I love C.H. Spurgeon. He could very well be the most quoted dead pastor in evangelical pulpits today. I read a sermon of Spurgeon’s every week particularly if it is a text I will preach on. If you took a sermon of Spurgeon’s a read one each week you would still be reading a decade later that is the vault of this man’s sermons largely due to his personal secretary and his wife. The following is an excerpt of a sermon that Spurgeon preached at the Tabernacle, his first Easter sermon there. He was twenty years old at the time. In many parts it is vintage Spurgeon speckled with old hymns and catapulting his listeners with direct application. If you read Spurgeon’s sermons enough and develop an eye for it, you will even notice how often he draws application from his introductions. Little wonder discouragement comes from my spirit when I read him.
““Hark! from the tomb a doleful sound,
Mine ears, attend the cry;
Ye living men, come view the ground,
Where ye must shortly lie.
Princes, this clay must be your bed,
In spite of all your powers;
The tall, the wise, the reverend head,
Must lie as low as ours.”
“It is a fact we do not often think of, that we shall all be dead in a little
while. I know that I am made of dust and not of iron, my bones are not
brass, nor my sinews steel: in a little while my body must crumble back to
its native elements. But do you ever try to picture to yourself the moment
of your dissolution? My friends, there are some of you who seldom realize
how old you are, how near you are to death. One way of remembering our
age is, to see how much remains. Think how old eighty is, and then see
how few years there are before you will get there. We should remember
our frailty.
Come to Christ’s tomb then, for the silent vault
must soon be your habitat ion. Come to Christ’s grave, for you must
slumber there. And even you, ye sinners, for one moment I will ask you to
come also, because ye must die as well as the rest of us. Your sins cannot
keep you from the jaws of death. I say, sinner, I want thee to look at
Christ’s sepulcher too, for when thou diest it may have done thee great
good to think of it.
And now, Christian brethren, “Come, see
the place where the Lord lay, to learn a doctrine or two. What did you see
when you visited “the place where the Lord lay?” “He is not here: for he is
risen!” The first thing you perceive, if you stand by his empty tomb, is his
divinity. The dead in Christ shall rise first at the resurrection, but he who
rose first-their leader, rose in a different fashion. They rise by imparted
power. He rose by his own. He could not slumber in the grave, because he
was God. Death had no more dominion over him. There is no better proof
of Christ’s divinity, than that startling resurrection of his, when he rose
from the grave, by the glory of the Father. O Christian, thy Jesus is a God;
his broad shoulders that hold thee up are indeed divine; and here thou hast
the best proof of it-because he rose from the grave.
A second doctrine here taught, well may charm thee, if the Holy Spirit
apply it with power. Behold this empty tomb, O true believer: it is a sign of
thine acquittal and thy full discharge. If Jesus had not paid the debt, he
ne’er had risen from the grave. He would have lain there till this moment if
he had not cancelled the entire debt, by satisfying eternal vengeance. Oh!
beloved, is not that an overwhelming thought?”
From Spurgeon Sermon #18, Vol.1, Metropolitan Pulpit
