Author: Charles Spurgeon

Pastor, preach Christ (not yourself)

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Too frequent an intrusion of self in your preaching is a form of pride to be avoided. I hope our sermons will never be of the same order as those which were set up in a certain printing office, and the chief compositor had to request the manager to send for an extra supply of capital I’s. The letter “I” is a noble vowel, but it may be sounded too loudly.

Great “I” is very apt to become prominent with us all; even those who labor after humility can barely escape. When self is killed in one form, it rises in another; and, alas! There is such a thing as being proud of being humble, and boasting of being now cleansed from everything like boasting.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the need for self-examination and repentance.

You are not to take it for granted that you are saved. If you do, you may be sadly mistaken. In London years ago every shop had its sign, and they had a saying that the house which had the sign of the sun in a certain street was darker than any other: all their sun was outside: it had the sun for a sign but no sign of the sun.

So there are some who have grace for their sign, but no sign of grace. God grant we may not be such. To have a name to live is a wretched thing if we be really dead. In such a case we are nothing but living lies, devout deceits, bastard professors, in a word “reprobates.” To pretend to be other than what we are in the sight of the heart-searching God is despicable and damnable.

RESOURCE FOR YOUR CHURCH

A New Kids Bible Focusing on God’s Presence*

I wanted to tell you about a new resource that will definitely be a huge blessing to parents in your congregation.

God With Us is a new storybook Bible written by Jeremy Pierre, counseling professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This book is theologically rich, telling the big story of the Bible, focusing on the theme of God’s presence with his people.

Thirty Bible stories, with stunning story-telling and captivating illustrations, told over the course of nearly 300 pages — all focused on telling one beautiful, hope-filled story about God dwelling with his people.

And the illustrations by Cassandra Clark are absolutely breath-taking.

God’s presence is what we were created to enjoy, what sin robs from us, what Christ came to bring us, and our only future hope. Share this hope with the parents and children in your church with God With Us.

Pre-order God With Us on Amazon.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

While personal anecdotes can make for powerful illustrations, they can often distract from the real hero of the story. Even the most faithful pastors make for pitiful saviors — labor to encourage your church to place all of their confidence in Christ alone, not in your gifts or even your care.

If this newsletter is encouraging, please share it with another pastor. You can forward this email to a pastor you know.

If someone forwarded this email to you, sign up to get another one every week. Click here to subscribe.

Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks

Pray with Spurgeon: God, you know my pain (and you hold me)

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Lord, look upon this people for good. You know the troubles of every burdened spirit. You know how some whom you love are sick; how others have to watch over their dearest ones fading away, and withering like flowers. Lord, send comfort to the saints in trouble.

Oh, grant us grace to bear whatever your righteous will puts upon us, without complaining; and if business is going amiss, and if many things are cross to the desires of nature, may we feel it is your will, and, therefore joyfully yield to that will; nay, more, may we take a delight in being stripped, if God strip us; take a delight in smarting, if it be God who makes us smart. When you do use the chisel upon these blocks of stone, that are to be built upon the Living Stone, Lord, do not only square us, and fashion us, but separate us from the old rock to which we have been wedded so long: set us free from that hole of the pit, and let us be brought into the upper air, and built upon Christ, to lie there for ever.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6–7)

Let us not be mistaken: God never gave us faith to play with. Faith is a sword. But it was not made to exhibit upon a parade ground. It was meant to cut and wound and slay. Whoever has it may expect, between here and heaven, to learn what battle means.

God has made nothing in vain; he especially makes nothing in the spiritual kingdom in vain. He made faith with the intent that it should be used to the utmost and exercised to the full. We must expect trial because trial is the element of faith. Faith without trial is like a diamond uncut, the brilliance of which has never been seen. A fish without water or a bird without air is faith without trial. We may surely expect that our faith will be tested.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

God really is at work in your suffering

Today we prayed that, through all of our trials, we would hold fast to God and stripped of any other confidence. Because you are his child, you can be confident that God is always at work in your suffering. He has never abandoned you, and he never will.

A great book testifying to this truth is Joy in the Sorrow by Matt Chandler and friends. This book features 13 testimonies about how God used suffering to strength and purify his people. One of the stories is Matt Chandler’s own story of his battle with brain cancer.

