From the Heart of Spurgeon

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

Depending on your eschatology—your view of the last things—and particularly your understanding of the millennium, you will appreciate aspects of this sermon more or less. You might also say that it is far from being Spurgeon’s neatest sermon. What you would, I think, have to confess is that it is full of Christ. We acknowledge that Spurgeon himself would never encourage carelessness in sermon preparation, but we also say with him that a man who shows us Christ can be forgiven much! Here, then, Spurgeon shows us the Lamb as the light of the world to come, in every sense, as well as our needed light on our present pilgrimage. His delight in the Saviour oozes out as he anticipates the coming glory in the presence of the King, and reminds us of how, even upon earth, we can afford to lose everything but Christ, who will never lose those for whom he laid down his life. 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 was one of the most notable sermons which Spurgeon ever preached. Despite his expectation that it might damage or even destroy the circulation of his printed sermons, it sold tens of thousands of copies over the years. It strikes at one particular error, and consistently addresses an underlying problem. The particular error is the doctrine embedded in the Church of England of baptismal regeneration; the underlying problem, and one which Spurgeon addresses repeatedly in the sermon, is that of a lack of honesty and integrity in our convictions and commitments. The sermon is not bitter in tone, but it potently manifests the spirit of a man who is deeply persuaded of the danger of the lie he exposes, and desperate that sinners should realise that it is faith alone in Christ alone by which a sinner can be saved. He wants the people of God actually to know what they believe, and to speak and live accordingly. 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

I confess to a soft spot for this sermon. I preached at home a short series of sermons on this passage, eventually repeated at a conference in the US, and still find both the passage itself, and Spurgeon’s treatment of it, sincerely stimulating and spiritually profitable. Spurgeon uses the pathetic king Joash, who failed to shoot his arrows as the ailing prophet, Elijah, required, as a foil for his exhortation to God’s people in a newly-planted church to do all that lies in their power to strive for God’s glory in dependence on God’s promise. His challenge against slack-handedness and his encouragement to wholeheartedness in the service of God still rings true, and still echoes down into our own age with something of its original force and fervour. 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 preacher starts hot and gets hotter in this stirring sermon, setting Christ before the eyes of faith not only in his humiliation but in his exaltation, challenging us to consider Christ enthroned with as much confidence as we rest on Christ crucified. He sets before us Christ in the perpetual activity of his shepherding of his flock, reigning in majesty and with power. From this he further deduces the endurance of the church as Christ’s kingdom—because of her King, she not only exists but endures, and that with a stately calm and security. And so, says Spurgeon, we anticipate and pursue the glory of Christ across the earth. Here he rises to his crescendo, drawing on the imagery of Gideon’s army, and calling on the saints of God to shine and to shout, that Christ may be magnified in the earth. His closing plea is for the support of those who preach, and for the building of churches in which they can preach, urging every saint to throw themselves into the glorious endeavour of glorifying our glorious Christ. What do we do? What do I do? What do you do, to this glorious end? 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 was never merely some genial Victorian pulpiteer. For all his compassionate kindness, for all his practical philanthropy, for all his winsome goodness, he was a faithful preacher to the souls of others. So he notices the glints of justice in the Christ who shows such mercy, in his making the fruitless fig tree of Mark 11 to be an emblem of destruction. Spurgeon talks about the kinds of religious people symbolised by such a tree—those who have leaves but no fruit. He points out that only this fig tree was cursed, and demonstrates the Lord’s patience with those who are not fruit-bearing at this time. He insists upon the Lord’s right to expect the fruit of grace where there are the leaves of profession, showing how these must relate one to the other. He also holds forth the horror of condemnation for those who deceive, who have the leaves but not the fruit. This sermon peels back the heart-layers and brings us to humble, and—we might hope—truly fruitful 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

