Here is another sermon in which you detect notes of what today might be called ‘pastoral theology.’ Spurgeon could preach to preachers, certainly, and you see much of that in some collections of lectures and sermons, especially his Lecture to My Students. However, he also wants those who hear the Word of God to have some understanding of what it is to preach the Word of God. So, earlier in this year, you have his sermon on the pastor’s life being wrapped up with the steadfastness of the saints. Here, he opens a window into what is taking place in the man who preaches and to the man to whom he preaches. How does God fit a man to be a minister of the gospel? What does God do in the heart of a converted man? And, what does that converted man have to do, in terms of his own experience of and response to the work of God? Here then you have two divine operations, one upon a preacher, and one upon a hearer, the second developing into its Godward and its manward elements, and yet never merely theoretical, but constantly brought close to the life of those who preach and those who hear.

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This is a deliberately simple sermon. Spurgeon sets out to answer the prayer of the boy who asked, “Lord, grant that our minister may say something to-morrow that I may understand.” Some might not have turned to Leviticus in order to answer that prayer, but Spurgeon does so in order to “deal with the essence and soul of true religion.” Taking an image that recurs in Leviticus, he speaks here primarily of the attitude of the one who makes the burnt offering, involving confession, acceptance, transference, identification. That vocabulary might not be the simplest, but the explanation of each is plain and pressing, driving at the penal substitutionary atonement (to use a similarly dense phrase!) which lies at the heart of our acceptance with God. Of interest may be the fact that the sermon for the following week (number 1772) he takes the same text and deals with the death of the sacrifice, so that out of one brief verse he unpacks the core of our salvation, as it is accomplished by Christ and the cross and appropriated by the faith of the repenting sinner.

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You might have thought that high doctrine and broad doctrine were contrasts, perhaps one good and the other bad, but in this sermon they are complements, each declaring something wonderful about God’s plan and purpose in salvation. This is something of a throwback, I think, a sermon from the archives, preached at Exeter Hall, probably in the 1850s (published here in 1884). It is a wonderful example of lively, eager, natural evangelistic preaching. Spurgeon loads his sermon with illustrations; his cheerful humour is on full display; his eagerness to make Christ known is unparalleled; his pathos in pleading with sinners is exemplified; his wisdom in addressing doubts and fears is plain. This is the kind of sermon which no preacher should seek merely to mimic, but it is just the kind of ministry to emulate. If we are Christians, let us feel again the sweet force of the gospel, and let it inspire us not only to cling to Christ, but to make him known to others. If we are preachers, let this rebuke us and stimulate us, that we have not so preached and that we should so preach. If you are not yet a believer, then may I urge you to listen to this sermon, to read it all, and to take it to your heart.

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