Charles Spurgeon – The Sine Qua Non of Gospel Ministry

| June 26, 2013

20120713-214637.jpg

That a teacher of the gospel should first be a partaker of it is a simple truth, but at the same time a rule of the most weighty importance… No amount of fees paid to learned doctors, and no amount of classics received in return, appear to us to be evidences of a call from above. True and genuine piety is necessary as the first indispensable requisite; whatever “call” a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry… Conversion is a sine qua non in a minister. Ye aspirants to our pulpits, “ye must be born again.”… Believe me, it is no child’s play to “make your calling and election sure.” The world is full of counterfeits, and swarms with panderers to carnal self-conceit, who gather around a minister as vultures around a carcass. Our own hearts are deceitful, so that truth lies not on the surface, but must be drawn up from the deepest well. We must search ourselves very anxiously and very thoroughly, lest by any means after having preached to others we ourselves should be castaways.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim; 1990) p. 3-4

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – The “Shoddy” Preacher

| August 2, 2012

20120713-214637.jpg

For the herald of the gospel to be spiritually out of order in his own proper person is, both to himself and to his work, a most serious calamity; and yet, my brethren, how easily is such an evil produced, and with what watchfulness must it be guarded against!… It is a terrible thing when the healing balm loses its efficacy through the blunderer who admisters it. You all know the injurious effects frequently produced upon water through flowing along leaden pipes; even so the gospel itself in flowing through men who are spiritually unhealthy, may be debased until it grow injurious to their hearers… Moreover, when a preacher is poor in grace, any lasting good which may be the result of his ministry, will usually be feeble and utterly out of proportion with what might have been expected. Much sowing will be followed by little reaping; the interest upon the talents will be inappreciably small. In two or three of the battles which were lost in the late American war, the result is said to have been due to the bad gunpowder which was served out by certain “shoddy” contractors to the army, so that the due effect of a cannonade was not produced. So it may with us. We may miss our mark, lose our end and aim, and waste our time, through not possesing true vital force within ourselves, or not possesing it in such a degree that God could consitently bless us. Beware of being “shoddy” preachers.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim; 1990) p. 2-3

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – The Culture of the Inner Man

| July 31, 2012

20120713-214637.jpg

It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organise societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war. M’Cheyne, writing to a ministerial friend, who was travelling with a view to perfecting himself in the German tongue, used language identical with our own:–“I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man–I mean of the heart. How diligently the cavalry officer keeps his sabre clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember you are God’s sword, his instrument–I trust, a chosen vessel unto him to bear his name. In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”

~Charles Spurgeon~




Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim; 1990) p. 2

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – Whole-Hearted Christian Ministry

| July 19, 2012

20120713-214637.jpg

The solemn work with which the Christian ministry concerns itself demands a man’s all, and that all at its best. To engage in it half-heartedly is an insult to God and man. Slumber must forsake our eyelids sooner than men shall be allowed to perish

~Charles Spurgeon~




Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim; 1990) p. vi.

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – The Christian Workman

| July 14, 2012

20120713-214637.jpg

Every workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state of repair, for ‘if the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength.’ If the workman lose the edge from his adze, he knows that there will be a greater draught upon his energies, or his work will be badly done. Michael Angelo, the elect of the fine arts, understood so well the importance of his tools, that he always made his own brushes with his own hands, and in this he gives us and illustration of the God of grace, who with special care fashions for himself all true ministers. It is true that the Lord, like Quintin Matsys in the story of the Antwerp well-cover, can work with the faultiest kind of instrumentality, as he does when he occasionally makes very foolish preaching to be useful in conversion; and he can even work without agents, as he does when he saves men without a preacher at all, applying the word directly by his Holy Spirit; but we cannot regard God’s absolutely sovereign acts as a rule for our action. He may, in his own absoluteness, do as pleases him best, but we must act as his plainer dispensations instruct us; and one of the facts which is clear enough is this, that the Lord usually adapts means to ends, from which the plain lesson is, that we shall be likely to accomplish most when we are in the best spiritual condition; or in other words, we shall usually do our Lord’s work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when they are most out of trim.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim; 1990) p. 1

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – Earnestness and Preaching the Gospel

| April 11, 2012

IF I were asked — What in a Christian minister is the most essential quality for securing success in winning souls for Christ? I should reply, “earnestness”: and if I were asked a second or a third time, I should not vary the answer, for personal observation drives me to the conclusion that, as a rule, real success is proportionate to the preacher’s earnestness. Both great men and little men succeed if they are thoroughly alive unto God, and fail if they are not so. We know men of eminence who have gained a high reputation, who attract large audiences, and obtain much admiration, who nevertheless are very low in the scale as soul-winners: for all they do in that direction they might as well have been lecturers on anatomy, or political orators. At the same time we have seen their compeers in ability so useful in the business of conversion that evidently their acquirements and gifts have been no hindrance to them, but the reverse; for by the intense and devout use of their powers, and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, they have turned many to righteousness. We have seen brethren of very scanty abilities who have been terrible drags upon a church, and have proved as inefficient in their spheres as blind men in an observatory; but, on the other hand, men of equally small attainments are well known to us as mighty hunters before the Lord, by whose holy energy many hearts have been captured for the Savior. I delight in M’Cheyne’s remark, “It is not so much great talents that God blesses, as great likeness to Christ.” In many instances ministerial success is traceable almost entirely to an intense zeal, a consuming passion for souls, and an eager enthusiasm in the cause of God, and we believe that in every case, other things being equal, men prosper in the divine service in proportion as their hearts are blazing with holy love. “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God “; and the man who has the tongue of fire, let him be God’s minister.

~Charles Spurgeon~


Lectures to My Students (Pasadena, TX; Pilgrim Publications; 1990) Vol. 2; Lecture 8: Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance; p. 145.

Books by Charles Spurgeon

Biography of Charles Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes at The Old Guys

Charles Spurgeon – Pastors, We Have a Fixed Faith to Preach

| January 6, 2012

We have a fixed faith to preach, my brethren, and we are sent forth with a definite message from God. We are not left to fabricate the message as we go along. We are not sent forth by our Master with a general commission arranged on this fashion — “As you shall think in your heart and invent in your head, so preach. . . .”

Verily, we read not so. There is something definite in the Bible. It is not quite a lump of wax to be shaped at our will, or a roll of cloth to be cut according to the prevailing fashion. . . .

Believing, therefore, that there is such a thing as truth, and such a thing as falsehood, that there are truths in the Bible, and that the gospel consists in something definite which is to be believed by men, it becomes to us decided as to what we teach, and to teach it in a decided manner. We have to deal with men who will be either lost or saved, and they certainly will not be saved by erroneous doctrine. We have to deal with God, whose servants we are, and he will not be honored by our delivering falsehoods. . .

Neither less nor more than God’s Word are we called to state, but that Word we are bound to declare in a spirit which convinces the sons of men that, whatever they may think of it, we believe God, and are not to be shaken in our confidence in him.

~Charles Spurgeon~


Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 2008) p. 265.
(HT: DG)

Read More By Spurgeon

Read More About Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon – Pastors, Drive the Gospel Plough

| October 27, 2011

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.

Read More By Spurgeon

Read More About Spurgeon

Other Spurgeon Quotes