ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON) hearing sermons

Some imply that hearing sermons is not worshiping God, but that is a gross mistake, for rightly listening to the gospel is one of the noblest parts of the adoration of the Most High.

When rightly performed, it is a mental exercise in which all the faculties of the spiritual man are called into devotional action. Reverently hearing the word exercises our humility, instructs our faith, irradiates us with joy, inflames us with love, inspires us with zeal, and lifts us toward heaven.

 

Many a time a sermon has been a kind of Jacob’s ladder upon which we have seen the angels of God ascending and descending with the covenant God himself at the top. We have often felt when God has spoken through his servants into our souls, “This is none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven.” We have magnified the name of the Lord and praised him with all our heart while he has spoken to us by his Spirit which he has given unto men. Hence there is not the wide distinction to be drawn between preaching and prayer that some would have us admit; for one part of the service softly blends into the other, and the sermon frequently inspires the prayer and the hymn.