Preface

For more than a century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon's sermons have been 
consistently recognized, and their usefulness and impact have continued 
to the present day, even in the outdated English of the author's own day.  
 
Why then should expositions already so successful and of such stature and 
proven usefulness require adaptation, revision, rewrite or even editing?
The answer is obvious.  To increase its usefulness to today's reader, the 
language in which it was originally written needs updating.

Though his sermons have served other generations well, just as they came 
from the pen of the author in the nineteenth century, they still could be 
lost to present and future generations, simply because, to them, the 
language is neither readily nor fully understandable.

My goal, however, has not been to reduce the original writing to the 
vernacular of our day.  It is designed primarily for you who desire to 
read and study comfortably and at ease in the language of our time.  Only 
obviously archaic terminology and passages obscured by expressions not 
totally familiar in our day have been revised.  However, neither 
Spurgeon's meaning nor intent have been tampered with.
                                                  Tony Capoccia


(NIV) indicates that Scripture references is taken from the HOLY BIBLE: 
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society, used by 
permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.  



                        Breaking the Long Silence
                                   by
                   Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Dear friends, I am not able to say much to you at present.  I should have 
gladly invited you to prayer every morning, if I had been able to meet 
you; but I did not have sufficient strength.  I cannot refrain from 
saying a little to you, on this the last evening of the year, by way of
retrospect, and perhaps on New Year's morning I may add a word by
way of prospect.

We have come so far on the journey of life; and, standing at the boundary 
of another year, we look back.  Let each one look upon his own trodden 
pathway.  You will not need me to attempt fine words or phrases: each 
one, with his own eyes, will now survey his own road.

Among the striking things to be noted are the dangers we have escaped.  
After Bunyan's pilgrim had safely traveled the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death, the morning light dawned upon him, and sitting down, he looked 
back upon the terrible road which he had passed.  It had once seemed an 
awful thing to him that he had marched through that valley by night; but 
when he looked back, and saw the horrors he had escaped, he must have 
felt glad that darkness had concealed much of its peril when he was 
actually in the midst of it.  Much the same has it been with us: thank 
God, now that we clearly see the perils, we have passed them in safety.

During the year which closes this night, some of us have been very near 
to the jaws of death, and some of us have also skirted the abyss of 
despair; and yet we live and hope.  Our path has been full of trials and 
temptations, and yet we have not been permitted to fall.  Our heart has 
been torn with inward conflicts, and yet faith has proved victorious.  No 
one of us knows how near he has been to some great sin, or some false 
step.  A single act might have changed the whole aspect of life to us; 
but from that test we have been preserved.  Others have stumbled, and 
sadly fallen; and we are of like passions with them: blessed be the hand 
which has held us up!  The Greek liturgy speaks of the Savior's "unknown 
sufferings."  Doubtless they were the greatest of all His woes.  We may 
with equal accuracy speak of our "unknown dangers" for probably they have 
been the greatest of our perils.  The Lord saw what we could not see, and 
kept us where we could not have kept ourselves.

I would remind you that to have averted evil is a choice favor.  A 
Puritan father met his Son by arrangement.  They had each traveled 
several miles to reach the appointed spot, and when they came together, 
the son thankfully observed, "Father, I have experienced a most 
remarkable providence on the road; for my horse stumbled three times, and 
even threw me, and yet I am unhurt."  His father answered, "That is good; 
but I have also enjoyed remarkable providence on the road, for my horse 
came all the way without stumbling once."  Truly, to be kept from danger 
is as great a privilege as to be kept in danger; but we forget this.  Let 
us thank God for preserved lives, continued comforts, and unspotted 
characters; for these essentials are marked "Fragile," and that they are 
not broken is a marvel of grace.  Since we last met, how many have died! 
Plagues and deaths have been flying around us, like shots in the heat of 
a battle; and only He who, of old, covered David's head in the day of 
battle, could have kept us from death.  Our spiritual life still 
survives, and only He who holds the stars in their courses could have 
maintained us in our integrity.  It ought to bring tears of gratitude to 
our eyes while, to quote the language of the Song of Solomon, we "look 
from the top of Hermon; from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the 
leopards."

For my own part, I dare not omit from my retrospect "the sins of the past 
year," of which I sincerely repent.  He who does not know himself to be 
sinful does not know himself at all.  He who does not feel his own 
unworthiness must surely have grown callous or conceited.  Sins of 
omission are those which trouble me most.  I look back, and remember what 
I might have done, and have not done; what opportunities of usefulness I 
have not seized; what sins I have allowed to pass unrebuked; what 
struggling beginners in grace I have failed to help.  I cannot but grieve 
that what I have done was not done better, or attended with a humbler 
dependence upon God.  I now perceive, in my holy things, faults in their 
beginning, faults in their carrying on, and faults in their ending.  
Delay to initiate, slackness in the act, and pride after it, defile our 
best service.  What an endless list our faults and failings they would 
be!  Oh, friends, when we examine one year of life carefully, looking 
into the thoughts and motives and secret imaginings of the soul, how 
humbled we ought to be!  As I rode through the streets of Menton this 
day, I felt bowed down with a sense of sin, and all of a sudden it 
flashed into my mind, "Yes, and therefore, I have my part in the work of 
the Lord Jesus, for He said expressly, 'I did not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners.'"  

