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” (Isaiah 45:22).
Converts usually say that they did not know the gospel until 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 wages of sin (Romans 6:23).
When we read of anything being a wage, what does it mean? It means that it is a reward for labor. Death is sin’s due reward, and it must be paid. A master employs a man, and it is due to that man that he should receive his wages. If his master did not pay him his wages, it would be an act of gross injustice. Now, if sin did not bring upon man death and misery, it would be an injustice. It is necessary for the very standing of one universe that sin should be punished. It must be so. They that sow must reap. The sin which hires you must pay you. Wrong cannot produce right. Iniquity, transgression and sin must, in the nature of things, become darkness, sorrow, misery, death. Every transgression and disobedience must receive its just recompense of reward. There is no use in attempting to alter it so long as God and justice reign: those who do sin’s work must receive sin’s wage, and “the wages of sin is death.”
THANKS FOR READING
Brothers,
The truth that God the Holy Spirit has to save and grow his people is liberating and humbling. Humbling, because we can’t do it on our own. Liberating, because it’s not up to us. We are not the Savior (Praise God!), but we can point to the One who is.
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Blessings to your ministry,
Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks