designed to bring his chosen ones, generation after generation, to hope in him.
Here is another part of a sequence of sermons, one of five preached over successive Lord's days on Christ as the end of the law, the conqueror of Satan, the overcomer of the world, the maker of all things new, and the destroyer of death. The relationship is thematic, and the substance is both doctrinal and experiential. In the sermon we will consider, on Christ as the conqueror of Satan, Spurgeon shows, first, his insightfulness in handling the text, peppering the whole sermon with biblical-theological insights and comments, noticing and noting occasional gleams of truth; he shows, also, his profound spirituality in connecting the arc of the experience of Christ as champion of mankind with the experience of Christ's people in their own experience of grace and combat with the Adversary. Taking four facts from Genesis 3:15, Spurgeon reworks those four aspects in three different layers, one more doctrinal, one more experiential, and one more practical. It is, in short, a masterful handling of the text, brilliant not because of its cleverness but because of its closeness to the heart.
Here we see two approaches to life symbolised by a hedge of thorns and a cleared highway. The first is the life of a lazy man, who exaggerates real problems and imagines unreal ones, and so finds his progress barred at every point. In contrast, the second is the upright man, who discerns, delights in, and does what is right, in dependence on the Lord God. The contrast holds true in the matter of gracious salvation, Christian service, and sanctified success in the things of this world.
With sadness and tenderness, our Saviour mourns over rebellious Jerusalem, revealing the spirit in which he considers needy sinners still. So here we can trace the sin committed, rejecting God's messengers and message of mercy. We see the danger present, the wrath hovering over the rebels. We marvel at the protection offered, the wings of Christ over those otherwise exposed to judgment. Then we are stunned by the mercy rejected, as men are not willing to receive Christ's saving favour. That brings us to the warning issued, the fear that mercy will pass us by if we do not heed the voice of mercy speaking now.
In the light of God's covenant mercies in Christ, we must heed the exhortation to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, because God who has promised is faithful. We need to understand what it is to which we hold, this confession of hope. We need to understand that we must hold it without wavering, without indulging or entertaining doubts. And, we must hold it accounting God faithful to all his promises, which is the foundation and motivation of our hope.
In the day of trouble, as a poor and needy man, the psalmist looks in confidence to a God who is supreme in his being and supreme in his acting. He is not like the false gods to which men bow down, and his acts in creation, providence, and grace reflect his greatness and glory. In responding, we should recognise the Lord's supremacy, expect his triumph, adore his majesty, and seek his favour.
God's might is seen in creation, in providence, in judgment. However, while these are all suitable topics for adoration, Spurgeon directs our attention to the works of God in mercy and grace. A lengthier introduction means a certain tautness in the sermon as a whole, as Spurgeon deals with this mighty mercy revealed in our experience, displayed in Christ Jesus, and practically recognised by us all. The first point gives Spurgeon an opportunity to range over God's dealings with us in various aspects of salvation. The second enables him to focus on the person and work of the Saviour. The third is really a series of pressing applications, revealing the impact which this reality should have on our thinking, feeling, and acting. It is well for us to consider the simplicity of this arrangement, an arrangement which—despite the concentration of his material—enables Spurgeon to roam over a reasonably wide area of Christian faith and life. It is a useful example of fairly terse sermonising, as the preacher packs truth fairy densely but not heavily into brief compass. Of course, the main concern remains its spiritual impact, and that same density puts force behind the pointed counsels with which the sermon concludes.
Are you ready for the last day? Of all 'last days', this alone is the truly final and universal. Our confidence for that day is grounded in the salvation accomplished and applied by the triune God, so here we trace the will of the Father in sending the Son, the word of promise of the Son with regard to his Father's will to bless, and the work of kindness from the Holy Spirit in applying these things, closing with an appeal to discern and depend upon Jesus of Nazareth as the only one able to save us in that day.
This attractively-titled sermon would certainly draw in unbelievers, as well as engaging many Christians. Spurgeon addresses it to all, concluding his sermons with a word to unbelievers who know themselves unhappy or feel themselves happy presently, and to Christians who are either unhappy or happy. The foundation of these applications lies in his two main divisions: living in the Lord's presence always, and trusting in the Lord's presence always. For each, Spurgeon unpacks what it means and how it works out. What is particularly striking, in this sermon, is that Spurgeon identifies the contented man, first and foremost, as the Lord Jesus. This enables him to hold the Lord before us for adoration and contemplation, learning from the Saviour himself what it means to walk in happiness before God. Adroitly, Spurgeon moves from Christ's example to our imitation, pressing the two into each other wisely and well. All of these counsels and comforts bring us to those last brief charges to different classes of hearer, leaving us considering Christ as the Author and Finisher of our faith, and—we might hope—ready to live before his God and ours, and to trust the Lord in all things.
Spurgeon is in his element when considering the love of God toward us in Christ Jesus, and we find him exulting in that theme here. The structure of the sermon is very neat. Having introduced his theme, he uses his text (1 John 4:19) to provide us first with doctrinal instruction, teaching us about the primacy and impact of God's love. Then he moves on to experimental information, as the mark and evidence of a right relationship with God. Third, he employs it for practical direction, carrying us to the cross for love and from the cross with love. Finally, he offers this love as an argumentative defence, demonstrating how God's love gives us an answer for various cavils and challenges which a Christian might face. It is a masterful demonstration of how a particular truth, rich and sweet in itself, can be turned in various directions, and applied in a variety of helpful ways, illuminating the mind, assuring the heart, directing the steps, and equipping for testimony and service. While that might seem particularly clever and orderly, never does the preacher lose sight of the Christ of God and the love which is revealed in him.
Darkness is damaging, and it is the natural state of every person born into the world. Christ has come as a light into the world in order that sinners might not remain in darkness. To understand this, we need to consider first of all the oppressive spiritual darkness in which sinners live, then the light which is shining in Christ Jesus as a Saviour for sinners, and the generous offer which is made to sinners because Jesus Christ has come into the world.
The Lord God is not a God in whom unholy fury dwells. His offers of mercy, even to those who have made themselves his enemies, are wonderful. So here, in Isaiah 27, where he speaks to those who face his righteous judgments, and holds out to them a refuge instead.So, first, the power offered is that of God himself, the strength of the Lord as a place of security and certainty. The purpose behind the offer is declared: the Lord intends to provide peace between himself and those who receive his offer. As if to underline the whole, there is a promise made: the one who lays hold on God's strength for mercy will indeed find peace.And where is God's strength revealed for peace? In the salvation accomplished through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Spurgeon never tired of seeking souls. Every sinner pointed to the cross and brought by grace into Christ's fold made him eager to more. Neither did he think that this was somehow an unusual or singular desire. As far as he was concerned, every believer should have the same goal, and could anticipate a blessing in its pursuit. I think he feared that these desires might shrivel or deflect. It is, then, no surprise that his sermons often return to this theme, as here. On this occasion, he has two simple points to make: first, that "the life of the believer is, or ought to be, full of soul blessing," and, second, that "the pursuit of the believer ought always to be soul winning." Regarding the first, he talks about the benefits that a truly holy man or woman brings to those around them, as the goodness of God spills over from their own into adjoining lives. After the life, says Spurgeon, the effort: here he urges God's people to seek after souls, as some men seek to win hearts, honours, and wealth. This, he contends, is heavenly wisdom. Not content with general exhortations, he suggests that, in the aftermath of that very sermon, that every hearer determines to win a soul that very night. It is a startlingly personal and immediate conclusion and application, and one which we might readily take to heart.
Full of rich encouragements centred in Christ's person, this address brings us to a source of rich assurance in Christ's own promise to Paul, that the Lord's strength would be made perfect in his servant's weakness. The sermon involves a somewhat convoluted approach, in which Spurgeon twists and turns the text through its various shades of meaning, throwing the emphasis upon different words in his text to bring out the nuances. That done, Spurgeon traces a line from Christ through Paul to all the saints, explaining how the all-sufficient grace of God in Christ is perfected, or brought to full expression, in his servants. He emphasises the essential strengthlessness of the creature, and the power of God magnified through that human weakness. That brings him to the blessedness of Christ's power in his people, concluding with an urgent appeal never to ask the Lord to make us strong in ourselves, but rather to glorify himself in our weakness by manifesting his own strength in us. He goes so far as to say, "beseech the Lord to make and keep you weakness itself, that in you his power may be displayed." In all his exhortations to Christian endeavour, this preacher never strays from his underlying conviction that we depend utterly upon the God of heaven for all grace and strength.
Spurgeon was a preacher hungry for souls, and he expected and urged the Tabernacle congregation, and other preachers, to cultivate the same appetite. He was persuaded that the glory of God in Christ was best served by the salvation of sinners, and so he made that the great aim of the congregation. He never lost sight of the fact that the only power by which that end could be attained was the strength of Almighty God. He wanted God's people to desire and delight in such a prospect, and to engage all their holy energies in its pursuit. Preaching here from Acts 11:21, this was his simple outline, and his earnest plea. We see again Spurgeon's grasp on both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men when it comes to salvation, in this case, our absolute reliance upon divine power and our duty to make Christ known in all his saving fulness. It is a sermon which 'rebukes our slothful ease' while also exciting us with the happy prospect of seeing the name of Christ exalted in the conversion of sinners.
