From the Heart of Spurgeon

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 that well here, using Nathanael as an example of someone in whom the Spirit had been at work to prepare his heart before he actually encountered our Lord for himself. He introduced us to Nathanael, before stepping through Nathanael’s interaction with and responses to our Lord, with helpful insights into human nature that both flow out of and into what happened to Nathanael. These are not left lying on the surface of our minds, but pressed into our hearts by way of instruction and appeal. Spurgeon is concerned for all kinds of hearers, and Nathanael becomes in this sermon a type of a certain kind, turned to good effect as he pleads with those whose hearts have been awakened to something of a sense of their sin and stirred to desire salvation to come to the Saviour. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 a man’s own salvation, and secondly with regard to a man’s ministry for the salvation of others. So stated (in Spurgeon’s words) it may all seem a little stark, but he does a masterful job of weaving together the two strands of the Holy Spirit’s powerful operations and the believer’s active dependence upon and response to those operations. The whole rises to something more than an exhortation, something more than an encouragement—it is a charge to the church, in the light of some particular effort then being made, to throw themselves into the work of the kingdom in expectation of the divine blessing. Our situation may be less specific than when Spurgeon first preached, but the sermon is no less worthy of being taken to heart. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 kindnesses toward us, and to look through a more doctrinal lens, contemplating the distinct mercies of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then, at some length, he probes our souls as a true pastor, being very “personal and practical,” asking a series of very searching questions which challenge us on a number of levels about the response we are making to the benefits which the Lord has bestowed. Again, we have a sermon remarkable for the territory it covers, for the depths it plumbs, for the heights it scans, and for the praise it draws forth. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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, rooting our freedom from the power of sin in the divine plan and purpose, especially in that God’s people are not under law but under grace. Spurgeon takes pains to explain that the law cannot promote and secure holiness because of the sinfulness of the human heart, but that grace has a power that sweetly constrains to holy obedience. Finally, he takes his text as an encouragement, directing it toward various different characters in his congregation—the careless, the weak, the embattled, the immature, the backslider, and the unconverted. So he takes in more or less all his hearers in a great sweep, pointing these truths particularly at those in particular need. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 Charismatic Christians, and certainly he is a man conscious of his dependence on the Holy Spirit and often immediately responsive to the operations of the Spirit in a way that can make some Christians uncomfortable. Nevertheless, to take some of those occasions and comments and to turn Spurgeon into something he was not is neither just nor honest. We do not know if there were a specific occasion for this sermon, but it sets forth a robust concern for and critique of those who set ‘signs and wonders’ against the clear revelation of God’s Word. It may be that most of us might take some issue with some of what Spurgeon says, but what is clear is his insistence upon the supremacy of Scripture, and the folly of putting something else in the place of or even alongside the Word of the living God as the source of truth and the guide for a life that pleases the Lord. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 to such service. As ever, there is a holy boldness in Spurgeon’s address. We might legitimately suggest that Spurgeon can speak very directly to a very large congregation without necessarily pointing his finger at one or two people, as might happen when dealing with something like inactivity or laxity in a smaller congregation. The flip side of such an assertion is that he is speaking very directly to thousands of people, and he does not pull his punches. As hearers and readers, we feel the force of Spurgeon’s challenge about our service for the Lord; as preachers, we might be reminded of the kind of fortitude that is required to look any number of men and women in the eye, and—with compassion and integrity—point out where they fall short and exhort them to greater endeavour in the Lord’s work. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 of the doctrine and then its development and application. That impression is only heightened in the opening point, where Spurgeon really digs down into what elements of order there are in a holy life. He almost exhausts his time, and certainly skews his structure, by spending so much time here, but does then press home the Scriptures as the rule of such a life, emphasising the way in which the Word of God is obeyed with constant reference to God himself (you can almost read the headings in his notes as he rattles through the material!), before some final conclusions and applications. It reminds us that Spurgeon is alive as he preaches, and that the sermon itself is a bridled stallion which sometimes runs away with the best of preachers; nevertheless, there is no waste here, for the preacher responds to the liveliness of his steed, and still manages to finish his course, setting before us particularly something of the beauty of a life of godliness. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 often have a flush of early excitement which it is well to encourage. Fundamentally, then, the preacher urges God’s people to pick up their pace and keep up their pace. He sets forth running as a positive metaphor for Christian life and service. Then, taking account of the challenges, he sets out the runner’s girdle (that he waits upon the Lord) and the runner’s staff (that he shall not grow weary). The result is a sermon that both calls and comforts, that provides its particular precept to the eager soul, its particular probe to the lazy soul, and its particular peace to the weary soul. I hope it will do the same for each one of us in these days, whether we are young or old. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 itself, mechanically considered, buts its motives and spirit also which must be considered. It is a great encouragement to us that the one who goes forth humbly and earnestly, from God and for God, will obtain a blessing upon the work. It reminds us that the connection is not of man’s effort but of God’s gift. Perhaps we have yet to go—this will help us on our way. Perhaps we have gone with the wrong attitude—this will correct any coldness of heart. Perhaps we have seen little blessing—this will keep us serving. Perhaps we have mourned over scant fruit—this will give us hope that a harvest will yet come. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 character and work, and so to behold his glory in such a way that, out of it, we may receive out of his personal fulness the superabundant grace upon which we rely and in which we rejoice. It gives Spurgeon the opportunity to cover a vast amount of territory (some of which he does at a fair gallop) to provide a broad vista, pressing home the truth, drawing experimental lessons, and pressing home Christian responsibilities in relation to the Christ in all his glory. It displays something of Spurgeon’s genius for the setting forth of Christ, both for adoration and for obligation, as we consider him in his majesty, the blessings he brings, and the duties we owe. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 hold in those who oppose. Then he likens the gospel to fire more directly, thinking of how it advances, and comforts, and consumes, and purifies. Finally, he asks what ought to be the effects in us if we have truly caught this flame in our souls? A holy fearlessness, a holy impatience of mere forms and religious proprieties, a holy appetite for prayer, and a holy commitment to Christ’s service. It is the sort of sermon that grieves the reader, for you can only hear the distant rumble of the preacher’s thunder—what must it have been like to hear a man preaching in the power of God’s Spirit, with the storm all full of lightning flashing around you! May the Lord give us something of that same light and heat as we read and hear it still.

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 by design. This sermon, then, is unusual in that it constitutes part of what seems to be one of the closest things Spurgeon preaches to a series of sermons. This sermon on justification is preceded by one on effectual calling, then followed the next Lord’s day by one on consecration, and the theme deliberately picked up again in a sermon the following year on mature faith, each illustrated by an episode in the life of Abram. So this sermon is notable both in terms of its distinctive relation to other sermons, and the way in which Spurgeon interprets and applies the experience of the patriarch to the believers of his own day. He is unashamed to make clear the commonality between Abram’s faith and life, and ours, and so to make Abram a model for every true believer—to hold him up as, indeed, the father of those who believe. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 of the requirement to love God with all our hearts and our fellow men as ourselves. Next he digs down to the causes of these things, showing how we evade or excuse ourselves. Then he presses home the sinfulness of these sins, that they are not to be in any way diminished. Finally, he wants us to understand how sins of omission are damning, not only in themselves, but because they involve the neglect of the very remedy for all our sins which God has provided in Christ. When the gap between the church and the world is growing wider and more distinct, and with the risk of self-satisfaction growing in that space, it is good for God’s people to be humbled by the awareness that—even in the proper pursuit of our duties and obediences—there is something lacking in our best efforts which leaves us in constant dependence upon the mercies of God Christ Jesus. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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? Spurgeon offers some suggestions. What are the marks of decay and backsliding for which we should look? Spurgeon identifies some features of spiritual decline. Are there are any remedies? As a good physician of the soul, Spurgeon is ready to make some recommendations. It is not an easy sermon, as the preacher blends explanation and application, speaking plainly to expose our sins, cutting close lest anything should escape the knife, but also making sure that there is some gospel balm at the close for the healing of our wounds. Perhaps, though, we do not mind so much when it is Spurgeon, and we can close the book, or pause the podcast? Let us remember that this is faithful preaching, and our own pastors—if they look us in the eye and deal so straightforwardly with us—are doing the same job to the same end.

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 under the old covenant; this asserted, in five points he spells out the glory we receive, and see, and give, and reflect, and expect in and from our Lord Jesus; then, he closes with some practical points. How readily do we, as preachers, turn to this topic? Is it our constant joy, reverently, eagerly, humbly, happily, to dwell upon the person and work of Christ, and to extol his name? How readily do we receive this as hearers and readers, delighted simply to contemplate the glory of the Lord of glory, the benefits we enjoy in and from him, the greatness of our so-great salvation? It is good for us to trace both the central theme and concern of Spurgeon’s sermon, and the manner in which he handles it, showing sensitivity and integrity as an exegete, and so ever-ready to exalt the King of kings and Lord of lords.

