Preface

233 1 Timothy 1:15. — The Faithful Saying

PREFACE THIS is the concluding portion of “My Sermon-Notes.” There are many more skeletons in the tombs from which these have been brought to light, but I have no idea of summoning any more of them from their retirement. I have no desire to become the rival of Mr. Charles Simeon; and yet, if I should copy any man’s outlines, I should prefer him for a model. Notwithstanding the depreciatory remarks which I have frequently read from witty writers who have referred to that great sermonizer, I believe that no one has done better service in that line than he. His helps were needed at the time when they were prepared. In much the same way as the Homilies were necessary to the preachers of the Reformed Church in its infant days, Simeon’s outlines were needed by a newly-converted clergy who had begun to feel the glow of the great Methodist revival. It may be that these Sermon-Notes may be just in time for a return of zeal for the doctrines of grace, and a restoration of spiritual ardor, when young men shall feel called upon to speak at once for Jesus, and shall hardly know how to shape their thought’s expression unless some man shall guide them.

It was never my design to help men to deliver a message which is not their own. It is ill when prophets steal their prophecies from one another, for then they are likely—all of them—to become false prophets. But as the young prophet borrowed an axe of a friend, and was not censured for it so long as the strokes he gave with it were his own, so may we refrain from condemning those who find a theme suggested to them, and a line of thought laid before them, and with all their hearts use them in speaking to the people. This should not be their custom: every man should have an axe of his own, and have no need to cry, “Alas, master! it was borrowed”; but there are times of special pressure, bodily sickness, or mental weariness, wherein a man is glad of brotherly help, and may use it without question. For such occasions I have tried to provide.

I am more than ever impressed with the conviction that men must not only preach that which they have themselves thought over, and prepared, but also that which they have themselves experienced, in its life and power. The seed of our teaching must be taken alone from Holy Scripture, but we must also plant it in the soil of our own spiritual life, and present our people with the plants which come from it. Doctrines are well taught when our inner life confirms them, and promises are fitly discoursed upon when we can testify that we have tried and proved them. As precepts can never be powerfully enforced unless they are carefully practiced by the preacher, so high ideals of spiritual life are likely to remain mere dreams, unless the person who proposes them has himself realized them. It is never wise to stretch your arm beyond your sleeve: we must teach that which we know, and no more. Experience gives assurance and authority, and such preaching is, through the Spirit of God, very frequently attended with an unction from the Holy One, such as we do not find in the mere professor who describes what he has never seen, and talks of matter with which he has no acquaintance. The best education for the Christian ministry is a deep experience of divine truth in the heart and life. Truth without the experience of it is without dew; and very little refreshment arises from it to those to whom it comes. Truth, which we have made our own by experience, will be to our hearers like food prepared for their use, roasted in the fire, or baked in the oven: apart from this it will be raw and hard, and the hearer will not be able to digest it, and will lose the nutriment which it is intended to convey.

Oh, that I may help some of my brethren so to preach as to win souls for Jesus! Warm, personal testimony is greatly useful in this direction; and, therefore, I trust that, by adding his own hearty witness to the truths which I have here outlined, many a believer may speak successfully for the Lord. I commend my humble labors to him whom I desire to serve by them. Without the Holy Spirit there is nothing here but a valley of dry bones; but if the breath shall come from the four winds, every line will become instinct with life.

Your brother in Christ Jesus, Charles Spurgeon