Charles Spurgeon – Preaching and Unction

One thing more, and it is this. Let us, dear brethren, try to get saturated with the gospel. I always find that I can preach best when I can manage to lie a-soak in my text. I like to get a text, and find out its meaning and bearings, and so on; and then, after I have bathed in it, I delight to lie down in it, and let it soak into me. It softens me, or hardens me, or does whatever it ought to do to me, and then I can talk about it. You need not be very particular about the words and phrases if the spirit of the text has filled you; thoughts will leap out, and find raiment for themselves. Become saturated with spices, and you will smell of them; a sweet perfume will distill from you, and spread itself in every direction; — we call it unction. Do you not love to listen to a brother who abides in fellowship with the Lord Jesus? Even a few minutes with such a man is refreshing, for, like his Master, his paths drop fatness. Dwell in the truth, and let the truth dwell in you. Be baptized into its spirit and influence, that you may impart thereof to others. If you do not believe the gospel, do not preach it, for you lack an essential qualification; but even if you do believe it, do not preach it until you have taken it up into yourself as the wick takes up the oil. So only can you be a burning and a shining light.


~Charles Spurgeon~


An All Around Ministry (eBook. www.grace-ebooks.com) Chapter: How to Meet the Evils of the Age

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Charles Spurgeon – The Effectual Call of Grace

The effectual call of Grace is precisely similar [to the call to Lazarus to come forth]; the sinner is dead in sin; he is not only in sin but dead in sin, without any power whatever to give to himself the life of grace. Nay, he is not only dead, but he is corrupt; his lusts, like the worms, have crept into him, a foul stench rises up into the nostrils of justice, God abhors him, and justice cries, “Bury the dead out of my sight, cast it into the fire, let it be consumed.” Sovereign Mercy comes, and there lies this unconscious, lifeless mass of sin; Sovereign Grace cries, either by the minister, or else directly without any agency, by the Spirit of God, “come forth!” and that man lives. Does he contribute anything to his new life? Not he—his life is given solely by God. He was dead, absolutely dead, rotten in his sin; the life is given when the call comes, and, in obedience to the call, the sinner comes forth from the grave of his lust, and begins to live a new life, even the life eternal, which Christ gives to His sheep.


~Charles Spurgeon~


Predestination and Calling (Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington) Excerpted From A Sermon Delivered on March 6th, 1859

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Charles Spurgeon – Pastors, Drive the Gospel Plough

We [pastors] depend entirely upon the Spirit of God to produce actual effect from the gospel, and at this effect we must always aim. We do not stand up in our pulpits to display our skill in spiritual sword play, but We come to actual fighting: our object is to drive the sword of the Spirit through men’s hearts. If preaching can ever in any sense be viewed as a public exhibition, it should be like the exhibition of a ploughing match, which consists in actual ploughing. The competition does not lie in the appearance of the ploughs, but in the work done; so let ministers be judged by the way in which they drive the gospel plough, and cut the furrow from end to end of the field.

~Charles Spurgeon~


Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 2008) Vol. 3. Lecture 1: The Holy Spirit in Connection With Our Ministry.

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Charles Spurgeon – Learning to Spell ‘Free Grace’

I have known some that, at first conversion, have not been very clear in the gospel, who have been made evangelical by their discoveries of their own need of mercy. They could not spell the word ‘grace.’ They began with a G, but they very soon went on with an F, till it spelt very like ‘freewill’ before they had done with it.

But after they have learned their weakness, after they have fallen into serious fault, and God has restored them, or after they have passed through deep depression of mind, they have sung a new song. In the school of repentance they have learned to spell. They began to write the word ‘free,’ but they went on from free, not to ‘will’ but to ‘grace.’ And there it stood in capitals, ‘FREE GRACE’. . . . They became clearer in their divinity, and truer in their faith than ever they were before.

~Charles Spurgeon~


The Forgotten Spurgeon (Edinburgh, Scotland; Banner of Truth Trust; 1966) p. 69-70. (HT: Dane Ortlund)

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Book of the Week


Charles Spurgeon’s: The Treasury of David


An incredible resource on the Psalms that can be used for sermon prep as well as a devotional help.

From the Publisher:

Spurgeon’s own commentary on every verse of the Psalms is extremely insightful, and by itself it would have been rich enough for posterity. But there’s much more in The Treasury of David. You’ll find a wealth of illuminating extracts and quotes from hundreds of commentators and contemporaries of Spurgeon as well as the great Puritan expositors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Preachers and teachers will appreciate the homiletical hints on almost every verse, concise sermon outlines, and provocative seed thoughts. Useful bibliographies and an index of authors offer more practical help. Whether you’re teaching on the Psalms, studying them for personal devotions, or simply intrigued by the writings of Spurgeon, you’ll enjoy this splendid classic”

From Spurgeon.org:

“This work was first published in weekly installments over a twenty-year span in the London Metropolitan Tabernacle’s periodical, The Sword and the Trowel. Completed sections were released volume by volume, until the seventh and final volume was released in 1885. Within a decade more than 120,000 sets had been sold. The Treasury of David is a superb literary achievement. Eric Hayden, pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle a century after Spurgeon’s ministry began there, calls this work ‘Spurgeon’s magnum opus.’ Spurgeon’s wife said that if Spurgeon had never written any other work, this would have been a permanent literary memorial.”