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 illustrative of the operations of the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, his mighty working cannot be prevented. On the other, men in their own strength are able to accomplish no spiritual victories. As well as his customary flashes of practical insight, there are some particular lessons to draw from this. Again and again, we see this inventive and creative but not casual or crass handling of the Scripture. Spurgeon knows well that the question, in itself, belongs naturally to the realm of astronomy, theologically to the doctrine of providence as an expression of divine sovereignty. But experimentally and illustratively, it serves well to remind us of our powerlessness in all spiritual matters, and the gracious operations of the Holy Ghost among the people of God. As such, it teaches us to think carefully not just of what the Bible means, but of how it can be applied. It makes for a lively and striking sermon. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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 of thing. Some might say that he pushes the parallels too far, but his is an eye that sees through a decidedly Christian lens. He dives down two levels in this sermon: first, he is already working with the symbolism of the text, and then further he takes account of what was typical in God’s dealings with Abraham. It seems little effort for him to see in the symbolic kindnesses and typical favours the Lord bestowed on Abraham and Israel the goodnesses that the Lord has granted to those who are trusting in Jesus under the new covenant. Having set forth these things for us, he quite naturally presses home some practical observations in the light of the good things that the Lord has granted to the privileged man. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

For me, a sermon like this shows Spurgeon at something of his plain best. Its simplicity, its directness, its earnestness, all commend it. Rooted in the text, spoken with expectant faith, personally persuasive, it seems to capture something of the very moment of delivery in its straightforward intensity. You can almost feel the preacher looking into your eyes as he addresses you. His concern for the glory of God intertwines with and carries along his desire for the good of his hearers. It lacks some of the poetry of other sermons, it offers less scope for his imaginative faculties, it contains less verbal flair than some of his offerings, but for plain speaking and plain pleading of gospel truth, I appreciate it. If we are preachers, we may not have a poetic bent; we may not be able to wing our way heavenward in our minds; we may struggle to reach Spurgeon’s heights of oratory; we can still preach Spurgeon’s Christ, still hold out the gospel he proclaimed. If we are

This sermon reveals a somewhat unusual arrangement. Spurgeon typically sets out the skeleton of his sermon in a series of stated points toward the beginning, typically three, sometimes four or more. More occasionally, Spurgeon’s outline is revealed stage-by-stage as he works through his sermon. This address, while by no means lacking structure, does lack that more overt outline, and takes the form of a series of observations upon the Lord Christ’s practice of protracted or extended seasons of prayer. That consideration of the example of Jesus is then followed by applications to the church which is gathering for its own particular season of prayer, following something of the same approach. The tone of the whole is quite meditative and conversational. It reads differently to other sermons, and one wonders whether or not it would have been heard differently, and what difference it might have made to the preacher’s manner and voice, his expression and gesture. We cannot answer such questions readily, but we can still derive much benefit from the sermon, as we are encouraged to give ourselves, as individuals and churches, to extended periods of prayer in seeking the blessing of the Almighty. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon closes a year with a sermon taken from the refrain of Psalm 136: “For his mercy endures forever.” In trademark style, and with the meaning of his text lying on the surface and requiring little explanation, as well as picking up hints and ideas from the rest of the psalm, Spurgeon turns the sermons into a developed meditation and application. He takes the phrase as a song of praise; as a solace with regard to the past, the present, and the future; as a sermon with three points; and, briefly, as a summons to come to the Lord for the mercy held out. For preachers, it shows us an inventive way of handling a text—Spurgeon uses the key phrase as a way of harnessing the whole psalm, giving him scope at the end of the year to range over a wide area. For hearers and readers, it covers so much territory, for the minister turns it to various uses, exhorting, rebuking, comforting, instructing, calling. It need not be a year end for us to derive much benefit from Spurgeon’s consideration of God’s enduring mercy, for this is a theme we need at all times. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

