The text is Genesis 32:12, part of Jacob’s prayer to the Lord his God: “For you said, ‘I will surely treat you well…” In Spurgeon’s translation, it is, “I will surely do thee good.” After something of a meditation on Jacob’s privilege, and ours, of having the living God as our God, Spurgeon emphasises the further blessing of being able to come before him in prayer. This leads him into a sermon about praying, the kind of sermon to which he often returns, pressing home not only the wonder but the necessity of calling upon the Lord. Here Jacob’s prayer becomes first our memorial, for we need to remember what the Lord has said, studying out the distinctive elements of his particular promises to us. We ought to consider this prayer next as God’s bond—his promise holding him fast to a particular course of action. Everything that is in God secures the assured outcome. And so this ought to be our plea in prayer also: “You said!” What a childlike plea! How earnest and how expectant! Here is a way to plead which will bring the pledged result to everyone who comes with faith to the God who has promised blessing to those who call upon him. And so we still learn, from Jacob, how to pray.

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Spurgeon’s gospel logic is uncomplicated, in principle and in practice, and it shows here. Our Lord says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” It is clear from this sermon that the straightforwardness of this statement was as objectionable then as now, and caused as many problems. Beginning with a stimulating survey of all the ‘ifs’ in the chapter, the preacher then settles on this simple statement as a very serious ‘if’, having to do with the very question of love in the heart of a man, the presence or absence of faith’s affectionate attachment to Christ as Lord and Saviour. Spurgeon next makes clear that the test of love is judiciously chosen: obedience as a demonstration of love cuts through so much fluff and stuff, and gets to the core of things. Spurgeon explains the wisdom of this test, and why it is such an appropriate and clear indication of whether or not there is love to the Lord in the heart. Running out of time, he gives us just a couple of lines to assure us that love will endure this test, before closing with a brief series of potent applications, exhorting the saints to discover and hold to the commandments of Christ as they come to bear upon us, and challenging unbelievers to face the fearful consequences of declaring that they do not have any love to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners.

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Here is another probing sermon, profitable even when painful. Here is the Christ walking among the Ephesian church in Revelation 2, first of all perceiving their hearts and lives and concluding that while he knows their works he still has something against them. The Lord therefore issues a prescription, to remember from where they have fallen, and to repent. This leads to our Lord’s persuasion, in which he issues both a threatening warning and a sweet promise. You can see that the intention is not at all to crush, but there is still a challenge to our souls in the first heading, as we are forced to face the possibility of declining love for Christ in our hearts. The prescription comes to us clearly and helpfully, in three yoked commands: remember, repent, and return. Again, this is not difficult to understand, but it is not necessarily easy to obey. Finally, Spurgeon presses in some motives with our Lord’s persuasives, his warning and his promising, both designed to put us back in the way of love. To decline in love to Christ is the Christian’s wasting disease; to grow in love for Christ is the Christian’s foretaste of glory. So we are obliged to look into our own hearts, not in hopeless despair, but in order that we might, at Christ’s direction and invitation, address any drifting away from him whom our souls love.

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I doubt that anyone who reads Spurgeon with any consistency and seriousness thinks of him as a soft preacher. Some may have a notion of him as some genial Victorian pulpiteer, but a few sermons will quickly dispel the image, and reveal a man whose compassion is matched with his conviction, whose kindness is rivalled only by his courage. The result is sermons which bite and sting, and sometimes constitute a sustained assault upon the Christian conscience. This sermon is one such, a penetrating study of Numbers 32:23 and the suggestion that Gad and Reuben might have held back when the time came to conquer the Promised Land. Spurgeon transfers the principle to those professing believers who do not go up to spiritual war with their brothers, who sinned against their brothers and their Lord by the great sin of doing nothing. Spurgeon holds nothing back in pressing this principle into the conscience of his hearers, and our own, by extension. This, he makes clear, is a sin that will find us out. There is, of course, a danger that sermons like this will trouble the feeble and stir up a false guilt, but there is an equal need for sermons which fearlessly probe both our motives and our intentions, and call us to consider whether or not we are serving God and his people as we could and as we should.

