Preaching set on fire

The Holy Spirit is divine, and consequently he knows how to influence all kinds of men, and he can by the instrumentalities now in use reach just as many as he pleases. I recollect well when I first preached in London a remark made by a friend, which very greatly encouraged me at the time, and has proved true in my experience. When he heard that my little country chapel had been filled by the inhabitants of the village in which I had preached, he gave me hope of filling a far larger place in London: “For,” said he, “what will draw two hundred will draw two thousand, and what was useful to a few may be made just as useful to a multitude.” I saw at once that it was so.

When we are dealing with spiritual forces we have not to calculate by pounds and ounces, or by so many horse power. We have not to think of quantity. As an illustration: give me fire, I will not bargain for a furnace, give me but a single candle, and a city or a forest may soon be in a blaze. A spark is quite sufficient to begin with, for fire multiplies itself: So give us the truth, a single voice, and the Holy Spirit with it, and none can say where the sacred conflagration will end. One Jonah sufficed to subdue all Nineveh by one monotonous sentence oft repeated, and despite the weakness of our present instrumentality, if God does but bless the gospel, there is no reason why it should not speedily be felt by the whole of London.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Additions to the Church," delivered April 5, 1874. Image by Jan Tik on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The heralds of blessing

In the Christian church at this moment there is a very general desire for a revival of religion. You may go where you may among Christian people, and you will find that they are mourning over the present, state of things, and saying the one to the other, “When will a greater blessing come? How can we obtain it? When shall we make some impression upon the masses of the ungodly? When shall our houses of prayer be filled with attentive hearers? When will the Lord’s kingdom come, and his right arm be made bare in the eyes of all the people?“

I am delighted to hear the inquiry; my soul magnifies the Lord as I discern tokens of growing anxiety about the cause and kingdom of Jesus and the perishing sons of men. This is an omen of better times. "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." Searchings of heart, anguish, groanings which cannot be uttered, and abounding intercession, are the heralds of blessing; they are that sound in the tops of the mulberry trees which calls upon believers to bestir themselves in hope of victory.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Revival Promise," delivered January 11, 1874. Image by John on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

When churches are revived

When churches are revived, what life there is in them, and then what singing! Never comes a revival of religion without a revival of singing. As soon as Luther’s Reformation comes, the Psalms are translated and sung in all languages; and when Whitfield and Wesley are preaching, then Charles Wesley and Toplady must be making hymns for the people to sing, for they must show their joy, a joy born of life.

When the Lord gives you, dear friend, more life, you also will have more joy. You will no more go moping about the house, or be thought melancholy and dull when the Lord gives you life more abundantly. I should not wonder but what you will get into the habit of singing at your work, and humming over tunes in your walks. I should not wonder if persons ask, “What makes So-and-so so happy? what makes his eyes twinkle as with some strange delight? He is poor, he is sick, but how blissful he appears to be!” This will be seen, brother, when you not only have life, but when you have it more abundantly.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Life More Abundant," delivered January 4, 1874. Image by SF Brit on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

A Revival In Your Own Souls

The Spirit of God in the church is the standing miracle which proves that she is of God. Were the Spirit of God gone from her it would be impossible for the church to hold her ground, but the Holy Ghost abiding in the church, is the testimony of God to his church and the strength of her testimony for her God.

Beloved, if the Holy Ghost shall come upon you and rest on you continually, you will sweetly tell of your Lord’s grace, and of his dying love. The right words will come, for it shall be often given you in the same hour what you shall speak. The right emotions will attend the words, for the Spirit of God creates tenderness and pity. The ice will melt in your spirit, the hard frosts of your long backsliding winter will yield to the returning sun of righteousness, the season of cold and death shall be over and gone, and the time of the singing of birds shall have come to your soul. Then will you be able to teach transgressors God’s ways. O brethren, pray for a revival in your own souls. Beseech the Holy Spirit to come upon you; entreat the Lord to send the breath from the four winds, not only upon the dry bones, but also upon the men who have to prophesy in the valley of the dead.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Christian's Great Business," delivered September 7, 1873. Image by L Lemos on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The great power of the Spirit

...our sorrows often arise from our not observing the Holy Spirit. He is in us, and he shall be with us for ever. We are troubled about the little progress of the kingdom of God in the world, but if we believe in the Holy Ghost we shall soon get our courage back again.

