He Knew What It Was To Thirst

How great the love which led him to such a condescension as this! Do not let us forget the infinite distance between the Lord of glory on his throne and the Crucified dried up with thirst. A river of the water of life, pure as crystal, proceedeth today out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and yet once he condescended to say, “I thirst.” He is Lord of fountains and all deeps, but not a cup of cold water was placed to his lips. Oh, if he had at any time said, “I thirst,” before his angelic guards, they would surely have emulated the courage of the men of David when they cut their way to the well of Bethlehem that was within the gate, and drew water in jeopardy of their lives.

Who among us would not willingly pour out his soul unto death if he might but give refreshment to the Lord? And yet he placed himself for our sakes into a position of shame and suffering where none would wait upon him, but when he cried, “I thirst,” they gave him vinegar to drink. Glorious stoop of our exalted Head! O Lord Jesus, we love thee and we worship thee!

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Shortest Of The Seven Cries," delivered April 14, 1878. Image by Nicholas A. Tonelli on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

If You Are Not Offended By Him

But what blessedness awaits you if you are not offended in Jesus. You are blessed while you are waiting for him, but your best reward is to come, In that hereafter, when the morning breaks on the everlasting shore, how will they be ashamed and disgusted with themselves who sought their own honor and esteem, and denied their Lord and Master! Where will Demas be then, who chose the present world and forsook his Lord? Where will that son of perdition be who chose the thirty pieces of silver and sold the Prince of Life? What shame will seize upon the coward, the fearful, the unbelieving, the people who checked conscience and stifled conviction because a fool’s laugh was too much for them! Then they will have to bear the Savior’s scorn and the everlasting contempt of all holy beings.

But the men who stood meekly forward to confess their Lord, who were willing to be set in the pillory of scorn for Christ, ready to be spit upon for him, ready to be called ill names for his sake, ready to lose their character, their substance, their liberty, and their lives for him - oh how calmly will they await the great assize*, when loyalty shall receive honor from the great King. How bright will be their faces when he that sitteth on the throne will say, “They confessed me before men, and now will I confess them before my Father which is in heaven. These are mine, my Father,” says he “they are mine. They clave unto me, and now I own them as my jewels.”

These are they that followed the Lamb whithersoever he went. They read the word, and what they found there they believed. They saw their Lord’s will in the Scriptures, and they labored to do it. They were faithful to conscience and to conviction, and the Spirit dwelt in them and guided their lives; they shall be the Redeemer’s crown and the beloved of his Father. They were the poor of this world; they were considered to be mere idiots by some, and were thought to have gone mad by others; but they are the Lord’s own elect.

Jesus will say, “They were with me in my tribulation; they were with me in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and now they are mine, and they shall be with me on my throne. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundations of the world.”

* - the sitting of a court

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Offended With Christ." Image by Patrick on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

Bow Before His Majesty

A man is not saved until he bows before the supreme majesty of God. He may say, “I believe in Jesus,” but if he goes on to follow out his own desires, and to gratify his own passions, he is a mere pretender, a wolf in the clothing of a sheep. Dead faith will save no man; it is not even as good as the faith of devils, for they “believe and tremble,” and these men believe in a fashion which makes them brazen in their iniquity. No, salvation means being saved from the domination of self and sin; salvation means being made to long after likeness to God, being helped by divine grace to reach to that likeness, and living after the mind and will of the Most High.

Submission to God is the salvation which we preach, not a mere deliverance from eternal burnings, but deliverance from present rebellion, deliverance from the sin which is the fuel of those flames unquenchable. There must be conformity to the eternal laws of the universe, and according to these God must be first and man must bow to him: nothing can be right till this is done.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Reason Why Many Cannot Find Peace," delivered April 7, 1878. Image by Doug Aghassi on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

Draw Them With Love

Men will not gather to some individuals: they are too hard, too cold, too stern. They seem cut out of stone, they have no feeling; or else they are dry and leathery, and have none of the juice of humanity in them-no warm blood-no milk of human kindness, and you are not attracted to them. Who loves a bag of old nails, or a sack of sawdust? And yet some men and women are almost as hard and dry. If you want to draw people around you, you must have sympathy with them: compassion magnetizes a man, and makes him attract as the lodestone fascinates the needle. A big heart is one of the main essentials to great usefulness. Try and cultivate it. Do not let another man’s sorrow fall upon a deaf ear as far as you are concerned, but sorrow with the sorrowful, and have compassion upon the ignorant and those that are out of the way: they will soon perceive it, and they will do to you as they did to your Master, of whom we read, “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners.” Men will cluster around you like bees around their queen, they will not be able to help it; they will not wish to help it. Love is the queen bee, and where she is you will find the center of the hive.

