10 Spurgeon Quotes for Wounded Christians
Carl F. H. Henry was right to call Charles Spurgeon “one of evangelical Christianity’s immortals” (Carl. F. H. Henry in the foreword to Lewis Drummond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers ).
In his twenties, Spurgeon pastored the largest mega-church in Protestant Christendom. London’s most cavernous buildings could hardly accommodate his crowds – and one of them even collapsed. American tourists returning from England were greeted with two questions: “Did you see the Queen?’ and ‘Did you hear Spurgeon?’” (A. P. Peabody, “Spurgeon,” North American Review 86 [1858], 275). Truly, the memory of his ministry has become immortal.
But Spurgeon himself was very much mortal. The preacher was anything but bulletproof. In fact, for most of his life Spurgeon nursed deep wounds and struggled to cope with a myriad of emotional and physical maladies.
In 1867 Spurgeon suffered his first attack of chronic nephritis, or Bright’s Disease (kidney inflammation similar to Lupus). At 35 he was diagnosed with gout, an inflammation of the joints. In 1886 he said, “When I am suffering very greatly from gout, if anybody walks heavily and noisily across the room, it gives me pain” ( MTP 49:234). In a letter to his brother he wrote, “I thought a cobra had bitten me and filled my veins with poison” ( Autobiography 3:134).
So much medicine arrived from friends and family that Spurgeon said he “would have been dead long ago if we had tried half of them” ( ST 4, February 1875).
Spurgeon also suffered from depression. “I do not suppose there is any person in this assembly who ever has stronger fits of depression of spirits than I have myself personally” ( MTP 15:640). After witnessing seven people trampled to death he said, “The very sight of the Bible made me cry” ( MTP 37:383-84).
On October 22, 2009, Dr. Anil Den, a London-based psychiatrist, reviewed Spurgeon’s symptoms and concluded:
“Spurgeon was suffering from a form of endogenous depression and that, if he had presented with such symptoms today he would certainly have been treated with a mixture of medication and therapy” (Peter J. Morden, Communion with Christ and His People, 262).
While it’s difficult to diagnose the dead, one thing is certain: Spurgeon lived in the spotlight and the shadow.
In a moving sermon “ Songs in the Night,” Spurgeon revealed the struggle of the Christian trying to praise God in the dark:
It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but he is the skilful singer who can sing when there is not a ray of light by which to read,— who sings from his heart, and not from a book that he can see, because he has no means of reading, save from that inward book of his own living spirit, whence notes of gratitude pour forth in songs of praise ( MTP 44:98-99).
Spurgeon’s ministry sparked a wildfire throughout the world because it was forged, to be sure, in the fire. “I think it would have been less painful to have been burned alive at the stake than to have passed through those horrors and depressions of spirit” ( MTP 53:137-38).
Yet even in the heat of public criticism, character assassination, physical setbacks, and emotional challenges, Spurgeon experienced the warm kindness of God.
Spurgeon never suffered from having never suffered. He saw hardships as God’s hammer, shaping sinners into holiness and channeled his suffering into his sermons. Small wonder the hard working class were magnetized to him. “You must go through the fire,” he said, “if you would have sympathy with others who tread the glowing coals” ( MTP 32:590).
Here are ten quotes with their contexts, forged on the anvil of Spurgeon’s own affliction:
1. “The storm has a bit in its mouth.”
“Perhaps at this very moment, down in some cabin, or amidst the noise and tumult, and the raging of the ocean, when many are alarmed, there are Christians with calm faces, patiently waiting their Father’s will, whether it shall be to reach the port of heaven, or to be spared to come again to land, into the midst of life’s trials and struggles once more. They feel that they are well-cared for, they know that the storm has a bit in its mouth, and that God holds it in, and nothing can hurt them; nothing can happen to them but what God permits.”
“Safe Shelter” ( MTP 15, Sermon 902, p. 650).
2. “The greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness.”
“Health is set before us as if it were the great thing to be desired above all other things. It is so? I would venture to say that the greatest blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness. Sickness has frequently been of more use to the saints of God than health has. If some men, that I know of, could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God’s grace, mellow them marvelously.”
C. H. Spurgeon, “The Minister in These Times” in An All-Round Ministry (Banner of Truth, 2000), p. 384, italics in the original.