These stories are profound — they expose the depth of suffering in this fallen world, and the greatness of our hope in Christ. They’ve encouraged me and I know they’ll encourage you as well.

Buy Joy in the Sorrow:

Pray with Spurgeon: God, use me to save others

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Look with great grace, we pray, O Lord, upon the slaves of sin that we will see today: break their fetters. Oh, save this people. We know there are some in this house that are, as yet, in the “poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness” (Acts 8:23).

Move, O Divine Spirit, over the people we will see today, and fetch out from among us those that know not God, that they may know themselves and their God this day. Oh make this to be a profitable, soul-winning day, one of the high days on which heaven’s bells shall ring out more sweetly than ever, because many and many a prodigal child has come back to the Father’s house, to make the Father glad.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22)

The passion for saving sinners is implanted into believers for God’s glory. To change sinful people so they pant after an increase of holiness, to render stubborn wills eager for the spread of obedience, and to make wandering hearts earnest for the establishment of the abiding kingdom of the Redeemer—these are mighty feats of the divine grace of God and bring all glory to him.

Work for Jesus keeps us strong in faith and intense in love to him. Soul-winning keeps the heart lively and preserves our warm youth in Christ. It is a mighty refresher to decaying love. Love for souls will, in the end, bring to all who have it the highest joy beneath the stars—the joy of knowing that they have been made the spiritual parents of others.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

4 things to do after you sin

My friend Josh has a great resource ministry called Weapons of Grace, where he posts weekly encouragements to stay faithful, all rooted in the glorious grace of Christ.

I was blessed by his recent article on 4 things to do after you sin. This quick article is sober-minded and will help you mourn your sin, but it’s also an incredibly hopeful reminder of God’s grace.

Read “4 things to do after you sin” on Weapons of Grace

(P.S. Josh is also single, ladies)

Pray with Spurgeon: God, save me from myself

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

The Lord be pleased to help us every day to put down sin. O Lord, whenever pride arises, may we be more than ever humbled in your sight. Whenever self comes up, may we be determined it shall not live, but flee to the precious blood, that we may slay it.

Lord, save us from self; save us from the love of the world; save us from the pride of the eye, and the pride of life; save us, we ask you, from everything that is natural to fallen man, and let the new nature which you have planted manifest itself day by day, till we shall be made like unto Christ, “Though we have not seen him, we love him” (1 Peter 1:8), but to whom we shall be conformed, for we shall “we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy.” (1 Peter 1:8)

None of us have seen Christ. We sometimes foolishly wish that we had. But believing in him is better than merely seeing him, for many saw him when he was upon the earth and yet perished. But no man ever truly believed in him and then perished.

It is a mistake, a great mistake, to conceive that contact with Jesus through the senses would produce faith. Mark the fact that out of the mass who did see Jesus and who did hear him, few, very few believed. The crowd that gathered round the crucifixion, which might seem to be the most moving scene in the story, were not bettered by what they saw. As the multitude gazed, instead of tears they yielded laughter. Instead of penitence they exhibited blasphemy.

The people who have received the salvation of their souls are those who love the One they have never seen and who even rejoice in him whom they do not see.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

A New Storybook Bible — Fill Your Kids with the Hope of Heaven*

I’m so excited about a new storybook Bible for kids of all ages — God With Us by Jeremy Pierre and illustrated by Cassandra Clark. This book is an incredible telling of 30 Bible stories that will leave kids of any age (and their parents) amazed at the greatness and goodness of God.

Unlike other storybook Bibles, God With Us focuses on the theme of God’s presence. It makes plain that the horrors of sin have separated us from God, but that, because of Jesus, we have hope to be with God forever.

There are 30 Bible stories, with stunning story-telling and captivating illustrations, told over the course of nearly 300 pages — all focused on telling one beautiful, hope-filled story about God dwelling with his people.

This book will fill your child’s heart with love for God and a desire to see him face-to-face.

(And the stories are so good, you’ll be blessed as well.)

I know that this book will be a blessing to your whole family — I hope you’ll pre-order a copy today.

Pre-order God With Us on Amazon.

Pray with Spurgeon: We live for Jesus, not ourselves

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

O God, you have thrown a heavy blow at our proud self; you have made us lie broken in pieces before you. You have set up another in the place of the false god that ruled us. We do not live for self, nor even for self-salvation. Jesus Christ has become the Lord and Master of our spirit, and he has delivered us from the dominion of self and sin, and helped us to be obedient to you.

Now the strongest portion of our will is towards holiness. Oh, that we could be perfectly holy! We sigh after it and cry after it. We think we could bear all trials, we feel persuaded we could give up all pleasures, if we might but win the pleasure of complete obedience to God. This, indeed, is the target towards which, like arrows shot from an archer’s bow, our lives are speeding. Though rough winds turn us aside, yet shall we strike the target by your grace.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 2:1)

Christ has grace without measure in himself, but he has not retained it for himself. As the reservoir empties itself into the pipes, so has Christ emptied out his grace for his people. He seems only to have in order to dispense to us. He stands like the fountain, always flowing, but only running in order to supply the empty pitchers and the thirsty lips which draw near unto it.

Grace, whether its work be to pardon, to cleanse, to preserve, to strengthen, to enlighten, to quicken, or to restore, is ever to be had from him freely and without price; nor is there one form of the work of grace which he has not bestowed upon his people.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

A Straight-Forward Guide to Gospel-Centered Ministry*

With so many different cultural issues and hot topics vying for our attention, it can be easy to get distracted from ministry. That’s why books like Seven Key Principles for Biblical Ministry by David Harrell are so important. We need constant reminders of God’s foundational, unchaining design for ministry.

Seven Key Principles outlines a simple, practical vision for a Bible-based, Bible-preaching ministry — this is a call to do God’s work in God’s ways.

Pastors and church leaders, this book will encourage you, reorient you, and motivate you to fulfill your ministry.

The new audiobook of Seven Key Principles is available now. Grabbing this audiobook is a great way to redeem the time while mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, doing the dishes, or driving. I know the book will encourage you — I hope you’ll grab a copy today.

Listen a sample of Seven Key Principles for Biblical Ministry on Audible.

Pray with Spurgeon: A Prayer for Fall (Our sin is more dead than autumn leaves)

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

As we see the leaves falling from the trees, we say “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind” (Isaiah 64:6). As the wind strips the leaves from the trees and leaves them bare, so we stand before you this morning. We have not by nature one green shoot, or anything like fruit: we are unprofitable altogether, and only fit to be “cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10), for what fruit we have borne, if it has been the fruit of our nature, has been more the fruit of thorns and thistles, than of figs and grapes.

Lord God, we are amazed that you did ever have any mercy on us at all; for in justice and judgment, if we were set upon the Throne, we could do no other than condemn ourselves, for there is no plea against your justice that can be found within our lives or nature. Yet, Lord, we thank you that you have saved many of us, and we would this morning exult in that salvation, and pray that all the rest here assembled might be saved also!

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.” (Isaiah 64:6)

Truly in our own strength, we all do fade as a leaf. We look fair and green in the morning when we rise from our beds, fresh with midnight vows and repentings, but before night we are as faded and withered as the dry sere leaf withered with autumnal blasts. And so we will go on unless the grace of God prevent; but when grace comes he will give up all the sand at once, and begin to build upon the rock, and upon the rock alone.

No touching up of the old house will suffice, down with it, down with it, for the very foundation is rotten. It is not mending your clothes; it is throwing them away, and wearing the new robes of righteousness that will fit you for glory.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

An incredible testimony of God’s grace to help you hate sin.

Today we prayed, lamenting how deeply sinful our hearts are. From our roots to our leaves, we are cursed with sin, so that all of the fruit we bear is poisoned and bitter.

As we saw today in God’s Word, our only hope to escape this sin-stained, cursed existence, is God’s grace. A really great book to help you understand the seriousness of our sin and our need for God’s grace is Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry.

This book is a memoir describing Jackie’s journey out of sin, by grace. It’s an absolutely beautiful story of God’s power and mercy to save.