"Do you love me?" was our Lord's persistent question to Peter, and it is a question we do well to answer ourselves, for it is simple and searching. In this sermon we consider eight reasons why it is an important question.
To estbalish our convictions, form our decisions, and direct our actions, we need to understand the will of the Lord from the Scriptures, as new creatures under the Spirit's influence. We must grasp how the Lord formed us in creation, what took place at the fall, and how God in mercy saved us from our sins. For that, we must start where Christ and the apostles started, with creation, as men and women were made in God's image, and then understand how that has been twisted by the Fall and restored in salvation.
This is a penetrating sermon, and perhaps not what you would expect as Spurgeon's first sermon in the new year of 1876, but perhaps all the more valuable for that. Maybe we would assume that we need to start the year with something uplifting, but Spurgeon has decided to begin with humbling, God helping him. In truth, it is a theme we should appreciate at any time of the year, for pride is a perennial weed in the garden of the soul. So Spurgeon catechises pride, asking a series of questions that derive from his text and its underlying assumption. By the answers, pride is condemned, being exposed for the ugliness it is. Spurgeon's method enables his hearers and readers to interrogate themselves, asking where pride has crept into our own hearts, where it has taken root with regard either to natural or spiritual distinctions, and the bitter fruits it bears where it begins to thrive. Of course, he does not conclude without some gospel correctives, encouraging us to remember the grace of God, and so uproot pride and bring forth better and sweeter flowers, including that of faith in Christ, recognising that—if no-one has anything in which to boast—then a sinner may come to the Lord for that which he freely gives.
"Follow my Leader" is no mere game for a Christian. Having washed his disciples' feet, the Lord Jesus gently interrogates and instructs them. First of all, there is a relationship recognised and endorsed, that of Teacher and Lord. Then, there is an example displayed and established, that of washing the feet of the disciples. Finally, there is an intention explained and emphasised, that the disciples should follow Christ in this humble service.[We apologise for an unfortunate mistake which may reduce the quality of this video.]
What is our map for walking through this world? By what authority shall we believe and live? How shall we be guided in our roles and relationships as men and in women in God's world?There are various flawed foundations upon which people build, including rationalism, emotionalism, traditionalism, pragmatism, and fatalism. But there is only one sure guide, one sure foundation, and that is the Word of God, which makes us wise for salvation and shows us the way of obedience as God's people.
This sermon is substantially an expression of adoration, in which Spurgeon traces a line from the general ascription of praise by the church to the specific life of a particular church in glorifying God. Our preacher turns our attention first to God himself, to consider his greatness, his goodness, and his grace toward us. His readiness to bless is then traced out in accordance with the measure of his power toward us. Next, he asks what is our proper response to such favour, and how it is to be given. Finally, and briefly, we are challenged with regard to our attitude, here and now: can we say "Amen!" to Paul's doxology? As so often, Spurgeon's language, rich as it is, seems to struggle to keep up with his affections. His ability to enter into his text, especially on such a happy theme, is a wonderful example of a heart attuned to truth, leading to a sermon full of questions that push the borders of experience and expression. If we do not soar so high ourselves, at least we can appreciate the view from one who does, and be stirred to seek more.
Spurgeon does not confuse the place or sequence of faith and love in our relationship to Christ, but neither does he allow either to recede from their proper place and sequence. The one who has put faith in Jesus will be one who loves the Lord Jesus above all. Saving faith always works by love. What does that mean in practice? It means, first, that love to Christ is essential, a defining mark of true Christianity. It therefore means, second, that love to Christ is the test of whether or not someone is a child of God. It means, third, that every one of us should ask whether or not we are manifesting love to God, according to a biblical mode and pattern. This is the path down which Spurgeon walks us, plainly and practically, pressing it closely home. Our instinct today, as much as ever, is probably to resist absolutes, and to soften the edges of clear truth, either for ourselves or others. Spurgeon does not allow us to evade or avoid the cutting edge of unequivocal scriptural statements: if we do not love Christ, then we do not belong to him. These, then, are needful truths for us to consider, in order that we might properly assess our standing before God, and respond accordingly.
In a chapter loaded with divine mercies, there rises a cry from those who have, under God's chastisement, realised their sin.Here we find the need, of being turned to God, brought back to him. The cry is to God, that he would do just that. The grace is that God hears and brings back those who cry to him. The hope lies in the fact that it is the Lord our God who so acts.
The so-great salvation accomplished by Christ defeats description and delineation. We can speak accurately, but never plumb the depths or scale the heights of divine mercy in redemption. Our failure does not stop our effort, for to contemplate our salvation brings joy and peace. To neglect this salvation is to sink into damnation, for there is no other way by which we can be delivered.
What happens when people pray together? What are we supposed to be doing? To answer this question, we briefly consider some of the dynamics of corporate prayer. In the first sermons, we offered several practical counsels to those who lead in public prayer, and in this sermon to those who engage in public prayer as another leads.
Here is a powerful exhortation for the church to give itself to prayer, not just regularly but also particularly and occasionally, for special purposes. Spurgeon considers the circumstances in which the early church found itself when it gave itself to prayer, and uses that to exhort and encourage churches to do the same. He emphasises the place which the early Christians gave to prayer in their corporate gatherings and how that is reflected in the way in which they gave themselves to seeking God as a congregation, as well as noticing the place and time of the meeting. He urges us to take account of God's blessing given in response to the pleading of the saints, reminding us that "all through the church of God the true progress is in proportion to the prayer." I have heard corporate prayer meetings being denigrated as if they are no proper or valuable institution in the life of the church. I have seen churches in which corporate prayer is shamefully minimised or neglected, often reflected in the number and spirit of those who gather. Here is a helpful and robust corrective to all such attitudes, pointing us toward the profitable necessity of prayer by the church, and urging us to avail ourselves of the opportunity of such dealing with our merciful and mighty God.
As the church grows, so the demands increase. Satan strikes again: persecution has come, corruption has erupted, and now tension and division advance. A battle breaks out over compassion!The apostles' response, taking account of their proper priorities, is to lead the disciples through the identification and appointment of godly men who will take responsibility for genuinely good things while they pursue their necessary things. In this way, peace is secured, and the progress of the gospel is established.The way that the church deals with these challenges is full of lessons for churches today in how to order ourselves, how to respond to practical challenges, and the blessings that the Lord gives to churches which walk in peace before him.
What happens when people pray together? What are we supposed to be doing? To answer this question, we briefly consider some of the dynamics of corporate prayer, and then offer several practical counsels to those who lead in public prayer, and to those who engage in public prayer.
This is a lovely, lively sermon, full of sweet practicality. Spurgeon considers the way in which a particular household can become a radiating centre of gospel light in a particular neighbourhood, as grace enters it, grips it, and then gushes from it. It is one of those brilliantly inventive sermons, anchored to the text without being wooden, imaginative without being fanciful, challenging without being crushing. It ought to leave us asking whether or not a home that is genuinely Christian—that is, one in which the household is genuinely governed by God's grace in Christ, characterised by true and lively faith—is operating as it should in spreading gospel influence in the place in which God has placed us. May it stir each one of us to ask, first, whether or not our homes are gripped as they ought to be by the gospel, and, second, whether or not the gospel is shining out from our homes and bringing blessings to our neighbours! If Christ visits our homes and our hearts, surely this should be the happy effect?
The apostles have boldly confessed and offered Christ to the Sanhedrin. Their response is one of violent rage. Gamaliel steps in to offer counsel, but his advice is unbelief in a softer form. The apostles are beaten, but rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for the sake of the name of Jesus, which name they promptly proclaim as soon as the opportunity is given. In this, they leave us an example of conviction and courage.
Paul as a pastor showed the best features of a mother's love and the best features of a father's love. Fatherlike, he not only set a good example, but also issued instruction to God's children. He knew that they could be hesitating, fainting, and wavering, and so—like a good father—he exhorted, comforted and charged them to walk worthy of the high calling with which they had been called.Such a ministry is not only a great lesson to pastors, but a continued example to fathers as to how we ought to invest in our children.
Spurgeon's outlines are rarely elaborate, and some are very plain. That is the case here. The fairly developed introduction clears the ground and establishes the scene. Then Spurgeon takes the simple idea of a final separation from his text in Matthew 25, and offers three straightforward thoughts: the division, the divider, and the rule of the division. His language and imagery are lively but not lurid; he does not pull his punches concerning the final judgment, but neither does he ever give the impression that he is revelling in the detail. He speaks of eternal reality with present affection, pressing home the need for his congregation to reckon with the great day. He handles more complicated matters with wisdom and sensitivity. He closes, as we might well imagine, with a potent appeal to come to the God of grace, not at all on the basis of what we have done, are doing, or will do, but in dependence on the Christ of God who can give us a new heart and a new work to do in service to him.
