Spurgeon expounds adoption as a sovereign act of pure grace — not prompted by any foreseen merit or goodness in the adopted, since grace is itself the cause of those qualities and could not logically be their effect — in which God translates spiritually ruined sinners from the family of Satan, with all its guilt and condemnation, into His own family through Jesus Christ, giving them not merely the name of children but the very nature of children through regeneration. He catalogs the rich privileges flowing from adoption: release from the Law's condemnation, God's name placed on us, access to the throne with boldness through the Spirit of adoption, the pity and protection of a Father who feels every sorrow, temporal and spiritual provision, ongoing education in grace, and the discipline of the Father's rod — with the crucial guarantee that despite chastening, God's children are sealed to the day of redemption and can never be cast out of the family, a truth that exposes as inconsistent any system claiming believers can lose and regain their standing. He closes with the corresponding duties adoption creates: obeying the Father's commands not from legal compulsion but from filial love (the same Ten Commandments now read as Gospel written on the heart rather than Law carved on stone), and trusting the Father without wavering, since it is as absurd for God's child to doubt his Father's word and care as it would be to question the love of the best earthly parent while that parent's resources remain infinite.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on February 10, 1861.

Spurgeon uses the incident of Moses pitching the tabernacle outside the Israelite camp — after their golden calf idolatry drove God's presence from the center — as a picture of the believer's necessary separation from the world, arguing that genuine seekers of God must go outside not only the camp of the openly profane and the thoughtlessly careless, but also the camp of the merely moral, the merely religious, and even the nominally church-going, since God's tabernacle is not to be found among those who have adulterated worship with human invention, kept back parts of God's Word, or made peace with worldly motives while wearing Christian labels. He then honestly catalogs the inconveniences this separation entails: the cost of public confession, the loss of friends and family approval, coldness from fellow Christians who call earnestness fanaticism, the false charge of bigotry, and the burden of being watched and held to a higher standard — but insists that none of these should deter a true disciple, just as David went to fight Goliath alone while his brothers sneered, and that sensitivity to being watched ought to function as a check on sin rather than a reason to avoid commitment. He closes with four arguments for going outside the camp: for your own joy (worldly Christians are miserable Christians), for your own growth in grace, for the Church's sake (it has always been the distinctly separate men who have saved the Church in every era of reformation), and most urgently for Christ's sake, since He was driven from the camp and crucified by it, and it is a strange loyalty that seeks the smiles of the world that put him to death.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on  February 10, 1861.

Spurgeon explains that believers are predestinated to be conformed to Christ's image in three dimensions — in character (humility, diligent service, faithful love, and fervent prayer), in suffering (bearing the reproach and Cross that the world heaps on anyone who truly follows Christ, just as it heaped them on him), and ultimately in glory (for those who bear the image of the crucified will also bear the image of the crowned) — and he argues this is the truest form of imitation, not outward mimicry or cold morality, but an inward transformation of the essential spirit and character. He answers why believers should desire this conformity: it is what was lost in Eden and what Christ restores, it is the very goal of all God's predestinating purposes rather than merely Heaven itself, and it is already the instinctive cry of every regenerate heart — and he adds provocatively that this privilege of becoming like Christ is one even angels cannot share, making the suffering Christian more enviable than Gabriel in some sense. He closes by addressing the seeming impossibility of becoming like the spotless Christ, arguing that none of the three obstacles — the depravity of the material, the corrupting influence of the world, or the height of the ideal — can frustrate a God who decreed it, and that the very act of gazing on Christ in love and longing is itself the chief means by which the Spirit accomplishes the transformation, photographing his image on the soul of all who live in fellowship with him.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on January 13, 1861.

Spurgeon takes the Old Testament law of leprosy as a sustained picture of sin — showing the leper as loathsome in person (like sin's inner corruption), defiling in all his actions (like sin tainting everything the natural man does), shut out from society (like the sinner's alienation from God's people), and excluded from the sanctuary (like the unregenerate soul's distance from God) — and then traces the ceremony of cleansing, noting the great paradox: only the leper covered from head to foot, with no sound flesh remaining, was declared clean, while the one with any healthy patch was still unclean, which pictures the spiritual truth that only the sinner who has nothing to boast of and nothing left to trust but Christ's mercy is ready to receive salvation. He carefully explains that in the ceremony the leper was entirely passive while the priest did everything, typifying how Christ comes down to sinners, sheds his blood, and applies it to the conscience, and he argues that the basis of salvation is not the believer's feelings or realization of being saved but the actual death of Christ, just as a drowning man is saved by the lifeboat and not by his awareness that he is in it — so a sinner's only warrant is to know himself a sinner, since "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." He closes by noting that after the cleansing, the leper was then required to wash, shave, and bring offerings — illustrating that good works, holiness, and the full assurance of the Spirit are all after-fruits of salvation, which the cleansed sinner now pursues not to earn acceptance but in grateful response to a grace that has already fully accomplished everything.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 30, 1860.

Spurgeon attacks self-righteousness on three fronts: the plea is self-contradicting, since claiming to be without sin is itself a sin (making God a liar), and any claim to comparative righteousness is really a guilty plea in disguise, since a single sin makes one fully guilty before a God who demands a perfect and unblemished righteousness — just as one crack spoils a costly vase entirely. The self-righteous man condemns himself in his own conscience, since deep down every boaster knows his claims are false, as proven by the fact that pride requires noise to drown out conscience's verdict, and at the deathbed and certainly at the Last Judgment the grandest self-defense collapses into speechless horror before the face of God. He closes by showing that self-righteousness in any form — whether crude ("I deserve Heaven"), refined ("I'm better than most"), despairing ("I cannot come until I feel enough"), or even pious ("I trust my faith or my repentance") — is equally fatal, since the only ground of salvation is Christ himself, not any degree of human preparation, and the moment a sinner simply trusts Christ, that sinner stands before God as fully accepted as Christ himself, all sin having been laid on him and all righteousness freely given.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 16th, 1860.

