Friday, February 29, 2008

A word to backsliders



You have seen in Scripture a dreadful picture of a madman, where Nebuchadnezzar the king runs with oxen, and eats grass till his hair has grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws. Is he not the pitiful picture of a backslider; for what is a Christian when he plunges into sin but as one who makes himself like the beasts that perish, and who herds with the common, yea, and the unclean beasts of the earth? O believer! If it be a pitiful thing to see a man make himself a beast, how much more lamentable to see a Christian make himself a worldling! “Come ye out from among them; touch not the unclean thing.” Why should the soul of my turtle dove be given up to its enemies? Why should the lamb flock with the wolves? Come out, I pray thee leave this stygian filth, and be thou clean thou vessel-bearer of the Lord; come forth from the midst of that plague land, where thou canst get nothing but the ashy hue of leprosy, and be thou clean! Today the Lord invites thee; refuse not his invitation, but return ye backsliding children of men.

From a sermon entitled "Words of Expostulation," delivered January 20, 1861. Flickr photo by George Lu; some rights reserved.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Why Christians gather



“Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house.”


Into the abodes of sin he would not enter, but the house of God he had long loved, and loved it still. We were sad children if we did not love our Father's dwelling-place. Though we own no sacred buildings, yet the church of the living God is the house of God, and true Christians delight in her ordinances, services, and assemblies. O that all our days were Sabbaths!

“And the place where thine honour dwelleth.”

In his church where God is had in honour at all times, where he reveals himself in the glory of his grace, and is proclaimed by his people as the Lord of all. We come not together as the Lord's people to honour the preacher, but to give glory to God; such an occupation is most pleasant to the saints of the Most High. What are those gatherings where God is not honoured, are they not an offence to his pure and holy eyes, and are they not a sad stumbling-block to the people of God? It brings the scalding-tear upon our cheek to hear sermons in which the honour of God is so far from being the preacher's object, that one might almost imagine that the preacher worshipped the dignity of manhood, and thought more of it than of the Infinite Majesty of God.

From the Treasury of David, exposition of Psalm 26:8. Flickr photo by Matt McKnight; some rights reserved.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The imitation of Christ




Perhaps nothing in the world is a surer sign of littleness than a slavish imitation of any man. Men lose that which is an honor to them, individuality, and then they lose that which is a power to them, originality, the moment they commence walking in another man’s track. When one painter slavishly copies another, he is only known as the satellite of the greater luminary, he himself is neither respectable nor respected.... To imitate other men is weakness; to copy Christ is strength. Christ is the perfect type of manhood. He who should imitate him the most nearly, would be the most original man upon earth. It may seem a paradox, but it is one which nevertheless needs only to be tried to be proved, no man will be looked upon as so strange, so singular a being among his fellows, as the man who shall nearest approach to the image of the Lord Jesus. He imitates, we grant you; he copies, we confess it, but he is himself, despite his copying, an original to other men, and he stands out from the common herd as being a distinguished and celebrated individual; he will be “known and read of all men.”

If I should stand here this morning, my hearers, to exhort you to imitate any one model in manhood except Christ, I should feel that I had a difficult task with sensible men. There is not in all the annals of our race, a single name which I could bid you love and reverence so much as to shut your eyes to the faults connected therewith.... You may take a virtue here, and a virtue there, and then in God’s strength seek to imitate those men, who excelled in those points, but to imitate an Abraham in all things, would not make you an Abraham, nor would it make you what you should be. To seek to follow a Job in all respects would not bring you to be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. There remains but one model we can ever commend to you, and only one which a man of strong mind can accept as his copy in every jot and tittle.

