PART I, SKETCH III: TEACHING CHILDREN

“Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Psalm 34.11.)

Introduction. It is worth noticing that good men often discover their duty by being placed in humiliating circumstances. This happened to David. Once, he pretended to be crazy to fool a king, and the children in the street laughed at him. By the remembrance of that event, maybe, he sets out to do something better than make children laugh. He will teach them the fear of the Lord. 

(1) One Doctrine. Here it is: Children are able to understand religious topics, contrary to popular opinion that says they can’t. Children often understand these things better than geniuses do. A child capable of being damned is capable of being saved. If teachers can’t make children understand, it is because the teachers do not understand themselves. Anyway, God can work upon little hearts as he pleases. Be careful not to dismiss one of these tiny buds of grace. If a child declares love to Jesus, treat that little one as a real member of God’s church!

(2) Two Encouragements. First, David’s example. “I will teach you the fear of the Lord,” says David. You are not too proud to follow in the steps of David the giant killer, are you? And follow the Son of David, Jesus, who says, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” Second, David’s success. “I will teach you,” he says—not perhaps. Many volumes could be written on the success of Sabbath-schools in teaching children. It is a noble work. Go on in it! More shall yet be done!

(3) Three Cautions. First, remember who you are teaching. Children have little option of going somewhere else. And they believe and retain error as easily as truth. Second, recall that you are teaching for God. This should make you tremble and make sure that you are teaching truth. Third, remember that a child needs teaching. He was born in sin. He has an evil seed in his heart. It is your job to sow a good seed there, or he will be forever lost. Be very anxious when you teach.

(4) Four Instructions. “Come, ye children.” This means go and invite them. Do not bribe them. That is a mean abuse. Just coax them to come along. Then fill the school by teaching interestingly: tell lots of stories. Next, get the children to love you. Otherwise they will not learn. Wear a sour look while you tell a boy about Jesus, and will the boy not think that Jesus is as sour as you? Then, keep the children’s attention by the use of many stories and pictures. Finally, stick to the lesson. 

(5) Five Sunday-School Lessons. Here they are: morality (what’s right and wrong) to make them know their sins; godliness (one-on-one prayers and love to God) to make them conscious of God’s tender care and all seeing eye; the evil of sin to convince them of needing a Saviour; the need of a broken heart of repentance through God’s mercy; and the blessedness of being a child of God. Oh! Emphasize this last point. Show them how to be happy in spite of all your troubles. And be sure not to leave out the three R’s: Ruin, Regeneration, and Redemption. 

Selection from Conclusion. “You are a sword; God may with you slay the child’s sin, but you can not slay it yourself. Be you therefore mindful of this, that you must be first taught of God yourself, and then you must ask God to teach, for unless a higher teacher than you instruct the child, that child must perish. It is not all your instruction can save a soul: it is the blessing of God resting on it. May God bless your labors! He will do it if you are instant in prayer, constant in supplication; for never yet did the earnest preacher or teacher, labor in vain.”

PART I, SKETCH II: THE BIBLE

“I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing” (Hosea 8.12.)

Introduction. This is God’s complaint against Ephraim. It is a great proof of God’s goodness that he stoops to rebuke his erring creatures. If he pleased, he might be as indifferent to us as the heathens supposed their Jove was. Our God notices every one of us. We are beneath his smile or his frown. How merciful that God does not smite man out of existence! Instead, he pleads with him. I come here as God’s ambassador to plead with you and to charge many of you with the sin of this text. 

(1) Who is the Author? The text says that it is God. John tells of love; Peter speaks of fire devouring God’s enemies; but everywhere I find God speaking. I could show you that God wrote the Bible. But I stand here as a preacher of things I know and feel, not as a controversialist. A thought or two now on this Word of God. First, admire its authority. It is not the sayings of the sages of Greece. It is dated from the hills of heaven. The chapters are big with meaning and mysteries unknown. Written by God? Then I will bow before thee. Reason, your place is to stand and find out what this volume means, not to tell it what it should say. Then, mark its truthfulness. This is the Word of God, a sun without a blot, the judge that ends the strife. I have heard men in prayer say, “Make your calling and salvation sure” instead of, “Make your calling and election sure.” Pity they were not born long enough ago to teach God how to write! God wrote what they do not like—the truth. Stop and consider the mercy of God in writing us a Bible. He might have left us in the dark with only the star of reason as our guide. The light of creation is bright. God’s glory may be discovered in the ocean waves. But his glory is more clearly revealed in the Bible. What will become of you who neglect your Bibles? There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write ‘damnation’ with your fingers. Be Bible-readers; be Bible-searchers. 

(2) The Subjects in the Bible. There is nothing unimportant in the Bible. I believe a man may be saved in any denomination. But not all churches are equally truthful. One teaches that we are saved by free grace, while another says it is by free will. They cannot both be right. Never say that what you believe doesn’t matter. Search and see. But while all things in God’s word are important, they are not equally so. Certain vital truths must be believed, or no man would be saved. What are the three R’s? Ruin, redemption, and regeneration. There is an even better epitome of the gospel in the five points of Calvinism. Do you think the great things of God’s law are not worth your attention? Reflect a moment, man. If you die without Christ, there is no hope for you. As heaven is desirable and hell is terrible, you ought to listen to God’s great things. 

(3) How the Bible is Treated in the World. It is accounted a strange thing. First, because some never read it. A full-grown person once heard me reading the story of David and Goliath, and then remarked, “Dear me! what an interesting story; what book is that in?” Others who read the Bible say it is so horribly dry. If it is dry to you, you lack the greatest evidence of your Christianity, and you will be dry at last in hell. Blind men need the Spirit to put eye-salves on. Then there are some who hate the Bible. Do not quarrel with your only refuge from hell! Hope in the Saviour’s veins. Hope in the Father’s mercy. Hope in the Holy Spirit’s omnipotent agency. 

Selection from Conclusion. “Let no one turn away from the Bible because it is not a book of learning and wisdom. It is. Would you know astronomy? It is here: it tells you of the Sun of Righteousness and the Star of Bethlehem…Whate’er your science is, come and bend o’er this book.” 

PART I, SKETCH I: SOVEREIGNTY AND SALVATION

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God” (Isaiah 45.22.)

Introduction. Six years ago today I was saved from misery and sin as the minister read this text, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” How marvelous it is to now address these words for the good of some other poor sinner! There was a time when mighty God dwelled in solemn silence alone. How outrageous that his creatures would for a moment compare themselves with him! Yet Satan tried to take his throne! Then man imitated Satan. Since then God has been teaching the world this great lesson from our text. 

(1) God has been Teaching this Lesson to Mankind. He has been teaching it to false gods. Where are the gods of Persia? Where is Persia’s fire-worshipper? Where are the gods of Greece, like Jupiter and Saturn? Who bows before them now? Where are the gods of Rome? Of China and Polynesia? Buddha, Brahman, and Vishnu shall yet be tramped in the mire. So much for idols. God has been teaching this lesson that there is no God but him, to Empires. Go and see the ruins of Babylon. Go seat yourselves in the temples of Greece. Walk through the deserted theatres of Rome. Hear the voice in the wild wind, “I am God, and there is none else.” God has taught this great truth to monarchs. Take Nebuchadnezzar, who was so proud of his Babylon. He was driven into the field to eat grass like an ox. Remember Herod, who imagined he was divine. The worms ate him up that same day. Modern history is full of examples of kings humbled by God. Wise men of this world have learned our lesson too. The wisdom of Socrates, the writings of Aristotle and Bacon, are all but forgotten now. Philosophies and systems quickly pass away to be replaced by others. God’s Bible is the rock that shall crush all of them into powder. Even the Church of God forgets our lesson: that God has no equal or rival. How did Israel forget when she worshiped strange gods! And Christians in prosperity and pride have been taught the hard lesson by various trials. Great preachers too have had to learn it.

(2) The Special Way God Teaches this Lesson. He teaches us that he alone is God by directing us to look unto him alone for salvation. “Look unto me,” he says, not at the priest, not at yourself. Don’t even look at your repentance and faith. Look to Jesus, or you’ll be damned. Sin qualifies you to come to Jesus, not your righteousness. The sick have need of a physician. And so the preacher says, “Look unto Christ, and ye shall be saved.” See the thorny crown cause drops of blood to trickle down his cheeks. If you want mercy, look at all his wounds. Observe next, that it is “look unto me.” That is the simple way to be saved: Look—four letters, and two of them alike! Man wants a complicated way, with candles and ceremonies, etc. To take down your pride God orders you to do a simple thing, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” A look takes less than a moment. Salvation is as fast. It is not seeing Christ so much as looking for him. Jesus in the dark is as good as Jesus in the light. The will for Christ, the wish for him, that is what is wanted. This method of salvation is the same for everyone, for the gentleman, the prostitute, the Gentile, and the Jew. It is for anyone. This is why the text says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” Are you a filthy sinner? So filthy that you dare not look? But God will condemn you unless you look. If you fear, look anyway, and your sin will be removed. 

Selection from Conclusion. “In all thine agony, poor soul, in all thy repentance for thy guilt, look unto Christ, and find pardon…Now believe on him; now cast thy guilty soul upon his righteousness; now plunge thy black soul into the bath of his blood…Now ‘Look!’”

PART I, SKETCHING SPURGEON: INTRODUCTION

Spurgeon’s sermons are among the finest that have ever been preached or composed. They are, among other excellent things, a condensation of Puritan divinity. The Puritans were the preeminent expositors of their age, and, in fact, of any age. So one day many years ago I decided to condense some of Spurgeon’s sermons in order to learn the grand doctrines of the Bible. Eventually I moved on to other projects, but not before completing over eighty sketches. 

These sketches are not abridgments of sermons. Each sketch is a snapshot of a whole sermon. For each sketch, I have stuck precisely to the format of each title being summed up. When there were three points, I put in the same three points; when there were six, I squeezed all six of them in. Each sketch begins with a summary of the sermon introduction. Each sketch closes with an excerpt from the sermon conclusion, word for word. I have tried my best to include some of Spurgeon’s illustrations. I have fit in as much historical information, and as many anecdotes and analogies as I could. Because I planned to hand these sketches out on the street, Spurgeon’s English has been modernized. The reason why the sketches are harmonized for length is because my object was to fit each one on a single page.

The sermons of Spurgeon are saturated with the great life-changing doctrines; they are Christ-centered; they are calculated to bring sinners to repentance; they are warm yet hard-hitting; and they are all well-structured, smart and interesting, artistic and arresting, and as persuasive as any sermons that have ever been delivered or written down. Spurgeon’s doctrine has proven good enough for the Spirit to set his seal to. And my sketches are nothing else than an accurate, clear condensation of what he preached. His pulpit power may be felt, even in snapshots of his work.  

It would have been easy to make it appear as though Spurgeon believed something other than he actually believed. By a selective summary, a person could make it appear as though he believed that Jesus died for every sinner, for example. I was not tempted to commit that sin, for I believe as Spurgeon did, and I hate misrepresentations in any case. I think Spurgeon is wrong on lizards being killed before Adam was created. I made sure to make room for parts like this for no other reason than because I disagree. I have been very careful to convey Spurgeon’s doctrine, no matter what I found it to be. Spurgeon chose to preach from texts that contain the grandest themes. It is not possible to find a sermon of his that treats of minor matters. So it is not possible to cherry-pick little hobby horses when featuring his work. I did choose to sketch a sermon of his on Christmas, even though I do not believe that a sermon on Christmas is ever appropriate. When a sermon on Christmas is by C. H. Spurgeon, though, you can count on it being about Christ, not the manger or Magi.