Sermons Likely to Win Souls
Charles Spurgeon · The Soul-Winner; or, How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN
SOULS.
This afternoon, brethren, I am going to speak to
you about —
THE KIND OF SERMONS THAT ARE MOST LIKELY
TO CONVERT PEOPLE,
the sort of discourses we should deHver if we
really want our hearers to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to be saved. Of course, we are all perfectly
agreed that the Holy Spirit alone can convert a soul;
none can enter the kingdom of God except they
are born again from above. All the work is done by
the Holy Spirit; and we must not take to ourselves
any part of the credit for the result of the work, for it
is the Spirit who new-creates and works in man
according to the eternal purpose of God.
Still, we may be instruments in His hands, for He
chooses to use instruments, and He chooses them
for wise reasons. There must be an adaptation
of means to the end, as there was with David when
he went forth with the sling and stone to slay Goliath
of Gath. Goliath was a tall fellow, but a stone from
a sling can mount; and, besides, the giant was armed
and protected, and scarcely vulnerable except in his
forehead, so that was the very place to hit him. Though
84 TkE SOUL-WINNER.
David took a sling, it was not so much because he had
no other weapon as that he had practised shnging, as
most boys do in some form or other; and then he
cliose a smooth stone because he knew it would fit
the sling. He took the right kind of stone to enter
Goliath's head, so, when he slung it at the giant, it
struck him in the forehead, penetrated his brain, and
he sank down to the ground.
You will find that this principle of adaptation runs
through the whole work of the Holy Spirit. If a man
is wanted to be the apostle of the Gentiles, the Holy
Spirit selects the large-minded, well-trained, highly-
educated Paul, for he was more fit for such work than
was the somewhat narrow though strong-minded Peter,
who was better suited for preaching to the Jews, and
who was of far more use to the circumcision than he
ever could have been among the uncircumcision. Paul
in his place is the right man, and Peter in his place
is the right man. You may see in this principle a les-
son for yourselves, and seek to adapt your means to
your end. God the Holy Spirit can convert a soul
by any text of Scripture apart from your paraphrase,
your comment, your exposition ; but there are certain
Scripture passages, as you know, that are the best to
bring before the minds of sinners, and if this is true
about your texts, much more is it so in your discourses
to your hearers. As to which sermons are most likely
to be blessed to the conversion of those to whom they
are preached, I should say: I
First, they are those sei-mons wJiich are distiuctlx \
aimed at the cofiversion of the hearers. I heard a
prayer, some time ago, from a minister who asked
the Lord to save souls by the sermon he was about
to deliver. I do not hesitate to say that God Him-
self could not bless the sermon to that end unless He
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 85
made tlic people misunderstand all that the preacher
said to them, because the whole discourse was rather
calculated to harden the sinner in his sin than to lead
liim to renounce it, and to seek the Saviour. There
was nothing in it that could be blessed to any hearer
unless he turned it inside out or bottom upwards. The
sermon did me good on the principle that was applied
by a good old lady to the minister she was obliged
to hear. When asked, "Why do you go to such a
place?" she replied, "Well, there is no other place of
worship to which I can go." ''But it must be better
to stay at home tlian to hear such stuff," said her
friend. "Perhaps so," she answered, "but I like to go
out to worship even if I get nothing by going. You
see a hen sometimes scratching all over a heap of rub-
bish to try to find some corn; she does not get any,
but it shows that she is looking for it, and using the
means to get it, and then, too, the exercise warms
her." So the old lady said that scratching over the
poor sermons she heard was a blessing to her because
it exercised her spiritual faculties, and warmed her
spirit.