There is no reason why the simplest sermon, preached in the humblest place, should not at any time be the commencement of a great revival. There is no reason known to us why the simple preaching of Jesus Christ, on any one Sabbath day, should not prove to be the conversion of all the hearers, and, through the hearers, very speedily of an entire nation. We do not know as yet — we have none of us, probably, any notion of — the great power of the Spirit of God.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Welcome Discovery. Image by mendhak on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Not satisfied with our harvest

Travelling along our island just now you see everywhere the sickle, or the reaping machine, in full work; harvest whitens the plains; everywhere the loaded wagons are bearing home the precious fruits of the earth. My spirit is stirred within me, and my soul is on flame, for I see everywhere a harvest except in the church of Christ.

Reapers are busy everywhere except in the fields of our divine Boaz. All fields are ripe, but those of Bethlehem; all barns are filling but those of the Great Husbandman; Christ Jesus has scarce a sheaf ingathered of late; we hear of very few results from the sacred sowing of the word. Here and there the church, like Ruth, gathers an ear, a very precious ear it is true, for who shall estimate the value of a single soul; but we have no wave-sheafs as in the days of Pentecost, or, if we have them, they are few and far between; and as for the harvest home which we have so long expected, our eyes fail in looking for it in vain.

As a church, constituting a part of the Master’s field, we have had for years one continued harvest, but still never such an one as has satisfied our spirits, for our idea of our king is such that the largest increase to his church would not content us, we should still feel that our Lord Jesus deserved far more. As he has not yet seen of the travail of his soul so as to be satisfied, so neither are we his servants content on his behalf, but we long, and cry, and pray for a larger harvest as his reward for the dread sowings of Gethsemane and Golgotha, in bloody sweat and streams of vital blood.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Call For Revival," delivered August 18, 1872. Image by OakleyOriginals under Creative Commons License.

But by His Spirit

Endow us, O God, with the Holy Ghost, and we have all we need. The poverty of the members, their want of learning, their want of rank, all these shall be as nothing. The Holy Ghost can make amends for all deficiencies, and clothe his poor and obscure people with an energy at which the world shall tremble. This made the apostolic church mighty, she had the Holy Ghost outpoured upon her: the lack of this made the medieval ages dark as midnight, for men contended about words and letters, but forgot the Spirit: the return of this inestimable blessing has given us every true revival: the working of the eternal Spirit, the presence of Christ in the midst of his people is the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing beneath his wings.

This has been our confidence, as a church, these eighteen years, and if we are yet to see greater and better things, we must still rely on this same strength, the divine presence of Jesus Christ by the wonder-working Spirit. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Real Presence, The Great Want Of The Church," delivered February 11, 1872. Image by Montse PB under Creative Commons License.

Watching for the pretenders

Those who are permitted to see large additions to the church will find this parable of the wedding garment to be singularly appropriate and timely. Whenever there is a revival, and many are brought to Christ, it seems inevitable that at the same time a proportion of unworthy persons should enter the church. However diligent may be the oversight, there will be pretenders creeping in unawares who have no true part or lot in the matter, and hence, when the preacher is most earnest for the ingathering of souls to Christ, he needs to couple therewith a truly jealousy, lest those who come forward to make a profession of faith should be moved by carnal motives, and should not really have given their hearts to God. We must use the net to draw in the many, but all are not good fishes that are taken therein. On the threshing floor of Zion the heap is not all pure wheat, the chaff is mingled with the grain, and therefore the winnowing fan is wanted.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Wedding Garment," delivered February 19, 1871. Image by Indy Kethdy under Creative Commons License.

Ask God for the Latter Rain!

In this degenerate time we are very much as Israel was in the days of the Judges, for there are raised up among us leaders who judge Israel, and are the terror of her foes. Oh, if the church had in her midst a race of heroes; if our missionary operations could be attended with the holy chivalry which marked the church in the early days; if we could have back apostles and martyrs, or even such as Carey and Judson, what wonders would be wrought!...

The fact is, the most of us are vastly inferior to the early Christians, who, as I take it, were persecuted because they were thoroughly Christians, and we are not persecuted because we hardly are Christians at all. They were so earnest in the propagation of the Redeemer’s kingdom, that they became the nuisance of the age in which they lived. They would not let errors alone. They had not conceived the opinion that they were to hold the truth, and leave other people to hold error without trying to intrude their opinions upon them, but they preached Christ Jesus right and left, and delivered their testimony against every sin. They denounced the idols, and cried out against superstition, until the world, fearful of being turned upside down, demanded of them, “Is that what you mean? Then we will burn you, lock you up in prison, and exterminate you.” To which the church replied, “We will accept the challenge, and will not depart from our resolve to conquer the world for Christ.” At last the fire in the Christian church burned out the persecution of an ungodly world.