From a sermon entitled "Portraits of Christ," delivered January 13, 1861. Flickr photo by cobalt; some rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Continue in prayer



But why should the Church — to come to the question — why should the Church continue in prayer? For several reasons, and the first is, God will answer her. It is not possible that God should refuse to hear prayer. It is possible for him to bid the sun stand still, and the moon to stay her monthly march, it is possible for him to bid the waves freeze in the sea, possible for him to quench the light of the stars in eternal darkness, but it is not possible for him to refuse to hear prayer which is based upon his promise and offered in faith. He can reverse nature, but he cannot reverse his own nature, and he must do this before he can forbear to hear and answer prayer.

From a sermon entitled "A Sermon For the Week Of Prayer," delivered January 6, 1861 . Flickr photo by Kok Leng Yeo; some rights reserved.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Pardoned by God



Whom dost thou think Christ came to carry on his shoulders to heaven? Those that can walk there themselves? No, let them trudge their weary way: if they think they can go to heaven with their good works let them do so. One of two things, either you must be saved without deserving to be saved — saved by the works of another — or else you must keep the whole law, and so inherit heaven of your own right and patent. If, then, you are willing to come to Christ, just as you are without any preparation, but just simply as a sinner, then Christ has made atonement for you; your guilt is put away: God accepts you: you are a pardoned man. You may go out at yonder door and say in your heart, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we now have received the atonement.” As for holiness and good works, these shall come afterwards. Having believed in Christ, his Spirit shall be given, and you shall be zealous for good works. While the legalist is talking about them, you shall do them. What you could not do before, you shall do now. When you have given up all trust in yourself you shall become holy and pure, and the Spirit of God shall enter into you, and shall renew you. You shall be kept by the power of God till, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, you shall be presented before your Father’s face saved — saved eternally.

From a sermon entitled "The Cleansing of the Leper," delivered December 30, 1860. Flickr photo by Angela Sevin; some rights reserved.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A resurrection



In that day when Christ redeemed our souls, he redeemed the tabernacles in which our souls dwell. At the same moment when the spirit was redeemed by blood, Christ who gave his human soul and his human body to death, purchased the body as well as the soul of every believer. You ask, then, in what way redemption operates upon the body of the believer. I answer, first, it ensures it a resurrection. Those for whom Christ died, are ensured by his death a glorious resurrection. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ, shall all be made alive.” All men are by virtue of the death of Christ quickened to a resurrection, but even here there is a special property of the elect, seeing that they are quickened to a blessed resurrection, whilst others are quickened only to a cursed resurrection; a resurrection of woe, a resurrection of unutterable anguish. O Christian, thy body is redeemed.

From a sermon entitled "Plenteous Redemption. Flickr photo by Till Westermayer; some rights reserved.

Friday, February 22, 2008

The Strength of Selfrighteousness



Ever since man became a sinner he has been self-righteous. When he had a righteousness of his own he never gloried of it, but ever since he has lost it, he has pretended to be the possessor of it. Those proud words which our father Adam uttered when he sought to screen himself from the guilt of his treason against his Maker, laying the blame apparently on Eve, but really upon God who gave him the woman, were virtually a claim to blamelessness. It was but a fig leaf he could find to cover his nakedness, but how proud was he of that fig-leaf excuse, and how tenaciously did he hold to it. As it was with our first parents so is it with us: self-righteousness is born with us and there is perhaps no sin which has so much vitality in it as the sin of righteous self. We can overcome lust itself, and anger, and the fierce passions of the will better than we can ever master the proud boastfulness which rises in our hearts and tempts us to think ourselves rich and increased in goods, while God knoweth we are naked, and poor, and miserable

From a sermon entitled "A Blow At Selfrighteousness," delivered December 18, 1860. Flickr photo by Eddie Callaway; some rights reserved.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Our life is a vapor



Note: Spurgeon preached a message on the uncertainty and fragility of life, from which this excerpt is taken, eight days after a mining disaster in the Welsh town of Risca took the lives of 146 men.

