ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)
If you want to do good to your neighbors, and to bring them to Christ, set your own heart much upon the Savior. The more of Christ a man has, the more useful he will be in his day. If you were to look out all the ministers that have been useful, you will not find that they were distinguished by great talent so much as by great grace. God can bless a poor unsophisticated countryman to the salvation of hundreds if he has grace; and an ever-so-learned man may preach in vain, with great periods and stupendous sentences, if he has no grace. Do you, then, seek to prove that promise—“I will be like the dew to Israel” (Hosea 14:5) and so doing, you will get this other promise fulfilled—“The people will return and live beneath his shade. They will grow grain and blossom like the vine. His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon” (Hosea 14:7).
SERMON ILLUSTRATION (BY SPURGEON)
Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe bearing fruit.
I have generally found that a man is not much better than he looks. If a man’s outward life is not right, I will not feel bound to believe that his inward life is acceptable to God. One person said in Rowland Hill’s time, “He is not exactly what I should like, but he has a good heart at bottom.” The shrewd old preacher replied, “When you go to market and buy fruit, and there are none but rotten apples on the top of the basket, you say to the market woman, ‘These are a very bad lot.’ Now, if the woman replied, ‘Yes, they are rather gone at top, but they are better as you go down,’ you would not be so silly as to believe her, but would say, ‘No, no, the lower we go, the worse they will be, for the best are always put on the top.’ ”
And so it is with men’s characters. If they cannot be decent, sober, and truthful in their daily life, their inner parts are more abominable still. The deeper you pry into their secrets the worse will be the report.
| LEAD LIKE SPURGEON (IN YOUR HOME) |
| No matter how busy Spurgeon was, every day at 6 p.m., he was in his home, reading, praying, and singing with his wife and kids. He knew that daily family worship was indispensable for the faith of the next generation.As pastors, we are teaching the Bible to others day-in and day-out. But sometimes we can neglect to teach the Bible to our own children.To help you, I’ve created a series of simple family devotionals. God Centered Family will give you everything you need to teach your kids the Bible in just ten minutes each day.See a sample and subscribe today right here. |