There are sermons of such a kind that, unless God
takes to ripening wheat by means of snow and ice, and
begins to illuminate the world by means of fogs and
clouds, He cannot save souls under them. Why, the
preacher himself evidently does not think that any-
body will be converted by them! If a hundred per-
sons or if half a dozen were converted by them, no-
body would be so astonished as the preacher him-
self; in fact, T know a man who was converted, or at
least convicted, under the preaching of a minister of
that kind. In a certain parish church, as the result
of the clergyman's preaching, there was a man who
was under d^ep conviction of sin. He went down to
86 THE SOUL-WINNER.
see his minister, but the poor man did not know wdiat
to make of him, and said to him, *'I am very sorry if
there was anything in my sermon to make you un-
comfortable; I did not mean it to be so." ' "Well, sir,''
answered the troubled man, "you said that we must
be born again." "Oh!" replied the clergyman, ''that
was all done in baptism.'' "But, sir,'' said the man,
who was not to be put off, "you did not say so in your
sermon; you spoke of the necessity of regeneration."
"Well, I am very sorry I said anything to make you
uncomfortable, for really I think all- is right with you.
You are a good sort of a fellow; you w^ere never a
poacher, or anything else that is bad.'' "That may
be, sir, but I have a sense of sin, and you said we
must be new creatures.'' "Well, w^ell, my good man,"
at last said the perplexed parson, "I do not understand
such things; I never was born again." He sent him
to the Baptist minister, and the man is now himself a
Baptist minister, partly as the result of wdiat he learned
from the preacher who did not himself understand the
truth he had declared to others.
Of course, God can convert a soul by such a sermon
as that, and by such a minister as that, but it is not
likely; it is more probable that, in His infinite sov-
ereignty, He will work in a place where a w^arm-heart-
ed man is preaching to men the truth that he has him-
self received, all the while earnestly desiring their salva-
tion, and ready to guide them further in the ways of
the Lord as soon as ever they are saved. God does
not usually lay His new^-born children down amongst
people where the new life will not be understood, or
where it will be left without any proper nurture or care ;
so, brethren, If you want your hearers to be converted,
you must just see that your preaching aims directly at
conversion, and that it is such as God will be likely
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 87
to bless to that end. When that is the case, then look
for souls to be saved, and look for a great number of
them, too. Do not be satisfied when a single soul is
converted. Remember that the rule of the kingdom
is, "According to your faith be it unto you." I said
last night, in my sermon in the Tabernacle, that I
was glad it was not written, ^'According to thine un-
belief, so be it unto thee." If there be in us a great
faith, God will give us blessing according to our faith.
Oh, that we were altogether rid of unbelief, that w^e
believed great things of God, and with heart and soul
so preached that men were likely to be converted by
such discourses, proclaiming truths likely to convert
them, and declaring them in a manner that would be
likely to be blessed to the conversion of our hearers!
Of course, all the wdiile we must be trusting to the
Holy Spirit to make the work effectual, for we are
but the instruments in His hands.
But coming a little closer to our subject, if the peo- : /
pie are to be saved, it must be by sermons that inter- ^
est them. You have first to get them to come under the
sound of the gospel, for there is, at all events in Lon-
don, a great aversion to a place of worship, and I am
not much surprised that it is so concerning many
churches and chapels. I think, in many instances, the
common people do not attend such services because
they do not understand the theological "lingo" that
is used in the pulpit; it is neither English, nor Greek,
but Double-dutch ; and when a working man goes once
and listens to these fine words, he says to his w4fe, "I
do not go there again, Sal; there is nothing there for
me, nor yet for you; there may be a good deal for a
gentleman that's been to College, but there is nothing
for the likes of us." No, brethren, we must preach in
what Whitcfield used to call ''market language" if we
88 TiiE SOUL-WINNER.
would have all classes of the community listening to
our message.
Then, when they do come in, we must preach in-
terestingly. The people will not be converted while
they are asleep; and if they go to sleep, they had bet-
ter have been at home in bed, where they would sleep
much more comfortably. We must have the minds
of our hearers awake and active if we are to do them
real good. You will not shoot your birds unless you
get them to fly, you must get them started up from
the long grass in which they are hiding. I would
sooner use a little of what some very proper preachers
regard as a dreadful thing, that wicked thing called-
humour — I would sooner wake the congregation up
that way than have it said that I droned away at them
until we air went to sleep together. Sometimes, it may
be quite right to have it said of us as it was said of
Rowland Hill, "What does that man mean? He actual-
ly made the people laugh while he was preaching."
