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The sermon presents Acts 20:26-27 as the standard for faithful preaching: ministers must declare the whole counsel of God rather than emphasize only selected doctrines. Spurgeon strongly affirms salvation by sovereign grace while insisting that sinners are responsible to repent and believe, and that rejection of Christ is culpable. The Gospel is therefore both doctrinal proclamation and urgent personal invitation. Believers are called to pray for ministers and stand firm for truth even when doing so brings opposition or loss.
Theological center: Salvation is wholly by God’s grace, yet sinners remain genuinely responsible to repent, believe, and answer for rejecting Christ.
Applications: Declare the whole counsel · Flee to Christ · Consider personal responsibility · Feel the seriousness of eternity
Primary texts: Acts 20:26-27 · John 3:36 · Proverbs 1:24-26
Upon the last occasion of his preaching in that place “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Acts 20:26-27 WHEN Paul was parting from his Ephesian friends, who had come to bid him farewell at Miletus, he did not ask of them a commendation of his ability, he did not request of them a recommendation for his fervid eloquence, his profound learning, his comprehensive thought, or his penetrating judgment. He knew right well that he might have credit for all these, and yet be found a castaway at last. He required a witness which would be valid in the court of heaven, and of value in a dying hour. His one most solemn adjuration is, “I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” In the apostle this utterance was no egotism, it was a fact that he had, without courting the smiles or fearing the frowns of any, preached the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as it had been taught to him by the Holy Spirit, and as he had received it in his own heart. O that all ministers of Christ could honestly challenge the like witness! Now, this morning I propose, by the help of God’s Spirit, to do two things. The first will be to say a little upon the apostle’s solemn declaration at parting, and then afterwards, in a few solemn words, to take my own personal farewell. I. In the first place, THE APOSTLE’S WORD AT PARTING, “I call you to record I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” The first thing that strikes us is the declaration of the apostle concerning the doctrines he had preached. He had preached ALL the counsel of God. By which I think we are to understand that he had given to his people the entire Gospel. He had not dwelt upon some one doctrine of it, to the exclusion of the rest, but it had been his honest endeavor to bring out every truth according to the analogy of faith. He had not magnified one doctrine into a mountain, and then diminished another into a molehill, but he had endeavored to present all blended together, like the colors in the rainbow, as one harmonious and glorious whole. Of course, he did not claim for himself any infallibility as a man, although as an inspired man, he was without error in his writings. He had, doubtless, sins to confess in private, and faults to bemoan before God. He had, doubtless, sometimes failed to put a truth as clearly as he could have wished, when preaching the Word, he had not al…