Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

To divide a sermon well may be a very useful art, but how if there is nothing to divide? A mere division maker is like an excellent carver with an empty dish before him. To be able to deliver an exordium which shall be appropriate and attractive, to be at ease in speaking with propriety during the time allotted for the discourse, and to wind up with a respectable conclusion, may appear to mere religious performers to be all that is requisite; but the true minister of Christ knows that the true value of a sermon must lie, not in its fashion and manner, but in the truth which it contains.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe God’s preserving work.

There are some spots, I believe, on some of the more difficult Swiss mountains where no man ought to go at all, I think, and where, if any must go, they should be only such as have become most accomplished mountaineers through years of practice. For one has to cling to the rock side, to hold on, perhaps, by bushes or stones that may be there, with nothing for the feet to rest on except, perhaps, an inch of projecting crag. And so we go creeping on with our backs to the danger, for to look down upon it would be to make the brain reel and cause us to fall. And the result of falling, of course, would be the end of life—the body would be dashed into a thousand pieces.

Such is truly the way to heaven. You must all have passed some such difficult places, and, in looking back, I can only myself say, “Unto him that has kept me from falling, when my feet had nearly gone, and my steps had almost slipped, unto him be glory forever and ever.”

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“Yes, it is Christ, Christ, Christ whom we have to preach; and if we leave him out, we leave out the very soul of the gospel.” — Charles Spurgeon