But we are so gentle and quiet, we do not use strong language about other people’s opinions; but let men go to hell out of charity to them. We are not at all fanatical, and for all we do to disturb him, the old manslayer has a very comfortable time of it. We would not wish to save any sinner who does not particularly wish to be saved. If persons choose to attend our ministry, we shall be pleased to say a word to them in a mild way, but we do not speak with tears streaming down our cheeks, groaning and agonising with God for them; neither would we thrust our opinions upon them, though we know they are being lost for want of the knowledge of Christ crucified. May God send the latter rain to his church, to me, and to you, and may we begin to bestir ourselves, and seek after the highest form of earnestness for the kingdom of King Jesus. May the days come in which we shall no longer have to complain that we sow much and reap little, but may we receive a hundredfold reward, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From a sermon entitled "The Former And Latter Rain," delivered July 11, 1869. Image by James Jordan under Creative Commons License.

You cannot, but God can

“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?”- Job 38:31.

Blessed be the Lord, we cannot have sunk so low but he can lift us up; we cannot be so barren and so comfortless but what he can make us fruitful and give us joy and peace again. There is no church, which he cannot revive. Are you members of congregations, which are slumbering? Do not despair. You will go home after the day’s service, and say, “I wish I could do some good here, but I am only one.” No, dear brother, you cannot loose the bands of Orion, but God can. The great Head of his church can suddenly come into his temple, and fill it with his glory. He can rake together the almost expiring ashes, and kindle the fire anew, and bring the sacrifice, and make your church yet to be a temple to his praise. Glorify the name of God, the all-powerful One: never let despair cross your soul.

While he lives who made heaven and earth; while he works who bears up the pillars of the universe; while he loves who once gave up his Son to redeem us, there can be no cause for trembling. Zion shall be comforted; her days of gladness shall dawn; her winter of sorrow shall flee away: God is on her side, and Orion relaxes his bonds.

From a sermon entitled "The Pleiades And Orion," delivered June 28, 1868. Image by s58y under Creative Commons License.

God's arm

No genuine revival can ever arise from the flesh. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Human excitement at the utmost, and carnal zeal at its extremity, can do nothing towards the real conversion of souls. Here we are taught the lesson, “not by might nor by power.” Disappointments ought to have taught the Church of God this lesson long ago. The many revivals which she has had which have proved to be spurious - the puffing up of excitement and not the building up of grace, all these should have driven her out of the last relic of her self confidence, and have made her feel that it is not of herself to do anything in the Lord’s cause without his help. “Our help cometh from the Lord that made heaven and earth.”

It is well to be constantly convinced of this. We must have God’s arm laid to the work, or else nothing will be accomplished which will stand the solemn tests of the last great day. Wood, hay, and stubble we may build alone, but gold, silver and precious stones are from the king’s treasury. “Without me ye can do nothing,” was the Savior’s word to his chosen apostles; how much more applicable must it be to us who are “less than the least of all saints”! In vain your holy assemblies, in vain your earnest desires, in vain your passionate addresses, in vain your efforts of a thousand shapes: unless God himself shall step forth from the hiding-place of his power, and set himself a second time to his own glorious work, no good can come of all your toils.

From a sermon entitled "The Mighty Arm," delivered February 4, 1866. Image by fauxto_digit under Creative Commons License.

God is in our midst

If the Lord be indeed in Zion, and the king be in the midst of her, why do we pray as if he were not? I find no fault with the prayers of my brethren when they ask for an outpouring of the Spirit — what they mean by their prayers is a very proper thing, but I am not certain that the expression is altogether the best that might be used. The Spirit of God is with his people. I could not, last Monday night, ask to have the Spirit of God poured out, for it was there. If at any time the Holy Spirit was with any men on earth, even at Pentecost, he was here last Monday night, as those present must have felt. We had not so much to ask for it as to be thankful for it.

