Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

All Christians really are our brother’s keeper. And there are some of us who are our brother’s keeper voluntarily, but yet most solemnly, by the office that we hold. We are ministers. O brother ministers, we are our brother’s keepers.

If the watchman warn them not they shall perish (Ezekiel 33:6). That is an awful sentence to me—“They shall perish.” The next is not so awful sometimes to my heart, but it is very dreadful—“I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood” (Ezekiel 33:6). You cannot enter the Christian ministry without standing where you will want almighty grace to keep you clear of the blood of souls.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe not being at home in this world.

Sometimes, when our friends go to Liverpool to sail for Canada or any other distant region, on the night before they sail they get into a very poor lodging. I think I hear one of them grumbling, “What a hard bed! What a small room! What a bad view!”

“Never mind,” says the other, “we are not going to live here. We are off tomorrow.”

Think in like manner, you children of poverty; this is not your rest. Put up with it, you are away tomorrow.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“A ministry that does not have the blood of Jesus in it is lifeless, and a dead ministry is no good to anybody.” — Charles Spurgeon