Spurgeon Sermon Quotes

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎The mind of God is greater than all the minds of men, so let all men leave the gospel just as God has delivered it unto us.

never go to look on man till you have first looked on your God.

We shall, as we ripen in grace, have greater sweetness towards our fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal, but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart. He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more; he overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it. ... I know we who are young beginners in grace think ourselves qualified to reform the whole Christian church. We drag her before us, and condemn her straightway; but when our virtues become more mature, I trust we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms.

When we cannot pray as we would, it is good to pray as we can.

If I feel myself disinclined to pray, then is the time when I need to pray more than ever.

Sometimes,indeed, the Lord purposely leaves his children, withdraws the divine inflowings of his grace, and permits them to begin to sink, in order that they may understand that faith is not their own work. (Sermon, "Mr. fearing comforted")

If you get condemnation out of the Gospel, you put the condemnation into it yourselves! It is not the Gospel, but your rejection of it that will condemn you.”–1893, Sermon 2300

A rejoicing heart soon makes a praising tongue.”–1893, Sermon 2310

Not to pray because you do not feel fit to pray is like saying, “I will not take medicine because I am too ill.” Pray for prayer: pray yourself, by the Spirit’s assistance, into a praying frame.

Prayer should be the natural outflow of the soul: you should pray because you must pray, not because the set time for praying has arrived, but because your heart must cry unto your Lord.”–1895, Sermon 2437

A mother can translate baby-talk: she comprehends incomprehensible noises. Even so doth our Father in heaven know all about our poor baby talk, for our prayer is not much better.

When one knows that his times are in God’s hands, he would not change places with a king! No, nor even with an angel!”–1891, Sermon 2205

The backbone of the preaching of Christ is a conviction of the truth of Christ.”–1892, Sermon 2285

There would be nobody to receive mercy if nobody were guilty.”–1894, Sermon 2372

Prayer is the natural outgushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. Just as the leaf and the fruit will come out of the vine-branch without any conscious effort on the part of the branch, but simply because of its living union with the stem, so prayer buds, and blossoms, and fruits out of souls abiding in Jesus.

God has only to give you what you want to make you feel the emptiness of it!...You will generally notice that when the believer gets near to God, tastes the unseen joys and eats the bread that was made in heaven, all the feasts of earth, all its amusements, and all its glories seem very flat, stale, and unprofitable!”–1891, Sermon 2225

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British pulpiteer, had said in a sermon almost exactly a hundred years before: The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.1

If the devil never roars, the Church will never sing! God is not doing much if the devil is not awake and busy. Depend upon it: a working Christ makes a raging devil! When you hear ill reports, cruel speeches, threats, taunts and the like, believe that the Lord is among His people and is working gloriously.”–1891, Sermon 2196

Praise is the beauty of a Christian. What wings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree, what the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God.”–1895, Sermon 2437

The streaming wounds of Jesus are the sure guarantees for answered prayer.

I never expect, until I get to heaven, to be able to cease confessing sin every day and every time I stand before God.

It is a great sin on the part of Church members if they do not daily sustain their pastor by their prayers!”–1892, Sermon 2261

I confess that I do not believe that one human brain is capable of answering every objection that another human brain could raise against the most obvious truth in the world.

Why is heaven called a city? Because it is a place of fellowship where men meet one another!”–1893, Sermon 2291

If we want revivals, we must revive our reverence for the Word of God. If we want conversions, we must put more of God’s Word into our sermons.”8 His gospel preaching was grounded

God does not need your strength; He has more than enough power of His own! He asks for your weakness.”–1891, Sermon 2209

When Christ was born he lay in a virgin’s womb, and when he died he was placed in a virgin tomb; he slept where never man had slept before.” The

There is joy in hell when a saint grows idle! There is gladness among devils when we cease to pray, when we become slack in faith and feeble in communion with God.”–1893, Sermon 2303

The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to him, and saying to him, “Do as thou hast said.” Prayer is the promise utilized. A prayer which is not based on a promise has no true foundation.

