Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

Brothers, we will suffer in unique ways as we care for God’s sheep. Whether we deal with back-biting sheep, the attacks of wolves, or the lonely nights on the pasture, God’s undershepherds will face many trials.

I hope that this email encourages you to press on and not grow weary in doing good, reminding you that God has had a purpose in every trial.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

God cannot make ministers without suffering. I say this with reverence of his holy name, he cannot make a Barnabas except in the fire. It is there, and there alone, that he can make his sons of consolation. He may make his sons of thunder anywhere, but his sons of consolation he must make in the fire, and there alone. Who shall speak to those whose hearts are broken, who shall bind up their wounds, but those whose hearts have been broken also and whose wounds have long run with the sore of grief?

If you have faith, you may surely expect that your faith will be tested. The great keeper of the treasures admits no coin to his coffers without testing. It is so in the nature of faith, and so in the order of its living; it does not thrive save in such weather as might seem to threaten its death.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe the importance of Christian sympathy.

Sympathy is especially a Christian’s duty. If no one else had a heart with sympathy for the needy, there should be one found in every Christian’s chest. The Christian is a “king:” it is not right for a king to be stingy towards others as he cares for himself. Was Alexander ever more royal than when, while his troops were suffering from thirst, he put aside a bowl full of the precious liquid, which a soldier offered him, and said it was not fitting for a king to drink while his subjects were thirsty; wasn’t it better for him to share their sorrow with them?

You, whom God has made kings and princes, reign royally over your own selfishness, and act with the honorable liberality which becomes the seed royal of the universe. You are sent into the world to be saviors of others; but how shall you be so if you care only for yourselves? It is yours to be lights; and doth not a light consume itself while it scatters its rays into the thick darkness? Is it not your office and privilege to have it said of you, as of your master, “He saved others, let him save himself.”

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“Our business is to study the Word of God and preach it as we find it.” — Charles Spurgeon