From the Heart of Spurgeon

This sermon is brief enough to make the reader ask about the occasion of its preaching. No explanation is given in the text, though there may be a shade of a hint. Was it some notable occasion? Did the preacher feel particularly weak and afflicted himself? (Spurgeon often tells his congregation if this is the case.) Is he adapting his material for a particular class of hearers who might struggle with more? Whatever the explanation, the result is a little jewel of a sermon, concentrating on the excellencies of Christ in a way adapted to soothe Christians of a fearful cast of mind, terrified by the notion of condemnation. Of course, the security of the Christian in Christ gives way to a plea toward those who are still outside, that they would come to Christ to enjoy the so-great salvation which he alone provides. Read the sermon here: www.mediagratiae.org/resources/jesus-the-substitute-for-his-people Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

purgeon is happy to preach on preaching, so that the saints under the sound of his voice might know what to expect, and to what they are entitled. He does that in this sermon. Taking the phrase, “Rightly dividing the word of truth” he studies it by way of a series of figures taken from a variety of expositors, each of which sheds its own light on the duty of expounding and explaining and applying the Scriptures. Integrity, honesty, simplicity, clarity, urgency, all come to the fore as Spurgeon explains why it is so important that ministers handle the Word of God as those answerable to God for the souls of those to whom they preach, all considered in the light of eternity. Reading the sermon today is a help to preachers as we consider our duty, and how to discharge it; it is of value to hearers, perhaps to value a faithful ministry—not just despite its probing and pressing nature, but because of it—or to seek out a man who will not play fast and loose with God’s revelation, but handle it faithfully, for their soul’s sake. Read the sermon here: www.mediagratiae.org/resources/rightly-dividing-the-word-of-truth Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

The Sword and the Trowel was Spurgeon’s magazine. The January number for 1875 began with an article acknowledging God’s goodness in providing for the publication of sermons for twenty years, and giving some history of the endeavour (this article is included in this week’s printed sermon). This sermon, preached at the end of 1874, is the pulpit testimony to the same. It is marked by humility and gratitude, and by a delight in the gospel which Spurgeon was privileged to preach. There is here both confidence and conviction: this is the preached gospel which the Lord has blessed, and this is the gospel which the preacher is determined to go on preaching, glorious in its object and inexhaustible in its fullness. So, then, there is no surprise that a celebration of gospel preaching becomes an opportunity, once again, to set forth the unsearchable riches of Christ. The sermon ends with this challenge: “Bestir yourselves, feed upon Jesus, and then take of the good cheer to those who do not know the riches of Christ, and as God gives you grace, go you and fulfil this ministry, and you will then say, as I do, and as the apostle said of old, ‘Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ The Lord bless you. Amen.” Read the sermon here: www.mediagratiae.org/resources/a-grateful-summary-of-twenty-volumes Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app Read the sermon here: www.mediagratiae.org/resources/rightly-dividing-the-word-of-truth Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

There is joy in salvation. There is joy in God because of salvation, joy for the repenting sinner because of salvation, and joy for the servants of God who are instruments of blessing because of salvation. Spurgeon sees this figured out for us in the story of the prodigal son returning home. Using careful language, he shows us the joy that is in the father’s heart; he rejoices with the son who is welcomed home by his father; he considers the delight of the servants who are given work to do in welcoming and adorning the once-rebellious child. While he is writing long before some modern debates about the affections of God, and should be read as such, Spurgeon shows us that such questions are not new. Even if some will struggle with his language about God’s joy, we need to ensure that we are able to communicate the divine delight over returning sinners, and to appreciate the delight in the hearts of sinners who return, so that we can enter into that delight insofar as we are given the privilege of serving a saving God. Read the sermon here: www.mediagratiae.org/resources/the-reception-of-sinners Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

