As Spurgeon used all his experiences to shape himself and his preparation. All this was only possible as Spurgeon maintained his walk with the Lord, guarded his time, and made preaching part of his lifestyle. So it is today, as pastors face a busy schedule, we must prioritize the preaching of the Word and give ourselves to preaching excellent, earnest, faithful sermons. 

C.H. Spurgeon, maybe more than any pastor, knew how busy pastoral ministry can be. In addition to preaching four times a week, he led his elders and deacons in caring for a church of five thousand. Together, they visited members, interviewed membership applicants, led prayer meetings, chaired congregational meetings, pursued non-attenders, and much more. Additionally, Spurgeon published a weekly sermon, wrote numerous books, edited a monthly magazine, served as president of The Pastors’ College, oversaw two orphanages, corresponded with hundreds weekly, planted churches, supported denominational efforts, and the list goes on. The scale of Spurgeon’s ministry in the 19th century remains unmatched. But the essence of his work wasn’t all that different from any pastor today: caring for members, leading worship gatherings, training church leaders, overseeing benevolence and evangelistic efforts, engaging in church associations, and, as with Spurgeon, the list just keeps going. To some extent, these are the kinds of things that will fill up every pastor’s task list.
And yet Spurgeon would say that the most important thing to which he gave himself week after week was the preaching of the Word. Spurgeon once said to his students,
Brethren, you and I must, as preachers, be always earnest in reference to our pulpit work. Here we must labor to attain the very highest degree of excellence. Often have I said to my brethren that the pulpit is the Thermopylae of Christendom: there the fight will be lost or won. To us ministers the maintenance of our power in the pulpit should be our great concern, we must occupy that spiritual watch-tower with our hearts and minds awake and in full vigor. It will not avail us to be laborious pastors if we are not earnest preachers.[1]
Just as the future of Greece depended on King Leonidas’ stand against the Persians, so the future of the church depends on the faithful and earnest preaching of the Word of God.
In other words, Spurgeon believed that every other ministry in the church, as important as they were, existed downstream from the pulpit. Rather than all church ministries existing independently of one another, with the corporate gathering simply being one more silo, Spurgeon envisioned the corporate gathering as the central ministry of the church (the “Thermopylae,” if you will). And in that corporate gathering, it is the Word of God preached (and sung and read and prayed) that gives life to God’s people and energizes all the ministries of the church. This vision of the power of God’s Word to revive God’s people drove Spurgeon’s commitment to preaching. Amid the busyness of pastoral ministry, here was the one thing that could not fail. No matter the pressures and responsibilities, for the sake of his people, he had to give himself to preaching excellent sermons.
What advice would Spurgeon give to busy pastors today regarding their preaching? How can we be faithful in this primary responsibility without neglecting other ministerial duties? Here are three ideas.
This would likely be the most important advice Spurgeon would give:
Maintain your walk with the Lord.
This would likely be the most important advice Spurgeon would give:
Too many preachers forget to serve God when they are out of the pulpit, their lives are negatively inconsistent. Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers.[2]
In other words, don’t separate your devotional life from your ministerial duties. Instead, understand that the Holy Spirit must guide your life not only when you are “on the clock” but also in your private life.
Read More
Related Posts:

He came to endure the penalty, he comes to procure the reward. He came to serve, he comes to rule. He came to open wide the door of grace, he comes to shut to the door. He comes not to redeem but to judge; not to save but to pronounce the sentence; not to weep while he invites, but to smile while he rewards; not to tremble in heart while he proclaims grace, but to make others tremble while he proclaims their doom.