"Yes," was the wise answer, "but did you not see that
he made them cry direptly after?" That was good
work, and it was well done. I sometimes tickle my
oyster until he opens his shell, and then I slip the knife
in. He would not have opened for my knife, but he
did for something else ; and that is the way to do with
people. They must be made to open their eyes, and
ears, and souls, somehow; and when you get them
open, you must feel, "Now is my opportunity; in with
the knife." There is one vulnerable spot in the hides
of those rhinoceros sinners that come to hear you;
but take care that, if you do get a shot through that
weak spot, it shall be a thorough gospel bullet, for
nothing else will accomplish the w'ork that needs to
be done.
INforeover, the people must be interested to make
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 89
them remember what is saitl. They will not reeolleet
what they hear unless the subject interests them. They
forget our fine perorations, they cannot recall our very
pretty pieces of poetry — I do not know that they woulcl
do them any good if they did remember them; but
we must tell our hearers something they will not be
likely to forget. I believe in what Father Taylor calls
"the surprise power of a sermon;" that is, something
that is not expected by those who are listening to it.
Just when they reckon that you are sure to say some-
thing very precise and straight, say something awk-
ward and crooked, because they wall remember that,
and you will have tied a gospel knot where it is likely
to remain. I remember reading of a tailor who had
made his fortune, and he promised to tell his brother-
tailors how he had done it. They gathered around his
bed when he was dying, and lie said, as they all listened
very attentively, "Now I am to tell you how^ you tailors
are to make your fortunes; this is the way, always
put a knot in your thread." I give that same
advice to you preachers, ahvays put a knot in your
thread ; if there is a knot in the thread, it does not come
out of the material. Some preachers put in the needle
all right, but there is no knot in their thread, so it
passes through and they have really done nothing after
all. Put a good many knots in your discourses, breth-
ren, so that there may be all the greater probability
that they will remain in your people's memories. You
do not want your preaching to be like the sewing done
by some machines, for, if one stitch breaks, the whole
will come undone. There ought to be plenty of "burrs"
in a sermon — ]\Ir. Fergusson will tell you what "burrs"
are; I'll warrant you that he has often found them
clinging to his coat in his bonnie Scotland. Put these
"burrs" all over the people; say something that \v\\\
90 THE SOUL-WINNER.
strike them, something that will stick to them for many
a clay, and that will be likely to bless them. I believe
that a sermon, under God's smile, is likely to be t^e
means of conversion if it has this peculiarity about it,
that it is interesting to the hearers as well as directly
aimed at their salvation.
The third thing in a sermon that is likely to winW
souls to Christ is, // miist be instructive. If people are V
to be saved by a discourse, it must contain at least some
measure of knowledge. There must be hght as well
as fire. Some preachers are all light and no fire, and
others are all fire and no light; what we want is both
fire and light. I do not judge those brethren who are
all fire and fury; but I wish they had a little more
knowledge of what they talk about, and I think it
would be well if they did not begin quite so soon to
preach what they hardly understand themselves. It is
a fine thing to stand up in the street, and cry, "Be-
lieve! Beheve! Believe! BeHeve! BeHeve! Believe!"
Yes, my dear soul, but what have we to believe? What
is all this noise about? Preachers of this sort are
like a little boy who had been crying, and some-
thing happened that stopped him in the middle of his
cry, and presently he said, "Ma, please what was I oxy-
ing about?" Emotion, doubtless, is a very proper
thing in the pulpit, and the feeling, the pathos, the
power of heart, are good and grand things in the right
place; but do also use your brains a little, do tell us
something when you stand up to preach the everlast-
ing gospel.
