Category: Shepherding with Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Today, there is the temptation of love for intellectual novelty. Instead of the old, old gospel, and the old, old Book, for which God be thanked forever, we are to place science, which is generally conjecture, in the place of revelation; and the thoughts of men are to cover and bury the sublime thoughts of God. I see ministers and churches deluded and led astray by these temptations. As for me, if no one else will say it, I purpose in my heart not to defile myself with this portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank. We need still to have old-fashioned believers who will sing the verse—

“Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I’d call them vanity and lies,
And bind the gospel to my heart.”

God send us many Daniels of that sort!

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the foolishness of listening to false teaching.

When you go to market, if you are a sensible person, you do not turn aside from all the good wares and fair merchandise to waste your time and your money over the quack vendor of useless medicine, which he advertises with large pictures and loud talk. Your common sense directs you to seek wholesome food and useful articles, but there are credulous people ready to be caught with any bait.

So, too, there is no lack of simpletons in all our congregations: good, thoughtless people, lame and limping in all their walk, troubled with skepticism and plagued with curiosity. Unstable as water, they shall not excel.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“Leave Christ out of your preaching, and you have taken the milk from the children, you have taken the strong meat from the men; but if your object as a teacher or preacher is to glorify Christ, and to lead men to love him and trust him, why, that is the very work upon which the heart of God himself is set. The Lord and you are pulling together, and God the Holy Spirit can set his seal to a work like that.” — Charles Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

At times I have thought, when I have done preaching, that I have laid down the gospel so clearly, that the nose on one’s face could not be more plain; and yet I perceive that even intelligent hearers have failed to understand what was meant by “Look unto me and be ye saved.”

Converts usually say that they did not know the gospel till such and such a day; and yet they had heard it for years. The gospel is unknown, not from want of explanation, but from absence of personal revelation. This the Holy Ghost is ready to give, and will give to those who ask him. Yet when given, the sum total of the truth revealed all lies within these words: “Christ died for the ungodly.”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the need to be born again.

To put the matter very simply—did you ever hear of Mr. Rowland Hill’s illustration of the cat and the sow? I will give it in my own fashion, to illustrate our Savior’s expressive words—“You must be born again.”

Do you see that cat? What a cleanly creature she is! How cleverly she washes herself with her tongue and her paws! It is quite a pretty sight! Did you ever see a sow do that? No, you never did. It is contrary to its nature. It prefers to wallow in the mire. Go and teach a sow to wash itself, and see how little success you would gain. It would be a great sanitary improvement if swine would be clean. Teach them to wash and clean themselves as the cat has been doing! Useless task. You may by force wash that sow, but it hastens to the mire, and is soon as foul as ever. The only way in which you can get a sow to wash itself is to transform it into a cat; then it will wash and be clean, but not till then! Suppose that transformation to be accomplished, and then what was difficult or impossible is easy enough; the swine will henceforth be fit for your parlor and your hearth-rug.

So it is with an ungodly man; you cannot force him to do what a renewed man does most willingly; you may teach him, and set him a good example, but he cannot learn the art of holiness, for he has no mind to it; his nature leads him another way. When the Lord makes a new man of him, then all things wear a different aspect. So great is this change, that I once heard a convert say, “Either all the world is changed, or else I am.” The new nature follows after right as naturally as the old nature wanders after wrong. What a blessing to receive such a nature! Only the Holy Ghost can give it.

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

Thanks to CROSS CON for sponsoring Shepherding with Spurgeon this year. CROSS is a conference for 18–25 year-olds and their leaders.

Consider bringing a group from your church to Louisville next January to help them deepen their love for God and his Word. They will return home passionate about God, sound theology, and missions.

