“Without Money and Without Price” (sermon 1161)

You probably have no need to be told that Spurgeon almost instinctively reverts to the pure presentation of the gospel when given the merest opportunity. Here his emphasis is on the freeness of divine grace. Preaching from Isaiah 55:1, he tells us why this is so surprising to fallen man, why it is a necessity (not just from our need, but from the character of the God who saves), and then the salutary influence of this fact—the happy effect of being saved by free grace. As so often, on one level there is nothing particularly novel here, nothing unusual in terms of what Spurgeon says as a preacher. Nevertheless, two things in particular stand out. One is the relentless and intense concentration on this primary idea of freeness, which has the effect of holding it before the eyes so as to drive home the issues. The other, developing from that, is the way in which Spurgeon presses that one truth persuasively into the hearts of his hearers, reasoning and wrestling so that they might grasp the wonderful freeness of God's great grace in Christ. As hearers, we are made to gaze upon this truth so that, under God, we cannot avoid its marvel. As preachers, we are forced to ask whether or not we are so righteously relentless in pressing home God's word.