Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

The needs of the church in all ages will be the same and the supplies for the Church’s wants will never vary. There will be the table still, and the table with the same food upon it—bread still, nothing more than bread for food; wine still, nothing less than wine for drink. The church will always want the same food, the same Christ, the same gospel.

Out on ye, traitors, who tell us that we are to shape our gospel to suit this enlightened nineteenth century! Out on ye, false-hearts, who would have us tone down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance! No, that truth, which of old was mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, is mighty still, and we will maintain it to the death; the church needs the doctrines of grace today as much as when Paul, or Augustine, or Calvin preached them; the church needs justification by faith, the substitutionary atonement, and regeneration, and divine sovereignty to be preached from her pulpits as much as in days of yore, and by God’s grace she shall have them, too.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the Ten Commandments.

It must be a terrible thing to stand in front of a row of soldiers, knowing that every one of their rifles contains a bullet that is meant for your heart, but the condemnation of a sin-burdened conscience is worse than that. The ten great guns of the law of God are all aimed at the poor sinner; and there he stands, dreading the doom that he knows he deserves, for the justice of God has but to lift its finger, and swift and awful would be the punishment which his sin would bring upon him.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.” — Charles Spurgeon