Why did Jesus die?  He died for our sins: He would not have needed to die 
for men if men had not sinned.  Where there is no sin, there is no share 
in the sin-offering.  If we have no sin, we have no connection with that 
Savior who came to save His people from their sins.  For whom does Jesus 
plead?  He makes intercession for sinners: if I am not a sinner, I have 
no assurance that he pleads for me.  The whole mediatorial system is for 
sinful men; and as I am conscious of guilt, so am I assured, by faith, 
that 1 am within the circle of divine grace.  My faith places her hand 
upon the head of Him who was our Substitute and Scapegoat, and I see all 
my sins and all the sins of all believers forever put away by Him who 
stood in the sinner's place.  Let Your tears fall because of sin; but, at 
the same time, let the eye of faith steadily behold the Son of man lifted 
up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that those who are 
bitten by the old serpent may look unto Him [Jesus] and live.  Our 
sinnership is that emptiness into which the Lord pours his mercy.  "This 
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners."  On that blessed fact I rest my 
soul.  Though I have preached Christ crucified for more than forty years, 
and have led many to my Master's feet, I have at this moment no ray of 
hope but that which comes from what my Lord Jesus has done for guilty 
men.

                 "Look at Him there! the bleeding Lamb!
                   My perfect, spotless Righteousness,
                     The great unchangeable, 'I AM,'
                    The King of glory and of grace."

A flood of light breaks over the scene if we look back on our mercies! 
Now for your arithmetic!  Now begin to make your calculations!  Think of 
major mercies and minor mercies; fleeting mercies and eternal mercies; 
mercies by day, and mercies by night; mercies averting evil, and mercies 
securing good; mercies at home, and mercies abroad; mercies of bed and 
board, of city and field, of, society and seclusion.  Mercy affects every 
faculty of the mind, and every portion of the body.  There are mercies 
for conscience, and fear, and hope; mercies for the understanding and the 
heart; and, at the same time, there are mercies of eye, and ear, and 
head, and hand.  The whole landscape of life is golden with the light of 
mercy.  In the love of God we have lived, and moved, and had our being.  
We see mercies new every morning, mercies old as the eternal hills 
streams of mercy; oceans of mercy; mercy all, and all mercy.

God has been especially good to me.  I think I hear each heart whisper, 
"That is just what I was going to say."  Dear friends, I will not 
monopolize the expression: it is most true from me; I do not doubt that 
it is also true of each one of you.  Can we conceive how God could have 
been more gracious than He has been?  If you are familiar with the Lord 
of love, so that you dwell in Him, and His Spirit dwells in you, you will 
join me in abundantly uttering the memory of his great goodness.  How 
wonderful is his loving kindness!  How free!  How tender!  How faithful! 
How lasting!  How everlasting!  No, I cannot even attempt an outline of 
the Lord's goodness to us during the year which is now waning: we must 
each one review the record for himself.  "How much do we owe to our 
Lord?" is an question which must be personally answered by each one as an 
individual.

One thing more before I close.  What are the lessons which our gracious 
God has intended us to learn by all that has happened during the year? 
Each one of us has received his own discipline and learning; but not all 
have had the same.  It is written, "All the children shall be taught of 
the Lord," but all the children are not reading from the same page, at 
the same moment.
               
Haven't we learned to expect more of God, and less of men?  To make fewer 
resolutions, rather to carry out those which were wisely and devoutly 
formed?  Have we not seen more of the instability of earthly joys?  Have 
we not learned more fully the need of using the present, and ability 
possessed?  Are we not now aware that we are neither so good, so wise, 
so strong, nor so constant as we thought we were?  Have we been taught to 
think less of ourselves so that Jesus may be lifted up, after the manner 
of John the Baptist, who cried, "He must increase, but I must decrease"?  
These are truths worth learning.  I have neither the time nor the 
strength to suggest more of those lessons which experience teaches us 
when our hearts are, made ready for the divine schooling.  We ought to 
have learned much in 365 days.  I hope we have.  Permit me only to hint 
at a truth which has come home to me.

