A simple division and a thorough exposition form the bedrock of a sermon urging the saints to pray. Rising from Paul’s plea to the Romans at the end of the fifteenth chapter of that letter, Spurgeon emphasises the need even of an apostle for the intercessions of the saints, highlighting the demands and dangers that he faced, and underlining the humility shown in seeking such help. The bulk of the sermon is then given over to a step-by-step exposition of the prayer requested, Spurgeon breaking down the petition phrase-by-phrase. It is a simple but effective approach, and Spurgeon’s persistent pressing home of its practical lessons prevents it becoming a shallow slide across the surface of the text. The preacher addresses both the general desires and the specific details of the apostle as he asks the saints to engage with him in prayer. Then, briefly but pointedly, he turns to the blessing given in answer to the prayer, urging his hearers to seek the same mercies for the same reasons. As he closes, he brings his applications close to the congregation, reminding them that they too face demands and dangers similar to those of the apostle, and must have the same response: to go to the God of peace to obtain the help that he alone is able to give.

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In this brief address, Spurgeon acknowledges that his text—“Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God”—fits best those who are already saved. However, appreciating that it involves a little straining, he still wants to apply it also to those who are not yet converted. The exhortation as a whole gives us a lively sense of Spurgeon’s appetite for the Lord God, and his appetite for others to have such an appetite. There is a concentration and consecration of all the faculties on the glorious person and personal glory of the God of heaven, a present desire to draw near to him and to enjoy him. Spurgeon more or less runs through the same trajectory for each of the two basic classes of people in his sights as he preaches, pressing upon us all the immediate necessity and blessed prospect of drawing near to God.

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This is another simple sermon in two parts. Whereas the previous sermon offered a stark contrast between the wages of sin and the gift of life, this provides a sequence. After an introduction in which Spurgeon suggests a difference between happiness and blessedness (the former being a good thing, but essentially being of this world, while the latter has a heavenly quality about it), he exposes the world’s suggestions of where blessedness—true and lasting happiness—can be found. Then he turns us to the somewhat surprising text of James 1:12 to look at blessedness in this life and in the life to come. Yes, there are heavenly joys even now for the man who endures temptation—the man who, out of love to God, holds fast in the storm, and whose faith and hope and love are demonstrated to be real and true. And then there are joys to come, the crown of life which the Lord bestows upon those who do not turn away or fall away. Sustained and strengthened by his grace in Christ Jesus for every good work, their heavenly reward shall only make their appreciation of God’s favour all the richer and riper. Spurgeon gets happily expansive, almost carried away, as he considers the blessedness of the blessed in the glory to come, urging all to make sure that they enjoy this crown, awaking in the likeness of Jesus Christ, our resurrected Lord and King.

Podcast 273: A Discourse upon True Blessedness Here and Hereafter (S1874) Jas 1:12

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Spurgeon is not a mindless preacher, stuck in a rut of structure, though he is always recognisably himself in style. Here he begins with a brief introduction, before launching into a study in contrast between the wages of sin, which is death, and the gift of God which is everlasting life in Jesus Christ our Lord. In each case (particularly the first) he goes beyond a scant understanding of the words, and begins to dig out their sense, and press home their substance, and plead in the light of what he has to say. The first part of the sermon is a pressing development of the misery of sin and its consequences, manifestly weighing down the very heart of the preacher as he speaks. In the second half he moves into light and joy, setting forth the wonders of redeeming grace in Christ, and the free favour of God. He closes with applications for the believer, pressing home what it means to receive this life and to live as those who live indeed, but also encouraging every child of God to believe in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, the same power by which Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. By the grace of God, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ will yet secure life for those who are dead in ins, to the praise of his glory. It is a simple structure, and a striking sermon, and it should leave us feeling the horrible weight of sin and its awful wages, the wonder of God’s grace in Christ, bestowing life on the hell-deserving.

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Here is Spurgeon at the heart of his ministerial and pastoral calling: glorying in the cross of a crucified Christ. Here is the essential power of all his preaching, and here is the delight of his own soul. Unpacking the sermon methodically, and finding his time running out as he expands upon this theme, Spurgeon begins with the cross itself, and what the apostle meant when he thought of it and spoke of it. He had in mind the fact of the cross, the bare reality of the incarnate Son of God dying for sinners. He had in mind the doctrine of the cross, and all it means, and the cross of the doctrine, the very centre and core of true Christianity. And why did Paul glory in this? Spurgeon ranges across the attributes of God, highlighting the ways in which God is manifested and magnified in the salvation accomplished in the death of his beloved Son, as well as speaking of the particular delights and comforts and stirrings which it brings to those who glory in it. And then, says our preacher, Paul had felt all its impact on his own soul and on his own life. The world had been emptied of all its attraction, all its enticements, all its glories, by the glory of the cross. Oh that the glory of the cross would have the same impact on us today, that the death of Christ would slay in us both self and the world, and so hold our hearts that no-one and nothing else would ever draw us, but that Christ in all the matchless mercy of his atoning sacrifice would be and remain our all-in-all.

