Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was England’s best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1854, just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon, then only 20, became pastor of London’s famed New Park Street Church (formerly pastored by the famous Baptist theologian John Gill). The congregation quickly outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000—all in the days before electronic amplification. In 1861 the congregation moved permanently to the newly constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Spurgeon’s printed works are voluminous, and those provided here are only a sampling of his best-known works, including his magnum opus, The Treasury of David. Nearly all of Spurgeon’s printed works are still in print and available from Pilgrim Publications, PO Box 66, Pasadena, TX 77501.
Always hungry for the Word, I have been enjoying the many quotes that people have been using from C. H. Spurgeon. I decided to take a look at a Spurgeon site and start reading some of his sermons.
It is like…wow…the truth…unadulterated messages from the Word itself. Oh, how spirit-filled this man was…you can read and hear it in his words. The words come tumbling out of his mouth as they are truly spoken from the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit filled words. How wonderful!…how….rare!
Seeing, example after example of false prophets, spouting new age ideas, ministering false gospels, I needed to read Spurgeon to assure myself that I knew the truth when it was being truly administered. Someone who knew scripture, who wasn’t turning it into pretzels, with circular reasoning, or snipping off part of a verse off with scissors and pounding it into an ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle of apostasy.
Here Spurgeon speaks of what is expected of the true mininsters of God and about repentance. Here is the link to this sermon, but below are a few timely quotes:
From the Sermon: Apostolic Exhortation.
“Accursed let him be that takes away from the gospel of Jesus Christ that he may win popular applause, or who bates his breath and smoothes his tongue that he may please the unholy throng. Such a man may have for a moment the approbation of fools, but, as the Lord his God liveth, he shall be set as a target for the arrows of vengeance in the day when the Lord cometh to judge the nations. Peter, then, boldly and earnestly preached the gospel—preached the Christ of the gospel—preached it personally and directly at the crowd who were gathered around him.”
“Oh! blessed readiness of a soul on fire with the Spirit, Lord, grant it to us evermore.”
“The object of the Christian minister should always be to withdraw attention from himself to his subject, so that it should not be said, “How well he spake!” but, “Upon what weighty matters he treated!” They are priests of Baal, who, with their gaudy dresses, and their pretensions to a mysterious power, would have you look to themselves as the channels of grace, as though by their priestcraft, if not by their holiness, they could work miracles; but they are true messengers of God who continually say, “Look not on us as though we could do anything: the whole power to bless you lies in Jesus Christ, and in the gospel of his salvation.”
“Go on, my dear brethren, preaching the gospel boldly, and be not afraid of the result, for, however little may be your strength, and though your eloquence may be as nought, yet God has promised to make his gospel the power to save, and so it shall be down to the world’s end.”
“We are not come to tell you that you must reform a little, and mend your ways in some degree: except you put your trust in Christ, forsake your old way of life, and become new creatures in Christ Jesus, you must perish. This—nothing short of this—is the gospel requirement. No church-going, no chapel-going, will save you; no bowing of the knee, no outward form of worship, no pretensions and professions to godliness- ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and if ye do not this, neither shall your sins be blotted out. Thus much, then, on the first point: the apostle commanded men to repent and be converted.”
“When our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the tree by sinners, sin only did then literally and openly what all sin really does in a spiritual sense. Do you understand me? Those offendings of yours which you have thought so little of, have been really a stabbing at the Deity. Will you not repent, if it be so? While you thought your sins to be mere trifles, light things to be laughed at, you would not repent; but now I have shown you (and I think your conscience will bear me out) that every sin is really an attempt to thrust God out of the world, that every sin is saying, “Let there be no God.” Oh! then there is cause enough to repent of it.”
Oh Lord, I pray that those who are involved in false ministries will have their eyes opened to the truth. I pray that false teachers will see the result of their rotting fruit, and repent of their sin. Amen.
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January 2, 2008 at 5:08 am
Peg
Not bad, those Brits, eh? 🙂
I did some research and writing about British saints & martyrs a little while back and included Spurgeon as one of them. Here’s a link to a few more Spurgeon quotes:
http://home.comcast.net/~pegbowman/BritishSaints/SpurgeonCharlesH.htm
BTW one of my favorite quotes from around the same time period is from William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. When asked what he thought the church’s greatest challenge would be in the 1900s, he answered:
“I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”
January 2, 2008 at 6:31 pm
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[…] gospel wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe congregation quickly outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10000—all in the days before electronic amplification. … […]
January 4, 2008 at 7:49 am
Mary
Kim
Between reading Spurgeon and Paul Washer I just want to burry my head in the sand. Ouch. If only there were more preachers preaching like this today. Spurgeon really makes modern American christianity look pathetic.
January 4, 2008 at 8:34 am
Kim
Boy do i ever agree!!! AMEN!
January 4, 2008 at 9:19 pm
IWanthetruth
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/leading_the_way/
Listen to this by Dr. Youseff. Man it is excellent and if he keeps following his line of thought this should be a great sermon series to have in ones labrary.