Category: Shepherding with Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

We must cultivate the highest degree of godliness because our work imperatively requires it. The labor of the Christian ministry is well performed in exact proportion to the vigor of our renewed nature. Our work is only well done when it is well with ourselves. As is the workman, such will the work be. To face the enemies of truth, to defend the bulwarks of the faith, to rule well in the house of God, to comfort all that mourn, to edify the saints, to guide the perplexed, to bear with the difficult, to win and nurse souls—all these and a thousand other works beside are not for a Feeble-mind or a Ready-to-halt, but are reserved for Great-heart whom the Lord has made strong for himself. Seek then strength from the Strong One, wisdom from the Wise One, in fact, all from the God of all.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the foolishness of salvation by works.

Faith saves us because it makes us cling to Christ Jesus, and he is one with God, and thus brings us into connection with God. I am told that, years ago, above the Falls of Niagara, a boat was upset, and two men were being carried down by the current, when persons on the shore managed to float a rope out to them, which rope was seized by them both. One of them held fast to it, and was safely drawn to the bank; but the other, seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely let go the rope, and clung to the great piece of timber, for it was the bigger thing of the two, and apparently better to cling to. Alas! the timber, with the man on it, went right over the vast abyss, because there was no union between the wood and the shore. The size of the log was no benefit to him who grasped it; it needed a connection with the shore to produce safety.

So, when a man trusts to his works, or to his prayers, or almsgivings, or to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he will not be saved, because there is no junction between him and God through Christ Jesus; but faith, though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hand of the great God on the shore side; infinite power pulls in the connecting line, and thus draws the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith, because it unites us to God by the Savior, whom he has appointed, even Jesus Christ! O reader, is there not common-sense in this matter? Think it over, and may there soon be a band of union between you and God, through your faith in Christ Jesus!

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Our ministry will not be effective without private devotion to the Lord. I quoted John 15:5 this weekend while preaching, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” We can’t do ANYTHING without the Lord. And so we must abide. And so we must chase away the sin that keeps us from him. And so we must devote ourselves to prayer.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep ourselves in order. If I want to preach the gospel, I can only use my own voice; therefore I must train my vocal powers. I can only think with my own brains, and feel with my own heart, and therefore I must educate my intellectual and emotional faculties. I can only weep and agonize for souls in my own renewed nature, therefore must I watchfully maintain the tenderness which was in Christ Jesus.

It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organize societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe true saving faith.

The child, in danger of the fire, just clings to the fireman, and trusts to him alone. She raises no question about the strength of his limbs to carry her, or the zeal of his heart to rescue her; but she clings. The heat is terrible, the smoke is blinding, but she clings; and her deliverer quickly bears her to safety. In the same childlike confidence cling to Jesus, who can and will bear you out of danger from the flames of sin.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

We cannot lead people to a holiness that we do not know ourselves. We need to take care of our bodies and nurture our private holiness, or we will be ineffective in ministry.

“Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Timothy 4:16)

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

There are some secret snares that many pastors can easily fall into; and of these the worst is the temptation to ministerialism—the tendency to read our Bibles as ministers, to pray as ministers, to get into doing the whole of our religion as not ourselves personally, but only relatively, concerned in it. To lose the personality of repentance and faith is a loss indeed.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

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

A man may know that he is lost, and yet he may never be saved. He may be made thoughtful, and yet he may die in his sins. If you find out that you are a bankrupt, the consideration of your debts will not pay them.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

We need God’s Word. Not just because we’re accountable to preach a sermon every seven days, but because it is our daily bread. Don’t settle for a surface-level commitment to God’s Word — be a man devoted to prayer.

When asked his advice for young ministers, R.C. Sproul said, “Get in the Word. Get deep in the Word. Stay in the Word. And devote yourself to prayer.” May it be so in our own lives.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

For the herald of the gospel to be spiritually out of order in his own proper person is, both to himself and to his work, a most serious calamity; and yet, my brethren, how easily is such an evil produced, and with what watchfulness must it be guarded against!

