Spurgeon On Dry, Dusty Preaching

"Spurgeon on Preaching with Feeling"

"To win a soul, it is necessary, not only to instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth, but to impress him so that he may feel it. A purely didactic ministry, which should always appeal to the understanding, and should leave the emotions untouched, would certainly be a limping ministry. “The legs of the lame are not equal,” says Solomon; and the unequal legs of some ministries cripple them. We have seen such an one limping about with a long doctrinal leg, but a very short emotional leg. It is a horrible thing for a man to be so doctrinal that he can speak coolly of the doom of the wicked, so that, if he does not actually praise God for it, it costs him no anguish of heart to think of the ruin of millions of our race. This is horrible!"

This truth and counsel is what I was trying to get across in my previous observation on much preaching done today by PBs and other Baptist ministers.

Continued Spurgeon:

"I hate to hear the terrors of the Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desiccation: all the milk of human kindness is dried out of them. Having no feeling himself, such a preacher creates none, and the people sit and listen while he keeps to dry, lifeless statements, until they come to value him for being “sound”, and they themselves come to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out heresy, and making earnest men offenders for a word. Into this spirit may we never be baptized!"

Can only say "amen" to that!

Continued Spurgeon:

"We are to seek our neighbour’s conversion because we love him, and we are to speak to him in loving terms God’s loving gospel, because our heart desires his eternal good."

How can we tell others of the dangers of sin and of the need for salvation without some emotion in our words and exhortations?

Continued Spurgeon:

"A sinner has a heart as well as a head; a sinner has emotions as well as thoughts; and we must appeal to both. A sinner will never be converted until his emotions are stirred. Unless he feels sorrow for sin, and unless he has some measure of joy in the reception of the Word, you cannot have much hope of him. The Truth must soak into the soul, and dye it with its own colour. The Word must be like a strong wind sweeping through the whole heart, and swaying the whole man, even as a field of ripening corn waves in the summer breeze. Religion without emotion is religion without life." (from Charles Spurgeon, "What Is It to Win a Soul?" in The Soul Winner as cited here)

Can I get an amen?