3. “Men will never become great in divinity until they become great in suffering.”
“Men will never become great in divinity until they become great in suffering. ‘Ah!’ said Luther, ‘affliction is the best book in my library;’ and let me add, the best leaf in the book of affliction is that blackest of all the leaves, the leaf called heaviness, when the spirit sinks within us, and we cannot endure as we could wish. And yet again; this heaviness is of essential use to a Christian, if he would do good to others… . There are none so tender as those who have been skinned themselves. Those who have been in the chamber of affliction know how to comfort those who are there. Do not believe that any man will become a physician unless he walks the hospitals; and I am sure that no one will become a divine, or become a comforter, unless he lies in the hospital as well as walks through it, and has to suffer himself.”
“The Christian’s Heaviness and Rejoicing” ( NPSP 4, Sermon 222, p. 461).
4. “Better to be taught by suffering than to be taught by sin!”
“Perhaps there may be no way of teaching us so thoroughly the baseness of our heart as by leaving us to its devices; perhaps we shall never know our folly, unless suffered to play the fool, but oh prevent it, Lord! prevent it by thy grace! Better to be taught by suffering than to be taught by sin! Better to lie in God’s dungeon than to revel in the devil’s palace.”
“Hezekiah and the Ambassadors, Or Vainglory Rebuked” ( MTP 12, Sermon 704, p.438).
5. “Our infirmities become the black velvet on which the diamond of God’s love glitters all the more brightly.”
“Grace is given to keep us from sin, which is a great blessing; but what is the good of grace except it is in the time when the trial comes? Certainly, the grace that will not stand in the hour of temptation or affliction, is a very spurious sort of grace; and we had better get rid of it, if we have it. When a godly woman’s child dies, the infidel husband sees the mother’s faith. When the ship goes down, and is lost in the sea, the ungodly merchant understands the resignation of his fellow-man. When pangs shoot through our body, and ghastly death appears in view, people see the patience of the dying Christian. Our infirmities become the black velvet on which the diamond of God’s love glitters all the more brightly. Thank God I can suffer, thank God I can be made the object of shame and contempt; for, in this way, God shall be glorified.”
“A Wafer of Honey” ( MTP 52, Sermon 2974, p. 80).
6. “Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering.”
“Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin, but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.”
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Morning (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1865), April 5, p. 96.
7. “There is no University for a Christian like that of sorrow and trial.”
“Israel gained by education. The Lord was not going to lead a mob of slaves into Canaan, to go and behave like slaves there. They had to be tutored. The wilderness was the Oxford and Cambridge for God’s students. There they went to the University, and he taught and trained them, and they took their degree before they entered into the promised land. There is no University for a Christian like that of sorrow and trial.”
“Marah Better Than Elim” ( MTP 39, Sermon 2301, p.151).
8. “There are times when we cannot cry at all, and then he cries in us.”
“Is it not ourselves that cry? Yes, assuredly; and yet the Spirit cries also. The expressions are both correct. The Holy Spirit prompts and inspires the cry. He puts the cry into the heart and mouth of the believer. It is his cry because he suggests it, approves of it, and educates us to it. We should never have cried thus if he had not first taught us the way… . There are times when we cannot cry at all, and then he cries in us. There are seasons when doubts and fears abound, and so suffocate us with their fumes that we cannot even raise a cry, and then the indwelling Spirit represents us, and speaks for us, and makes intercession for us, crying in our name.”
“Adoption –The Spirit and the Cry” ( MTP 24, Sermon 1435, p. 537, italics in the original).
9. “O dear friend, when thy grief presses thee to the very dust, worship there!”
“O dear friend, when thy grief presses thee to the very dust, worship there! If that spot has come to be thy Gethsemane, then present there thy ‘strong crying and tears’ unto thy God. Remember David’s words, ‘Ye people, pour out your hearts,’ — but do not stop there, finish the quotation, — ‘Ye people, pour out your hearts before him.’ Turn the vessel upside down; it is a good thing to empty it, for this grief may ferment into something more sour. Turn the vessel upside down, and let every drop run out; but let it be before the Lord. ‘Ye people, pour out your hearts before him: God is a refuge for us.’ When you are bowed down beneath a heavy burden of sorrow, then take to worshipping the Lord, and especially to that kind of worshipping which lies in adoring God, and in making a full surrender of yourself to the divine will.”
