From the Heart of Spurgeon

Spurgeon tells God’s pilgrims that looking forward is good, but that looking back is also necessary. In this case, he recommends a retrospective on prayer, considering seven particulars about the way in which the Lord has heard the voice and the supplications of his people. As he works his way through the shortcomings of our praying, the abundance of God’s blessing, and the manner in which the Lord dispenses his kindnesses, the preacher gives us reason after reason to love the Lord for the way in which he has heard us, with three sweet applications, regarding our praises, our obedience, and our testimony. 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.

This sermon is less an exposition of the text, not even an application of it, but more a wholehearted response to it. It is, perhaps, the kind of gospel preaching to which few of us are now accustomed. It is full-orbed, Calvinistic evangelism—a man wholly persuaded of God’s willingness and ability and readiness to save, and therefore determined to obey his Lord’s command and to search out sinners and reason with them, urge them, plead with them, exhort and entreat them, to accept Christ as he is freely offered to them in the gospel, with words and with tears. 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.

Tomorrow's episode is focused on the sermon Compel them to come in, sermon number 227. In anticipation of discussing this wonderfully evangelistic sermon, we thought it would be helpful to release a lively reading of the complete sermon. We pray it is a blessing to 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.](https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon)

Another sermon in which personal experience adorns divine truth: Spurgeon makes a careful point about the necessity of the Christian’s grief and distress in trials, tribulations and temptations. He explains why such experience is necessary for God’s people, and shows how Christian joy, rooted in enduring spiritual reality, is entirely consistent with such experience. For God’s people burdened by sorrows and troubles, here is comfort, standing on the rock of truth as the storms of affliction batter 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

This hard-hitting sermon seems to flow hot from the preacher’s own heart. He brings to bear Christ’s charge to the church in Ephesus from Revelation 2:4, that we have left our first love. There’s nothing soft and cuddly about this sermon: it comes with real and necessary force. There is nothing half-hearted about this sermon: Spurgeon puts himself in the firing line first, and only then does he bring the gun to bear upon the congregation. But who would suggest that there has been no decline in our love for Christ? This is a sermon to bring us low, and then bring us back, God willing. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Anyone who has run the Christian race for any length of time becomes conscious of their own frailty. Spurgeon does not hold back in bringing us face to face with the reality of our weakness as pilgrims, setting it forth plainly and feelingly. At the same time, he reminds us of the richness of the promise that God gives to his pilgrim people, that he shall match strength to the days he gives us, and so enable us to run with endurance the race that is set before us. These are not soft comforts, but full of good substance, cold water for weary 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Conscious of God’s mighty works in other places, Spurgeon here stirs up the members of the church he serves to pray to God to accomplish what he alone can do, to cry out for the Holy Spirit. Spurgeon is emphatic about what the Spirit does and why we depend upon him utterly, and earnest about us getting on our knees to cry out for the mercies which he alone can bestow in bringing Christ into the hearts of men and making us truly to live for the praise of the glory of God. A wonderful call to prayer!

Preaching at Epsom Racecourse, Spurgeon speaks about what it truly means to run the heavenly race. A great example of ‘situational preaching,’ it grips the mind with its liveliness even without the immediate physical context. Spurgeon insists here not only on the fact that salvation is all of grace, but also that we must preach the absolute necessity of a religious life in order that we may reach heaven at last. Full of exhortations and encouragements, it calls us to genuine endeavour in the heavenly race. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

It might surprise us, but Spurgeon had no high opinion of what many call revival. If it were a genuine work of God, he was all heart, but he had seen too many abuses for him to jump to conclusions. So, conscious of God’s work in America, he sets before us a scriptural notion of revival, identifying the work of God’s Spirit through preaching and praying, identifying the glorious effects of such a work when true, cautioning against errors and excesses, before pleading that God’s people would never obstruct but only labour and plead for such blessings as God alone can give. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Spurgeon is very much aware of his congregation, and of its composition, and its need of instruction. Conscious that he is now preaching to a more settled group, he sets out to teach them some of the basics, beginning with the great reality of the definite work of Christ in laying down his life for his people. Here is a good example of instruction lightened by devotion, of devotion established upon instruction. Light and heat combine to give us a beautiful portrait of the wonder of redeeming love, in Christ’s purchase of a people for himself. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Spurgeon preaches this sermon with ministers of lesser gifts and slender means in mind. It is a reminder of the sovereign dispensation of God in the gift he gives to his church, and the grace he shows in so dealing with both those to whom the gifts are given, and those who are so gifted. His applications are, of course, a little broader, but it is stirring reminder that there are many blessings and no excuses in serving such a God and King as we have. Spurgeon’s exhortatory sermons allow both for particular encouragements and particular challenges, and this sermon is full of both. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

