220 Quotes by Charles Spurgeon

The Word of God is like a lion. You don't have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.

A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats

Whatever a man depends upon, whatever rules his mind, whatever governs his affections, whatever is the chief object of his delight, is his god.

You may fear that the Lord has passed you by, but it is not so: he who counts the stars, and calls them by their names, is in no danger of forgetting his own children. He knows your case as thoroughly as if you were the only creature he ever made, or the only saint he ever loved. Approach him and be at peace.

The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! “You are the light of the world.”

You and I cannot be useful if we want to be sweet as honey in the mouths of men. God will never bless us if we wish to please men, that they may think well of us. Are you willing to tell them what will break your own heart in the telling and break theirs in the hearing? If not, you are not fit to serve the Lord. You must be willing to go and speak for God, though you will be rejected.

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything but Christ.

God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart. When you are so weak that you cannot do much more than cry, you coin diamonds with both your eyes. The sweetest prayers God ever hears are the groans and sighs of those who have no hope in anything but his love.

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If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.

My faith rests not in what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is doing for me.

It is not a matter of time so much as a matter of heart; if you have the heart to pray, you will find the time.

There must be a divorce between you and sin, or there can be no marriage between you and Christ.

The Word of God is the anvil upon which the opinions of men are smashed.

Prayer pulls the rope below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly. Others give but an occasional pluck at the rope. But he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might.

When your will is God's will, you will have your will.

We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us.

Whenever God means to make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.

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If you wish to know God, you must know his Word. If you wish to perceive His power, you must see how He works by his Word. If you wish to know His purpose before it comes to pass, you can only discover it by His Word.

God does not need your strength: he has more than enough of power of his own. He asks your weakness: he has none of that himself, and he is longing, therefore, to take your weakness, and use it as the instrument in his own mighty hand. Will you not yield your weakness to him, and receive his strength?

When Satan cannot get a great sin in he will let a little one in, like the thief who goes and finds shutters all coated with iron and bolted inside. At last he sees a little window in a chamber. He cannot get in, so he puts a little boy in, that he may go round and open the back door. So the devil has always his little sins to carry about with him to go and open back doors for him, and we let one in and say, 'O, it is only a little one.' Yes, but how that little one becomes the ruin of the entire man!

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

"We must all learn to hear what we do not like. The question is not, 'Is it pleasant?' but, 'Is it true?'"

It's a good thing God chose me before I was born, because he surely would not have afterwards.

God has so made man's heart that nothing can ever fill it but God himself.

The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it.

If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Saviour of men. If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.

Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.

Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.

A prayerless church member is a hindrance. He is in the body like a rotting bone or a decayed tooth. Before long, since he does not contribute to the benefit of his brethren, he will become a danger and a sorrow to them. Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.

Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God the more of God will be seen in you.

God works all things together for your good. If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship towards the port

There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory.

God is our portion, Christ our companion, the Spirit our Comforter, Earth our lodge, and Heaven is our home.

When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.

Look to the cross, and hate your sin, for sin nailed your Well Beloved to the tree. Look up to the cross, and you will kill sin, for the strength of Jesus' love will make you strong to put down your tendencies to sin.

I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.

Hang that question up in your houses, "What would Jesus do?" and then think of another, "How would Jesus do it?" for what he would do, and how he would do it, may always stand as the best guide to us.

We cannot rely on ourselves, for we have learned by bitter experience the folly of self-confidence. We are compelled to look to the Lord alone. Blessed is the wind that drives the ship into the harbor. Blessed is the distress that forces us to rest in our God.

The early morning hour should be dedicated to praise: do not the birds set us the example?

We cannot always trace God's hand but we can always trust God's heart.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

Wherever Jesus may lead us, He goes before us. If we don't know where we are going, we know with whom we go.

Anything is a blessing which makes us pray.

It was God's word that made us; is it any wonder that His word should sustain us?

I believe that the happiest of all Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so.

Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit.

Defend the Bible? I'd sooner defend a lion. You don't defend the Bible; you open its cage and let it roar.

God helps those who cannot help themselves.

When a man is saved by divine grace, he is not wholly cleansed from the corruption of his heart. When we believe in Jesus Christ all our sins are pardoned; yet the power of sin, albeit that it is weakened and kept under by the dominion of the new-born nature which God doth infuse into our souls, doth not cease, but still tarrieth in us, and will do so to our dying day.