By this same spell you will hold those whom you gather, for men will not long remain with an unloving leader: even little children in our classes will not long listen to an unsympathetic teacher. Great armies of soldiers must be led by a great soldier, and children must be held in hand by child-like instructors. When human beings surround an uncompassionate personage they soon find it out, and fly off at a tangent as if by instinct. You may collect people for a time by some extraneous means, but unless they perceive that you love them, and that your heart goes out with desires for their good, they will soon weary of you. The multitude still clung to the skirts of Jesus, even to the last, whenever he preached, because they saw that he really desired their good.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Compassion On The Ignorant." Image by Caroline on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

A Christian Must Have A Generous Soul

If a man entered into forced servitude, or came under any bonds to his fellow man among the Jews, he could only be so held for six years, and on the seventh he was to go free. “And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee.”

The Lord’s people should be considerate of those who are in their employment. The recollection of their own bondage should make them tender and kind to those who are in subservience to themselves, and never should a Christian man be ungenerous, illiberal, severe, churlish with his servants, or with any who are dependent upon him.

Be large-hearted. Do not be angry at every little fault, nor swift to observe every slight mistake; and be not for ever standing on your exact rights, litigious, sticking out for the last half-farthing, as some do. I am almost sorry if a mean, stingy man gets converted, for I am afraid he will be no credit to Christianity. There should be in a man redeemed with the blood of Christ something like nobility of soul and benevolence to his fellow men, and so even this stern book of the law teaches us.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Remember," delivered March 31, 1878. Image by Ryan McKee on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Rest In The Promise Of God

And you, dear child of God, if you have a text of Scripture, a promise which evidently suits your case, which meets your trouble, do not say, “Whereby shall I know this?” When the Spirit says it, it is enough that it is in the word. Whatever the Scripture states, be sure of it; for if all the wise men in the world were to prove it, it would not be proven one bit more; and if they were all to disprove it, it would be none the less sure. If I were to see a thing to be true which God had declared in his word, I would not believe my eyes so well as I would believe his word: at least, I ought not to do so.

This is where we ought to stand: all the world may deceive, but God cannot; let God be true, and every man a liar. If you will come and trust him in this way you shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, your leaf shall not wither, and you shall not know when drought cometh. If your walk through life is the walk of faith, as Abraham’s and Enoch’s were, you shall have a grand life - grandly full, and eternal, and Christly; but if you doubt him you shall not be established. The unbeliever shall be as the rolling thing before the whirlwind, as the sear leaf that falleth from the tree, and as the heath of the desert that knoweth not when good cometh. May the Holy Ghost save us, brothers and sisters, from unbelief, and give us rest in the promise of God.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Distinction With A Difference." Image by Bryce Bradford on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Mighty Preserving God

Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. 

Our Creator is our preserver. He is immensely great in his creating work; he has not fashioned a few little things alone, but all heaven and the whole round earth are the works of his hands. When we worship the Creator let us increase our trust in our Comforter. Did he create all that we see, and can he not preserve us from evils which we cannot see? Blessed be his name, he that has fashioned us will watch over us; yea, he has done so, and rendered us help in the moment of jeopardy.

He is our help and our shield, even he alone. He will to the end break every snare. He made heaven for us, and he will keep us for heaven; he made the earth, and he will succour us ripen it until the hour cometh for our departure. Every work of his hand preaches to us the duty and the delight of reposing upon him only. All nature cries, "Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength." "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

From the Treasury of David, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, exposition of Psalm 124:8. Image by Chao Yen on Flickr under Creative Commons License, unaltered.

By Dying He Restored Our Loss

We, too, expect, unless special circumstances should intervene, that these bodies of ours will lie in their narrow beds beneath the greensward, and slumber till the resurrection. Nor need we be afraid of the tomb, for Jesus has been there. Sitting over against his sepulcher we grow brave, and are ready, like knights of the holy sepulcher, to hurl defiance at death. At times we almost long for evening to undress that we may rest with God, in the chamber where he giveth to his beloved sleep.