“Job’s Resignation” ( MTP 42, Sermon 2457, p. 134).
10. “Fear not the storm, it brings healing in its wings, and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven.”
“I, the preacher of this hour, beg to bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days, and when God has seemed most cruel to me, he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest, tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father’s wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. Fear not the storm, it brings healing in its wings, and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven.”
“Ziklag; Or, David Encouraging Himself in God” ( MTP 27, Sermon 1606, p. 373).
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On April 23, 1888, Charles Spurgeon was betrayed by his brother, James.
It all came to a head when Spurgeon withdrew his membership from the Baptist Union. Spurgeon lamented the absence of a confession of faith keeping Baptists from drifting away from evangelical doctrines. He feared the downgrading of theology would produce an “emptying of chapels, and the multiplication of spiders” ( Autobiography 4:254).
Spurgeon’s withdrawal from the Baptist Union sparked the greatest controversy of his life – the “Downgrade Controversy.” He was opposed by many of his closest friends and students, including eighty alumni from his Pastors’ College.
“I cannot tell you by letter what I have endured in the desertion of my own men” ( Letter to a friend, February 21, 1888).
“My heart has been ready to sink within me… . Friends have forsaken me” (Letter, An Exposition of Matthew, p. 274).
Yet Spurgeon felt a deeper dagger twist on April 23 when his own brother seconded the vote to censure him.
“I feel heart-broken. Certainly he has done the very opposite of what I should have done. Yet he is not to be blamed, for he followed his best judgment” (Fullerton, C. H. Spurgeon, p. 313-14).
“Reproaches from those who have been intimate with us, and trusted by us, cut us to the quick; and they are usually so well acquainted with our peculiar weaknesses that they know how to touch us where we are most sensitive, and to speak so as to do us most damage” ( Treasury of David 3:19).
“An unkind word from a stranger may have a very slight effect upon us; but if such a word should come from the lips of one whom we love, it would cut us to the quick. We could put up with a thousand things from those who are mere acquaintances; but from a beloved child, or from the wife of our bosom, such a thing would be very hard to bear” ( MTP 52:86).
The Downgrade Controversy not only damaged the relationship between brothers, but it also compounded Charles’s failing health and resulted in his premature death at the age of 57.
“You will never see me again, this fight is killing me” ( Letter to a friend, Autobiography 3:152).
For nearly 40 years, Spurgeon had preached the gospel in London – a gospel that centered on Jesus’s own betrayal by Judas and the other disciples.
Here are ten quotes from a man who had to preach that gospel to himself when he, too, felt the backstabbing ache of betrayal.
1.“I can bear anything for Jesus while His everlasting arms are underneath me.”
“When we are in a battle, we must expect calamities… . I can bear anything for Jesus while His everlasting arms are underneath me” ( Autobiography 4:256).
2. “Every reputation that has been obscured by the clouds of reproach, for Christ’s sake, shall be rendered glorious.”
“There will be a resurrection of characters as well as of persons. Every reputation that has been obscured by the clouds of reproach, for Christ’s sake, shall be rendered glorious when the righteous shall ‘shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father’” ( Autobiography 4:253).
3. “Let me be on my guard when the world puts on a loving face, for it will, if possible, betray me as it did my master, with a kiss.”
“Let me be on my guard when the world puts on a loving face, for it will, if possible, betray me as it did my Master, with a kiss. Whenever a man is about to stab religion, he usually professes very great reverence for it” ( Morning and Evening, March 25, Morning).
4. “If you will trust yourselves with the Saviour, he cannot betray or deceive your trust.”
“If you will trust yourselves with the Saviour, he cannot betray or deceive your trust… . If we can trust him with our souls we have a hold upon him which he will not shake off, but he will bless us – yea, he will bless us eternally” ( MTP 24:204).
5. “[Jesus] is a confidant who never can betray us, a friend who never will refuse us.”
“In all trouble send a message to Jesus, and do not keep your misery to yourself. In his case there is no need of reserve, there is no fear of his treating you with cold pride, or heartless indifference, or cruel treachery. He is a confidant who never can betray us, a friend who never will refuse us” ( MTP 26:74).
6. “Oh, the joy of having Christ to go to!”
