Crab Tree Christians

How many have we in our churches of crab tree Christians, who have mixed such a vast amount of vinegar, and such a tremendous quantity of gall in their constitutions, that they can scarcely speak one good word to you; they imagine it impossible to defend religion except by passionate ebullitions; they cannot speak for their dishonored Master without being angry with their opponent; God if anything is away, whether it be in the house, the church, or anywhere else, they conceive it to be their duty to set their faces like a flint, and to defy everybody. They are like isolated icebergs; no one cares to go near them. They float about on the sea of forgetfulness, until at last they are melted and gone; and though, good souls, we shall be happy enough to meet them in heaven, we are heartily glad to get rid of them from the earth. They were always so unamiable in disposition, that we would rather live an eternity with them in heaven, than five minutes on earth. Be ye not thus, my brethren. Imitate Christ in your loving spirits; speak kindly, act kindly, and do kindly, that men may say of you, “He has been with Jesus.”


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 159-160. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 20; Titled: Christ’s People – Imitators of Him; Delivered on Sabbath. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Sin Blotted Out Now And Forevermore

25 “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” – Isaiah 43:25

Notice once more, that it is a present forgiveness. It does not say I am he that will blot out thy transgressions, but that blotteth them out now. There are some who believe, or at least seem to imagine, that it is not possible to know whether our sins are forgiven in this life. We may have hope, it is thought, that at last there will be a balance to strike on our side. But this will not satisfy the poor soul who is really seeking pardon, and is anxious to find it; and God has therefore blessedly told us, that he blotteth out our sin now; that he will do it at any moment the sinner believes. As soon as he trusts in his crucified God, all his sins are forgiven, whether past, present, or to come. Even supposing that he is yet to commit them, they are all pardoned. If I live eighty years after I receive pardon, doubtless I shall fall into many errors, but the one pardon will avail for them as well as for the past.


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 186. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 24; Titled: Forgiveness; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 20, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Love With The Love Of Jesus

Let us ever imitate the loving Jesus. The child comes to him: he takes it on his knee, saying, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” A widow has just lost her only son: he weeps at the bier, and with a word restores life to the dead man. He sees a paralytic, a leper, or a man long confined to his bed; he speaks, they rise, and are healed. He lived for others, not for himself. His constant labors were without any motive, except the good of those who lived in the world. And to crown all, ye know the mighty sacrifice he made, when he condescended to lay down his life for man—when on the tree, quivering with agony, and hanging in the utmost extremity of suffering, he submitted to die for our sakes, that we might be saved. Behold in Christ, love consolidated! he was one mighty pillar of benevolence. As God is love, so Christ is love. Oh, ye Christians, be ye loving also. Let your love and your beneficence beam out on all men. Say not, “Be ye warmed, and be ye filled,” but “give a portion to seven, and also to eight.” If ye cannot imitate Howard, and unlock the prison doors—if ye cannot visit the sad house of misery, yet each in your proper sphere speak kind words, do kind actions; live out Christ again in the kindness of your life. If there is one virtue which most commends Christians, it is that of kindness; it is to love the people of God, to love the church, to love the world, to love all.


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 159. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 20; Titled: Christ’s People – Imitators of Him; Delivered on Sabbath. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Unutterable Mercy!

Unutterable mercy! There is no sinner out of hell so black but that God can wash him white. There is not out of the pit one so guilty that God is not able and willing to forgive him; for he declares the wondrous fact—“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.”


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 186. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 24; Titled: Forgiveness; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 20, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Let Us Mix Our Boldness With Love

No one feature will give a portrait of a man; so the one virtue of boldness will never make you like Christ. There have been some who have been noble men, but have carried their courage to excess; they have thus been caricatures of Christ, and not portraits of him. We must amalgamate with our boldness the loveliness of Jesus’ disposition. Let courage be the brass; let love be the gold. Let us mix the two together, so shall we produce a rich Corinthian metal, fit to be manufactured into the beautiful gate of the temple. Let your love and courage be mingled together. The man who is bold may indeed accomplish wonders. John Knox did much, but he might perhaps have done more if he had had a little love. Luther was a conqueror—peace to his ashes, and honor to his name!—still, we who look upon him at a distance, think that if he had sometimes mixed a little mildness with it,—if while he had been fortiter in re he had been also suaviter in modo, and spoken somewhat more gently, he might have done even more good than he did. So, brethren, while we too are bold, let us ever imitate the loving Jesus.




Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 159. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 20; Titled: Christ’s People – Imitators of Him; Delivered on Sabbath. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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The Opinion That Matters Most

Divine pardon is the only forgiveness possible; for no one can remit sin but God only, and it matters not whether a Roman Catholic Priest, or any other priest shall say in the name of God, “I absolve thee from thy transgressions,” it is abominable blasphemy. If a man has offended me I can forgive him, but if he has offended God I cannot forgive him. The only discharge possible is pardon by God; but then it is the only pardon necessary. Suppose I have so sinned that the king or the queen will not pardon me, that my brethren will not forgive me, and that I cannot pardon myself; if God absolves me, that is all the acquittal that will be necessary for my salvation. Perhaps I stand condemned by the law of my country: I am a murderer and must suffer on the scaffold; the queen refuses to pardon, and perhaps she does right in such a refusal; but I do not want her forgiveness in order to enter heaven; if God acquits me, that will be enough. Were I such a reprobate that all men hissed at me and wished me gone from existence, if I knew that they would never forgive my crime—though I ought to desire my fellow-creatures’ forgiveness—it would not be necessary that I should have it to enter heaven. If God says, I forgive thee, that is enough. It is only God that can forgive satisfactorily; because no human pardon can ease the troubled conscience. The self-righteous Pharisee may be content to give himself into the hands of a priest to be rocked to sleep in the cradle of delusion, but the poor convinced sinner wants something more than the arrogant dictum of a priest—ten thousand of them, with all their enchantments, he feels to be all in vain, unless Jehovah himself shall say, “I have blotted out thy sins for mine own sake.”


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 185. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 24; Titled: Forgiveness; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 20, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Be Bold For Your Master

If ye are the servants of God, be like Jesus Christ, bold for your Master; never blush to own your religion; your profession will never disgrace you; take care you never disgrace that. Your love to Christ will never dishonor you; it may bring some temporary slight from your friends, or slanders from your enemies: but live on, and you shall live down their calumnies; live on and ye shall stand amongst the glorified, honored even by those who hissed you, when he shall come to be glorified by his angels, and admired by them that love him. Be like Jesus, very valiant for your God; so that when they shall see your boldness, they may say, “He has been with Jesus.”




Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 159. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 20; Titled: Christ’s People – Imitators of Him; Delivered on Sabbath. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Hope For The Prodigal

I can usually tell whether inquirers have been the children of pious parents or no, if after a confession of great guilt they feel unable to proceed at the remembrance of what they once were. Groaning, and sobbing, and tears running down their cheeks, are the silent language of their woe. When I see this, I always know that the language that succeeds will be: “I have been the child of pious parents; and I feel that I am one of the worst of sinners, because I was brought up to religion; and yet I disregarded it, and turned aside from it.” O yes, the worst of sinners are sinners in Zion, because they sin against light and knowledge; they force their way to hell, as John Bunyan says, over the Cross of Christ; and the worst way to hell is to go by the cross to it. Many of you now before me were consecrated to God by a beloved mother, and your father taught you to read and love the Scriptures of truth. You were brought up like Timothy; you well understand the theory of the way of salvation, and yet you come here, young men, some of you enemies to God and without Christ, and despisers of his word; some of you are even scoffers, or if not actually scoffers, you say religion is nought to you, and by your actions, if not by your words, declare it is nothing to you that Jesus should die. Ah! when I speak to you, I would not forget myself. Should it ever be my lot to wake up in hell, I should be amongst the most horribly damned there, for I had a most pious training, and should be forced to take my place with the sanctuary sinners. And you that are such, whom I am addressing now, are you not afraid? Ask youselves now, “Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire?” Do you tremble and shake for fear, and with a penitent heart desire forgiveness? If so, then I say again, in my Master’s name—who spake nothing but love and mercy to penitent sinners, who said, “Neither do I condemn thee”—Jehovah now declares “I, even I am be that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 184. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 24; Titled: Forgiveness; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 20, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Ever Striving Towards the Goal

I do not, when I say that a believer should be a striking likeness of Jesus, suppose that any one Christian will perfectly exhibit all the features of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; yet my brethren, the fact that perfection is beyond our reach, should not diminish the ardour of our desire after it. The artist, when he paints, knows right well that he shall not be able to excel Apelles; but that does not discourage him; he uses his brush with all the greater pains, that he may at least in some humble measure resemble the great master. So the sculptor; though persuaded that he will not rival Praxiteles, will hew out the marble still, and seek to be as near the model as possible. Just so the Christian man; though he feels he never can mount to the height of complete excellence, and perceives that he never can on earth become the exact image of Christ, still holds it up before him, and measures his own deficiencies by the distance between himself and Jesus. This will he do, forgetting all he has attained, he will press forward, crying, Excelsior! going upwards still, desiring to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ Jesus.




Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 158. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 20; Titled: Christ’s People – Imitators of Him; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 29, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

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Hope For The Prayerless

Is prayer your constant practice, my hearers? How many of you now before me, ay, and behind me too, must confess that you have not prayed, that it is not your habit to hold communion with God. Prayerless souls are Christless souls; for you can have no real fellowship with Christ, no communion with the Father, unless you approach his mercy-seat, and be often there; and yet if you are condemning yourselves, and lamenting that this has been your condition, you need not despair, for this mercy is for you: “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob;” yet, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.”


Charles Spurgeon




The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 182. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 24; Titled: Forgiveness; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 20, 1855. Click here for a free PDF of this sermon.

Books by Charles Spurgeon

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Spurgeon’s Works on Logos Bible Software

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