One of the more delightful aspects of Spurgeon’s ministry is his present sense of the person of Christ, the immediacy of his relationship to his living Lord, and the manner in which he communicates that to us. It is the very personal dimension of true Christianity which comes to the fore in this sermon, as our preacher picks up the sweetness of Christ living in his people, and our living by faith in him. Having emphasised the personal connection between Christ and the believing soul, he presses home what he describes as “the interweaving of our own proper personality with that of Jesus Christ”—the closeness of the relationship which we sustain to our Redeemer. Then, of course, because he no mere theoretician, but a true pastor-preacher, he considers the life which results from this union between Christ and his people. His text, he says, “rises before my contemplation like a lofty range of mountains, a very Andes for elevation” and his aim is simply to bring us into the sunlit uplands, even if we cannot scale the highest peaks. It is worth climbing as high as we can! Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The breadth of Spurgeon’s ministry is instructive (bearing in mind that what we have available is only a representative selection, and we are simply sampling that!). His versatility shows itself not just in the way he handles his material, but even also in the material which he handles. So here he deals with self-examination concerning our spiritual fruitfulness, speaking plainly not only concerning the fruit we expect to find in a true saint, but also the reality of pruning in a Christian’s life. Spurgeon is not merely some genial Victorian pulpiteer, dispensing sentimental religious notions. His aim is that we should be true disciples of Jesus Christ, show ourselves and know ourselves to be such disciples, and grow in grace as followers of the Lamb. So here, he does not so much wield the knife as describe how the Lord wields it, teaching us to look carefully at our own souls, and to submit humbly to the heavenly Vinedresser’s dealings with us. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The sermons Spurgeon preached carry us very high and very low, matching some of the heights and depths of his own experience. Here he is encouraging us with the joy of true religion, and the spirit of the service we render to our Lord and Saviour. In somewhat Puritanical structure, Spurgeon first teases out the primary elements of his text: we serve; we serve the Lord; we serve the Lord with gladness. He then zeroes in on this key idea, and more or less interrogates the notion. Where does this joy come from? Where does it show itself? What makes it so difficult? And, why is it so excellent? Here he is able to bring the truth to bear for instruction and exhortation, for encouragement and challenge. His delight in God and his salvation bleeds out especially under the first main heading, although he is attempting a pastoral balance, recognising the challenges we face and trying to provide sweet spiritual motives for the labour we undertake for our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This sermon teaches us to trace the streams of joy back to the fountain of God’s saving love, and there to have our hearts lifted heavenward, and our hands strengthened on earth. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon turns his text in several fascinating directions in this sermon, reminding us that the speed at which he prepared does not mean that he was not meditating upon his subject, though his genius clearly lay along particular lines. Using Peter’s statement that “we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they,” he takes it first as an apostolic statement of faith, reminding us of what it does not contain as well as what it does. Second, and perhaps most strikingly, he emphasises that the statement reminds us not so much that it is a wonder that great sinners are saved, but that even outwardly moral and seemingly good people need just the same gospel as the most wretched and evidently needy. Third, he turns to such sinners and reminds them that this is indeed a gospel for them, and that Christ will save all who come to him. On one level it is very simply, on another, it is most thoughtful. Its careful inventiveness is a good example of how we must think and speak—under God—so as to catch the attention and provoke the heart. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This sermon was not preached at the Tabernacle, but at Surrey Chapel. In it, Spurgeon shows something of his versatility and adaptability, without losing anything of his urgency and vitality. He is as fervent in calling Christ’s people to serve as he is in calling needy sinners to Christ. He sticks close to his text, setting forth Christ in his labour and then bringing an appropriate question and exhortation to the disciples of Christ as to whether or not we are truly following in the footsteps of our Master. He closes the sermon with more direct application to saints, a forceful reminder of our mortality, pressing us to consider the shortness of time. That itself gives rise to that same deep concern for the lost: life is short, time is passing, opportunity flies away—we cannot serve God until we have trusted in Christ. I wonder if, should a preacher emphasise such themes today, he might be labelled as legalistic and morbid! No doubt Spurgeon was in his own day. Do we give him a pass ‘because he’s Spurgeon’? Perhaps worse, do we offer a cool applause to the sentiment without a warm response to the exhortation? Let us, like our Saviour, work while it is day; the night comes when no-one can work. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

In one sense, every true preacher always fails. He knows that he will miss the mark at which he aims, that of properly glorifying God in Christ. The excellence of the preacher consists more in the beautiful target at which he aims and the holy effort with which he strives to reach it; to whatever extent he draws near, it is by the Holy Spirit’s help. That is Spurgeon’s experience in this sermon, one in which he seems particularly conscious of his dependence on the Holy Ghost as he sets forth Christ’s glorious person, the unsearchable riches that belong to Christ, and the divinely gracious intention with which those riches are set forth by Christ’s ministers. The preacher attempts to cover something of the sweep of saving history before bringing the excellences of Christ and the fruits of his work to bear upon the hearts of his hearers. I would rather see and hear a man fail while aiming at such a goal than succeed at anything less—such failure honours the Lord, who uses the weakest of instruments to glorify his own great name! Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

