This sermon might be read as a follow-up to that on “The Dromedaries.” If the former sermon is intended to help us find our proper place, the purpose of this “is for every man to have a good spirit in his present place, so as to occupy it worthily.” The preacher says he is less interested here to arrange the people where they might be and more to encourage the people where they are. Thus in broad strokes he addresses six classes of Christian workers: those who think they can do nothing; those who think they are laid aside; those who have only small talent; those who are under great difficulties; those who are not appreciated; and, those who are discouraged because they have so little success. Given that most Christian workers fall into one or more of those categories at any given time, and often over a period of time, there should be something here for every labouring saint.

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This sermon has a curious title indeed, and a somewhat unusual text, too. As he delights to do, the preacher draws a parallel between the Old Testament history and the new covenant experience, in this case the kingdom of Solomon and the kingdom of Christ. After establishing some of those parallels, Spurgeon begins to consider the officers who had responsibility in Solomon’s household, showing that each had a particular charge, each was bound to act according to that charge, and each would receive supplies according to his charge. On the basis of the parallels, Spurgeon—applying throughout and especially at the end of the sermon—urges us to think about the work the Lord has given to us and to others in his kingdom, and to consider how we discharge that work. It is, again, a typical call to action from a man persuaded that it is the privilege of every child of God to serve his King: “Everything for Jesus, the glorious Solomon of our hearts, the Beloved of our souls!”

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Spurgeon himself introduces this sermon with a few words of thanksgiving, and tells us, with characteristic desire, “I thought the best way in which I could express my thankfulness would be to preach Jesus Christ again, and set him forth in a sermon in which the simple gospel should be made as clear as a child’s alphabet.” With this in mind, he turns to the bronze serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness, and under five simple headings seeks not only to set forth Christ Jesus as the object of faith, urging him upon sinners, but also to encourage those who know Christ to hold him up themselves. The classic gospel notes of Spurgeon’s ministry ring out again in this sermon, and remind us of his desire to remain always close to the cross in all his preaching. What, then, could be more suitable on such a significant occasion than to go back to the old theme and speak once more of the Son of God’s love and the Saviour of sinners?

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This fascinating sermon begins with a contrast between Abraham and Lot, so much so that Spurgeon reminds us that his text is not, “Remember Lot,” but, “Remember Lot’s wife.” However, by the end of the sermon he has deliberately returned to the first idea, and in between he has made a careful survey of the relationship between Lot and his wife before concentrating on the way in which she perished in her sin. That brings him back to Lot, because one of the themes of this sermon is the way in which the lives of a husband and a wife are closely intertwined, and have a mutual spiritual impact. More specifically, Spurgeon emphasises the responsibility of a godly man to lead his family righteously. A sermon like this involves some ‘reading into the white spaces’ of the history, some holy speculation and careful surmise, but the overall effect is to bring the teaching of this episode close to home, and to force husbands, with their wives, to consider carefully the effect of their example and instruction.

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This sermon carries a fearful amount of weight. Preached at a period when British interests were at a low ebb, British policy abroad seemed to Spurgeon bloody and ugly, when the weather was cold and wet through the summer, he considers the withdrawing of God from sinful nations, sinning saints, and unbelieving sinners. The first element, the national, is a fine example of proper ‘political’ preaching, a Christian bemoaning unrighteousness and injustice in and from the country he loves, and asking what is to be done in response. The second element is almost as forceful, peeling back the folds of our hearts and confronting us with sins and their consequences in the lives even of God’s people, though with gleams of light shining through the clouds, because of divine faithfulness. The third, and briefest, reminds the ungodly that without turning to Christ they will suffer the fearful, eternal punishment of their sin, and so calls on all to seek the Lord. While Spurgeon is always manifestly earthed in his time and place, drawing illustration from it and making application to it, this sermon has a distinct flavour of a man who is very much a pilgrim, but a pilgrim in a particular place and time, seeking to respond as a Christian patriot to the need of the hour.

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Both sobering and cheering, this sermon carries us to the prophet Habakkuk, who saw all the dangers associated with ‘the midst of the years’ and the impending judgments of God upon a sinful, sliding, sleeping people. Transposing it to a church which has enjoyed twenty-five years of God’s blessing in association with the ministry of God’s word, Spurgeon highlights tellingly the prophet’s fear of the slackness and slowness that can afflict us in the middle passage (a clever title, for it also refers to the grief-ridden, wearisome part of the sea voyages of certain vessels, including slavers). He moves on to the prophet’s prayer, that the Lord would revive his own work, and what that means for our own hearts and our knowledge and sense of the living God. Then there is the prophet’s plea, primarily that God would in wrath remember mercy. Then Habakkuk, his heart at rest in his God, returns to his labour and gets on with his work content in the knowledge that God will be his God regardless of what the future holds. It is a potent sermon for those in the middle years of life, or of labour, for churches resting on their lees, for those concerned about the stagnation of religious life in a region or nation. May God set our hearts again to plead for a blessing in the midst of the years!