Get the three volume set at WTSBooks here.

View it on the web here.

Download a PDF Copy here.


Charles Spurgeon – God’s Sovereign Grace

I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that if God had left me alone and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone.

I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Diving grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him.

~Charles Spurgeon~


A Defense of Calvinism (eBook. www.spurgeongems.org) p. 1.

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Charles Spurgeon – The King Who Reigns in Righteousness

Spurgeon Bio

“The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” He is the lawful monarch of all things that be. His rule is founded in right, its law is right, its result is right. Our King is no usurper and no oppressor. Even when he shall break his enemies with a rod of iron, he will do no man wrong ; his vengeance and his grace are both in conformity with justice. Hence we trust him without suspicion ; he cannot err ; no affliction is too severe, for he sends it ; no judgment too harsh, for he ordains it. O blessed hands of Jesus! The reigning power is safe with you. All the just rejoice in the government of the King who reigns in righteousness.

~Charles Spurgeon~


The Treasury of David Vol. 1 (Peabody, Maryland; The Hendrikson Publisher; 1988) p. 318 – Commentary on Psalm 45:6.

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Charles Spurgeon – God on His Throne

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6. “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” To whom can this be spoken but our Lord ? The Psalmist cannot restrain his adoration. His enlightened eye sees in the royal Husband of the church. God, God to be adored, God reigning, God reigning everlastingly. Blessed sight! Blind are the eyes that cannot see God in Christ Jesus! We never appreciate the tender condescension of our King in becoming one flesh with his church, and placing her at his right hand, until we have fully rejoiced in his essential glory and deity. What a mercy for us that our Saviour is God, for who but a God could execute the work of salvation? What a glad thing it is that he reigns on a throne which will never pass away, for we need both sovereign grace and eternal love to secure our happiness. Could Jesus cease to reign we should cease to be blessed, and were he not God, and therefore eternal, this must be the case. No throne can endure for ever, but that on which God himself sitteth.

~Charles Spurgeon~


The Treasury of David Vol. 1 (Peabody, Maryland; The Hendrikson Publisher; 1988) p. 315 – Commentary on Psalm 45:6.

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Charles Spurgeon – The Holy Spirit

We are so much accustomed to talk about the influence of the Holy Ghost and his sacred operations and graces, that we are apt to forget that the Holy Spirit is truly and actually a person–that he is a subsistence–an existence; or, as we Trinitarians usually say, one person in the essence of the Godhead. I am afraid that, though we do not know it, we have acquired the habit of regarding the Holy Ghost as an emanation flowing from the Father and the Son, but not as being actually a person himself. I know it is not easy to carry about in our mind the idea of the Holy Spirit as a person. I can think of the Father as a person, because his acts are such as I can understand. I see him hang the world in ether; I behold him swaddling a new-born sea in bands of darkness; I know it is he who formed the drops of hail, who leadeth forth the stars by their hosts, and calleth them by their name; I can conceive of Him as a person, because I behold his operations. I can realize Jesus, the Son of Man, as a real person, because he is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It takes no great stretch of my imagination to picture the babe in Bethlehem, or to behold the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” of the king of martyrs, as he was persecuted in Pilate’s hall, or nailed to the accursed tree for our sins. Nor do I find it difficult at times to realize the person of my Jesus sitting on his throne in heaven; or girt with clouds and wearing the diadem of all creation, calling the earth to judgment, and summoning us to hear our final sentence. But when I come to deal with the Holy Ghost, his operations are so mysterious, his doings are so secret, his acts are so removed from everything that is of sense, and of the body, that I cannot so easily get the idea of his being a person; but a person he is. God the Holy Ghost is not an influence, an emanation, a stream of something flowing from the Father; but he is as much an actual person as either God the Son, or God the Father.

~Charles Spurgeon~


Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 4; Titled: The Personality of the Holy Spirit; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 21, 1855.

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Charles Spurgeon – Life Proved by Love

So, Brothers and Sisters, if we can say that we love God’s people, as God’s people, because they are God’s people, that is a mark that we have passed from death unto life! Do you love them for Christ’s sake? Do you say to yourself, “That is one of Christ’s people. That is one who bears Christ’s Cross. That is one of the children of God and, therefore, I love him and take delight in his company”? Then that is an evidence that you are not of the world. If you were, you would love the world, but, belonging to Christ, you love those who are Christ’s and you love them for Christ’s sake.

~Charles Spurgeon~


Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 44, Sermon No. 2556; Titled: Life Proved by Love; Delivered on Thursday Evening, January 18, 1883.

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