Every growth of spiritual life, from the first tender shoot until now, has been the work of the Holy Spirit.... The only way to more life is the Holy Spirit. You will not even know that you want more unless He works in you to desire it.... The Spirit of God must come and make the letter alive, transfer it to your heart, set it on fire, and make it burn within you, or else its divine force and majesty will be hid from your eyes.... Prayer is the creation of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do without prayer, and we cannot pray without the Holy Spirit.

It is a good rule never to look into the face of a man in the morning till you have looked into the face of God.

Have your heart right with Christ, and he will visit you often, and so turn weekdays into Sundays, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.

Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.

Patience! patience! You are always in a hurry, but God is not.

Right is right though all condemn, and wrong is wrong though all approve.

A person who is really saved by Grace does not need to be told that he is under solemn obligations to serve Christ. The new life within him tells him that. Instead of regarding it as a burden, he gladly surrenders himself, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord.

The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case.

If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back.

You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.

Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty.

When we believe that we ought to be satisfied, rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves, imagine that He should submit His own honor to our advantage; we make ourselves more glorious than God, as though we were not made for Him, but He made for us; this is to have a very low esteem of the majesty of God.

Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when they are admired.

Atheism is a strange thing. Even the devils never fell into that vice.

God gave us sleep to remind us we are not him.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

Child of God, you cost Christ too much for him to forget you.

Unless you have forgiven others you read your own death warrant when you repeat the Lord's Prayer

My friends, it is one thing to go to church or chapel; it is quite another thing to go to God.

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.

Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.

That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.

Jesus wept, but He never complained.

When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you.

A man says to me, 'Can you explain the seven trumpets of the Revelation?' No, but I can blow one in your ear, and warn you to escape from the wrath to come.

Think not of the sinner or the greatness of his sin, but think of the greatness of the Savior!

Before you go out into the world, wash your face in the clear crystal of praise. Bury each yesterday in the fine linen and spices of thankfulness.

Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul.

A well marked Bible is the sign of a well-fed soul.

If you cannot trust God for the temporal, how dare you trust him for the eternal?

Every Christian man has a choice between being humble and being humbled.

My entire theology can be condensed into four words, 'JESUS DIED FOR ME'.

When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

If you simply take the name of Christ upon you and call yourself His servant, yet do not obey Him, but follow your own whim, or your own hereditary prejudice, or the custom of some erroneous church-you are no servant of Christ. If you really are a servant of Christ, your first duty is to obey Him.

Some go to church to take a walk; some go there to laugh and talk. Some go there to meet a friend; some go there their time to spend. Some go there to meet a lover; some go there a fault to cover. Some go there for speculation; some go there for observation. Some go there to doze and nod; the wise go there to worship God.

We should pray when we are in a praying mood, for it would be sinful to neglect so fair an opportunity. We should pray when we are not in a proper mood, for it would be dangerous to remain in so unhealthy a condition.

God's thoughts of you are many, let not yours be few in return.

The best way to live above all fear of death is to die every morning before you leave your bedroom.

To trust God in the light is nothing, but trust him in the dark-that is faith.

Begin early to teach, for children begin early to sin.

There is no form of sinfulness to which you are addicted which Christ cannot remove.

The only real argument against the Bible is an unholy life. When a man argues against the Word of God, follow him home, and see if you cannot discover the reason of his enmity to the Word of the Lord. It lies in some sort of sin.

This is the doctrine that we preach; if a man be saved, all the honor is to be given to Christ; but if a man be lost, all the blame is to be laid upon himself. You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences, salvation is all of the grace of God, damnation is all of the will of man.

Without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing. We are as ships without wind. We are useless.

Satan always hates Christian fellowship; it is his policy to keep Christians apart. Anything which can divide saints from one another he delights in. He attaches far more importance to godly intercourse than we do. Since union is strength, he does his best to promote separation.

The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.

There is no university for a Christian, like that of sorrow and trial

God's mercy is so great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the sun of its light, or make space too narrow, than diminish the great mercy of God.

A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.

Trust Christ, but do not trust yourself

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven; a great faith will bring heaven to your soul.

The seasons change and you change, but the Lord abides evermore the same, and the streams of His love are as deep, as broad and as full as ever.

If the devil never roars, the Church will never sing! God is not doing much if the devil is not awake and busy. Depend upon it: a working Christ makes a raging devil! When you hear ill reports, cruel speeches, threats, taunts and the like, believe that the Lord is among His people and is working gloriously.

The Christian should work as if all depended upon him, and pray as if it all depended upon God.