I stayed but a week or two ago with an excellent Christian man, who was then in the halest and most hearty health. I was startled indeed when I heard immediately after that he had come home, and sitting down in his chair had shut his eyes and died. And these things are usual, and in such a city as ours we cannot go down a street without hearing of some such visitation. Well, our turn must come. Perhaps we shall die falling asleep in our beds after long sickness, but probably we shall be suddenly called in such an hour as we think not to face the realities of eternity. Well, if it be so, if there be a thousand gates to death, if all means and any means may be sufficient to stop the current of our life, if really, after all, spiders’ webs and bubbles are more substantial things than human life, if we are but a vapor, or a dying taper that soon expires in darkness, what then? Why, first, I say, let us all look upon ourselves as dying men, let us not reckon on tomorrow Oh! let us not procrastinate, for taken in Satan’s great net of procrastination we may wait, and wait, and wait, till time is gone and the great knell of eternity shall toll our dissolution. Today is your only time. O mortal men, the present moment is the only moment you may call your own, and oh! how swift its wings! This hour is yours; yesterday is gone; tomorrow is with God, and may never come. “Today if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts.”

From a sermon entitled "The Wailing of Risca," delivered December 9, 1860. Flickr photo by Mel; some rights reserved.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The comfort of Christ



When a poor soul is so deep in the mire that you cannot lift it with the lever of eloquence, nor draw it up with the hands of sympathy, nor raise it with wings of hope, he can touch it with his finger and it can spring up from the mire, and put its feet upon a rock, and feel the new song in its mouth and its goings well established. There is no form of melancholy which will not yield before the grace of God; there is no shape of distress which will not give way before the divine energy of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, when he uses Christ as the consolation.

From a sermon entitled "Consolation in Christ," delivered December 2, 1860. Flickr photo by Jun; some rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Necessity of Gospel Preaching



We need not that men should be adopting new schemes and new plans. We are glad of the agencies and assistances which are continually arising; but after all, the true Jerusalem blade, the sword that can cut to the piercing asunder of the joints and marrow, is preaching the Word of God. We must never neglect it, never despise it. The age in which the pulpit it despised, will be an age in which gospel truth will cease to be honored. Once put away God’s ministers, and you have to a great extent taken the candle out of the candlestick; quenched the lamps that God hath appointed in the sanctuary. Our missionary societies need continually to be reminded of this; they get so busy with translations, so diligently employed with the different operations of civilization, with the founding of stores, with the encouragement of commerce among a people, that they seem to neglect — at least in some degree — that which is the great and master weapon of the minister, the foolishness of preaching by which it pleases God to save them that believe. Preaching the gospel will effectually civilize, while introducing the arts of civilization will sometimes fail. Preaching the gospel will lift up the barbarian, while attempts to do it by philosophy will be found ineffectual. We must go among them, and tell them of Christ; we must point them to heaven; we must lead them to the cross; [thus] shall they be elevated in their character, and raised in their condition. But by no other means. God forbid that we should begin to depreciate preaching. Let us still honor it; let us look to it as God’s ordained instrumentality, and we shall yet see in the world a repetition of great wonders wrought by the preaching in the name of Jesus Christ.

From a sermon entitled "Preaching! Man's Privilege And God's Power," delivered November 25, 1860. Flickr photo by Troy Mason; some rights reserved.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Christ who strengthens me



Now, whenever Satan comes to you with a temptation, or when your companions, or your business, or your circumstances suggest a sin you are not timidly to say, “I must yield to this; I am not strong enough to stand against this temptation.” You are not in yourself, understand that; I do not deny your own personal weakness; but through Christ, that strengtheneth you, you are strong enough for all the temptations that may possibly come upon you. You may play the Joseph against lust; you need not play the David; you may stand steadfast against sin — you need not to be overtaken like Noah — you need not be thrown down to your shame, like Lot. You may be kept by God, and you shall be. Only lay hold on that Divine strength, and if the world, the flesh, and the devil, should beleaguer and besiege you day after day, you shall stand not only a siege as long as the siege of old Troy, but seventy years of siege shall you be able to stand, and at last to drive your enemies away in confusion, and make yourselves rich upon their spoils. “I can do all things through Christ."