During the past year I have been made to see that there is more love and 
unity among God's people than is generally believed.  I speak not 
egotistically, but gratefully.  I had no idea that Christian people, of 
every church, would spontaneously and persistently plead for the 
prolonging of my life.  I feel myself a debtor to all God's people on 
this earth.  Each section of the church seemed to vie with all the rest 
in sending words of comfort to my wife, and in presenting intercession to 
God on my behalf.  If anyone had prophesied, twenty years ago, that a 
dissenting minister, and a very outspoken one, too, would be prayed for 
in many parish churches, and in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's 
Cathedral, it would not have been believed; but it was so.  

There is more love in the hearts of Christian people than they know of 
themselves.  We mistake our divergencies of judgment for differences of 
heart; but they are far from being the same thing.  In these days of 
criticism by unbelievers, believers of all sorts will be driven into 
sincere unity.  For my part, I believe that all spiritual persons; are 
already one.  When our Lord prayed that His church might be one, His 
prayer was answered, and His true people are even now, in spirit and in 
truth, one in Him.  Their different modes of external worship are as the 
furrows of a field; the field is none the less one, because of the marks 
of the plow.  Between rationalism and faith there is an immeasurable 
abyss; but where there is faith in the Everlasting Father, faith in the 
Great Sacrifice, and faith in the Indwelling Spirit, there is a living, 
loving, lasting union.

I have learned, also, that when the one church pleads with powerful 
prayers, she must and will be heard.  No case is hopeless when many pray.  
The deadliest diseases relax their hold before the power of unanimous 
intercession.  As long as I live, I am a visible embodiment of the fact 
that, to the prayer of faith, presented by the Church of God, nothing is 
impossible.  It is worthwhile to have been painfully sick to have learned 
this truth, and to have proved it in one's own person.

In this little circle, probably one and another may say, "These are not 
exactly the lessons that we have learned this year."  Perhaps not.  But 
if you have learned more of Jesus, and of His love, which passes 
knowledge, it suffices.  Be thankful if you have learned even a little of 
Jesus.  Do not judge yourself by the attainments of others who are older 
or more experienced; but rejoice in the Lord.  Bless God for starlight, 
and He will give you moonlight; praise Him for moonlight, and He will 
give you sunlight; thank Him for sunlight, and you shall yet come to that 
land where they need not the light of the sun, for the Lord God gives 
them light for ever and ever.  May this year Close with blessing! Amen.

    (In the morning the friends came together again, and Mr. Spurgeon 
      sat as before, and spoke with them; this time more briefly.)

Passing at this hour over the threshold of the New Year, we look forward, 
and what do we see?  If we could procure a telescope which would enable 
us to see to the end of the year, would we be wise to use it?  I think 
not.  We know nothing of the events which lie before us: of life or death 
to ourselves or to our friends, or of changes of position, or of sickness 
or health.  What a mercy that these things are hidden from us!  If we 
foresaw our best blessings, they would lose their freshness and sweetness 
while we impatiently waited for them.  Anticipation would sour into 
weariness, and familiarity would breed contempt.  If we could foresee our 
troubles, we would worry ourselves about them long before they came, and 
in that fretfulness we should miss the joy of our present blessings.  
Great mercy has hung up a veil between us and the future; and there let 
it hang.

Still, all is not concealed.  Some things we clearly see.  I say, "we" 
but I mean those whose eyes have been opened, for it is not everyone who 
can see in the truest sense.  A lady said to Mr. Turner, "I have often 
looked upon that prospect, but I have never seen what you have put into 
your picture."  The great artist simply replied, "Don't you wish you 
could see it?"  Looking into the future with the eye of faith, believers 
can see much that is hidden from those who have no faith.  Let me tell 
you, in a few words, what I see as I look into the new year.

I see pathway made from this first of January, 1892, to the first of 
January, 1893.  I see a highway laid out by the foreknowledge and 
predestination of God.  Nothing of the future is left to chance; no, not 
even the falling of a sparrow, nor the losing of a hair is left to 
haphazard; but all the events of life are arranged and appointed.  Not 
only is every turn in the road marked in the divine map, but every: stone 
on the road, and every drop of morning dew or evening mist that falls 
upon the grass which grows it the roadside.  We are not crossing a 
trackless desert; the Lord has ordained our path in His infallible wisdom 
and infinite love.  "If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his 
steps firm" (NIV).  

I next see, "a Guide provided" as our companion along the way.  To Him we 
graciously say, "You shall guide me with Your counsel."  He is waiting to 
go with us through every part of the road.  "The LORD himself goes before 
you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you" (NIV). 
We are not left to pass through life as though it were a lone wilderness, 
a place of dragons and owls; for Jesus says, "I will not leave you as 
orphans; I will come to you" (NIV).  