It is not easy to stand at the bar of public opinion and receive the verdict of condemnation; but what will it be to stand at the bar of God who is greater than all, and to receive from him the sentence of damnation.

Do not enter the ministry if you can help it . . . If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for a man so full of God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants.

There is no hope for you but in Christ. Rest assured that all the mercy of God is concentrated in the Cross. I hear some talk about the uncovenanted mercies of God—there is no such things. The mercies of God are all emptied out into the Covenant. God has put all His grace into the Person of Christ and you shall have none elsewhere. Trust, then, in Christ—so you shall be blessed, but you shall be blessed nowhere else.

God is so boundlessly pleased with Jesus that in him he is altogether well pleased with us. Accepted Of The Great Father, Volume 29, Sermon #1731 - Ephesians 1:6

Do you not see that the word, “God with us,” puts impossibility out of all existence?

Dear brethren, if we shut our ears to what Jesus tells us, we shall never have power in prayer, nor shall we enjoy intimate communion with the Well-beloved.

The man who talks about his experience as a Christian, who never does anything for Christ, is, I am afraid, only an idle dreamer.”–1894, Sermon 2384

Prayer is the longing of the soul to hold communion with the Most High, the desire of the heart to obtain blessings at His hands.”–1895, Sermon 2433

In Him [Jesus Christ] you have redemption—out of Him you are in bondage.”–1891, Sermon 2207

I bear my witness that some of the best things I have ever learned from mortal lips, I have learned from bedridden saints!”–1894, Sermon 2367

We ought to prepare the sermon as if all depended on us, and then we are to trust the Spirit of God, knowing that all depends on Him.

Are you mourning over your own weakness? Take courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will give thee victory.

He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe.

We have lost our first honor and health, and we have become the subjects of pain and weakness, suffering and death. This is the effect of the fall.

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

In a sermon entitled “God’s Providence,” C. H. Spurgeon said, “Napoleon once heard it said, that man proposes and God disposes. ‘Ah,’ said Napoleon, ‘but I propose and dispose too.’ How do you think he proposed and disposed? He proposed to go and take Russia; he proposed to make all Europe his. He proposed to destroy that power, and how did he come back again? How had he disposed it? He came back solitary and alone, his mighty army perished and wasted, having well-nigh eaten and devoured one another through hunger. Man proposes and God disposes.

A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.

Spurgeon used his wit to provoke laughter in private and in public. He said in one of his sermons, “If by a laugh I can make men see the folly of an error better than in any other way, they shall laugh.

A humble desire is one which leaves everything in God’s hands. The man who has it says, ‘Now, though I desire this, it may be it is not a right desire. Lord, I desire only to desire what I ought to desire! My desire is that Your desire should be written on my heart, that I may desire what You desire.’ Your will be done in my soul, in my body, in my circumstances, and in me, in all respects.”–1894, Sermon 2342

We are not saved by obedience, for obedience is the result of salvation! We are saved by faith because faith leads us to obey! Faith is weakness clinging to strength and becoming strong through so doing.”–1891, Sermon 2209

Since we are helpless sinners, salvation must be a free gift. God bestows it on people without regard to any merit—supposed or real. Grace has to do with the guilty. Grace by its nature is not a proper gift for the righteous and deserving but for the undeserving and sinful.

God’s grace can keep you abstaining from sin, but, if you begin sinning, oh, how one sin draws on another! One sin is the decoy or magnet for another sin, and draws it on; and one cannot tell, when he begins to descend this slippery slide, how quickly and how far he may go!”–1895, Sermon 2414

The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.

Whatever you may know, you you cannot be truly efficient ministers if you are not "apt to teach." You know ministers who have mistaken their calling, and evidently have no gifts for it: make sure that none think the same of you. There are brethren in the ministry whose speech is intolerable; either they rouse you to wrath, or else they send you to sleep. No chloral can ever equal some discourses in sleep-giving properties; no human being, unless gifted with infinite patience, could long endure to listen to them, and nature does well to give the victim deliverance through sleep. I heard one say the other day that a certain preacher had no more gifts for the ministry than an oyster, and in my own judgment this was a slander on the oyster, for that worthy bivalve shows great discretion in his openings, and knows when to close. If some men were sentenced to hear their own sermons, it would be a righteous judgement upon them, and they would soon cry out with Cain, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Let us not fall under the same condemnation.

