Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

Thanks to CROSS CON for sponsoring “Shepherding with Spurgeon” this year. They are a great partner and a great ministry.

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ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

A certain preacher, whose sermons converted men by scores, received a revelation from heaven that not one of the conversions was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the prayers of an illiterate lay-brother, who sat on the pulpit steps, pleading all the time for the success of the sermon. It may in the all-revealing day be so with us.

We may discover, after having labored long and wearily in preaching that all the honor belongs to another builder whose prayers were gold, silver, and precious stones, while our sermonizing, being apart from prayer, were but hay and stubble.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe bringing your cares to God.

A little child was at play in a lower room, and as he played away by himself, amusing himself, about every ten minutes he ran to the foot of the stairs and called out, “Mother, are you there?”

His mother answered, “Yes, I am here,” and the little boy went back to his sport and fun, and was as happy as happy could be, and until again it crossed his mind that his mother might have gone.

So he ran to the stairs again and called, “Mother, are you there?”

“All right,” she said, and as soon as he heard her voice again, back he went once more to his play.

It is just so with us. In times of temporal trouble we go to the mercy seat in prayer, and we say, “Father, are you there? Is it your hand that is troubling me? Is it your providence that has sent me this difficulty?”

And as soon as you hear the voice that says, “It is I,” you are no longer afraid. Happy are they who, when they are afraid in this way, trust in the Lord.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“People have often asked me, ‘What is the secret of your success?’ I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel.” — Charles Spurgeon