Fire—The Want of the Times (sermon 854)

Here is an incandescent sermon in which Spurgeon attempts to show how Christ came to bring fire on the earth. With this image in his mind, he first of all surveys the history of the gospel, beginning with the book of God, then the preacher taken up with the truth, the hearer who feels the heat and light of the good news, and the opposition that is provoked and how the fiery gospel even catches hold in those who oppose. Then he likens the gospel to fire more directly, thinking of how it advances, and comforts, and consumes, and purifies. Finally, he asks what ought to be the effects in us if we have truly caught this flame in our souls? A holy fearlessness, a holy impatience of mere forms and religious proprieties, a holy appetite for prayer, and a holy commitment to Christ's service. It is the sort of sermon that grieves the reader, for you can only hear the distant rumble of the preacher's thunder—what must it have been like to hear a man preaching in the power of God's Spirit, with the storm all full of lightning flashing around you! May the Lord give us something of that same light and heat as we read and hear it still.