Now, note that our Lord’s tomb was in a garden; for this is typically the testimony of his grave to the hope of better things. Just a little beyond the garden wall you would see a little knoll, of grim name and character... Golgotha, the place of a skull, and there stood the cross. That rising ground was given up to horror and barrenness; but around the actual tomb of our Savior there grew herbs and plants and flowers. A spiritual garden still blooms around his tomb; the wilderness and the solitary place are glad for him, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. He hath made another Paradise for us, and he himself is the sweetest flower therein. The first Adam sinned in a garden and spoiled our nature; the second Adam slept in a garden and restored our loss. The Savior buried in the earth hath removed the curse from the soil; henceforth blessed is the ground for his sake. He died for us that we ourselves might become in heart and life fruitful gardens of the Lord.

Let but his tomb, and all the facts which surround it, have due influence upon the minds of men, and this poor blighted earth shall again yield her increase: instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Over Against The Sepulchre," delivered March 24, 1878. Image by rachel_thecat on Flickr under Creative Commons License, unaltered.

Come Apart And Rest A While

Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. Our Sabbaths are our days of toil, and if we do not rest upon some other day we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Hence the wisdom and compassion of our Lord, when he said to his disciples, "Let us go into the desert and rest a while."

What! when the people are fainting? When the multitudes are like sheep upon the mountains without a shepherd? Does Jesus talk of rest? When Scribes and Pharisees, like grievous wolves, are rending the flock, does he take his followers on an excursion into a quiet resting place?

Does some red-hot zealot denounce such atrocious forgetfulness of present and pressing demands? Let him rave in his folly. The Master knows better than to exhaust his servants and quench the light of Israel. Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength.

From "Lectures To My Students," by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Image by Nicholas A. Tonelli on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Live Your Testimony, Give Your Testimony

I have so to speak on God’s behalf that those about me may see what religion is by watching my life. Whatever my lot, condition, or occupation, I have a witness to bear; for those who never read the Bible may read me, and those who never think of Christ may at least think of one of his disciples, and see in some degree what the Master is by what the servant is. Let this object tone and tune your lives, my brothers and sisters; and let the members of this church especially bear in mind that they are bound from morning to night in all that they are and all that they do to be speaking on the behalf of God.

But, further, we are bound to do this by giving instruction. All of you who have been taught should also teach, and I am sure there is a great want of instruction in this age: instruction, I mean, upon the things of God. We have probably more present need of instruction than of exhortation. We have many who exhort, but few who edify. Do, dear friends, whether you teach in the Sunday-school, or stand up at the corner of the street, or talk with friends and comrades, try to make known the name and nature and attributes of God; show his claims, the perfect righteousness demanded by his law, and the penalties due to disobedience; speak on God’s behalf of his gospel’s freeness, fullness, and sureness; speak on God’s behalf concerning the doctrine of his providence and the great truths of his grace and sovereignty. Do not let those around you die for lack of knowledge: make the name of the Lord to be known as much as lieth in you.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "God's Advocates Breaking Silence," delivered March 17, 1878. Image by Bob Jagendorf on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

I am afraid that badly as some behave under temptation, others of us might have done worse if we had been there. I like, if I can, to form a kind judgment of the erring; and it helps me to do so when I imagine myself to have been subject to their trials, and to have looked at things from their point of view, and to have been in their circumstances, and to have nothing of the grace of God to help me: should I not have fallen as badly as they have done, or even gone beyond them in evil? May not the day come to you who show no mercy in which you may have to ask mercy for yourselves?...

Now, whenever you see the drunkard reel through the streets do not glory over him, but say, “Lead us not into temptation.” When you take down the papers and read that men of position have betrayed their trust for gold, condemn their conduct if you will, but do not exult in your own steadfastness, rather cry in all humility, “Lead us not into temptation.” When the poor girl seduced from the paths of virtue comes across your way, look not on her with the scorn that would give her up to destruction, but say, “Lead us not into temptation.”

It would teach us milder and gentler ways with sinful men and women if this prayer were as often in our hearts as it is upon our lips.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Lead Us Not Into Temptation." Image by Moyan_Brenn on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Let Us Work With Faith In God

Whether we live, or whether we die, let us have faith in God: whenever we preach or teach the Gospel, let us have faith; for without faith we shall labor in vain. Whenever you distribute religious books or visit the sick, do so in faith, for faith is the lifeblood of all our service. If only by faith can a dying Jacob bless his descendants, so only by faith can we bless the sons of men. Have faith in God, and the instruction which you give shall really edify, the prayers you offer shall bring down showers of mercy, and your endeavors for your sons and daughters shall be prospered. God will bless what is done in faith; but if we believe not our work will not be established.