For many years, Spurgeon preached a new year’s sermon from a text which an Anglican friend would supply. For 1864, the text was full of weight and promise: “If we endure [or, suffer], we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us” (2Tim 2:12). Spurgeon divides the text into two simple parts: suffering with Jesus, and its reward, and denying Jesus, and its penalty. He is careful to explain that it is not merely suffering, but suffering with Jesus, which wins the reward of which the text speaks. He explains what such suffering involves. He is briefer but equally forthright with regard to the denying of Christ and the denial by Christ which follows. We might imagine some feeling that it is an inappropriate note on which to begin a new year, but what better way to consider the days ahead than to be faced with such choices and consequences, that all our decisions and actions might be coloured by a sense of commitment to the person of the Saviour, and a desire to follow him wherever he leads, that we might be at last where he is? 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

Preaching shortly after the installation of his brother, James Archer Spurgeon, as the new minister at a place called Cornwall Road Chapel, Charles Spurgeon urges God’s people to encourage one another and their minister. Some seem to imagine that ministers do not need encouragement. Some seem persuaded that ministers should actively not be encouraged! Spurgeon gives the lie to both suggestions, encouraging God’s people to encourage their ministers, and offering some concrete ways in which that can be accomplished. Perhaps Spurgeon’s affection for his brother means that his sermon bubbles over with earnestness, sacrificing something in the way of orderliness. It is notable that Spurgeon preaches this for another congregation, saying things that perhaps their own pastor might have been reticent to address. Maybe this sermon will serve the same purpose for Christians and Christian congregations today—calling God’s people to offer legitimate and substantial encouragements to those who care for their souls. 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 books which ministers of a certain age credit with having introduced them to Spurgeon is Iain H. Murray’s Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching. This sermon stands very much in the line of Spurgeon’s ministry on this topic. With the divine commandment of 1 John 3:23 as his text—“that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as he gave us commandment”—Spurgeon looks at the truth that we ought to be believe and then at the warrant for so believing. He contends that the very commandment of God is the warrant, which warrant he sets out to demonstrate negatively and positively. Conscious of the damage that misunderstanding here does to the cause of Christ and the souls of men, the preacher demolishes any preaching that demands any warrant beyond the command of God to come to Christ as he is offered in the gospel. Ironically, he does not, in this sermon, leave himself much time to press home Christ upon sinners! Nevertheless, the consequence is clear: Christ must be preached in all his saving fulness; sinners must be commanded and entreated to come to him as his offered in the gospel. 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 Lord kills and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and brings up” (1Sam 2:6). How are we to take such a text? Spurgeon suggests two senses, the natural and the spiritual. With regard to the former, he urges the mercies of God upon his hearers, reminding them of them favour that they have known in breath granted, life spared, health restored. But he also takes the text as a metaphor for the spiritual experience of a convert, dying to self and sin in order that we might be raised up together with Jesus Christ. Such an approach allows Spurgeon to cast his net wide, making a variety of applications across the spectrum of his hearers, calling us to thankfulness and soberness as we consider in what gracious ways the Lord deals with us. The preacher’s pointed thoughts and plaintive cries are no less valuable to us today—perhaps even more so, as he calls us back to consider just how intimately the God of heaven is involved in our lives, and to remember just how much we depend upon him. 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 provides us with a further demonstration of Spurgeon’s spiritual awareness. Conscious that he has often blown the silver trumpet of divine mercy, he now seeks to ensure that he is not behindhand in warnings and exhortations. He therefore preaches on the great gulf fixed between heaven and hell. The absolute finality of that great division between everlasting bliss and eternal woe stirs the preacher’s compassion. This is neither a cold theological lecture on the finality of the eternal state, nor a vile railing against God for his injustice in so establishing matters, nor an angry rant against the people the preacher hopes will get what they deserve. With deep feeling and earnest pleading, Spurgeon really and urgently preaches, setting forth the fixed horrors of hell and and the delights reserved for heaven, stirring Christians to speak truth to the unconverted while there is yet a door of mercy open, and urging sinners to turn now to Christ, before the path to happiness is for ever closed off. “I have but preached the law to you out of love,” he concludes: “God knoweth how these hard things, as I speak them, make my heart bleed blood.” If we believe, we too will speak and feel the same; if we do not, such a sermon should persuade us to flee to Christ while we have the opportunity. 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