The sermons that are most likely to convert people
seem to me to be those that are full of truth, truth
about the fall, truth about the law, truth about human
nature, and its alienation from God, truth about Jesus
Christ, truth about the Holy Spirit, truth about the
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 5)1
Everlasting Father, truth about the new birth, truth
about obedience to God, and how we learn it, and all
such great verities. Tell your hearers something, dear
brethren, whenever you preach, tell them something,
tell them something!
Of course, some good may come, even if your hearers
do not understand you. I suppose it might be so, for
there was a very esteemed lady speaking to the Friends
gathered at the Devonshire House meeting. She
was a most gracious woman, and was addressing the
English Friends in Dutch, and she asked one of the
brethren to translate for her, but the hearers said there
was so much power and spirit about her speaking,
though it was in Dutch, that they did not want it trans-
lated, for they were getting as much good out of it as
was possible. Now, these hearers were Friends, and
they are men of different mould from me, for I do not
mind how good a woman the esteemed lady w^as, I
should have liked to know what she was talking about,
and I am sure I should not have been in the least de-
gree profited unless it had been translated; and I like
ministers always to know what they are talking about,
and to be sure that there is something in it worth say-
ing. Do try, therefore, dear brethren, to give your
hearers something beside a string of pathetic anec-
dotes that will set them crying. Tell the people some-
thing: you are to teach them, to preach the gospel to
your hearers, to make them understand as far as you
can things which should make for their peace. We
cannot expect people to be saved by our sermons, un-
less we try really to instruct them by what we say to
them.
Fourthly, the people 7nust be impressed by our ser-'\
mofts, if they are to be converted. They must not ^
only be interested and instructed, but they must be
92 THE SOUL-WINNER.
impressed; and, I believe, dear friends, there is a great
deal more in impressive sermons than some people
think. In order that you may impress the Word upon
those to whom you preach, remember that it must be
impressed upon yourself first. You must feel it your-
self, and speak as a man who feels it, not as if you
feel it, but because you feel it, otherwise you will not
make it felt by others. I wonder what it must be to
go up into the pulpit, and read somebody else's sermon
to the congregation. We read in the Bible of one thing
that was borrowed, and the head of that came off; and
I am afraid that the same thing often happens with
borrowed sermons — the heads come ofif. Men who
read borrowed sermons positively do not know any-
thing about our troubles of mind in preparing for the
pulpit, or our joy in preaching with the aid of only
brief notes. A dear friend of mine, who reads his own
sermons, was talking to me about preaching, and I was
telling him how my very soul is moved, and my very
heart is stirred within me, when I think of what I shall
say to my people, and afterward when I am delivering
my message; but he said that he never felt anything
of the kind when he was preaching. He reminded
me of the little girl who was crying because her teeth
ached, and her grandmother said to her, ''Lilly, I
wonder you are not ashamed to cry about such a small
matter." "Well, grandmother," answered the little
maid, "it is all very well for you to say that, for, when
your teeth ache, you can take them out, but mine are
fixed." Some brethren, when the sermon they have
selected will not run smoothly, can go to their box,
and take out another; but when I have a sermon full
of joy, and I myself feel heavy and sad, I am utterly
miserable; when I want to beg and persuade men to
believe, and my spirit is dull and cold, I feel wretched
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. i)3
to the last degree. My teeth ache, and I cannot take
them out, for they are my own; as my sermons are
my own, and therefore I may expect to find a good
deal of trouble, both in the getting of them, and in the
using of them.
I remember the answer I received when I once said
to my venerable grandfather, "I never have to preach,
but that I feel terribly sick, literally sick, I mean, so
that I might as well be crossing the Channel," and
I asked the dear old man whether he thought I should
ever get over that feeling. His answer was, ''Your
power will be gone if you do." So, my brethren, when
it is not so much that you have got a hold of your
subject, but that it has got a hold of you, and you feel
its grip with a terrible reality yourself, that is the kind
of sermon that is most likely to make others feel. If
you are not impressed with it yourself, you cannot
expect to impress others with it; so mind that your
sermons always have something in them which shall
really impress both yourself and the hearers whom you
are addressing.