Traveling one day by express from Perth to Edinburgh, we suddenly came to a dead stop, because a very small screw in one of the engines—every railway locomotive consisting virtually of two engines—had been broken, and when we started again we were obliged to crawl along with one piston-rod at work instead of two. Only a small screw was gone, if that had been right the train would have rushed along its iron road, but the absence of that insignificant piece of iron disarranged the whole. A train is said to have been stopped on one of the United States’ railways by flies in the grease-boxes of the carriage wheels.

The analogy is perfect; a man in all other respects fitted to be useful, may by some small defect be exceedingly hindered, or even rendered utterly useless. Such a result is all the more grievous, because it is associated with the gospel, which in the highest sense is adapted to effect the grandest results

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe prayers that glorify God.

A person cannot always speak in the name of another; cannot do it at all unless he has received an authorization so to do. Then he stands as that person’s deputy; stands in his place; speaks in his name. I am sure that nine out of ten of the prayers of Christians are not offered in the name of Christ, and could not be. It would be a sin against Christ for such prayers to be supposed to be the prayers of Christ. But when we talk of the Spirit of God, and we dare ask in the name and use the seal of Christ, to set his signature at the bottom of our petition, then, brethren, depend upon it. Christ will do it.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Our giftings in ministry are blessings from God. And they are not enough to sustain your ministry.

We must be godly men. In private. In our dealings with others. In our homes. We must be godly men.

Brothers, find someone who will keep you accountable, ask hard questions, and spur you on towards godliness. You need it. Your church needs it.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

A dear brother said to me, “I wish you would go abroad, and preach the Word;” and he urged as a reason that my people would appreciate me better if they had less of me. I replied that I did not want my people to appreciate me any more, for they go already as far in that direction as would be safe, and I assured him that I should stop at home for fear they should appreciate me more.

I might have rambled all the world over, and done great good, if that had been my calling; but the day will declare whether I have not been more in the path of duty and real usefulness by fostering Institutions at home, and scattering the Word by my printed sermons far more widely than I could have done with my voice. Be it so or not, brethren, when you know which part of the Lord’s work he has committed to you, give your whole soul to it.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the urgency of coming to Christ.

There will be time enough for you to ask all proper and right questions, and to have them answered, when you have sought and found the Savior. But, meanwhile, your immortal soul is in jeopardy, so attend to that first of all. A man who is sinking in the sea is mad if he says, “I won’t lay hold of that rope until I understand all about astronomy.” A man in a burning house does not need to trouble his head about geology; his first business is to get to the fire escape. He can leave his study of geology until tomorrow.

So, you unconverted ones should “seek first his kingdom and righteousness,” and all other things you need shall be added unto you (Matt 6:33).

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Whether or not you can share Spurgeon’s sentiment of feeling overly-appreciated in your own congregation, we have an important reminder here to remain faithful where the Lord has placed us.

The grass is always greener on the other side, but many problems in pastoral ministry are solved by waiting it out and refusing to jump-fence to another pasture.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Brethren, I hope that, however useful God may have made us in our several spheres, we do not conceive ourselves to be vastly important, for indeed we are no such thing. The cock was of opinion that the sun rose early every morning on purpose to hear him crow; but we know that sun did nothing of the kind.

The world does not revolve, the sun does not blaze, the moon does not wax and wane, the stars do not shine, entirely for the especial benefit of any one brother here, however admirable he may be in his own place; neither does Christendom exist for the purpose of finding us pulpits, nor our own particular church that it may furnish us with a congregation and an income; nay, nor does even so much as one believer exist that he may lay himself out for our sole comfort and honor. We are too insignificant to be of any great importance in God’s vast universe; he can do either with us or without us, and our presence or absence will not disarrange his plans.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe our accountability to God.

I sometimes pity persons who are brought up before the magistrates for breaking some of our new laws, which the magistrates themselves cannot administer and nobody can understand. The magistrate says, “It is clear you have broken a law,” and the man replies, “I did not know it.”