Though we should lose father, and mother, and the dearest friends, there 
is One who wears our nature, who will never leave us.  One like the Son 
of man is still treading the life-ways of believing hearts, and each true 
believer comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon the Beloved.  We feel 
the presence of the Lord Jesus even now, in this room, where two or three 
are gathered in his name; and I trust we shall feel it through all the 
months of the year, whether it be the time of the singing of birds, or 
the season of ripe fruits, or the dark months when the ground is frozen 
into iron.  In this Riviera, we ought to more readily realize our Lord's 
presence, because the country is so like "Your land, O Immanuel!"  Here 
is the land of oil olive, and of figs, and of the clusters of Eshcol.  By 
such a blue sea he walked, and up such rocky hills he climbed.  But 
whether here, or elsewhere, let us look for HIM to abide with us, to make 
this year truly to be "a year of our Lord."

Beside the way and the Guide, I perceive very clearly, by the eye of 
faith, strength for the journey provided.  Throughout the whole span of 
the year, we shall find resting places, where we may rest and take 
refreshment, and then go on our way singing, "He restores my soul."  We 
shall have enough strength, but none to spare; and that strength will 
come when it is needed, and not before.  When saints imagine that they 
have strength to spare, they turn sinners, and are apt to have their long 
hair cut by the Philistines.  The Lord of the way will find the pilgrims 
with sufficient spending money for the road; but He may not think it wise 
to burden them with excess funds.

God all-sufficient will not fail those who trust Him.  When we come to 
the place where we must shoulder the burden, we shall reach the place 
where we will receive the strength.  If it pleases the Lord to multiply 
our troubles from one to ten, He will increase our strength in the same 
proportion.  To each believer the Lord still says, "Your strength will 
equal your days" (NIV).  You do not that you have the grace to die with: 
what of that?  You are not dying yet.  While you still have to deal with 
the business and duty of life, look to God for the grace which these 
require; and when life is ebbing out, and your only thought is about 
landing on the eternal shore, then look to God your Savior for dying 
grace in dying moments.  We may expect an inrush of divine strength when 
human strength is failing, and a daily impartation of energy as daily 
need requires.  Our lamps shall be trimmed as long as they will need to 
burn.  Let not our present weakness tempt us to limit the Holy One of 
Israel.  There is a place of refuge on every pass over the Alps of life, 
and a bridge across every river of trial which crosses our way to the 
Celestial City.  Holy angels are as numerous to guard us as fallen ones 
to tempt us.  We shall never have a need for which our gracious Father 
cannot supply just what we need.

I see, most clearly, "a power overruling" all things which occur in the 
way we walk.  I see an refining process in which all things are 
transformed.  "In all things God works for the good of those who love 
him, who have been called according to his purpose" (NIV).  I see a 
wonder-working hand which turns for us the swords of disease into the 
plowshares of correction, and the spears of trial into the pruning-hooks 
of discipline.  By this divine skill, bitterness is made sweet, and 
poisons turned to medicines.  "Nothing shall by any means harm you," is a 
promise too strong for feeble faith; but full assurance finds it true.  
Since God is for us, who can be against us?  What a joy to see Jehovah 
himself as our banner, and God himself with us as our Captain!  Forward 
then into the New Year, "No harm will befall you" (NIV).  

One thing more, and this is brightness itself: this year we trust we 
shall see God glorified by us and in us.  If we realize our chief end, we 
reach our highest enjoyment.  It is the delight of the renewed heart to 
think that God can get glory out of such poor creatures as we are.  "God 
is light."  We cannot add to his brightness; but we may act as reflectors, 
which, though they have no light of their own, yet, when the sun shines 
upon them, reflect His beams, and send them where, without such 
reflection, they might not have come.  When the Lord shines upon us, we 
will cast that light upon dark places, and make those who sit in the 
shadow of death to rejoice in Jesus our Lord.  

We hope that God has been in some measure glorified in some of us during 
the past year, but we trust He will be glorified by us far more in the 
year which now begins.  We will be content to glorify God either actively 
or passively.  We would have it so happen that, when our life's history 
is written, whoever reads it will not think of us as "self-made men," but 
as the handiwork of God, in whom His grace is magnified.  May men not see 
the clay in us, but the Potter's hand.  They said of one, "He is a fine 
preacher"; but of another they said, "We never notice how he preaches, 
but we feel that God is great."  We wish our whole life to be a 
sacrifice; an altar of incense continually smoking with sweet perfume 
unto the Most High.  Oh, to be borne through the year on the wings of 
praise to God; to mount from year to year, and raise at each ascent a 
loftier and yet lowlier song unto the God of our life!  The vista of a 
praiseful life will never close, but continue throughout eternity.  From 
psalm to psalm, from hallelujah to hallelujah, we will ascend the hill of 
the Lord; until we come into the Holiest of all, where, with veiled 
faces, we will bow before the Divine Majesty in the bliss of endless 
adoration.  Throughout this year may the Lord be with you! Amen.

Transcribed by Tony Capoccia of

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