Love labours. In doing so, it overcomes a multitude of difficulties. It triumphs over those difficulties in a way which demonstrates the heavenly source of its energies. Spurgeon actually begins the sermon with a meditation on the Holy Spirit as the only one who can work true Christian love in the heart of sinners like us. Christian love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. It contends with and overcomes self, other people, the world, and hell. The middle section on the triumphs of love is quite splendid. In each case Spurgeon shows what is the bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring power of love, applying the principle to our dealings both with believers and unbelievers, and then pointing us to Christ Jesus as the enduring example and demonstration of that aspect of love. It is a powerful and probing part of the sermon. The last section is much shorter, but can afford to be, as the preacher is really just tying off the threads which he laid in his introduction, and which have run throughout the sermon as a whole. As an example of sermonic construction, including adaptation in the act of preaching, it is most helpful. But it is more than a model for preaching; it is a call to loving living, and one that is convicting and compelling and comforting.

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Though Spurgeon typically preaches from fairly brief texts, he occasionally takes longer sections, and sometimes—as on this occasion—hangs his thoughts on a single phrase. This is not an easy mode of preaching, as it can lead to strained exegesis, shallow substance, or repetitive or tortured structure. While it helps that the phrase in question is the loaded one, “through faith,” Spurgeon also avoids these traps by setting his phrase in its context, connecting grace and faith. He then proceeds in a manner both systematic and pastoral, drawing on his rich theological heritage and his concern for troubled men and women. First he asks what faith is, and gives some standard answers in a lively fashion. In particular, he weaves in a number of illustrations to take account of the heat and heaviness of the morning in which he preaches, a good example of a preacher responding to his circumstances. Next Spurgeon answers the question why faith is selected as the channel of salvation. Finally, he asks how we can obtain and increase our faith, closing his sermon with some very down-to-earth counsels. This is, then, a sermon in which theological care and practical counsel is closely bound throughout, all intended to bring sinners to the Saviour and assure them of their security in him.

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While Spurgeon usually preaches on single texts he does not invariably preach isolated sermons. On Sunday 5th June, 1881, he preached from 1 Corinthians 3:6–9 about God’s co-labourers. On Sunday 12th June he took up the same theme of labourers on God’s farm, this time from Mark 4:26–29, explicitly linking the two sermons together. If the first sermon showed how far human agency is required in the work of the gospel, and how dependent all results are upon the Lord, the second sermon emphasises how far a holy labourer can go, and how far he cannot go: “the measure and limit of human instrumentality in the kingdom of grace.” As so often, Spurgeon’s structure is fairly simple and repetitive: what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot know, what we may and may not expect if we work for God, and what sleep workers may and may not take. It is an intensely practical sermon of particular encouragement and instruction to Christian workers—and which Christian ought not also to be a worker on God’s farm?

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