This is one of Spurgeon’s heavier sermons, drawn from the sobering reminder of Ezekiel 33:6 that someone who neglects the watchman’s warning is responsible for his own destruction. Spurgeon considers this in the light of faithful gospel ministry, considering the adequacy of the warning given, exposing the excuses used for ignoring the warning, and pressing home the fearful consequences of such neglect. It is as relevant today as ever, for the excuses of men’s hearts do not really change, and neither does the consequence of neglecting the warnings of God’s watchmen. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Having previously considered the command to love our neighbour as ourselves, here Spurgeon considers “the first and greatest commandment”: that we should love the Lord our God supremely and entirely. Again, he is very conscious that this great law contains within it other laws, and presses home both the weight of it and the proper consequences of it, in terms of recognition of our sin and gratitude for salvation, as well as the life of love we ought to live if we have been redeemed from the sin and shame of disobedience at this point. A great conception of God governs this sermon, and without that we shall never grasp the force of this commandment. 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. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

In this sermon, Spurgeon gives his imagination free rein. From a phrase in Hebrews 6:9, he weaves an allegory of things associated with salvation, from before the world began up to the glorification of the believer. The sermon is lively and intense, portraying a great military parade in which Salvation is being carried, and describing both the plan of God and the experience of God’s people as that plan is worked out in their lives. It may not be the most technically correct sermon you will ever read, but it will do your soul good to consider the wonders of redeeming love! Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon): ! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter and Facebook Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Spurgeon preaches an eminently practical sermon: not “savoury to sickly sentimental Christians,” he says, not just another round of the same doctrines, but the full force of God’s command to mankind to love our neighbour as ourselves. As you might imagine, Spurgeon puts this to good use in instructing saints, humbling unbelievers, and honouring the God whose law this is. As the preacher says, there are some hard things for us to embrace, but it is a divine command, and our duty and privilege so to live and so to love. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter and Facebook Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

We know that Spurgeon delights in Christ, and so we are not surprised, but still delighted ourselves, at how readily and eagerly and lovingly he holds up the Saviour to our admiring gaze. Here he speaks of Christ lifted up in terms of Christ’s own glory, the minister’s theme, and the heart’s attraction. Again, he blends deep truths with warm experiences; there is both light and heat for us here. Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. For more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

The preacher’s gift for forceful simplicity is again on display here. Spurgeon’s doctrinal clarity comes to the fore as he gives a sweeping overview of sovereign grace at every point of Christian experience. His confidence in the truth is plain as he shows how we are shut up to believing what God has said in this regard. His expectation of engagement is clear as he talks about the influence of this truth. His concern for souls is revealed as he talks about the damnation that unrepentant sinners bring upon themselves. Sign up for reading updates from Jeremy: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Listen to more Christian podcasts like this: www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

It is not always easy to hold together the indicatives of the gospel (what God has done in salvation) with the imperatives of the gospel (the demands of and responses to the gospel). Spurgeon does so here masterfully, holding up the finished work of Christ both for adoration and emulation, as something for us to rest in for our souls and to copy in our lives. It is a stirring call to Christian service, and truly lifts the heart. To read the text of this sermon: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/Christ-About-His-Fathers-Business For likeminded podcast, www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

Spurgeon is too faithful an ambassador of Christ to leave the stones of our hearts unturned. This sermon is particularly penetrating, as he surveys the hidden sins that many try to hold in their hearts unknown to others. Pressing hard, the preacher points out the folly, misery, guilt and danger of secret sins, especially in the hearts of hypocrites, but also in the experience of God’s people, before offering the only effective remedy. For more Christian podcasts like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Here we zero in on Christ’s might as Mediator, as the God-man willing and able to accomplish a ‘big picture’ salvation for all his chosen ones, a salvation that is not momentary, shallow, or incomplete, but which really, absolutely and permanently accomplishes their deliverance and assures them of all needful grace to bring them safely to glory. He finds here encouragements for preachers, for prayers, and for all who need a Saviour. For more Christian podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

This wonderful sermon follows on from #93 on “God in the Covenant.” Enthusiastically, energetically, overwhelmingly, Spurgeon sets forth the wonders of Christ in himself, and what it means to know him, and to possess him in the covenant of grace. Pressing home these blessings into the experience of believers, Spurgeon then pleads with those who know Christ in the covenant to act accordingly, and with those who do not to come to him and receive all the mercy that he has to bestow. For more Christian podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

This is a more evangelistic sermon, and as such serves a good purpose for self-examination, as well as helping us to pray for those who preach and hear the gospel, and instructing us as to how we might ourselves press the claims of Christ upon those whom we love. Of course, almost incidentally but substantially, Spurgeon holds up the beauty and the glory of the Christ who is so often slighted and neglected, reminding those who believe of who and why we trust him with our souls. To read the text of this sermon: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/making-light-of-christ For likeminded podcast, www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

Jeremy sat down with John Snyder, cohost of The Whole Counsel podcast to discuss why we enjoy and benefit from reading old writers. The duo also share some of the dangers and abuses of reading old books and sermons. At the end of the episode, Jeremy and John share their "beginner's list" or reading old writers. If you would like a list of all the books they mention, with links of where to get them, visit https://www.mediagratiae.org/blog/benefits-and-dangers-of-reading-old-writers. For more likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Spurgeon is a Particular Baptist, following in the footsteps of those who held fast to the God of the covenant. Here he holds up and holds out the crowning jewel of the blessing of the new covenant: that God becomes our God. Setting this jewel in the context of his covenant theology, he traces out and presses home what it means for God to be the God of his people in the deepest and richest sense. For likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

Omniscience refers to the perfect and complete knowledge of God. From the simple reminder that God is the all-seeing God, Spurgeon develops not only a general doctrine of God’s knowledge, but also brings it to bear on the heart of every one of his hearers (and readers), before pressing it home with sweet comforts to the godly and faithful warnings to the unbeliever. For more episodes and likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

Spurgeon’s simplicity and spiritual sweetness are on delightful display in this sermon on John 17:16, that Christ’s people are not of the world, just as Christ was not of the world. With some surprisingly straightforward insights and a crisp structure, Spurgeon looks at the doctrinal, experiental and practical implications and applications of our union and communion with Christ in this regard. For more likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

When the Apostles preached, they always emphasized the necessity of the resurrection of the dead. Spurgeon challenged his church as to whether or not they really believed in the resurrection. Using a battery of texts, Spurgeon shows us not only the importance of believing in the life to come after death, but the comfort it offers every Christian. For more episodes and likeminded podcasts, visit mediagratiae.org/podcasts

You may know of Spurgeon’s affection for the great allegory of Christian experience by John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Here we see something of the debt Spurgeon owed to Bunyan in his imagination. While he hangs it all on the Word of God, Spurgeon uses an illustration or image from Bunyan as the central theme of his sermon, calling God’s people to avoid spiritual sleepiness, and be wakeful and watchful, vital and vigorous, in our Christian labour. It is no toothless homily, no soft and sleep-inducing sermon, but one calculated to probe and prod the dull soul. For more episodes and likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

An instructive example of Spurgeon reading his Bible with the expectation of finding Christ. Looking at the Old Testament through the lens of the new, here Spurgeon draws out parallels between the Passover lamb and Christ as the Lamb of God. Having drawn out those connections, he then emphasizes the needs not only to come to Christ but also to keep in Christ, to live by him and in him. Not only does this sermon hold out a sweet and sufficient Saviour, it is a good prompt to us to expect to see Christ in all our Bibles. For more episodes and other likeminded podcasts, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

The person and work of the Holy Spirit looms large in Spurgeon’s ministry. While the Holy Spirit’s ministry is implicit in many of his declaration so confidence, here is a wonderful declaration—clear and warm—of the operations of the Holy Ghost in leading us into all truth. Here is some of the blessed supernaturalism of true Christianity, and here is an insight into Spurgeon’s own expectant dependence on the third person of the Godhead.