In the kingdom of God there is always opposition, sometimes violent, the fruit of an ungodly rage. But there is always divine oversight, the Lord overruling all things for the glory of his name. And, there will be opportunity for obedience, for God's people to show that they will obey God rather than men in making known the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Prince and Saviour.
Christ is the Light of the world, glorious in himself and to others. To follow him means that we no longer walk in darkness, but have the light of life. That light dawns, so that we are no longer in darkness. It shines, unfading, as we know and enjoy God in Christ. It grows, ever illuminating and warming the saints. And, it guides, so that we walk through this life in obedience to Christ all the way home.
The sermon is brief enough to make the reader ask about the occasion of its preaching. No explanation is given in the text, though there may be a shade of a hint. Was it some notable occasion? Did the preacher feel particularly weak and afflicted himself? (Spurgeon often tells his congregation if this is the case.) Is he adapting his material for a particular class of hearers who might struggle with more? Whatever the explanation, the result is a little jewel of a sermon, concentrating on the excellencies of Christ in a way adapted to soothe Christians of a fearful cast of mind, terrified by the notion of condemnation. Of course, the security of the Christian in Christ gives way to a plea toward those who are still outside, that they would come to Christ to enjoy the so-great salvation which he alone provides.
A believer's conflicts are real but passing; his salvation is true and enduring. There is now no condemnation in Christ.This reminds us of our past fearful state, emphasises our present happy condition, and points to our particular saving connection. In Christ we have no condemnation, but we stand before God accepted in his beloved Son.
Spurgeon is happy to preach on preaching, so that the saints under the sound of his voice might know what to expect, and to what they are entitled. He does that in this sermon. Taking the phrase, "Rightly dividing the word of truth" he studies it by way of a series of figures taken from a variety of expositors, each of which sheds its own light on the duty of expounding and explaining and applying the Scriptures. Integrity, honesty, simplicity, clarity, urgency, all come to the fore as Spurgeon explains why it is so important that ministers handle the Word of God as those answerable to God for the souls of those to whom they preach, all considered in the light of eternity. Reading the sermon today is a help to preachers as we consider our duty, and how to discharge it; it is of value to hearers, perhaps to value a faithful ministry—not just despite its probing and pressing nature, but because of it—or to seek out a man who will not play fast and loose with God's revelation, but handle it faithfully, for their soul's sake.
In a third striking summary, Luke concentrates more on the outward impact of the apostolic mission. Their ministry attended and authenticated by signs and wonders, around it there are demonstrations of great unity, great esteem, and great growth. The gospel preached in power creates its typical division between those who are fearful of the purity of the church and those who are drawn to the holy God. Such a church is at once delightful and dangerous.
As a faithful man, Paul's love for the saints in Thessalonica has maternal and paternal dimensions. Here he moves on to the latter, considering the example he has set and the instruction he has given.As a responsible spiritual parent, Paul sets a standard as a man devout, just, and blameless. His piety, morality, and integrity give him a platform from which to pour his heart into his beloved spiritual children.
The Sword and the Trowel was Spurgeon's magazine. The January number for 1875 began with an article acknowledging God's goodness in providing for the publication of sermons for twenty years, and giving some history of the endeavour (this article is included in this week's printed sermon). This sermon, preached at the end of 1874, is the pulpit testimony to the same. It is marked by humility and gratitude, and by a delight in the gospel which Spurgeon was privileged to preach. There is here both confidence and conviction: this is the preached gospel which the Lord has blessed, and this is the gospel which the preacher is determined to go on preaching, glorious in its object and inexhaustible in its fullness. So, then, there is no surprise that a celebration of gospel preaching becomes an opportunity, once again, to set forth the unsearchable riches of Christ. The sermon ends with this challenge: "Bestir yourselves, feed upon Jesus, and then take of the good cheer to those who do not know the riches of Christ, and as God gives you grace, go you and fulfil this ministry, and you will then say, as I do, and as the apostle said of old, 'Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.' The Lord bless you. Amen."
There is joy in salvation. There is joy in God because of salvation, joy for the repenting sinner because of salvation, and joy for the servants of God who are instruments of blessing because of salvation. Spurgeon sees this figured out for us in the story of the prodigal son returning home. Using careful language, he shows us the joy that is in the father's heart; he rejoices with the son who is welcomed home by his father; he considers the delight of the servants who are given work to do in welcoming and adorning the once-rebellious child. While he is writing long before some modern debates about the affections of God, and should be read as such, Spurgeon shows us that such questions are not new. Even if some will struggle with his language about God's joy, we need to ensure that we are able to communicate the divine delight over returning sinners, and to appreciate the delight in the hearts of sinners who return, so that we can enter into that delight insofar as we are given the privilege of serving a saving God.
As at other times, the holiness of God's people is threatened as they enter a new phase of their life. Here, the example of generosity generates a particular plan of deceit which threatens the integrity and purity of the church, undermining God's power in her and militating against God's grace in her.Ananias and Sapphira lie to and test the Holy Spirit. Here the scene is set, the sin is exposed, the price is paid, and the effect is seen: great fear in the church and in the world.
Pastoral trustworthiness works itself out in accordance with two illustrative metaphors. The first is that of a mother, who is gentle, marked by concern, by generosity, and by sacrifice, all of which reveal the love of her heart. Here we focus more on generosity and sacrifice, with their roots in true, Christlike love.
God is God. Simple as that might sound, it is the profound truth which Spurgeon works out, in measure, in this sermon. Because God is God, and—for believers—especially because he is our God, we are to glorify him in all things. The claims of God are grounded in his being and doing, and then Spurgeon assesses our response to them. So often our attitude is one of disdain or neglect. Where is the honour to which God is entitled from his creatures, his people? And so Spurgeon pleads with us to embrace the claims of God, as not only proper but delightful, ennobling, purifying. It begins with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and works out in cheerful and willing service to the God of our salvation, seeking to honour his claims in thought, word, and deed.
What makes your heart bubble over? For a Christian, it ought to be Christ above all.The King in his beauty and his majesty are the Christian's good theme. Those thoughts of Christ have their source in an overflowing heart. They find expression in a ready tongue, quick and eager to speak of our Beloved.
You cannot be a Christian unless you come to Christ. For some, that experience is more distinct, for others less obvious, but for all who come it is the evidence that the Father has given you to Christ.Here the Lord makes clear that a sinner may come to him, and must come to him: the Bread of Life has been given from heaven. There is life in him, but nowhere else. The sinner who comes to him as he is offered in the gospel will never be cast out, but rather welcomed and entirely saved.
This eminently practical sermon shows something of the value which Spurgeon places on prayer. Having briefly handled his text in its context, he concentrates on three dangers: hindrances from prayer—those things which keep us from prayer altogether; hindrances in prayer—those things which keep us from really praying when we pray; and, hindrances to the speeding of our prayers—those things which keep us from having access to God, and enjoying answers to our prayers. It is eminently practical and evidently heartfelt. Given the fact that prayer, by its very nature, is so often a battle, these are helpful considerations for us. They keep us from finding easy excuses or offering lazy complaints, and point us back to our own heart disposition, our attitudes and appetites in prayer, and the way in which our prayers are so often and easily undermined by our own carnality and carelessness. This sermon calls us to pray, and exhorts us to pray indeed, making our pleadings with God the very expression of our desires for his glory.
This is a truly sweet and happy sermon. Do not be put off by the text: "The God of my mercy shall prevent me." As Spurgeon makes clear, the point is that the God of my mercy shall go before me, shall anticipate me, shall come to meet me. And so he explains the particular nature of the relationship, the grasp that David has on God's mercy, and the various ways and senses in which the God of mercy, the God of my mercy, anticipates every demand arising out of the genuine needs of every child of God, and meets us at the very point of need. This covers the past, especially in our experience of salvation; it addresses the present, as God sustains and blesses us in all our circumstances; it provides for the future, knowing that to the very end of our days the God of my mercy will guide us. Spurgeon shows himself a masterly preacher here, building in his applications along the way before sending home a few precious truths at the close of the whole. Here are truths rich and sweet to sustain our souls as we press on in the pilgrim way.
Spurgeon considers Paul a balanced preacher—not a middle-of-the-road preacher, but one who both offers salvation in all its fullness, to be received and enjoyed with assurance, and who warns lest the faith which a sinner professes be something else than the saving faith which clings to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This, then, is a searching sermon, in which the preacher urges us to consider the nature of the true faith which God gives as opposed to the empty faith which some claim. We need to consider the very nature of that faith, and its relation to Christ Jesus. We need to know why it is so important to consider this question, given how many turn away, how many fall short, how many are hypocrites, how many professing Christians simply show little of the evidences of a child of God. We need to understand what is at stake with regard to heaven and hell. We need to know how to respond. Here, Spurgeon is carefully pastoral: these warnings are not designed to crush true faith, but—in shaking it—to send its roots deeper into God, into his truth, into Christ. So he urges us not to draw back but to press on, to cling to Christ wholeheartedly, and so to enter into rest.
