Digital Logos Edition
Throughout his lifetime, Spurgeon preached thousands of sermons. Able to the Uttermost contains twenty sermons on a variety of topics, taken from manuscripts not discovered until after Spurgeon’s death. These sermons are not found in the The New Park Street Pulpit or the The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. The Logos Bible Software edition of Able to the Uttermost was originally published in London by Marshall Brothers in 1922.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England on June 19, 1834. He converted to Christianity in 1850 at a small Methodist chapel, to which he detoured during a snowstorm. While there, he heard a sermon on Isaiah 45:22 and was saved—“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.” He began his own ministry of preaching and teaching immediately, and preached more than 500 sermons by the age of twenty.
In 1854, at nineteen years of age, Spurgeon began preaching at the New Park Street Chapel in London. He was appointed to a six month trial position, which he requested be cut to three months should the congregation dislike his preaching. He gained instant fame, however, and the church grew from 232 members to more than five thousand at the end of his pastorate. Many of his sermons were published each week and regularly sold more than 25,000 copies in twenty languages. Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon estimated that he preached to more than 10,000,000 people. Dwight L. Moody was deeply influenced by Spurgeon’s preaching, and founded the Moody Bible Institute after seeing Spurgeon’s work at the Pastor’s College in London.
Spurgeon read six books per week during his adult life, and read Pilgrim’s Progress more than 100 times. In addition to his studying and preaching, Spurgeon also founded the Pastor’s College (now Spurgeon’s College), various orphanages and schools, mission chapels, and numerous other social institutions.
Charles Spurgeon suffered from poor health throughout his life. He died on January 31, 1892, and was buried in London.
“Ah,’ said the good old preacher, ‘Jesus Christ lives to see His own will carried out. He died on the cross; that made it valid. He lives again to see it carried out, so that every blessing in His will, in the covenant of grace, is sure to all those to whom it belongs’; and those are known as those who come unto God by Him. What a mercy it is to have a dying Saviour! What a mercy it is to have a living Saviour!” (Page 18)
“Believe it; it is His own gospel. He is able to make you as though you had never sinned. If you have had a long course of sin, in a moment He can blot out those sins, and set you in the sight of God as though you had never once transgressed. The pardon which Jesus brings is perfect and complete, making a clean sweep of all iniquity, so that if the sins of the pardoned be sought for they shall not be found, for He will pardon those whom He reserves in this respect—in having power by pleading His blood before God. He is able to save from sins, and from the uttermost sins, those that come unto God by Him.” (Pages 14–15)
“Though they be red like scarlet they shall be as wool: though they be as crimson they shall be whiter than snow. Glory be to God, we have a Saviour not for little sinners, but for great sinners—ay, the greatest sinners that ever lived. ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom,’ saith Paul, ‘I am chief.’” (Page 15)
“He is able to save when we are not able to pray; able to save when we are not able to think. Do not think that the Lord will let the safety of His people depend upon their happening to be conscious when they come to die.” (Page 17)