You cannot preach conviction of sin unless you have suffered it. You cannot preach repentance unless you have practiced it. You cannot preach faith unless you have exercised it. True preaching is artesian; it wells up from the great depths of the soul. If Christ has not made a well within us, there will be no outflow from us.

We are not to be alarmed when Satan hinders us, for it is proof that we are on the Lord's side and are doing the Lord's work. In His strength, we will win the victory and triumph over our adversary.

Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement.

I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.

If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ's name in it, it ought to be his last.
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The mind of God is greater than all the minds of men, so let all men leave the gospel just as God has delivered it unto us.

Is it not an amazing fact that while others leave us and forsake us, that God never does?

The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.

Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.

Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ.

Do you find it difficult to forgive one who has wronged you? Then you will find it difficult to get to heaven.

The word of God is always most precious to the man who most lives upon it.

You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort there. But the child of God runs to his Father and expects consolation only from the Lord's hand.

The Word of God is a lamp by night, a light by day, and a delight at all times.

One of the greatest rewards that we ever receive for serving God is the permission to do still more for Him.

Every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us; both when we sleep and when we wake His mercy waits upon us.

We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

Lord, send Your life throughout the entire church. Visit Your church; restore sound doctrine and holy, earnest living. Take away from professing Christians their love of frivolities, their attempts to meet the world on it's own ground, and give back the old love of the doctrines of the Cross and Christ. May free grace and dying love again be the music that refreshes the church and makes her heart exceeding glad.

Winners of souls must first be weepers for souls.

Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. Great faith must have great trials.

The glory of God's faithfulness is that no sin of ours has ever made Him unfaithful.

If you profess to be a Christian, yet find full satisfaction in worldly pleasures and pursuits, your profession is false.

In prosperity God is heard, and that is a blessing; but in adversity God is seen, and that is a greater blessing.

The devil is not afraid of a dust-covered Bible.

His eyes never slumber, and His hands never rest; His heart never ceases to beat with love, and His shoulders are never weary of carrying His people's burdens.

A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.

The true way for a Christian to live is to live entirely upon Christ... Christians have experiences and they have feelings, but, if they are wise, they never feed upon these things, but upon Christ, Himself.

It is the whole business of the whole church to preach the whole gospel to the whole world.

Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip

He who does not serve God where he is would not serve God anywhere else.

Remember that thought is speech before God.

As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it.

When we come to the end of self we come to the beginning of Christ.

It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency to dishonor God and to flatter man.

Ten minutes praying is better than a year's murmuring.

If you have no wish to bring others to heaven, you are not going there yourself.

The more holy a man becomes, the more conscious he is of unholiness.

No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me.

The child of God knows his good works do not make him acceptable to God, for he was acceptable to God by Jesus Christ long before he had any good works.

Our Lord Jesus is ever giving, and does not for a solitary instant withdraw his hand. As long as there is a vessel of grace not yet full to the brim, the oil shall not be stayed. He is a sun ever-shining; he is manna always falling round the camp; he is a rock in the desert, ever sending out streams of life from his smitten side; the rain of his grace is always dropping; the river of his bounty is ever-flowing, and the well-spring of his love is constantly overflowing.

Give me great sinners to make great saints! They are glorious raw material for Grace to work upon and when you do get them saved, they will shake the very gates of Hell!

No man ever served God by doing things tomorrow.

If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you.

Lord, let me find my life in thee, and not in the mire of this world's favour or gain.

You cannot be Christ’s servant if you are not willing to follow him, cross and all. What do you crave? A crown? Then it must be a crown of thorns if you are to be like him. Do you want to be lifted up? So you shall, but it will be upon a cross.

The more objects you set your heart upon, the more thorns there are to tear your peace of mind to shreds.

Remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity.

You and your sins must separate, or you and your God will never come together.

Sin and Hell are married unless repentance proclaims the divorce.

Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.

When you are instructed by affliction, you can become a comforter to the afflicted.

If God lights the candle, none can blow it out.

We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes.

When you think of what you are, and despair; think also of what He is, and take heart.

It is wonderful how God works by our hands, and yet His own hand does it all.

Six feet of dirt make all men equal.

Do not go on His errands till first you have sat at His feet.

When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed.

Trials make more room for consolation. There is nothing that makes a man have a big heart like a great trial. I always find that little, miserable people, whose hearts are about the size of a grain of mustard seed, never have had much to try them. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows — who never weep for the sorrows of others — very seldom have had any woes of their own. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles.

The Word of God will be to you a bulwark and a high tower, a castle of defense against the foe. Oh, see to it that the Word of God is in you, in your very soul, permeating your thoughts, and so operating upon your outward life, that all may know you to be a true Bible-Christian, for they perceive it in your words and deeds.

