C.H. Spurgen's messages

A FABLE FOR THE TIMES
Description: FABLE. A CERTAIN MAN had long accustomed himself to eat out of the same trough with a beast, and being rebuked for such unclean feeding, he replied that he did not object to it, and that by long-established custom he had acquired a right to eat in that fashion, for his fathers had so fed before him for many generations. As there was no other way of curing him of his degrading habit, his friends began to remove the trough, whereat he struggled and raved like a madman, calling them robbers and villains, and many other bad names. Meanwhile the beast at the other end of the trough patiently submitted to lose its provender. FACT. State support of religion, by tithes and other forced payments, is the trough. The Irish Church feeds out of the same trough with the Church which it is wont to call the Romish beast, only it stands at the fullest end of it. The beast only gets a few handfuls of Maynooth Grant, but the Irish clergy are fed with tithes to the full. We want to see Protestants act like men who have faith in God and their own doctrines, and then they will maintain their own religion voluntarily; but, alas! it seems as if nothing but force will get them away from the degradation of state pay. How true it is that slavery deprives many men of the desire to be free! Wait a little, and when the trough is broken altogether, perhaps the man will play the man. Let every true Protestant help to deliver the Irish Church from her present; condition; and may God defend the right.

A literary Marvel
Description: At once "The New Park Street Pulpit" was an established success, and the rapid and unprecedented manner in which the circulation increased gave the young partners some difficulty in meeting the demand. The newspapers spoke as well of the printed as of the preached sermons. Reviewing a volume of discourses delivered on Sunday mornings at Exeter Hall, the first volume of C. H. Spurgeon's sermons to be published, The Baptist Messenger said—"There is in these sermons so much of sound doctrine which cannot be gainsaid—evangelical savor, spiritual experience and sacred fervor, together with earnest, practical appeals to the heart that will cause them to be most cordially welcomed by vast numbers of almost every class of professing Christians who love the truth as it is in Jesus," and the paper forthwith gave six closely printed pages of extracts. The volume was issued jointly by Messers. Alabaster and Passmore and Mr. James Paul, and it formed No. 1 of The Pulpit Library. There were ten sermons, and the book being printed in a clear, readable type and well bound in cloth, had a great sale. Charles Haddon Spurgeon gave a copy to his future wife with this inscription upon the fly-leaf, "In a few days it will be out of my power to present anything to Miss Thompson. Let this be a remembrance of our happy meetings and sweet conversations. Dec 12/1855. C. H. Spurgeon."
Awakening
Description: A person who refuses to look to the Lord Jesus, but persists in dwelling upon his sin and ruin, reminds us of a boy who dropped a shilling down an open grating of a London sewer, and lingered there for hours, finding comfort in saying, "It rolled in just there! Just between those two iron bars I saw it go right down." Poor soul! Long might he remember the details of his loss before he would in this way get back a single penny into his pocket, wherewith to buy himself a piece of bread. You see the drift of the parable; profit by it.
Butcher
Description: A Newark, New Jersey, butcher received a letter from his old home in Germany, notifying that he had, by the death of a relative, fallen heir to a considerable amount of money. He was cutting up a pig at the time. After reading the letter, he hastily tore off his dirty apron, and did not stop to see the pork cut up into sausages, but left the shop to make preparations for going home to Germany. Do you blame him, or would you have had him stop in Newark with his block and his cleaver? See here the operation of faith. The butcher believed what was told him, and acted on it at once. Sensible fellow, too! God has sent his messages to man, telling him the good news of salvation. When a man believes the good news to be true, he accepts the blessing announced to him, and hastens to lay hold upon it. If he truly believes, he will at once take Christ, with all he has to bestow, turn from his present evil ways, and set out for the Heavenly City, where the full blessing is to be enjoyed. He cannot be holy too soon, or too early quit the ways of sin. If a man could really see what sin is, he would flee from it as from a deadly serpent, and rejoice to be freed from it by Christ Jesus.
C.H. Spurgeon 1
Description: Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was England's best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1854, just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon, then only 20, became pastor of London's famed New Park Street Church (formerly pastored by the famous Baptist theologian John Gill). The congregation quickly outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000—all in the days before electronic amplification. In 1861 the congregation moved permanently to the newly constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle.
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Description: While the true greatness of a preacher will only be revealed at Christ’s tribunal, I would join my opinion with those of many others who make the earthly judgment that Charles Spurgeon was the most effective and useful of preachers since the days of the Apostles. Yes, as highly as I regard Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Whitefield, Edwards, and many other pulpit giants of the past, I become more convinced with every reading of a Spurgeon sermon that this English Baptist preacher of the 18th century is the preeminent model for one who would be a herald of the Word of God and the Christ of that Word.