God is God. Simple as that might sound, it is the profound truth which Spurgeon works out, in measure, in this sermon. Because God is God, and—for believers—especially because he is our God, we are to glorify him in all things. The claims of God are grounded in his being and doing, and then Spurgeon assesses our response to them. So often our attitude is one of disdain or neglect. Where is the honour to which God is entitled from his creatures, his people? And so Spurgeon pleads with us to embrace the claims of God, as not only proper but delightful, ennobling, purifying. It begins with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and works out in cheerful and willing service to the God of our salvation, seeking to honour his claims in thought, word, and deed. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This eminently practical sermon shows something of the value which Spurgeon places on prayer. Having briefly handled his text in its context, he concentrates on three dangers: hindrances from prayer—those things which keep us from prayer altogether; hindrances in prayer—those things which keep us from really praying when we pray; and, hindrances to the speeding of our prayers—those things which keep us from having access to God, and enjoying answers to our prayers. It is eminently practical and evidently heartfelt. Given the fact that prayer, by its very nature, is so often a battle, these are helpful considerations for us. They keep us from finding easy excuses or offering lazy complaints, and point us back to our own heart disposition, our attitudes and appetites in prayer, and the way in which our prayers are so often and easily undermined by our own carnality and carelessness. This sermon calls us to pray, and exhorts us to pray indeed, making our pleadings with God the very expression of our desires for his glory. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This is a truly sweet and happy sermon. Do not be put off by the text: “The God of my mercy shall prevent me.” As Spurgeon makes clear, the point is that the God of my mercy shall go before me, shall anticipate me, shall come to meet me. And so he explains the particular nature of the relationship, the grasp that David has on God’s mercy, and the various ways and senses in which the God of mercy, the God of my mercy, anticipates every demand arising out of the genuine needs of every child of God, and meets us at the very point of need. This covers the past, especially in our experience of salvation; it addresses the present, as God sustains and blesses us in all our circumstances; it provides for the future, knowing that to the very end of our days the God of my mercy will guide us. Spurgeon shows himself a masterly preacher here, building in his applications along the way before sending home a few precious truths at the close of the whole. Here are truths rich and sweet to sustain our souls as we press on in the pilgrim way. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Spurgeon considers Paul a balanced preacher—not a middle-of-the-road preacher, but one who both offers salvation in all its fullness, to be received and enjoyed with assurance, and who warns lest the faith which a sinner professes be something else than the saving faith which clings to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This, then, is a searching sermon, in which the preacher urges us to consider the nature of the true faith which God gives as opposed to the empty faith which some claim. We need to consider the very nature of that faith, and its relation to Christ Jesus. We need to know why it is so important to consider this question, given how many turn away, how many fall short, how many are hypocrites, how many professing Christians simply show little of the evidences of a child of God. We need to understand what is at stake with regard to heaven and hell. We need to know how to respond. Here, Spurgeon is carefully pastoral: these warnings are not designed to crush true faith, but—in shaking it—to send its roots deeper into God, into his truth, into Christ. So he urges us not to draw back but to press on, to cling to Christ wholeheartedly, and so to enter into rest. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

In appreciating Spurgeon the gospel preacher, we should not imagine that his gospel preaching is somehow shallow or narrow, nor that it lacks anything of the pastoral note. Spurgeon cares for the souls of people. He cares that sinners come into the kingdom; he cares that saints be built up in the kingdom. Again, that latter note does not make him a mere sentimentalist. I am not always persuaded that as many of us would have relished sitting under Spurgeon’s ministry as we might imagine! Here he is perfectly straight with his hearers, without being at all harsh. He first reminds us that God will chide, offering some reasons and explanations as to why that will be so. Then he brings in some particular comforts and consolations, emphasising the kindness, patience, and wisdom of Almighty God. His applications are wide-ranging but pointed and searching. It is a grand example of pastoral preaching, gently yet firmly bringing needed truth to bear. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

You probably have no need to be told that Spurgeon almost instinctively reverts to the pure presentation of the gospel when given the merest opportunity. Here his emphasis is on the freeness of divine grace. Preaching from Isaiah 55:1, he tells us why this is so surprising to fallen man, why it is a necessity (not just from our need, but from the character of the God who saves), and then the salutary influence of this fact—the happy effect of being saved by free grace. As so often, on one level there is nothing particularly novel here, nothing unusual in terms of what Spurgeon says as a preacher. Nevertheless, two things in particular stand out. One is the relentless and intense concentration on this primary idea of freeness, which has the effect of holding it before the eyes so as to drive home the issues. The other, developing from that, is the way in which Spurgeon presses that one truth persuasively into the hearts of his hearers, reasoning and wrestling so that they might grasp the wonderful freeness of God’s great grace in Christ. As hearers, we are made to gaze upon this truth so that, under God, we cannot avoid its marvel. As preachers, we are forced to ask whether or not we are so righteously relentless in pressing home God’s word. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app Podcast 169: Daniel Facing the Lion’s Den (S1154) Dan 6:10

