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The sermon presents the gospel as a divine message with opposite effects: it is life to those whose hearts are opened and death to those who reject or oppose it. Spurgeon stresses that increased gospel light increases accountability, making rejection especially serious. He strongly affirms the eternal perseverance of true believers, grounding their security in Christ’s immutable love and completed redemption. Ministers must faithfully proclaim God’s Word and live responsibly without assuming control over hearers’ responses. The church is therefore called to sustain its ministers through fervent, persevering prayer.
Theological center: The gospel reveals Christ’s saving grace and produces life in those who receive it, while rejection brings judgment; those truly united to Christ are eternally preserved.
Applications: Receive the gospel openly · Turn from sin to God · Preach God’s Word faithfully · Pray for gospel ministers
Primary texts: 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 · Matthew 7:18-20 · John 10:28
“For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 THESE are the words of Paul, speaking on the behalf of himself and his brethren, the apostles, and they are true concerning all those who by the Spirit are chosen, qualified, and thrust into the vineyard to preach God’s Gospel. I have often admired the fourteenth verse of this chapter, especially when I have remembered from whose lips the words fell, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” Picture Paul, the aged, the man who had been beaten five times with “forty stripes save one,” who had been dragged forth for dead, the man of great sufferings, who had passed through whole seas of persecution—only think of him saying, at the close of his ministerial career, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ”! To triumph when shipwrecked, to triumph when scourged, to triumph in the stocks, to triumph under the stones, to triumph amidst the hiss of the world, to triumph when he was driven from the city and shook off the dust from his feet, to triumph at all times in Christ Jesus! Now, if some ministers of modern times should talk thus, we would think little of it, for they enjoy the world’s applause. They can always go to their place in ease and peace. They have an admiring people and no open foes against them, against them a dog does move his tongue, everything is safe and pleasant. For them to say, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph” is a very little thing. But for one like Paul, so trampled on, so tried, so distressed, to say it—then, we say, out spoke a hero—here is a man who had true faith in God and in the divinity of his mission. And my brethren, how sweet is that consolation which Paul applied to his own heart amid all his troubles. “Notwithstanding all,” he says, “God makes known the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” Ah! with this thought, a minister may lay his head upon his pillow, “God makes manifest the savour of his knowledge.” With this he may shut his eyes when his career is over, and with this he may open them in heaven, “God hath made known by me the savour of his knowledge in every place.” Then follow the words of my text, of which I shall speak, dividing it into three particulars. Our first remark shall be that although the Go…