I think also that there should be an impressive de-
livery of our discourses. The delivery of some preach-
ers is very bad; if yours is so, try and improve it in all
possible ways. One young man wanted to learn sing-
ing, but he was told by the teacher, "Ypu have only
one tone to your voice, and that is outside the scale."
So, there are some ministers' voices that have only
one tone, and there is no music in that one. Do try.
as far as you can, to make the verv' way in which you
speak to minister to the great end you have in view.
Preach, for instance, as you would plead if you were
standing before a judge, and begging for the life of a
friend, or as if you were appealing to the Queen her-
self on behalf of someone ver\^ dear to vou. Use such
94 THE SOUL- WINNER.
a tone in pleading- witli sinners as yon would use if a
gibbet were erected in this room, and you were to be
hanged on it unless you could persuade the person in
HAithority to release you. That is the sort of earnest-
ness you need in pleading with men as ambassadors
for God. Try and make every sermon such that the
most flippant shall see without any doubt that, if it be
an amusement for them to hear you, it is no amuse-
ment for you to speak to them, but that you are plead-
ing with them in downright solemn earnest about eter-
nal matters. I have often felt just like this when I
have been preaching — I have known what it is to use
up all my ammunition, and then I have, as it were,
rammed myself into the great gospel gun, and I have
fired myself at my hearers, all my experience of God's
goodness, all my consciousness of sin, and all my sense
of the power of the gospel ; and there are some people
upon whom that kind of preaching tells where noth-
ing else would have done, for they see that then you
communicate to them not only the gospel, but your-
self also. The kind of sermon which is likely to break
the hearer's heart is that which has first broken the
preacher's heart, and the sermon which is likely to
reach the heart of the hearer is the one which has come
straight from the heart of the preacher : therefore, dear
brethren, always seek to preach so that the people
shall be impressed as well as interested and instructed.
Fifthty, I think that we should try to take ovt of 07/r\j
serjjions everything that is likely to divert the hearers^ V
mind from the object we have in view.
The best style of preaching in the world, like the
best style of dressing, is that which nobody notices.
Somebody went to spend the evening with Hannah
^Tore, and when he came home his wife asked him,
"How was Miss More dressed? She must have been
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 93
dressed very splendidly." The gentleman answered:
"Really she was — why, dear me, how was she dressed?
I did not notice at all how she was dressed; anyway,
there was nothing particularly noticeable in her dress,
she was herself the object of interest." That is the way
that a true lady is dressed, so that we notice her, and
not her garments; she is so well dressed that we do
not know how she is dressed, and that is the best way
of dressing a sermon. Let it never be said of you, as
it is sometimes said of certain popular preachers, "He
did the thing so majestically, he spoke with such lofty
diction, etc., etc., etc."
Never introduce anything into your discourse that
would be likely to distract the attention of the hearer
from the great object you have in view. If you take
the sinner's mind ofif the main subject — speaking after
the manner of men, there is so much less likelihood
of his receiving the impression you desire to convey,
and, consequently, the smaller pri^bability of his being
converted. I remember once reading what Mr. Fin-
ney said in his book on "Revivals." He said that there
was a person on the point of being converted, and
just then an old woman, with pattens on, came
shuffling up the aisle, making a great noise, and that
soul was lost! I know what the evangelist meant,
though I do not like the form in which the matter
was put by him. The noise of the old lady's pattens
probably did take off the person's mind from the thing
he should have been thinking upon, and it is quite
possible that he could not be brought back to exactly
the same position again. We are to look to all these
little things as if everything depended upon us, at the
same time remembering that it is the Holy Spirit alone
who can make the work effectual.
