Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Let God gather in multitudes of sinners, but who will answer for the blood of those people whom have been swept into eternity while we have been going on in our fashion, content to go along the path of propriety and walk around the path of dull routine, but never weeping for sinners, never agonizing for souls.

All the ministers of Christ are not awake to the urgency of evangelism yet; but the most of them are. There has come a glad time of awakening, the trumpet has been set to their ear, and the people have heard the sound also, and times of refreshing are coming from the presence of the Lord our God; but they have not come before they were needed, for we greatly required them; otherwise surely the church of Christ would have died away into dead formality, and if her name had been remembered, it would have been as a shame and a hissing upon the face of the earth.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe passionate evangelism.

A bird when it is sitting on its eggs, or when the little ones are newly hatched, has about it a mother-spirit, so that it devotes all its life to the feeding of its little ones. Other birds may be taking their pleasure on the wing, but this bird sits still the life-long day and night, or else its only flights are to provide for gaping mouths that seem to be never filled.

A passion has taken possession of the bird, and something like it comes over the true soul winner. He could gladly die to win souls. He pines, he pleads, he plods to bless those on whom his heart is set. If these could only be saved he would pawn half his heaven for it. Indeed, and sometimes in moments of enthusiasm he is ready to barter heaven altogether to win souls, and, like Paul, he could wish himself accursed so that they were only saved (Romans 9:3).

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“When we get to the end of our ministry, one of our regrets will be that we did not preach more of Christ.” — Charles Spurgeon