The deliverance of God is a cause for the praise of God—new mercies call forth new songs. What, then, has God done? He has put a new song in the mouth of his people. How has he done this? By granting deliverance from fearful woes. What is this new song? It is praise to God as Saviour. What should the effect be? Seeing these mercies and the saints' response to them, fearing and trusting the Lord. Finally, and significantly, can you sing this new song? Have the saving and succouring mercies of the Lord given you a reason to praise his name?
In appreciating Spurgeon the gospel preacher, we should not imagine that his gospel preaching is somehow shallow or narrow, nor that it lacks anything of the pastoral note. Spurgeon cares for the souls of people. He cares that sinners come into the kingdom; he cares that saints be built up in the kingdom. Again, that latter note does not make him a mere sentimentalist. I am not always persuaded that as many of us would have relished sitting under Spurgeon's ministry as we might imagine! Here he is perfectly straight with his hearers, without being at all harsh. He first reminds us that God will chide, offering some reasons and explanations as to why that will be so. Then he brings in some particular comforts and consolations, emphasising the kindness, patience, and wisdom of Almighty God. His applications are wide-ranging but pointed and searching. It is a grand example of pastoral preaching, gently yet firmly bringing needed truth to bear.
You probably have no need to be told that Spurgeon almost instinctively reverts to the pure presentation of the gospel when given the merest opportunity. Here his emphasis is on the freeness of divine grace. Preaching from Isaiah 55:1, he tells us why this is so surprising to fallen man, why it is a necessity (not just from our need, but from the character of the God who saves), and then the salutary influence of this fact—the happy effect of being saved by free grace. As so often, on one level there is nothing particularly novel here, nothing unusual in terms of what Spurgeon says as a preacher. Nevertheless, two things in particular stand out. One is the relentless and intense concentration on this primary idea of freeness, which has the effect of holding it before the eyes so as to drive home the issues. The other, developing from that, is the way in which Spurgeon presses that one truth persuasively into the hearts of his hearers, reasoning and wrestling so that they might grasp the wonderful freeness of God's great grace in Christ. As hearers, we are made to gaze upon this truth so that, under God, we cannot avoid its marvel. As preachers, we are forced to ask whether or not we are so righteously relentless in pressing home God's word.
As part of this pressing invitation to the sin-sick and needy, here is a particular invitation to return to the Lord, receive his mercy, rest in his love, and rejoice in this favour. It tells us that a repentant sinner longs for pardon, that the pardon he needs is abundant, and that such pardon comes from the Lord God alone.
Pastoral trustworthiness works itself out in accordance with two illustrative metaphors. The first is that of a mother, who is gentle, marked by concern, by generosity, and by sacrifice, all of which reveal the love of her heart.
Spurgeon delighted in communion with the Lord. He was manifestly a man of prayer, and he regularly exhorts his hearers and his readers to embrace that marvellous privilege. It is worth noting the title and content of the sermon: this is not about Daniel in the lion's den, but facing it; it is about Daniel's commitment to prayer in the face of fearful pressures, of his principled obedience in the face of awful threats. The sermon itself, then, is simple and straightforward. Spurgeon considers Daniel as a man committed to prayer and blessed and prospered by means of his communication with heaven. He then addresses the privileges of prayer, urging us to take advantage of the opportunities we have to come before the Lord. Then there is Daniel's decision, his attachment to his holy habit of prayer despite all that comes against him. Finally, there is Daniel's deliverance, not from his trial, but through his trial. The whole becomes an earnest exhortation to pursue the right course regardless of the difficulties which it brings. This is by no means shallow or moralistic preaching, but neither is Spurgeon afraid to take the saints of the Old Testament as examples and encouragements in righteousness, and we should take the model to heart.
Luke is an excellent writer: this is one of his points of beautiful conclusion and transition, carrying forward his historical narrative. It offers and description and demonstration of the life of the new covenant community under the influence of the Holy Spirit.First we see great unity, great generosity, great power, and great grace, digging down to the foundations of the life of the church of the risen Jesus.Then we have a further general positive pattern of this gospel-driven charity and a specific positive example in Barnabas.While we must face the fact that Satan hates such a heavenly atmosphere, and will spoil it if he can by persecution and corruption, yet still it provides us with a sweet snapshot of the lives of people bound together in Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Paul has to respond to various charges laid against him in Thessalonica, and he does so by appealing to the manifest testimony of his character and conduct. He draws attention to the pressures which he and his friends resisted, and to the purity which they pursued. With threats to his credibility emanating from the enemies of the Thessalonians' souls, Paul distinguishes between a man-centred, self-serving ministry and God-centred, Spirit-sensitive service. Without hedging or equivocating, he makes clear to which camp he belongs, and the confidence that the Thessalonians might have in both the messenger and his message.
Here Spurgeon weaves together something complementary in the work of parents and pastors with regard to their children, both physical and spiritual. First of all, working within John's figure, he applies the words of his text to parents, underscoring the delight that a Christian father or mother feels in the salvation of their sons and daughters, one of the greatest of all earthly joys. Then, he turns to the figure itself as John uses it, speaking of a pastor's delight in the conversion of sinners, and the profound pleasure that a preacher feels as a spiritual parent when he sees God's people walking in his ways. He not only expresses but stirs the joy we might feel, urging us to find it by seeking the salvation of those under our care, but also reminding those who profess faith in Jesus Christ of their responsibility so to walk that parents and pastors might feel such delight, and that—ultimately—the Lord himself would be magnified in his children.
Facing opposition and persecution, the people of God turn immediately, instinctively, corporately, to God himself. Their prayer is formed by Scripture in both its general approach and its specific content, and provides a wonderful example of both the priority and pattern of prayer in the life of the church of Christ. The God of heaven answers indeed, showing his presence, granting his Spirit, and giving the people of God boldness in making known the name of Christ.
Paul has to respond to various charges laid against him in Thessalonica, and he does so by appealing to the manifest testimony of his character and conduct. He draws attention to the pressures which he and his friends resisted, and to the purity which they pursued. With threats to his credibility emanating from the enemies of the Thessalonians' souls, Paul distinguishes between a man-centred, self-serving ministry and God-centred, Spirit-sensitive service. Without hedging or equivocating, he makes clear to which camp he belongs, and the confidence that the Thessalonians might have in both the messenger and his message.
This, says Spurgeon, is a sermon "mainly upon my own behalf, and on the behalf of my brethren in the ministry." Specifically, and for the sake of the saints, and ultimately for the glory of God, he intends "to excite you to be much in prayer, both for myself and all ministers of Christ Jesus." Without any kind of self-indulgence, and in a spirit of honesty rather than complaint, Spurgeon builds a compelling case for the saints to plead with God on behalf of ministers of the gospel. He explains why the saints should so pray, and who should be engaged, and when and where this duty might be carried out. Then, both for encouragement and challenge, he underscores the reality of the Spirit's supply and its consequent blessing, and so presses home the need for that supply in answer to the prayers of the saints. How do you think about your pastors? What do you know of their labour and their need of grace in that labour? How do you pray for ministers of the gospel, and your minister? Spurgeon, neither boasting nor whining, draws back the veil a little on the work of ministry to excite our prayers, and the expectation of God's answer to them.
Spurgeon knows how to reason with men, how to plead and persuade as a preacher. This sermon is a fine example of that often-neglected element of ministry. With wisdom from the Word of God, illuminated by the Holy Spirit and proven over long and happy experience, Spurgeon steps through a good selection of the reasons why people do not come to Christ, or think they cannot or have not, and seeks to remove the stumbling blocks. Then, having cleared the road of obstacles, he covers it over with Christ and paves it with promises, so that sinners might go by him to heaven. Both elements are strikingly simple, but wonderfully helpful. Here is the pastor-evangelist indeed, gently but firmly dismantling mistakes and confusions, and introducing—sweetly and straightforwardly—the Saviour and his so great salvation. If we would be physicians of souls, it is well to follow a gifted doctor on his rounds. We could do a lot worse than to learn from Spurgeon how to preach the gospel not by way of general exhortation only, but dealing closely with troubled souls in order to clear their path.
I should, perhaps, confess that this sermon was particularly attractive to me as a result of my needing to preach on a particular theme at an upcoming conference. Having been considering a related topic, this sermon made my heart sing! Here is Spurgeon the gospeller, Spurgeon the evangelist, Spurgeon as preacher and teacher in sweet harmony. Conscious very much that he is an ambassador of heaven, Spurgeon fulfils that role while, as it were, shedding much light—almost incidentally—upon the nature of his work. He does this all in a way which humbles man (considered either as ambassador of grace or recipient of grace) and which exalts God. And yet, for all his description of what he is doing and what other gospel ministers ought to do, there is no doubt that he is actually doing it. With consummate skill, the sermon builds into a grand appeal to sinners to thrown down their arms of rebellion and take Jesus Christ as Saviour.
