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“It is no unusual thing for a little child to be the god of the family—and wherever that is the case, there is a rod laid up in store in that house.
You cannot make idols of your children without finding out, sooner or later, that God makes them into rods with which He will punish you for
your idolatry!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3025
“The advent of Christ brings to the heart celestial beauty! Faith in Him decks us with ornaments and clothes us as with royal apparel! Better
garments than Dives had, though he wore scarlet and fine linen, does Christ give to His people when He comes to them! And better fare than
Dives had, though he fared sumptuously every day, does Jesus bestow upon His saints when he shines into their hearts! Oh, the glory of the sunrise
of the Savior on the darkness of the human soul!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2947
“‘With God all things are possible,’ which means not only that God can do all things, but that we also can do all things when God is with
us!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2963
“I have seen and often is my spirit melted at the sight of one whose sufferings seldom abate, yet whose desire to serve God never abates, but rather
increases and who would give anything if activity might take the place of patience. Blessed be those weak ones whom the Lord elects to suffer, yet
who still seek to serve Him! And blessed are those who actively serve Him, yet sit humbly at His feet and feel that they are less than nothing and
who weep tears of joy to think that God should so honor such poor worms as they are as to permit them to do anything for His dear name’s
sake!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3049
“I am always pleased to see our dear Brothers and Sisters diligent in the service of Christ. I am glad to miss many of you on the Lord’s-Day evening
when I know how well you are engaged. I could spare a few more of you if you were intent upon teaching the young, or exhorting those who
are out of the way. But I earnestly admonish you never to be negligent of your own souls while you are vigilant for the souls of others! If you do
not get nourished with the Bread of Life yourselves, you cannot grow in Grace.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2914
“O Sirs, mere words strung together, whether they are in Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or English, are of no avail before God! It is the utterance
of the heart that He hears, and you must never imagine that there is any excellence in a certain arrangement of letters and sounds, or that certain
men, by the use of these words, can bring down blessings from above!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“There is a so-called ‘regeneration’ by a priestly ceremony which leaves the man or the child as unregenerate as he was before the ceremony had
been performed! But the regeneration by the Holy Spirit entirely changes the nature of the pea-son concerned and bestows upon him or her a new
heart and a right spirit. To have this high privilege is to have one of the choicest gifts of Heaven—indeed, it is that which is essential to the enjoyment
of all other blessings!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“There have been many remedies recommended by various quacks—some have come with their so-called ‘sacraments.’ Some with their ceremonies,
some with their philosophies—but they are all quacks and their medicines have no healing power! The only cure for the wounds of sin is to
be found in the stripes of Jesus.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2887
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“Some people are much too big to go through Heaven’s gate. They are so wise, in their own estimation, that they are not willing to be taught
even by Infinite Wisdom. Their judgment is so accurate, their intelligence is so clear, that they will not submit to be instructed by Him who is the
very Wisdom of God. They think that they have within themselves the power to draw an Infallible distinction between right and wrong, between
the Truth of God and error—and they will not allow even the Almighty to dictate to them, and to be the Arbiter of their lives. Ah, Brothers and
Sisters, this is a sad state for anyone to be in! But it is a hopeful sign when we are teachable. If you are so, you are ‘not far from the Kingdom of
God.’”—Volume 52, Sermon #2989
“Do you remember a touching story, told some years ago, of a poor mother with her two little fatherless children? On a cold winter’s night they
discovered an empty house, into which they went for shelter. There was an old door standing by itself, and the mother took it, placed it across a
corner of the room, and told the children to creep behind it so as to get a little protection from the cold wind. One of the children said, ‘Oh
Mother, what will those poor children do that haven’t got any door to set up to keep out the wind?’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3025
“The Son of Man, none other than He who said, “I am meek and lowly of heart,” has come to seek and to save the lost.”—Volume 53, Sermon
#3050
“Perhaps you remember Mr. Whitfield’s speech to his brother who had long been in distress of mind, who said at last, across the table, ‘George, I
am lost.’ George said, ‘I am glad to hear it,’ and answering his brother’s startled expression, he continued, ‘because the Son of Man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost.’ That brief utterance of the Gospel lifted his brother out of despair into a clear and abiding hope in Jesus
Christ!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2925
“You know that in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease should pollute the
whole district. And Hell is God’s leper colony where sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope!”—Volume 53,
Sermon #3069
“Many professing Christians come to God’s House to sleep and then go home to sleep. They walk about sleeping, sleeping with their eyes open,
spiritually sleeping while they are wide awake about mere secular matters. But it is as comfort to know that, while professors sleep and lambs
sleep, Jesus still goes, spiritually, to the Mount of Olives. The only hope for the slumbering Church is the wakeful Savior!”—Volume 52, Sermon
#3003
“Some people seem to be afraid lest we should be the means of saving some of the non-elect—but that is a fear which never troubles either my