Spurgeon lived during a time when the doctrine of the incarnation was being challenged. With the growth of German higher criticism, the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture were increasingly being questioned. The translation of David Strauss’ The Life of Jesus into English in 1846 led many to adopt a rationalistic understanding of the Gospels, stripping it of its supernatural elements. For them, the incarnation was no longer the miraculous joining of the eternal Son of God with our humanity. Instead, it was simply mythical language pointing to the disciples’ high view of their rabbi. Even as Christmas grew in cultural popularity, its meaning was increasingly lost.
But Spurgeon would have none of this. Even as he led his church in celebrating Christmas, Spurgeon made sure that this was a celebration rooted in doctrine. They rejoiced in the arrival of the Son of God, the miracle of the incarnation for their salvation. Jesus was no ordinary man. He is the Word made flesh. And His first coming lays a claim on our lives because He is coming back again.
On his first Christmas Sunday at the newly-built Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861, Spurgeon drove this point home as he chose Hebrews 9:27-28 for his Christmas sermon text: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
His takeaway was this: to understand Christ’s midnight birth rightly, we must see it in the radiance of his second coming. Even as we adore the Savior-infant in the manger, we must recognize He is also the coming Judge and King. What difference would it make in our Christmas celebration if we kept both advents in view?
Consider, then, four ways his second coming will be different from his first.
“How different I say will be his coming.”
At first he came an infant of a span long; now he shall come— “In rainbow-wreath and clouds of storm,” the glorious one.
Then he entered into a manger, now he shall ascend his throne.
Then he sat upon a woman’s knees, and did hang upon a woman’s breast, now earth shall be at his feet and the whole universe shall hang upon his everlasting shoulders.
Then he appeared the infant, now the infinite.
Then he was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, now he comes to glory as the lightning from one end of heaven to the other.
A stable received him then; now the high arches of earth and heaven shall be too little for him.
Horned oxen were then his companions, but now the chariots of God which are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, shall be at his right hand.
Then in poverty his parents were too glad to receive the offerings of gold and frankincense and myrrh; but now in splendor,
King of kings, and Lord of lords, all nations shall bow before him, and kings and princes shall pay homage at his feet. Still he shall need nothing at their hands, for he will be able to say, “If I were hungry I would not tell ye, for the cattle are mine upon a thousand hills.” “Thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field.” “The earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof.”
“There will be a most distinct and apparent difference in his person.”
He will be the same, so that we shall be able to recognize him as the Man of Nazareth, but O how changed!
Where now the carpenter’s smock? Royalty hath now assumed its purple.
Where now the toil-worn feet that needed to be washed after their long journeys of mercy? They are sandaled with light, they “are like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace.”
Where now the cry, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have not where to lay my head?” Heaven is his throne; earth is his foot-stool.
Methinks in the night visions, I behold the day dawning. And to the Son of Man there is given “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him.” Ah! who would think to recognize in the weary man and full of woes, the King eternal, immortal, invisible.
Read More
Related Posts:

Spurgeon understood that there was no programmatic formula for church revitalization. But like Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones, he believed in the power of the Word of God to raise dead church members to life and to make them into an army for gospel ministry.

When Spurgeon first arrived at the New Park Street Chapel in the winter of 1853, the church was dying. But in the coming years, through the preaching of the Word, God would do a remarkable work. With the thousands being drawn to Spurgeon’s ministry, church membership would grow dramatically, elders would be called, and the church would become an engine for gospel ministry throughout the world. It was this vision of the power of God’s Word to revive dying churches that fueled the Pastors’ College.
From the beginning, Spurgeon’s plan “was not only to train students but to found churches,”[1] and this included both church planting and church revitalization. As demographics in London shifted from the city to the suburbs in the 19th century, urban congregations began dwindling. Young pastors were drawn more to church plants in the suburbs than to historic churches in the city. Spurgeon himself recognized that “the resurrection and salvation of an old church is often a more difficult task than to commence a new one.”[2]
At the same time, Spurgeon encouraged his students not to neglect these dying churches. After all, it is God who resurrects and saves, not the student. The privilege of the church revitalizer is to see God work miraculously through His powerful Word.
To encourage his students in church revitalization, Spurgeon once gave two motivations and three practical admonitions for his students.
Motivation 1: Chances are, things will get better.
When you take a dying church, chances are, your ministry will lead to the improvement of the church’s condition.
Brethren, do not be afraid when you go to a place, and find it in a very bad condition. It is a fine thing for a young man to begin with a real downright bad prospect, for, with the right kind of work, there must come an improvement some time or other. If the chapel is all but empty when you go to it, it cannot well be in a much worse state than that; and the probability is that you will be the means of bringing some into the church, and so making matters better.[3]
Spurgeon was not guaranteeing to his students that their ministries in a dying church would always flourish. It is quite possible that under God’s providence, your role might simply be to help that church close well and steward its resources faithfully in that transition. At the same time, the encouragement is that things cannot get much worse than they already are, and yet chances are that under a faithful ministry, the Lord will use you to make things better. As the church brings in a new pastor, as the people are energized under his ministry, as they begin to pray and invite others, the probability is that the Lord will use you to bring new life to the church.
Motivation 2: Chances are, the congregation will love your ministry.
Rather than taking over a successful church and dealing with constant comparisons with previous pastors, a dying congregation will gratefully love the young pastor who comes and serves them sacrificially. This will be especially true as sinners are brought to faith under your ministry.
Read More
Related Posts:

Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder, dear friends, is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship; being astonished at what God has done, you will pour out your soul with astonishment at the foot of the golden throne with the song, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might be unto Him who sitteth on the throne and doeth these great things to me.”

The Christmas season is a time of rest and celebration. But it is also a time of great opportunity. The workplace is filled with Christmas carols and decorations. Family gatherings bring Christians together with their unsaved loved ones. Neighbors exchange gifts and host neighborhood parties. Opportunities to serve the poor and needy abound. In all of this, what better way for Christians to celebrate Christmas than by imitating the example of their Lord and serving those around them, and by dwelling on the love of the Savior? Spurgeon writes,
We citizens of the New Jerusalem, having the Lord Jesus in our midst, may well excuse ourselves from the ordinary ways of celebrating this season; and considering ourselves to be “holy work-folk,” we may keep it after a different sort from other men, in holy contemplation and in blessed service of that gracious God whose unspeakable gift the new-born King is to us.
In his sermon, “Holy Work of Christmas,” Spurgeon unpacks Luke 2:17-20 and gives “four ways of serving God, four methods of executing holy work and exercising Christian thought.” What are four ways we can serve God during Christmas?
By Publishing Abroad What We Have Seen and Heard of the Savior
They had seen God incarnate—such a sight that he who gazeth on it must feel his tongue unloosed, unless indeed an unspeakable astonishment should make him dumb. Be silent when their eyes had seen such a vision! Impossible! To the first person they met outside that lowly stable door they began to tell their matchless tale, and they wearied not till nightfall, crying, “Come and worship! Come and worship Christ, the newborn King!” As for us, beloved, have we also not something to relate which demands utterance? If we talk of Jesus, who can blame us? This, indeed, might make the tongue of him that sleeps to move—the mystery of God incarnate for our sake, bleeding and dying that we might neither bleed nor die, descending that we might ascend, and wrapped in swaddling bands that we might be unwrapped of the grave-clothes of corruption. Here is such a story, so profitable to all hearers that he who repeats it the most often does best, and he who speaks the least hath most reason to accuse himself for sinful silence.
By Holy Wonder, Admiration, and Adoration
Let me suggest to you that holy wonder at what God has done should be very natural to you. That God should consider his fallen creature, man, and instead of sweeping him away with the besom of destruction, should devise a wonderful scheme for his redemption, and that he should himself undertake to be man’s Redeemer, and to pay his ransom price, is, indeed, marvellous! Probably it is most marvellous to you in its relation to yourself, that you should be redeemed by blood; that God should forsake the thrones and royalties above to suffer ignominiously below for you.
Read More
Related Posts:

As Christ was laid where beasts were fed, you will please to recollect that after he was gone beasts fed there again. It was only his presence which could glorify the manger, and here we learn that if Christ were taken away the world would go back to its former heathen darkness. 

