Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

The earth brings forth according to the period of the year, and with man there is a time for every purpose under heaven. At this season, the world is engaged in congratulating itself and in expressing its complimentary wishes for the good of its citizens; let me suggest extra and more solid work for Christians.

As we think today of the birth of the Savior, let us aspire after a fresh birth of the Savior in our hearts; that as he is already “formed in us the hope of glory,” we may be “renewed in the spirit of our minds;” that we may go again to the Bethlehem of our spiritual nativity and do our first works, enjoy our first loves, and feast with Jesus as we did in the holy, happy, heavenly days of our conversion. Let us go to Jesus with something of that youthful freshness and excessive delight which was so manifest in us when we looked to him at the first; let him be crowned anew by us, for he is still adorned with the dew of his youth, and remains “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this quotation in your own preaching to describe the wonder of the incarnation.

Those little hands will one day grasp the scepter of universal empire; those little arms will one day grapple with the monster ‘Death’, and destroy it; those little feet shall tread on the serpent’s neck, and crush that old deceiver’s head; yes, and that little tongue, which has not yet learned to articulate a word, shall, before long, pour from his sweet lips such streams of eloquence as shall fertilize the minds of the whole human race, and infuse his teaching into the literature of the world; and again a little while, and that tongue shall pronounce the judgments of heaven on the destinies of all mankind.

We have all thought it wonderful that the God of glory should stoop so low; but we shall one day think it more wonderful that the Man of sorrows should be exalted so high. Earth could find no place too base for him; heaven will scarcely find a place lofty enough for him.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“A Christless sermon is a worthless sermon.” — Charles Spurgeon