From a sermon entitled "All-Sufficiency Magnified," delivered November 18, 1860. Flickr photo by Michel Filion; some rights reserved.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Day of the Lord

Lightning

You must confess, my dear hearers, that Jesus Christ was the most tender-hearted of men; never was there one of so sympathetic a disposition; but not all the prophets put together — though some of them be stern as Elijah, though many of them seemed commissioned expressly to dwell upon terrible things in righteousness — not all of them put together can equal in thunder-shocks the sound of that still voice of him, who albeit he did not cry nor lift up his voice in the street, spoke more of hell and the wrath to come than any that preceded him. The loving lips of Jesus have furnished us with the greatest revelations of God’s vengeance against iniquity. None ever spoke with such terrible emphasis, no preacher ever used figures of such glaring horror, as did Jesus Christ the Son of Man, the friend of publicans and sinners. Let me remind you, that the wrath of God and the judgment of the day of the Lord cannot be a trifling matter. How emphatically are we told in Scripture, that it is “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Upon such a subject we cannot afford to trifle.

From a sermon entitled "Tender Words of Terrible Apprehension," delivered November 4, 1860. Flickr photo by Jared Smith; some rights reserved.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

In the fullness of time



We know and are persuaded that when he shall stand a second time upon the earth, it shall be as much the fullness of times for him to come, as it was the fullness of time when he came at first. When his feet stood on Calvary they stood there in good time, and when they shall stand on Olivet, and when he shall judge the nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, then too shall he come at his proper time and his proper season. Watch then, beloved, watch and wait earnestly, be not discouraged or cast down; “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years are but as one day.” He shall come, and you shall behold him in his glory, and shall be partakers of the splendor of his reign.

From a sermon entitled "A Basket of Summer Fruit," delivered October 28, 1860. Flickr photo by Jim Crossley; some rights reserved.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Wrestling in prayer



The name of “Israel” was given to Jacob, because he “wrestled with the angel, and prevailed.” Are you a man of prayer? Come now, answer the question, each one of you for yourselves. Are you men of prayer, and women of prayer? Alas! Some of you may use a form of prayer, but it hath no life in it. You ask, do I object to forms of prayer? I answer, no. I believe that sometimes forms of prayer, moulded according to the mind of the Spirit, are offered up with the vital breath of the same Spirit of God. Far be it from me to say, that because you use a form of prayer, therefore you do not pray at all; this however I remind you, your form of prayer is merely a vehicle, that moveth not except as it is drawn. Of itself it is like a steam engine, motionless till the furnace is heated; or rather, it is like the carriage which is drawn by the steam engine, being linked thereto with chains. A form of prayer is a heavy material thing, which prayer has to drag after it. It is no help to prayer, but rather a burden to it. There may be prayer with the huge cumbrous thing called the form attached but the form is distinct in every sense from the power.

The prayer is the spirit, the life, the desire, the wish, the agonizing panting with God to obtain the blessing. I ask you not whether you use a form of prayer, or whether you utter extempore prayers; for you may speak extemporaneously in prayer, and talk as much nonsense, ay, and a great deal more than you would if you used a prescribed form; you may avoid formality, and become frivolous. It is not uttering spontaneous words that is prayer any more than repeating a litany. But I ask you, do you pray? If you are prayerless, then you have no right to call yourselves God’s elect. God’s people are a praying people. They are an Israel, a wrestling race; and unto them the promise is made — “I will be unto them as the dew unto Israel.”