The battle lines are drawn up around the proclamation of the name of Jesus of Nazareth.The Sanhedrin shows its cowardice, resorting quickly to bullying and intimidation in order to silence the apostles. Their approach is typical, not only of the way in which they dealt with Christ himself and now with his apostles, but also of the way in which the world will often attempt to silence God's people.The apostles show the courage of men who have been with Jesus. With a holy boldness, as in the sight of God, as those enjoying communion with Christ, as those enjoying the Spirit's presence, they declare their intention to make known the truth which they have seen and heard. Facing the same pressures, we need the same resources—and may have them—for the same work.
In the last of this brief series, we employ more upside-down thinking to consider the ways in which Satan would like us to act and react in order to ruin our spiritual health. He will, by all means, prevent us from coming to and keeping near Christ. The last four strategies we consider are his urgings to resist the concern of our brothers and sisters for our souls' good, to develop a diet of spiritual junk food, to stir up envy in our hearts, and to lower our expectations of God and his church. If we do these, with the others, incrementally, simultaneously, and defensively, it is a recipe for disaster.So, we must remember the reality of this battle, gauge the hostility of our foe, beware the subtlety with which he operates, and grasp the remedy in Christ Jesus, and use the means he has provided to keep from stumbling and falling.
Are you tempted to think, in some way or other, that Christ does not really care for you? Do your present circumstances lead you to fear that he has no regard for your well-being? Against such doubts and fears Spurgeon turns his guns as he reasons with us as to how we should think and what we should believe lest we fall into this trap, describing the genuine regard that our Lord has for his beloved people under all circumstances, and assuring us that this will become apparent to us in due course. He gives us an anatomy of ungodly fear and of God's own care. Again, here is the blend of tender rebuke and careful encouragement at which our preacher excels; here is that pastoral insight into the hearts of men and that faithful grasp of the heart of God which blend together in preaching to the soul so that we both see what is wrong and are led to what is right.
As battle is joined, the priests wheel out the big guns: the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin. In this intimidating environment, they are asked the pressing question: "By what name or power have you healed this man?"The potent answer puts Jesus of Nazareth before them as the Christ of God, in his compassion, his power, his resurrection, his identity, and his salvation. It is a beautiful demonstration of preaching by a man full of the Holy Spirit.
Deeply distressed and calling upon the faithful and righteous Lord, the psalmist seems struck with what it means for him to deal with God in his righteousness: "Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous." So here is a request, conscious of the fearful judgments of God, coming from a truehearted servant; here is a reason, conscious of the eye of the Lord upon the lives of men; and, there is a resolution, for—in Christ—God judges another for our sins, and provides a righteousness that is pleasing in his sight.
This sermon develops, early on, into a broadside against spiritual self-satisfaction. Spurgeon demolishes—with unusual thoroughness—any sense of spiritual smugness, by taking Paul's desire for holiness as his proper standard, as well as considering other models of godliness and his broader experience of mankind. He digs deep, asking by what routes men attain to such a sense of contentedness with their present condition, and the root of such self-applause. Having done most of the heavy lifting in the first and bulkiest part of his sermon, considering the present life, he then hits us rapidly with the other three points which form the outline of his sermon: how Paul looks on his past with accuracy, to the future eagerly, all the while engaging fervently. For all his evangelistic fervour, Spurgeon never lets slip the connection between salvation and true godliness, and here he urges us not to become complacent with present attainments in holiness, but rather to press onward—while we rejoice that Christ's work for us is complete, we must recognise that the Spirit's work in us is ongoing, and labour accordingly as new men in Christ.
The preaching of the resurrection through Jesus of Nazareth provokes the priests to action, and they confront the disciples. They cannot bear that others should teach, and teach the name of Jesus. So they lay hands on the apostles, and imprison them overnight.The Adversary thus brings various weapons to bear upon the servants of Christ, to discourage and dissuade them from faithful ministry.Nevertheless, the gospel of the risen Christ advances with the Spirit's blessing. Persecution and progress are still not an either-or for Christians; it is both-and. There will be persecution, and it will be fundamentally similar to what it has always been. There will be progress, because Christ is enthroned and the Spirit is working in the hearts of men.
Satan hates God's creatures, and will do all he can to prevent us from coming to Christ and keeping near Christ. We cannot afford to be ignorant of his devices—his wiles and strategies.So what would Satan say to us? How might our Adversary encourage us to ruin our spiritual life in 2024? Let us, as it were, listen to his counsels, so that we might be made aware of how our Foe might seek to influence and direct us. This is 'upside-down thinking'—if this is how Satan wants me to think, then I need to think the very opposite.We continue with several counsels that Satan would like us to heed, which he would hope we would embrace incrementally, simultaneously, and defensively, to cultivate discontent, laziness, induglence, and self-pity.
How can you tell when God is among his people in a distinctive way? What are the marks of God's present favour? What are the indications of reviving among the saints? Using Zechariah 8:21 as his springboard, Spurgeon identifies several of the signs of God's presence among his people: their great interest in divine worship; their encouragement to one another to use the means of grace; their urgency and immediacy in using these means; their eye particularly on God in these duties; and, their personal resolve and investment in waiting upon the Lord. This preacher has a sweet talent for both cutting and binding up; he knows how to expose and clean the wound, but he also knows how to pour in the balm. He is skilled in drawing us to God in Christ, making the exercises of religion seem sweet and delightful to the awakened soul. Here is a true call to worship indeed, not lacking in rebuke for our coolness and dulness, but painting a happy portrait of a people taken up with God, knowing and seeking and enjoying his ministrations toward them.
The distinct occasion of this sermon is the immediate aftermath of the healing of the lame man at the temple, when a crowd gathers full of wonder at the work of the apostles.Peter offers a humble deflection, wisely diverting the focus of the crowd from the men and the miracle to the Messiah.Then he launches into a potent explanation of what they have seen and heard: he speaks of the identity of the Christ, their rejection of the Christ, and makes an offer of the Christ, that they might repent and be converted.Finally, he brings a gracious application to them, as Jews to whom the gospel comes first before it sounds out among the nations, that they—and others after—might come to Jesus Christ for salvation.
Satan hates God's creatures, and will do all he can to prevent us from coming to Christ and keeping near Christ. We cannot afford to be ignorant of his devices—his wiles and strategies.So what would Satan say to us? How might our Adversary encourage us to ruin our spiritual life in 2024? Let us, as it were, listen to his counsels, so that we might be made aware of how our Foe might seek to influence and direct us. This is 'upside-down thinking'—if this is how Satan wants me to think, then I need to think the very opposite.We begin with several counsels that Satan would like us to heed, which he would hope we would embrace incrementally, simultaneously, and defensively.
There is a danger in appreciating sermons of robust exhortation, a potential spiritual sado-masochism of sorts, in which we pride ourselves on having received a good whipping, without being any the better for having undergone the experience. One antidote to this is to make sure that the exhortation rides on the back of appreciation, and it is this which Spurgeon does here. He wants us to understand how blessed we are as God's people, how richly favoured and fed from the royal table, and what that means in terms of our regard for the King's honour, and how that works out in various spheres of life. That emphasis on blessing is not intended to send us on a 'guilt trip' either—it is not mere manipulation to say that if we have fallen short, and our love has cooled, then we ought to repent and do our first works, given how greatly we have been loved and blessed. So, then, let us not indulge ourselves in a bit of self-satisfied self-recrimination, but consider the mercies which God has bestowed, and the honour to which he is entitled from those whom he has so privileged.
Paul is fighting on behalf of the grace of God in Christ. He delivers a strong affirmation- -I do not set aside the grace of God- for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.- The logic of this demands that we make an examination of our own souls to ensure that we do not ourselves set aside the grace of God, but also allows us to enter into a celebration of grace, for in Christ the trusting sinner is truly safe, now and forever.
Teaching and preaching in the temple, the Lord is challenged by the Pharisees with regard to his authority in speaking and acting. He responds with a counterstrike- -Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men-- The Pharisees are not interested in the truth but in saving their own skins and preserving their own reputations, and so they will not answer his question, and so their own. Christ, with calm dignity, will not play the game of such cringing cowards. But what of us- What do we make of the testimony of John with regard to Messiah- Will we receive Jesus as the Christ-
Weary of himself, sin, and the vanity of wicked men, David turns to God- -And now, Lord, what do I wait for- My hope is in you- -Ps 39-7-. To whom else would he go- For what else might he hope- For how long would he look- David looks to God, as we should, for salvation, for strength, for service. Such hope in God should lead to confession of sin, supplication for favour, adoration of the Lord, and application of ourselves to our work in expectation that God will bless.
Our Lord goes in his kingly authority to the temple, to the house of God, where the Lord makes himself known for the glory of his name and for the good of all who seek him. There he drove out those who made the temple no longer a house of prayer, but a den of thieves. As the true Shepherd, he then taught the flock, despite the hatred of his enemies. Jerusalem would reject its King. What of us- What of the temple of our hearts- What of the temple of the church- Will Christ find there a zeal like his for the glory of the Lord and the true good of lost mankind-
Nebuchadnezzar had a bad dream. He demanded not only an interpretation of his dream, but that someone should tell him what he had dreamed. God revealed it to Daniel, and Daniel told the king his dream, which was certain, and its interpretation, which was sure. He told Nebuchadnezzar of another kingdom- of its timing, its architect, its durability, its stability, its strength, and its duration. This leads to Christian confidence, comfort, courage, and conviction.