Your sermon should not take of¥ the people's at-
96 THE3 SOUL-WINNER.
tention through its being only very distantly related
to the text. There are many hearers still left who
believe that there should be some sort of connection
between the sermon and the text, and if they begin ask-
ing themselves, "How ever did the minister get right
over there? What has his talk to do with the text?" —
you will have lost their attention, and that wandering
habit of yours may be a very destructive one to them ;
therefore, keep to your texts, brethren. If you do not,
you will be like the little boy wbo went out fishing, and
iiis uncle said to him: "Have you caught many fish,
vSamuel?" The boy answered, "I have been fishing
for three hours, uncle, and I have not caught any fish,
but I have lost a lot of worms." I hope you will never
have to say, *T did not win any souls for the Saviour,
but I spoiled a lot of precious texts; I confused and
confounded many passages of Scripture, but I did no
good with them. I was not supremely anxious to
learn the mind of the Spirit as revealed in the text so
as to get its meaning into my own mind, although it
took a deal of squeezing and packing to get my mind
into the text." That is not a good thing to do; stick
to your texts, brethren, as the cobbler is bidden to
stick to his last, and seek to get out of the Scriptures
what the Holy Spirit has put into them. Never let
your hearers have to ask the question, "What has this
sermon to do with the text?" If you do, the people
will not be profited, and it may be that they will not
be saved.
I would say to you brethren, you of these two Col-
leges,''' get all the education that you can, drink in
everything that your tutors can possibly impart to you.
*This lecture was delivered on a Friday afternoon, when
the tutors and students from Harley House came to meet
their brethren at the Pastors' College.
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 97
It will take you all your time to get out of them all
that is in them: but you should endeavour to learn
all that you can, because, believe me, a want of educa-
tion may hinder the work of soul-winning. That \yrri-
b!v' omission of the letter '*h" from places where it
ought to be, that aspiration of the "h" till you exasper-
ate it altogether — you cannot tell what mischiefs such
mistakes may cause. There was a young friend who
might have been converted, for she did seem greatly
impressed by your discourse; but she was so disgust-
ed by the dreadful way in which you put in "h's" where
they ought not to be, or left them out where they ought
to be in, that she could not listen to you with any pleas-
ure, and her attention was distracted from the truth by
your errors of pronunciation. That letter "h'' has done
vast mischief, it is "the letter that killeth" in the case
of a great many, and all sorts of grammatical blunders
may do more harm than you can imagine. You may
think, perhaps, that I am speaking of trifling matters
that are hardly worthy of consideration ; but I am not,
for these things may cause most serious results; and as
it is easy to learn to speak and write correct English,
do tr\' and know all you can of it.
Perhaps someone says, ''Well, I know such-and-
such a successful brother, and he was not an educated
man." That is true; but mark you this, the times
are altering. One young woman said to another, 'T
do not see why we girls need learn so many lessons.
The young women before us did not know much, and
yet they got married." "Yes," said her companion,
"but then, you know, there were no Board Schools in
them days; but now the young men will be educated,
and it will be a poor look-out for us as ain't." A young
man might say, "Such-and-such a minister was un-
grammatical, and yet he did well"; but the people
98 THE SOUL-WINNER.
of his day were imgrammatical, too, so it did not mat-
ter so much ; but now, when they have all been to the
Board Schools, if they come and listen to you, it will
be a pity if their mind is taken off the solemn things
which you wish them to think upon because they can-
not help noticing your deficiencies of education. Even
if you are not an educated man, God may bless you;
but wisdom tells us that we should not let our want of
education hinder the gospel from blessing men.
"But," possibly you say, "they must be very hyper-
critical to find fault like that." But, then, do not hyper-
critical people need saving just as much as other peo-
ple? I would not have a hypercritical person who
could truthfully say that my preaching so jarred upon
his ear, and disturbed his mind, that he could not pos-
sibly receive the doctrine which I was trying to set
before him. Did you ever hear how it was that Charles
Dickens would not become a spiritualist? At a seance
he asked to see the spirit of Lindley Murray.- There
came in what professed to be the spirit of Lindley Mur-
ray, and Dickens asked, "Are you Lindley Murray?"