All things are ordained of God and are settled by Him, according to His wise and holy predestination. Whatever happens here happens not by chance, but according to the counsel of the Most High! The acts and deeds of men below, though left wholly to their own wills, are the counterpart of that which is written in the purpose of heaven.”–1891, Sermon 2205

My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ.

Well said our Lord, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Especially judge not the sons and daughters of sorrow. Allow no ungenerous suspicions of the afflicted, the poor and the despondent . Do not hastily say they ought to be more brave and exhibit a greater faith. Ask not why are they so nervous and so absurdly fearful? No, in this you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. I beseech you, remember that you understand not your fellow man. sermon "Man unknown to man

Not only are we ourselves in the hand of the Lord, but all that surrounds us. Our times make up a kind of atmosphere of existence; and all this is under Divine arrangement. We dwell within the palm of God’s hand. We are absolutely at His disposal and all our circumstances are arranged by Him in all their details. We are comforted to have it so.”–1891, Sermon 2205 “All our infirmities, whatever they are, are just opportunities for God to display His gracious work in us.”–1893, Sermon 2310

You are not conscious of having grossly violated any moral low. But have you never heard of a gentleman in India who had a tame leopard that went about his house? It was as playful as a cat, and did no one any harm till one day, as he lay asleep, the leopard licked his hand, and licked until it had licked a sore place and tasted blood. After that there was nothing for it but to destroy it; for all the leopard-nature was aroused by that taste of blood. And some of you young people, with all the godly associations that are round about you, will — I am always afraid — get a taste of the devilry outside, of the world’s vice and sin; and then there is the leopard’s nature in you. If you once get the taste and flavor of it, you will be prone to be always thirsting for it. Then, instead of the hope we now cherish, that we shall soon see you at your parents’ side, serving Christ — see you take your father’s place, young man, in after-years — see you, young woman, grow up to be a matron in the Church of God, bringing many others to the Savior — we may have to lament that the children are not as the parents, and cry, “Woe is the day that ever they were born.

If we add to our Churches by becoming worldly, by taking in persons who have never been born again; if we add to our Churches by accommodating the life of the Christian to the life of the worldling, our increase is worth nothing at all; it is a loss rather than a gain! If we add to our Churches by excitement, by making appeals to the passions rather than by explaining the truth of God to the understanding. If we add to our churches otherwise than by the power of the Spirit of God making men new creatures in Christ Jesus, the increase is of no worth whatever! ”–1892, Sermon 2265

Oh! happy day, happy day, thrice happy day, when a man comes into this blessed state! I have heard many regret that they have pursued the pleasures of sense and been fascinated with them; but I never yet heard of one who had found the dear delights of faith pall on his taste. It has never fallen to my lot yet to attend a dying bed where I have heard a Christian regret that he put his trust in his Savior; neither have I ever heard at any time of anyone who died believing in Jesus who has had to say, “Had I but served the world with half the zeal I served my God I should have been a happier man.

I know nothing, nothing again, that is more humbling for us than this doctrine of election. I have sometimes fallen prostrate before it, when endeavoring to understand it. I have stretched my wings, and, eagle-like, I have soared towards the sun. Steady has been my eye, and true my wing, for a season; but, when I came near it, and the one thought possessed me,- ”God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation,” I was lost in its lustre, I was staggered with the mighty thought; and from the dizzy elevation down came my soul, prostrate and broken, saying, “Lord, I am nothing, I am less than nothing. Why me? Why me?