Having recently returned from a visit to the Netherlands in which he was busily-employed, well-received, and much-blessed, Spurgeon calls his people to prayer and to praise. The Scriptures warn us to think soberly of ourselves—no proud boasting, and no false humility. Spurgeon here makes claims that might sound arrogant to us, but he makes them disingenuously, without any hint of arrogance. Taking the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:11–12 to heart, and speaking with a simple sincerity on his own behalf and on the behalf of other ministers, Spurgeon calls upon the saints to give themselves to united prayer, not least for their pastors and preachers, and to offer united prayer, not least for those same gifts of Christ to his church. Finally, he presses home those joyful claims on the hearts of Christ’s people by taking Paul’s language concerning service to himself. Our egalitarian age may well buck at Spurgeon’s sense of pastoral dignity; our anti-authority spirit may well bridle at the notion that a minister is entitled to particular prayer, thanking God for him. But even if we might imagine that Spurgeon over-reaches in one direction, it is at least likely that we fall short in the other. Here is a potent corrective, and an encouragement to God’s people to value the gifts Christ gives to the church. 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 aware of the tides and currents of his public ministry, its particular aspects and emphases. The sermons he selects for printing show the same awareness. He has been trying to address particular pastoral concerns, then moves on to broader themes, and now—in this striking and stimulating sermon—he speaks of the spiritual food given to the spiritually mature. There is some helpful instruction here, some useful prompts to self-examination, and gentle rebuke if we have not used the means God has given, nor attained to the heights to which the diligent might have reached. Here, then, is Spurgeon in a different vein to his more deliberately and directly evangelistic labours, showing his sensitivity to his duty and the different needs of the vast congregation gathered to hear God’s Word. Incidentally, for those reading regularly, this week carries us to the five-hundredth printed sermon, one which Spurgeon marks with a particular address on the word, Ebenezer—thus far has God helped 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

This bubbling sermon draws on imagery of the royal wedding of 1863 to remind God’s people of the glory of their Prince. Spurgeon considers the Lord Jesus as full of joy both in his relation to God—anointed by him—and in relation to the church—deriving joy from them. He is pastorally sensitive both to the occasion which would have filled the people’s minds, and to the balance of the ministry they have recently enjoyed, with its concentration on some of the weightier elements of Christ’s sufferings. This sermon, then, points them and us toward the joy of Jesus the Redeemer as he not so much anticipates what will come, but revels in what has come, through the appointment of God and his own saving labours. And, of course, Spurgeon wants us to respond to the love and joy of Jesus our Deliverer with love and joy of 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

Another lovely sermon which both probes and pleads, which urges and entreats, which challenges and invites. Spurgeon’s capacity to blend such elements together is masterful! In the aftermath of a happy church members’ meeting, Spurgeon encourages God’s people to seek God for grace, that he would renew a right spirit within them. Perhaps this is the key to that balance of tone? He does not urge the saints to renew their own spirits, but to seek that blessing from God. At the same time, he urges upon them various reasons to do it, and so stirs up their hearts. Thus the heart is directed outwards, but it looks to God with vigorous faith. God’s grace is honoured, man’s duty is enforced. May we grasp both as we read and hear these words! 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 sweet sermon has an interesting structure: Spurgeon begins with exposition, unpacking the text phrase by phrase, even word by word. As he does so, he begins to sow in some pointed, practical comments about what it means to receive Christ Jesus the Lord, and to walk in him. Then he moves to advocacy, pleading reasons why having come to Christ, we should cling to Christ, in all aspects and every season of life. Then, finally, there are applications: although he has been practical throughout, now he identifies particular groups who need to hear and heed this message: those who lack communion with Christ, those who lack comfort in Christ, those who fall short in consistency in their walk with Christ, and those who need to close with Christ by faith for the first time. Here is Spurgeon digging into his Bible and bringing forth Christ as its great treasure, and advocating for him, preaching home the blessings of a continually close relationship with the Bridegroom of our hearts. 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/ap