Every detail surrounding the incarnation is significant. The virgin birth, the parents from Galilee, the journey to Bethlehem, the line of David, the shepherd, the angels, and many others are all strands woven into the tapestry of God’s work of redemption from the creation of the world. Therefore, every detail is worth meditating on, even the smaller ones. In his sermon, “No Room for Christ in the Inn,” preached on December 21, 1862, Spurgeon meditates on Luke 2:7 and the fact that Christ was born in a stable and laid in a manger. Why is this detail significant? He gives six reasons:
To Show Christ’s Humility
Would it have been fitting that the man who was to die naked on the cross should be robed in purple at his birth? Would it not have been inappropriate that the Redeemer who was to be buried in a borrowed tomb should be born anywhere but in the humblest shed, and housed anywhere but in the most ignoble manner? The manger and the cross standing at the two extremities of the Savior’s earthly life seem most fit and congruous the one to the other. He is to wear through life a peasant’s garb; he is to associate with fishermen; the lowly are to be his disciples; the cold mountains are often to be his only bed; he is to say, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”
To Declare Christ to be the King of the Poor
With what pertinacity will workingmen cleave to a leader of their own order, believing in him because he knows their toils, sympathizes in their sorrows, and feels an interest in all their concerns. Great commanders have readily won the hearts of their soldiers by sharing their hardships and roughing it as if they belonged to the ranks. The King of Men who was born in Bethlehem, was not exempted in his infancy from the common calamities of the poor, nay, his lot was even worse than theirs. I think I hear the shepherds comment on the manger-birth, “Ah!” said one to his fellow, “then he will not be like Herod the tyrant; he will remember the manger and feel for the poor; poor helpless infant, I feel a love for him even now, what miserable accommodation this cold world yields its Savior; it is not a Caesar that is born today; he will never trample down our fields with his armies, or slaughter our flocks for his courtiers, he will be the poor man’s friend, the people’s monarch; according to the words of our shepherd-king, he shall judge the poor of the people; he shall save the children of the needy.”
Read More
Related Posts:

Spurgeon presents a vision for long-term faithfulness. Lectures on ministerial progress, earnestness, and dependence on the Holy Spirit provide a roadmap for a lifetime of faithful ministry. Many today easily get caught up in church-growth metrics and social-media influence; Spurgeon calls pastors to preach the word, work hard, remain prayerful, and entrust the results to God. 
The year is 1875. You’re a second-year student at the Pastors’ College. It’s been a long week of rigorous lectures and study on theology, mathematics, literature, rhetoric, biblical languages, and more. You’ve recently launched an evangelistic mission in a needy district of East London, so many of your evenings have been occupied. And as a member of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, you have meetings to attend and people to disciple. But now, it’s Friday afternoon, your favorite time of the week. Why?
Because this is the time you get to hear from Charles Spurgeon up close.
You’re chatting with your classmates when Spurgeon walks in the classroom with a hearty greeting and a large stack of books in his arms. There he is: the most famous preacher of the century. And yet here, he’s simply your pastor. After a word of prayer and brief preliminaries, Spurgeon begins to work through his stack. Out of his own personal reading, here are books he thinks future pastors should know about: new publications, classic works, Bible commentaries, and works of theology, philosophy, hymnody, science, and all kinds of other genres. Books worthy of investment are commended, while more dubious works are properly cautioned. You’ve always enjoyed this time and taken careful notes. Through Spurgeon’s recommendations, you’ve built a theological library and have been introduced to some of your favorite authors.
Then comes the highlight. As a father among his sons, Spurgeon delivers an hour-long lecture on some aspect of Christian ministry: preaching, sermon preparation, personal holiness, dealing with criticism, praying publicly, and much more. But these aren’t dry, academic lectures. No, these are warm, personal, sometimes hilarious, always instructive talks, drawing from Spurgeon’s personal experience and applying the wisdom and truths of Scripture to the work of a pastor. Soon you will be sent off into the difficult work of pastoral ministry. But the memory of these Friday-afternoon lectures will stay with you for many years to come.
It is from these lectures, given by Spurgeon at the Pastors’ College, that we have his classic work Lectures to My Students.
Golden Counsels
There are four series (or volumes) associated with Lectures. The first contains fourteen lectures, including some of Spurgeon’s most famous lectures on the life of the pastor. These include “The Minister’s Self-Watch,” “The Preacher’s Private Prayer,” and “The Minister’s Fainting Fits.” Several of these lectures also deal with Spurgeon’s favorite topic: preaching. From choosing a text to the importance of the voice, to the danger of wrongly spiritualizing a text, these lectures contain all kinds of practical wisdom from the Prince of Preachers.
The second series contains ten more lectures on an assortment of ministry-related topics, like pastoral growth, preaching for conversions, and dependence on the Holy Spirit. The third series, originally known as The Art of Illustration, contains seven lectures mostly focused on preaching and teaching. Here, Spurgeon teaches on the importance of illustrations and anecdotes, providing wisdom for how to use them and where to find them.
The fourth and final series, also known as Commenting and Commentaries, contains two lectures, one on the importance of “commenting” (public Scripture reading), and the other on the use of commentaries. The rest of the volume offers a catalog of commentaries. Amazingly, Spurgeon provides brief and insightful comments for 1,429 commentaries, on every book of the Bible, covering almost four centuries of Christian scholarship. This was a remarkable achievement in his day, and it stands as a reminder to preachers today of the importance of study.
Read More

