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Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – The comer’s conflict with Satan

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“And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father.” Luke 9:42

Suggested Further Reading: 1 John 5:13-21

“There is a sin unto death; I do not say that he shall pray for it.” “There,” says the devil, “the apostle did not say he could even pray for the man who has committed certain sins.” Then he reads that “sin against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven.” “There,” he says, “is your character: you have committed sin against the Holy Ghost, and you will never be pardoned.” Then he brings another passage: “Let him alone; Ephraim is joined unto idols.” “There,” says Satan, “you have had no liberty in prayer lately; God has let you alone; you are given unto idols; you are entirely destroyed;” and the cruel fiend howls his song of joy, and makes a merry dance over the thought that the poor soul is to be lost. But do not believe him, my dear friends. No man has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost as long as he has grace to repent; it is certain that no man can have committed that sin if he flies to Christ and believes on him. No believing soul can commit it; no penitent sinner ever has committed it. If a man be careless and thoughtless—if he can hear a terrible sermon and laugh it off, and put away his convictions—if he never feels any strivings of conscience, there is a fear that he may have committed that sin. But as long as you have any desires for Christ, you have no more committed that sin than you have flown up to the stars and swept cobwebs from the skies. As long as you have any sense of your guilt, any desire to be redeemed, you cannot have fallen into that sin; as a penitent you may still be saved, for if you had committed it, you could not be penitent.

For meditation: The devil is the father of lies, a murderer and sinner from the beginning (John 8:44; 1 John 3:8). His attempts to be a Bible expositor are never to be trusted (Luke 4:9,10).

Sermon no. 100

24 August (1856)

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Charles Spurgeon – The world turned upside down

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“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” Acts 17:6

Suggested Further Reading: Matthew 5:1-12

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” The merciful are not much respected in this world—at least if they are imprudently merciful; the man who forgives too much, or who is too generous, is not considered to be wise. But Christ declares that he who has been merciful—merciful to supply the wants of the poor, merciful to forgive his enemies and to pass by offences, shall obtain mercy. Here, again, is the world turned upside down. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” The world says, “Blessed is the man who indulges in a carefree life.” If you ask the common run of mankind who is the happy man, they will tell you, “The happy man is he who has abundance of money, and spends it freely, and is freed from restraint—who leads a merry dance of life, who drinks deep of the cup of intoxication—who revels riotously, who, like the wild horse of the prairie, is not restrained by reason, but who dashes across the broad plains of sin, unharnessed, unguided, unrestrained.” This is the man whom the world calls happy: the proud man, the mighty man, the Nimrod, the man who can do just as he wishes, and who spurns to keep the narrow way of holiness. Now, the Scripture says, not so, for “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”

“Blest is the man who shuns the place Where sinners love to meet;

Who fears to tread their wicked ways, And hates the scoffer’s seat….”

The man who cannot touch one thing because that would be lascivious, nor another because that would spoil his communion with his Master; a man who cannot frequent this place of amusement, because he could not pray there, and cannot go to another, because he could not hope to have his Master’s sanction upon an hour so spent—that man is blessed!

For meditation: The world was turned upside down through men who had been turned upside down (Mark 9:34,35; 10:42-44). Do we need to know a lot more of that in our churches and individual lives?

Sermon no. 193

9 May (1858)