The repty came, ^'lare.'' There was no hope of Dick-
ens' conversion to spiritualism after that ungrammati-
cal answer. You may well laugh at the story, but mind
that you recollect the moral of it. You can easily see
that, by forgetting when to use the nominative or ac-
cusative case of a noun or pronoun, or by using the
wrong tense of a verb, you might take off the mind
of your hearer from what you are trying to bring be-
fore him, and so prevent the truth from reaching his
heart and conscience. Therefore, divest your sermons
as much as ever you can of ever}^thing that is at all
likely to take away the mind of your hearers from the
one object before you. The whole attention and
thought of the people must be concentrated on the
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 99
truth we are setting before them if we are so to preach
as to save those who come within sound of our voice.
Sixthly, I believe that tJiose sermons which are full-
est of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the
conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full
of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the
gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach any-
thing else but Christ and his cross, for I know noth-
ing else, and long ago, Hke the apostle Paul, I de-
termined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. People have often asked me, "What
is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I
have no other secret but this, that I have preached
the gospel — not about the gospel, but the gospel —
the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who
is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus
Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every
time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ
in the sermon. You remember the story of the old
minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and
when he was asked by the preacher what he thought
of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said,
"If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was
no Christ in your sermon." "No," answered the young
man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the
text." "Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not
know tliat from every little town and village and tiny
hamlet in England there is a road leading to London?
Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There
is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep
on His track till I get to Him.'" "Well," said the
young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a
text that says nothing about Christ?" "Then I will go
over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So
must we do, brethren ; we must have Christ in all our
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100 THE SOUL-WINNER.
discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There
ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to
save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called
to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you
have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always
take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.
I have heard of a young m.an asking, when he was
going to preach in a certain place, ''What kind of
church is it? What do the people believe? What is
their doctrinal view?" I will tell you how to avoid the
necessity of such a question as that; preach Jesus Christ
to them, and if that does not suit their doctrinal views
then preach Jesus Christ the next Sunday you go; and
do the same thing the next Sabbath, and the next, and
the next, and never preach anything else. Those who
do not like Jesus Christ must have Him preached to
them till they do like Him ; for they are the very people
who need Him most. Recollect that all the trades-
men in the world say that they can sell their goods
when there is a demand for them, but our goods create
as well as supply the demand. We preach Jesus Christ
to those who want Him, and we also preach Him to
those who do not want Him, and we keep on preach-
ing Christ until we make them feel that they do want
Him, and cannot do without Him.
Seventhly, brethren, it is my firm conviction that
those sermons are most likely to co7ivert 7neji tJiat real-
ly appeal to their hearts, not those that are fired over
their heads, or that are aimed only at their intellects.
I am sorry to say that I know some preachers who
will never do much good in the world; they are good
men, they have plenty of ability, they can speak well,
and they have a good deal of shrewdness; but, some-
how or other, there is a very sad omission in their
nature, for to anyone who knows them, it is quite
V
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 101
evident that they have not any heart. I know one or
two men who are as dry as leather. If you were to
hang them up on the wall, as you do a piece of sea-
weed, to tell what kind of weather it is to be, they
would be no guide to you, for scarcely any weather
would afifect them.
But I also know some men who are the very reversa
of these brethren. They are not likely to win souls, for
they are themselves so flippant, and frivolous, and
foolish, there is nothing serious about them, nothing
to show that they are living in earnest. I cannot find
any traces of a soul in them; they are too shallow to
contain one, it could not live in the inch or two of
water that is all that they hold, they appear to have
been made without any soul, so they cannot do any
good in preaching the gospel. You must have souls,
brothers, if you are to look after your brothers' souls,
depend upon that; as you must have a heart if you are
to reach your brother's heart.
Here is another kind of man, — one who cannot weep
over sinners — what is the good of him in the ministry i^
He never did weep over men in his life; he never
agonized before God on their behalf; he never said
with Jeremiah, "Oh that my head were waters, and
mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day
and night for the slain of the daughter of my people !"