Spurgeon delighted in communion with the Lord. He was manifestly a man of prayer, and he regularly exhorts his hearers and his readers to embrace that marvellous privilege. It is worth noting the title and content of the sermon: this is not about Daniel in the lion’s den, but facing it; it is about Daniel’s commitment to prayer in the face of fearful pressures, of his principled obedience in the face of awful threats. The sermon itself, then, is simple and straightforward. Spurgeon considers Daniel as a man committed to prayer and blessed and prospered by means of his communication with heaven. He then addresses the privileges of prayer, urging us to take advantage of the opportunities we have to come before the Lord. Then there is Daniel’s decision, his attachment to his holy habit of prayer despite all that comes against him. Finally, there is Daniel’s deliverance, not from his trial, but through his trial. The whole becomes an earnest exhortation to pursue the right course regardless of the difficulties which it brings. This is by no means shallow or moralistic preaching, but neither is Spurgeon afraid to take the saints of the Old Testament as examples and encouragements in righteousness, and we should take the model to heart. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app Podcast 169: Daniel Facing the Lion’s Den (S1154) Dan 6:10

Here Spurgeon weaves together something complementary in the work of parents and pastors with regard to their children, both physical and spiritual. First of all, working within John’s figure, he applies the words of his text to parents, underscoring the delight that a Christian father or mother feels in the salvation of their sons and daughters, one of the greatest of all earthly joys. Then, he turns to the figure itself as John uses it, speaking of a pastor’s delight in the conversion of sinners, and the profound pleasure that a preacher feels as a spiritual parent when he sees God’s people walking in his ways. He not only expresses but stirs the joy we might feel, urging us to find it by seeking the salvation of those under our care, but also reminding those who profess faith in Jesus Christ of their responsibility so to walk that parents and pastors might feel such delight, and that—ultimately—the Lord himself would be magnified in his children. Check out the new From the Heart of Spurgeon Book! British: https://amzn.to/48rV1OR American: https://amzn.to/48oHjft Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app  

This, says Spurgeon, is a sermon “mainly upon my own behalf, and on the behalf of my brethren in the ministry.” Specifically, and for the sake of the saints, and ultimately for the glory of God, he intends “to excite you to be much in prayer, both for myself and all ministers of Christ Jesus.” Without any kind of self-indulgence, and in a spirit of honesty rather than complaint, Spurgeon builds a compelling case for the saints to plead with God on behalf of ministers of the gospel. He explains why the saints should so pray, and who should be engaged, and when and where this duty might be carried out. Then, both for encouragement and challenge, he underscores the reality of the Spirit’s supply and its consequent blessing, and so presses home the need for that supply in answer to the prayers of the saints. How do you think about your pastors? What do you know of their labour and their need of grace in that labour? How do you pray for ministers of the gospel, and your minister? Spurgeon, neither boasting nor whining, draws back the veil a little on the work of ministry to excite our prayers, and the expectation of God’s answer to them. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/ap

Spurgeon knows how to reason with men, how to plead and persuade as a preacher. This sermon is a fine example of that often-neglected element of ministry. With wisdom from the Word of God, illuminated by the Holy Spirit and proven over long and happy experience, Spurgeon steps through a good selection of the reasons why people do not come to Christ, or think they cannot or have not, and seeks to remove the stumbling blocks. Then, having cleared the road of obstacles, he covers it over with Christ and paves it with promises, so that sinners might go by him to heaven. Both elements are strikingly simple, but wonderfully helpful. Here is the pastor-evangelist indeed, gently but firmly dismantling mistakes and confusions, and introducing—sweetly and straightforwardly—the Saviour and his so great salvation. If we would be physicians of souls, it is well to follow a gifted doctor on his rounds. We could do a lot worse than to learn from Spurgeon how to preach the gospel not by way of general exhortation only, but dealing closely with troubled souls in order to clear their path. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

I should, perhaps, confess that this sermon was particularly attractive to me as a result of my needing to preach on a particular theme at an upcoming conference. Having been considering a related topic, this sermon made my heart sing! Here is Spurgeon the gospeller, Spurgeon the evangelist, Spurgeon as preacher and teacher in sweet harmony. Conscious very much that he is an ambassador of heaven, Spurgeon fulfils that role while, as it were, shedding much light—almost incidentally—upon the nature of his work. He does this all in a way which humbles man (considered either as ambassador of grace or recipient of grace) and which exalts God. And yet, for all his description of what he is doing and what other gospel ministers ought to do, there is no doubt that he is actually doing it. With consummate skill, the sermon builds into a grand appeal to sinners to thrown down their arms of rebellion and take Jesus Christ as Saviour. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