Learn more and register today.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“We cannot too often tell someone that the only hope for salvation lies in Jesus.” — Charles Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

In these days, there is a growing hatred of the pulpit. The pulpit has maintained its ground full many a year, but partially by its becoming inefficient, it is losing its high position. Through a timid abuse of it, instead of a strong stiff use of the pulpit, the world has come to despise it; and now most certainly we are not a priest-ridden people one-half so much as we are a press-ridden people. By the press we are ridden indeed. Mercuries, Despatches, Journals, Gazettes, and Magazines are now the judges of pulpit eloquence and style. They thrust themselves into the censor’s seat, and censure those whose office it should rather be to censure them.

Editor’s note: This passage from Spurgeon really reminded me of our current day. What Spurgeon saw playing out in the press, we see today over social media and podcasts, where people criticize preaching generally or compare preachers.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the quiet nature of the Christian life.

If there is only one waterfall in a river, only one in a thousand miles, everybody hears about it and it is marked on the map. But if another river should flow on smoothly, it would not cause such a noise as that one cataract would make.

In like manner, a holy life is not talked of by an ungodly world half as much as one unholy act of an inconsistent professing Christian. How they delight to speak of that! How they roll the story of the sins of God’s people under their tongues as sweet morsels! You may repent of your backsliding; you may become even more zealous afterward, as you should do. But, my dear brothers, after having once stained your reputation, it is not easy to wipe out the blot.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“I am not afraid to preach to you justification by faith alone! Look to Jesus and live!” — Charles Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

The best preparation for teaching Christ’s lambs is love: love for Jesus and for them. We cannot be priests on their behalf unless like Aaron we wear their names upon our breasts. We must love or we cannot bless. Teaching is poor work when love is gone; it is like a smith working without fire, or a builder without mortar. A shepherd who does not love his sheep is a hireling and not a shepherd: he will flee in the time of danger, and leave his flock to the wolf.

Where there is no love there will be no life; living lambs are not to be fed by dead men. We preach and teach love; our subject is the love of God in Christ Jesus. How can we teach this if we have no love ourselves? Our object is to create love in the hearts of those we teach, and to foster it where it already exists; but how can we convey the fire if it is not kindled in our own hearts?

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe that true Christians persevere.

Not many days ago, I thought I saw the Alps. I have stood on the platform at Berne, Switzerland, and viewed with growing wonder that magnificent range of the snow-clad Alps. The other day within a few miles of this spot, in our own county of Surrey, I saw on the horizon clouds that were the very facsimile of Switzerland’s glorious mountains. To me there seemed no perceptible difference; the snowy masses of cloud were the exact counterpart of the Alps. If I had just risen from my sleep, and not known where I was, I should have said, “I am at Berne, looking at the mountains that I saw years ago.” Yet before five minutes had passed, the fair vision had melted away, and there were no peaks of granite there but mere aggregations of vapor.

How often have I seen Christians, as I have thought, and as all others have thought, and I have rejoiced and blessed God over what seemed converted men and women. But before long we have had clear proof that we have been grossly deceived. There was goodness in them—Hosea 6:4 calls it “love”—but it was only such nominal goodness as nature boasts of, and it vanished “like a morning cloud.”

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

Thanks to CROSS CON for sponsoring Shepherding with Spurgeon this year. CROSS is a conference for 18–25 year-olds and their leaders.

Consider bringing a group from your church to Louisville next January to help them deepen their love for God and his Word. They will return home passionate about God, sound theology, and missions.

Learn more and register today.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“If the spiritually sick are healed, it is Jesus’ name which makes them strong.” — Charles Spurgeon

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)

You are of no use in the ministry, my dear brother, if you are not quite willing to be called a fool, to be called a thief, or even to be called a devil! You will never be successful if you are afraid of being pelted. The true minister often finds his pulpit to be a place but little preferable to a pillory, and he is content to stand there, feeling that all the abuse and blasphemy which may come upon him are only the means by which the world recognizes and proves its recognition of a God-sent man. Oh, to rest upon the covenant which is made in grace, and to hold fast the covenant which Christ has compelled us to make with him, resolved that even should he take all away, our joy, our comfort, and our ease, we will still stand to it, and still keep the covenant.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

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

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).