Faith is the backbone and marrow of the Christian’s power to do good: we are weak as water till we enter into union with God by faith, and then we are omnipotent. We can do nothing for our fellowmen by way of promoting their spiritual and eternal interests if we walk according to the sight of our eyes; but when we get into the power of God, and grasp his promise by a daring confidence, then it is that we obtain the power to bless.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Jacob Worshipping On His Staff." Image by Ruth Hartnup on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

We Ought Not Be Idle

Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The most wonderful worker in the universe is God himself; and his dear Son, when he was here, never had an idle hour. “He went about doing good.” He began life as a carpenter, and, I do not doubt, worked hard at it. Then as a Savior he surveyed on the outset his great charge “to fulfill all righteousness.” With untiring zeal he pursued his arduous mission to the end, and he finished his work. Until he said, “It is finished,” he did not relax his ardor or lay down his toil. Brethren, we cannot dwell with the great working God and yet be sluggards. He will not put up with it. He will not have communion with us unless we are agreed with him. “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?...”

Now, a glorious and active-minded God will not walk with sluggards. He cannot endure them. If you are to dwell with God you must be his servant, you must have something to do in his name; in whatever occupation it may be, to lay yourself out for his glory is essential and imperative.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "With The King For His Work," delivered November 1, 1877. Image by The Knowles Gallery on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

No One Can Believe For Me

It is not possible for a man to shift from his own shoulders to those of another his obligations to the Most High. Obedience to the law of God must be personally rendered, or a man becomes guilty. No matter how holy his father, or how righteous his mother, he himself will have to stand upon his own feet and answer for himself before the judgment-seat of God. Each man who hears the gospel is responsible for the hearing of it. No one else can believe the gospel for him, or repent for him, or be born again for him, or become a Christian for him. He must himself personally repent of sin, personally believe in Jesus Christ, personally be converted, and personally live to the service and glory of God. Every tub must stand on its own bottom.

There have been idle attempts to shift the responsibility to a certain order of men called priests, or clergymen, or ministers, according as the case may be; but it cannot be done. Each man must seek the Lord himself-himself lay his load of sin at the foot of the cross, and himself accept a personal Savior for himself. You cannot do with the matters of your soul as you do with the business of your estate, and employ a priest in the same way as you engage a solicitor to represent you. There is one substitute and advocate who can plead for us, but no earthly sponsor can avail with heaven. God demands the heart, and with the heart man must believe unto righteousness, and with his own heart, too, for none can take his place.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" Image by Ian Sane on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Who Will Dare to Follow Christ?

The religion of Jesus Christ never was, nor ever can be, the religion of this present evil world. He has chosen a people out of the world who believe it, but the world itself has always hated it. Did not our Lord tell us (John 14:17), concerning the Spirit of truth, that the world cannot receive him, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him?

Whenever you find a religion which unites itself with pomp and show and worldly power, if there be any truth in it at all, it has, at any rate, deteriorated from the standard of its purity, and is not according to the mind of Christ. But there are some who are so fond of everything that is fashionable - everything that is great and famous - that, if the Lord Jesus Christ be despised and rejected of men, they despise and reject him too. Ah, but I hope that I address some to whom the Lord has given a nobler spirit. Some men and women I hope are here to-night who will never reject the truth because it is unfashionable, or refuse to follow Christ because he is despised. No, but the noble spirit says, “Is it right? Then I will espouse it. Is it true? Then I will believe it in the name of God. Though it may mean poverty and shame, yet that is the side on which I will enlist.”

There is a lordlier chivalry than all the chivalry of war: it is the chivalry of the heart that dares be nailed to the cross with Christ sooner than turn aside to seek flowery pathways and follow the trail of the serpent. Yet many do reject Christ because of the humbleness of his exterior. Who is on the Lord’s side, and will dare avow it before a scoffing world?

