This week we finally crest the peak of our reading of Spurgeon’s sermons, crossing the halfway line in our reading through the Passmore & Alabaster collection of his preaching. This address, on love as the first fruit of the Spirit, is a fitting marker for the occasion. The sermon bears many of Spurgeon’s hallmarks: richly doctrinal and practical and experimental; full of a lively sense of the Holy Spirit; rising to a Christ-centred crescendo; pleading for the holiness of God’s people and the salvation of the lost; a thorough sense of the text in its context; an inventive and engaging outline; a delight in the grace of our heavenly Father; a lively hope of heaven; a plain call to penetrating self-examination. In one sense there is nothing remarkable about the sermon. In another sense, the fact that this is a further sermon showing a consistent richness of substance and a sustained intensity of spirituality makes it notable not because it stands out but because it is more of the same, and it warms our hearts.

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Here is another sermon in which you detect notes of what today might be called ‘pastoral theology.’ Spurgeon could preach to preachers, certainly, and you see much of that in some collections of lectures and sermons, especially his Lecture to My Students. However, he also wants those who hear the Word of God to have some understanding of what it is to preach the Word of God. So, earlier in this year, you have his sermon on the pastor’s life being wrapped up with the steadfastness of the saints. Here, he opens a window into what is taking place in the man who preaches and to the man to whom he preaches. How does God fit a man to be a minister of the gospel? What does God do in the heart of a converted man? And, what does that converted man have to do, in terms of his own experience of and response to the work of God? Here then you have two divine operations, one upon a preacher, and one upon a hearer, the second developing into its Godward and its manward elements, and yet never merely theoretical, but constantly brought close to the life of those who preach and those who hear.

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This is a deliberately simple sermon. Spurgeon sets out to answer the prayer of the boy who asked, “Lord, grant that our minister may say something to-morrow that I may understand.” Some might not have turned to Leviticus in order to answer that prayer, but Spurgeon does so in order to “deal with the essence and soul of true religion.” Taking an image that recurs in Leviticus, he speaks here primarily of the attitude of the one who makes the burnt offering, involving confession, acceptance, transference, identification. That vocabulary might not be the simplest, but the explanation of each is plain and pressing, driving at the penal substitutionary atonement (to use a similarly dense phrase!) which lies at the heart of our acceptance with God. Of interest may be the fact that the sermon for the following week (number 1772) he takes the same text and deals with the death of the sacrifice, so that out of one brief verse he unpacks the core of our salvation, as it is accomplished by Christ and the cross and appropriated by the faith of the repenting sinner.

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You might have thought that high doctrine and broad doctrine were contrasts, perhaps one good and the other bad, but in this sermon they are complements, each declaring something wonderful about God’s plan and purpose in salvation. This is something of a throwback, I think, a sermon from the archives, preached at Exeter Hall, probably in the 1850s (published here in 1884). It is a wonderful example of lively, eager, natural evangelistic preaching. Spurgeon loads his sermon with illustrations; his cheerful humour is on full display; his eagerness to make Christ known is unparalleled; his pathos in pleading with sinners is exemplified; his wisdom in addressing doubts and fears is plain. This is the kind of sermon which no preacher should seek merely to mimic, but it is just the kind of ministry to emulate. If we are Christians, let us feel again the sweet force of the gospel, and let it inspire us not only to cling to Christ, but to make him known to others. If we are preachers, let this rebuke us and stimulate us, that we have not so preached and that we should so preach. If you are not yet a believer, then may I urge you to listen to this sermon, to read it all, and to take it to your heart.

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If you are a pastor-preacher, and your heart is where it should be, then this short sermon is likely to resonate with you. However, it may be that, if you are not a pastor, you have rarely or even never thought about the way in which an under-shepherd of Christ’s flock considers the sheep entrusted to his care by the Great Shepherd. This short sermon expresses the deep concern and abiding affection which a true pastor has for the people to whom he preaches and over whom he watches. Spurgeon describes is as the pastor’s life being “wrapped up with his people’s faithfulness.” There is nothing that more grieves him than a departure from the way of truth, there is nothing that more delights him than to see the saints standing fast. He looks at all sides of this experience—those who are not in the Lord at all, those who appear to be in the Lord but are not standing fast, and those who are in the Lord and standing fast, who bring deep joy to an overseer’s heart. This sermon will help you, on the one hand, to consider your own heart; on the other, it might give you a glimpse into the heart of your pastors, and help you to appreciate and to pray for them.

