Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Under God’s shepherding, his saints are fed and filled. God does not feed us with a windy, unsatisfying mess of mere human “thought;” but the Lord feeds us with the solid, substantial truth of divine revelation. There is real nourishment for the soul in Scripture brought home to the heart by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, himself, is the true life-sustaining food of believers. Here our great shepherd promises that such sacred nourishment will be given to us by his own self. If, on Sunday, our earthly shepherd is empty-handed, the Lord is not.

When filled with holy truth, the mind rests. Those whom the Lord feeds are at peace. No dog shall worry them, no wolf shall devour them, no restless inclination to worry shall disturb them. They shall lie down and digest the food that they have enjoyed. The doctrines of grace are not only sustaining, but consoling; in them we have the means for building up and lying down. If preachers do not give us rest, let us look to the Lord for it.

This day may the Lord cause us to feed in the pastures of the Word, and make us to lie down in them. May no folly, and no worry, but meditation and peace mark this day.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe why the four gospels are different.

When we read the four Gospels, we notice that they contain just those little differences that prove the men to have been honest. If you set four men to tell a story, they will all tell it differently even though each one of them speaks the truth, for each of them will look at the matter from a different standpoint. If all four of them spoke in exactly the same words, and there were no apparent discrepancies between them, you would know that they had put their heads together and concocted the tale in order to deceive their hearers. A judge in court would soon find them out, and he would say, “That is a trumped up story,” so none of them go an inch beyond the other for fear they should contradict one another, and so be found out.

But the four Evangelists differ in their statements only as honest men must necessarily differ if they are independent witnesses; and their agreement in the facts to which they testify helps to confirm their witness, and to make assurance doubly sure.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“You may invite men to listen to your message, but you are only inviting them to gaze upon an empty table unless Christ is the very center and substance of all that you set before them.” — Charles Spurgeon