“Oh, the joy of having Christ to go to! All other friends will sometimes be unfriendly, and the best of them must part with you at your decease, or you with them when they depart out of this world unto the Father; but your Lord will never, never leave you, he will abide with you, and death shall only draw him nearer, for then you shall see his face, and his name shall be in your forehead, and you shall be with him where he is to behold his glory for ever and ever” ( MTP 16:281).
7. “Confidence in man will betray your hopes, but faith in God will enrich you beyond your expectations.”
“It is frightfully easy for the heart to rely upon man, as we know right well! … [C]onfidence in man will betray your hopes, but faith in God will enrich you beyond your expectations. May our heart always keep to that – trusting God; trusting in God alone” ( MTP 24:392).
8. “Be prepared for anything so long as you can stand fast by him who bought you with his precious blood.”
“Be ready for a bad name; be willing to be called a bigot; be prepared for loss of friendships; be prepared for anything so long as you can stand fast by him who bought you with his precious blood… . God give you courage, more and more of it, through faith in himself! May you be willing to put your religion to every proper test, the test of life, and the test of death, too!” ( MTP 39:31)
9. “Let us not marvel when we are called to tread the road which is marked by his pierced feet.”
“Our blessed Lord had to endure at its worst the deceit and faithlessness of a favoured disciple; let us not marvel when we are called to tread the road which is marked by his pierced feet” ( Treasury of David 3:19).
10. “Let us admire the superlative love of Jesus.”
“Now, then, what shall I say in conclusion, but just this: let us admire the superlative love of Jesus. O love, love, what hast thou done! What hast thou done! Thou art omnipotent in suffering. Few of us can bear pain, perhaps, fewer still of us can bear misrepresentation, slander, and ingratitude. These are horrible hornets which sting as with fire: men have been driven to madness by cruel scandals which have been distilled from venomous tongues. Christ throughout life, bore these and other sufferings. Let us love him, as we think of how much he must have loved us” ( MTP 19:131).
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Even Superman had to fly above the clouds to escape the deafening screams of the people.
Spurgeon sought his own space, too – his sacred space in France – away from the fog and smog that settled over his city.
Absence from ministry was as essential for Spurgeon as presence in his pulpit.
Yet even on the sunny shores of Mentone, the pastor struggled to rise above the noise. Clouds of controversy usually followed him. Problems were plentiful. There were personalities to manage and arguments to resolve. Letters didn’t write themselves.
The machinery of Spurgeon’s photographic memory rarely stopped functioning. Also, Spurgeon filled his time carrying other people’s burdens. Never empty of empathy, Spurgeon met the needs he saw, often without question or permission.
One time he saw a poor man trying to earn some money by playing an organ outside his French hotel. Apparently, the musician was “evoking more sound than sympathy.”
“Moved with pity,” Spurgeon went outside and started playing the organ like a beggar.
“[Spurgeon] ground out the tunes while the man busily occupied himself in picking up the coins thrown by the numerous company that soon gathered at the windows and on the balconies to see and hear Mr. Spurgeon play the organ!” ( Autobiography 4:209-210 )
Spurgeon never took a vacation from his vocation.
That was the secret of his resilience. When Spurgeon couldn’t escape the storm, he learned to praise God in the storm. Making music in the dark was Spurgeon’s speciality.
On September 23, 1890, Spurgeon literally broke into singing during a violent thunderstorm at the Stockwell Orphanage. Spurgeon calmed his terrified orphans by leading them in the Doxology.
“This was a grand climax. The heavens themselves seemed to think so, for there were no more thunder-claps of such tremendous force. I need not write more. The storm abated” ( Autobiography 4:330).
But God did not calm all of Spurgeon’s storms. He did something better. God entered the storms and gave Spurgeon strength to make his own thunder of praise.
If you’re struggling to find the eye of your hurricane, let Spurgeon focus your attention elsewhere – off of the waves and onto the wave-walker (Matthew 14:30-31).
Here are twenty-two quotes to help you not just survive the storm, but sing in the storm.
1. “Sing in trouble, again because God loves to hear his people sing in the night.”
“Sing in trouble, again because God loves to hear his people sing in the night. At no time does God love his children’s singing so well as when he has hidden his face from them, and they are all in darkness.’ … . Sing then, Christian, for singing pleases God” ( MTP 44:106, italics in the original).