As Christ draws near to Jerusalem and sees the city, his heart breaks and his eyes flow. What provokes such a strong and immediate reaction- It is because he knows their peace hidden, their destruction looming, and their visitation neglected.
Paul exhorts the Philippians to know and show joy that is enduring and resilient. Such joy must be -in the Lord- if it is to have such a character, rooted not in ourselves or in the world, but in God himself, even more than in his mercies in themselves. So we can consider God in his person, in his attributes, in his works, and in his relations, as the foundation of the joy which we possess and express.
As Jesus of Nazareth approaches Jerusalem, he reveals more of his royal dignity and authority. Coming to the city, we hear the instructions of the King, observe the obedience to the King, view the approach of the King, and acknowledge the honour due the King.
We might wonder in what kind of world we are living, and what will be the world in which our children grow up---It is good for us to remember what Nebuchadnezzar learned- that there is a King in heaven who rules over all, worthy of praise and honour, able to bring down the proud. So here we listen to the mighty king of the ancient world, who was brought low by the King of heaven, and found truth and justice, with mercy, in being cast down.
Having considered this parable from the perspective of the nobleman who became a king, we now look at the episode through the eyes of the servants -both faithful and fruitful, and worthless and wicked- and the rebels, and learn again the privilege and the responsibility of serving the best of Masters.
-Be exalted, O Lord, in Your own strength- We will sing and praise Your power- -Ps 21-13-. The concluding verse of this royal psalm well expresses the desire we have, the strength we trust, and the praise we give, both now in recognition of God's present works, and in eager anticipation of the revelation of his glory at the coming of Jesus Christ, his crowned King.
In the parable of the ten servants and their ten minas, Christ draws on recent history to remind his disciples that while the kingdom of grace is coming, the kingdom of glory is not yet. Here we trace the experience of the nobleman who goes away to receive a kingdom and returns to reward his faithful servants and to deal with the wickedness and rebellion of others.
The Galatians were drifting from Christ, imagining that they could get right and stay right with God by their own works, replacing or supplementing the work of the Saviour. Paul begins his letter by setting before them the glorious plan and purpose of God the Father, that Christ should deliver his people from the present evil age by the sacrifice of himself on their behalf. Such good news calls forth the praises of God, leaving no space for the self-congratulation of men. We need to keep the crucified Christ before us, if we are not to drift from the only saving truth of his gospel.
Christ's encounter with Zacchaeus draws together many threads. We trace the episode by way of a little man, a gracious Saviour, a happy response, a vicious complaint, a manifest repentance, and a glorious testimony concerning the Son of Man who has come to seek and save the lost.
The believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit- each Christian bears God's stamp. The Spirit is the guarantee of the inheritance, a foretaste to us of heaven. So what we enjoy of his operations now will be perfected in glory, and that which we enjoy in glory must be begun now. So what do we have here that we will find completed there, or what will we experience there that is started here- We consider confidence, knowledge, peace, joy, comfort, holiness, love, strength and life as those things in which by grace we progress, and which in glory will be perfected. Now we enjoy a true foretaste- then we shall receive the fullness.
We look through the eyes of a blind man, and see-by faith-what others missed- Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David. Seeing what he saw, we consider where he was, what he heard, what he cried, what he sought, what he got, where he went, how he felt, and-most importantly-who he saw.
David delights in God's revelation- -Oh, how I love Your law- It is my meditation all the day.- David tells us what he loves-the law of the Lord, God's instruction and direction. He tells us why he loves-because if the Lord's law, and reflects all the excellencies of his nature. He tells us how he loves-it shows not only in his embrace of the law, but his meditation upon it, which gives rise to reflections, affections and intentions which reflect the will of God.
Having called sinners to follow him, having explained what it looks like to depend upon him entirely, having underscored the need to put God and his kingdom before all else, our Lord reminds us that he is on that path of faith and obedience. His disciples must go up with him to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and die at the hands of the Gentiles. Why did the disciples not grasp this- Perhaps more importantly, do we-
Christians have a living and lively hope, anticipating an heavenly inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that does not fade away. What makes and keeps our hope living and lively- It is because it is rooted in God's abounding mercy, established by God's grant of life, and guaranteed by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you have that hope- Are you living in the light of that hope- Are you praising God for your hope-
In the aftermath of his conversation with the rich ruler, Christ offers observations and promises concerning the kingdom of heaven, and entry into it. He identifies the difficulty of the rich entering the kingdom of God. He hears the question raised about the seeming impossibility of entering the kingdom. He gives an assurance about the might and mercy of God to bring men into his kingdom, then promises true riches now and forever to all who put the kingdom of God first.
In preparation for an opportunity for corporate thanksgiving, this is a brief study in Psalm 94-18, concerning what fear says and what faith knows. Fear might say, -I am falling-- when assaulted by temptation, accusation, persecution, affliction, confusion, oppression, dejection and destruction. Faith knows, -Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.- It knows that the covenant love of a faithful God will keep his people from going over the edge. Such a spirit looks back with gratitude, and looks forward with confidence, calling on God when falling, and praising him when held up.
In a world characterised by threatenings of doom and gloom, and for Christians facing all manner of personal challenges, to what can a believer cling- Paul's persuasion-his well-grounded and deeply-rooted conviction-about the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord is his anchor point. He knows that God's people cannot be separated from this divine love. God's sure love, Christ's saving death, and the believer's secure identity, all continue to provide assurance for God's people as they move into a new year.
Peter describes the faith that he shares with all God's people as precious. What gives it this value- There are several answers- how it comes, what it is, who it grasps, who it gets, what it brings, and with whom it is shared. Fundamentally, it is precious because by it God joins us to Christ in whom we find salvation in all its fulness.
Having told us that we must receive the kingdom of God as children, Luke shows us a sincere and earnest man who thinks in terms of what he has to do in order to inherit the kingdom. Here we follow this ruler's conversation with Christ, from his opening words, through Christ's successive challenges, to his bold claim, to Christ's key demand, to the sad conclusion. Will we learn that all our doing must be done away with if we are to inherit God's kingdom---We apologise that, due to technical difficulties, the quality of this recording is less than we would wish.
The message of heavenly peace is not divine mockery to a miserable world. When the birth of Jesus Christ was announced, angels praised God, saying, -Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.- Here we simply consider who was speaking, to whom they spoke, and what they said, and why it still is the message of peace that we need for our souls.
The great question of peace with God ought to exercise every soul in every age. When he contemplated the answer to the question, Jeremiah the weeping prophet rejoiced. It was God's answer- a king who would stand for his people in his presence. Here we consider the man he is, the work he does, the heart he has, and the good we gain.
Paul is a man who has suffered in the service of Christ. Time and again, as he works out his calling, he faces challenges and opposition. Yet his stirring declaration is that he does not lose heart. Why is this- What is his confidence- Rooted in the reality of the resurrection of Christ, Paul makes the humbling concession that his outward man is perishing, but offers the encouraging assertion that his inward man is being renewed day by day. With such realism about present suffering and future glory, the Christian does not lose heart.
The children were brought to Jesus because they found in Christ one who was ready to show kindness to the most insignificant and apparently worthless.--The disciples saw things differently, and rebuked those bringing the children, perhaps thinking that they were beneath their Master's dignity.--Christ, all compassion, welcomed the children readily, as representatives of just the kind of need he was willing and able to meet.--The lesson to learn is that all of us must receive the kingdom of heaven as little children if we are to enter it- no sense of entitlement, no claim of worth, no demonstration of merit, but-helpless and powerless in ourselves-receiving it as a gracious gift.
How does someone approach God- On what basis can we have dealings with the Almighty- What is our relationship to him---Luke tells us the point of the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector- it is spoken to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others-the horrible combination that comes so naturally to the fallen heart. Then there are two portraits which our Lord gives- the Pharisee who is full of himself, and offers his own righteousness to God, and the tax collector, who has become empty of self, and seeks God's own righteousness for himself. Then there is the principle- only the tax collector, seeking the removal of God's wrath through an atoning sacrifice, goes home at peace with God. So every one who exalts themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.--So what do we think is the basis of our relationship with God- Self-righteousness versus God-righteousness is the difference between condemnation and justification. There is no point polishing the shell if we lack the core.
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.
Peter brings the sufferings of Christ to bear on the sufferings of the saints. He reminds us of the single occasion he has in mind, as Christ suffered once. He draws attention to the definite atonement accomplished, as Christ suffered for sin. He points to the saving substitution involved, as the Righteous One suffers in the place of the unrighteous many. And, he identifies the gracious purpose- that in so suffering, the Christ might bring his people to God.