He that reads his Bible to find fault with it will soon discover that the Bible finds fault with him.

If we complained less, and praised more, we should be happier, and God would be more glorified.

Anger does a man more hurt than that which made him angry.

Man was made in the image of God, and nothing will satisfy man but God, in whose image he was made.

If you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead. If you remove grace out of the gospel, the gospel is gone. If the people do not like the doctrine of grace, give them all the more of it.

Without Christ there is no hope.

Only the prayer which comes from our heart can get to God's heart.

There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.

When the time comes for you to die, you need not be afraid, because death cannot separate you from God's love.

It is a terribly easy matter to be a minister of the gospel and a vile hypocrite at the same time.

Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.

Be deaf, be blind, be dead to gossip, and it will grow disgusted with you and select a more sensitive victim.

Praying without fervency is like hunting with a dead dog.

When all else is changing within and around, in God and His mercy no change can be found.

Evil things are easy things: for they are natural to our fallen nature. Right things are rare flowers that need cultivation.

The greater our present trials, the louder will our future songs be, and the more intense our joyful gratitude.

The Devil has seldom done a cleverer thing that hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. Providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt that is sets men afire.

There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.

The tears of affliction are often needed to keep the eye of faith bright.

You are not mature if you have a high esteem of yourself. He who boasts in himself is but a babe in Christ, if indeed he be in Christ at all. Young Christians may think much of themselves. Growing Christians think themselves nothing. Mature Christians know that they are less than nothing. The more holy we are, the more we mourn our infirmities, and the humbler is our estimate of ourselves.

Men will never be great in theology until they are great in suffering.

Suffering is better than sinning. There is more evil in a drop of sin than in an ocean of affliction. Better, burn for Christ, than turn from Christ.

Unbelief will destroy the best of us; faith will save the worst of us.

We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.

Death is no punishment to the believer: it is the gate of endless joy.

Obedience to the will of God is the pathway to perpetual honor and everlasting joy.

Too many people write their blessings in the sand but engrave their sorrows in marble

No matter how good you think yourself to be, you cannot enter heaven unless it is under the terms of sovereign grace.

You will never know God's strength until He has supported you in deep waters.

Show me 12 drunkards and I will show you 12 nagging wives.

Delayed answers to prayer are not only trials of faith; they also give us opportunities to honor God through our steadfast confidence in Him, even when facing the apparent denial of our request.

So long as we are receivers of mercy, we must be givers of thanks.

Do not become self-sufficient . Self-sufficienc y is Satan’s net where he catches men, like poor silly fish, and destroys them. Be not self-sufficient . The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. God pours no power into man’s heart till man’s power is all poured out. Live, then, daily, a life of dependence on the grace of God.

A true prayer is an inventory of needs, a catalog of necessities, an exposure of secret wounds, a revelation of hidden poverty.

Live in such a way that men may recognize that you have been with Jesus.

Do not flatter yourselves: if you go to places of worship merely to look about you or to hear music, you are not worshipping God.

If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.

To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is to acknowledge you are wiser today.

The more of heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet.

Growth can be painful, change can be painful but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow it only empties today of it strengths

It is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but His hold of you.

When God accepts a sinner, He is, in fact, only accepting Christ. He looks into the sinner's eyes, and He sees His own dear Son's image there, and He takes him in.

Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.

If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all.

There is nothing so deluded as feelings. Christians cannot live by feelings. Let me further tell you that many feelings are the work of Satan, for they are not right feelings. What right have you to set up your feelings against the Word of Christ?

The work of God's Holy Spirit begins with bruising. In order to be saved, the fallow ground must be plowed up, the hard heart must be broken, the rock must be split apart.

You must keep all earthy treasures out of your heart, and let Christ be your treasure, and let Him have your heart.

Come boldly, 'O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved.

We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.

There is no reward from God to those who seek it from men.

Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the Lord with all your jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores. He alone can heal, and He delights to do it. It is our Lord's office to bind up the brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it.

A man who fears not God, will break all his laws with an easy conscience, but one who is the favorite of heaven, who has been indulged to sit at royal banquets, who knows the eternal love of God to him, cannot bear that there should be any evil way in him that might grieve the Spirit and bring dishonor to the name of Christ. A very little sin, as the world calls it, is a very great sin to a truly awakened Christian.

Whenever there is a cross to be carried by any of Christ’s followers, He always bears the heavy end on His own shoulders.