We all need sympathy. And as it is impossible that we should ever perfectly obtain it from our fellow men, there remains but One who can give it to us. There is One who can enter the closet where the skeleton is locked up. One who is in touch with our unmentionable grief. He weighs and measures that which is too heavy for us to bear. That blessed One! Oh,that we may each one have Him for our Friend! Without Him we shall lack the great necessity of a happy life! A personal Savior is absolutely needful to each of us to meet our individual personality. Jesus, alone, can understand with our joy and make it still more gladsome. He,alone, can understand our grief and remove its wormwood. "Man unknown to man sermon

Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus." (Ray Ortlund blog, Christ Is Deeper Still)

Thou art seeking Christ, close not those eyes, turn not away thy face from Calvary’s streaming tree: now that Satan hinders thee, it is because the night is almost over, and the day-star begins to shine. Brethren, ye who are most molested, most sorrowfully tried, most borne down, yours is the brighter hope: be now courageous; play the man for God, for Christ, for your own soul, and yet the day shall come when you with your Master shall ride triumphant through the streets of the New Jerusalem, sin, death, and hell, captive at your chariot wheels, and you with your Lord crowned as victor, having overcome through the blood of the Lamb. May God bless dear friends now present. I do not know to whom this sermon may be most suitable, but I believe it is sent especially to certain tried saints.

It is possible for a man to know whether God has called him or not, and he may know it too beyond a doubt. He may know it as surely as if he read it with his own eyes; nay, he may know it more surely than that, for if I read a thing with my eyes, even my eyes may deceived me, the testimony of sense may be false, but the testimony of the Spirit must be true. We have the witness of the Spirit within, bearing witness with our spirits that we are born of God. There is such a thing on earth as an infallible assurance of our election. Let a man once get that, and it will anoint his head with fresh oil, it will clothe him with the white garment of praise, and put the son of the angel into his mouth. Happy, happy man! who is fully assured of his interest in the covenant of grace, in the blood of atonement, and in the glories of heaven! Such men there are here this very day. Let them 'rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice.' What would some of you give if you could arrive at this assurance? Mark, if you anxiously desire to know, you may know. If your heart pants to read its title clear it shall do so ere long. No man ever desired Christ in his heart with a living and longing desire, who did not find Him sooner or later. If thou hast a desire, God has given it thee. If thou pantest, and criest, and groanest after Christ, even this is His gift; bless Him for it. Thank Him for little grace, and ask Him for great grace. He has given thee hope, ask for faith; and when He gives thee faith, ask for assurance; and when thou gettest assurance, ask for full assurance; and when thou hast obtained full assurance, ask for enjoyment; and when thou hast enjoyment, ask for glory itself; and He shall surely give it thee in His own appointed season.

This text also shows that God is in events that are produced by people’s sin and stupidity. This breaking up of the kingdom of Solomon into two parts was the result of Solomon’s sin and Rehoboam’s folly, yet God was in it. God had nothing to do with the sin or the folly, but in some way that we can never explain—in a mysterious way in which we are to believe without hesitation—God was in it all. The most notable instance of this truth of God is the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; that was the greatest of human crimes, yet it was foreordained and predetermined by the Most High—to whom there can be no such thing as crime nor any sort of compact with sin. We know not how it is, but it is an undoubted fact that a thing may be from God and yet it may be worked, as we see in this case, by human folly and wickedness.

every sermon, full of Christ, that we preach, rolls away some of the mists and fogs from the surface of the planet; at any rate, morally and spiritually, if not naturally.

Faith in Jesus Christ, Himself, as an ever-living and Divine Person, is the best quietus for every kind of fear! He is the “King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible,” “The Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace!” And therefore you may safely rest in Him. This is the first ingredient of this priceless comfort.

Whenever we have to praise God, what do we do? We simply say what He is! ‘You are this and You are that.’ There is no other praise. We cannot fetch anything from anywhere else and bring it to God; the praises of God are simply the facts about Himself! If you want to praise the Lord Jesus Christ, tell the people about Him.”–1891, Sermon 2213

If twentieth-century literature failed Spurgeon anywhere, it failed to produce scholars interested in constructing three-dimensional portraits of the preacher, flaws and all.12 Warts can be as informative as dimples.