Spurgeon addresses Christians, urging them to make their calling and election sure. He speaks much to and of ‘professors’—that is, professing Christians, those who think or imagine themselves to be saints, but are only so outwardly. He hangs his concerns on one text, but really deals with a theme of Scripture, drawn especially from various parables, about the importance of being sure that you belong to Christ. His aim, carefully pursued and pastorally sensitive, is not to create doubts and fears, but to clear away falsehoods, so that those who are saints may be sure that they are so, and those who are not, but for whatever reasons imagine themselves to be so, may no longer deceive themselves, but abandon vain hopes and seek after Christ alone. It is a searching sermon, demonstrating something of Spurgeon’s pastoral faithfulness, seeking to be true to Christ and to the souls of men. 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 takes Jonah asleep in the boat as an emblem of both slumbering saints and sleeping sinners, and puts himself to wake both. He is lovingly blunt with both classes of hearer, reminding the Christian that a man who is not wakeful and working when the boat is in the storm can hardly consider himself a healthy believer, and perhaps has even mistaken his own salvation. He calls to the unbeliever to wake from the sleep of death, to remember all those things which demand an immediate response to the heavenly demand to come to Jesus Christ. Spurgeon is the kind of preacher who many know by reputation and imagine that they would enjoy unalloyed bliss sitting under his ministry. However, his is a ministry that searches and stirs as much as it helps and heals, that burns away dross as much as it hammers out the gold. Here we are called to look into the mirror of the Word of God, and ask ourselves if we are truly awake to the Lord’s glory and the concerns of Christ’s kingdom. 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 a very sweet blend of doctrinal accuracy, evangelistic zeal, and pastoral concern. It is one of those sermons where the preacher seems eager to get to the substance: after a very brief introduction, he dives straight in to the command which Christ issues to repent and believe the gospel. But he does not leave the command lying cold on the slab: he shows how the command explains itself, with regard both to repenting and believing. Here Spurgeon is thorough and careful, distinguishing between the true and the false in connection with repentance and faith. Then he seeks to show the reasonableness of the command, and here he begins to press more closely upon the soul. He closes with an extended enforcement of the immediacy of the matter: Christ’s command allows for no delays from us. Sometimes we separate, or even set against one another, doctrinal precision, gospel fervour, and pastoral wisdom, as if they can barely abide together. Spurgeon shows us not only that this is not so, but that—standing together—these are a potent force. 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

