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The Prince of Preachers, at it again.

I'm working on a project for Christmas. A little advent daily devotional that will be out in December.

As I prepare for it I have been reading some incredible church fathers (& mothers) teachings.

This one stopped me in my tracks.


I re-read it a few times. Tears filling my eyes and a broken heart as I read the graphic way in which Spurgeon preached calvary. This is what we need to be reminded of.


The brutality of the cross and the ultimate sacrifice that was made for us all.


I'll be really honest with you, I hear sermons preaching on the cross all the time and I glaze over. I don't stop to consider the weight of it all, the heaviness of what took place. And I think it's because we don't talk about the detail. Yet here - Spurgeon lays it all out as a means for meditation and worship.


I hope it blesses you as it did me, in a quiet time of reflection & awe.


Charles H Spurgeon - 25 December 1859

 Then, lastly, and I pray God help you here my dear hearers, when thou hast confessed thy sin and given up all hope of self-salvation, go to the place where Jesus died in agony.

Go then in meditation to Calvary.


There he hangs. It is the middle cross of these three. Methinks I see him now. I see his poor face emaciated, and his visage more marred than that of any man.

I see the beady drops of blood still standing round his pierced temples—marks of that rugged thorn-crown. Ah, I see his body naked—naked to his shame. We may tell all his bones.


See there his hands rent with the rough iron, and his feet torn with the nails. The nails have rent through his flesh. There is now not only the hole through which the nail was driven, but the weight of his body has sunken upon his feet, and see the iron is tearing through his flesh.

And now the weight of his body hangs upon his arms, and the nails there are rending through the tender nerves.


Hark! earth is startled! He cries, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" Oh, sinner, was ever shriek like that? God hath forsaken him. His God has ceased to be gracious to him. His soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. But hark, again, he cries, "I thirst!" Give him water! give him water! Ye holy women let him drink. But no, his murderers torture him.

They thrust into his mouth the vinegar mingled with gall—the bitter with the sharp, the vinegar and the gall. At last, hear him, sinner, for here is your hope. I see him bow his awful head.


The King of heaven dies.

The God who made the earth has become a man, and the man is about to expire. Hear him! He cries, "It is finished!" and he gives up the ghost. The atonement is finished, the price is paid, the bloody ransom counted down, the sacrifice is accepted.


"It is finished!"

Sinner, believe in Christ.


Cast thyself on him. Sink or swim, take him to be thy all in all. Throw now thy trembling arms around that bleeding body. Sit now at the feet of that cross, and feel the dropping of the precious blood. And as you go out each one of you say in your hearts,

"A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,On Christ's kind arms I fall,

He is my strength and righteousness, My Jesus, and my all."


     God grant you grace to do so for Jesus Christ's sake. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all, for ever and ever. Amen and Amen.



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