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“We preach the gospel in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. If we preached it in any other name men would have a right to reject it.” — Charles Spurgeon

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

We are made to see that the Lord is God, and that beside him there is none else. Very frequently God teaches this to the minister, by leading him to see his own sinful nature. He will have such an insight into his own wicked and abominable heart, that he will feel as he comes up the pulpit stairs, that he does not deserve so much as to sit in his pew, much less to preach to his fellows. Although we feel always joy in the declaration of God’s Word, yet we have known what it is to totter on the pulpit steps, under a sense that the chief of sinners should scarcely be allowed to preach to others.

Ah, beloved, I do not think he will be very successful as a minister, who is not taken into the depths and blackness of his own soul, and made to exclaim, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the preeminence of Jesus.

In white, all the colors are blended. A perfectly white substance combines all the colors of the rainbow merged in true proportion, but green and indigo and red are only the reflections of a part of the solar rays. So John, Peter, Paul are parts of the light of heaven; they are differing colors, and there is a beauty in each one of them. But if you want to get the whole of the rays of light, you must get to Christ, for all light is in him. In him is not simply the red or the blue, but in him is light, the true light, the whole of light.

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

HUGE thanks to the CROSS Conference for sponsoring Shepherding with Spurgeon for the next few months.

This year’s CROSS Con is taking place right now in Louisville, Kentucky. You can check out the free livestream to hear from John Piper, David Platt, and more. Stay tuned for more information about next year’s conference and how you can use this event to disciple the 18–25 year-olds in your church.

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)

The more vile a man is, the more eagerly I invite him to believe in Jesus. A sense of sin is all we have to look for, as ministers. We preach to sinners; and let us know that a man will take the title of sinner to himself, and we then say to him, “Look unto Christ, and ye shall be saved.” “Look,” this is all he demands of you, and even this he gives you. If you look to yourself, you are damned; you are a vile miscreant, filled with loathsomeness, corrupt and corrupting others. But look here! Do you see that man hanging on the cross? Do you behold his agonized head drooping meekly down upon his breast? Do you see that thorny crown, causing drops of blood to trickle down his cheeks? Do you see his hands pierced? Sinner, do you hear him shriek, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” Do you hear him cry, “It is finished?” Do you mark his head hang down in death? See that side pierced with the spear, and the body taken from the cross?

Those hands were nailed for you; those feet gushed gore for you; that side was opened wide for you; and if you want to know how thou can find mercy, there it is! “Look!” “Look unto me!” Look no longer to Moses. Look no longer to Sinai. Come here and look to Calvary, to Calvary’s victim, and to Joseph’s grave. And look to the man who near the throne sits with his Father, crowned with light and immortality. “Look! sinner,” he says, this morning, to you, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” It is in this way God teaches that there is none beside him; because he makes us look entirely to him, and utterly away from ourselves.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe our hope in the midst of suffering.

Whatever happens to me, I trust in you. Down goes the anchor; that ship will never drift far out to sea. “O my God, I trust in you.” Can you say that, dear friends? Then, if you are in the dark, you are as safe as if you were in the light, for still this anchor holds: “O my God, I trust in you.”

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)

The earth brings forth according to the period of the year, and with man there is a time for every purpose under heaven. At this season, the world is engaged in congratulating itself and in expressing its complimentary wishes for the good of its citizens; let me suggest extra and more solid work for Christians.

As we think today of the birth of the Savior, let us aspire after a fresh birth of the Savior in our hearts; that as he is already “formed in us the hope of glory,” we may be “renewed in the spirit of our minds;” that we may go again to the Bethlehem of our spiritual nativity and do our first works, enjoy our first loves, and feast with Jesus as we did in the holy, happy, heavenly days of our conversion. Let us go to Jesus with something of that youthful freshness and excessive delight which was so manifest in us when we looked to him at the first; let him be crowned anew by us, for he is still adorned with the dew of his youth, and remains “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the glories of Christ’s incarnation.