One of the things I love the most about this book is how its rich theology is described so beautifully. Jackie paints a picture of a God who is worthy of our worship, faith, and obedience — a God who is better than sin.

This book showed me of the ugliness of sin and the power of God’s grace in such a beautiful way. I know it will be a blessing to you — I hope you’ll grab a copy and enjoy it today.

Buy Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been:

Pastor, avoid pride (it will kill you)

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Dear brothers, may we, every one of us, be as far removed as possible from anything like egotism, which is hateful to the last degree! It is to be hoped that vanity is rare in ministers, for vanity is the vice of novices, and may be sooner excused in young students than in actual teachers of the Word.

Experience, if it be worth having, exterminates a man’s vanity; but so bad is our nature, that it may increase his pride if it be an experience sweetened with success. It were hard to say which is the greater sin, vanity or pride; but we know which is the more foolish and ridiculous. A proud man may have some weight, but a vain man is light as air, and influences no one. From both these egotisms may we be kept, for they are both injurious to ourselves and hateful to God.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe God’s power.

The Lord knows right well that you cannot change your own heart, and cannot cleanse your own nature; but he also knows that he can do both. He can cause the leopard to change his spots. Hear this, and be astonished: He can create you a second time; He can cause you to be born again. This is a miracle of grace, but the Holy Ghost will perform it.

It would be a very wonderful thing if one could stand at the foot of the Niagara Falls, and could speak a word which should make the river Niagara begin to run up stream, and leap up that great precipice over which it now rolls in stupendous force. Nothing but the power of God could achieve that marvel; but that would be more than a fit parallel to what would take place if the course of your nature were altogether reversed. All things are possible with God. He can reverse the direction of your desires and the current of your life, and instead of going downward from God, He can make your whole being tend upward toward God. That is, in fact, what the Lord has promised to do for all who are in the covenant; and we know from Scripture that all believers are in the covenant.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Whether your ministry is “successful” or struggling, stay rooted by remembering your identity in Christ. You are saved (from your infinitely nasty sin) by Christ’s blood and resurrection — not the size or faithfulness of your ministry.

Hold fast to Christ — he is your only hope!

If this newsletter is encouraging, please share it with another pastor. You can forward this email to a pastor you know.

If someone forwarded this email to you, sign up to get another one every week. Click here to subscribe.

Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks

Pray with Spurgeon: We must confess our sins

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

We lie humbly before you, confessing our sin, our frequent sin, our willful sin; our sin against light and knowledge; sins of heart and thought, sins of word, and sins of action. There is no power of body, or of the will, which has not been defiled with sin; and we confess this before you with much shame. So great has been the stream, that we are sure there must be a deep and large fount of pollution within our nature; and you have made some of us to know that it is so. You have taken us into the chambers of imagery, that are within our spirit, and we have dug through the wall, and have gone from one chamber to another; and the deeper we search, the more we are shocked; and the further we have pried into the secrets of our being, the more are we utterly ashamed that we should be such creatures as we are by nature.

We are altogether undeserving, we look to your loving-kindness and tender mercy, and expect much from that divine source, through Jesus Christ your Son.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

We are walking in darkness when we thus talk of light. It is easy for a blind man to talk of light though he cannot see it; and there are some who boast of very superior light who, nevertheless, are so much in the dark that they cannot even see their own sin.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

The Encouragement You Need for Ministry*

If you’re a pastor or church leader, it’s important to regularly re-ground yourself in the basics of gospel-centered ministry. We need guides and mentors who will constantly call us back to preach Christ crucified, rather than our own message of self-help.

Whether your ministry is thriving, or if you’ve been discouraged, it’s important to remember that God has perfectly laid out his plan for our ministry.

Recently, I’ve been so blessed by a new audiobook for pastors that summarizes God’s design for ministry: Seven Key Principles for Effective Ministry: Nurturing Thriving Churches in a Postmodern Culture by David Harrell.

This book is packed with biblical truth and encouragement for ministry. It makes clear that ministry is uniquely challenging today, but God’s power to save is unchanged and unchanging.

Listening to the audiobook has been a much-needed realignment of my ministry around the things that matter most. It’s left me refreshed by God’s grace and reoriented on God’s Word.