When two or three of you meet together in Christ’s name, do not meet unbelievingly. Remember that he has said, “There am I in the midst of you.” Be content with that assurance; you have not, as it were, to mount up to heaven, that is, to bring Christ down; nor to descend into the earth, that is, to bring him up from the depths: he is with you! “Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?” “God dwelleth in you.” The Holy Spirit is given to the Church as a perpetual and abiding Comforter; and in the Church the Spirit of God always dwells. Do not pray, therefore, dear friends, as if God were not with you. “Is not the Lord in Zion? is not her king in the midst of her?” Do not pray, therefore, like the priests of Baal, as though your God were on a journey, or needed to be awakened out of sleep. He is with you, ready to answer by fire, if, like Elias, you have but faith with which to challenge his promise and his power.

From a sermon entitled "A Discourse For A Revival Season," delivered January 8, 1865. Image by Aislinn Ritchie under Creative Commons License.

Low enough to be blessed

I caught a good sentence the other day. Speaking with a Wesleyan minister, I said to him, “Your denomination during the past year did not increase: you have usually had a large increase to your numbers. You were never so rich as now; your ministers were never so well educated; you never had such good chapels as now, and yet you never had so little success. What are you doing? — knowing this to be the fact, what are you doing? How are the minds of your brethren exercised with regard to this?” He comforted me much by the reply. He said, “It has driven us to our knees: we thank God that we know our state and are not content with it. We have had a day of humiliation, and I hope,” he said, “some of us have gone low enough to be blessed.”

There is a great truth in that last sentence, “low enough to be blessed.” I do fear me that some of us never do go low enough to be blessed. When a man says, “Oh! yes, we are getting on very well, we do not want any revival that I know of,” I fear me he is not low enough to be blessed; and when you and I pray to God with pride in us, with self-exaltation, with a confidence in our own zeal, or even in the prevalence of our own prayers of themselves, we have not come low enough to be blessed. An humble Church will be a blessed Church; a Church that is willing to confess its own errors and failures, and to lie at the foot of Christ’s cross, is in a position to be favored of the Lord. I hope we are agreed, then, with God, as to our utter unworthiness and helplessness, so that we look to him alone.

From a sermon entitled "Preparation For Revival," delivered October 30, 1864. Image by Mathias Erhart under Creative Commons License.

Rise up!

He speaks to each denomination according to its need, but to the same import, “Rise up and come away; leave deadness and coldness and wrong-doing and hardness and harshness, and bitterness of spirit; leave idleness and slothfulness and lukewarmness; rise up and come away. Come away to preach the Gospel amongst the heathen; come away to reform the masses of this wicked city; come away from your little-heartedness; from your coldness of spirit, come away: the land is, before you; go up and possess it.”

Come away, your Master waits to aid you: strike! He will strike with you; build! he will be the great master builder: plough! He himself shall break the clods; arise and thresh the mountains, for he shall make you a sharp threshing instrument having teeth, and the mountains shall be beaten small until the wind shall scatter them like chaff, and you shall rejoice in the Lord. Rise up, people of God, in this season of revival, and come away! Why sleep ye? "Arise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”

From a sermon entitled "A Sermon For Spring," delivered February 23, 1862. Flickr photo by Jeff Kubina; some rights reserved.

Man does not live by bread alone

This bread, you see, is the Word of God. Now, the Word is given to us first here in the Bible, as it is written; it is given to us, secondly, from the lips of God’s own chosen and appointed ambassadors. He that despises either of these two, will soon find himself growing lean in spirit. The book, the Word, is like the flour, but the sermon is the bread, for it is through the sermon that the Word is, as it were, prepared for human palates, and brought so that human souls may be able to receive it. The moment the Church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her. It has been through the ministry that the Lord has always been pleased to revive and bless his Churches, and you will notice, that these revivals in which it was boasted that there were no ministers engaged, have come to nought ere long; for those that stand, are those in which God gets to himself glory and honor, by using instrumentality.

It is a wrong idea altogether, that God is glorified by putting instrumentality aside. That is not his glory. His glory is, that in our infirmity he still triumpheth, and that with his own right hand he is able to lay hold upon some jaw-bone of an ass, and yet slay therewith heaps upon heaps of Philistines. It is the weakness of the instrumentality used that has a tendency to glorify God, and hence he very seldom is pleased to work without some means or other. Most Christians who have grown rich in grace, have been great frequenters of the house of prayer.

From a sermon entitled "Bread For The Hungry," delivered November 10, 1861. Flickr photo by Francois Schnell; some rights reserved.

A harvest of souls

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed, and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.” — Amos 9:13.