From a sermon entitled "Grace Reviving Israel." Flickr photo by Mih.; some rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Jesus the Gracious Savior



There is no difference between the glorified in heaven and the doomed in hell, except the difference that God made of his own sovereign grace. Whatever difference there may be between Saul the apostle and Elymas the sorcerer, has been made by infinite sovereignty and undeserved love. Paul might still have remained Saul of Tarsus, and might have become a damned fiend in the bottomless pit, had it not been for free sovereign grace which came out to snatch him as a brand from the burning. Oh, sinner, thou sayest “There is no reason in me why God should save me,” but there is no reason in any man. Thou hast no good point, nor hath any man. There is nothing in any man to commend him to God. We are all such sinners, that hell is our deserved portion; and if any of us be saved from going down into the pit, it is God’s undeserved sovereign bounty that doth it, and not any merits of ours. Jesus Christ is a most gracious Savior.

From a sermon entitled "The High Priest Standing Between The Dead And The Living," delivered October 21, 1860. Flickr photo by Tony Hisgett; some rights reserved.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Give God praise



Is it not heaven’s employment to praise him? And what can make earth more like heaven, than to bring down from heaven the employment of glory, and to be occupied with it here? Come, believer, when thou prayest, thou art but a man, but when thou praisest, thou art as an angel. When thou asketh favor, thou art but a beggar, but when thou standest up to extol, thou becomest next of kin to cherubim and seraphim. Happy, happy day, when the glorious choristers shall find their numbers swelled by the addition of multitudes from earth! Happy day when you and I shall join the eternal chorus. Let us begin the music here. Let us strike some of the first
notes at least; and if we cannot sound the full thunders of the eternal hallelujah, let us join as best we may. Let us make the wilderness and the solitary place rejoice, and bid the desert blossom as the rose.

From a sermon entitled "Magnificat," delivered October 14, 1860. Flickr photo by mdprovost; some rights reserved.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

God has made you His child



Consider again, I pray you, what a dignity God hath conferred upon you — even upon you in making you his son. The tall archangel before the throne is not called God’s Son, he is one of the most favored of his servants, but not his child. I tell thee, thou poor brother in Christ, there is a dignity about thee that even angels may well envy. Thou in thy poverty art as a sparkling jewel in the darkness of the mine. Thou in the midst of thy sickness and infirmity art girt about with robes of glory, which make the spirits in heaven look down upon the earth with awe. Thou movest about this world as a prince among the crowd. The blood of heaven runs in thy veins; thou art one of the blood royal of eternity — a son of God, descendant of the King of kings. Speak of pedigrees, the glories of heraldry — thou hast more than heraldry could ever give thee, or all the pomp of ancestry could ever bestow.

From a sermon entitled "The Sons of God," delivered October 7, 1860. Flickr photo by David K; some rights reserved.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Having A Single Eye



Christian, you can never hope to stand accepted before God, while you only serve him with half your heart; you can never hope to enter into heaven triumphantly when you have only used part of your manhood in the service of your Redeemer. I speak vehemently when I come to this point. I do pray you my dear hearers by your hope of heaven, by your hope to be delivered from the devouring fire, and to enter into a glory and bliss, either serve God or Mammon. Whichever you do, do it with all your heart; but do not try to do both, because you cannot. Oh, if ye be Christians live with all your might for Christ. Keep not back part of the price, like Ananias and Sapphire, but give Jesus all —

“All your goods, and all your hours,
All your time, and all your powers,
All you have, and all you are,”


and you will be a happy, blessed, honored, useful man. Divide your allegiance, and you shall be a hissing reproach to sinners; you shall be a pain to yourself, you shall be a dishonor here, and you shall be held up to shame and everlasting contempt when Christ shall appear in the glory of his Father and all his holy angels with him. Charge, Christians, in the name of Christ, charge against the embattled marks of sin! But do it with one heart. Break not your rank; hold not out the flag of truce to the world with one hand, and draw the sword with the other. Throw away the scabbard. Be the sworn enemies for ever of everything that is selfish and sinful; and trusting in the precious blood of Christ, and wearing the cross in your hearts, go forward conquering and to conquer, making mention of your Master’s name, preaching his word, and triumphing in his grace alone. God grant, if we must have two eyes, that they may be both clear ones, one the eye of faith wholly fixed on Christ, the other the eye of obedience equally and wholly fixed on the same object.