I know a brother like this. In a meeting of ministers,
after we had been confessing our shortcomings, he said
that he was very much ashamed of us all. Well, no
doubt, we ought to have been more ashamed of our-
selves than we were; but he told us that, if we had truly
meant what we had said in our confessions to God, we
were a disgrace to the ministry; perhaps we were. He
said he was not like that; so far as he knew, he never
preached a sermon without feeling that it was the best
102 TliE SOUL- WINNER.
he could preach, and he did not know that he could
do any better than he had done. He was a man who
always studied just so many hours every day, always
prayed exactly so many minutes, always preached a
certain length of time, in fact, he was the most regular
man I ever knew. When I heard him talk as he had
done to us, I asked myself, "What does his ministry
show as the result of this perfect way of doing things?"
Why, it did not show anything at all that was satisfac-
tory. He has great gifts of dispersion ; for, if he goes
to a full chapel, he soon empties it; yet he is, I believe,
a good man in his way. I could wish that his clock
would sometimes stop, or strike in the middle of the
half-hour, or that something extraordinary might hap-
pen to him, because some good might come of it; but
he is so regular and orderly, that there is no hope of his
doing anything, the fault with him is that he has not
any fault. You will notice, brethren, that preachers
who have no faults have no excellences either; so try
to avoid that flat, dead level and everything else that
makes people less likely to be converted.
Coming back to that matter of the possession of a
heart, of which I was speaking, I asked a young girl,
who came lately to join the church, "Have you a good
heart?" She replied, "Yes, sir." I said, "Have you
thought over that question? Have you not an evil
heart?" "Oh, yes!" she answered. "Well," I said,
"how do your two answers agree?" "Why," responded
the girl, "I know that I have a good heart, because
God has given me a new heart and a right spirit; and
I also know that I have an evil heart, for I often find
it fighting against my new heart." She was right, and
I had sooner feel that a minister had two hearts than
that he had none at all. It must be heart-work with
you, brethren, far more than head-work, if you are to
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 103
will many souls. Amidst all your studies, mind that
you never let your spiritual life get dry. There is no
necessity that it should, although with many study has
had that effect. My dear brethren, the tutors, wnll 1)car
me witness that there is a very drying influence about
Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew. That couplet is true —
"Hebrew roots, as known to most,
Do flourish best on barren ground."
There is a very drying influence in the classics, and
there is a very drying influence in mathematics, and
you may get absorbed in any science till your heart
is gone. Do not let that be the case wath any of you,
so that people should have to say of you, "He knows
much more than he did when he first came amongst us,
but he has not as much spirituality as he used to have."
Take care that it never is so. Do not be satisfied with
merely polishing up your grates, but stir the fire in
your heart, and get your ow^n soul all aflame with love
to Christ, or else you will not be likely to be greatly
used in the winning of souls of others.
Lastly, brethren, I think that those sermons which
have been prayed over are the most likely to convert
people. I mean those discourses that have had much
real prayer offered over them, both in the preparation
and the delivery, for there is much so-called prayer that
is only playing at praying. I rode, some time ago,
with a man who professes to work wonderful cures
by the acids of a certain wood. After he had told me
about his marvelous remedy, I asked him, "What is
there in that to effect such cures as you profess to have
wTought?" "Oh!" he answered, "it is the way in which
I prepare it, much more than the stuff itself; that is the
secret of its curative properties. I rub it as hard as
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104 THE SOUL-WINNER.
ever I can for a long while, and I have so much vital
electricity in me that I put my very life into it." Well,
well, he was only a quack, yet we may learn a lesson
even from him, for the way to make sermons is to work
vital electricity into them, putting your own life and the
very life of God into them by earnest prayer. The dif-
ference between a sermon that has been prayed over
and one that has been prepared and preached by a
prayerless man is like the difference that Mr. Fergusson
suggested in his prayer when he referred to the high
priest before and after his anointing. You must anoint
your sermons, brethren, and you cannot do it except by
much private communion with God. May the Holy
Spirit anoint every one of you, and richly bless you
in winning souls, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.