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This sermon sounds a note of concern. The Second Letter to Timothy has a consistent awareness of certain threats to the gospel and its ministers, a series of troublesome individuals who assault the truth of Christ and oppose the servants of Christ. Nevertheless, Paul’s “gracious anxiety” does not disturb “the serenity of his faith.” He remains confident that the foundation will stand, because of the seal of God upon his people. With this in mind, Spurgeon first explores the way in which false teachers were overthrowing the faith of some, with warnings for God’s people in every age. He then considers the abiding foundation of God, the purpose, truth, and work of the Almighty, which are not shifted. Finally, he turns to the seal on the foundation stone, the mark which gives us confidence, of divine election with divine sanctification. We are at least as well-stocked today with false teachers as Paul in his day, and Spurgeon in Victorian London. It is therefore appropriate for us to maintain a gracious anxiety for the sake of Christ and his church, but also a serene faith, confident that the purpose of God shall come to pass, the truth of God shall endure, and the work of God shall proceed.

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A simple sermon, and yet one that hits home. The texts is James 1:21–22, and Spurgeon does little more than run through the text, taking each portion as an instruction as to how we prepare for a sermon, engage with a sermon, and respond to a sermon. But to say that he runs through the text is not to suggest that he just rehearses its words. Rather, the point of hearing is doing, a real heeding of God’s word. Spurgeon therefore asks first what are those filthinesses and wickednesses which unfit our souls for listening to the preacher. Further what does it mean to receive the engrafted word with meekness? How does a creature listen to the holy speech of his Creator so as to profit by it? Finally, what do we do afterward? Does the Scripture simply drift away from us, or do we set out to put it into practice, to the honour of God and to the blessing of others? Too often, the people of God undo all the effort of the preacher of his truth and trample on the very word itself. So, let us be hearers, yes, but doers also, and so honour the God who speaks in the Scriptures, and prove ourselves his true children.

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Sometimes people ask a hard question: “Has God forgotten to be gracious?” It is not hard to answer, in one sense, but it shows a certain hardness in their soul to suggest that the unchanging God of grace has somehow altered in himself or ceased to be himself. So Spurgeon demands that we give that question all its weight, drag it into the light, and interrogate the question. By the end of the sermon, the question has become less a challenge to God and more a rebuke to ourselves. Spurgeon puts the question first of all in the mouth of a child of God who is cast down. Then he suggests that it might be found on the lips of a seeking sinner. Finally, and briefly, he wonders how it would play in the heart of a dispirited gospel worker. In each case, he forces us to follow the logic of our own doubts, often showing a merciful lack of mercy in pressing the case toward its ugly conclusion, before turning the question back upon us to expose our unbelief and present God to us in all his unchanging faithfulness and abundant grace. It is not easy to be dealt with so robustly, but Spurgeon evidently believes that there is some value in his rigorous dealings with souls. If we have been tempted to cover up our wounds of unbelief with the plaster of high-sounding words, Spurgeon is going to rip off the plaster and instead apply some astringent medicine to our souls—painful, perhaps, but profitable indeed.

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Elijah’s plea was simple: “Let it be known that I have done all these things at your word.” Spurgeon turns it in two directions. First, to obedient saints it is a firm ground for prayer. He considers the labouring minister, a whole church, an individual Christian, and—departing slightly from his main heading—he asks how it would be used by a seeking sinner. Second, to those who cannot say that they have acted according to God’s word, it is a solemn matter for question, a means of self-examination. As he sometimes does, he puts the question to the same categories as under his first heading from the different angle: to the worker he asks about our preaching and our living; to the church, he asks about our motives and our holiness; to Christian people, he inquires about arrogance and hypocrisy. He gives more time here again to the seeking sinner, with a couple of hints to those who may be converted, urging them to embrace the will of God in those things which lead to peace. Spurgeon shows us here how to preach a sermon on two levels to a mixed congregation, blending both comforts and challenges to various kinds of hearers. The result is a striking call to humble obedience, applied across the board.

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Our Lord Jesus, insists Spurgeon, was not only a man of sorrows, but a man of joys. He knew joys in his humiliation, and he knows joys in his exaltation. He has distinct gladness as the Mediator. Bubbling over with delight, Spurgeon spreads himself in his introduction, delighting to think of the delight which characterises our Lord in glory. Only then does he turn, with particular concentration, to the substance of his sermon, packing in truth because he has less time than otherwise, condensing his study of the distinctive privilege and character of the saints’ joy, drawn from their entering into Christ’s joy. He holds fast to his text, before expanding upon it in the last few moments of his sermon, as—soaked with Scripture, and with a poetry born of piety—he considers the channels through which the blessings of God flow to us, and then soars into a concluding exhortation to God’s people to enter into the joy which the Lord has secured for us. It is a truly happy sermon, and it breeds the kind of happiness which this world cannot offer, but which is received and enjoyed by all who know Christ Jesus as their God and Saviour, and the Almighty as their Father, through him.

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