Category Archives: Old-Time Sermons

The Personality of the Holy Ghost

The Personality of the Holy Ghost
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 21, 1855
by C. H. Spurgeon
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
John 14:16-17 KJV

You will be surprised to hear me announce that I do not intend this morning to say anything about the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. I propose to reserve that for a special Sermon this evening. In this discourse I shall endeavor to explain and enforce certain other doctrines, which I believe are plainly taught in this text, and which I hope God the Holy Ghost may make profitable to our souls. Old John Newton once said, that there were some books which he could not read; they were good and sound enough; but, said he, “they are books of halfpence; you have to take so much in quantity before you have any value; there are other books of silver, and others of gold; but I have one book that is a book of bank notes; and every leaf is a bank-note of immense value.” So I found with this text: that I had a bank-note of so large a sum, that I could not tell it out all this morning. I should have to keep you several hours before I could unfold to you the whole value of this precious promise— one of the last which Christ gave his people.

I invite your attention to this passage because we shall find in it some instruction on four points: first, concerning the true and proper personality of the Holy Ghost; secondly, concerning the united agency of the glorious Three Persons in the work of our salvation; thirdly we shall find something to establish the doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of all believers; and fourthly, we shall find out the reason why the carnal mind rejects the Holy Ghost.

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A Sermon for Men of Taste

A Sermon for Men of Taste
Delivered Sunday Morning, July 6th, 1862
by C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
1 Peter 2:1-3 KJV

“If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” “If,” then this is not a thing to be taken for granted concerning every one of the human race. “If,” then there is a possibility and a probability that some may not have tasted that the Lord is gracious. “If,” then this is not a general, but a special mercy; and it becomes our business to inquire whether we are comprehended in that company who know the grace of God by inward experience.

There is no spiritual favor which may not be a matter for heart-searching. At the very summit of holy delight, we meet the challenge of “sentinel If.” — “If you then be risen with Christ,” And at the very bottom, even at Repentance-gate itself, he meets us with a warrant of arrest until he sees whether our sorrow is the godly sorrow that needs not to be repented of. “If you are the Son of God?” is not always a temptation of the devil, but often a very healthy inquiry most fittingly suggested by holy anxiety to men who would build securely upon the Rock of Ages. Continue reading

The Birth Of Christ

The Birth Of Christ
Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the New Park Street Chapel, Southwark
On the Lord’s Day Morning, December 24, 1845

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the Good.”
Isaiah 7:14-15.

The kingdom of Judah was in a condition of imminent peril. Two monarchs had leagued themselves against her, two nations had risen up for her destruction. Syria and Israel had come up against the walls of Jerusalem with full intent to raze them to the ground and utterly destroy the monarchy of Judah.

Ahaz the king, in great trouble, exerted all his ingenuity to defend the city and, among the other contrivances which his wisdom taught him, he thought it fit to cut off the waters of the upper pool, so that the besiegers might be in distress for lack of water. He goes out in the morning, no doubt attended by his courtiers, makes his way to the conduit of the upper pool, intending to see after the stopping of the stream of water, but lo, he meets with something which sets aside his plans and renders them needless!

Isaiah steps forward and tells him not to be afraid for the smoke of those two firebrands, for God should utterly destroy both the nations that had risen up against Judah. Ahaz need not fear the present invasion, for both he and his kingdom would be saved. The king looked at Isaiah with an eye of incredulity, as much as to say, “If the Lord were to send chariots from Heaven, could such a thing as this be? Should He animate the dust and quicken every stone in Jerusalem to resist my foes, could this be done?” Continue reading

The Unchanging Christ

The Unchanging Christ
by J. C. Ryle

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

Always the same! unchanging! —that is a glorious character; a character which belongs to nothing that is of the earth; a character which He alone deserves, who is the Lord from heaven.

What of this present world in which we live and move and have our being? It has stamped upon it the marks of a tremendous change; it is no longer the same as it was in the beginning, it cannot be that fair creation of which God pronounced every part and portion to be very good. Doubtless we see that it is still a beautiful world, clothed with all that is lovely to the eye, furnished with all that is necessary to our comfort, stored with everything that can make life enjoyable.

You may see everywhere the traces of a bountiful Father’s hand. But still, we repeat, this world is not what it once was: it is no longer the same —no more the same than the gallant ship which yesterday did walk the waters like a thing of life, and today is dashed high on the beach and lies there a wreck, dismasted, shattered, and forsaken. This world is no more the same than the ruin of some ancient magnificent temple, which now stands desolate and silent and alone, with weeds and briars creeping over its floor, and ivy hanging about its broken walls like a widow’s garment. Continue reading

The Pilgrim’s Longings

The Pilgrim’s Longings
Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”
Hebrews 11:15-16.

BRAHAM left his country at God’s command, and he never went back again. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. There is a sort of faith which does run well, but it is soon hindered, and it doth not obey the truth. That is not the faith to which the promise is given.

The faith of God’s elect continues and abides. Being connected with the living and incorruptible seed, it lives and abides for ever. Abraham returned not; Isaac returned not; Jacob returned not. The promise was to them as “strangers and sojourners,” and so they continued.

The apostle tells us, however, that they were not forced so to continue; they did not remain because they could not return. Had they been mindful of the place from whence they came out, they might have found opportunities to go back. Continue reading

The Shadow of the Almighty

The Shadow of the Almighty
Newman Hall

“He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” – Psalm 91:1.

The desert is dreary. The way is long. Heavily burdened, a weary traveler slowly drags onward his wounded feet. Faint by reason of the fiery blaze which smites him from the unclouded sky and the scorching sand, he eagerly looks around for shelter. He pants for even the muddiest pool where he may quench his raging thirst. In such “a weary land,” how welcome “the shadow of a great rock,” and the clear, cool fountain gushing up within its rugged clefts! But where can such a refuge be found for the soul—weary with wandering, crushed by care, groaning under guilt? Where can its burden be taken off, its sorrows soothed, its mighty thirst assuaged?

A trembling fugitive, long the victim of robbery and violence, has vainly run here and there in quest of a hiding-place from his cruel enemies, who, with threatening gestures and words of hate, are in full pursuit. Now he hears their voices clamoring for his blood, as they press more closely upon his track. Each moment he expects the fatal shot. How joyful, as it suddenly bursts upon him, is the sight of the friendly fortress whose open portal bids him enter, and then shuts impregnably! Beneath the shadow of those strong towers, he may now rest both from his toils and his terrors!

But where for me, pursued by my relentless enemy, the devil, entangled by doubts, haunted by fears, with many a barbed and poisoned arrow rankling in my conscience—where for me is the privileged retreat which no hostile foot may enter, where all my wounds may be healed, and where, taking up my abode, I may be henceforth both safe and happy? Continue reading

Waiting at Wisdom’s Gates

Waiting at Wisdom’s Gates
John Gadsby

“Blessed is the man who hears Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors” (Proverbs 8:34). In the Scriptures, no more than two classes of people are declared to be in the world. The one class is called “the blessed of the Lord,” and the other “the cursed of the Lord,” or “the people of God’s curse.”

This latter class contains all the “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”; all “the generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness”; all the “generation of vipers that cannot escape the damnation of hell”; in short, all “whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life,” who are not among those whom Jesus has “redeemed unto God out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”

The former class, to which the characters spoken of in the text belong, contains all who are “chosen by God the Father in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before Him in love”; all whom He “predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He has made them accepted in the Beloved; in whom they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:3-7); all whom the Lord the Spirit “quickens into spiritual and eternal life” (Eph. 2:1); and all to whom Jehovah says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you” (Jer. 31:3). Continue reading