This is far from Spurgeon’s most polished sermon, structurally. Some preachers envy Spurgeon’s golden hammer, with which he seems to strike every text so that it falls into three even parts. This one pulls in too many different directions, and its progress is not particularly even. However, it is held together by two threads: adoration of Christ and affection for Christ’s people. That, too, must be recognised. Order and structure, as Spurgeon very much appreciated, are important, and there is no excuse for their neglect in sermon preparation. Nevertheless, even a ragged sermon aimed from the heart to the heart can do much good. That is an encouragement to preachers not to be too much concerned with style and structure over substance, and an encouragement to hearers to be less critics of sermons, more eager hearers of divine truth.

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