From a sermon entitled "A Single Eye And Simple Faith," delivered September 16, 1860. Flickr photo by Boris Bartels; some rights reserved.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

When hope grows dim



It may be today that your hope has become very dim; you are in bondage through fear of death, and see not the mansions in the skies. You have forgotten that you are in Christ, and now you no more look for his appearing. Your hope declines, and all your comfort dies. All this is possible, and yet you may be an anointed king. Pluck up heart, my brother; when thou canst not read thy title, the inheritance is just as sure, when thou canst not feel thy union with Christ, the union is none the less a fact; and when thou darest not hope, even then, if thou art Christ’s, thy soul is in his hand, and thou shalt never perish, neither shall any pluck thee from him.

From a sermon entitled "Man's Weakness, And God's Anointing," delivered September 9, 1860. Flickr photo by Christian Abend; some rights reserved.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

In the storm



I tell you brethren, if all the troubles that ever came from heaven, all the persecutions that ever came from earth, and all the afflictions that ever arose from hell, could meet on your poor devoted head, the reigning grace of God would make you master of them all. You have never need to fear. Storms are the triumph of his art, and grace can steer the ship the better for tempestuous waves. Trust in the Lord, and do good; rest thou on his grace, and hope thou in
his mercy. When the water is very deep he will put his hand beneath thy chin, so that thou shalt not lose thy breath, or if thou shalt sink, he will sink with thee; and if thou shouldest go to the very bottom, he will be at the very bottom with thee. Where’er thou goest, he will be thy companion, saying to thee “Fear not, I will help thee; I will be with thee; when thou goest through the waters thou shalt not be drowned, and when thou goest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”

From a sermon entitled "Reigning Grace," delivered August 26, 1860. Flickr photo by Don Amaro; some rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Thy lovingkindness is better than life



“Because thy lovingkindness is better than life.”

....Life is dear, but God's love is dearer. To dwell with God is better than life at its best; life at ease, in a palace, in health, in honor, in wealth, in pleasure; yea, a thousand lives are not equal to the eternal life which abides in Jehovah's smile. In him we truly live, and move, and have our being; the withdrawal of the light of his countenance is as the shadow of death to us: hence we cannot but long after the Lord's gracious appearing. Life is to many men a doubtful good; lovingkindness is an unquestioned boon: life is but transient, mercy is everlasting: life is shared in by the lowest animals, but the lovingkindness of the Lord is the peculiar portion of the chosen.

“My lips shall praise thee.”

Openly, so that thy glory shall be made known, I will tell of thy goodness. Even when our heart is rather desiring than enjoying we should still continue to magnify the Most High, for his love is truly precious; even if we do not personally, for the time being, happen to be rejoicing in it. We ought not to make our praises of God to depend upon our own personal and present reception of benefits; this would be mere selfishness: even publicans and sinners have a good word for those whose hands are enriching them with gifts; it is the true believer only who will bless the Lord when he takes away his gifts or hides his face.

From the Treasury of David, exposition of Psalm 63. Flickr photo by Per Ola Wiberg; some rights reserved.

Monday, February 4, 2008

God has promised to hear prayer



Brethren, do you believe in prayer? I know you pray because you are God’s people; but do you believe in the power of prayer? There are a great many Christians that do not, they think it is a good thing, and they believe that sometimes it does wonders; but they do not think that prayer, real prayer, is always successful. They think that its effect depends upon many other things, but that it has not any essential quality or power in itself. Now, my own soul’s conviction is, that prayer is the grandest power in the entire universe, that it has a more omnipotent force than electricity, attraction, gravitation, or any other of those secret forces which men have called by names, but which they do not understand. Prayer hath as palpable, as true, as sure, as invariable an influence over the entire universe as any of the laws of matter.

When a man really prays, it is not a question whether God will hear him or not, he must hear him, not because there is any compulsion in the prayer, but there is a sweet and blessed compulsion in the promise. God has promised to hear prayer, and he will perform his promise. As he is the most high and true God, he cannot deny himself.