In this parable, Christ states his intention- to teach us always to pray and not to lose heart. Then he offers an illustration of an unjust judge who finally gives in to the pleas of a troubled widow. Then he makes an application- God is not like the unjust judge, and is poised to avenge his saints at the right moment. Finally, he asks a question- when he, the Son of Man, returns, will he find this kind of persistent, patient faith on the earth- Will he find it in our hearts-
We are often urged in these days to hit the reset button, to think about 'the new normal.' But what should the church be aiming at- What ought to be our 'old normal,' to which we should aspire, not imposed by men but granted by God- In Acts 2-41-42, Luke describes the root of Christian devotion -entering on the way by gladly receiving the Word of God, being baptised, and added to the church- and the route of Christian devotion -travelling on the way in company with the saints, steadfastly committed to the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and prayer-. This is the way of healthy, holy, happy saints.
Having warned the Pharisees that the kingdom is already among them, Christ reminds his disciples that the kingdom will come. He issues a caution about where to look, a lesson about the coming day, a reminder about the moment of judgment, a warning about the occasion, and then answers a question about the event.
What if God were to deal with us according to our sins, and punish us according to our iniquities- All blessing would be removed, all misery would be inflicted, all escape would be cut off. But-wonder of wonders-he is pleased to show patience and mercy. What will we do with such grace- If we mock patience and spurn mercy, that righteous wrath might yet fall upon us.
The Pharisees seemed to think of the kingdom of God in carnal terms. As far as they could tell, it was not present- -When will it come-- Christ responds with clarification and correction- the kingdom does not come with observation- it is not immediately obvious. It is established wherever Christ reigns in the heart of men. The Pharisees had the King in their midst, but they had no grasp of a kingdom that was not of this world.
Peter, stirred by loving regard and concern for troubled pilgrims, urges them in a loving warning to beware of the lies and to hold to the truth- he issues a tender command, to fix their eyes and their souls upon our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, always growing in the grace and knowledge of him- he closes with an adoring testimony, that he and they ought to be devoted to that Lord and Saviour now and always, so looking always to the glory to come.
Ingratitude is a proud sin. Here we see ten men at a distance-lepers. Those ten men are crying out, seeking mercy. Those ten men are mercifully healed, given what they seek. But one man comes back and draws near, seeing in Jesus the Christ who blesses, and finds not just his body but his soul made whole. And one man is lifted up, adored as God and the one who shows mercy to need sinners-the Christ in whom we are to trust to be made truly well.
As Peter holds the hope and glory of heaven before the people of God, he urges them not only to a holy working, but to a holy waiting. Despite scoffers and spiritual seducers, believers must grasp hold of the fact that the Lord's patience in returning in glory is for the gathering in of the elect and the building up of his church. We must therefore trust the united testimony of the Scriptures, and not be drawn aside from a life of faith and godliness.
Faced with particular and pressing demands, the apostles ask, -Increase our faith-- While we understand and appreciate the request, our Lord's response seems to direct the disciples toward the substance of faith rather than its measure. When faith operates, great things are accomplished, and all the praise belongs not to the servant who serves, but to the Master who sends, for the servant has only done his duty.
The hope and glory of heaven stir us to action. Christians are people who are looking forward, and it transforms the way in which we live. Peter, full of concern for the people he loves, encourages a spirit of diligence, reminds them of their coming encounter with the risen Christ, and points them to the character they need to cultivate in anticipation of the return of their Saviour and the making of all things new.
There are spiritual trip-hazards and death-traps from outside the community of God's people, but there are also sins that disrupt it from within. We need to take heed to ourselves. That means that we learn to deal righteously with the sins that we commit against one another- if your brother sins against you, rebuke him- and if he repents forgive him. At the cross, we learn forgiveness, and become forgiven forgivers.
-We love him because he first loved us.- So simple, so profound. -We love him- is our great confession- -he first loved us- is our great motivation. All true children of God can say that we do love God, sincerely though imperfectly, as he makes himself known in Christ. How can we say this- Because we have first been the object of God's unceasing love.
Offences-stumbling blocks, trip-hazards, death-traps for the soul. Christ warns us about the certainty of such offences and the dreadful consequence of offences- better to die a terrible death than assault the faith of Christ's beloved people or prevent a sinner coming to him. There are sober warnings for all of us, but the sweet assurance that Christ takes the part of his little children when they are threatened.
Do we know what real pity is- Do we understand it- Would we extend it- Do we need it- True pity flows from the heart of God. In this psalm, David describes the people God pities -those who fear him-, the way God pities -as a father his children-, and the reason God pities -because he knows our frame and takes account of the fact that we are dust-.
As he continues his assault upon religious worldliness, and his pressure for men to live in the light of eternity, our Lord speaks of two distinct lives, two similar deaths, two contrasting destinations, and brings two gripping lessons. In the vivid contrasts between the rich man and Lazarus, we should learn the finality of the eternal state, and must learn the fullness of the written Word. God has spoken, and we must repent if we are to flee from hell and obtain heaven.
What is your standing with God- For the apostle Paul, and for every Christian, that question is answered by looking away from self to Jesus Christ. Paul helps us to consider Christ in relation to God, as the Beloved. Then he reminds us of our relation to Christ- if we are Christians, we are in the Beloved. Then, he carries us to God's relationship to us in Christ- we are accepted in the Beloved, his free favour richly poured out upon us, so that our selves and our service are pleasing to him.
Paul's life and labours are dominated and driven by the hope of eternal life-the certain expectation that he, and all who are united to Jesus Christ by faith, shall live because of Christ and rise like Christ, and enjoy the coming glory. That hope is certain because it is given by God, who cannot lie, rests on an eternal promise, and has been brought to light in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Christ makes clear that someone cannot serve both God and your stuff-your material wealth and resources-the Pharisees snort in contempt. Christ responds by bringing a heart challenge to them, identifying the present season and its pressing urgency, and then emphasising the enduring righteousness of the very law which the Pharisees claim to honour but actually despise.
Payday is usually something to look forward to, but not if there's a foreboding sense of getting what you deserve. And yet that is how we live by nature- the wages of sin is death-it always comes and it is what we really deserve. The only alternative is that life, that life eternal of blessing and bless, which is found in Christ Jesus alone. So how can someone who deserves death because of sin obtain life in Christ- it must be received as the gift of God, a gift freely bestowed and entirely in keeping with the nature and character of the Giver.
What is your long-term planning- What does it reveal about your sense of what is long-term, and about your priorities- Christ tells the story of an unjust steward to provoke us into asking whether or not we are wise enough to plan and prepare for the longest-term- will we be welcomed into heaven by those whom we have blessed and served- Will we use what we now have faithfully in order that we may enjoy blessings to come- Do we serve God or stuff-
There is a fear of death that is natural, a proper distaste for the rending of body and soul, and there is a fear of death that is moral, a sense of looming evil and the reality of judgment to come. Such fear brings everyone who has it-poor flesh and blood creatures in the kingdom of the devil-into an unhappy state of bondage. But it is possible to be released from the fear of death by the death of Christ Jesus, who took our nature in order to taste death in our place, and so deliver us from the sphere of death, and enable us to live without fear, in faith, by love, and with hope.
In the last study on Luke 15, we come to the point of the parable. We have seen the dark colours of miserable sin, the bright colours of sovereign mercy, and the warm colours of rejoicing love, but the parable itself is a response to the Pharisees who murmured because Jesus received sinners and ate with them. They enter the parable in the portrait of the older brother, in his distance, anger and resentment, still exposed by the steady compassion of the father who receives sinners.
Our society has mobilised to fight death, and still we will all die. Our reaction to death shows that, despite our boasts, we still fear dying. Hebrews 9-27 reminds us that we are appointed to die. So what is dying- Why do people die- Will everyone die- What happens when I die- And, can anyone avoid dying- Facing the fact of death, we must turn to him who alone has overcome death and who has delivered us from punishment- Jesus Christ.
In this wonderful parable we now come to the very heart- we have seen the composite picture of miserable sin, and the composite description of sovereign mercy, all of which helps us to understand the marvel of rejoicing love in God's own heart, known by him, shared with him, and poured from him.
Luke 15 presents us with a single parable in three panels, teaching us a simple lesson. The richness and variety of the portraits gives us a composite picture of the main elements of the story. Having seen the misery of sin in the pictures of a wandering sheep, a lost coin, and a rebelling son, now we see sovereign mercy set forth in a seeking shepherd, a searching woman, and a waiting father.
-Do good in your good pleasure to Zion- build the walls of Jerusalem- -Ps 51-18-. Out of humiliation, confusion, contrition and gracious restoration, David prays. We trace the people for whom he is concerned, the purpose he desires, and the pleasure of God he seeks.
Luke 15 presents us with a single parable in three panels, teaching us a simple lesson. The richness and variety of the portraits gives us a composite picture of the main elements of the story. First we find a powerful depiction of miserable sin- a wandering sheep, a lost coin, and a rebelling son.