In calling all Christians to missions and coming alongside them in discerning the call, Spurgeon sought to mobilize gifted, qualified workers for the mission field. Though Spurgeon never became a missionary, his nearly 40-year ministry in London would mobilize men and women for the harvest and produce missionary efforts a hundredfold beyond what he could have done alone. Pastors and churches today have the same task in front of us: to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. How will you be faithful to the Great Commission?

In the spring of 1861, the newly-constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle opened for services. This magnificent building in London was constructed debt-free and provided a home for the thousands who were coming week after week to hear pastor Charles Spurgeon. But even as Spurgeon celebrated the new meeting space, he was also burdened by a massive spiritual need that existed far beyond London. Preaching in March of 1861, Spurgeon declared,
At this very moment China is open to Christian enterprise… Now, I do honestly avow, if this place had not been built, and I had had nothing beyond the narrow bounds of the place in which I have lately preached, I should have felt in my conscience bound to go to learn the language and preach the Word there; but I now know what to do. I must here abide, for this is my place; but I would to God some were found in the Church, some in London, who have not such a gracious tie as this to keep them in their own land…
Again, in the following month, Spurgeon repeated the same concern,
I have made it a solemn question whether I might not testify in China or India the grace of Jesus, and in the sight of God I have answered it. I solemnly feel that my position in England will not permit my leaving the sphere in which I now am, or else tomorrow I would offer myself as a missionary.
Even as he and his congregation and the broader evangelical community had just built a beautiful new building devoted to his preaching ministry, Spurgeon was wrestling with this important question: Why should he stay? Why shouldn’t he spend his life preaching among those who have no access to the gospel? As he prayed and discerned God’s providence, Spurgeon was convinced that God had called him to pastor this church and continue preaching from the heart of the British empire.
But even if he could not go, Spurgeon would do all he could to mobilize other workers for the harvest. How did he do that? Here are three ways:
Preaching a big vision of God and his victory.
Week after week, Spurgeon confronted his congregation with a big vision of God. God’s glory as revealed in Jesus Christ deserved not only the praise of English-speaking people but people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Not only that, but Spurgeon showed from Scripture that the day is coming when all nations will bow in worship before God.
God hath gotten unto himself the victory over false gods, and taught their worshippers that he is God, and that beside him there is none else. Are there gods still worshipped, or idols before which the nations bow themselves? Wait but a little while, and ye shall see them fall. Cruel Juggernaut, whose ear still crushes in its motion the foolish ones who throw themselves before it, shall yet be the object of derision, and the most noted idols, such as Budha and Brahma, and Vishnu, shall yet stoop themselves to the earth, and men shall tread them down as mire in the streets; for God will teach all men that he is God, and that there is none else.
Christ’s victory over the nations is guaranteed. Therefore, missions is not some fanciful, hopeless task. No, missions is the church’s privilege. Christians on this side of the cross have the opportunity to play a part in the work that God is doing to call the nations to himself.
Jesus Christ said there will be many that will come from the east and from the west. There will be a multitude from that far off land of China, for God is doing a great work there, and we hope that the gospel will yet be victorious in that land.
Read More
Related Posts:

Prayer, as Calvin puts it, is our chief expression of faith. Prayer is how faith is manifested and expressed. If you don’t believe there is a God or that you need God, then you don’t pray. But if you do believe there is a God who hears, if you believe that you need Him, then the way you express that belief is through prayer.

