Holy Violence

The Tabernacle of the Most High

Spurgeon opens by forcefully dismissing all superstitious reverence for physical church buildings — arguing that bricks, stained glass, and consecrated graveyards have no moral or spiritual quality, and that true holiness can only reside in conscious, living persons — before turning to the text's claim that there is a real house of God: the living spiritual temple made of converted men and women, built on Christ as the cornerstone whose laying was cemented in his own blood, shaped from the rough quarry-stones of sinners by the saw of the law and the chisel of the gospel, and held together by love into an indestructible structure that no enemy has ever successfully stormed. He then develops the image of the church not merely as a building but as God's habitation — the place where, like a man at home, God lays aside the terror of his public majesty and shows his inner tenderness to his children, makes revelations he shares nowhere else, takes his rest and delight, and toward which all of providence — wars, angels' errands, harvests, hidden riches — ultimately tends as a household tends toward the home at its center. He closes on two notes: the security this gives the church, since a God who calls it his home will defend it as fiercely as any man defends his hearth; and the practical duty it lays on every member to keep themselves holy, since one defiled stone defiles the temple, and the Divine Inhabitant cannot share his house with sin. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on August 14th, 1859.

The Blind Beggar

Spurgeon takes blind Bartimaeus as a picture of every spiritually blind and spiritually poor sinner, tracing how his faith likely grew simply from hearing, over and over, the story of the man born blind whom Jesus healed — a single narrative lodged in a darkness-bound mind until it became an unshakeable conviction that this Jesus must be the promised Messiah — and applying this to his hearers by asking how they can have heard far more gospel than Bartimaeus ever did, and still not believe. He follows the story beat by beat through Bartimaeus's faith seizing the slim opportunity of Christ merely "passing by" rather than waiting for better conditions, his refusal to be silenced by the crowd making him cry louder rather than quieter, his immediate leap forward the moment Christ called without needing to be dragged, and his frank four-word request — "that I might receive my sight" — holding it up as a model of earnest, specific, unhesitating prayer that knows exactly what it wants and wastes no words in asking. He closes by dwelling on the most beautiful detail: the moment Bartimaeus received his sight, he did not run to family or temple or landscape but followed Jesus in the road, using this as a portrait of the true convert whose one consuming desire after forgiveness is to stay near the one who opened his eyes — and he invites every spiritually blind person in the hall to let Bartimaeus's story be written again in their own experience. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on August 7th, 1859.

The Meek and Lowly One

Spurgeon takes Christ's self-description — "I am meek and lowly in heart" — as a deliberate invitation designed to remove every fear that might keep a sinner away, spending the first half of the sermon illustrating Christ's meekness through a series of contrasts: unlike Mahomet who spread his religion by the sword, unlike the disciples who wanted fire called down on opponents, unlike Elijah whose mission was stern rebuke, unlike Moses whose majesty held people at a distance, and unlike self-regarding Jonah, Christ wept over those who rejected him, forgave his killers from the cross, dismissed the adulteress without condemnation, rode into Jerusalem surrounded by poor disciples and singing children, and rejoices rather than resents when prodigals come home. He then turns to Christ's lowliness, showing that it drives him to receive the poor over the rich, the ignorant over the learned, the openly vile over the respectable, and even the believer whose native dullness and hard-heartedness make them despair of ever being worth saving — sitting down with the slowest learner to teach the very alphabet of repentance and faith, patient enough to begin again as many times as needed. He closes by pressing sinners with the practical conclusion: if Christ is truly this meek and lowly, then every excuse for staying away — timidity, despair, the ugliness of one's sins, fear of being upbraided — dissolves, and the only thing needed is to come to him as confessor, physician, and debt-forgiver, since he has never yet used one harsh word against any soul that brought its case to him. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on July 31st, 1859.

How Saints May Help the Devil

Spurgeon warns that professing Christians often comfort sinners in their sin by their own inconsistencies, giving the ungodly excuses to remain rebellious against God. He shows how everyday faults—covetousness, worldliness, pride, church quarrels, and especially the public scandals of professing believers—lead the world to say, “You are as bad as we are,” thus dulling the rebuke that holy lives should give. Spurgeon recounts a chilling story of a young minister whose frivolous, coarse conversation after preaching destroyed the spiritual conviction of a listener, who later died declaring, “My blood is on your head.” He also exposes how Christians’ murmuring, joyless attitudes, and cold-hearted indifference make religion appear hollow, causing sinners to feel justified in ignoring the gospel. Spurgeon then presses believers to confess their guilt for strengthening sinners’ hands, quieting their consciences, and even helping to ruin souls. Finally, he turns to the unconverted, smashing their excuse that Christian hypocrisy justifies unbelief, insisting that each person will answer to God for his own sin and must not hide behind the failures of others. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on July 24th, 1859.

The Story of God's Mighty Acts

Spurgeon urges believers to remember and retell the great works God has done—from the Red Sea to Pentecost—so that past wonders might stir present expectation. He recounts how God overthrew Pharaoh, routed Sennacherib, and empowered early Christians so that within a century “the gospel had been preached in every nation,” and then traces later revivals through Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, the Lollards, and the explosive ministries of Whitefield and Wesley, when “England was permeated with evangelical truth.” Spurgeon emphasizes that God’s greatest works are often sudden, overwhelming movements of the Spirit, such as the revival at Cambuslang or the contemporary awakening in Belfast, where even “the lowest and vilest men” were struck with deep conviction and transformed. He notes that God typically uses insignificant instruments—a David, a Luther, a Whitefield—and always honors great faith and great prayer, pointing to the American revival that began with one man praying alone in a hired room. Finally, Spurgeon challenges his hearers to reject the idea that such wonders belong only to the past, insisting that God is unchanged and urging them to praise Him for former mercies and to plead earnestly for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in their own day. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on July 17th, 1859.