Spurgeon expounds "Without Me you can do nothing" in three directions: to the believer, insisting that this means absolutely nothing rather than merely "almost nothing," since even the smallest acts of grace, the first step of faith, and the daily maintenance of spiritual life all depend entirely on Christ — a truth supported by the unanimous praise of all Scripture's saints, the existence of promises for strength that would be unnecessary if believers already had any, and the very existence of the Holy Spirit's office which becomes pointless if man has any native ability toward good. To the unconverted sinner, he argues this truth is even more urgently applicable, since the saint at least has a renewed nature, whereas the sinner is spiritually dead with no capacity for any spiritual good, and though this incapacity does not remove his moral responsibility or reduce God's demands by a single command, Spurgeon says he actually wants sinners to feel this paralysis deeply, because only when a person truly feels they can do nothing in their own strength will they cry out in despair to God and be truly ready to receive saving grace. He closes by applying the same truth to all who labor for others' souls — ministers, revivalists, Sunday school teachers, and parents — warning that excitement-driven "revivals" built on human enthusiasm produce shallow conversions that evaporate, and that the Church's only real power comes from the Spirit, so her first business in any gospel work must be to confess her total inability and cast herself wholly on God, at which point she will accomplish everything precisely because she attempts nothing in her own strength.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on November 11, 1860.

Spurgeon takes the vision of the basket of summer fruit — ripe and ready to be consumed — as a picture with three applications: that God's own purposes have a precise ripeness, coming neither too early nor too late, whether in the first advent of Christ, the second advent to come, or the personal timing of each believer's conversion, trials, and deliverances, all of which arrive exactly when divine wisdom ordains. He then applies the image to nations, tracing how Babylon, Greece, and Rome each fell at the precise point when their national sin had ripened to the point of destruction, and warning England to repent of her own national sins before the same judgment overtakes her. He closes with two personal applications — the believer who is ripening day by day in knowledge, experience, spirituality, and kindness through affliction and grace, being made ready for glory like fruit reaching perfect sweetness, and the unconverted sinner who is equally ripening but toward destruction, growing harder, bolder in sin, and more contemptuous of God with each passing year until suddenly gathered into the wrath they have been cultivating — and he pleads urgently for any sinner to turn before the gathering time arrives.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on October 28th, 1860.

Using the story of Sisera's defeat and death, Spurgeon paints three pictures of the sinner's journey: first, a slave growing uneasy under sin's yoke without yet knowing why, beginning to pray inarticulate groans and to fight individual sins one by one in his own strength; second, the partial victory of merely conquering outward bad habits, which Spurgeon insists is never enough, since true change must reach the very root and nature of sin rather than simply driving its symptoms into temporary retreat. He then brings the discouraged fighter, who fears his sin can never truly be defeated, to a third and decisive picture — the tomb where Christ's finished work has already nailed sin to death, assuring that the believer's sins, once forgiven through faith in Christ, are not merely defeated but utterly destroyed, never to rise again or be charged against the soul. He closes by acknowledging the ongoing inward struggle every Christian feels between the old and new natures, comforting believers that though sin's full destruction awaits the resurrection, it is already counted dead in Christ, and inviting any despairing sinner who feels they cannot defeat their own sin to simply come and see their guilt nailed to the cross, their hard heart dissolved, and their fears put to eternal rest.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on July 29, 1860.

Spurgeon attacks a subtle form of self-righteousness common in his day — the idea that a sinner must first feel their guilt deeply enough, with strong conviction and sorrow, before they have any right to trust Christ — arguing instead that this demand is itself a disguised legalism, since the gospel invites "sinners" as sinners with no qualifying adjective and no preparation of feeling required. He comforts those struggling with this by pointing out that wanting to feel one's sin more is itself evidence of real spiritual life (since the truly wicked never wish to see their guilt at all), gives practical advice on how to gain a deeper sense of sin through examining specific transgressions, sitting under a direct and personal preaching ministry, studying God's law, and especially meditating on Christ's sufferings, and warns sharply against confusing the Holy Spirit's work of conviction with Satan's counterfeit work of driving a soul to despair. He closes with an urgent appeal that anyone waiting to feel "enough" before coming to Christ will wait forever, since the true gospel command is simply "look unto Me" rather than to one's own feelings, and that the sinner's only safety lies in coming exactly as they are now, trusting that Christ's blood — not their preparation for it — is what saves.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on September 22nd, 1860.

Spurgeon draws three distinct lessons from the same passage describing Christ healing every kind of disease throughout Galilee. First, a homily to ministers, urging them to imitate Christ's itinerant, energetic preaching rather than staying confined to one pulpit, since souls are won by actively seeking sinners rather than waiting for them to come. Second, a homily to ordinary believers, teaching that just as friends carried the sick and paralyzed to Jesus when they could not come themselves, Christians today must "bring" reluctant or resistant loved ones to Christ through persistent prayer and confident faith, since vicarious faith exercised on another's behalf has real power to bring that person to saving faith of their own. Third and longest, an encouragement to sinners themselves, assuring them that Christ heals every kind of spiritual disease without exception — including cases everyone considers hopeless or "incurable" — and that he asks nothing in payment but simply invites sinners of every land and background to come exactly as they are and trust him, with the promise that the moment anyone truly trusts Christ, all their sins are immediately and completely forgiven.

Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on September 2, 1860.