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We have mentioned from time to time the sermonic runs which we find here and there in Spurgeon’s published sermons. This is the end of one such sequence, preached from the second chapter of John’s first letter, and considering the different stages or phases of spiritual maturity. The first sermon on little children was preached on Sunday 18th March; the second on young men was preached on Sunday 8th April. This is the third, concerning the fathers, preached on Sunday 18th November. This brief topical series spanned nine months! On the one hand, it is notable that Spurgeon expected his congregation, in some measure, to keep track of and to remember the previous ministry. On the other, it is helpful to see how carefully and briefly Spurgeon connects each sermon to those preceding it, neither rehearsing the former at extravagant length nor assuming full recall. Each sermon stands largely alone, but benefits from the connection with the others. In each case, Spurgeon more or less walks through the text: here he identifies the people, asks about their distinctive character, and considers the message addressed to them—simple and solid!

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It has become sadly typical to suggest some kind of tension or even opposition between knowing and doing, as if a delight in doctrine somehow chills the soul and cripples the hand, or someone who is earnest and zealous need not or even should not bother themselves with theology. Spurgeon gives the lie to such silliness with this sermon on spiritual knowledge and its practical results. Before he even gets to that specific topic, he is urging us to consider the value of intercessory prayer. Only then does to begin to unpack the value of spiritual knowledge, showing that true knowledge is truly spiritual, and that the saints should desire to be filled with it. Then he comes to the practical results of such knowledge, emphasising that it motivates, transforms, and directs those who possess it. Finally, Spurgeon speaks briefly about the reflex action of knowledge upon holiness, for the holy man is one who increases in knowledge, spurred by appetite and increased in capacity. Thus spiritual knowledge and zealous labour are properly connected, and so we learn better what it means to know and to serve the living and true God.

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Spurgeon is as practical as he is doctrinal and experimental (he often insists on all these being properly represented in public ministry, either within or across sermons). This sermon consists in a great deal of practical pastoral counsel with regard to humility, applying the requirement for humility to our church life, to our behaviour in our afflictions, in our daily dealings with God, and in our seeking forgiveness as sinners (recognising that the last element is more an extrapolation from the text than a explication of it). Perhaps you have read treatments of pride and humility that are clothed in a kind of faux-lowliness. It may well be that Spurgeon struggled with pride (several biographers suggest it was a battle for him) but here he simply goes for the jugular of this sin, putting himself as squarely in the sights of his text as anyone else in the congregation, and preaching with a directness and simplicity that is commendable. Because, as he says, “pride is so natural to fallen man that it springs up in his heart like weeds in a watered garden, or rushes by a flowing brook,” the sermon remains as relevant to me and to you as it did to anyone sitting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle that day in or around 1883. May the sermon do as much good to us as we trust it did to them!

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Because of the manner of his preaching over time, it is not unusual to find Spurgeon creating his own connections, contrasts, and counterpoints. You may find little sermon ‘runs’ as he works through, for example, the stages of Christian maturity in 1 John 2. Sometimes he will say something like, “A few Sabbaths ago we looked at that, but today we must consider this so that we do not lose sight of either.” In this sermon, he is building on a previous sermon, seeking to lift up a particular aspect of truth already addressed and press it home in a particular direction. Is Christ the Beloved of the Father? Then what does it mean for us to accepted in the Beloved Son? Spurgeon suggests that this is more a matter for sweet meditation than for didactic instruction, and so proceeds to unpack his text in a series of thoughts which invariably focus on Christ the Beloved, and what it means for God to receive us for his sake. A note of joyful wonder permeates the sermon, as the preacher—ranging far and wide through Scripture and nature for illumination and illustration—digs ever deeper into the delight of being accepted by the Great Father for the sake of his Beloved Son.

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There is little which excites and delights Spurgeon as much as the preaching of Christ. Christ is not the icing on the cake of his ministry, but its sweet and sustaining bread and butter. There are times when Spurgeon is in poor health or other difficulties, and his preaching sometimes reflects his private struggles; on this occasion, you get a sense of a man whose soul is peaceful and joyful, and who is cheerfully employing his strength in the exaltation of his beloved Saviour. With liveliness and vigour, he presses through his text, each point introduced, expanded, and summarised. In considering the mystery of the gospel, he first simply holds before us Christ, letting us gaze upon our Beloved. Then he digs a little deeper, and reminds us that it is “Christ in you” in whom we take refuge and delight. Finally, he looks up and reminds us what it means to have Christ in his people as the hope of glory. At every stage of this sermon there is a very precious sense of real personality, and of personal relationship. Spurgeon speaks not just of what he knows, but of whom he knows, and we are drawn to see Christ Jesus clearly and happily.

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