CHARLES SPURGEON

BEAUTIFUL QUOTES

A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep

The church will have clowns entertaining the goats

He who looks inward has his back to God

He who looks Godward has his back to sin

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know

The emptiness of everything else but Christ.

Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong

Rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right

A DROP FROM THE WELL

If Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I cannot live in sin any longer, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me. I cannot trifle with the evil that slew my best friend.

There was a day, I took my walks abroad, when I came hard by a spot forever engraved upon my memory, for there I saw this friend, my best, my only friend, murdered. I stooped down in sad affright and looked at Him. I saw that His hands had been pierced with rough iron nails. and His feet had been rent the same way. There was misery in His dead countenance, so terrible that I scarcely dared to look upon it. His body was emaciated with hunger, His back was red with bloody scourges, and His brow had a circle of wounds around it. Clearly could one see that these had been pierced by thorns.

I shuddered, for I had known this friend full well. He never had a fault; He was the purest of the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured Him? For He never injured any man. All His life long He went about doing good. He had healed the sick, He had fed the hungry, He had raised the dead. For which of these works did they kill Him?

He had never breathed out anything but love, and as I looked into the poor sorrowful face, so full of agony and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been such a wretch so vile as to pierce hands like His.

I said within myself, "Where can these traitors life? Who are these that could have smitten such a One as this?" Had they murdered an oppressor, we might have forgiven them; had they slain one who had indulged in vice or villainy, it might have been his desert; had it been a murderer and a rebel, or one who had committed sedition, we would have said, "Bury his corpse; justice has at last given him his due. But when you were slain, my best, my only beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me seize them, and they shall be put to death. It there be torments that I can devise, surely they shall endure them all. Oh, what jealousy, what revenge I felt! If I might find these murderers, what would I not do with them!

And as I looked upon that corpse, I heard a footstep and wondered where it was. I listened, and I clearly perceived that the murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find him. I found that, somehow or other, wherever I put out my hand, I could not meet with him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go.

At last I put my hand upon my breast. " I have you now," said I. For lo! He was in my own heart; the murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul. Ah! Then I wept indeed, that I, in the very presence of my murdered Master, should be harbouring the murderer, and I felt myself most guilty while I bowed over His corpse and sang that plaintive hymn:

Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins, His chief Tormentors were; each of my crimes became a nail, and unbelief the spear.

The Autobiography of Charles Spurgeon, The Great Change - Conversion

EXPERIENCE AFTER CONVERSION

I have known some men who were almost idiots before conversion, but they afterwards had their faculties wonderfully developed.

It seemed to me as if, when I had discovered Christ and Him crucified, I had found the centre of the system, so that I could see clearly, other science revolving in due order.

An idea has long possessed the public mind that a religious man can scarcely be a wise man. It has been the custom to talk of infidels, atheists, and deists as men of deep thought and comprehensive intellect, and to tremble for the Christian controversialists as if he must surely fall by the hand of his enemy.

But this is purely a mistake, for the gospel is the sum of wisdom, an epitome of knowledge, a treasure house of truth, and a revelation of mysterious secrets. In it we see how justice and mercy can be married; here we behold inexorable law entirely satisfied and sovereign love bearing away the sinner in triumph.

Our mediation upon it enlarges the mind, and as it opens to our soul in successive flashes of glory, we stand astonished at the profound wisdom manifest in it. I have often said that , before I knew the gospel, I had gathered up a heterogenous mass of all kinds of knowledge from there, there and everywhere; a bit of chemistry, a bit of botany, a bit of astronomy and a bit of this, that and the other. I put them all together in one great, confused chaos, but when I learned the gospel, I got a shelf in my head to put everything upon just where it should be. , It seemed to me as if, when I had discovered Christ and Him crucified, I had found the centre of the system, so that I could see very other science revolving in due order.

The Autobiography of Charles Spurgeon, Experience After Conversion

A VOICE OF FIRE IN THE FOG OF A CENTURY

In the heart of Victorian England, amid the horse-drawn clatter of cobblestone streets and the rising smoke of industry, God raised up a preacher with the thunder of eternity in his lungs and the gentleness of heaven in his eyes. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, born in 1834, would one day fill halls with ten thousand listeners, though he had no formal seminary training. His sermons, printed in newspapers and shipped across oceans, carried a clarity that pierced through confusion and called souls home. He was a man deeply acquainted with sorrow, yet even more deeply anchored in joy—a joy that flowed from knowing Christ intimately, and making Him known fearlessly.

Charles grew up in a modest home in Kelvedon, Essex, surrounded by old books and the echoes of Puritan voices. His grandfather was a pastor, and from him young Charles heard the old truths told with warmth and gravity. Yet for all the theological treasure around him, salvation did not arrive like a procession with trumpets, but in a snowstorm.

One Sunday morning, the weather turned fierce, and Charles took refuge in a tiny Primitive Methodist chapel. The regular preacher had not arrived. In his place stood a simple man, perhaps a tailor or shopkeeper, whose speech stumbled yet sincerity rang like a bell. He read aloud from Isaiah: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.” Fixing his eyes on the shivering teenager in the back, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable... Look to Jesus.” And he did. At that moment, grace slipped through the cracks of intellect and argument. Everything changed.

At just nineteen, Spurgeon began preaching in London. Soon, the crowds were so great that they had to build a special place to hold them—the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Yet even then, Spurgeon’s heart did not grow proud. He often said he was just a beggar telling other beggars where to find bread. Though he could speak with wit, thunder, and compassion, what drew people most was the unmistakable scent of heaven on his words. He had been with Jesus.

His life was not without trial. He suffered from physical pain, deep melancholy, and fierce opposition. Some mocked him. Some misquoted him. Once, during a crowded meeting, someone falsely shouted “Fire!” The stampede killed several people, and Spurgeon never quite recovered from the sorrow. Yet through each shadow, he clung to the light he preached—a Saviour who never forsakes His own. He knew the tenderness of Christ in ways that only the wounded understand.

Spurgeon also founded a pastor’s college, built an orphanage, and wrote an astonishing number of books. His sermons were taken down word for word as he spoke, and his language was so rich and stirring that little editing was needed. He once described the Bible as a lion that doesn’t need defending—just let it out of the cage.

Perhaps one of his most striking qualities was the marriage of depth and simplicity. He could explain great mysteries without turning them into riddles. He once said, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.” He taught us how to suffer with hope, how to lead without ego, and how to live like eternity is near.

When he died in 1892, all London seemed to pause. Flags hung low, shops closed, and thousands filed past his casket. Though his voice was silent, his words were still moving. They are still moving.

Charles Spurgeon taught the world that preaching is not performance. It is the cry of a heart ablaze with holy affection. He showed that theology is not dry when it is rooted in love. He proved that the mind and the soul need not be strangers. And he reminded every soul who would listen that Christ is enough—gloriously, perfectly, eternally enough.