Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 – January 31, 1892) was a British Baptist minister and writer.

Sourced quotes

• "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."

Simple: If a person has good morals, then that is better than having something good said about them on their tombstone. The people who they helped and that loved them will remember him after he has died. Make people remember the good things you did, not what is written on your tombstone.

• "A man who does nothing never has time to do anything."    

Simple: A person who does not do anything never has any time to do anything.

• "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength."

Simple: Being fearful of the future does not make tomorrow's sadness go away, but it removes today's strength.

• "As sure as ever God puts His children in the furnace, He will be in the furnace with them."    

Simple: If God makes a Christian do something difficult, God will go through the difficult time with the Christian.

• "A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth."    

Simple: Someone who gets angry often is not all bad. If a person is too soft and is not committed to what he does, he has very little worth.

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

Simple: Do not be as fearful of others as you are yourself; we are more of an enemy to ourselves than others.

• "By perseverance the snail reached the ark."

Simple: Because he kept trying hard, the snail reached the Ark.

• "Do not begin to teach others until the Lord has taught you."    

Simple: Do not start trying to teach other people until God has taught you how to teach.

• "Don't rely too much on labels, for too often they are fables."

Simple: Don't rely a lot on labels, because they are frequently not true.

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

• "Every generation needs regeneration."

• "Everything is a trifle to a man who is a Christian except the glorifying of Christ."

• "Everything the Spirit of God does is substance, not shadow. The baseless fabric of a vision is the work of man."

• "For my part, I love to stand foot to foot with an honest foeman. To open warfare, bold and true hearts raise no objection but the ground of quarrel; it is covert enmity which we have most cause to fear, and best reason to loathe. That crafty kindness which inveigles me to sacrifice principle is the serpent in the grass—deadly to the incautious wayfarer."    

Simple: I love to stand with an honest enemy, and try to get him to convert to my side. To fight a war, both sides try their hardest to win the war, but it is the hidden enemy that should cause us to be afraid, and the best reason to want to defeat them. The feeling I get from trying to convert them to my side tempts me to give up my principles, and is similar to the snake the waits in the grass to kill a careless person.

• "God helps those who cannot help themselves."    

Simple: God helps the people who are not able to help themselves.

• "God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend."

Simple: God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to do something bad.

• "He who does not love sinners cannot pray aright for them."

• "He will not be a wise man who does not study the human heart."

Simple: If a person doesn't study the human heart, he cannot be a wise person.

• "Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that."

• "I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to him."

• "I would rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of men be added to it."

• "I would rather go to heaven doubting all the way, than be lost through self-confidence."

Simple: I would prefer to not know I was going to Heaven, but still go there, than to believe I am going to Heaven and not go there.

Charles Spurgeon

• "If a man would speak without any present study, he must study much."

• "If He bids us carry a burden, He carries it also."    

Simple: If God makes us endure through a problem, God will suffer by it also.

• "In nothing shall the glory of God be marred."    

Simple: Nothing is able to damage the glory of God.

• "It has been said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."

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

Simple: People become happy not by how much they own, but how much they enjoy the things they have.

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

• "Jesus poured out his soul in life before he poured it out unto death."

• "Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties."

• "Mind your till, and till your mind."    

Simple: Think about your plough, and plough your mind.

What it means: Work hard and let your mind grow.

• "My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will."

• "No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth."

• "No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers."

• "Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and depends with our years."

• "None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves."

• "Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior."

• "Of two evils, choose neither."

• "Only he is fit to preach who cannot avoid preaching, who feels that woe is upon him unless he preach the gospel."

• "Only that prayer which comes from our heart can get to God’s heart."

• "Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite."

• "Some men of little faith are perpetually enshrouded with fears; their faith seems only strong enough to enable them to doubt."

• "Ten minutes praying is better than a year’s murmuring."
• "The dog hole of selfishness can never afford you any comfort. When the first and last concern of a man is simply his own feelings, or his own enjoyment, he cannot get any good feelings or any enjoyment either."

• "The Christian should work as if all depended on him, and pray as if it all depended on God."    

Simple: A Christian should work as if everything depends on him, and pray as if God controls everything.

• "The holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him."

Simple: The holier a person becomes, the more sad he becomes that he is not perfect.

• "The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction."

• "The more we pray, the more we shall want to pray. The more we pray, the more we can pray. The more we pray, the more we shall pray. He who prays little will pray less, but he who prays much will pray more. And he who prays more, will desire to pray more abundantly."

• "The preacher who neglects to pray much must be very careless about his ministry. He cannot have comprehended his calling. He cannot have computed the value of a soul, or estimated the meaning of eternity."

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

• "There are three stages of the human soul in connection with Christ. The first is 'without Christ.' This is the state of nature. The next is 'in Christ.' This is the state of grace. The third is “'with Christ.' That is the state of glory."

• "There is no happiness comparable to a complete submergence of self into the glory of God."    

Simple: Giving yourself completely to God will make you more happy than anything else.

• "There is something for us to do in the wilderness, and so we are kept out of the heavenly garden for now."

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

Simple: Bad times teach us who we are. They remove what is on top, and show us what we are really made of.

• "What a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but his hold of you!"    

Simple: We are not saved because we hold on to Jesus, we are saved because He holds on to us.

What it means: It is so good that Jesus saves us because we cannot do it ourselves.

• "We are all at times unconscious prophets."    

Simple: At times, everyone, without knowing it, says what they believe the future will be.

• "We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel."

• "What we mean by salvation is this—deliverance from the love of sin, rescue from the habit of sin, setting free from the desire to sin."

• "When the book of God's purposes shall be all unfolded in actual history there will be found no blots, mistakes and blunders there. He knows the end from the beginning and his purposes shall be fulfilled in every jot and tittle, and in nothing shall the glory of God be marred. Though Satan may be laughing now, and every now and then the men of the world may boast against the people of God, it shall not be so in the close of the affair."

• "Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom."

• "You cannot see the beauty of certain gems unless you place them on black velvet."

• "You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect."

Simple: You don't always get what you want, but you always get what you think you're going ot get.

Other websites

• Charles Spurgeon on Wikipedia
• Charles Spurgeon on Wikimedia Commons
• Works by Charles Spurgeon on the English Wikisource
• The Spurgeon Archive
• Spurgeon sermons – 920 Spurgeon sermons