Preachers, therefore, must avoid vacuousness in their preaching, and they must avoid heartless intellectualism. The object of all true preaching, after all, is the heart, and preaching has failed “unless it makes men tremble, makes them sad, and then anon brings them to Christ, and causes them to rejoice. Sermons are to be heard in thousands, and yet how little comes of them all, because the heart is not aimed at, or else the archers miss the mark.

The work that you felt you could not do will have more acceptance with God than that which you performed in your ordinary strength.”–1894, Sermon 2343

We shall divide God’s gifts into five classes. First, we shall have gifts Temporal. Second, gifts saving. Third, gifts honorable. Fourth, gifts useful and fifth, gifts comfortable. Of all these we shall say, “Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with My own?

Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with My own?

On the other hand, you were on the high horse in your last sermon and finished with quite a flourish of trumpets, and you feel considerable anxiety to know what impression you produced. Repress your curiosity: it will do you no good to inquire. If the people should happen to agree with your verdict, it will only feed your pitiful vanity, and if they think otherwise, your fishing for their praise will injure you in their esteem. In any case, it is all about yourself, and this is a poor theme to be anxious about; play the man, and do not demean yourself by seeking compliments like little children when dressed in new clothes who say, “See my pretty frock.” Have you not by this time discovered that flattery is as injurious as it is pleasant? It softens the mind and makes you more sensitive to slander.

Not only is His teaching attractive, His doctrine persuasive, His life irreproachable, His Character enchanting, and His work a self-denying labor for the common good of all His people, but He, Himself, is altogether lovely!

In each one of His people you will find something that is lovely—in one there is faith, in another abounding love—in one, tenderness, in another, courage. But you do not find all good things in any one saint—at least not all of them in full perfection. But you find all virtues in Jesus and each one of them at its best! If you would take the best quality of one saint and the best quality of another—yes, the best out of each and all the myriads of His people—you would find no Grace or goodness among them which Jesus does not possess in the fullest degree and in the highest perfection! He combines all the virtues and gives them sweetness over and beyond ourselves.

Each gem has its own radiance—the diamond is not like the ruby, nor the ruby like the emerald—but Christ is that ring in which you have sapphire, ruby, diamond, emerald set in choice order, so that each one heightens the other’s brilliance. Look not for anything lovely out of Jesus, for He has all the loveliness!

THE more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages.

Now with angels round the throne, Cherubim and seraphim, And the church, which still is one, Let us swell the solemn hymn; Glory to the great I AM! Glory to the Victim Lamb. Blessing, honour, glory, might, And dominion infinite, To the Father of our Lord, To the Spirit and the Word; As it was all worlds before, Is, and shall be evermore.

As the great British preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel.

The first is this: the fact of sinnership is no reason for despair. You need none of you say, “I am guilty, and therefore I may not approach to God; I am so greatly guilty that it would be too daring a thing for me to ask for mercy.” Dismiss such thoughts at once. My text and a thousand other arguments forbid despair.

Come and take Christ, and you have found God. No man believes in Christ and remains without the favor of God.”–1892, Sermon 2272

The believer who is in a healthy state rejoices mainly in God Himself. He is happy because there is a God, and because God, in His person and character, is what He is. All the attributes of God become continual sources of joy to the thoughtful, contemplative believer. —Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his sermon “The Joy of the Lord.

If we add to our Churches by becoming worldly, by taking in persons who have never been born again; if we add to our Churches by accommodating the life of the Christian to the life of the worldling, our increase is worth nothing at all; it is a loss rather than a gain! If we add to our Churches by excitement, by making appeals to the passions rather than by explaining the truth of God to the understanding. If we add to our churches otherwise than by the power of the Spirit of God making men new creatures in Christ Jesus, the increase is of no worth whatever! ”–1892, Sermon 2265 “What

If you ask for wealth, you may not get it; for it is a small and paltry[5] thing which the Lord may not care to give you. But if you ask for eternal life, you shall have it; for this is a great thing and God delights to give the greatest blessings to those who come to Him by Christ Jesus, so that what might seem to hinder should now encourage!”–1894, Sermon 2380 “If

