For a true believer, there are few more distressing conditions than to be ‘sinking in the mire.’ This trouble of soul strikes in various ways: our own unbelief, a lack of assurance, the troubles of the world, our inward corruptions, or devilish temptations. While there may be various reasons for this, God has his purposes, so much so that even his most eminent and favoured people do not escape this experience. We are brought so low—low enough to realise that God alone can deliver us, and to come to him in heartfelt prayer. Spurgeon’s conclusion may seem bland, but in truth it brings us to the very heart of our weakness, the essence of our need, and the beginnings of our relief and recovery: to cast ourselves upon the Lord, now, and without ceasing, until we obtain the blessings we need.

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The breadth of Spurgeon’s ministry is manifest. If he has a hobby-horse, it is Christ crucified, and there is no criticism for that! However, in seeking to make Christ known, for salvation in every part and to the fullest degree, Spurgeon does not sail a narrow channel, but rather covers vast tracts of the ocean of truth. We do not know all that may have stirred and stimulated him, under God, in selecting his sermon texts, but this one has to do with the danger of God’s people having their hearts hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and the remedies for it. Here Spurgeon shows his spiritual wisdom in giving us a chilling description of such decline, a brief anatomy of sin in its deceitfulness, and a stirring exhortation to use the means available to restore our hearts to tenderness in all our dealings with the Almighty.

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This is a delightful sermon, demonstrating Spurgeon’s pastoral skill in turning the same text against different targets. Here the text, “For Christ’s sake,” is shown to be both God’s argument for mercy and our reason for service. In the first case it becomes a particular cause for comfort to those who are seeking forgiveness for their sins through Christ. In the second, it becomes a particular call to labour for those who have tasted divine mercy. As so often, Spurgeon pleads the mercies of God as both a reason to trust him and a reason to serve him, drawing us to Christ for life, and sending us out to live for the Christ who has saved us. May this sermon be the means of blessing those who are coming, and those who are going, for the glory of the Saviour!

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Spurgeon’s new year sermons have a lovely tone to them. Some are more consolatory, others more exhortatory, but all tend to lift up the eyes and fix them on God in Christ, calling the saints to think and speak and act in the light of their covenant mercies in the year that lies before them. This sermon is no different. Spurgeon is well aware that the Adversary will by all means sow the seeds of dissension and division and among the people of God, and so here he reminds us of the unity of the Spirit that we should pursue, that this unity needs to be preserved, guarded, invested in, and that the Spirit’s unity must be kept “in the bond of peace.” All this leads to some practical counsels and encouragements to God’s people—counsels and encouragements which are as significant and valuable today as they were when the preacher first delivered them on the first day of 1865 in London.

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Perhaps you know someone—perhaps you are someone—who has wished to be spiritually worse, that they might know when they are savingly better. It is not as rare a case as we might imagine, and Spurgeon shows his sensitivity as a pastor and his versatility as an evangelist in going after people who have a legitimately good reputation among men, but who are conscious of their unworthiness before God. He uses the example of the centurion with strong faith in Christ to assure such that they can and must come to Jesus Christ in order to be delivered from their sins. This is a lovely sermon, beautifully balanced in its sentiments and structure, full of good sense and earnest pleading. There is encouragement for all to trust in God, and not to imagine that our own merits earn anything or that our demerits forfeit mercy and grace—rather they fit us for it. There is particular encouragement for the reputable sinner. God will take all who come to him trusting in Christ.

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Spurgeon seems to have been blessed with an insatiable appetite for the glory of God, an ever-increasing desire for the power of the gospel to be made known. In this sermon he is seeking to stir up the members of the church to seek after God, reminding them that the necessary prerequisite to two walking together is that they be agreed. That being so, if we want to walk with God—to have God walk with us and to bless us—then we need to be agreed with him. Spurgeon therefore outlines what not only what it means to walk with God, but also the horror of a human religious operation in which there is nothing of the Spirit’s power. That being so, what are the things in which we ought to be agreed with him? Spurgeon offers some searching answers. Finally, what are those things which displease our Lord, and drive a wedge between him and us? How can we expect God to walk with us when we are offending him? Spurgeon leaves each one of us with penetrating questions to answer. Are we ready to pray, “Lord, make me fit to be the means of glorifying you”?

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The death of Lazarus affords Spurgeon the opportunity to consider Christ’s purposes in allowing his beloved people to undergo fearful trials. He thinks of the impact on the apostles as they travel with him, and the way in which this experience would strengthen their faith. He ponders the effect on the family itself, enhancing their confidence in him, assuring them of his real love and power. He assesses the impact that trials can have on those who are looking on, for when others see what Christ has done, they are drawn to him. It is, on some levels, quite a simple sermon. However, it is full of particular encouragements both for God’s people and for others, as we not only see the heart and arm of Christ revealed, but are also given a glimpse into his mind, into his wise and gracious purposes in all the things that come upon us.

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Depending on your eschatology—your view of the last things—and particularly your understanding of the millennium, you will appreciate aspects of this sermon more or less. You might also say that it is far from being Spurgeon’s neatest sermon. What you would, I think, have to confess is that it is full of Christ. We acknowledge that Spurgeon himself would never encourage carelessness in sermon preparation, but we also say with him that a man who shows us Christ can be forgiven much! Here, then, Spurgeon shows us the Lamb as the light of the world to come, in every sense, as well as our needed light on our present pilgrimage. His delight in the Saviour oozes out as he anticipates the coming glory in the presence of the King, and reminds us of how, even upon earth, we can afford to lose everything but Christ, who will never lose those for whom he laid down his life.

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This was one of the most notable sermons which Spurgeon ever preached. Despite his expectation that it might damage or even destroy the circulation of his printed sermons, it sold tens of thousands of copies over the years. It strikes at one particular error, and consistently addresses an underlying problem. The particular error is the doctrine embedded in the Church of England of baptismal regeneration; the underlying problem, and one which Spurgeon addresses repeatedly in the sermon, is that of a lack of honesty and integrity in our convictions and commitments. The sermon is not bitter in tone, but it potently manifests the spirit of a man who is deeply persuaded of the danger of the lie he exposes, and desperate that sinners should realise that it is faith alone in Christ alone by which a sinner can be saved. He wants the people of God actually to know what they believe, and to speak and live accordingly.

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I confess to a soft spot for this sermon. I preached at home a short series of sermons on this passage, eventually repeated at a conference in the US, and still find both the passage itself, and Spurgeon’s treatment of it, sincerely stimulating and spiritually profitable. Spurgeon uses the pathetic king Joash, who failed to shoot his arrows as the ailing prophet, Elijah, required, as a foil for his exhortation to God’s people in a newly-planted church to do all that lies in their power to strive for God’s glory in dependence on God’s promise. His challenge against slack-handedness and his encouragement to wholeheartedness in the service of God still rings true, and still echoes down into our own age with something of its original force and fervour.

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