ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)
I cannot tell who among you may be Christ’s sheep, or who may not be his. My voice has no power to separate you from your companions, unless Christ shall use my voice, and make it the echo of his own. I may speak as long as I will, apart from that great Shepherd of the sheep, but I can make no distinction between his chosen ones and the rest of mankind; but if the Lord himself shall come and call, his chosen shall detect the gracious voice; and when one by one he calls them to himself by what theologians term “effectual calling”—(and it is a good expression, for it is effectual calling), then the sheep hear his voice, and they rise up at once, and follow him, for they know his voice, and he leads them out.
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SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)
Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the unity of the church.
I saw a large building the other day being erected. I do not know that it was any business of mine, but I did puzzle myself to make out how it would make a complete structure; it seemed to me that the gables would come in so very awkwardly. But I dare say if I had seen a plan there might have been some central tower or some combination by which the wings, one of which appeared to be rather longer than the other, might have been brought into harmony, for the architect doubtless had a unity in his mind that I did not have in mine.
So you and I do not have the necessary information as to what the church is to be. The unity of the church is not to be seen by you today—do not think it. The plan is not worked out yet. God is building over there, and you only see the foundation; in another part the topstone is all but ready, and you cannot comprehend it. Shall the Master show you his plan? Is the Divine Architect bound to take you into his studio to show you all his secret motives and designs? Not so; wait a while and you will find that all these diversities and differences among spiritually minded men, when the master plan comes to be wrought out, are different parts of the grand whole, and you with the astonished world will then know that God has sent the Lord Jesus.
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Brothers,
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Blessings to your ministry,
Doug H.
Creator of SpurgeonBooks
Preaching Pastor of Pillar Church of Washington DC