So far in this series on pastoral character, we’ve considered the role of the pastor’s piety and the pastor’s holiness upon his ministry. Those articles have largely been cautionary, warning pastors against the particular temptations that come in ministry. But what should a pastor cultivate positively in order to grow in pastoral character? Spurgeon’s first answer would likely be the importance of cultivating communion with Christ, expressed in the pastor’s private prayer.
The Problem: Ministerialism
One of the greatest dangers that the minister faces is the danger of what Spurgeon calls formalism or officialism or ministerialism. Listen to his description:
The worst [snare a minister can face] is the temptation to ministerialism — the tendency to read our Bibles as ministers, to pray as ministers, to get into doing the whole of our religion as not ourselves personally, but only relatively concerned in it. To lose the personality of repentance and faith is a loss indeed…
I hate ministerialism, yet I often find it creeping upon me. One gets inside a pulpit, and begins to feel that he is not as other men are; but I like, if I can, to preach as a sinner to sinners; as one saved by grace to tell the love which Christ had towards me, the chief of sinners, and “less than the least of all saints.” I do not doubt that, as soon as you get out your little book to take with you, you feel like a missionary, and not simply like a sinner saved by grace. But, I pray you, do not feel like a missionary; feel like a sinner who has been washed in the precious blood of Jesus. You will never do good if you go to your work simply because of your office, [rather than] because of your soul being in it, because your heart yearns toward sinners, because you must have them saved. Strive not against any habits that are good; but against that evil tendency which, somehow or other, Satan, who is exceedingly crafty, manages to cast over our very best habits.
In other words, even as we pursue holiness and fight sin, we have to keep the gospel central. We have to cultivate a deep awareness and sorrow over our personal sin and the temptations of our hearts. We have to live in dependence on God’s grace in Christ. And then we speak as sinners saved by grace. This is how our holiness becomes warm and attractive.
Apart from our own personal grasp of the gospel, all our efforts at piety and holiness will become a stumbling block to our own sanctification and ministry. The strange thing is that people don’t always notice ministerialism in their pastor. The unspiritual people in the congregation won’t mind that their pastor doesn’t demonstrate any spiritual life before them. Even while the minister is just keeping up appearances, a church can have a growing budget and the congregation can be entertained. But in the end, as far as the pastor is concerned, it’s all external rituals and no spiritual life.
Spurgeon describes one such situation:
I read the other day, that no phase of evil presented so marvelous a power for destruction, as the unconverted minister of a parish, with a £1200 organ, a choir of ungodly singers, and an aristocratic congregation. It was the opinion of the writer, that there could be no greater instrument for damnation out of hell than that. People go to their place of worship and sit down comfortably, and think they must be Christians, when all the time all that their religion consists in, is listening to an orator, having their ears tickled with music, and perhaps their eyes amused with graceful action and fashionable manners; the whole being no better than what they hear and see at the opera — not so good, perhaps, in point of aesthetic beauty, and not an atom more spiritual. Thousands are congratulating themselves, and even blessing God that they are devout worshippers, when at the same time they are living in an unregenerate Christless state, having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. He who presides over a system which aims at nothing higher than formalism, is far more a servant of the devil than a minister of God.
May such words never be said of our ministries.
The Answer: Private Prayer
So what’s the solution? How do we fight against formalism? We fight by cultivating our private prayer lives, our communion with God. And Spurgeon particularly emphasizes prayer… Not just Bible reading, but prayer, i.e. communion with Christ.
Read More