Listen to a free sample of Seven Key Principles for Effective Ministry on Audible.

Pray with Spurgeon: How can sinners approach God in prayer? Because Jesus is alive.

Get a prayer from Spurgeon in your inbox every day. Subscribe to the Pray with Spurgeon newsletter for free.

DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

O Lord, how shall we speak with you, for we are dust and ashes! May your Spirit speak in us, that we may speak to your Spirit. And how shall we draw near to you, for we have no merits? Let the merits of Jesus stand for us, that we may acceptably approach our God, being “accepted in the Beloved.”

Lord, we are full of infirmities, and full of wants, and full of sin; and we come and cast ourselves at your feet. Being nothing, we would ask to receive everything of you; and being altogether undeserving, we would look to your loving-kindness and tender mercy, and expect much from that divine source, through Jesus Christ your Son.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.” (Ephesians 1:5–6)

How marvellous that we, worms, mortals, sinners, should be the objects of divine love! But it is only “in the beloved.” Some Christians seem to be accepted in their own experience, at least, that is their apprehension. If they could but see that all their high joys do not exalt them, and all their low despondencies do not really depress them in their Father’s sight, but that they stand accepted in One who never alters, in One who is always the beloved of God, always perfect, always without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, how much happier they would be, and how much more they would honour the Savior!

Rejoice then, believer, in this: you are accepted “in the beloved.” You look within and say, “There is nothing acceptable here!” But look at Christ, and see if there is not everything acceptable there.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

God hears your prayers, not because you’re good enough (but because Jesus is)

Today we prayed, confessing that our only hope in prayer is that we would be covered in the righteousness of Christ. This is our only hope with which to approach God. This should give us great hope and confidence as we pray — we do not come in our own name, but in the mighty name of Jesus!

A great, refreshing book that has really helped me learn this lesson is A Praying Life by Paul Miller. This book makes clear that our only hope of acceptable prayers is the blood of Jesus.

A Praying Life is a great, encouraging book on Christian prayer. Reading this book has cultivated Scripture-saturated prayers of childlike faith in my life. Miller describes prayer in a way that is thoroughly biblical and incredible desirable.

I hope A Praying Life will help you deepen your prayer life this summer.

Buy A Praying Life:

Pray with Spurgeon: God, help us draw closer in times of trouble

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

We ask for a revival of true godliness all over the world. We pray, grant that these disastrous times may drive your children nearer to you; may deliver many of them from a worldly spirit; and may it come to pass that, while they grow poor one way, they may grow rich in another, by the sanctification of their losses and afflictions.

God be gracious to this land. Send us, we pray, the Holy Spirit more abundantly than ever; and may there be myriads born to Christ in these latter days. So do with all the nations, until all lands shall bow before you, and all generations shall call you blessed.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“So you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the LORD your God, even the Holy One of Israel, has glorified you.” (Isaiah 55:5)

What joy this gives to you who love him! The Lord has glorified his Son, and given to him the power to call to himself a people that he knew not in a saving sense, and he shall so call nations that knew not him that they shall run unto him.

We do not preach the gospel, dear brethren, at haphazard; we are sure of results. If we speak in faith, in the name of Christ, men must be saved, they must run to Christ. It is not left to their option; there is a divine hand that secretly touches the springs of the will of men, so that, when Christ calls them, they run unto him. Oh, that he would just now call them, even those that are furthest off, that they may run unto him, and that he may be glorified!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Trust in God’s preserving, purifying power through all of your suffering

Today, we prayed that God would draw us closer to himself through all of our trials. This was one of the major themes in Spurgeon’s teaching on suffering — God uses all of the circumstances in our life to draw us to himself.

Spurgeon’s teaching on suffering is incredibly helpful and hopeful, so I compiled a brief collection of it in a short book, Spurgeon on Suffering. This book contains 12 classic sermons from Spurgeon on suffering, pain, and God’s grace through it all.

I hope you’ll buy a copy today, and I hope it will bless you.

(As a side note, purchasing a copy is a great way to support this ministry so that I can continue to send this daily newsletter!)

Buy Spurgeon on Suffering on Amazon (Paperback or Kindle edition)