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This delightful sermon blends the twin beauties of prayer and praise from Philippians 4:6—“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” After an extended introduction which suggests that the preacher’s soul it fully taken up with his topic, Spurgeon first underscores the reasons why Christians should mingle thanksgiving with prayer, urging us to “illuminate your prayers; light them up with rays of thanksgiving all the way through,” so that even if grief and sorrow are the burden of the prayer, it has at least some sparkles of gratitude. Then he turns the same thought in another direction, showing the evil of the absence of thanksgiving in our prayers, showing just how selfish and wilful that ungrateful pleader is. Finally, Spurgeon suggests that, according to the context, peace is the result of mingling thanksgiving with our prayers, together with warmth of soul and expectant hope. The sermon as a whole is not just an incentive to pray, but an incentive to a certain kind of praying, prayer in which pleading and praising are woven together, in which our intercessions are given a sweet aroma by being perfumed with thanksgiving to the God of all mercies. I hope it is as stirring to you as it seems it was to Spurgeon as he preached it.

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The beginning of Volume XXV has curious numbering, reflecting the fact that Spurgeon is very sick in Mentone while these sermons are being produced and published. There are combinations of letters and mediations from his sickbed with shorter sermons preached on different occasions. Most of them, taken together, are the same length as his regular output, but following the pattern can be a touch confusing. These sermons share a certain approach: taking a physical experience and drawing a spiritual parallel. So you have here a nose and eyes! The nose belongs to the child whom God raised from the dead by Elisha, and that child’s seven sneezes become a parable of the simple, unpleasant, monotonous, and sure indications of spiritual life in a newly-regenerated man or woman. The eyes belong to Hagar, and—just as the Lord opened her eyes in the wilderness to see the water which she needed for the life of her and her son—so we need our eyes opened. Spurgeon wonders at what remarkable things we might see if our spiritual eyes could see the past, the future, the angels, or the coming glory. He thinks of the things that darken our eyes to spiritual reality, and yearns for God to open the eyes of the inwardly blind, before thinking of the things which a believer might see at the communion table: Christ near at hand, our standing in Christ, and our happy prospects. May God open the eyes of us all, to see Christ for salvation, and to know our joy in him!

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There is a state of peace and there is a sense of peace. Spurgeon does not confuse or confound the two. In a distinctly pastoral sermon, he begins with the priority of the objective state of peace, secured by Jesus Christ and received and enjoyed by faith in him. He steps us through the stages of our experience in obtaining this peace, not just describing but directing the guilty sinner to Christ. He underscores the certainty and security of a peace granted by God for Christ’s sake. Then he moves to the secondary and subjective sense of peace, grounded in the objective reality of our standing before God pardoned through Christ’s blood and clothed in Christ’s righteousness. Here again the shepherd’s heart is very much in evidence, as Spurgeon thinks about the way a child of God might complain about or query his own feelings. The preacher reminds us that we do not expect to have peace with the devil, with the flesh, with the world, or with our own sin, and so we should not draw the wrong conclusions from those battles. We do have peace with God, however, and we are told what that looks like and how that operates, in our communion with him and confidence in him in all things.

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Perhaps your instinct in looking at this title is to go, in your mind’s eye, to Calvary, and to consider our Saviour hanging between the two transgressors. While you have not necessarily followed the intended trail, you have come to the right place. It is not so much the men on either side whom we consider, but the man on the middle cross, for it is by him that the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. These are the three crucifixions of the title: first, the crucified Christ; then, the crucified world; finally, the crucified believer, whether that be Paul or whomever else. Thus we have set before us the glory of the cross itself, as well as the consequences of that glory for God’s people. So Spurgeon considers the way in which the Christian all too often esteems and courts the world, and asks us to look at the world once more under the shadow of the cross. He also counsels the Christian about the way in which the world will now look at us, and how they will despise and disdain those who live under that same sweet shadow. Here Spurgeon shows us something of what it means to preach a crucified Christ—not simply to rehearse another ‘Calvary sermon’ but rather to demonstrate over and over, in the broad sweep and the fine detail of Christian living, what it means to trust and to follow the Lamb of God who was slain.

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