It is hard not to be inspired by Spuregon’s sermons. In seminary, he was the prime example of preaching great sermons from the wrong texts. That meant that he did less exegesis than synthesis, and since Charles Spurgeon was one of the worlds most avid readers – devouring thousands of books and surely as much Scripture, his synthesis was so often spot on.
I came across one such gem this morning when reading his sermon titled “The Obedience of Faith” which he preached from Hebrews 11:8.
C. H. Spurgeon, “The Prince of Preachers” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
one such snippet of great devotional power:
we must have faith in the rightness of all that God says or does. I hope, beloved, you do not think of God’s sovereignty as tyranny, or imagine that he ever could or would will anything but that which is right. Neither will we admit into our minds a suspicion of the incorrectness of the Word of God in any matter whatever, as though the Lord himself could err. We will not have it that God, in his Holy Book, makes mistakes about matters of history, or of science, any more than he does upon the great truths of salvation. If the Lord be God, he must be infallible; and if he can be described as in error in the little respects of human history and science, he cannot be trusted in the greater matters. My brethren, Jehovah never errs in deed, or in word; and when you find his law written either in the ten commandments, or anywhere else, you believe that there is not a precept too many, or too few. Whatever may be the precepts of the law, or of the gospel, they are pure and holy altogether. The words of the Lord are like fine gold, pure, precious, and weighty—not ono of them may be neglected. We hear people talk about “minor points,” and so on; but we must not consider any word of our God as a minor thing, if by that expression is implied that it is of small importance. We must accept every single word of precept, or prohibition, or instruction, as being what it ought to be, and neither to be diminished nor increased. We should not reason about the command of God as though it might be set aside or amended. He bids: we obey. May we enter into that true spirit of obedience which is the unshaken belief that the Lord is right! Nothing short of this is the obedience of the inner man—the obedience which the Lord desires.
Mr. Spurgeon has indeed hit the nail on the head. Great Faith begins with the solid conviction of who God is and it always leads to great obedience. Well, in fact, it is the faith in God’s character that is our greatest obedience!
Spurgeon always raises my thoughts heavenward. Thanks for this snippet. The knowledge that God is always right is immensely comforting and peace-giving.