Listen to Spurgeon’s sermon entitled ‘The Wounds of Jesus’
(‘Hear Spurgeon’ didn’t make an audio recording of this sermon, but we found others who did!)
↓ Streaming audio provided here ↓
If you’re aware of another recording of this sermon that we missed, contact us on social media, or at hearspurgeon@gmail.com and we’ll add it to the page!
Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
“It were impossible to know Christ, and yet not to have the heart affected by him; you must be overpowered by his charms.” – C.H.S.
Main Points:
1. How befitting it is that we should love Jesus – 5:46
2. The excellencies of loving Jesus – 30:36
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
Do not merely serve him, but love him.
There is a thing called beauty which wins upon the hearts of men. Strong Samson is weak as a child before its enchantment. Mighty men, not a few, have bowed before it, and paid it homage; but if you want beauty, look into the face of Jesus; that marred visage hath more loveliness in it than in all the smiles of Cleopatra, or of the fabled maidens of days of yore. There is no beauty anywhere but in Christ, O sun, thou art not fair, when once compared with him. Ye stars, ye are not bright, if ye be set side-by-side with his eyes, that burn like lamps of fire. O fair world, and grand creation of a glorious God, thou art but a dim and dusky blot compared with the splendours of his face. When you shall see Christ, my brethren, you will be compelled to say that you never knew what loveliness was before.
We must coin new words before we can describe the excellencies of Christ. In fact, we must have done with tongues, and go into that land where spirits utter their thoughts, without the motion of lip or the expiration of breath, ere we shall be able to express the surpassing beauty, the unuttered excellency of the glorious character of Christ. Oh, love him then, ye people of God; love him; look into his face, and see if ye can help it; look, I say, at his character, and see if ye can resist it. But I tell you, if ye love him not, it is because ye do not know him.
It were impossible to know Christ, and yet not to have the heart affected by him; you must be overpowered by his charms.
There are some themes which make one wish that some teacher more able would accept the responsibility of explaining them, because we are afraid of marring their symmetry while we grapple with their details. The picture stretches out as it were before my mind’s eye with dazzling glory, but I cannot sketch it so that others can see all its grandeur. Christ’s love to us we sometimes guess at, but, ah, it is so far beyond our thoughts, our reasonings, our praises, and our apprehension too, in the sweetest moments of our most spiritual ecstacy,—who can tell it? “Oh, how he loved us!”
There was nothing in you to make him love you, but he left heaven’s throne for you. As he came down the celestial hills, methinks the angels said “Oh, how he loved them.” When he lay in the manger an infant, they gathered round and said, “Oh how he loves.” But when they saw him sweating in the garden, when he was put into the crucible, and began to be melted in the furnace, then indeed, the spirits above began to know how much he loved us. Oh Jesus! when I see thee mocked and spit upon—when I see thy dear cheeks become a reservoir for all the filth and spittle of unholy mouths—when I see thy back rent with knotted whips—when I behold thy honour and thy life both trailing in the dust—when I see thee charged with madness, with treason, with blasphemy—when I behold thy hands and thy feet pierced, thy body stripped naked and exposed—when I see thee hanging on the cross between earth and heaven, in torments dire and excruciating—when I hear thee cry “I thirst,” and see the vinegar thrust to thy lips—when I hear thy direful cry,” My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” my spirit is compelled to say, “Oh how he loves!” He could die, but he could not cease to love; he could be rent in pieces, but he could not be rent away from his people; he could be buried in the grave, but his love could not be buried; it must live, it must exist, it cannot be sundered from his chosen.
I am sure you don’t know how much he loved, because if you did it would break your heart to think you love him so little.
You will count it all joy; nay, you will rejoice in that day, and leap for joy when you are allowed to suffer for the name of him who suffered so much for you.
Does Jesus want me here? Can he make better use of me dead than alive? Let me die. Will he be more honoured in my poverty than in my wealth? Let me be poor. Will he be more glorified by my toil than by my rest, or by my sickness than by my health? Then be it so. As he surrendered all to the Father, so will I surrender all to him. As the Father gave all into his hands, so will I give all into his hands to be his for ever and ever. Love to Jesus will make all service for him to be joyous.