2. “The more the wind rages the more you feel that the anchor holds you.”
“It is often so with us; when the winds are out and the storms are raging there is plenty of fear, but there is no danger. We may be much tossed, but we are quite safe, for we have an anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast, which will not start. One blessed thing is that our hope has such a grip of us that we know it. In a vessel you feel the pull of the anchor, and the more the wind rages the more you feel that the anchor holds you. Like the boy with his kite: the kite is up in the clouds, where he cannot see it, but he knows it is there, for he feels it pull; so our good hope has gone up to heaven, and it is pulling and drawing us towards itself” ( MTP 22:285-86 ).
3. “It is the bold Christian who can sing God’s sonnets in the darkness.”
“Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by day who are silent by night, they are afraid of thieves and robbers; but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a courageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God’s sonnets in the darkness” ( MTP44:105, italics in the original).
4. “How despicable our troubles and trials will seem when we look back upon them!”
“Wait a little longer. Ah, beloved! How despicable our troubles and trials will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, they will seem to us just nothing at all….Let us go on, therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a night that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by-and-by” ( MTP 44:104 ).
5. “The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back.”
“The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back; and when that hand is seen we cry with the apostle, ‘Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God’” (Lectures to My Students 1:177).
6. “Simon sinks till Jesus takes him by the hand.”
“It is the God of all consolation who can– ‘With sweet oblivious antidote/ Cleanse our poor bosoms of that perilous stuff/ Which weighs upon the heart. ’ Simon sinks till Jesus takes him by the hand” ( Lectures to My Students 1:177, italics in the original).
7. “Christian, when thou art dry, go to thy God, ask him to pour some joy down thee, and then thou wilt get more joy up from thine own heart.”
“You have heard it said that, when a pump is dry, you must pour water down it first of all, and then you will get some up. So, Christian, when thou art dry, go to thy God, ask him to pour some joy down thee, and then thou wilt get more joy up from thine own heart” ( MTP 44:100).
8. “Your victory will come with your song.”
“Your victory will come with your song. It is a very puzzling thing to the devil to hear saints sing when he sets his foot on them. He cannot make it out: the more he oppresses them, the more they rejoice. Let us resolve to be all the merrier when the enemy dreams that we are utterly routed!” ( MTP 33:611).
9. “Storms afford the safest sailing for a Christian, calms are for him more terrible than whirlwinds.”
“Storms afford the safest sailing for a Christian, calms are for him more terrible than whirlwinds; deep waters know no rocks, shallow waters that gaily ripple are the perils of the sea of our life. Far out upon the ocean, where the horizon hath its round ring, and nothing is within sight, the ship is seldom much in danger; but near the shore, when the white cliff gladdens the eye of the mariner, there the pilot must look well to his helm” ( MTP 45:100).
10. “If you never go anywhere but where Christ leads the way, you need not be afraid of storms, for they will beat upon him more than upon you.”
“There are storms of this life still to be met, so get behind Christ by following him in the path of duty. If you never go anywhere but where Christ leads the way, you need not be afraid of storms, for they will beat upon him more than upon you. When I was quite a young man, I was greatly reviled for preaching the gospel; and, sometimes, my heart would sink a little under the cruel slanders that many uttered; but I used to often go upstairs to my room, and after a season of sweet fellowship with my Lord, I would come down singing” ( MTP 49:538, italics in the original).
11. “Storms help to make the sailors sturdy, and trials help to make Christians strong in faith.”
“If you have ever been at sea in a storm, and noticed how unconcerned about it the weather-beaten sailors have been, you must have realized that it was because they had been hardened in many a tempest that they could so calmly go on with their duties while you and other landsmen were in dread of sinking, or longing for the end of the voyage. Storms help to make the sailors sturdy, and trials help to make Christians strong in faith and in every other grace… . The more the wind blows, the firmer the oak’s roots grip the soil” ( MTP 57:232).
12. “Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften.”
“O soul in prosperity, disturb thyself, for thou art in solemn danger. Hardness of heart will almost inevitably come upon thee. Thou art at ease from thy youth; thou hast not been emptied from vessel to vessel; therefore thy scent remaineth in thee, and that scent is pride and carnal security. The opposite condition of circumstances will, through sin, produce the same result. Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften. There are men who have been in many storms at sea, and, though once they feared, they never tremble now. If the mast had to be cut away, and the vessel were about to go down, they would curse and swear in the teeth of the tempest, they have grown so desperate” ( MTP 19:484).