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“These are days of great looseness; everywhere I see great laxity of doctrinal belief, and gross carelessness in religious practice. Christian people are doing to-day what their forefathers would have loathed. Multitudes of professors are but very little different from worldlings. Men’s religion seems to hang loosely about them, as if it did not fit them: the wonder is that it does not drop off from them. Men are so little braced up as to conscientious conviction and vigorous resolve, that they easily go to pieces if assailed by error or temptation. The teaching necessary for to-day is this: ‘Gird up the loins of your mind,’ brace yourselves up; pull yourselves together; be firm, compact, consistent, determined. Do not be like quicksilver, which keeps on dissolving and running into fractions; do not fritter away life upon trifles, but live to purpose, with undivided heart, and decided resolution.” So Spurgeon describes the reason for preaching this sermon, and what more can we say by way of introduction? It expresses the preacher’s profound concern and earnest plea. The sermon develops as the sustained exhortation of a pastor confident that the motives which the gospel supplies will be sufficient to establish and encourage the people of God in a lukewarm and watery age.

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Repeatedly, insistently, joyfully, earnestly, Spurgeon pounds away on the same drum: “Rejoice evermore!” His introduction is unusually long, situating, explaining, illustrating, and enforcing the command of the text. Only then does he come to the quality of the joy which a Christian is commanded to feel and express. He moves on to the object of this joy, considering God and his covenant as causes of joy, and encouraging us to stir up joy by holy exercise. Then he gives us more reasons for rejoicing—that it wards off temptation, shuts out worldly mirth, encourages saints, and attracts sinners. In a sense, the sermon is worth reading for the spontaneous outflow of thought and encouragement contained in (or bursting out of!) the introduction. One almost wonders if Spurgeon suddenly took a breath, and realised half his time had gone before he had even begun his first point! With marvellous sermonic control, not rattling things off, but with a kind of condensed fervour, he covers his ground tersely and intensely, pressing home flashes of insight and exhortation. It is a wonderful theme, well-handled both in terms of its matter and its manner.

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Racing through his text, throwing light upon it from various angles, Spurgeon gives us a sermon full of hope, because full of Christ. He begins by showing us that the gospel of faith is evidently a gospel for those who are lost. Then we are reminded that this gospel has to do with Christ Jesus, and him only. The faith which saves makes a particular confession about this Christ. This faith in Christ brings with it a great comfort to enjoy. Faith also has a sure promise to rest upon. There is a rising intensity through this sermon, as Christ comes more and more into view as the object of faith, and the preacher pleads with his congregation to get to grips with Christ as confessing believers and believing confessors. The risen Christ is the only hope of every sinner: “This is the ship which has carried thousands to heaven. We who go on board shall get to heaven by it. If it could go down, we should all sink together; but as it floats safely, we will all sail together to the Fair Havens. There is no second vessel on this line; and there is no other line. This one chartered barque of salvation by a confessing faith now lies at the quay. Come on board! Come on board at once! God help you to come on board at this very moment, for Jesus Christ’s sake!”

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A simple division and a thorough exposition form the bedrock of a sermon urging the saints to pray. Rising from Paul’s plea to the Romans at the end of the fifteenth chapter of that letter, Spurgeon emphasises the need even of an apostle for the intercessions of the saints, highlighting the demands and dangers that he faced, and underlining the humility shown in seeking such help. The bulk of the sermon is then given over to a step-by-step exposition of the prayer requested, Spurgeon breaking down the petition phrase-by-phrase. It is a simple but effective approach, and Spurgeon’s persistent pressing home of its practical lessons prevents it becoming a shallow slide across the surface of the text. The preacher addresses both the general desires and the specific details of the apostle as he asks the saints to engage with him in prayer. Then, briefly but pointedly, he turns to the blessing given in answer to the prayer, urging his hearers to seek the same mercies for the same reasons. As he closes, he brings his applications close to the congregation, reminding them that they too face demands and dangers similar to those of the apostle, and must have the same response: to go to the God of peace to obtain the help that he alone is able to give.

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