The man who does not make hard work of his ministry will find it very hard work to answer for his idleness at the last great day. A gentleman who wants an easy life should never think of occupying the Christian pulpit, he is out of place there, and when he gets there the only advice I can give him is to get out of it as soon as possible; and if he will not leave the position voluntarily, I call to mind the language of Jehu concerning Jezebel, Fling her down, and think the advice applicable to a lazy minister. An idler has no right in the pulpit. He is an instrument of Satan in damning the souls of men.
The ministry demands brain labour; the preacher must throw his thought into his teaching, and read and study to keep his mind in good trim. He must not weary the people by telling them the truth in a stale, unprofitable manner, with nothing fresh from his own soul to give force to it. Above all, he must put heart work into his preaching. He must feel what he preaches: it must never be with him an easy thing to deliver a sermon; he must as if he could preach his very life away ere the sermon is done. There must be soul work in it, the entire man must be stirred up to effort, and the whole nature that God has endowed him with must be concentrated with all its vigour upon the work in hand. Such men we want.
To stand and drone out a sermon in a kind of articulate snoring to a people who are somewhere between awake and asleep must be wretched work. I wonder what kind of excuse will be given by some men at last for having habitually done this. To promulgate a dry creed, and go over certain doctrines, and expound and enforce them logically, but never to deal with men’s consciences, never to upbraid them for their sins, never to tell them of their danger, never to invite them to a Saviour with tears and entreaties! What a powerless work is this! What will become of such preachers? God have mercy upon them! We want labourers, not loiterers. We need men on fire, and I beseech you ask God to send them.-C.H. Spurgeon
2 comments:
Dear Charles,
I just happened to find your site as I was looking for Spurgeon's quotation. I also read your greetings and about you. Thank you for doing this great work of the Lord.
I like to ask if I can put Spurgeon's quotations on my personal site and our church website. Do I need permission? If so how do I proceed? I will appreciate if you can let me know.
For example, I have just added one of the quotations on my personal site: http://www.lunglai.in/index.php/resources/the-hard-work-of-the-ministry
And the other website on which I like to put some of Spurgeon's quotations is: www.bbcsalzburg.com.
Warmest greetings from Austria,
Aboi
Dear Aboi, Thank you for your comments. I appreciate so much your visit. Yes Spurgeon is one of our greatest preachers. I use his words often. He, and many other 'old-timers' are the best preachers we have had. You can feel free to copy any of his messages on my sites, but even better, you can go to a site that has thousands of things by him. None of his written work by Spurgeon is now copyrighted. All his copy rights are expired now.Use what you like and spread it.This is generally true of all 19th century writers. Feel free to copy any of them. The site is spurgeon.org If you want to be on my email list to receive what I publish just send me your email address at oursong2000@yahoo.com Thanks!
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