Perhaps not the smoothest of Spurgeon’s sermons, but nonetheless direct and earnest for that. Contending from church history and revealed truth for the fact that God chooses sinners, in sovereign mercy, for salvation, he turns the doctrine in different directions to challenge, comfort, encourage, exhort and invite. The outcome is a sweet and potent testimony to God’s grace in redemption. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter (https://twitter.com/peregrinus75) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/perrugryn) For more content like this, visit https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

Combining both a study of the thing with the thing itself, Spurgeon shows us what it means to preach the gospel. His sense of this is properly broad and yet rightly narrow, and at once exposes human pride and imposes a real duty, to be pursued in all humility and dependence on the Holy Ghost. If we want to exalt Christ in our preaching, we would do well to learn what is spoken here. For more information like this, visit https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts.

This sermon shows Spurgeon's gospel heart and burns with gospel heat: it gives us a window into the conviction, intensity, and fervency of a man taken up with the truth and laboring under a sense of it. It illuminates the mind and warms the affections in equal measure, as Spurgeon lays out the importance not only of preaching, but also of understanding and receiving God's gospel. For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts

Spurgeon calls Isaiah 43:25 a “salvation text”—a portion of God’s Word that seems particularly suited by God for calling and bringing sinners to himself. With this eager confidence, he labours to speak plainly to the his congregation as sinners who need mercy, delights in the blotting out of transgression in a demonstration of mercy, traces mercy back to its root in the sovereign love of a gracious God, and then holds out the promise of mercy to all who come to Christ. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org.

Such simplicity, such straightforwardness! Taking Acts 4:13 as his starting point, Spurgeon asks whether or not we show that we have been with Jesus. He asks what a Christian should be, when a Christian should be so, why he should be so, and how he can be so. Then he holds Christ before us as we see him in the Scriptures, urging principled obedience in the power of the Spirit at all times and in all places, for the sake of our own souls, the honor of true religion, and the glory of Christ himself. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter and Facebook For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org

Based on Hosea 8:12, preached very early in his ministry, Spurgeon plants a flag that emphasizes the clarity and sufficiency of God's revelation of Himself. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org

"Christ Crucified" is a stirring sermon of striking tones which helped earn Spurgeon the nickname 'Brimstone' among the cartoonists of the day. After exposing the emptiness of religious formalism and arrogant secularism, Spurgeon makes clear that Christ and him crucified—the doctrines of sovereign grace—is God’s wisdom for salvation. We trace out the structure of the sermon, and aim to grasp something of the preacher’s fervour. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter and Facebook For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org

As we set out to read the sermons of Charles Spurgeon, we must take a moment to and consider the weight of the undertaking we are pursuing, and the best way to go about it. Read humbly. Read expectantly. Cry out from your heart to God to hear his voice and his truth in these sermons.

"The Immutability of God" is the first sermon in the New Park Street Pulpit collection. Spurgeon was twenty years old when it was preached, and had been serving in London for about a year, already attracting much attention by his ministry. The sermon, from Malachi 3:6, presents an unchanging God, identifies “the sons of Jacob” who benefit from his immutability, and considers the benefit they derive—that they are not consumed. Having outlined something of the majesty of the eternal God, Spurgeon drives home his kindness to his chosen people, and urges each one to make the most of the blessings the unchanging God holds out in Christ Jesus. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! Follow Jeremy Walker on Twitter and Facebook For more content like this, visit www.mediagratiae.org

Hear the story behind the creation of From the Heart of Spurgeon, what we hope to accomplish with this podcast, and how you can participate, even if reading one sermon a day is intimidating.