head or my heart, for I know that with all the effort and preaching in the world, we shall never bring more to Christ than Christ has had given to
Him by His Father!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2937
“It is an astounding thing and a great proof of human depravity that men do not themselves seek salvation. They even deny the necessity of it and
would sooner run away than be partakers of it!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3050
“‘By their fruits shall you know them,’ is an Infallible test of doctrines as well as of disciples! And if any of you have embraced any form of doctrine
which hinders you from being watchful, prayerful, careful and anxious to avoid sin, you have embraced error and not the Truth of God, for
all God’s building tends towards holiness, towards carefulness, towards a gracious walk to the praise and Glory of God!”—Volume 50, Sermon
#2904
“None but the Spirit of God can make a man call himself a sinner and mean it. Nothing but the Irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit can ever
bring a man as low as the Word of God would have him lie. If you can feel, in your soul, tonight, that your iniquity is great, that it deserves
God’s wrath, displeasure and punishment—if you can pray from your very heart, ‘O Lord, pardon You my iniquity, for it is great’—I shall have
hope of you that the first sparks of the Divine Light have fallen into your soul, never to be quenched, but to blaze out in the brightness of salvation
forever!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2988
“To preach to sinners a salvation which they cannot obtain would be to tantalize them. We do not so, but to every person in this Tabernacle
tonight and to everyone anywhere else whom this message may reach, we have to say this, ‘If you will confess your sins to God and then put your
trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, you shall be saved—even you, whoever you are, and whatever sins you may have committed!’”—Volume 53, Sermon
#3069
“O you who profess to serve the Lord, mind that you serve Him faithfully, for it is ‘the living God’ whom you serve, the God who is not to be
mocked with hypocritical service! O you who know that you are not reconciled to Him, remember that it is to ‘the living God’ that you are not
reconciled! And recollect that solemn and true declaration, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ And that other, ‘Our
God is a consuming fire.’”—Volume 51, Sermon #2964
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“Some say, ‘If the people want to hear the Gospel, let them go to church or chapel—they can always hear the Gospel when they like.’ That is not
Christ’s way! We are to go and seek them! Open-air preaching is a blessed institution and though you may block up a thoroughfare sometimes, it
is better to do that than that the thoroughfare to Hell should be crowded!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3050
“O dear Friends, all this is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There is far more power with God in the humble acknowledgment
of sinfulness than in a boastful claim of cleanliness—much more power in pleading that Grace will forgive than in asking that Justice should
reward—when we plead our emptiness and sin, we plead the truth—but when we talk about our goodness and meritorious doings, we plead a
lie! And lies can never have any power in the Presence of the God of Truth.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“There is a wide difference between physical force and spiritual force. God does not save an unwilling man, but He makes him willing in the day
of His power.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2880
“The aim, end, and objective of God in salvation is to glorify His own character! Therefore, if His choice may be said to be guided by any principles
which we can at all understand, that choice would be guided to select those who would the most magnify His Grace and glorify His own
name. Well now, if God would do that great work of pardoning sin in such a way as to glorify His own name, the most fitting persons to be saved
are the biggest sinners!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2988
“You can be sure of this, though the devil may come out against you and assail you in fashion which shall utterly stagger you, God has not forgotten
you! Jesus has gone up on high and He is pleading for you that in this, your time of utmost weakness and need, the Grace of God shall be
sufficient for you and make a way of escape for you out of all your troubles and temptations!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3003
“The idolatrous church of Rome calls itself the only true church, outside which none can find salvation, but although the church in Rome was
once a bright and glorious church, God forsook it and for many a day it has been the very center of apostasy and abomination!”—Volume 53,
Sermon #3051
“Some of you have been to everybody else for salvation except to the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been to Rome and you have been to Oxford, and
you have been to self and I hardly know where you have not been! Yet, notwithstanding that, you may come to Christ even now! He will not
refuse you even now! Going to Canterbury has not saved you, but going to Calvary can. You have found no help in the city on the seven hills, but
you may find immediate help on the little hill outside Jerusalem’s gate—the little mound called Calvary, where the Savior shed His precious
blood for all who will put their trust in Him!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3069
“A church in agony for souls wants only to see men converted—she does not care how or by whom the work is done as long as the people are
brought to Christ! Then is the Lord alone exalted.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2922
“If Christ did ask anything of you or me, if He did but ask repentance of us, unless He gave us that repentance, His salvation would be of no use to
us! But He asks nothing. All He bids us do is to take Him as everything—and be nothing ourselves. So, to the empty-handed sinner, He is such a
full Christ that we may well say, ‘He is like a morning without clouds.’”—Volume 51, Sermon #2947
“There is not a true minister of Christ but would willingly lay himself down to die if he could thereby see multitudes saved from eternal wrath!
