From the Heart of Spurgeon

Media Gratiae
Media Gratiae
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We are on a journey to work through the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, reading one per day. Join our conversation as we discuss the sermons, week by week, to see the truth he preached about Jesus Christ and Him crucified come from Spurgeon's heart to ours.

  1. 1d ago

    The Deceitfulness of Sin (s2130)

    Spurgeon hates sin, and rightly so. It is, in part, a reflection of his love to Christ, and his love to Christ only increases as he considers the sinfulness of sin. This is a profoundly insightful sermon, with shades of John Owen’s books on temptation and the mortification of sin, a sort of anatomy of sin, at least in the way that it tries to draw us into darkness and wickedness. So first we think about the way in which sin deceives, given that its very nature is to assault the truth of God and the God of truth. Spurgeon spends a large proportion of the sermon telling us the kinds of lies which sin whispers in our ears and to our hearts. If we have never thought about this, then the sermon will shock us and teach us. Then we think about the way in which this deceit tends to harden the heart, and again we are in the realm of spiritual experience, and the gradual coarsening of the conscience, the increasing carelessness with regard to conduct, that comes when we listen to sin’s lying tongue and begin to act accordingly. Finally, branching out a little from the text, we are urged to fight against deceiving sin by faith, by confession, by tenderness of heart, and by exhorting one another daily—and that means a willingness both to receive and to give appropriate exhortation. We are not a pack of barking dogs, nipping at each other constantly and unkindly, but we are to look out for each other, both as we commit sins and omit duties. Loaded with pastoral wisdom, here is an outstanding reminder of our susceptibility to sin, and our need to be on guard against it. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/the-deceitfulness-of-sin Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  2. Oct 23

    The Keynote of the Year (s2121)

    This sermon was first delivered on a Thursday evening in the March of the previous year, and then repurposed for reading on the first Lord’s day of the year 1890. It is a delight to think that Spurgeon would preach something so sweet and substantial at an ordinary midweek service, and no surprise to find such a topic so well suited to the opening of a year. Here he develops the sermon with us, moving us on from point to point, thinking about the wonder of man blessing the God who blesses, the spirit in which we go about that happy work, the God whom we bless—that Jehovah who has made himself known to us in mercy—, and the self-awareness that we ought to exercise, as we address ourselves in the face of all discouragements within and without, to go on blessing the God of our salvation. Here is a preacher marked by simplicity of speech, plainness of address, and warmth of tone. Here we are stirred not just to think about what it means to bless the Lord, but to get involved with the business, and to get on with it, that the Lord shall not lack a witness to his majesty and mercy from us. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/the-keynote-of-the-year Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  3. Oct 16

    Podcast 307: Peace: How Gained, How Broken (s2112)

    While Spurgeon is probably typecast as a classic three-pointer, his sermons actually show quite a variety in structure. This is a simple two-headed sermon, reflected in the title itself. How can peace be gained? How can peace be broken? Under the first heading, Spurgeon insists that true peace, the only peace worth having, is God’s own gift, spoken to his people who are holy. He celebrates the certainty of it and explores something of the beauty of it. Then he comes down from the heights and considers the loss of our peace. Here the preacher shows himself the pastor. The text emphasises that we can lose our peace by turning back to folly, and while that is a proper consideration, Spurgeon takes a few moments to consider some of the other ways in which peace can be lost, not all of them through the sins and failings of true believers. His intention is not to offer us excuses, but not to lay the wrong burden on the wrong heart. The ground cleared, he asks very bluntly about the kinds of sins which lurk in our souls, and which can be the reason why we lose the peace which the Lord speaks. The probing is painful, the speech being plain, and a sensitive heart will find good reason to lament its own folly. Spurgeon concludes with exhortation, giving us a brief barrage of reasons to turn our backs upon folly once and for all, and not to go back to the paths which, because of grace, we have left. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/peace-how-gained-how-broken Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  4. Oct 9

    Perseverance in Holiness (s2108)

    This sermon is comfort with a little kick—rich in its consolations but not feeble in its applications. It begins with God’s everlasting covenant, rooted in his own unchanging being, and the promises which cannot be broken, with all the assurance of unending good to those upon whom he sets his love. Spurgeon explores the certainty and security of the covenant, never straying far from Christ’s finished work, whether he is speaking of the covenant itself, or the God who makes the covenant with his people. Then he turns to the promise, “I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me” (Jer 32:40). Here he considers how God fulfils that promise, not by a twisting or emptying of certain spiritual realities, but by God’s gracious and sovereign work in the soul, granting his people a holy awe, a filial fear, and a sense of grateful obligation. He considers the work of the Holy Spirit in this connection, giving us a trinitarian perspective on the whole, and uses the guarantee of a people united to God in holy fear to draw sinners to Christ to find certain peace and life everlasting. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/perseverance-in-holiness Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  5. Oct 2

    “The Marriage of the Lamb” (s2096)

    During this period, Spurgeon is locked in combat, contending for the honour and glory of Christ. This sermon is situated both in the overall battle he is fighting, but also in the context of a pastoral ministry in which he is conscious of the need to feed and encourage the flock of Christ. So, having previously preached on the Lamb in glory (the previous sermon in this volume, number 2095, if you want to read it for yourself) he now wants to emphasise that this Lamb is the Bridegroom of the church, and that all our hope and happiness centres in him not only in this life but also in the life which is to come. He therefore steps through the prospect that lies before us, noting from Revelation 19 some of the events which precede the moment of marriage. He turns our attention to the marriage itself, asking how it has been brought about and what it involves. He fixes our eye upon the Bridegroom of our hearts, Jesus Christ, in his character as the Lamb of God, pushing us to recognise that this is essential to the union. Finally, he allows us to see the wife of the Lamb as she approaches her Beloved, prepared by him, for him, clothed in the white linen of her righteousnesses. It is a beautiful picture, and one which the preacher would have us ponder, not only to stir up love and faith and hope, but also to ensure that we will, through trust in the Lamb, participate in that glorious consummation. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/the-marriage-of-the-lamb Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  6. Sep 25

    God’s Own Gospel Call (s2092)

    In 2 Corinthians 5:20, the apostle Paul tells God’s people that “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” If you want a demonstration of this spirit in a gospel preacher after the time of the apostles, you could not do much better that read this sermon from Charles Spurgeon. He begins by insisting that the voice we must hear in the sermon is not that of the prophet who first spoke these words, nor that of the preacher who repeats them, but that of the God who makes known his own gospel grace: “Incline your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you—the sure mercies of David” (Is 55:3). Here, then, we find—first—two saving precepts, to hear and to come. Then we have, for each precept, a saving promise, each of which Spurgeon explores with spiritual sensitivity and experiential insight. Then, broadening his scope to embrace the direction and tone of the whole chapter, we come to the saving pleadings, the Lord God himself calling on sinners to come, and removing all obstacles and addressing all objections. Spurgeon really climbs inside his text, and makes the voice of God his own, not with the intention of clouding the call of the Lord, but of ensuring that it is indeed Jehovah’s voice alone which the congregation hears, and God alone to whom the congregation responds. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/gods-own-gospel-call Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  7. Sep 19

    Grace for Grace (s2087)

    Do we really dwell upon the fullness of God’s love for us in Christ? How much have we grasped the freeness of divine grace? In a sermon of almost relentless focus and intensity, Spurgeon insists upon the freeness of God’s grace, of his grace upon grace. He first considers the things the things which are freely given to us by God, ranging across salvation in all its fulness, and concluding with the crowning blessing, which is God giving himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—to his chosen ones. However, there is grace upon grace, for not only are these things given, but God also gives us the power to receive them! We could never have grasped these blessings unless the Lord in his mercy had given us grace to receive his grace. However, there is again grace upon grace, for not only do we receive grace to receive grace, but the Spirit also graciously gives us the knowledge of these things, a saving, experiential knowledges of them. With this goes a particular warning, too, about the spirit of the world which contends against the Spirit of God, a spirit which we cannot entertain if we are to receive these blessings. So we come into true possession of “the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1Cor 2:12). Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/grace-for-grace Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

  8. Sep 11

    Sounding Out the Word of the Lord (s2076)

    Are you a gospel trumpet? That is the dominant image which Spurgeon employs for his sermon from 1 Thessalonians 1:8 about sounding forth the word of the Lord. The sermon builds to some applications which are very specific to the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Spurgeon’s time, and we need to take that into account as we reach them. However, they can easily be turned to help us in our own situations, and the principles which lie behind them are broadly true. So, we are urged to consider the trumpeters themselves, the kind of men who make God’s word to sound out, with Spurgeon ranging across Paul’s description of the Thessalonian believers in his letters to them. This is really a brief study in Christian character. Then we turn to the trumpets, and see how it is that they give forth such a penetrating sound, and here we are in the realm of Christian experience and obedience. Thirdly, Spurgeon insists that there was a pressing present need for just such a trumpet-blast as sounded from the Thessalonian believers, and here the flavour of the hour begins to bleed through, but in a way that I think makes the modern reader add his, “Amen!” to the preacher’s assessment. Finally comes the question of whether or not his immediate congregation had an obligation to sound forth that trumpet-note. While some of the qualities and opportunities Spurgeon identifies are very tightly tied to the Tabernacle gathering, they raise questions and challenges for every church and each believer as to how we respond to the need of the present hour. Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/sounding-out-the-word-of-the-lord Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

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We are on a journey to work through the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, reading one per day. Join our conversation as we discuss the sermons, week by week, to see the truth he preached about Jesus Christ and Him crucified come from Spurgeon's heart to ours.

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