God is about to send times of surprising fertility to his Church. When a sermon has been preached in these modern times, if one sinner has been converted by it, we have rejoiced with a suspicious joy; for we have thought it something amazing. But, brethren where we have seen one converted, we may yet see hundreds; where the word of God has been powerful to scores, it shall be blessed to thousands; and where hundreds in past years have seen it, nations shall be converted to Christ. There is no reason why we should not see all the good that God hath given us multiplied a hundredfold; for there is sufficient vigor in the seed of the Lord to produce a far more plentiful crop than any we have yet gathered.

God the Holy Ghost is not stinted in his power. When the sower went forth to sow his seed, some of it fell on good soil, and it brought forth fruit, some twenty fold, some thirty fold, but it is written, “Some a hundred fold.” Now, we have been sowing this seed; and thanks be to God, I have seen it bring forth twenty and thirty fold; but I do expect to see it bring forth a hundred fold. I do trust that our harvest shall be so heavy, that while we are taking in the harvest, it shall be time to sow again; that prayer meetings shall be succeeded by the enquiry of souls as to what they shall do to be saved, and ere the enquirers’ meeting shall be done, it shall be time again to preach, again to pray; and then, ere that is over, there shall be again another influx of souls, the baptismal pool shall be again stirred, and hundreds of converted men shall flock to Christ.

From a sermon entitled "A Revival," delivered January 26, 1860. Flickr photo by Tim ; some rights reserved.

God's Mighty Acts

Whenever God has done a mighty work it has been by some very insignificant instrument. When he slew Goliath it was by little David, who was but a ruddy youth. Lay not up the sword of Goliath — I always thought that a mistake of David — lay up, not Goliath’s sword, but lay up the stone, and treasure up the sling in God’s armory for ever. When God would slay Sisera, it was a woman that must do it with a hammer and a nail. God has done his mightiest works by the meanest instruments: that is a fact most true of all God’s works — Peter the fisherman at Pentecost, Luther the humble monk at the Reformation, Whitefield the potboy of the Old Bell Inn at Gloucester in the time of the last century’s revival; and so it must be to the end. God works not by Pharaoh’s horses or chariot, but he works by Moses’ rod; he doth not his wonders with the whirlwind and the storm; he doth them by the still small voice, that the glory may be his and the honor all his own. Doth not this open a field of encouragement to you and to me? Why may not we be employed in doing some mighty work for God here? Moreover, we have noticed in all these stories of God’s mighty works in the olden time, that wherever he has done any great thing it has been by someone who has had very great faith. I do verily believe at this moment that, if God willed it, every soul in this hall would be converted now. If God chose to put forth the operations of his own mighty Spirit, not the most obdurate heart would be able to stand against it. “He will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy.” He will do as he pleases; none can stay his hand. “Well,” says one, “but I do not expect to see any great things.” Then, my dear friend, you will not be disappointed, for you will not see them; but those that expect them shall see them.

From a sermon entitled "The Story of God's Mighty Acts," delivered July 17, 1859. Flickr photo by Matt McGee; some rights reserved.

The causes of true revival

Every revival has been commenced and attended by a large amount of prayer. In the city of New York at the present moment, there is not I believe, one single hour of the day, wherein Christians are not gathered together for prayer. One church opens its doors from five o’clock till six, for prayer; another church opens from six to seven, and summons its praying men to offer the sacrifice of supplication. Six o’clock is past, and men are gone to their labor; Another class find it then convenient such as those, perhaps, who go to business at eight or nine — and from seven to eight there is another prayer meeting. From eight to nine there is another, in another part of the city, and what is most marvellous, at high noon, from twelve to one, in the midst of the city of New York, there is held a prayer meeting in a large room, which is crammed to the doors every day, with hundreds standing outside. This prayer meeting is made up of merchants of the city, who can spare a quarter of an hour to go in and say a word of prayer, and then leave again; and then a fresh company come in to fill up the ranks so that it is supposed that many hundreds assemble in that one place for prayer during the appointed hour. This is the explanation of the revival.

If this were done in London — if we for once would outvie old Rome, who kept her monks in her sanctuaries, always at prayer, both by night and by day, — if we together could keep up one golden chain of prayer, link after link of holy brotherhood being joined together in supplication, then might we expect an abundant outpouring of the Divine Spirit from the Lord our God. The Holy Spirit as the actual agent — the Word preached, and the prayers of the people as the instruments — and we have thus explained the cause of a true revival of religion.

From a sermon entitled "The Great Revival," delivered March 28, 1858.

Flickr photo by Roberto Ferrari; some rights reserved.