We live for this. If we miss this, our life is a failure. What is the use of a minister unless he brings souls to God? For this we would yearn over you
and draw near unto God in secret, that He would be pleased in mercy to deliver you!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3070
“Remember, Sinner, that there will never be a tear of acceptable repentance in your eyes till you have first looked to Jesus Christ!”—Volume 50,
Sermon #2901
“Praising God is one of the best ways of keeping away murmuring!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3025
“There are some of you who are in trouble and probably your chief trouble arises from the fact that you will not absolutely submit to the Lord’s
will. I pray that the Holy Spirit may enable you to do so, for trouble loses all its sting when the troubled one yields to God!”—Volume 50, Sermon
#2893
“There is room in Christ’s heart for all who come to Him, so let many come now.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3051
“Almost saved is altogether lost! There are many in Hell who once were almost saved, but who are now altogether damned. Think of that, you
who are not far from the Kingdom. It is being in the Kingdom that saves the soul, not being near the Kingdom.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2989
“Christians, being born-again—born from above—become as little children, otherwise they could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. They were
very great people once, but they are very little now. They thought, at one time, that they were really growing as they grew bigger in their own
estimation, but now they understand that they are growing in the best fashion when they are growing smaller!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
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“The seal of an American Missionary Society is an ax standing between an altar and a plow, with the motto, ‘Ready for either’—ready to work in
God’s field yoked to the plow, or ready to fall beneath God’s sacrificial axe and to smoke upon God’s altar—ready, with Paul, to be offered up
when the time of our departure is at hand! We have not a true idea of the rights of God over us, or even of our own condition before Him unless
we feel that we are the sheep of His pasture and that He may do with us exactly as He wills.”—Volume 52, Sermon #3006
“We go down to our graves, as Esther went to her bath of spices, to be prepared for the embrace of the great King! And, in the morning of the
Resurrection, this poor body of ours, all fair and lustrous, shall be reunited with our glorified spirit and we shall behold the face of the King in
His beauty and be with Him forever and ever! ‘God is not the God of the dead’ and, therefore, those of whom He is the God will never die!”—
Volume 51, Sermon #2964
“I tell you, though you are poor and ignorant, and perhaps can scarcely read a word in the Bible—for all that, you may be better instructed in
the things of God than doctors of divinity if you go to the Holy Spirit and are taught of Him!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2990
“Oh, you can sing, even by the rivers of Babylon, if you have but faith! You may lie on your sick bed and feel great pain, yet your spirit shall not
smart, but shall dance away your pain if your heart is but looking in simple confidence to Christ.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2890
“Brothers and Sisters, praise is God’s due when He takes as well as when He gives, for there is as much love in His taking as in His giving! The
kindness of God is quite as great when He smites us with His rod as when He kisses us with the kisses of His mouth. If we could see everything as
He sees it, we would often perceive that the kindest possible thing He can do to us is that which appears to us to be unkind.”—Volume 53, Sermon
#3025
“The Gospel teaches, indeed, that when a man believes in Christ, the sin of the past is all blotted out and Christ’s righteousness is given to him so
the man is not saved by what he is, nor damned for who he was, but he is ‘saved through Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ alone.’”—Volume
51, Sermon #2938
“The way of sense is to get everything now—the way of faith is to get everything in God’s time. The worldly man lives on the present—the
Christian lives on the future.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3072
“If anyone asks, ‘How can a man have power with God?’ The answer is, ‘Not because the power is in him, but he can have power with God by
reason of something that is in God.’”—Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“It is the Word of God that will restore you, Backslider. I hope it will do so this very hour and that, soon, you will come to us, and say, ‘Take me
into the Church again, for the Lord has restored me to fellowship with Him through His blessed Word.’”—Volume 50, Sermon #2870
“I have heard it said that a sinner sucks in happiness, such as it is, with the mouth of an insect, but that a Believer drinks in bliss with the mouth
of an angel—and it is so.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2879
“There are countries where there is found salt from which the pungency has completely gone. It is an altogether useless article and if there are
men who ever did possess the Grace of God, and who were truly God’s people, if the Divine life could go out of them, they would be in an utterly
hopeless case. Perhaps there are no powers of evil in the world greater than apostate churches—who can calculate the influence for evil that the
Church of Rome exercises in the world today?”—Volume 53, Sermon #3069
“Beloved, we must not confuse the Persons of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God, is not the Holy Spirit.
They are two distinct Persons of the one Godhead. But there is such a wonderful unity and the blessed Spirit acts so marvelously as the Vicar of
Christ, that it is quite correct to say that when the Spirit comes, Jesus comes, too.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2990
“Midnight services, hunting after the poor sinners in the streets at midnight, the opening of Ragged Schools and Reformatories—all these things
are the fulfilling of the word, ‘The Son of Man is come to seek that which was lost.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3050
“We must be looking for Christ to reveal the exceeding riches of His Grace and Glory—not after vanities to display the pleasure of this present
evil world—or else our souls will soon lose the force and strength of piety and we shall have good reason to cry, ‘Quicken me in Your way.’”—
Volume 53, Sermon #3026
“Oh, that God would teach us, by His Grace, to estimate the true value of our actions, not by their outward appearance, but by the desire of our
heart that prompts us to them. For if we are kept back from sin merely by motives of respectability, or because our fellows are looking upon us,
we are as guilty before God as if we had actually committed the sin because our heart still goes after its filthy idols!”—Volume 52, Sermon
#3006
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“There is no sleep in Hell. Oh, what a blessing sleep would be if it could enter the habitation of the damned!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3072