From a sermon entitled "True Prayer - True Power!", delivered August 12, 1860. Flickr photo by miyukiutada; some rights reserved.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

The Eternal Creator



Time was, in the old puritanic days, when every shower of rain was seen to come from heaven, when every ray of sunshine was blessed, and God was thanked for having given fair weather to ingather the fruits of the harvest. Then, men talked of God as doing everything. But in our days where is our God? We have the laws of matter.... We talk now of phenomena, and of the chain of event, as if all things happened by machinery, as if the world were a huge clock which had been wound up in eternity, and continued to work without a present God. Nay, not only our philosophers, but even our poets rant in the same way. They sing of the works of Nature. But who is that fair goddess, Nature? Is she a heathen deity, or what? Do we not act as if we were ashamed of our God, or as if his name had become obsolete? Go abroad wherever you may, you hear but little said concerning Him who made the heavens, and who formed the earth and the sea; but everything is nature, and the laws of motion and of matter. And do not Christians often use words which would lead you to suppose that they believed in the old goddess, Luck, or rested in that equally false deity, Fortune, or trembled before the demon of Misfortune?

Oh for the day when God shall be seen, and little else beside! Better, my brethren, that philosophical discoveries were lost, than that God should be concealed behind them. Better that our poets had ceased to write, and that all their flaming words were buried with their ashes, than that they should serve as a cloud before the face of the Eternal Creator. We must go back again to the remembrance of our God, and especially must the true believer make the worldling feel that the Christian has a God with him, a God about him, and a God within him, one who is his constant companion and his friend.

From a sermon entitled "Everywhere And Yet Forgotten," delivered July 29, 1860. Flickr photo by Christian Abend; some rights reserved.

Friday, February 1, 2008

A special thank-you to our readers

Just wanted to let you know that we have now reached 400 total users of the Daily Spurgeon application on Facebook. To be sure, this doesn't mean that 400 people are accessing us every day via Facebook, but that 400 people have now added the app to their Facebook.

Our RSS feed also has just under 200 subscribers. This is wonderful when you consider that we've only been around since June of 2007.

Interest in Spurgeon's life and writings remains very high among English-speaking Christians and why shouldn't it? Good preaching will never go out of style, and Spurgeon continues to challenge us as well as inspire us.

Thanks for your support and your readership, and if you like the excerpts we post here, please send them along to a friend.

Do not merely serve Him, but love Him



He has quickened us when we were dead in sins; he has given us the grace of repentance and of faith; he has sanctified us, and kept and preserved us up till now. He has taken of the things of Christ and has showed them unto us; he has dwelt in our poor hearts, he has been our comforter, our instructor, and our daily teacher; ‘tis he who convinced us of sin when as yet we perceived not its malignity, and ‘tis he inspires our hearts and souls with the supernatural will and disposition of living to God. It is of the Holy Spirit we are born again and made partakers of the new creation. It is by the same Spirit we are ultimately to be changed into the image of our Lord from glory to glory. “Oh love the Lord all ye his saints.”

If a blind world sees no beauty in its God, and therefore does not love him, yet oh ye saints, love your God. If the enemies of the Most High set up other gods, and bow down before them, if they turn aside into crooked ways, and go a whoring after their false gods, yet, oh ye saints of his, stand fast and turn to your Jehovah, and love him ever more. Do not merely serve him, but love him. O house of Israel be not his slaves serve not your God as the heathen serve their gods, out of terror and fear, but “love the Lord all ye saints.” Be not as the subjects of Pharaoh, flogged to their work with the whip, but be ye the dutiful children of your loving Father. Serve him, I say, and rejoice before him. Let love sweeten all your services; give him all your hearts; make him the object still supreme of all your heart’s desire.

From a sermon entitled "Constraining Love," delivered June 3, 1860. Flickr photo by Steve Jurvetson; some rights reserved.