We have mentioned from time to time the sermonic runs which we find here and there in Spurgeon’s published sermons. This is the end of one such sequence, preached from the second chapter of John’s first letter, and considering the different stages or phases of spiritual maturity. The first sermon on little children was preached on Sunday 18th March; the second on young men was preached on Sunday 8th April. This is the third, concerning the fathers, preached on Sunday 18th November. This brief topical series spanned nine months! On the one hand, it is notable that Spurgeon expected his congregation, in some measure, to keep track of and to remember the previous ministry. On the other, it is helpful to see how carefully and briefly Spurgeon connects each sermon to those preceding it, neither rehearsing the former at extravagant length nor assuming full recall. Each sermon stands largely alone, but benefits from the connection with the others. In each case, Spurgeon more or less walks through the text: here he identifies the people, asks about their distinctive character, and considers the message addressed to them—simple and solid!

Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/fathers-in-christ

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It has become sadly typical to suggest some kind of tension or even opposition between knowing and doing, as if a delight in doctrine somehow chills the soul and cripples the hand, or someone who is earnest and zealous need not or even should not bother themselves with theology. Spurgeon gives the lie to such silliness with this sermon on spiritual knowledge and its practical results. Before he even gets to that specific topic, he is urging us to consider the value of intercessory prayer. Only then does to begin to unpack the value of spiritual knowledge, showing that true knowledge is truly spiritual, and that the saints should desire to be filled with it. Then he comes to the practical results of such knowledge, emphasising that it motivates, transforms, and directs those who possess it. Finally, Spurgeon speaks briefly about the reflex action of knowledge upon holiness, for the holy man is one who increases in knowledge, spurred by appetite and increased in capacity. Thus spiritual knowledge and zealous labour are properly connected, and so we learn better what it means to know and to serve the living and true God.

Read the sermon here:https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/spiritual-knowledge-hsz5y

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Spurgeon is as practical as he is doctrinal and experimental (he often insists on all these being properly represented in public ministry, either within or across sermons). This sermon consists in a great deal of practical pastoral counsel with regard to humility, applying the requirement for humility to our church life, to our behaviour in our afflictions, in our daily dealings with God, and in our seeking forgiveness as sinners (recognising that the last element is more an extrapolation from the text than a explication of it). Perhaps you have read treatments of pride and humility that are clothed in a kind of faux-lowliness. It may well be that Spurgeon struggled with pride (several biographers suggest it was a battle for him) but here he simply goes for the jugular of this sin, putting himself as squarely in the sights of his text as anyone else in the congregation, and preaching with a directness and simplicity that is commendable. Because, as he says, “pride is so natural to fallen man that it springs up in his heart like weeds in a watered garden, or rushes by a flowing brook,” the sermon remains as relevant to me and to you as it did to anyone sitting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle that day in or around 1883. May the sermon do as much good to us as we trust it did to them!

Read the sermon here: https://www.mediagratiae.org/resources/on-humbling-ourselves

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