Here is a promise for the road- that the Lord will command his angels to keep each of his people in all their ways. We need to remember that the ways of the righteous are intended-not presumptuous, sinful, carnal, arrogant, wilful ways. The Lord keeps us in the paths of humble faith, principled obedience, simple trust, deliberate holiness, and genuine pursuit of God's glory. These ways, though pleasant in themselves, are dangerous because of the different dangers, particular enemies, and varied circumstances of the saints. Nevertheless, the ways of the righteous are secure, because of the Lord's personal concern, the heavenly host, the complete oversight, the tender strength and the covenant bond which make for our safety. This should leave the child of God living a happy, humble, holy and hearty life.
In a summary statement about his teaching on discipleship, our Lord makes a simple statement, that salt is good. He then raises a strong concern- what happens if salt loses its savour, all that makes it truly distinctive- Then he makes a striking judgment, that such stuff is junk, only worthy to be thrown out. Finally, there is a straightforward exhortation- that we should take such vital truths to heart. In this sermon, we try to understand what our Lord is saying about the nature of discipleship, and what it means for those who are following him.
The prayer of our Lord Jesus for his people gives us a window into his heart, what he want for those whom he loves. We can trace the spirit of his prayer, the will he expresses. We can see the people for whom he prays, those given to him by his Father. We can identify the end for which he prays, and the blessings that this involves, being with him where he is and beholding his glory. We can also see the foundation upon which he builds, the everlasting love of the Father for his Son when he took upon himself the work of salvation. This is the confidence of the children of God.
Christ continues to press the reality of being his follower, emphasising to the crowds the same things which he has said to the Pharisees- that to be a disciple of the Christ is all-consuming. He makes the point by way of a shocking contrast, that all other relations and affections take second place to him- by way of the heavy cross, that the path he takes brings the hostility and hatred of the world- by way of a careful calculation, whether or not you have weighed up what is at stake in following him- and, by way of a stark conclusion, that we must be ready to say farewell to all else in order to ensure we have Christ. His terms have not changed, but neither has the glory which makes it all worthwhile.
-My sheep- is one of the sweetest designations in Scripture, from the heart and mouth of Christ concerning his blood-bought flock. They are distinct, marked by their open ear -they hear his voice-, his loving heart -he knows them-, and their ready foot -they follow him-.
As this difficult dinner reaches its conclusion, the Lord Jesus responds to an awkward conversation contribution by telling a parable of a gracious Master, the various guests, a righteous judgment, and an obedient servant. The emphasis is on the generous compassion of a saving God, exposing pride, selfishness and cruelty, but welcoming the needy and the outcast as God calls the wretched to sit at heaven's feast.
The opening of the eyes is a beautiful description of spiritual illumination. In order to grasp its significance, we should take note of our natural blindness, consider the Lord's gracious operation, and then think about our opened eyes-the things we begin to see what God gives light and sight.
With profound insight into the human heart, the Lord continues to draw parallels between the pride and selfishness revealed in our dealings with men on earth, and the sense we have of the kingdom of God in its true nature. Here he makes an assumption about the principled generosity that reflects the heart of God, then issues a warning about only inviting those like us, or whom we like, and being paid back in this world, with an encouragement to show Godlike generosity toward the truly needy, in the expectation of God's grace being poured out upon us in the world to come.
David speaks in this psalm of a faithful God and his beloved people, encouraging himself and others with the reminder of God's goodness and grace. He gives a specific description of people who have something to say- they seek God and love his salvation. He identifies the particular experience that they enjoy- they are joyful and glad because of their communion with God. Then he talks about the continual testimony that such people bear- -Let God be magnifed-- Joy and gladness in God's salvation breaks forth in praise to the God who saves.
At this awkward meal, our Lord speaks plain truths in a parable. We note the observation our Lord made, watching the arrogant guests jostle for the best seats. We trace the parable Jesus told, about a wedding guest where some people were sent down and others were raised up. We consider the principle Jesus applied, about the way in which arrogance or humility in the heart here is a powerful indicator of our spiritual state, as the proud are abased and the humble are exalted.
God's people recognise that our present place-this fallen world-is a place of instability and hostility to Christ and his people. They make a plain confession that here we have no continuing city-we do not expect it and would not desire it. They express a pressing desire for the city which has foundations, the full enjoyment in glory of the kingdom of grace to which they have been set apart by the blood of Christ. They seek this kingdom by eager expectation, earnest prayer, and energetic labour, finding consolation, zeal and praise in knowing what lies ahead.
What have we learned from Christ's exposure of hypocrisy- What did his original hearers learn- Have they understood that eating and drinking with and listening to Christ make no difference if they are still workers of iniquity- The tragic meal recorded at the beginning of Luke 14 gives us a window into the ugly heart of the Pharisees. In the first episode of this awkward feast, we see the cruelty and cowardice of these outwardly religious men, the crippled man who was in need of kindness, and the courage and compassion of a Christ who not only confronted the cruel but also healed the crippled.
Instead of asking whether the cup is half-empty or half-full, the Christian rejoices that he has a cup at all- The Lord has prepared a table, and given us a cup of blessing which overflows. Here we remind ourselves of the fact of our blessing, the nature or state of our blessing, and the cost of our blessing. The reason why any believer has a cup of divine mercy and favour is because our Saviour drank the cup of wrath and judgment.
Jerusalem holds an important place in Luke's narrative- it is the place to which Christ goes up, and from which the gospel goes out. But it is the place where Christ will be rejected and crucified, in keeping with Jerusalem's long rejection of his messengers. Here we study the threats, promises, griefs and woes associated with his journey to Jerusalem.
David's soul is his chief concern in this psalm, his very life. He is conscious of the threats he is under, and asks God to preserve him. We see here the twin aspects of his request -keep and deliver me-, the dreadful alternative -that he would be put to shame-, and the sure foundation of his plea -that he has put his trust in God alone-. Here is an example of faith and an encouragement to trust with all our heart in the God of salvation.
On his way to Jerusalem, our Lord's ministry seems marked by intensity and urgency. It prompts a question- -Lord, are there few who are saved-- Our Lord's answer contains a shocking surprise, identifies a critical relationship, reveals a gathering crowd, and applies an urgent lesson- are we now striving to enter into his kingdom-
-Location, location, location.- Where we live is important to us geographically. How much more spiritually- In Colossians 1-13 the apostle reminds God's people of the old place -the power of darkness, the sphere of Satan's cruelty-, the new home -the kingdom of the Son of God's love, where Christ's righteous authority is enjoyed-, and the real move -delivered from the one and transferred to the other by the saving power of God in Christ-.
Here Peter gives us a promise wrapped up in prayer, a bright display of divine grace needed by besieged believers who have been exhorted to hold fast and press forward. Peter both desires and declares sovereign grace -in the God of and to whom he speaks-, saving grace -the call into eternal glory by Christ-, sustaining grace -through the season of suffering-, and strengthening grace -to perfect, establish, strengthen and settle the saints in their time of distress-.
Death takes us, but Christ laid down his life. The different is monumental. Here we see and study the sacrifice, the authority, and the obedience of our good Shepherd, understanding something of the marvel of the resurrection, and the hope that it brings to sinners who trust in Jesus.
From the New Testament authors we learn how to seek blessings from God's hand. Here is a description of God as the God of peace, in his relation to Christ -raising the Great Shepherd of the sheep from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant-, a petition for God's people concerning their vibrant holiness, and finally a holy expectation that because of Christ, and for the glory of the triune God, we will obtain what we seek.
Our Lord said, -I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.- Here he sets forth his claim, his cross and his care. He is the good Shepherd, appointed by God to reveal the compassion of one who truly loves his own. The great demonstration of this is in giving his life on the cross, having come into the world and taken our humanity to himself. The care he shows is to his own flock, toward whom all he is and does is directed. Such a good Shepherd gives us confidence in faith, comfort in trial, and courage in service.
Paul's conception of the Christian life is rich-one marked by joy and peace. But where do such joy and peace come from- From the God of hope. What do they involve- A delighting in and resting on the God of salvation as we know him in Christ, enjoyed by faith. What do joy and peace produce- Abounding hope through the power of the Holy Spirit, pointing us always toward the consummation of our hope.
Prayer is among the believer's sweetest privileges. But what ought to be our concern in prayer- According to Psalm 122-6-7, Jerusalem-the kingdom of God among us-ought to be our great concern, Jerusalem's peace our particular regard, and prayer one of the great ways in which we express it.
God has established a city which is secure and happy. It is populated by the righteous who seek the truth. They are the ones whom God's everlasting strength keeps in perfect peace, who have their minds stayed upon God, and whose heart trusts in him. So what is the peace that they enjoy- How is it secured- And, by what channel is it received-
As David concludes his song and sermon, he drives home the key lessons and the pointed contrasts of the whole. He speaks of the deliverance of the righteous, acknowledging that they will be much afflicted but rescued by God, who will guard them to the end. He speaks of the destruction of the wicked, who are caught in their own deceit and violence and brought at last to judgment. He speaks of the redemption of the Lord, who keeps those who belong to him, and secures them now and always, so that they are now safe and must be happy.