Luther used to say, “I would rather fall with Christ than stand with Cæsar;” and might you not say you would rather be with Christ in poverty than with anybody else in all the glory and grandeur of this world? Once love Christ, and you will never be content to be far away from him. You will say with the spouse, “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto my taste.” Friend, how long is it since you had fellowship with Christ? Ask the question round, brethren. Each man, and each woman, answer it. You are a believer, your faith is in Christ; how long is it since you have seen your Master? How long since you have talked with him? How long since he has spoken to you? Pass that question round again, I say, and let every man answer it. I am afraid there be some Christians who have not communion with Christ by the month together, nay, I fear by the year together. Oh, what Christians must you be. Where is that wife’s love who never wishes for a husband’s smile all through the year? Were there much affection between two friends who could live in the same house, and not speak? Oh, brothers and sisters, let us examine ourselves, and begin to doubt if we can be happy without fellowship with Christ.
The only way to kill a Christian would be to take Christ from him.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Main Point:
1. Christless worship – 10:49
2. Christless penitence – 20:48
3. Christless self-betterment – 27:57
4. Christless communion – 38:26
5. Conclusion – 42:44
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
There is not, in this book of God, one single sentence which could lead me to believe that there is a way to God for the Mahomedan, for the Jew, or for any one who does not come to him through Jesus Christ. The religion of Christ is exclusive in this. It declares, that other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, Jesus Christ. It declares that no man can come to God except through Jesus. All the charity of which some men talk is deceitful and valueless. We can have no hope for those who receive not Christ. We pity them, we love them, we pray for them, we plead for them, that they may be brought to this; but we dare not deceive them, we dare not tell them that God will hear their prayers, if they will not come to him through Jesus Christ.
Oh! if we could but learn this truth and stand to it, that our acceptance with God depends upon nothing that we do or can do, nothing that we can think, or feel, or be, but depends wholly and entirely and solely upon what Jesus is, and what he has done, and what he has suffered; let us once get that thought—and it is in the text—we shall then be able, by the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit, to come to God at all times with boldness, knowing that we were so coming through Christ, and therefore we might always come boldly to the throne of grace.
But there is no way to heaven, whatever our hopes may be, but through Christ. O spirit of man, there is no way to the gates of pearl but through the bleeding side of Jesus. These are the gates of paradise—these bleeding wounds. If thou wouldst find thy way to God’s bright throne, find first thy way to Jesus’ shameful cross; if thou wouldst know the way to happiness, tread in that path of misery which Jesus trod.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
“The Shameful Sufferer” was the means of a great awakening in very many, and still brings forth continual fruit. Christ bleeding always makes the heart bleed, and his shame makes men ashamed of sin. Let but the Holy Spirit open the eyes of men to behold a sorrowing Saviour and they will at once sorrow for sin. – C.H.S.
“Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”—Hebrews 12:2.
Main Points:
1. The shameful sufferer – 6:13
2. His glorious motive – 43:22
3. An admirable example – 51:37
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
He stripped himself of everything that could make him callous, for he loved with all his soul; his strong passionate heart was fixed upon the welfare of the human race; he loved them even unto death, and to be mocked by those for whom he died, to be spit upon by the creatures whom he came to save, to come unto his own, and to find that his own received him not, but actually cast him out, this was pain indeed.
But think of the King of kings and Lord of lords, having for his adoration the spittle of guilty mouths, for damage the smitings of filthy hands, for tribute the jests of brutal tongues! Was ever shame like thine, thou King of kings, thou emperor of all worlds, flouted by the soldiery, and smitten by their menial hands? O earth! how couldst thou endure this iniquity. O ye heavens! why did ye not fall in very indignation to crush the men who thus blasphemed your Maker? Here was a shame indeed,—the king mocked by his own subjects.
It is the opinion of the Romanist, that the very man who pierced Christ’s side was afterwards converted, and became a follower of Jesus. I do not know whether that is the fact; but I know it is the case spiritually. I know that we have pierced the Saviour, I know that we have crucified him; and yet, strange to say, the blood which we fetched from those holy veins has washed us from our sins, and hath made us accepted in the beloved. Can you understand this. Here is manhood mocking the Saviour, parading him through the streets, nailing him to a cross, and then sitting down to mock at his agonies. And yet, what is there in the heart of Jesus but love to them?
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
“There are two great lessons which every man must learn, and learn by experience, before he can be a Christian. First, he must learn that sin is an exceeding great and evil thing; and he must learn also that the blood of Christ is an exceedingly precious thing, and is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto it.” – C.H.S.
Main Points:
1. The greatness of our sin – 3:57
2. The richness of the blood of Christ – 24:10
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
There are some sciences that may be learned by the head, but the science of Christ crucified can only be learned by the heart.
There are two great lessons which every man must learn, and learn by experience, before he can be a Christian. First, he must learn that sin is an exceeding great and evil thing; and he must learn also that the blood of Christ is an exceedingly precious thing, and is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto it.
But think again, how great does your sin and mine seem, if we will but think of the ingratitude which has marked it. The Lord our God has fed us from our youth up to this day: he has put the breath into our nostrils, and has held our souls in life; he has clothed the earth with mercies and he has permitted us to walk across these fair fields; and he has given us bread to eat and raiment to put on, and mercies so precious that their full value can never be known until they are taken from us; and yet you and I have persevered in breaking all his laws wilfully and wantonly: we have gone contrary to his will; it has been sufficient for us to know that a thing has been God’s will, and we have at once run contrary thereunto. Oh, if we set our secret sins in the light of his mercy, if our transgressions are set side by side with his favours, we must each of us say, our sins indeed are exceeding great!
O trembling sinner, that however great thine iniquity may be, whatever sin thou mayest have committed in all the list of guilt, however far thou mayest have exceeded all thy fellow-creatures, though thou mayest have distanced the Pauls and Magdalens and every one of the most heinous culprits in the black race of sin, yet the blood of Christ is able now to wash thy sin away. Mark! I speak not lightly of thy sin, it is exceeding great; but I speak still more loftily of the blood of Christ. Great as are thy sins, the blood of Christ is greater still. Thy sins are like great mountains, but the blood of Christ is like Noah’s flood; twenty cubits upwards shall this blood prevail, and the top of the mountains of thy sin shall be covered.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
The gospel is the central message of the bible!
Writing to the Romans, the Apostle Paul says that the gospel is the “power of God for salvation…” The Corinthians are told that the gospel that was delivered to them was “of first importance…”
It’s the message of Jesus, and all that He endured in order to save sinners. Has this glorious good news yet captivated your heart and imagination? Perhaps Spurgeon can help.
Main Points:
1. The announcement: Jesus came to save sinners – 4:06
2. Double commendation: faithful saying and worthy of acceptation – 36:35
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
This much I know, if there be anything that can make men believe under the hand of God’s most Holy Spirit, it is a true picture of the person of Christ. Seeing is believing in his case. A true view of Christ, a right-looking at him, will most assuredly beget faith in the soul. Oh, I doubt not if ye knew my Master, some of you who are now doubting, and fearing, and trembling, would say, “Oh, I can trust him; a person so divine, and yet so human, ordained and anointed of God, must be worthy of my faith, I can trust him
Despise Christ, and you despise your own mercy. Turn away from him, and you have proved that in his blood there is no efficacy for you. Despise him, and die doing so, die without giving your soul into his hands, and you have given a most awful proof that though the blood of Christ was mighty, yet never was it applied to you, never was it sprinkled on your hearts to the taking away of your sins. If, then, I want to know did Christ so die for me that I may now believe in him, and feel myself to be a saved man, I must answer this question;—Do I feel to-day that I am a sinner? Not, do I say so, as a compliment, but do I feel it? In my inmost soul is that a truth printed in great capitals of burning fire—I am a sinner? Then, if it be so, Christ died for me; I am included in his special purpose. The covenant of grace includes my name in the ancient roll of eternal election; there my person is recorded, and I shall, without a doubt, be saved, if now, feeling myself to be a sinner, I cast myself upon that simple truth, believing it and trusting in it to be my sheet anchor in every time of trouble.
Brethren, if you want a picture to show you what is meant by being saved, let me give it to you here. There is a poor wretch who has lived many a year in the grossest sin; so inured to sin has he become, that the Ethiopian might sooner change his skin than he could learn to do well. Drunkenness, and vice, and folly have cast their iron net about him, and he has become loathsome and unable to escape from his loathsomeness. Do you see him? He is tottering onwards to his ruin. From childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, he has sinned right on; and now he is going towards his last days. The pit of hell is flaring across his path, flinging its frightful rays immediately before his face, and yet he sees it not: he still goes on in his wickedness, despising God and hating his own salvation. Leave him there. A few years have passed, and now hear another story. Do you see that spirit yonder—foremost among the ranks, most sweetly singing the praises of God? Do you mark it robed in white, an emblem of its purity? Do you see it as it casts its crown before the feet of Jesus, and acknowledges him the Lord of all? Hark! do you hear it as it sings the sweetest song that ever charmed Paradise itself? Listen to it, its song is this:—
“I, the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”
“Unto him that loved me, and washed me from my sins in his blood, unto him be glory and honour, and majesty, and power, and dominion, world without end.” And who is that whose song thus emulates the seraph’s strain? The same person who a little while ago was so frightfully depraved, the selfsame man! But he has been washed, he has been sanctified, he has been justified. If you ask me, then, what is meant by salvation, I tell you that it reaches all the way from that poor, desperately fallen piece of humanity, to that high-soaring spirit up yonder, praising God. That is to be saved—to have our old thoughts made into new ones; to have our old habits broken off, and to have new habits given; to have our old sins pardoned, and to have righteousness imputed; to have peace in the conscience, peace to man, and peace with God; to have the spotless robe of imputed righteousness cast about our loins, and ourselves healed and cleansed. To be saved is to be rescued from the gulf of perdition; to be raised to the throne of heaven; to be delivered from the wrath, and curse, and the thunders of an angry God, and brought to feel and taste the love, the approval, and applause of Jehovah, our Father and our Friend. And all this Christ gives to sinners.We think that we are honouring God when we think great thoughts of our sin. Let us recollect, that while we ought to think very greatly of our own sin, we dishonour God if we think our sin greater than his grace. God’s grace is infinitely greater than the greatest of our crimes.
When Jesus came to save me, I protest he found nothing good in me. I know of a surety, that there was nothing in me to recommend me to Christ; and if he loved me, he loved me because he would do so; for there was nothing loveable, nothing that he could desire in me. What I am, I am by his grace; he made me what I am. But a sinner he found me at first, and his own sovereign love was the only reason for his choice. Ask all the people of God, and they will all say the same.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
↓ Streaming audio provided here ↓
If you’re aware of any other recording of this sermon that we missed, contact us on social media, or at hearspurgeon@gmail.com and we’ll add it to the page!
Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
At this point in Spurgeon’s ministry, his fame has made him somewhat of a spectacle, with thousands of curious people, unfamiliar with the gospel, flocking to hear him preach each week. Spurgeon focused much of his time in the pulpit explaining the Bible’s core doctrines.
It’s vital that we understand and can teach these things!
Can you?
“Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”—Romans. 3:24.
Main Points:
1. The redemption of Christ Jesus – 3:15
2. The justification of sinners flowing from redemption – 18:34
3. The manner of giving this justification – 32:41
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
The hill of comfort is the hill of Calvary; the house of consolation is builded with the wood of the cross; the temple of heavenly cordials is founded upon the riven rock, riven by the spear which pierced its side. No scene in sacred history ever gladdens the soul like the scene on Calvary.
Nowhere does the soul ever find such consolation as on that very spot where misery reigned, where woe triumphed, where agony reached its climax. There grace hath dug a fountain, which ever gusheth with waters pure as crystal, each drop capable of alleviating the woes and the agonies of mankind.
The sacrifice of Calvary was not a part payment; it was not a partial exoneration, it was a complete and perfect payment, and it obtained a complete and perfect remittal of all the debts of all believers that have lived, do live, or shall live, to the very end of time. On that day when Christ hung on the cross, he did not leave a single farthing for us to pay as a satisfaction to God; he did not leave, from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, that he had not satisfied. The whole of the demands of the law were paid down there and then by Jehovah Jesus, the great high priest of all his people.
There is only one way whereby that prisoner can be justified; that is, he must be found not guilty; and if he is found not guilty, then he is justified—that is, he is proved to be a just man. If you find that man guilty, you cannot justify him. The Queen may pardon him, but she cannot justify him. The deed is not a justifiable one, if he were guilty concerning it; and he cannot be justified on account of it. He may be pardoned; but not royalty itself can ever wash that man’s character. He is as much a real criminal when he is pardoned as before. There is no means among men of justifying a man of an accusation which is laid against him, except by his being proved not guilty. Now, the wonder of wonders is, that we are proved guilty, and yet we are justified: the verdict has been brought in against us, guilty; and yet, notwithstanding, we are justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that? No; it remained for the ransom of Christ to effect that which is an impossibility to any tribunal upon earth. We are all guilty. Read the 23rd verse, immediately preceding the text—“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” There the verdict of guilty is brought in, and yet we are immediately afterwards said to be justified freely by his grace.
Now, allow me to explain the way whereby God justifies a sinner. I am about to suppose an impossible case. A prisoner has been tried, and condemned to death. He is a guilty man; he cannot be justified, because he is guilty. But now, suppose for a moment that such a thing as this could happen—that some second party could be introduced, who could take all that man’s guilt upon himself, who could change places with that man, and by some mysterious process, which of course is impossible with men, become that man; or take that man’s character upon himself; he, the righteous man, putting the rebel in his place, and making the rebel a righteous man. We cannot do that in our courts. If I were to go before a judge, and he should agree that I should be committed for a year’s imprisonment, instead of some wretch who was condemned yesterday to a year’s imprisonment, I could not take his guilt. I might take his punishment, but not his guilt. Now, what flesh and blood cannot do, that Jesus Christ by his redemption did. Here I stand, the sinner. I mention myself as the representative of you all. I am condemned to die. God says, “I will condemn that man; I must, I will—I will punish him.” Christ comes in, puts me aside, and stands himself in my stead. When the plea is demanded, Christ says, “Guilty;” takes my guilt to be his own guilt. When the punishment is to be executed, forth comes Christ. “Punish me,” he says; “I have put my righteousness on that man, and I have taken that man’s sins on me. Father, punish me, and consider that man to have been me. Let him reign in heaven; let me suffer misery. Let me endure his curse, and let him receive my blessing.”
“There,” says another, “I like that; I shall go and believe in Christ, and live as I like.” Indeed you will not! For if you believe in Christ he will not let you live as your flesh liketh; by his Spirit he will constrain you to mortify its affections and lusts. If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterwards. If he gives you faith, he gives you good works afterwards. You cannot believe in Christ, unless you renounce every fault, and resolve to serve him with full purpose of heart.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
God’s love for His wayward creatures is powerfully and clearly demonstrated at the cross of Jesus.
Our great sin requires a great forgiveness which is offered to us at great cost to our God and Savior. Spurgeon’s fear was that because of his hearers familiarity with the gospel story, nine out of ten would leave this sermon unaffected by it.
To the nine,
“Would it were different! Would to God he would change your hearts, that so ye might be brought to love him.” – C.H. Spurgeon
Main Points:
1. It was Christ who died for us – 4:31
2. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us – 19:38
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!
Click here to view and/or download a PDF version of this sermon
The following are select quotes from this sermon.
Please use the comment section below to share your own thoughts regarding this podcast!
Had it been an archangel who had died for us, it would have been a theme for gratitude; had it been merely a good and holy man who had shed his blood, we might have kissed his feet and loved him for ever; but seeing that he who groaned upon the tree was none other than the Almighty God, and that he who sweat in the garden, whilst he was man, was still none other than one person of the all-glorious Trinity, it is, indeed, love’s highest commendation that Christ should die. Roll that thought over in your mind; ponder it in your meditations; weigh it in your hearts. If ye have right ideas of Godhead, if ye know what Christ is, if ye can conceive him who is the everlasting God, and yet the man—if ye can picture him, the pure, holy, perfect creature, and yet the everlasting Creator—if ye can conceive of him as the man who was wounded, and yet the God who was exalted for ever—if ye can picture him as the Maker of all worlds, as the Lord of providence, by whom all things exist and consist—if ye can conceive of him now, as robed in splendour, surrounded with the choral symphonies of myriads of angels, then perhaps ye may guess how deep was that stride of condescension, when he stepped from heaven to earth from earth into the grave, from the grave down, it is said, into the lowest “sheol,” that he might make his condescension perfect and complete. “He hath commended his love” to you, my brethren, in that it was Christ, the Son of God, who died for us.
If a man should be injured in the street, if a punishment should be demanded of the person who attacked him, it would be passing strange if the injured man should for love’s sake bear the penalty, that the other might go free; but ’twas even so with Christ. He had been injured, yet he suffers for the very injury that others did to him. He dies for his enemies—dies for the men that hate and scorn him. There is an old tradition, that the very man who pierced Christ’s side was converted; and I sometimes think that peradventure in heaven we shall meet with those very men who drove the nails into his hands and pierced his side. Love is a mighty thing; it can forgive great transgressors.
Thou mayest live without Christ now, but it will be hard work to die without him. Thou mayest do without this bridge here; but when thou gettest to the river thou wilt think thyself a fool to have laughed at the only bridge which can carry thee safely over.
…far be it from me to alter the messages from the Most High; I will, if he help me, declare his truth without altering. He saith “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” What is it to believe? To tell you as simply as possible: to believe is to give up trusting in yourself and to trust in Jesus Christ as your Saviour.
“What!” says one, “no good works?” Good works will come afterwards, but they do not go with it. You must come to Christ, not with your good works, but with your sins; and coming with your sins, he will take them away, and give you good works afterwards. After you believe, there will be good works as the effect of your faith; but if you think faith will be the effect of good works, you are mistaken. It is “believe and live.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
