“Charles Spurgeon preached a plethora of New Year’s sermons during his pastorate at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. For Spurgeon, the arrival of a new year was a time that brought forth thinking on the Lord’s faithfulness and the Christian’s right response to the Lord in the new year. Five sermons preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle highlight Spurgeon’s understanding of what the Christian was to do with the new year: Humbly approach the Lord in prayer. Find security in God Himself. Wait expectantly for God’s mercy. Proclaim the gospel to yourself and others. Worship the living God now and forever. Humbly Approach…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call to Worship December 29, 2024
“In Genesis 3, one of the great tragedies in all of Scripture occurs. Adam and Eve sin against God, and are banished from the garden as God puts a curse upon the ground. It is a heartbreaking rupture in God’s perfect creation, and it is hard not to read this text without feeling a twinge of despair. And yet, before the curse comes a promise. God declares that the woman shall bear offspring that will crush the head of the serpent. Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, will come to break the curse, to renew the creation,…
Call to Worship December 22, 2024
“The shepherds were keeping their flocks by night; probably a calm, peaceful night, wherein they felt the usual difficulty of keeping their weary eyelids still uplifted as sleep demanded its due of them. On a sudden, to their amazement, a mighty blaze lit up the heavens, and turned midnight into midday. The glory of the Lord, by which, according to the idiom of the language, is meant the greatest conceivable glory as well as a divine glory, surrounded and alarmed them, and in the midst of it they saw a shining spirit, a form the like of which they had…
Call to Worship December 15, 2024
“Fifthly, There are several kinds of prayer. I shall speak a word to these three, [instantaneous], secret, and family… 3. Family prayer. God must be worshiped in our families, as well as in our closets. (1.) God commands it, in so far as he requires every kind of prayer, Ephesians 6:18, ‘Praying always with all prayer.’ The scripture speaks of a church in Aquila’s house, Romans 16:5. Surely the family was not such a one that shut God out of doors. The family sacrifice was God’s ordinance, Exodus 12:21, ‘Draw out, and take you a lamb, according to your families, and kill the…
Call to Worship, December 8, 2024
“Fourthly, In whose name are we to pray? In the name of Christ, John 14:13, 14, ‘Whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.’ This is to plead the merits of Jesus Christ. We must come to God in the name of Christ, laying all the stress upon his merits. All things go by favor in the court of Heaven; the Father hears us for the Son’s sake. This implies that we must be in Christ, before we…
Call to Worship, December 1, 2024
“Thirdly, The matter of prayer, or what we are to petition and seek for. These are, the things that are agreeable to God’s will. To pray for the fulfilling of unlawful desires, is horrid, James 4:3. But the will of God is the rule of our prayers, 1 John 5:14, ‘This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.’ We find the will of God in his commands and promises. Whatever God has commanded us to seek, whatever he has promised, that we may and ought to pray for. These…
Call to Worship November 24, 2024
“Of the Nature of Prayer in General; with the Import of Praying Without Ceasing 1 Thessalonians 5:17, ‘Pray without ceasing.’… Secondly, The parts of prayer are three, (1.) Confession, (2.) Thanksgiving, and (3.) Petition. 1. Confession, Daniel 9:4, 5, ‘I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant, and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments: we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled,’ etc. It well becomes sinful dust and ashes, in addresses to God,…
Call to Worship December 17, 2024
“Of the Nature of Prayer in General; with the Import of Praying Without Ceasing1 Thessalonians 5:17, ‘Pray without ceasing.’THESE words are an exhortation briefly delivered, as laws use to be; and therein we have, 1. A duty proposed, ‘Pray.’ 2. The manner of it, ‘without ceasing.’ I. We have the duty itself, ‘Pray.’ It may be asked, What is prayer? I answer, It is ‘an offering up of our desires to God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.’… First, I am to consider the…
Call to Worship November 10, 2024
“3. Consider the evils of it; I mean its present evils. Danger respects what is to come; evil, what is present. Some of the many evils that attend an unmortified lust may be mentioned:— (1.) It grieves the holy and blessed Spirit, which is given to believers to dwell in them and abide with them. So the apostle, Eph. 4:25–29, dehorting them from many lusts and sins, gives this as the great motive of it, verse 30, ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.’ ‘Grieve not that Spirit of God,’ saith he, ‘whereby you receive so many and…
Call to Worship November 3, 2024
“(4.) There is the danger of eternal destruction. For the due management of this consideration, observe,— [1.] That there is such a connection between a continuance in sin and eternal destruction, that though God does resolve to deliver some from a continuance in sin that they may not be destroyed, yet he will deliver none from destruction that continue in sin; so that whilst any one lies under an abiding power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God are to be held out to him. So Heb. 3:12; to which add chap. 10:38. This is the rule of God’s proceeding: If any…