Alexander the Great was a great master of men, and one of the reasons why all his soldiers loved him so enthusiastically was that if they were on a long march, Alexander did not ride, but tramped along in the heat and dust with the common soldiery. And when the day was hot, and they brought his majesty water, he put it aside and said, “The sick soldiers want it more than I. I will not drink until every soldier has a drink.”

So is it with Christ. In all our afflictions he is afflicted, and he will not have joy until he gives joy to his people. Yes, he has done more than Alexander, for he emptied himself of all his glories, and gave himself to die upon the cross, and consummated the redemption of his people by his own agonies.

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

Special thanks to the Christian Standard Bible for sponsoring the Shepherding with Spurgeon newsletter this year. I’m so thankful for the CSB and their partnership over the past year.

Beginning next month, we’ll have a new annual sponsor for 2024 that I know will be a blessing to you and your church.

Click here to learn more about the CSB (and request a free CSB Bible).

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)

We think we have converts, and we are not long before we are disappointed in them. Many are like blossoms on our fruit trees; they are fair to look on, but they do not come to anything. Others are like the many little fruits that fall off long before they have come to any size. A cold night or a blight will come, and away go our hopes of a crop; it is just so with hopeful converts.

He who presides over a great church, and feels an agony for the souls of men, will soon be convinced that if God does not work, there will be no work done. We shall see no conversion, no sanctification, no final perseverance, no glory brought to God, no satisfaction for the passion of the Savior. Our Lord said well, “Apart from me you are not able to do anything” (John 15:5).

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe how to escape conflict.

To remain quiet is generally the way to baffle an adversary. Indeed, there is no weapon with which he can wound you. If you will not yield so as to give railing for railing, what is to be done with you?

It is much the same as when a certain duke proclaimed war against a peaceful neighbor who was resolved not to fight. The troops came riding to the town, and found the gates open as on ordinary occasions. The children were playing in the streets, and the blacksmith was at his forge, and the shopkeepers at their counters. And so, pulling up their horses, the soldiers inquired, “Where is the enemy?”

“We don’t know. We are friends.” What was to be done under the circumstances but to ride home?

So it is in life, if you only meet evil with good the bad man’s occupation is gone.

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)

I am struck with astonishment as I think how many sermons are preached, how many Sunday-school addresses are given, how many religious books are written of which you are quite sure that the intention was not immediate conversion. It is thought that in some unknown way these good things may accidentally contribute to men’s salvation, but they are not aimed at as their present object.

Ah, brother, if you want men to come to Christ you must preach Christ to them with all your heart, with this design, that immediately they may close in with Christ, and at once give their hearts to Jesus. Yes, and you are to pray that they may do so through the present effort which you are making for their good. There is the target, and if you continue to shoot into the air long enough an arrow may perhaps strike it; but, man alive, if you want to win the prize of archery you had better fix your eye upon the white and take your aim distinctly and with skill. If an individual would win souls he must bend his whole soul to it and make it the object of his whole energy.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)

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

Man, continuing in sin, becomes fixed in its habit. Only the other day I read of a great millionaire in New York who once was weak enough to resolve to give a beggar a penny. He had grown old in covetousness, and he remembered himself just as he was about to bestow the gift, and said, “I would like to give you the penny, but you see I would have to lose the interest of it forever, and I could not afford that.”

Habit grows on a man. Everybody knows that when he has been making money, if he indulges the propensity to acquire, it will become a perfectly tyrannical master, ruling his entire being. Hence the reason why sin being in the nature, and secondly, coming upon us in the use and the habit, and thirdly, being in itself a thing that naturally clings to us and gets a dominancy over us, it is written within us as with the point of a diamond.

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

Special thanks to the Christian Standard Bible for sponsoring the Pastor’s Note newsletter. The CSB is both accurate and readable. So that you (and your flock) can read God’s Word with confidence, clarity, and precision.

Click here to learn more about the CSB (and request a free CSB Bible).