13. “If you have little trouble, you will have little faith but if you have great faith, you must expect to have great trouble.”
“It little matters, you know, whether a man has no burden and no strength, or a heavy burden and great strength. Probably of the two, if it were put to the most of us, we should prefer to have the burden and the strength. I know I should. Now, there is generally this for you, that if you have little trouble, you will have little faith; but if you have great faith, you must expect to have great trouble. A manly spirit would choose to take the trouble, and take the faith too” ( MTP 15:656-57).
14. “Let us be afraid of having nothing to do, and be thankful for something to suffer.”
Let us be afraid of having nothing to do, and be thankful for something to suffer, if we have not something to do actively; for, let us alone and the best of us will corrode. And if I am addressing any man who has lately given up business and is enjoying repose, I would urge upon him the wisdom of seeking some service for Christ which would engage his faculties, for it is true of Christians as well as other people” ( MTP 55:470, italics in the original).
15. “It is a sweet mercy to have to go through the floods, if some filthiness may thereby be removed.”
“Oh! it is a great blessing to be put through the fire, if you come out purified. It is a sweet mercy to have to go through the floods, if some filthiness may thereby be removed. The children of Israel went down to Egypt to sojourn there, but after hard servitude and cruel oppression they came up out of it with silver and gold, much enriched by their bondage” ( MTP 15:657).
16. “The further we are on the road, the less there is of it to bear.”
“Be of good courage. There are few storms, after all, that are ahead, to those that have passed through many already. The further we are on the road, the less there is of it to bear” ( MTP 15:115).
17. “To descend may sometimes be the shortest way to ascend.”
“I desire to speak to you, dear friends, not only of Jesus as our Leader, but of following him in the dark. Can you see Jesus in the dark? Yes. We sometimes see him better in the dark than in the light. If you will go outside in the daytime and look up, you will not be able to see a single star; but if you will get into the bucket of a well, and go down into the darkness, very soon you will behold the stars. To descend may sometimes be the shortest way to ascend. Certainly, to suffer is the road to the land where there is no suffering; and to be in present darkness may be the nearest way to eternal light” ( MTP 59:421, italics in the original).
18. “You always need divine protection, and, believer in Christ, you shall always have it.”
“There are dangers everywhere, and the guardian care of God can never be safely dispensed with. If we walk aright, we shall never venture upon a single day without first seeking divine protection. How many who have escaped out of terrible storms, have nevertheless died in a calm! Where some have passed through battles without a scar, they have afterwards been killed by an accident so slight that they would utterly have despised a precaution to avoid it. You always need divine protection, and, believer in Christ, you shall always have it” ( MTP 15:652).
19. “Steer to God right away; fly to him, and you will find a peaceful shelter.”
“If you know the law of mental storms you may reach peace, and that law may be summed up in one line: Steer to God right away; fly to him, and you will find a peaceful shelter” ( MTP 19:332).
20. “Our life, like April weather, is made up of sunshine and showers.”
“Thus may our loveliest calms be succeeded by overwhelming storms. A Christian man is seldom long at ease. Our life, like April weather, is made up of sunshine and showers” ( MTP 19:385).
21. “Times of trouble send our hope deep down into fundamental truths.”
“Times of trouble send our hope deep down into fundamental truths. Some of you people who have never known affliction, you rich people who never knew want, you healthy folks who were never ill a week, you have not half a grip of the glorious hope that the tried ones have. Much of the unbelief in the Christian Church comes out of the easy lives of professors. When you come to rough it, you need solid gospel. A hard-working man cannot live on your whipped creams and your syllabubs – he must have something solid to nourish him” ( MTP 22:287).
22. “You will not only hold your hope — that is your duty, but your hope will hold you — that is your privilege.”
“Brethren, do you know anything about your hope holding you? It will hold you if it is a good hope; you will not be able to get away from it, but under temptation and depression of spirit, and under trial and affliction, you will not only hold your hope — that is your duty, but your hope will hold you — that is your privilege” ( MTP 22:285).
A Final Encouragement
“Come then, ye tremblers, ye doubters, ye little ones, ye that think ye cannot have a part in the promise, come now, come nestle down under those great wings which seem so close to you. The wings that are lined with the feathers of the Eternal will be strong wings, as though they were bars of iron, through which no storms of trouble can ever beat; through which the enemy, though he come from hell itself, shall not be able to drive his darts” ( MTP 15:659).
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Spurgeon’s favorite book was The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.
It’s the story of a man named Christian who woke up one morning to find a burden on his back.
He reads in a book his city would be destroyed, so he sets out on a pilgrimage. The road is seldom smooth. He falls into a mud-pit of despond, climbs a hill called Difficulty, fights a dragon, meets friends like Faithful and Hopeful, crosses a river called Jordan, and eventually arrives at his destination – the Celestial City.
Spurgeon first encountered this allegory of the Christian life as a child in his grandfather’s attic in Stambourne. Even before he could read, the pictures of Christian’s pilgrimage impressed the narrative into his young mind.
“Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times” ( Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress, 11).
“Read anything [by John Bunyan], and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself… . Why, the man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him” ( Autobiography 4:268).
Spurgeon quoted Bunyan’s allegory often in his sermons. It was the first gift he presented to Susannah, his bride-to-be. Spurgeon frequently visited Bunyan’s tomb in Bunhill Fields and even preached the installation service for its refurbishment on May 21, 1860.
Beyond the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress is the most published book in English. Any Victorian family worth their Christian salt owned a copy (and usually displayed it). Ever since Bunyan wrote it in the late seventeenth century, evangelicals have seen themselves in this story. Each of us knows the feeling of falling into despair, facing imposing obstacles, choosing paths less popular, walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, losing our way. Each of us knows the weight and the grate of burdens.
The turning point in the story is when Christian finds the cross. Suddenly, his burden falls from his shoulders and rolls into a tomb. The pilgrim leaps for joy. With new legs, he skips and sprints for the first time.
Yet problems still potholed Christian’s path. Long after his salvation at the cross, Christian found himself shackled in the dungeon of Doubting Castle.
A Japanese copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress sent to Spurgeon by an editor in Tokyo
Here are seven quotes taken from a preacher and pilgrim who experienced both the heights of holiness and the depths of depravity.
1. “Each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel
“He hath been before thee; he hath smoothed the way; he hath entered the grave, that he might make the tomb the royal bedchamber of the ransomed race, the closet where they lay aside the garments of labor, to put on the vestments of eternal rest. In all places withersoever we go, the angel of the covenant has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel” ( MTP 1:82).
2. “The daily troubles we have are meant to drive us to God.”
“The daily troubles we have are meant to drive us to God, to drive us to the promise, and also to show us where our weak points are, in order that we may contend with all our might against them. I believe, my dear friends, that the most hard-hearted, cross-grained, and most unlovely Christians in all the world are those who never have had much trouble, and those who are the most sympathizing, loving, and Christ-like, are generally those that have the most affliction” ( MTP 12:70).
3. “Jesus is in the tempest.”
“The night of affliction is as much under the arrangement and control of the Lord of Love as the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus is in the tempest. His love wraps the night about itself as a mantle, but to the eye of faith the sable robe is scarce a disguise” ( Evening by Evening, December 23).
4. “One of the greatest blessings that the Lord ever gave us was a cross.”
“The worst thing that can happen to any of us is to have our path made too smooth, and one of the greatest blessings that the Lord ever gave us was a cross” ( MTP 12:70-71).
5. “[God] hates the rod as much as thou dost.”
“No father chastens always; he hates the rod as much as thou dost; he only cares to use it for that reason which should make thee willing to receive it, namely that it works thy lasting good” ( MTP 11:570).
6. “You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else.”
“Now, remember, you will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else but Christ. All that was ever woven by man, God shall unravel; all the sticks and stones that human energy can build, in the matter of eternal salvation, must be plucked down by Jehovah’s hand, for it is Christ alone who must build that house; unless he shall do so, they will labour in vain that build it” ( MTP 54:2-3).
7. “God’s smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart.”
“God’s smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart. His frown and a palace would be hell to a gracious spirit. Let the worst come to the worst, let all the talents go, we have not lost our treasure, for that is above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God” ( Morning and Evening, November 30, A.M.)