There can be few more fearful prospects for a Christian or a church than that of grieving the Holy Spirit. I wonder how many of us ever contemplate this, searching our own hearts and lives, considering the life of the church, and asking whether or not we are guilty of such a sin? Spurgeon reminds us of this horrible possibility, explaining how and why it may come about. He also explores some of the ugly consequences of grieving the third Person of the Godhead, the damage it does in the life of the church and her members. Finally, he urges a personal argument why the saints should not grieve the Holy Spirit. Of course, the preacher’s aim is not merely to bring us down, still less to keep us down. Rather, the desire is to diagnose and to prescribe, to make us aware of the dangers so that we might either avoid them or address them. While some may be prone to assume that they have grieved the Holy Ghost in some way, too quick to jump to this conclusion, it seems likely today that the opposite problem more prevails—that of failing to consider whether or not one of the reasons for the weakness of the church is that we have distressed the Spirit of God. Here the question is put, here a solution is proposed. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Do you expect a blessing when you pray? Do you expect that blessing to come rapidly? It may be that many of us are in the state of waiting for prayer to be answered, of having long prayed and not yet seen the answer to our prayers. While there is nothing unusual in such delays, this sermon encourages us to consider the state of our hearts in seeking a blessing from God, that “if the whole church…shall be brought to set its face, to be conscious of the deep need of sinners, to confess its own sin, to be mindful of God’s mercy, and to be vehemently, passionately in earnest for a blessing,” we can anticipate the command of mercy, based on the happy relationship between a believer and his God. Furthermore, the preacher urges us to consider the kinds of blessings for which we ought to pray—spiritual delights and heavenly realities bound up with everlasting life. Most Christians grieve over their praying; few would claim to be eminent in the work. Many are, perhaps, accustomed to asking little and expecting slow and slim answers. Here is a sermon to lift up our eyes and hearts, to lift up our petitions, to the throne of grace in anticipation of the blessings we truly need. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

A sermon Spurgeon preached toward the end of one year seems appropriate at any time. He draws on Habakkuk’s declaration of his fear of God and petition for a blessing from the Lord of heaven, that he would in wrath remember mercy. Gripped by divine truth, impressed by recent tragedy, and moved by the Holy Spirit, Spurgeon gives us a straight-down-the-line three-pointer, identifying the alarming voice, outlining an appropriate prayer, and pressing home a potent argument. He seems to have a perpetual appetite for more of God’s grace and glory, and to be able to communicate that appetite in a refreshing and telling way. Perhaps Spurgeon’s urgent exhortations wearied some, but they do our souls good as he insists that we must follow his lead in pleading with God for his blessing on the place where we live and serve. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This striking sermon seems to arise from questions raised out of the pulpit, about the propriety of “praying for King Jesus.” Working from Psalm 72:15, Spurgeon wants to show us that not only is it proper to pray for Christ, but that it expands, establishes, enriches, and enlivens our praying. As he works through his topic, the preacher helps us to see how putting Christ at the heart of our prayerful desires prevents selfishness and narrow-mindedness, lifts our petitions and our expectations, and offers particular encouragements in prayer. If your prayers, individually or congregationally, too often feel narrow and shallow, crass and constrained, earthy and heavy, then this sermon will be a blessing to your soul. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Though it does not lack gentleness, this is not a sermon to please the dull and sullen Christian, and there are too many such. People who are happy sleeping in a warm and comfortable bed are not often appreciative of the blast of the trumpet and the call to arms. Spurgeon is concerned at his own sleepiness, and the sleepiness of others. He does a masterful job of portraying the nature and the cause of Christian drowsiness, spending the bulk of the sermon on this point. The he turns to the call and the promise of Christ to the sleeper, to awake, and to receive the light of Christ. As so often, this is not a comfortable sermon, especially to believers. You might easily resent it, evade it, dismiss it, but we ought instead to humble ourselves under it, not excuse ourselves from it, but hear it and heed it. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon often addresses the kind of Christian despondency that breeds a shameful passivity. He opens this sermon with a lengthy introduction bemoaning the low expectations of God’s people—people who yearn for a lively past and have vague hopes for a brighter future, but have given up all present hopes: “Not here, not now, not us!” This is the attitude that calls inaction, patience, and labels unbelief as realism. To counteract this ugly spirit, Spurgeon presses upon us the signs of harvest (and yes, we might long for more of those in our day!); he points out the wants or needs of harvest, the way in which we should engage in a day when there is work to be done; he warns us of the fears of harvest, reminding all his hearers, both converted and otherwise, that time passes and the work undone might be left undone forever. I can imagine the same despondent Christians today saying that Spurgeon’s circumstances allow him to hope in a way that we cannot; in fact, though we may face particular challenges, the very scope of the work ought to rouse our spirits for labour.

