“I have known men tantalize us with the hope that they were drawing to a close, and then take a fresh lease two or three times; this is most unwise and unpleasant” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 62).
Earthbound Prayer
“Beware of having an eye to the auditors; beware of becoming rhetorical to please the listeners. Prayer must not be transformed into ‘an oblique sermon.’ It is little short of blasphemy to make devotion an occasion for display. Fine prayers are generally very wicked prayers. In the presence of the Lord of hosts it ill …
Last Chance Seminary
“One brother I have encountered — one did I say? I have met ten, twenty, a hundred brethren, who have pleaded that they were sure, quite sure that they were called to the ministry — they were quite certain of it, because they had failed at everything else” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. …
Can’t Teach and Won’t Learn
“Another exceedingly large class of men seek the pulpit they know not why. They cannot teach and will not learn, and yet must fain be ministers” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 36).
Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing
“Certain good men appeal to me who are distinguished by enormous vehemence and zeal, and a conspicuous absence of brains; brethren who would talk for ever and ever upon nothing — who would stamp and thump the Bible, and get nothing out of it all; earnest, awfully earnest, mountains of labour of the most painful …
Minimum Prerequisites
“Still, a man must not consider that he is called to preach until he has proved that he can speak. God certainly has not created behemoth to fly; and should leviathan have a strong desire to ascend with the lark, it would evidently be an unwise aspiration, since he is not furnished with wings. If …
If You Can Do Anything Else, Do That
“The first sign of the heavenly calling is an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work. In order to a true call to the ministry there must be an irresistible, overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling to others what God has done for our own souls; what if I call it a kind of storge, …
Stumbling Against a Pulpit
“How may a young man know whether he is called or not? That is a weighty enquiry, and I desire to treat it most solemnly . . . That hundreds have missed their way, and stumbled against a pulpit is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and decaying churches which surround us . . . …
Preachers or Fops?
“As a general rule, I hate the fashions of society, and detest conventionalities, and if I conceived it best to put my foot through a law of etiquette, I should feel gratified in having it to do. No, we are men, not slaves; and are not to relinquish our manly freedom, to be lackeys of …
Holy Cheerfulness
“Sanctity in ministers is a loud call to sinners to repent, and when allied with holy cheerfulness it becomes wondrously attractive” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, pp. 18-19).