I pity a man in that case, but you do know the law of the Lord. God’s laws have been published, fastened up in your conscience, and printed in the book that is in all your houses, and so if you sin against his commands you sin against light and knowledge, and will be utterly without excuse when he calls you to his bar.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Our churches are not platforms to build us up — we are to be humble servants, building up the church. Humility is an essential ingredient for a faithful and fruitful ministry.

And it’s also a crucial ingredient for our joy — to know that the world, the work, God’s glory, and God’s gospel do not depend on us. We are insignificant, and this should end our pride. But we are also insignificant, and this should end our anxiety.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Now, great Father, hear a pastor’s prayer for his people. You know that at the thought of this multitude, our soul is bowed down within us. Your servant Moses could not carry the burdens of the people who you brought up out of Egypt; much less can we carry the burden of this host upon us.

O God, I, your servant feel my own inability every day, more and more, until sometimes his heart is ready to break with a sense of the overwhelming responsibilities which you have laid upon one of the weakest creatures whom you ever honored in your service. But O God, will you not be the Pastor of this people? Will you, Jesus, not be the great Shepherd and Bishop of these souls?

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

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

I hear the doctor’s car rattling down the street at a great pace, and I wonder where he is going. It never occurs to me that he is rushing to call upon a hale and hearty man. I am persuaded that he is hastening to see one who is very ill, perhaps one in dying circumstances. Otherwise he would not drive so fast.

It is just so with Jesus Christ. When he is hurrying on the wings of the wind to rescue a child of man, I am sure that the soul he visits is sick with the malady of sin, and that the Physician is making haste because the disease is developing into corruption and death. He came not “to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13).

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

We are unable to do this work, and so we need to pray. God will defend and uphold our churches better than we can, and he cares for our churches more than we do.

Pray for your church. Pray for yourself. We need the Lord.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

You must remember that we have need of very vigorous piety, because our danger is so much greater than that of others. Upon the whole, no place is so assailed with temptation as the ministry. Despite the popular idea that ours is a snug retreat from temptation, it is no less true that our dangers are more numerous and more insidious than those of ordinary Christians. Ours may be a vantage-ground for height, but that height is perilous, and to many the ministry has proved a Tarpeian rock (a famed clifftop execution site in Ancient Rome).

If you ask what these temptations are, time might fail us to list them; but among them are both the coarser and the more refined; the coarser are such temptations as self-indulgence at the table, enticements to which are superabundant among a hospitable people; the temptations of the flesh, which are incessant with young unmarried men set on high among an admiring throng of young women: but enough of this, your own observation will soon reveal to you a thousand snares, unless indeed your eyes are blinded.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the danger and deception of sin.

You have a tame leopard in your house, and you are often warned that it is a dangerous creature to trifle with. But its coat is so sleek and beautiful, and its gambols are so gentle that you let it play with the children as though it were the well-domesticated cat. You cannot have it in your heart to put it away; you tolerate it; indeed, you indulge it still. Alas, one black and terrible day it tastes blood and tears to pieces your favorite child. Then you know its nature and need no further warning; it has condemned itself by displaying the fell ferocity of its nature.

So with sin. We thought it such a fair thing; we could not be persuaded that anything so pleasant, so fair spoken, could really be so deadly an enemy as God said it was. But when sin leaped upon our altogether lovely Jesus, and like a ravening wolf delighted itself in his slaughter, then it condemned itself most effectually.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

Sin is crouching at the door. We need to humbly cast ourselves onto the Lord, because “Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Even as pastors, we are powerless to defeat him — but our God is powerful. So let us run to him in prayer.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

The prophet Ezekiel said, “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones” (Ezekiel 37:1) and such carryings, so often as they occur, are matters for praise. Not so much for our own good or edification, as for the benefit of our fellow-men, are we borne into valleys of dry bones and chambers of imagery. We must watch these phases of soul, and be true to Divine impulses. I would not myself preach upon the joy of the Lord when I felt broken-hearted, neither would I enlarge upon a deep sense of indwelling sin while rejoicing in a full sense of cleansing by the Word.

