Sermons intended to Reveal Jesus – Charles Spurgeon

MANY persons in hearing a sermon are like children looking at a cornfield—it is full of yellow garlic, or perhaps of scarlet poppies, and they cry “What a lovely field;” but the farmer thinks not so, he is looking for the wheat. Many a hearer watches for pretty speeches and flowery metaphors, and cries, “How well he puts it! What a well-turned sentence! How sweetly he quotes poetry!” and so on. Bah! Is that what you come to God’s house for? O fools and slow of heart, is this your end in hearing the life-giving gospel of the bleeding Lamb? I assure you it is not this that we are aiming at in preaching to you. If you came to look after the good corn, you would care little for the gaudy poppies of a flaunting eloquence so much regarded by the men of these days. Come with the intent to find faith in Jesus; cry to God to make his word effectual to your salvation, and then hearing will be quite another business with you. Alas! I fear you will perish, let us preach as we may, while we are regarded by you as mere orators to be criticized, and not as witnesses whose testimony is to be weighed.