Have you ever sat through an entire sermon without hearing a single word about Christ, the Cross, or the Gospel? Why bother going to church?
Well - that actually happened again today and frankly, I am more than disappointed. I am angry!
If I get dressed and get out of the house and gather to worship, I do so with the expectation that WORSHIP is what we will do!
Here is how Spurgeon felt about all this:
__________________________________________________________________________________
The very idea of a “Christless sermon” appalled Charles
Spurgeon. It was a plague he confronted repeatedly (and vividly) in his own
sermons. Although sometimes overstated to make his point, his words are a
healthy challenge today over 100 years after his death. Here’s a small
collection of colorful quips:
“The motto of all true servants of God must be, ‘We preach
Christ; and him crucified.’ A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of
bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and
never preach again until you have something worth preaching.” [7/9/1876;
sermon #2899]
“Leave Christ out? O my brethren, better leave the pulpit
out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name
in it, it ought to be his last, certainly the last that any Christian ought to
go to hear him preach.” [undated; sermon #768]
“Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing.
Only advertise it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without
flour; put it in every paper, ‘Bread without flour’ and you may soon shut up
your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. … A sermon
without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and
a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely
much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. And I mean by Christ not merely
his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood,
his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of
‘believe and live.’” [10/23/1881; sermon #1625]
“I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he
would come and hear me no more; but if I preached a sermon without Christ in
it, he would come. Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves, for a sermon
without Christ in it—a Christless sermon! A brook without water; a cloud
without rain; a well which mocks the traveler; a tree twice dead, plucked up by
the root; a sky without a sun; a night without a star. It were a realm of
death—a place of mourning for angels and laughter for devils. O Christian, we
must have Christ! Do see to it that every day when you wake you give a fresh
savor of Christ upon you by contemplating his person. Live all the day, trying
as much as lieth in you, to season your hearts with him, and then at night, lie
down with him upon your tongue.” [3/6/1864; sermon #558]
“Sooner by far would I go to a bare table, and eat from a
wooden porringer something that would appease my appetite, than I would go to a
well-spread table on which there was nothing to eat. Yes, it is Christ, Christ,
Christ whom we have to preach; and if we leave him out, we leave out the very
soul of the gospel. Christless sermons make merriment for hell. Christless
preachers, Christless Sunday school teachers, Christless class leaders,
Christless tract distributors—what are all these doing? They are simply setting
the mill to grind without putting any grist into the hopper. All their labor is
in vain. If you leave Jesus Christ out, you are simply beating the air, or
going to war without any weapon with which you can smite the foe.” [2/11/1866;
sermon #3288]
“The Spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons.
Leave Jesus out of your preaching, and the Holy Spirit will never come upon
you. Why should he? Has he not come on purpose that he may testify of Christ?
Did not Jesus say, ‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and
shall show it unto you’? Yes, the subject was Christ, and nothing but Christ,
and such is the teaching which the Spirit of God will own. Be it ours never to
wander from this central point: may we determine to know nothing among men but
Christ and his cross.” [5/30/1880; sermon #1540]
“Where there is nothing of Christ, brethren, there is
nothing of unction, nothing of savor, and a man is quite right not to attend
such a ministry as that. Leave Christ out of your preaching, and you have taken
the milk from the children, you have taken the strong meat from the men; but if
your object as a teacher or preacher is to glorify Christ, and to lead men to
love him and trust him, why, that is the very work upon which the heart of God himself
is set. The Lord and you are pulling together.” [4/17/1887; sermon #2409]
“Christ not only supplies the necessities of his people, but
he gives them abundant and superabundant joy in the luxuries of his grace. You
do not really preach the gospel if you leave Christ out; if he be omitted, it
is not the gospel. You may invite men to listen to your message, but you are
only inviting them to gaze upon an empty table unless Christ is the very center
and substance of all that you set before them.” [6/16/1878; sermon #2787]
No comments:
Post a Comment