We must pray the Holy Spirit to elevate and keep up our individual life in its connection with our ministry. We must always remember that we are not preaching doctrine which is good for others merely, but precious truth which has been proved to be good for ourselves. We may not be butchers at the block chopping off for hungry ones the meat of which we do not partake; but we must ourselves feed upon it, and must show in our very faces what fattening food it is which we present to the starving sons of men.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the certain victory of truth. We don’t need to be on the “right side of history” — we need to be right with God.

Copernicus declared the truth that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun. His opponents replied that this could not be true, for if the planet Venus revolved around the sun, she must present the same phases as the moon. This was very true. Copernicus looked up to Venus, but he could not see those phases, nor could anyone else. Nevertheless he stuck to his statement and said, “I have no reply to give, but in due time God will be so good that an answer will be found.” Copernicus died, and his teaching had not yet been justified. But soon after Galileo came forward with his telescope, and on looking at Venus he saw that she did pass through exactly the same changes as the moon.

Thus wisdom is justified by her children. Truth may not prevail today or tomorrow, but her ultimate victory is sure. Today they say that the doctrines of grace are antiquated, obsolete, and even injurious. We are at no trouble to answer the charge. We can wait, and we do not doubt that public thought will alter its tone.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

We pastors know the power of God’s Word to help others, but many of us are quick to neglect using the Word of God to help ourselves. We need to come to his table every day and feast on the Word of God.

The Bible is not just material for sermons — it is daily bread. And we cannot do without it.

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks

Get wisdom encouragement for Spurgeon in your inbox every week. Subscribe to the The Pastor’s Note newsletter for free.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Having a priceless treasure in earthen vessels, may the excellency of the divine power rest upon you, and so may you both glorify God and clear yourselves from the blood of all men.

How may a young man know whether he is called or not? That is a weighty enquiry, and I desire to treat it most solemnly. O for divine guidance in so doing! That hundreds have missed their way, and stumbled against a pulpit is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and decaying churches which surround us. It is a fearful calamity to a man to miss his calling, and to the church upon whom he imposes himself, his mistake involves an affliction of the most grievous kind. It would be a curious and painful subject for reflection—the frequency with which men in the possession of reason mistake the end of their existence, and aim at objects which they were never intended to pursue.

When I think upon the all but infinite mischief which may result from a mistake as to our vocation for the Christian pastorate, I feel overwhelmed with fear lest any of us should be slack in examining our credentials; and I had rather that we stood too much in doubt, and examined too frequently, than that we should become cumberers of the ground. There are not lacking many exact methods by which a man may test his call to the ministry if he earnestly desires to do so. It is imperative upon him not to enter the ministry until he has made solemn quest and trial of himself as to this point. His own personal salvation being secure, he must investigate as to the further matter of his call to office; the first is vital to himself as a Christian, the second equally vital to him as a pastor. As well be a professor without conversion, as a pastor without calling. In both cases there is a name and nothing more.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the need for humility.

You have heard of the two travelers who met opposite the statue of Minerva, and one of them remarked, “What a glorious golden shield Minerva has!”

The other said, “No, but it is bronze.”

They argued with one another, they drew their swords, they slew each other; and, as they fell, dying, they each looked up, and the one who said the shield was made of bronze discovered that it had a golden side to it, and the other, who was so bold in affirming that it was gold, found that it had a bronze side too. The shield was made of two different metals, and the combatants had neither of them seen both sides.

It is just so with the truth of God. It is many-sided and full of variety. Grand threefold lines run through it; it is one yet three, like the Godhead. Perhaps you and I have only seen two of the lines; many persons refuse to see more than one. And there may be a third yet to be discovered that shall reconcile the apparently antagonistic two, when our eye shall be clarified by the baptism in the last river, and we shall ascend the hill of the Lord to read the truth of God in the light of the celestial city.

THANKS FOR READING

Brothers,

The call to ministry comes by the mercy of God (2 Corinthians 4:1). This call does not come because we have earned it, but because God has been gracious to give it.

And as the work began, so it continues — not in our own strength, but in God’s. He is our only hope in ministry, so trust him and press on.

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

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Blessings to your ministry,

Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks