Non-Minced Words from Spurgeon to Hearers & Preachers

I've literally known people leave X1 - I've certainly had people call me up saying I was condemning them - through feeling what I had preached was an attack on them or their behaviour. I personally find this remarkably arrogant to feel that someone has crafted a whole sermon - the hours of labour and prayer it involves - simply to use it as an opportunity to 'single someone out'. If preachers are doing that then they should stop and they of course will meet an exceedingly righteous judge and one whom will put them straight. It is of course, by the way, precisely the role of preaching to "cut to the heart" but that is maybe a little too biblical to digest.

Anyways, while preparing for this week's message at X1 I came across Charles Haddon Spurgeon's inimitable, majestic way of saying what a preacher needs to say about his sermons (if of course the sermons are any good and in fact are NOT crafted to please the listeners and draw the crowds - some teachers give in to that temptation I assure you)

"Please remember that it is not my objective to extol doctrine that is the most popular or most palatable, nor do I desire to set forth the views of any one individual. My one aim is to give what I judge to be the meaning of the text. I probably deliver doctrinal principles that many of you may not like. Truly, I would not be at all surprised if you did not like it. Even if you become vexed and angry, I will not be at all alarmed, because I have never believed that I was commissioned to teach what would please my readers or that I was expected by sensible and gracious people to shape my views to suit the notions of my audience. I count myself responsive to God and to the text. If I explain the meaning of the text, I believe that I will give the mind of God and will be likely to have His favor, which will be sufficient for me–whoever may contradict me. However, let every candid mind be willing to receive the truth if what I am expressing is clearly in the inspired Word."

- C.H. Spurgeon

God's word is a two-edged sword able to cut to the very depths of human being. A preachers aim is to wield it with boldness, incisiveness, and transforming effectiveness.

Simon