Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

We ought to preach Christ very boldly. I recollect a young man going into a pulpit to address a small congregation, and he began by saying that he hoped they would pardon his youth and forgive his impertinence in coming to speak to them. Some foolish old gentleman said, “How humble that young man is to talk like that!” but another, who was wiser though he was younger, said, “What a dishonor this is to his Lord and Master! If God sent him with a message to those people, what does it matter whether he is young or old! Such mock modesty as that is out of place in the pulpit.” I think that second man was right and the first one wrong. A true minister of the gospel is an ambassador for Christ, and do our ambassadors go to foreign courts with apologies for carrying messages from their sovereign? It would be a gross insult to the crown of these realms if they showed such humility as that in their official capacity.

Let ministers of the gospel keep their modesty for other occasions when it ought to be manifested, but let them not dishonor their Master and discredit his message as that silly young man did. When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, stutter, hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed. If a minister is not sure about his message, let him keep quiet until he is sure about it; but we believe and therefore we speak with the accent of conviction. If I have not proved the power of the gospel in my own heart and life, I am a base impostor to be standing in this pulpit to preach that gospel to others; but as I do know most assuredly that I am saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and as I feel certain that I have been divinely called to preach his gospel,

             “Shall I, for fear of feeble man,
             The Spirit’s course in me restrain?
             Or undismay’d in deed and word,
             Be a true witness for my Lord?”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

Our Lord came into this world to destroy all the works of the devil. Behold before you the works of the devil pictured as a grim and horrible castle, massive and terrible, overgrown with the moss of ages, colossal, stupendous, cemented with blood of men, ramparted by mischief and craft, surrounded with deep trenches, and garrisoned with fiends. A structure dread enough to cause despair to every one who goeth round about it to count its towers and mark its bulwarks. In the fulness of time our Champion came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. During his life he sounded an alarm at the great castle, and dislodged here and there a stone, for the sick were healed, the dead were raised, and the poor had the gospel preached unto them. But on the resurrection morning the huge fortress trembled from top to bottom; huge rifts were in its walls; and tottering were all its strongholds. A stronger than the master of that citadel had evidently entered it, and was beginning to overturn, overturn, overturn, from pinnacle to basement. One huge stone, upon which the building much depended, a corner-stone which knit the whole fabric together, was lifted bodily from its bed and hurled to the ground. Jesus tore the huge granite stone of death from its position, and so gave a sure token that every other would follow. When that stone was rolled away from Jesus’ sepulchre, it was a prophecy that every stone of Satan’s building should come down, and not one should rest upon another of all that the powers of darkness had ever piled up, from the days of their first apostacy even unto the end. Brethren, that stone rolled away from the door of the sepulchre gives me glorious hope. Evil is still mighty, but evil will come down.

RESOURCE FOR PASTORS

My book released this week!

Sex and Self-Forgetfulness is a 30-day devotional for married couples. It unpacks God’s design for pure, pleasurable, unifying sex and helps couples live that design out by having honest, careful conversations with one another. I hope this is a resource that can equip you to preach and counsel with confidence. I also hope it’s a book you can put in the hands of people in your church.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“If I should preach to you the atonement of our Lord Jesus, and nothing else, my ministry would not be unprofitable.” — Charles Spurgeon