Are you tempted to think, in some way or other, that Christ does not really care for you? Do your present circumstances lead you to fear that he has no regard for your well-being? Against such doubts and fears Spurgeon turns his guns as he reasons with us as to how we should think and what we should believe lest we fall into this trap, describing the genuine regard that our Lord has for his beloved people under all circumstances, and assuring us that this will become apparent to us in due course. He gives us an anatomy of ungodly fear and of God’s own care. Again, here is the blend of tender rebuke and careful encouragement at which our preacher excels; here is that pastoral insight into the hearts of men and that faithful grasp of the heart of God which blend together in preaching to the soul so that we both see what is wrong and are led to what is right. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This sermon develops, early on, into a broadside against spiritual self-satisfaction. Spurgeon demolishes—with unusual thoroughness—any sense of spiritual smugness, by taking Paul’s desire for holiness as his proper standard, as well as considering other models of godliness and his broader experience of mankind. He digs deep, asking by what routes men attain to such a sense of contentedness with their present condition, and the root of such self-applause. Having done most of the heavy lifting in the first and bulkiest part of his sermon, considering the present life, he then hits us rapidly with the other three points which form the outline of his sermon: how Paul looks on his past with accuracy, to the future eagerly, all the while engaging fervently. For all his evangelistic fervour, Spurgeon never lets slip the connection between salvation and true godliness, and here he urges us not to become complacent with present attainments in holiness, but rather to press onward—while we rejoice that Christ’s work for us is complete, we must recognise that the Spirit’s work in us is ongoing, and labour accordingly as new men in Christ. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

How can you tell when God is among his people in a distinctive way? What are the marks of God’s present favour? What are the indications of reviving among the saints? Using Zechariah 8:21 as his springboard, Spurgeon identifies several of the signs of God’s presence among his people: their great interest in divine worship; their encouragement to one another to use the means of grace; their urgency and immediacy in using these means; their eye particularly on God in these duties; and, their personal resolve and investment in waiting upon the Lord. This preacher has a sweet talent for both cutting and binding up; he knows how to expose and clean the wound, but he also knows how to pour in the balm. He is skilled in drawing us to God in Christ, making the exercises of religion seem sweet and delightful to the awakened soul. Here is a true call to worship indeed, not lacking in rebuke for our coolness and dulness, but painting a happy portrait of a people taken up with God, knowing and seeking and enjoying his ministrations toward them. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

There is a danger in appreciating sermons of robust exhortation, a potential spiritual sado-masochism of sorts, in which we pride ourselves on having received a good whipping, without being any the better for having undergone the experience. One antidote to this is to make sure that the exhortation rides on the back of appreciation, and it is this which Spurgeon does here. He wants us to understand how blessed we are as God’s people, how richly favoured and fed from the royal table, and what that means in terms of our regard for the King’s honour, and how that works out in various spheres of life. That emphasis on blessing is not intended to send us on a ‘guilt trip’ either—it is not mere manipulation to say that if we have fallen short, and our love has cooled, then we ought to repent and do our first works, given how greatly we have been loved and blessed. So, then, let us not indulge ourselves in a bit of self-satisfied self-recrimination, but consider the mercies which God has bestowed, and the honour to which he is entitled from those whom he has so privileged. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app

This is Spurgeon at his scripturally-centred best, digging deep into his text to tell us the what, and the when, and the why, and the whom, and the how of true thanksgiving. Wisely and insightfully, he reminds us that this must be the fruit of the reconciled heart, the one that knows its relation to God in Christ, setting out the spiritual prerequisites of a grateful soul. Finally, he records some of the excellent fruits of such a spirit, how it honours God, restrains sin, calms us and cheers us, and makes us useful. This is a preacher who delights in God and in all his good gifts. He is able to survey the eternal goods, the temporal goods, the unknown or unseen or unrecognised blessings, and especially to remind us that even in the worst of griefs and pains and afflictions we have good reason to give thanks to our God. With plenty of space to ponder our own attitudes, to repent of our complaining, and to resolve that we will go forth with a more cheerful zeal, this is an uplifting and valuable sermon for any time and place. For some, it may be a needful rebuke; for others, a particular spur; for some, a delightful encouragement; for all, a profitable lesson. Connect with the Reading Spurgeon Community on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ReadingSpurgeon Sign up to get the weekly readings emailed to you: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts-1/from-the-heart-of-spurgeon. Check out other Media Gratiae podcasts at www.mediagratiae.org Download the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app