Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in England in the year 1834. He was one of seventeen children in his family (nine of whom died in infancy). Due to economic difficulties, Charles was sent to live with his grandfather, who helped teach Charles the ways of God. Charles never went to college but was a voracious reader (his library would grow to over 12,000 volumes). He became a pastor at age 16! Over the years his church building in London was enlarged to accommodate more than 5,000 people at a time who would come to hear him preach, and he would sometimes preach 10 times per week. He is widely known as the Prince of Preachers, and his published works continue to encourage people from around the world. We have taken the liberty of sharing a few of his quotes, as follows:
My friends, it is one thing to go to church or chapel; it is quite another thing to go to God.
Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip
To trust God in the light is nothing, but trust him in the dark-that is faith.
Patience! patience! You are always in a hurry, but God is not.
No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me.
Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.
Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement
We cannot always trace God's hand but we can always trust God's heart.
When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude.
God's thoughts of you are many, let not yours be few in return.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Whatever a man depends upon, whatever rules his mind, whatever governs his affections, whatever is the chief object of his delight, is his god.
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.
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.
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.
We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.
You and your sins must separate, or you and your God will never come together.
God alone can do what seems impossible. This is the promise of his grace: 'I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten' (Joel 2:25). God can give back all those years of sorrow, and you will be the better for them. God will grind sunlight out of your black nights. In the oven of affliction, grace will prepare the bread of delight. Someday you will thank God for all your sadness.
My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, HE is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon 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 now doing for me. Hallelujah!
If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.
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.
When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you.
Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.
Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.
Wherever Jesus may lead us, He goes before us. If we don't know where we are going, we know with whom we go.
I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.
The devil is not afraid of a dust-covered Bible.
If you cannot trust God for the temporal, how dare you trust him for the eternal?
If we complained less, and praised more, we should be happier, and God would be more glorified.
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.
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.
We must all learn to hear what we do not like. The question is not, 'Is it pleasant?' but, 'Is it true?'
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.
God has so made man's heart that nothing can ever fill it but God himself.
Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. Great faith must have great trials.
Child of God, you cost Christ too much for him to forget you.
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.
The tears of affliction are often needed to keep the eye of faith bright.
The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.
Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.
Evil things are easy things: for they are natural to our fallen nature. Right things are rare flowers that need cultivation.
The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it.
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.
If God lights the candle, none can blow it out.
Please take a minute to explore our website, then share it with others.
For Scripture on hope, love, temptation, and strength, click here.
Click here for some interesting facts about the Bible.
Click here for more traditional worship music with video
Click here for less traditional worship music with video