I will take a case. I am sent for in an emergency, and it is the dead of night. A man is dying, smitten suddenly by the death-blast.[17] I go to his bedside, as requested. Consciousness remains, but he is evidently in mortal agony. He has lived an ungodly life—and he is about to die. I am asked by his wife and friends to speak to him a word that may bless him. Shall I tell him that he can only be saved by good works? Where is the time for works? Where is the possibility of them? While I am speaking, his life is struggling to escape him! He looks at me in the agony of his soul, and he stammers out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Shall I read to him the Moral Law? Shall I expound to him the Ten Commandments and tell him that he must keep all these? He would shake his head and say, ‘I have broken them all; I am condemned by them all!’ If salvation is of works, what more have I to say? I am of no use here. What can I say? The man is utterly lost! There is no remedy for him. How can I tell him the cruel dogma of ‘modern thought’ that his own personal character is everything? How can I tell him that there is no value in belief, no help for the soul in looking to Another—even to Jesus, the Substitute? There is no whisper of hope for a dying man in the hard and stony doctrine of salvation by works!”–1891, Sermon 2210 2g.

Prick the heart—yes, with but a needle’s point—and life will go! And prick the heart of faith—yes, even with the smallest doubt—and the life of joy is gone! The joy of faith and the strength of faith, yes, and the life of faith are gone when you distrust the Word of the Lord!”–1887, Sermon 1979 “It

It is disobedience and not obedience that prompts us to select from the commands of Christ which ones we care to obey.”–1893, Sermon 2317 “No

The work that you felt you could not do will have more acceptance with God than that which you performed in your ordinary strength.”–1894, Sermon 2343 3c.

We often pray for Christians in adversity, and it is right that we should do so; but it is even more necessary to pray for Christians in prosperity, for they run the risk of gradually becoming soft, like Hannibal’s soldiers destroyed by Capuan holidays,[31] who lost their valor in their luxury. Many a man who was an out-and-out Christian when he was lower down in life has, when prosperous, become much too great a gentleman to associate with those who were his honored Brothers and Sisters before.”–1891, Sermon 2217 “That

He is faithful: trust him; he will never deceive you; trust him; he will never leave you.

Man-made ministers are of no use in this world. The sooner we get rid of them the better. They carefully prepare their sermons, and read them on Sunday in a sweet quiet voice, and the people go away pleased. But that is not God’s way of preaching. If it is, I am adequate to preach forever. I can buy books of sermons for very little money; as long as they have already been preached fifty times before; otherwise I need to pay a little more. But that is not the way.

If our preaching does not turn men from drunkenness to sobriety, from thieving to honesty, from unchastity to purity, then our Gospel is not worth a button! But if it does all this, then this shall be the evidence that it comes from God, seeing that in the world so sorely diseased by sin, it works the wondrous miracle of curing men of these deadly evils!”–1894, Sermon 2352 “Christ

If you believed, if you did but hear one promise that would be enough; if you only heard one good thing from the pulpit, here would be food for your soul, for it is not the quantity we hear, but the quantity we believe, that does us good-it is that which we receive into our hearts with true and lively faith, that is our profit. But,

David did not expect to pass through life without experiencing difficulties. He had to fight Goliath, and he had to go into the cave of Adullam. He expected to have troubles, and he certainly was not disappointed. Nor will you be. Do not reckon that God will give you a life without difficulty! Tell me, if you can, of any child of His who ever had such a portion? He had one Son without sin, but no son without sorrow. No, that Son Who had no sin was the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. So you must expect the Lord to deal with you as He does with the rest of His household.”–1894, Sermon 2372 

I venture to say that there is no fact, however palpable[15] to all the senses, but what you can, if you like, find reasons for not believing it to be a fact. If somebody were to assert that I am not here and that I am not speaking, I have no doubt that, with proper pay, a lawyer could be found to prove it. And what a lawyer could do, a great many, who are not learned in the law would do as well.”–1893, Sermon 2304 “I

The man who talks about his experience as a Christian, who never does anything for Christ, is, I am afraid, only an idle dreamer.”–1894, Sermon 2384 “Inconsistent

If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward." (Sermon, "Justification by Grace")