Spurgeon's Sermon Notes
This is the third portion of "My Sermon Notes," and it consists of Notes of Sermons preached by me on Sabbath and Thursday evenings. I trust it will be helpful to men who are greatly occupied, and are therefore sorely pressed for subjects of discourse. One more selection of outlines—upon certain texts which range from Romans to Revelation—will complete the series. This last part I hope to prepare for publication before this year has quite run out. I might have taken longer time over the rest of the work; but as the sale of the former volumes indicates a want, I feel bound to supply it as speedily as I can. "The night comes, when no man can work."
I hope and believe that these Notes will not be of much use to persons who fail to think for themselves. For such talkers I have no sort of compassion. My outlines are meant to be aids to preparation, and nothing more. The theory that they will induce men to be idle is not supported by facts. Concerning this, information of the most reliable kind is forthcoming. Those who have valued them, and turned them to account, have almost always used them in the manner which I proposed to them: they have cut them up into several sermons, of have taken the raw material and rearranged it after their own fashion, and so have made it as good as new. In several instances brethren who have been necessarily occupied in visitation and other pastoral work have found great assistance from these summaries, and have been able on the Lord's-day to give their people a fair measure of spiritual food, by working out at full length the thoughts suggested. Knowing what it is to be hardly pressed myself, and remembering my great gratitude when a friend has suggested a theme and a line of thought, I am now happy in rendering to others a service which I have so often needed myself.
Mr. Page, of Chelsea, has again helped me in the somewhat difficult task of appending illustrations to the outlines. We have brought forth "things new and old." In this age of Cyclopedias it is hard to find anything which has not been used in some form or other; but yet I hope that, to a fair extent, there is real freshness about these selections. At any rate, most of the quotations and anecdotes are new to me. The very oldest will be novel in some places, and to some hearers.
In all these outlines evangelical truth is set forth as clearly as I am able to do it. This will injure my work in the estimation of those whose admiration I do not covet; but this will cause me no alarm, for the weight of their censure is not great. My conviction is, that the lovers of the Old Gospel are far more numerous than the cold other-gospellers suspect, and that the orthodox are increasing every day. The mania of "advanced thought" has nearly had its day, and a sorry day it has proved to many. The will-o'-the-wisp has flitted on and on towards the pestilent swamps of Socinianism. At one time the pretended goddess was resplendent in fine apparel, but the foolish creature has danced itself threadbare: its tattered garments of pretentious knowledge no longer conceal its deformity.
Better days are coming for the lovers of the eternal verities. For a season we seemed to be surrounded by a torrent of unbelief; but the waters are assuaging, and the mountains of truth lift their peaks above the flood. Whatever the times may be, there shall be no doubt as to where the writer of these outlines took up his standing in the hour of controversy. I know nothing but the doctrines of grace, the teaching of the cross, the gospel of salvation; and I write only that these things may be the more widely published. If those who believe these truths will honor me by using my Notes, I shall rejoice, and shall trust that the blessing of God will go with their discourses. It is no small pleasure to be helping brethren in the faith to sow beside all waters the living seed of the Word of God.
While all around us workers are being taken to their reward, it becomes us to be doubly diligent in our Lord's service. Let us all use such ability as we have. One can preach sermons without aid from books; another can fill up a frame-work, though he cannot construct one for himself; a third can only read a discourse: let no man so envy his fellow's gift as to neglect his own; but let each one do what he can, and look up for a blessing.
To God I commend these baskets of fragments which remained after the multitudes were fed: the Master's example has encouraged me to "take up" what else had been forgotten.
Westwood,
March, 1886
Preface
This is the concluding portion of "My Sermon-Notes." There are many more skeletons in the tombs from which these have been brought to light, but I have no idea of summoning any more of them from their retirement. I have no desire to become the rival of Mr. Charles Simeon; and yet, if I should copy any man's outlines, I should prefer him for a model. Notwithstanding the depreciatory remarks which I have frequently read from witty writers who have referred to that great sermonizer, I believe that no one has done better service in that line than he. His helps were needed at the time when they were prepared. In much the same way as the Homilies were necessary to the preachers of the Reformed Church in its infant days, Simeon's outlines were needed by a newly-converted clergy who had begun to feel the glow of the great Methodist revival. It may be that these Sermon-Notes may be just in time for a return of zeal for the doctrines of grace, and a restoration of spiritual ardor, when young men shall feel called upon to speak at once for Jesus, and shall hardly know how to shape their thought's expression unless some man shall guide them.
It was never my design to help men to deliver a message which is not their own. It is ill when prophets steal their prophecies from one another, for then they are likely—all of them—to become false prophets. But as the young prophet borrowed an axe of a friend, and was not censured for it so long as the strokes he gave with it were his own, so may we refrain from condemning those who find a theme suggested to them, and a line of thought laid before them, and with all their hearts use them in speaking to the people. This should not be their custom: every man should have an axe of his own, and have no need to cry, "Alas, master! it was borrowed"; but there are times of special pressure, bodily sickness, or mental weariness, wherein a man is glad of brotherly help, and may use it without question. For such occasions I have tried to provide.
I am more than ever impressed with the conviction that men must not only preach that which they have themselves thought over, and prepared, but also that which they have themselves experienced, in its life and power. The seed of our teaching must be taken alone from Holy Scripture, but we must also plant it in the soil of our own spiritual life, and present our people with the plants which come from it. Doctrines are well taught when our inner life confirms them, and promises are fitly discoursed upon when we can testify that we have tried and proved them. As precepts can never be powerfully enforced unless they are carefully practiced by the preacher, so high ideals of spiritual life are likely to remain mere dreams, unless the person who proposes them has himself realized them. It is never wise to stretch your arm beyond your sleeve: we must teach that which we know, and no more. Experience gives assurance and authority, and such preaching is, through the Spirit of God, very frequently attended with an unction from the Holy One, such as we do not find in the mere professor who describes what he has never seen, and talks of matter with which he has no acquaintance. The best education for the Christian ministry is a deep experience of divine truth in the heart and life. Truth without the experience of it is without dew; and very little refreshment arises from it to those to whom it comes. Truth, which we have made our own by experience, will be to our hearers like food prepared for their use, roasted in the fire, or baked in the oven: apart from this it will be raw and hard, and the hearer will not be able to digest it, and will lose the nutriment which it is intended to convey.
Oh, that I may help some of my brethren so to preach as to win souls for Jesus! Warm, personal testimony is greatly useful in this direction; and, therefore, I trust that, by adding his own hearty witness to the truths which I have here outlined, many a believer may s peak successfully for the Lord. I commend my humble labors to him whom I desire to serve by them. Without the Holy Spirit there is nothing here but a valley of dry bones; but if the breath shall come from the four winds, every line will become instinct with life.
Your brother in Christ Jesus.