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Offended With Christ." Image by seyed mostafa zamani on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Thankful For Liberty

How grateful we ought to be that we can meet together to worship God after that form which best satisfies our consciences without any fear of being hunted down by the authorities of the land.... We put none at the front door of our conventicle to watch lest the constable should come to take off worshipper and minister, that they may suffer imprisonment or fine. We worship God in unlimited liberty, and we ought to be exceedingly glad of the privilege, and infinitely more grateful for it than we are. Do we not sit every man under his own vine and fig tree, none making us afraid? Blessed is the land in which we dwell, and blessed are the days in which we live, when in all peace and quietness we worship God in public and sing his high praises as loudly as we please. Great God of peace, thou hast given us this peace, and in remembrance of our hunted forefathers we bless thee with our whole hearts!

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Peace Of God," delivered January 6, 1878. Image by LenDog64 on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Modern God who is not Divine

“God is angry with the wicked every day.”

The wise men of modern thought have made a new God of late - one of those gods newly come up that our fathers knew not, and who is quite unknown to the Bible, as false a god as Apollo or Baal. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob these deep thinkers cannot endure, but if you say that God is angry with the wicked every day, these modern god-makers tell you that he is too loving for that - that he cannot possibly be angry, but loves all, has redeemed all, and will in the long run save all, including Satan himself.

They adore a god made of putty or of wax - plastic, effeminate, molluscous, with no masculine faculty about him, and no quality that entitles him to the respect of just and honest men, for a being who cannot be angry at wrongdoing is destitute of one of the essential virtues, and a moral Ruler who is not angry with the wicked, and who refuses to punish crime, is not divine.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Reasons For Turning To The Lord," delivered January 13, 1878. Image by davedehetre on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

When the Children of God Mix with the World

The chosen family was intended by the divine purpose to dwell alone and maintain a peculiar walk of separation. The seed of Abraham was ordained to be in the highest sense a Nonconformist tribe, a race of separatists. Their God meant them to be a distinct people, entirely severed from all the nation among whom they dwelt; and so they must be, but the inclination to be like their neighbors was very manifest in Jacob’s family....

Children of God cannot mix with the world without mischief. The world does hurt to us and we to it when once we begin to be of the world and like it. It is an ill-assorted match. Fire and water were never meant to be blended. The seed of the woman must not mix with the seed of the serpent. It was when the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and took of them as they pleased, that the deluge came and swept away the population of the earth. Abundant evil comes of joining together what God has put asunder.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Family Reformation." Image by Jöshua Barnett on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

To Declare Myself A Friend Of Christ

Christian men, however reserved and backward their natural disposition may be, are compelled to speak out when they are very much pressed. These Pharisees took this man and questioned him rather closely. They put questions to him by way of examination and cross-examination. “What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes?” and so on. He does not appear to have been disturbed or disconcerted by the questions. He acquitted himself grandly. Self-contained, quiet, shrewd, immovable, his mind was made up, and with a thorough mastery of the situation, he was ready for them. He did not hesitate.

Well now, I trust if ever you and I are brought to book, and questions are put to us, even though it be with intent to entangle us, we shall never be “ashamed to own our Lord or to defend his cause.” Surely we might expect to be smitten dumb if we were ever abashed to speak of Christ when we are adjured to do it. If it comes to a challenge, “On whose side am I?” shall I ever hesitate to say, “I am with Immanuel, the crucified Savior”? If ever they get us into a corner and say, “Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth,” oh may God give us grace to be prompt and not think twice - “Of course I was, and of course I am still. He is my Friend, my Savior, my all in all; and I never blush to own his name.” Christians must come out and bear each man for himself a clear and distinct testimony.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Speak For Yourself. A Challenge!" Image by John B. on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Righteousness of Christ Imputed to Me

As he takes thy sin and lays it upon Christ so he takes Christ’s righteousness and lays it upon thee. He looks at thee as if thou wert as righteous as his Son who represents thee. He treats thee as if thou hadst been obedient to all his law; he looks upon the model man Christ Jesus, the perfect humanity, and he sees in Christ all his people, and treats them accordingly. He looks upon his people as if they themselves had magnified the law and made it honorable by a sinless life. Wondrous doctrine this, but he that believes it shall find rest unto his soul; and it is because of it that we are authorized to come forth this day and declare the day of salvation. The guilt of the believing sinner is put away, for Christ has carried it; and now righteousness belongs to the sinner, for God imputes it to him without works: therefore this is the day of salvation.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Day Of Salvation," delivered January 13, 1878. Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.