True religion is no dark road of self-denying misery, says Spurgeon, however much the worldling may imagine it so, or even hope it to be so. Rather, it brings profound happiness to the man whose own will is sweetly wedded to God’s will. Under God, Spurgeon can bring men to the heights of delectation as well as to the depths of conviction, and here he aims at the former. From Psalm 37:4 the preacher provides us with a sparkling precept and a priceless promise. He urges us to find true and lasting joy as believers in God himself, and then presses upon us the expectation of blessings that accord with our appetites for God’s glory. If the holy demands of previous sermons have left us somewhat breathless, here is sweet air to fill our lungs afresh. 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 little curio amidst the sermons, in that it records an interesting voice alongside that of Spurgeon himself. On this particular Lord’s day morning, Spurgeon first delivered an exhortation from 2 Samuel 11:1, warning individual Christians and churches as a whole against the pernicious effects of spiritual lethargy, which leaves us open to temptation and prone to succumb to it. To those of us sunk in the inertia and coddled in the passivity of the present age, it is a needful word. Then, at the end of a sermon, Spurgeon introduces a friend, the Genevan minister and historian Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné, whose magisterial historical treatments of the Reformation remain in print, and are wonderful examples of the fruits of diligence over lethargy. Principle and example, blended by friendship, are at the fore on the sober but happy occasion. 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 was assaulted both by the Arminians (who typically objected to the vigour of his views on the sovereignty of God in salvation) and by the hyper-Calvinists (who typically objected to the free offer of the gospel in his ministry). Here is an example of Spurgeon speaking both pastorally and polemically, demonstrating and declaring how the will of God and the will of man relate in the matter of salvation. Beginning with the first, he shows from Scripture and experience how salvation must depend entirely upon the will of God. Moving to the second, he then brings particular encouragements to bear upon the hearts of those who desire to know the salvation of God. We do not claim that this is the last word on the matter, or that it is the highest expression of theological nuance, but it is a delightful example of how, pastorally and practically, a preacher of free and sovereign grace can make known the glory of a saving God in calling sinners to come to him. 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 has a powerful little collection of sermons called, Trumpet Calls to Christian Energy. This sermon could easily have found a place in that volume. It is the kind of sermon which both empties and fills the hearer, scouring out our complacency and carelessness, and stirring us to wholehearted endeavour in the service of Christ. Spurgeon hits multiple targets, striking hard and fast into the hearts of the saints, but also challenging those who have never given serious thought to their standing with God, and the prospect of his dealings with them on the basis of their sin. This sermon, then, falls firmly into the category of exhortation, and is an example of the very earnestness which it seeks to cultivate. 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 far from Spurgeon’s most polished sermon, structurally. Some preachers envy Spurgeon’s golden hammer, with which he seems to strike every text so that it falls into three even parts. This one pulls in too many different directions, and its progress is not particularly even. However, it is held together by two threads: adoration of Christ and affection for Christ’s people. That, too, must be recognised. Order and structure, as Spurgeon very much appreciated, are important, and there is no excuse for their neglect in sermon preparation. Nevertheless, even a ragged sermon aimed from the heart to the heart can do much good. That is an encouragement to preachers not to be too much concerned with style and structure over substance, and an encouragement to hearers to be less critics of sermons, more eager hearers of divine truth. 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 the kind of sermon over which people sneer at Spurgeon, and yet I think they may be doing him a disservice. Even the introduction reveals that he believes that there is more than one way to handle his text, and he makes clear that he has chosen to take it in an illustrative sense, as suggesting the challenges of God’s people about the worship of God on the Lord’s day to keep their hearts fixed on their holy business. We might still allow ourselves a smile as regards his exegesis, strictly speaking, but must we not acknowledge the sense and force of the extended simile, and its appropriateness as an illustration for the spiritual battle over undistracted worship? Taking it on its own terms, there is much here to do us much good. 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

If the last sermon focused on our union with Christ and its fruits, this is on our communion with God, particularly the Father and the Son. In it, Spurgeon gets quite carried away—in a generally helpful fashion!—with the nature of the fellowship we enjoy with the Father, as well as with the Son. He then has a little time about the Christian’s desire arising from such fellowship, which is that others might enter into the same fellowship. Here, the preacher loads himself into the cannon, pleading out of his own experience that others will come to enjoy what he himself has tasted and enjoyed at God’s hand. It is a truly experimental sermon, full of deep feeling and earnest pleading. 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

Because of our union with Christ, we are heirs of God together with him. Spurgeon first of all tries to tease out what that means in terms of a judicial reality, its terms and conditions, its certainties and expectations. He then moves on to view the estates we gain, considering the two elements of the inheritance—the more immediate sufferings that we have with Christ, and then the ultimate glories we have in God himself and all that he gives to us. Finally he administers the blessings, calling us to take up both parts of our inheritance, and reminding God’s people that part of our inheritance is gospel labour and fruit. Again, we see a man wrestling to bring high theology into close contact with us as God’s people, both for challenge and for comfort. As so often, there is a careful balance here both in the handling of the text and its application. 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 a very sweet blend of high and warm theology: the omnipresence of God, as grasped by Jacob when he understood that the Lord was truly present with him at Bethel, and what that still means for God’s people today. Spurgeon first uses that episode to demonstrate the fact that God is always present in every place. He then moves on to talk about the spirit or attitude which recognises this weighty reality. Finally, he explains the practical consequences of this conviction that God is everywhere. As so often, there is a measure of penetrating insight not just into the doctrine itself, but also into the way in which that doctrine plays out in the life of a believer. It gives us a window into the heart of the preacher, and tells us something of his own sense. Ultimately, it helps us to appreciate the character of our Lord, who truly and consistently lived before the eye of 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

