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.”