This is the kind of sermon that makes us ask, “If Spurgeon thought that he needed to preach this in his own day, what might he have said to us?!” He addresses those “who are beginning to imagine that weakness is the normal and proper state of a Christian; that to be unbelieving, desponding, nervous, timid, cowardly, inactive, heartless, is at worst a very excusable thing.” In Spurgeon’s understanding, this is a fearful and dangerous conclusion to reach. In response, he identifies some of the spiritual cures that faith in God’s Christ has worked in the experience of the church through the ages. Not satisfied with that, he then analyses faith to determine what are the divinely-appointed ingredients in this medicine. He urges us to go the Spirit of God to obtain the medicine, and praises the Physician who can make us strong out of our very weakness. There is no spiritual strength without the faith which God gives. If Spurgeon felt the church’s need in his own day, then we would do well to heed his counsels in our own. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

In 1866, cholera spread rapidly through London, claiming over five thousand lives. Into our own time, bedevilled with debates about Covid-19 and other such diseases—their causes and their cures—, Spurgeon speaks with a voice of spiritual sanity and reason. Here we find a remarkable blend of heavenly-mindedness and earthly sense, a readiness to acknowledge God’s hand in the spread of sickness, an awareness of divine justice and wisdom, an honesty about the potential causes and purposes of such afflictions. In all the often-silly arguments about diseases and vaccines, conspiracies and cures, have we missed the voice of the virus, speaking clearly and penetratingly to mortal men? Spurgeon lifts us above so much of the pettiness and foolishness of the current conversation and focuses our attention on eternity, and the God before whom we must soon stand. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Joy and peace! Who would not wish to know joy and peace? Spurgeon wants us to know them, but he wants us to know them truly, building upon the right foundation and enjoying the things themselves, and not some cheap and shoddy counterfeits. Therefore he exposes some common errors with regard to joy and peace before going on to deal with the root of true spiritual joy and lasting peace through believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. And so we need to know what that believing means, and what it involves, and to understand that joy and peace always come through believing and are never really found by any other means. With a beautiful simplicity and gospel clarity, Spurgeon shows a pastoral precision in ensuring that the right things are put in the right spiritual sequence and connection. Joy and peace seem in short supply in today’s world. If we want them for ourselves, and if we want others to know them, here we have the guidance we need. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Do you really care about knowing and doing the will of the Lord? It is easy to be zealous in a few things which fall more naturally into our way of thinking, as Jehu did. But that same Jehu “took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart.” Spurgeon is concerned that many Christian professors fall into the same trap, and so—in this sobering sermon—he urges us to ensure that we are committed to knowing and doing all the law of the Lord with all our hearts. To do otherwise reveals a sickliness at best, a fatal absence of true religion at worst. We must heed all that God has spoken, and make sure that our hearts are right with him. Perhaps some today would dismiss Spurgeon’s employment of Jehu as a negative model as mere moralising. In fact, the preacher shows us how to use such examples to stir and stimulate our souls to watchfulness and self-examination. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon launches himself into this sermon hard. It is not one of his most polished addresses, but it has a certain raw vigour about it, both for style and for substance, which reminds us of the true strength of his ministry: the God in whom he had such robust confidence. In contrasting walking by faith and walking by sight, he first of all considers what is meant by walking, and how these two principles are therefore going to govern all our life, one way or another, and primarily encouraging the walk of faith. Then he moves on to a more direct contrast, and here he is primarily negative about walking by faith, exposing its vanity and folly. Finally, he urges us to keep the two distinct, and not to mix sight with faith, especially with regard to our understanding of salvation, and our relationship to God. We must not be governed by experience, by feeling, by passing providences, but must be anchored to truth, divine revelation, and hold to the Jesus of the Scripture, set forth in the Bible as the only object of saving faith. For our one hundredth podcast, we do not try to choose Spurgeon at his finest or most palatable, but to offer another representative sermon of a preacher of Jesus Christ who would have his hearers come to and cling to his beloved Saviour. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This sermon is really a plea for believing prayer. Often, at the beginning of a new year, as well as at other seasons, the Tabernacle was giving itself to earnest prayer for the Lord’s blessing through the coming months. Correspondingly, Spurgeon often calls the church to prayer, as he does here by remind the saints that God has a mighty arm. He wants believers to understand the nature of divine power, but he goes beyond a merely doctrinal enumeration. As a preacher, he presses to the practical: Spurgeon wants us to understand the Lord’s might not just in theory but in practice, not merely as a doctrinal affirmation but as an awesome reality. That leads to the lessons we need to learn still about the strength of God, and here Spurgeon is not far from William Carey. We should expect great things and therefore attempt great things, and as a result we must pray for great things from a great God. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Nebuchadnezzar’s exclamation is a Christian’s consolation: “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Dan 3:25). In order to obtain the balm, we need to understand first of all what is the furnace into which the children of God are still cast, what it is that the saints lose in the furnaces into which they are thrown, what the saints do when they are in the furnace, what they cannot lose no matter how high or hot the flames, and the company which they enjoy. The fact that Christ himself draws near when the Christian is so afflicted is the great peace and joy we can genuinely anticipate when we are tried as were Daniel’s three friends: “you must go into the furnace if you would have the nearest and dearest dealings with Christ Jesus.” It is, then, a sweetly comforting sermon, helpfully realistic about the various trials which a Christian might be called to face, and equally realistic about the blessings a faithful believer can enjoy when so tried. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This heartening sermon focuses on the brief assertion by the apostle Peter that our Lord went about doing good. What a delight it is to consider the character and activity of our Lord under this short description! Spurgeon spends the main part of the sermon in asking what Christ did, how he did it, and why he did it. It really is as simple as that. Then, in a second point, he makes his application: to what extent are we following in the footsteps of our Saviour? This gives us reason to repent over our past, and to consecrate ourselves for the future, in dependence upon God, to go as he went, marked by the same intent, imbued with the same spirit, and moved by the same desire. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

At this point in his ministry, Spurgeon was engaged in a particular battle against sacramentalism, the idea that the means of grace actually and immediately bestowed grace in and of themselves (an idea technically referred to as ex opere operato). So, for example, and as we have already seen, Spurgeon contended against the idea of baptismal regeneration. In Spurgeon’s day, this thinking was becoming more prominent, not least in the Anglican communion, where men like Edward Pusey (1800–1882) were leading lights in the so-called Oxford Movement, under which a ‘high church’ agenda was pursued and various Roman Catholic doctrines and practices were reintroduced into Anglicanism. In this sermon, Spurgeon hits hard at the underlying flaws of this movement, contrasting the unprofitable flesh of carnal externalities with the life-giving operations of the Holy Spirit. While the fruits of Puseyism are still evident around us, the principles set forth by Spurgeon remain vital for the ongoing commitment of Christ’s church to true spirituality and simplicity of worship, and our confidence in the means which God has provided. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Do you look forward to heaven? Spurgeon urges you to do so, not least because there God will wipe away all the tears of his glorified people. The preacher’s approach to this is inventive and engaging. He first makes it a reminder of the tears that we shall weep until we reach glory, identifying the three bottles of tears that the believer fills up on earth. Then he reminds us of how, even now, the Lord is pleased to wipe tears from the eyes of his people. Thirdly, and extensively, he looks at the ways in which, in the glory to come, God will remove tears, and especially how he himself will accomplish this. Finally, and briefly, he asks simply this: “Will you be in this happy company?” Again, Spurgeon shows his God-given and Spirit-honed skill of turning his text and its applications in multiple directions, to different kinds of hearers, and to a variety of uses, convincing, rebuking, exhorting, and encouraging. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The surmise with which Spurgeon begins this sermon is that Simon the Zealot earned his surname as an unconverted man, but kept it as a Christian man. And so he considers the ugly zeal of the unconverted person, a misdirected, boastful, ignorant, selective, temporary thing, which makes a man a bully or a persecutor, and has sinister aims. Nevertheless, the fact that he can be zealous for worthless things should make us zealous for the worthwhile, and we should ever hope that a man with that kind of spirit, enlivened by the Spirit of Christ, might find a new and happier channel for his energies. And so we turn to the zeal of a converted person, marked by private and public commitment to the cause of Christ, with grief over its seeming setbacks and lack of progress, and ardent love for the Saviour. It is kept up by an outward look, an inward look, a forwards look, and a Christwards look, stirring the inner man, following the pattern of God himself, of the incarnate Son, of the holy angels, and of the best of men. May God make us all zealous for his glory! Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

For a true believer, there are few more distressing conditions than to be ‘sinking in the mire.’ This trouble of soul strikes in various ways: our own unbelief, a lack of assurance, the troubles of the world, our inward corruptions, or devilish temptations. While there may be various reasons for this, God has his purposes, so much so that even his most eminent and favoured people do not escape this experience. We are brought so low—low enough to realise that God alone can deliver us, and to come to him in heartfelt prayer. Spurgeon’s conclusion may seem bland, but in truth it brings us to the very heart of our weakness, the essence of our need, and the beginnings of our relief and recovery: to cast ourselves upon the Lord, now, and without ceasing, until we obtain the blessings we need. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The breadth of Spurgeon’s ministry is manifest. If he has a hobby-horse, it is Christ crucified, and there is no criticism for that! However, in seeking to make Christ known, for salvation in every part and to the fullest degree, Spurgeon does not sail a narrow channel, but rather covers vast tracts of the ocean of truth. We do not know all that may have stirred and stimulated him, under God, in selecting his sermon texts, but this one has to do with the danger of God’s people having their hearts hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and the remedies for it. Here Spurgeon shows his spiritual wisdom in giving us a chilling description of such decline, a brief anatomy of sin in its deceitfulness, and a stirring exhortation to use the means available to restore our hearts to tenderness in all our dealings with the Almighty. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This is a delightful sermon, demonstrating Spurgeon’s pastoral skill in turning the same text against different targets. Here the text, “For Christ’s sake,” is shown to be both God’s argument for mercy and our reason for service. In the first case it becomes a particular cause for comfort to those who are seeking forgiveness for their sins through Christ. In the second, it becomes a particular call to labour for those who have tasted divine mercy. As so often, Spurgeon pleads the mercies of God as both a reason to trust him and a reason to serve him, drawing us to Christ for life, and sending us out to live for the Christ who has saved us. May this sermon be the means of blessing those who are coming, and those who are going, for the glory of the Saviour! Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon’s new year sermons have a lovely tone to them. Some are more consolatory, others more exhortatory, but all tend to lift up the eyes and fix them on God in Christ, calling the saints to think and speak and act in the light of their covenant mercies in the year that lies before them. This sermon is no different. Spurgeon is well aware that the Adversary will by all means sow the seeds of dissension and division and among the people of God, and so here he reminds us of the unity of the Spirit that we should pursue, that this unity needs to be preserved, guarded, invested in, and that the Spirit’s unity must be kept “in the bond of peace.” All this leads to some practical counsels and encouragements to God’s people—counsels and encouragements which are as significant and valuable today as they were when the preacher first delivered them on the first day of 1865 in London. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Perhaps you know someone—perhaps you are someone—who has wished to be spiritually worse, that they might know when they are savingly better. It is not as rare a case as we might imagine, and Spurgeon shows his sensitivity as a pastor and his versatility as an evangelist in going after people who have a legitimately good reputation among men, but who are conscious of their unworthiness before God. He uses the example of the centurion with strong faith in Christ to assure such that they can and must come to Jesus Christ in order to be delivered from their sins. This is a lovely sermon, beautifully balanced in its sentiments and structure, full of good sense and earnest pleading. There is encouragement for all to trust in God, and not to imagine that our own merits earn anything or that our demerits forfeit mercy and grace—rather they fit us for it. There is particular encouragement for the reputable sinner. God will take all who come to him trusting in Christ. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon seems to have been blessed with an insatiable appetite for the glory of God, an ever-increasing desire for the power of the gospel to be made known. In this sermon he is seeking to stir up the members of the church to seek after God, reminding them that the necessary prerequisite to two walking together is that they be agreed. That being so, if we want to walk with God—to have God walk with us and to bless us—then we need to be agreed with him. Spurgeon therefore outlines what not only what it means to walk with God, but also the horror of a human religious operation in which there is nothing of the Spirit’s power. That being so, what are the things in which we ought to be agreed with him? Spurgeon offers some searching answers. Finally, what are those things which displease our Lord, and drive a wedge between him and us? How can we expect God to walk with us when we are offending him? Spurgeon leaves each one of us with penetrating questions to answer. Are we ready to pray, “Lord, make me fit to be the means of glorifying you”? Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The death of Lazarus affords Spurgeon the opportunity to consider Christ’s purposes in allowing his beloved people to undergo fearful trials. He thinks of the impact on the apostles as they travel with him, and the way in which this experience would strengthen their faith. He ponders the effect on the family itself, enhancing their confidence in him, assuring them of his real love and power. He assesses the impact that trials can have on those who are looking on, for when others see what Christ has done, they are drawn to him. It is, on some levels, quite a simple sermon. However, it is full of particular encouragements both for God’s people and for others, as we not only see the heart and arm of Christ revealed, but are also given a glimpse into his mind, into his wise and gracious purposes in all the things that come upon us. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app