In some ways, this sermon serves as a counterpoint to the last we considered, preached on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society. There are times when it can seem hard to hold Spurgeon’s convictions together, but here he sets forth a most vigorous insistence upon the church of Jesus Christ (properly defined!) as the appointed agent for the accomplishment of Christ’s saving purposes in the earth. Accurately understood and fervently grasped, what the preacher here declares would, and should, change our disposition to the church, binding us to her and bringing us to a high pitch of commitment and service, in order that the gospel being preached in and from the church might secure the glory of God in the earth. Let us read and heed! 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

Preached on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society, this is Spurgeon at his expansive best. Treading steadily through the text itself, Spurgeon studies out the command that the Lord Christ gives to his disciples. Then he moves on to the argument of the text, the holy logic of Christ’s declaration, sending out his people in accordance with the pattern of his own triumph, granting them both the right and the might to carry out their mission. It underscores the breadth of Spurgeon’s concern for the progress of the gospel, both closer to home and further afield, and his confident expectation that those who go in Christ’s name and power shall accomplish his purposes. 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

Many of the entries in this section of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit are records of meetings held for various groupings, or sermons preached by others. We simply choose one of the few of Spurgeon’s sermons, a typically warm and earnest treatment of a promise made through Joel: “For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed” (Jl 3:21). In Spurgeon’s hands, this becomes both a promise of present peace of conscience through the cleansing of remaining guilt and a promise of future perfection by the power of God’s Spirit in our humanity. His intention is to encourage us to strive against sin in confident expectation of the work of God continuing in us until the day of completion. 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

Preached on a Monday afternoon by a man overwhelmed by the occasion, by God’s grace Spurgeon rises to it. Here is that famous statement about Christ as the subject of the ministry in the newly-opened Tabernacle, and here a glorious survey of the person and work of the Redeemer, with sweet notes concerning his excellency, his sufficiency, his beauty, the power of Christ crucified when proclaimed boldly and earnestly. If Spurgeon says he is unable to preach as he wishes, me might wish that we were so incapable, for this is a glorious holding up of Christ Jesus, and a powerful plea for all true ministers to go and do likewise, if they would honour God and bless men. 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 penetrating sermon preached in anticipation of the move into the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon identifies the need for a comprehensive humility (before, during and after any act of service), thoughtfully talks about the ways in which humility is tested (both by favours given and denied), offers means of cultivating humility, and then calls himself and his congregation to pursue such a spirit as they move forward together. It is a terrifying thing to preach against pride, because pride so easily rears its head in the very act. Spurgeon, whose many advocates often suggest that he must have struggled greatly with pride, shows us that he is aware as any man of the dangers of the heart being lifted up. It is too easy to wonder about his struggles, and to overlook the challenges to our own hearts. 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 delightful sermon on the operations of the Spirit is full, at the front end, of comforts and joys. Spurgeon considers that the Holy Spirit is given as the earnest—the foretaste and guarantee—of heaven to come, and considers what it is about his ministry to us and in us that gives us a true sense of what lies ahead of us as saints. It is a sweet reminder of the spiritual realities enjoyed by the people of God. But Spurgeon is a true evangelist. As well as drawing men to Christ by holding up his beauties and offering his mercies through the Spirit, he also warns men of what it is like to live and die without the Spirit of God. There is a liveliness and an intensity that runs through this sermon: the preacher’s soul is bubbling over as he extols the wonders of redeeming love, and mourns the miseries of those who do not know what it is to have the Holy Ghost dwelling within them.

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

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

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