From the Heart of Spurgeon

Picking up the last episode of the parable of the wedding feast, Spurgeon applies it carefully in his own context, acknowledging that times of spiritual excitement often see false professors joining the visible church. He therefore preaches a sermon intended to provoke heart-searching among his hearers, that they may not be found out in the day of God’s testing. With that in mind, he has five simp...

This delightful sermon lays hold of Christ in his present power by pointing to the display of that power when, at his coming, he works the transformation of all his redeemed people at their resurrection from the dead. The logic is simple. First, Christ has power to raise all his people and to transform their vile bodies that they may be like his glorious body. The preacher takes some time to descr...

This sermon is one in which Spurgeon clings very closely to his text. His three-point outline follows the overall arc of the verses from which he preaches, while under each main heading, rather than arranging some thoughts as he so often does, he rather follows the substance of the biblical wording closely, unpacking it, explaining it, applying it. The result is a sermon as logical as any others i...

Spurgeon is deeply concerned with the prayers of God’s people. The Tabernacle, under his care, was a congregation marked by a prayerful spirit, worked out in various opportunities for intercession, and not least a pattern of regular congregational prayer, with particular seasons for pleading God’s blessing. Behind that appetite for prayer lies a confidence in the God who hears prayer. This sermon...

We too easily cease to wonder at the marvel of divine love and the splendour of divine blessing. This sermon, as so many, puts on display Spurgeon’s persistent joy in the salvation of God, in itself and as bestowed upon others. It is one of the sermons in which, rather than deal with a theme suggested by a verse, he engages in close dealing with the text itself—on this occasion, 1 Peter 1:3–5. He...

We ought to have a burning appetite for people to know Christ in salvation. We will do that if we delight in him for ourselves. Spurgeon pre-eminently combines that personal delight and that urgent concern. He therefore sets the Lord Jesus before us in the simplicity of his character as the way from sin and to God, impressing upon us the blessings he brings and constantly persuading his hearers to...

This is a sermon both weighty and cutting. Spurgeon evidently feels it as he preaches it, and it comes across in the plainness of his language and the starkness and roughness of the structure. The sermons barrels along, heaping thought upon thought. There is clarity and order in it, but there is also a sort of relentless around a straightforward assertion that two things are to be followed and two...

Spurgeon’s assessment of Martha and Mary is not just a crass comparison between the two women, but is rather used to throw light on a disposition he perceives in the church as a whole. It may not be the kind of sermon that all men are in a position to preach, for not all are exposed to the range of activity, the range of influence, and the range of censure to which Spurgeon was exposed. That oppor...

This simple sermon gives a good example of preaching from the human experience recorded in the Scripture. It is an approach often frowned upon today (almost any preaching of human life can be easily dismissed as mere moralism) and yet to throws light on our own thinking and feeling when we can see and hear through the eyes and ears of those whose histories are recorded in Scripture. Spurgeon does...

Spurgeon always strives to keep divine sovereignty and human responsibility in their proper and scriptural relationship. The principle he derives from Colossians 1:29 is “that the work of Christ in us and for us does not exempt us from work and service, nor does the Holy Spirit’s work supersede human effort, but rather excites it.” He presses that doctrine in two directions, firstly with regard to...

Catching our ears and our hearts, Spurgeon subverts our expectations with a sermon on overwhelming obligations that is about grace and goodness and gratitude. He carries us to the bright depths of our experience of God’s favour toward us, and lifts us to the heights of praise in response to the divine blessing. He is equally ready to draw attention to our experience, surveying the range of God’s k...

Our preacher’s theological convictions and pastoral compassions are on display once more. He opens his text first as a test of our profession of faith. Are we genuinely free of the dominion of sin—we know sin is remaining, but is it reigning? Spurgeon calls us to a stern and searching self-examination in this respect. Next he takes the text as a promise. Again there is both honesty and sensitivity...

Spurgeon is the kind of man who—not least because of the volume of material he produced, as well as the range of issues he addressed in various contexts—can be easily claimed by any number of different people and groups, each of whom are able to find something he said which (more or less, in some way) might appear to support their own distinctive opinions. Certainly he has been claimed by Charisma...

Our preacher has a talent for developing a particular phrase, not necessarily ripping it out of context, but developing a theme or issue from its context. He does that here with the matter of ‘servantising’ (as he calls it), waiting upon the Most High as his servants. So he lays down the foundations of service, then the modes of our service, then he commends such service, and finally he exhorts us...

The structure of this sermon is particularly interesting, being slightly more developed than Spurgeon’s norm. He begins by unpacking the detail of his text, then focuses on the matter of sanctification, which he then teases out under three headings: the order of a holy life, the rule of that order, and the great Director of that order. There is something typically Puritanical in the identification...

Originally preached for the Young Men’s Association in aid of the Baptist Missionary Society, this sermon has particular reference to and relevance for the young. Of course, Spurgeon is well aware that spiritual vigour has no necessary connection to physical condition, but he points out that older saints may need to be incited to zeal, whereas energy is natural to the young, and young Christians o...

In a sermon directed to every Christian worker (but in which he wrestles not to sound as if he is speaking primarily to ministers of the gospel) Spurgeon sets out the character and labour of the truly successful worker, the reward that he obtains, and the certainty which he says binds together “the weeping service and the rejoicing success.” It is a good reminder to us that it is not just the work...

This is a homiletical gem, showing a simple, clear and compelling progression through the sermon: one glorious person, two precious doctrines, three experiences, and four duties. Not every sermon can be so neat, but it is a good example of a memorable and striking organisation, upon which hangs much sweet substance. The preacher’s aim is to set before us the Lord Jesus in the whole of his characte...

Here is an incandescent sermon in which Spurgeon attempts to show how Christ came to bring fire on the earth. With this image in his mind, he first of all surveys the history of the gospel, beginning with the book of God, then the preacher taken up with the truth, the hearer who feels the heat and light of the good news, and the opposition that is provoked and how the fiery gospel even catches hol...

Spurgeon is known, even renowned, for preaching from individual texts, often very short ones, even phrases. While some sermons or addresses are linked by their time or place of preaching (think of the lectures to his students), and while it is possible to arrange collections of sermons under certain themes (as many have done, both Spurgeon himself and others since) most of the sermons stand alone...

This interesting sermon approaches the matter of human sin from an atypical angle: that of our sins of omission (sins of commission are things we do which God commands us not to do, while sins of omission are our failure to do those things which we are commanded or obliged to do). Point by point, Spurgeon peels back layer after layer. He begins with how common they are, rooted in our falling short...

This may not be the sermon that you expect. It is not a sermon about old age. The language of grey hairs is taken to represent decay and decline, and applied to spiritual things in individuals. His concern is with people who are sliding into patterns of spiritual slovenliness and sin but who have no sense of such a departure from the path of real and lively religion. Why are they ignorant of this?...

Here is our pastor-preacher about his favourite business, the lifting up of the name of Jesus Christ. The construction of the sermon is interesting. Spurgeon first insists on the literal meaning of his text, of Christ as Israel’s glory; then he moves to the new covenant, further showing that Christians today have Christ as their glory because they stand in the same relation to him as Israel did un...

As so often, Spurgeon is quite content to shift between the natural and the spiritual. I mean, he begins with the basic sense of the Lord’s question to Job, “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion?” (Jb 38:31). Who is able to change, restrain, or overcome the divine government in the natural world? However, Spurgeon elevates the question to the spiritual realm, as ill...

Spurgeon loves to dwell upon the goodness of God, and it is indeed a worthy theme. He does so in this sermon by taking the Lord’s description of his gracious dealings with Abraham and his descendants, described in rich symbolism in Ezekiel 16, and transposing the whole into a new covenant key. In company with some of the finest preachers God has given his church, Spurgeon delights to do this kind...