“Self-righteousness often lies concealed far down in the heart of man—but whenever he ventures to speak it out, the very way in which he talks of
it condemns him.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2932
“‘Behold,’ says the risen and glorified Jesus, ‘I stand at the door and knock.’ It is at the door of Laodicea, the door of that Church which was
lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, and it is at your door, O lukewarm Christian, that Christ is now knocking!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2965
“I think there is scarcely such a day on earth to be had in Christian experience as that first day when we came to Christ and knew Him as our Savior!”—
Volume 51, Sermon #2947
“How glad I am when I can receive husband and wife into the Church at the same time! And I am still more glad when there is a little train of
their sons and daughters behind them all coming together to confess their faith in Christ!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3051
“I wish that Darwin’s theory might be carried out in us as Christians until, as he talks of an oyster developing into an Archbishop of Canterbury,
we who at our conversion were little better than the oyster, should go on developing, developing and developing in spiritual things until we
should know what John meant, who said, ‘It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we shall be like He, for we
shall see Him as He is.’”—Volume 51, Sermon #2926
“What does a beggar ask for? The poorest beggar that I ever met never asked me, so far as I remember, for anything less than a drink of water and
a bite of bread—but here is a man who does not ask God for anything so little as that—he asks for life itself! ‘Quicken me.’ The beggar has life—
he only asks me for means to sustain it. But here is a poor beggar, knocking at Mercy’s door, who has to ask for life itself! And that beggar
represents me—represents you—represents, I am sure, every Christian who knows himself. You may well ask, every day, for spiritual existence! It
is not, ‘Enlarge me, Lord. Enrich me in heavenly things,’ but, ‘Oh, do keep me alive! Quicken me, O Lord!’”[Psa_119:37.]—Volume 53, Sermon
#3026
“The preacher’s work is only half done when he has exhorted his hearers to stand fast—he must then fall upon his knees and pray for them. And
you who teach others in the Sunday school and elsewhere, must remember that whatever you exhort your scholars to do, you should always pray
to God to lead them to do it.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“Do but know that God gave His Son for you, dear Friend—know that Jesus Christ is yours and the logic of your prayer is clear enough, and
forcible enough, when you say, ‘What can You deny me, O my Father? You have given me Your Son, so, by His blood and wounds, by His life
and death, and resurrection Glory, give my spirit the Grace it needs, since You have given me Jesus Christ.’”—Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“The greatest freedom of thought is to think only God’s thoughts—and the highest freedom of living is to live according to the rule of holiness
in the ways of the Most High.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3072
“I venture to prophesy that within 10 years from this date, the whole of this country will be permeated by Popery. [These words spoken by
Brother Spurgeon on October 16, 1866.] The advance that Romanism has made during the last 10 years is so terrible that if it continues to increase
at only half that rate, my prophecy will prove to be a true one. The very name of Protestantism will die out unless God sends us a revival of
Evangelical religion, for the fashion of the age is so set towards that which is gaudy, sensuous and sensational—and the whole trend of ecclesiasticism
is so directly towards ceremonialism, that if we who love the old faith, do not bestir ourselves, we and our fellow countrymen will plunge
into the Stygian bog of Popish superstition!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3006
“You might as well hope to be saved by the mumblings of a witch as by the doings of a priest! You might as well hope to enter Heaven by blasphemies
as by a priest mumbling over certain words which he thinks to have virtue in them! God, even our God, has denounced again and again
those who delight in these errors and who keep back the blood of Jesus and the power and merit of His righteousness. Do not, I pray you, any of
you think that this is the way to Heaven, for it is not. ‘Jesus said unto him, I am the way.’”—Volume 51, Sermon #2938
“If Christ can draw one soul to Himself, why can he not draw twenty? And if He can draw twenty, why not twenty thousand, and why not thousands
of millions? Why should not we live to see many millions of souls converted to God? Let us pray to the Holy Spirit to present the irresistible
attractions of Christ to the hundreds of millions in the whole human race!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3051
“Rev_14:8 —‘And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine
of the wrath of her fornication.’ That is spiritual fornication, as we understand it in the Old Testament—man’s idolatry—the setting up of visible
objects of worship instead of the invisible God. And what is there, in all the world, that is so idolatrous as the so-called ‘religion’ of Rome?
She multiplies her idol gods to great excess—her crosses and her crucifixes, her saints and her “sacraments” and her relic—her ‘old cast clouts’
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and her ‘old rotten rags.’ The Papacy is the most pagan of all the paganisms that have ever existed on the face of the earth—but it is to come to
an end, for the mouth of the Lord has said so.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2910
“Growing Christians reckon themselves to be nothing, but full-grown Christians count themselves less than nothing! And when we feel ourselves
to be ‘less than the least of all saints,’ then we are indeed making good progress in the Divine Life. To grow less and less in your own esteem is the
right kind of growth. Naturally, we grow up from childhood to manhood but, spiritually, we grow down from manhood to childhood—yet it is
not really growing down, but growing up as we increase in humility.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“I heard of a converted wife who despaired of her husband’s salvation, but she used to be always very kind to him. She said, ‘I am afraid he will
never be converted.’ But whatever he wished for, she always got for him, and she would do anything for him, ‘for,’ she said, ‘I fear that this is the
only world in which he will be happy and, therefore, I have made up my mind to make him as happy as I can in it.’ But you, Christians, must seek
your delights in a higher sphere because you cannot be happy in the insipid frivolities of the world, or in the sinful enjoyments of it!”—Volume
53, Sermon #3026
“Remember, Believer, that the Lord loved you long before the foundation of the world. You are so insignificant in the scale of being that if He
had quite forgotten you, you might not have wondered. And yet, before the mountains were created, or He had kindled the morning star, in the
glass of His decrees He beheld you and even then He loved you… Dwell on that wondrous Truth of God, that God has loved you with an everlasting
love. Suck the honey of consolation out of that glorious fact! Surely if your faith is at all in exercise, you will find much sacred sweetness
there.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“Be it remembered that even the work of the Holy Spirit, if it is depended upon as a ground of acceptance with God, become as much an antichrist
as though it were not the work of the Holy Spirit at all! Dare we so blaspheme the Holy Spirit as to make His work in us a rival to the Savior’s
work for us? Shame on us that we should thus doubly sin!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3007
“The great and mighty angels were passed by and we, who are but worms of the dust, were looked upon with eyes of favor and love! And Satan,
knowing this, and being jealous of the love which lights upon men, cannot endure the Presence of Christ.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2966
“Dear Soul, if you have begun to find out that even in the Christian Church there are many opinions concerning many things, do not trouble
yourself about those things. This is enough for you—Your faith has saved you; go in peace. There may be some who are galled to contend for this
or that point of the faith but, as for you, poor child, if, with your broken heart, you have found the Savior, and if you love Him with an inward,
warm and hearty love, do not spoil that love by getting into a controversial spirit—‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’”—Volume 50, Sermon
#2876
“The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! ‘You are
the light of the world.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3069
“Man, how dare you say that there is no hope for you? If the iron gates of Hell were shut upon you and God had hurled the key of the Pit into the
infinite abyss, then you might say that there was no hope for you. But as long as there trembles in the air that blessed invitation of Christ, ‘Come
unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ it is only a lying voice that tells you that there is no hope for you!”—
Volume 53, Sermon #3027
“Has He [God] given you a promise and shall He not fulfill it? Yes, and fulfill it again, and again, and again, as long as you shall need to have it
fulfilled, for His promises are inexhaustible and full of manifold riches of blessedness to the believing soul!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“It is possible for even a good man to fail one who trusts him, but it is quite impossible for God to fail the soul that has relied upon Him.”—
Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“I am persuaded that the man who loves Christ best is just the man who is most discontented with his own love. When a man lives wholly for
Christ, he is the very man who still looks for something yet beyond and desires to serve Christ still more.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2919
“God forbid that I should say anything in praise of ignorance! Yet I think that I might, in spiritual things, give it greater praise than I could give
to ‘philosophy’ or ‘science’ falsely so-called. Happy and wise were the shepherds to whom the angels came and sang and spoke concerning the
birth of Jesus, for in their simplicity, they went straight away to Bethlehem and found the newborn King! But the wise men (happy, too, for a
star came to guide them), in their very wisdom seemed to make mistakes, for they went to Jerusalem and enquired, ‘Where is He that is born King
of the Jews?’ and so, for a time, they lost their way—and caused Herod to seek the life of the Holy Child Jesus!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
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“Yes, the name of Jesus has wondrous power over all the hosts of Hell! So, Brothers and Sisters, let us not be discomfited nor dismayed by all the
armies of Satan, but let us with holy courage contend against all the powers of evil, for we shall be more than conquerors over them through
Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2966
“There is no cure for the love of sin like the blood of Christ!”—Volume 50, Sermon #2887
“It spoils a man for satisfaction with this world to have had heart-ravishing dealings with the world to come. I mean not that it spoils him for
practical activity in it, for the heavenly life is the truest life even for earth, but it spoils him for the sinful pleasures of this world—it prevents his
feeding his soul upon anything but the Lord Jesus Christ’s sweet love.”—Volume 52, Sermon #3007
“I pray God that those professors who do nothing for Him may be miserable! ‘That is a very unkind prayer,’ say some of you. No, it is not, for it
is meant for your good. See, if you get to be happy in your idleness, you will stay in that sinful state. But if you are unhappy while you are doing
nothing for the Master, I think you will be the more likely to say to Him, ‘Lord, what will You have me to do?’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3027
“If you are not on the side of Christ you are on the side of His enemies, for this is a fight which admits of no neutrality. And if you cannot feel that
you would, like Stephen, defend the cause of Christ, then I fear you only lack the opportunity and the circumstances, if not to stone Stephen, yet,
at least, to let those who do the dreadful deed lay their clothes at your feet!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2948
“Even when the Believer sins, the Holy Spirit does not utterly depart from him, but is still in him to make him smart for the sin into which he has
fallen. The Believer’s prayers prove that the Holy Spirit is still within him. ‘Take not your Holy Spirit from me,’ was the prayer of a saint who
had fallen very foully, but in whom the Spirit of God still kept His residence, notwithstanding all the foulness of David’s guilt and sin.”—
Volume 52, Sermon #2990
“I pity the poor creatures who believe in popish miracles, but I have now learned to think that those who can believe in such frauds are not half
such idiots as the men who try to teach us that inanimate matter has fashioned itself into those marvelously beautiful shapes in which we see it all
over this wondrous world which God created ‘in the beginning.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“You say that you have done nothing wrong and that you are right. But suppose that tomorrow you were to be called to stand at God’s Judgment
Bar—would you feel comfortable at the prospect? ‘Oh, no!’ you say. I felt sure that must be your answer. Indeed, all the religions in the
world that teach the doctrine of salvation by works are at least honest enough not to pretend to ensure for any man present salvation!”—Volume
51, Sermon #2932
“Brothers and Sisters, often, to will is present with us, but how to perform that which we would, we find not! The understanding is convinced
and that leads the van. Firm affections are awakened and they follow after. But there is a weaker passion which would, if it dared, consent to
sin—and that is this flesh of ours in which there dwells no good thing! It is this dangerous rear, this weakest part of our nature, which we have
most cause to dread.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3028
“I was preaching in Bedford, and I prayed that God would bless the sermon and give me at least some few souls that afternoon. When I had done,
there was an old Wesleyan brother there who gave me a good scolding, which I richly deserved. He said to me, ‘I did not say, ‘Amen,’ when you
were asking for a few souls to be converted, for I thought you were limiting the Holy One of Israel! Why did you not pray with all your heart for
all of them to be saved. ‘I did,’ he added, ‘and that was why I did not say, ‘Amen,’ to your narrow prayer.’”—Volume 52, Sermon #2978
“I look upon Samson’s case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragement of great sinners. If such a man as Samson,
nevertheless, prevails by faith to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so shall you and I!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3009
“David further says, concerning his iniquities, ‘They are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart fails me.’ Well, when our heart fails
us, let us recollect the mercy which has helped us so long—and let us cast ourselves again upon that mercy for all that lies before us.”—Volume
51, Sermon #2916
“It is really scandalous when nurses and others tell little children idle tales and foolish stories which the children believe to be true. We should be
very careful and jealous concerning the faith which a little child has in its elders and never do or say anything to weaken their belief.”—Volume
53, Sermon #3071
“I am glad to hear that crowds are going to listen to the Gospel preached and sung by our two American Brothers, Moody and Sankey. God
grant that in their services, there may not be merely the excitement of multitudes gathering together, but the power of the Spirit of God working
upon the hearts and consciences of the hearers, for where that is felt, there is sure to be a stir in the city!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2939
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“Christ came into the world to preach the Gospel, but He came on a greater errand than that, namely, to provide a Gospel that could be
preached—and He knew that the time was approaching when He must provide that Gospel by dying upon the Cross.”—Volume 50, Sermon
#2874
“I see before me many, very many veterans. Your gray hairs tell of your nearness to Heaven. I trust your locks are whitened with the sunlight of
Glory! Oh, be not afraid! You shall find it a blessed thing to sleep in Jesus—and even as you go to that last bed, you shall not tremble, for He
shall be so manifestly with you that you shall not be afraid!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3028
“Do you not see, dear Friends, that there is not only all you can need, but all you think you can need wrapped up in a sentence, ‘I will come to
you’? ‘It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell,’ so that when Christ comes, in Him ‘all fullness’ comes! ‘In Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily,’ so that when Jesus comes, the very Godhead comes to the Believer!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2990
“I wish I could depict…between unconverted persons and Christians, for there is a contrast between them, a contrast which will come to this one
day—there will be a great gulf fixed between them, across which there will be no passage. At the Last Great Day, the righteous shall be upon the
right hand of the Judge and the wicked on His left hand and Christ, Himself, shall stand between them, so that the division shall last as long as
Christ Himself shall live!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2948
“We die, but it is not any longer as a punishment. It is the fruit of sin, but it is not the curse of sin that makes the Believer die. To other men,
death is a curse—to the Believer, I may almost put it among his Covenant blessings, for to sleep in Jesus Christ is one of the greatest mercies that
the Lord can give to His believing people!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3009
“‘Know you not that we shall judge angels?’ And then the devil shall receive his final sentence and be forever banished to Hell! There he will be
bound, no more to wander… no more to dress out his antichrists and to work with his puppets, the Pope of Rome and the false prophet, Mohammed—
no longer able to beguile the multitude and lead them astray—no longer able to go through Christ’s fields by night and to sow his
tares in the midst of the good wheat—but kept in prison, forever bound in chains, to continue as an eternal and awful evidence of the wrath of
God against transgression!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2966
“In the crusade against the powers of darkness, with the salvation of sinners for my one undivided aim, little care I for anything but the lifting up
of my Master’s Gospel and the proclamation of the Word of mercy through His flowing blood!”—Volume 52, Sermon #2979
“A hope that is founded upon a lie is a vain hope, but a hope that is founded upon a promise of God is a good hope. It is a good hope because it is
a hope of good things—so good, my dear Friend, that you cannot find anything to match them in the whole world. It may well be called a good
hope, for it is the hope of perfection, the hope of being transformed into the image of Christ, the hope of everlasting delight.”—Volume 52,
Sermon #2991
“Looking at the history of the whole Church, it is cheering to us to see that God has never sustained a defeat. And when His army seems to have
been repulsed for a time, it has only been drawn back to take a more wondrous leap to a yet greater victory!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3028
“Do you not know that the higher you rise, even in the Church of Christ, the more responsibility you have and the heavier burdens you have to
carry? Do you not also know that the way to be really great is to be little—and that he who is greatest of all is the one who has learned to be least
of all? He who is chief in the Church of Christ is he who serves the Church most and who is willing to go lowest for Christ’s sake! Cultivate that
kind of greatness as much as you like, but put aside the other, and be not of ambitious mind even in your Lord’s service!”—Volume 50, Sermon
#2871
“Beware of a mere ancestral religion which may be of no more value than the ancestral religion of the Chinese! Do not suppose that you are personally
right in the sight of God because you have had a godly mother and father, or godly grandparents? Christ’s message to all who have not
been regenerated by the Holy Spirit is, ‘You must be born-again.’”—Volume 52, Sermon #3008
“Christ not only comes to those who seek Him, but, in the splendor of His Grace, He is often found of them that sought Him not! Yes, those who
cried, ‘Let us alone,’ are not let alone, for Grace brings them beneath her blessed sway.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2892
“When Christ is preached, there is a defiance given to the enemies of the Lord. Every time a sermon is preached in the power of the Spirit, it is as
though the shrill clarion woke up the fiends of Hell for such a sermon to say to them, “Christ is come forth again to deliver His lawful captives
out of your power! The King of kings has come to take away your dominions, to wrest from you your stolen treasures, and to proclaim Himself
your Master.””—Volume 52, Sermon #2979
“Brothers and Sisters, the way to maintain fellowship with Christ is very simple. If you desire to retain in your mouth all day the flavor of the
“wines on the lees well refined,” take care that you drink deeply of them by morning devotion.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3046
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“No Christian is ever safe when his soul is so slothful or drowsy that it needs quickening. Of course you do not understand me to mean that his
soul is in danger of being lost. Every Christian is always safe as to the great matter of his standing in Christ, but he is not safe as regards to his
standing and happiness in this life. Satan does not often attack a Christian who is living near to God—at least, I think not. It is when the Christian
gets away from God and gets half-starved and begins to feed on vanities, that the devil says, ‘Now I will have him!’—Volume 53, Sermon
#3026
“If the mind of Christ is in His people, it will make them so far superior to other men that it must be inferred that some superior energy is in them
and that superior energy is none other than the love of Christ.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2872
“It is one of the characteristics of the Doctrines of the Gospel that the older a man gets, the more he loves them. I always find that the older saints
become more Calvinistic as they ripen in age—that is to say, they get to believe more and more that salvation is all of Grace. And whereas at first
they might have had some rather loose idea concerning free will and the power of the creature, the lapse of years and fuller experiences gradually
blow all that kind of chaff away.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“…remember that all those who have continued in a state of nature have, without exception, perished. Not one, however high in station, however
excellent in morality, however profound in learning, however lofty in fame has ever been able to pass the threshold of Heaven except through
the blood and merit of the Lord Jesus Christ!”—Volume 50, Sermon #2894
“In this present age idol temples are being set up almost everywhere by our Ritualistic clergy! And a form of idolatry that is on a par with the
fetishism of ignorant Africans has come back to this land, for they make a god out of a bit of bread. And after worshipping their idol, eat it up—
a process which can only be fitly described in such sarcasm as Elijah would have poured upon it if he could have stood in the midst of these modem
priests of Baal as he stood among their prototype of old!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“Some of us sat, this morning, at the close of the public service, around our Master’s Communion Table, where we broke bread in His name, as is
our custom on the first day of the week, [1867] but, my fellow communicant, ‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’”—Volume 52, Sermon #3008
“As the poor widow’s two mites drop into the treasury of the Lord, He receives her gift with as sweet a smile as that which He accorded to the
lavish gifts of David and Solomon. In His Church, Christ teaches us that if we have more than others, we simply hold it in trust for those who
have less than we have—and I believe that some of the Lord’s children are poor in order that there may be an opportunity for their fellow Christians
to minister to them out of their abundance.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2888
“That true man of God, Dr. Hawker—I am told by a friend of mine who visited him one morning—was asked to go and see a military review
that was then taking place at Plymouth. The doctor said, ‘No.’ My friend pressed him and said, I know you are a loyal subject and you like to see
your country’s fleets—it is a noble spectacle.’ The doctor said, no, he could not go and, being pressed until he was ashamed, he made this remarkable
answer, ‘There are times when I could go and enjoy it, but my eyes have seen the King in His beauty this morning, and I have had so
sweet a sense of fellowship with the Lord Jesus that I dare not go to look upon any spectacle lest I should lose the present enjoyment which now
engrosses my soul.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3026
“I sometimes hear people say, as an excuse for professors going to doubtful places of amusement, ‘You know, they must have some recreation.’
Yes, I know, but the re-creation which the Christian experienced when he was born-again has so completely made all things new to him, that the
vile rubbish called recreation by the world is so dull to him that he might as well try to fill himself with fog as to satisfy his soul with such utter
vanity! No, the Christian finds happiness in Christ Jesus—and when he needs pleasure, he does not depart from Jesus.”—Volume 53, Sermon
#3046
“I have known some people who have wished for trouble—it is a great pity that anybody should be so foolish as that. I remember one who used
to think that he was not a child of God because he had not had much trouble. He used to fret all day long because he had nothing really to make
him fret!”—Volume 50, Sermon #2912
“Make no idol of your child, or your wife, or your husband, for by putting them into Christ’s place, you really provoke Him to take them from
you! Love them as much as you please—I would that some loved their children, their husbands, or their wives more than they do—but always
love them in such a fashion that Christ shall have the first place in your hearts.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“If you want to defy the devil, don’t go about preaching philosophy! Don’t sit down and write out fine sermons with long sentences, three quarters
of a mile in length! Don’t try and cull fine, smooth phrases that will sound sweetly in people’s ears. The devil doesn’t care a bit for this! But
talk about Christ! Preach about the suffering of the Savior! Tell sinners that there is life in a look at Him and straightway the devil takes great
offense.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2979
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“We have a proverb which reminds us that, ‘Rome was not built in a day,’ and we cannot always expect the new Jerusalem to be built in men’s
hearts in a single hour!. There are some who are struck down at once, as Saul was afterwards, but there are others, against whose strong fortress
the battering ram of the Truth of God must come with all its might year after year—and it is only when God strikes the effectual blow of Divine
Grace that, at last, they yield, subdued by Almighty Love!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2948
“A man may be and I think sometimes will be in doubt as to whether he really believes in Jesus, but chronic doubt is a sin that is not to be tolerated.