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Description: Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, Essex in 1834. His father and grandfather were both Independent pastors, with roots in both the Dutch and English Dissenting traditions. Like Timothy, from infancy Charles Spurgeon had known the Holy Scriptures: “It would not be easy for some of us to recall the hour when we first heard the name of Jesus,” wrote Spurgeon, obviously including himself in this beautiful description of a covenant home. “In very infancy that sweet sound was as familiar to our ear as the hush of a lullaby. Our earliest recollections are associated with the house of God, the family altar, the Holy Bible, the sacred song, and the fervent prayer.” Spurgeon, who was destined to become Britain’s most illustrious preacher of the century, was converted on a snowy Sunday morning in early 1850 as a result of the less than illustrious “preaching” of a layman in a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Colchester, Essex. Under a brief and very personally applied development of the text “Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,” Spurgeon’s heart was changed by sovereign grace. “‘Look!’ What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to Him.” That joy in almighty saving grace, and that experimental conviction of full, free justification by faith alone in Christ alone would leave an indelible mark on every part of the ministry that was soon to be his.
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Description: Spurgeon was unashamedly committed to evangelical Calvinism. He fought battles against hyper-Calvinism (considered in detail in Iain Murray’s volume Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism, published by the Banner of Truth Trust) and Arminianism. He also stood firmly against the depreciation of the authority of Holy Scripture in what came to be called “The Downgrade Controversy.” (The amazingly contemporary nature of these controversies is developed in Iain Murray’s work The Forgotten Spurgeon, also published by The Banner of Truth Trust. Both of these volumes by Murray are highly recommended.)
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Description: Spurgeon is known best as “The Prince of Preachers.” Not only did Spurgeon preach to thousands each week, attracting the largest congregations of any minister in the British Isles, but his printed sermons (known as “the penny pulpit”), issued each week and then appearing in annual volumes for over 40 years, have had the greatest circulation of any printed sermons in history. These sermons, totaling 3,561, fill 63 volumes, some of which extend to 700 pages! They are rightly said to comprise a “Body of Divinity” within themselves. F. B. Meyer reflects the assessment of many a minister whose preaching tutelage has come by reading these sermons: “I can never tell my indebtedness to them. As I read them week by week in my young manhood, they gave me a grip of the Gospel that I can never lose, and gave me an ideal of its presentation in nervous, transparent, and forcible language which has coloured (sic) my entire ministry.”

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Description: Spurgeon’s eminent speaking abilities wedded to his vast knowledge of the Scriptures were almost immediately put to use. Less than two years after his conversion, when Spurgeon was but 17 years of age, he was called to serve as pastor of Waterbeach Baptist Chapel. In 1854 he was called to serve as pastor of New Park Street Baptist Chapel, Southwark, London. Soon that building was filled to overflowing, necessitating the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1859. Apart from periodic bouts with illness which kept him from his pulpit ministry, Spurgeon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle until June 7, 1891, when he preached his last sermon. He died the following January at Mentone, S. France. During his 38 years of ministry in London, 14,692 members were added to the church (Spurgeon interviewed most of them personally!). In addition to his pulpit labors, he began a “Pastor’s College” to train men “evidently called to preach the Gospel,” helped to found the London Baptist Association, established an orphanage (known as “Spurgeon’s Homes”), and gave his assistance for the establishment of various other charitable and religious organizations. The Metropolitan Tabernacle, under Spurgeon’s remarkable leadership, became a veritable beehive of evangelistic and philanthropic activity in London and its environs.
C.H. Spurgeon 2
Description: A survey of the Complete Index to C. H. Spurgeon’s Sermons (1855-1917)—an indispensable aid to finding and using Spurgeon’s sermons—shows that the great 19th century British pulpiteer was richly doctrinal in his preaching. While evangelistic messages and sermons of pastoral encouragement were dominant, Spurgeon never shied away from opening, illustrating, and applying the grand doctrinal themes of Holy Scripture. Especially in his early ministry as the congregation at the New Park Street Chapel was growing rapidly, Spurgeon dealt forthrightly with the doctrine of God.
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Description: In one year alone (1856) his sermon titles included “Divine Sovereignty,” “God’s Omniscience,” “Unimpeachable Justice,” and “The Majesty of God’s Voice.” Over the course of his ministry he preached over 150 sermons specifically on the person of Jesus Christ and some aspect of His work. Never embarrassed about his Calvinistic convictions (much to the embarrassment of many later Baptists who claim Spurgeon as their own!), Spurgeon preached messages specifically on every head of the so-called “Five Points of Calvinism,” and frequently rose to the ardent defense and proclamation of those truths in other sermons. Indeed, his sermons on “Election” and “Election No Discouragement to Seeking Souls” have been frequently reprinted because of their excellence in presenting the historic Calvinistic teaching. Spurgeon, most surely, would have held no sympathies for the contemporary idea that doctrine is “strong meat” and ought to be taught in specialized Bible studies (if at all), but surely not in the pulpit (and never on a Sunday morning when visitors will be present!). Nor would Spurgeon give an ear to the superficial observation that the Christian life is more important than Christian doctrine. “Those who do away with Christian doctrine are the worst enemies of Christian religion,” he declared.

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Description: t was the way in which Spurgeon preached deep biblical doctrine that gave such force to his sermons. He was not content with laying the matter before his congregation like a chef would present a fine meal before diners. Spurgeon organized his points, illustrated them by metaphors, similes, and biblical and extra-biblical matter, and applied them in profound yet natural ways that grew out of the exposition and illustration. One rarely senses that application was added to Spurgeon’s preaching. It was almost always a thoughtful development of the sermon’s theme, now brought to bear on the lives and situation of the preacher’s hearers.
C.H. Spurgeon 5
Description: “...whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is in contemplating Christ a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost there is a balm for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know of nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning.”
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Description: “It is infinitely benevolent of God, I will venture to say, to cast evil men into hell. If that be thought to be a hard and strange statement, I reply that inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is no benevolence to tolerate so great an evil; it is the highest benevolence to do all that can be done to restrain the horrible pest. It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the door of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished; instead of mercy it would be cruelty; it might be mercy to the offending, but it would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive. God’s very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin against his supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and go unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must be punished” (from “Individual Sin Laid on Jesus,” a sermon delivered on April 10, 1870).