The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) would easily have 800, perhaps even 8000 classic quotes that one could share. It seems every time he opened his mouth or put a pen to paper, he had something significant and uplifting to say. And with so many books and sermons produced over the years, there is just so much to choose from.
But I have to start somewhere, so here are 80 terrific quotes. I have only gone with very brief ones, and I have them arranged alphabetically:
“A great deal of unfaithfulness is caused by endeavoring to please people.”
“A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.”
“A man is very far gone in guilt when he infers from the patience of God, that he may continue in sin.”
“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.”
“Affliction is the best book in a minister’s library!”
“All places are places of worship to a Christian. Wherever he is, he ought to be in a worshiping frame of mind.”
“Always stand to it that your creed must bend to the Bible, and not the Bible to your creed, and dare to be a little inconsistent with yourselves, if need be, sooner than be inconsistent with God’s revealed truth.”
“Be a nuisance to the world; be such a man that worldlings will be compelled to feel that there is a Christian in their midst.”
“Believing is not the death of thinking—it is the sanctification of it.”
“Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.”
“Bold-hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards.”
“Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.”
“Christ died, and by his death he made an atonement for his own murderers.”
“Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.”
“Do not look to your hope, but to Christ, the source of your hope.”
“Every Christian has a choice between being humble, or being humbled.”
“Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is the better.”
“Faith and obedience are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God; and he that trusts God obeys God. He that is without faith is without works; and he that is without works is without faith.”
“Fiery trials make golden Christians!”
“For there is some danger of falling into a soft and effeminate Christianity, under the plea of a lofty and ethereal theology.”
“From every text in the Bible there is a road to Jesus Christ.”
“God’s smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart.”
“Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.”
“Have your heart right with Christ, and he will visit you often, and so turn weekdays into Sundays, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.”
“He counts the stars and calls them by name, yet He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.”
“He who does not live as a saint here on earth, will never live as a saint hereafter.”
“His eyes never slumber, and His hands never rest; His heart never ceases to beat with love, and His shoulders are never weary of carrying His people’s burdens.”
“Holiness is the visible side of salvation.”
“I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, ‘It is Jesus Christ’.”
“I believe that as often as I transgress, God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend.”
“I cannot be happy unless I am doing something for God.”
“I have endeavored to speak as a dying individual to dying individuals.”
“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”
“I know nothing about their wonderful experience of freedom from conflict, and complete deliverance from every evil tendency. I have never won an inch of the way to heaven without fighting for it.”
“I know that love covers a multitude of sins; but it does not call evil good, because a good man has done it.”
“I will not believe that you have tasted of the honey of the gospel, if you can eat it all by yourself.”
“I wish that saints would cling to Christ half as earnestly as sinners cling to the devil. If we were as willing to suffer for God as some are willing to suffer for their lusts, what perseverance and zeal would be seen on all sides!”
“If our sins are as high as the mountains, the ocean of His atonement is like Noah’s flood”
“If the man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of, and his conversion is a fiction.”
“If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching.”
“If there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitfield and John Wesley.”
“If you are drawn into a controversy, use very hard arguments and very soft words.”
“If you really long to save men’s souls, you must tell them a great deal of disagreeable truth.”
“I’m throwing all my good works overboard and lashing myself to the plank of free grace; for I hope to swim to glory on it!”
“It is a crime to permit our fires to burn low while experience yields us more and more abundant fuel.”
“It was God’s Word that made us; is it any wonder that His Word should sustain us?”?
“It’s a good fall when a man falls on his knees.”
“Leave out the cross and you have killed the religion of Jesus. Atonement by the blood of Jesus is not an arm of Christian truth; it is the heart of it!”
“Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your souls.”
“Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world.”
“Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.”
“Now, remember, you will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else but Christ.”
“Our salvation is not the effect of our works—but our works are the evidence of our salvation.”
“Prayer can never be in excess.”
“Remember, Christ’s scholars must study upon their knees.”
“Some men say that they want to be holy, but they keep some little pet sin in the backyard!”
“Someone asked, ‘Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?’ It is more a question with me whether we – who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not – can be saved.”
“Thank God you have got a father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when he is angry as when he smiles upon you.”
“The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings.”
“The devil is not afraid of a dust-covered Bible!”
“The greatest works are done by the ones. The hundreds do not often do much – the companies never; it is the units – the single individuals, that are the power and the might. Individual effort is, after all, the grand thing.”
“The man who does not like the self-examination may be pretty certain that things need examining.”
“The sinful find our conversation distasteful; in our pursuits the carnal have no interest; things dear to us are dross to worldlings, while things precious to them are contemptible to us.”
“There are two prayers always worth praying, ‘Lord, show me myself,’ and ‘Lord, show me thyself.’ May both be heard, and you will be well taught of God!”
“There can hardly be goodness in a man if he is not angered by sin; he who loves truth must hate every false way.”
“There is no need for two to care—for God to care and the creature too.”
“Think not of the sinner, or of the greatness of his sin, but think of the greatness of the Savior.”
“Those who expect to find the road to Heaven smooth and unobstructed will discover little in the experience of the ancient saints to support the expectation.”
“To risk all with Jesus is to end all risk.”
“Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour.”
“Trials are the wine-press out of which shall come the wine of consolation.”
“Unless our faith makes us pine after holiness and pant after conformity to God, it is no better than the faith of devils, and perhaps it is not even so good as that.”
“We must all learn to hear what we do not like. The question is not, ‘Is it pleasant?’ but, ‘Is it true?’”
“Whatever the attributes of God were of old, that they are now; and of each of them we may sing.”
“When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.”
“Whenever God means to use a man for big things, He breaks him into little pieces first.”
“You are a great sinner, but He is a greater Savior!”
“You are the salt not the sugar candy; something the world will spit out not swallow.”
“You never have to drag mercy out of Christ, as money from a miser.”
“Your Bibles printed on paper are a blessing, but to have the Scriptures written on the heart is far better.”
“Your qualification to come to Christ is your lack of qualification.”
Thanks Bill, this one made me chuckle “A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” But on a more sobering pertinent note this one will hopefully remain in my thoughts “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” God Bless
Thanks Bill, this one made me chuckle “A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” But on a more sobering pertinent note this one will hopefully remain in my thoughts “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” God Bless
Thanks Lynette.