Constant questioning as to whether you are saved, or not, is an unhealthy state for any of you to be in. You can tell and you ought to tell
whether you believe in Christ, or whether you do not believe in Him.”—Volume 52, Sermon #3008
“Some of you ought to thank God that He does not let you have a very easy or merry time. He does not let you settle on your lees, but keeps on
emptying you from vessel to vessel. The reason for this is that He has designs of love for you and He means that you never should rest till you rest
in Him.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2966
“What does the Gospel ask of us? It certainly asks nothing of us but what it gives to us. It never asks of any man a sum of money in order that he
may redeem his soul with gold. The poorest are as heartily welcomed by Christ as the richest! And the beggar who could count all his money on
his fingers is as gladly received as the millionaire who has his stocks and his shares, his lands and his ships! Poor men are bid to come to Jesus
‘without money and without price.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3029
“I have some sort of respect for a downright honest infidel, like Voltaire or Tom Paine, but I have none for the man who goes to college to be
trained for the Christian ministry and then claims to be free to doubt the Deity of Christ, the need of conversion, the punishment of the wicked
and other Truths of God that seem to me to be essential to a full proclamation of the Gospel of Christ.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“Old saints get what is called ‘a sweet tooth.’ They love the sweet things of the Covenant. They like their meat to have a rich savor. I am not old
yet, but I confess that I get more and more fond of the sweet things of the Gospel of Grace and cannot endure the novelties that are so current and
so exceedingly popular nowadays. Oh, no! Tell me of my Father’s eternal love, tell me of my Savior’s precious blood, tell me of the Spirit’s sacred
indwelling and my heart is glad! But tell me anything short of this and my soul is not fed.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“The message we have to deliver to you is not this—‘ere is Christ and you may have Him or leave Him, as you please—and it is left to your own
choice which you will do.’ No! But it is this—‘In the name of God we command you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and it will be at your
peril that you will reject Him, for He is soon to came to be your Judge. And if you reject Him as your Savior, He will certainly destroy you in that
day.’”—Volume 51, Sermon #2939
“We, as Baptists, have no objection to your bringing everything that is taught to the test of the Bible, for we know that we would be the gainers
if you were to do that. But instead of using the plumb line of the Bible, many people have a newly-invented test—the Book of Common Prayer,
or Minutes of the Conference, or something else equally valueless! Now, whatever respect I have for books of that sort, I prize my Bible infinitely
above them all and above all the volumes of decrees of popes, councils and conferences put together!”—Volume 50, Sermon #2904
“Possibly you have not succeeded with God because you have not sunk low enough before Him. You unconverted ones, especially, if you put your
mouths in the very dust, that will be the best attitude for you to assume. If you still have some relics of strength, you will not receive Divine
Strength. If there are some remnants of the pristine idea of human merit tolerated in your heart, the robe of Christ’s righteousness will not be
wrapped around you!”—Volume 52, Sermon #3010
“The Believer has received Christ into his trust, and this he did at his spiritual birth. He received Christ into the arms of his faith. He took Jesus
Christ to be, henceforth, the unbuttressed pillar of his confidence, the one Rock of his salvation, his strong castle and high tower. And, in this
sense, every soul that is saved has ‘received Christ Jesus the Lord.’”—Volume 53, Sermon #3030
“Many of us are about to gather around the Communion Table to celebrate the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This ordinance should
help us to keep ourselves from idols, for if there is any place where idols disappear, it is at the foot of the Cross!”—Volume 53, Sermon #3071
“Believers ought not to be solitary stones, lying by themselves—they should be built up into “a holy temple in the Lord, built together for a
habitation of God through the Spirit.” So, dear Friends, if you are on “the Lords side,” admit it and join with those who also are on that
side.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2884
“You cannot see God till your heart is changed, till your nature is renewed, till your actions, in the tenor of them, shall become such as God
would have them to be.”—Volume 50, Sermon #2902
“Fear is often the mother of courage. To fear God makes a man brave. To fear man is cowardly, I grant, but to fear God with humble awe and
holy reverence is such a noble passion that I would we were more and more full thereof, blending, as it were, the fear of Isaac with the faith of
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Abraham! To fear God will make the weakest of us play the man, and the most cowardly of us become heroes for the Lord our God!”—Volume
52, Sermon #2979
“The heart’s belief is to be so potent and energetic a thing that it constrains us to confess openly what we have received inwardly—no confession
is worth anything unless it is the outcome of the Grace by which we have received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior!”—Volume 52, Sermon
#3011
“Sometimes an attack of this kind is made upon us—‘It is no use trying to teach the Gospel to children. We cannot suppose that they can understand
its deep mysteries.’ I heard that said only the other day. Well, I can say that we have tried it and we have found that whether you choose to
call them great mysteries or not, children do understand the Gospel and seem, sometimes, to comprehend it better than their fathers do just because
they are so childlike! This qualification for entering the Kingdom of Heaven is not fully-developed manhood, but rather that we should
become as little children. And unless we do become childlike, we cannot enter the Kingdom.”—Volume 52, Sermon #2991
“Faith is the accepting of what God gives. Faith is the believing what God says. Faith is the trusting to what Jesus has done. Only do this and
you are saved, as surely as you are alive!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2932
“Beloved, here is a test for us—is our religion a receiving religion, or is it a working and an earning religion? An earning religion sends souls to
Hell. It is only a receiving religion that will take you to Heaven.”—Volume 53, Sermon #3030
“I am not a believer in that Apostolic succession which is supposed to come by the laying of human hands upon human heads, but I believe that
there has always been, in the Church of God, a succession of faithful men so that, when one has died, another has been called to take his place.
And I believe that it will always be so until Christ Himself shall come.”—Volume 51, Sermon #2948
“Many people seem to think that it is a very sorrowful thing to be a Christian, that believers in Christ are a miserable, unhappy lot of folk who
never enjoy themselves. Well, I must admit that I do know some little communities of people who reckon themselves the very pick of Christians
and who meet together on a Sunday to have a comfortable groan together, but I do not think that the bulk of us, who worship in this place,
could be truthfully charged with anything like that! We serve a happy God and we believe in a joyous Gospel, and the love of Christ in our hearts
has made us anticipate many of the joys of Heaven even while we are here on earth!”—Volume 51, Sermon #2966
“Faith is, in one sense, the gift of God, but, in another sense, it is a mental act for which we are responsible. God gives us faith, but He does not
believe for us. He does not give us faith as we give our children bread, but He, by the gracious operation of His Holy Spirit, makes us willing in
the day of His power—and then we will to believe in Jesus