8 Traits of Soul Winning Sermons By Charles Spurgeon

Soul Winning Sermons: 

Which sermons are most likely to convert people to whom they are preached?

#1 Sermon That Aims To Convert

First, they are those sermons that are distinctly aimed at the conversion of the hearers. 

I heard a prayer, some time ago, from a minister who asked the Lord to save souls by the sermon he was about to deliver. Without hesitation, I state God could not bless the sermon unless He caused the listeners to misunderstand the preacher’s entire message, which hardened the sinner in his sin rather than soften him and bring him to repentance and seeking the Savior. Unless he flipped it inside out or bottom-up, there was nothing in it that could bless anyone who heard it. 

An old lady’s advice to a preacher who she had to hear was helpful. 

“Well, there is no other place of worship that I can go to,” she said when asked why she went there. 

“But it must be better to stay at home than to hear such stuff,” her friend remarked. 

“But I enjoy going to church even if I get nothing out of it,” she said. 

“Sometimes you’ll see a hen scratching through a pile of trash in search of corn; she won’t find any, but it shows that she’s seeking for it and using the means to get it, and it also warms her up.” So the old lady said that scratching over the poor sermons she heard was a blessing to her because it exercised her spiritual faculties, and warmed her spirit.

There are sermons that cannot save souls unless God does something about it. Clearly, the preacher does not believe they will convert anyone. Nobody would be more surprised than the preacher if a hundred or a half-dozen people were converted by them. 

Preacher Didn’t Understand His Own Sermon

In fact, I know a guy who was converted or at least condemned, under the preaching of such a pastor. Following a pastor’s sermon, a guy was deeply convinced of sin in a particular parish church. He went down to see his pastor, who did not know what to make of him, and told him, 

“I am very sorry if there was anything in my sermon to make you uncomfortable; I did not mean it to be so.” 

“You said we must be born again, sir,” the anxious man said. 

“But that was all done in baptism!” the pastor answered. 

“That was not in your sermon, sir,” said the man, who was not to be put off

“It is my regret that I mentioned anything that caused you discomfort, as I believe you are OK. You’re a decent man. You’ve never been a poacher or done anything else bad.” 

“That may be, sir, but I have a sense of sin, and you said we must be new creatures.” “Well, well, my good man,” at last said the perplexed parson, “I do not understand such things; I never was born again.” 

He sent him to the Baptist minister, and the man is now himself a Baptist minister, partly as the result of what he learned from the preacher who did not himself understand the truth he had declared to others.

Of course, God can convert a soul through such a sermon and ministry, but it is unlikely; it is more likely that, in His infinite sovereignty, He will work in a place where a warmhearted man is preaching to men the truth that he has received, all the while earnestly desiring their salvation and ready to guide them further in the ways of the Lord as soon as they are ready. 

So, brethren, if you want your hearers to be converted, be sure that your preaching is aimed at conversion and that God will bless it. 

If so, search for souls to be saved, and look for them in large numbers. 

Do not be content with one soul converted. 

Remember the kingdom rule: “According to your faith be it unto you.” “According to thine unbelief, so be it unto thee.” God will bless us according to our faith if we have it. 

Our hearts and souls should have been so filled with faith in God that we could preach with such conviction that men would be converted, proclaiming truths that would be blessed to our hearers’ conversion. 

Of course, we must always trust the Holy Spirit to do the work, as we are merely tools in His hands.

#2 Sermon That Interests Them

If the people are to be saved, it must be by sermons that interest them. You must first persuade people to fall under the influence of the gospel, since there is a strong antipathy to places of worship in London, and I am not surprised that this is true of many churches and chapels. 

Language They Can Understand

I think, in many instances, the common people do not attend such services because they do not understand the theological “lingo” that is used in the pulpit. 

It is neither English, nor Greek, but Double-dutch; and when a working-man goes once and listens to these fine words, he says to his wife, “I do not go there again, Sal; there is nothing there for me, nor yet for you; there may be a good deal for a gentleman that’s been to College, but there is nothing for the likes of us.” 

No, brethren, we must preach in what White-field used to call “market language” if we would have all classes of the community listening to our message.

Interestingly And Engaging

Then we must preach interestingly when they arrive. The individuals will not get converted while sleeping, and if they do, they should sleep at home, where they are more comfortable. To truly help our listeners, we must keep their thoughts up and engaged. 

You can’t shoot your birds unless you get them out of the tall grass where they’re hidden. 

I would sooner use a little of what some very proper preachers regard as a dreadful thing, that wicked thing called humor,—I would sooner wake the congregation up that way than having it said that I droned away at them until we all went to sleep together. 

Sometimes, it may be quite right to have it said of us as it was said of Rowland Hill, “What does that man mean? He actually made the people laugh while he was preaching.” “Yes,” the wise response said, “but did you not see that he made them cry directly after?” That was good work, and it was well done. 

Open Eyes and Ears

I sometimes tickle my oyster until he opens his shell, and then I slip the knife in. He would not have opened for my knife, but he did for something else, and that is the way to do with people. They must be made to open their eyes and ears, and souls, somehow; and when you get them open, you must feel, “Now is my opportunity; in with the knife.” 

There’s a weak point in the skins of those rhinoceros sinners who come to hear you, but make sure that if you get a shot through that weak area, it’s a thorough gospel bullet, because nothing else will get the job done.

The people must be interested to make them remember what is said. 

They will not recollect what they hear unless the subject interests them. 

They forget our great orations, they can’t remember our really delicate pieces of poetry, and I’m not sure that remembering them will help them; but we must tell our listeners something they won’t forget. 

Something Unexpected

I believe in what Father Taylor calls “the surprising power of a sermon”; Something that is not expected by those who are listening to it. Just when they reckon you will say something very precise and straight, say something awkward and crooked, because they will remember that, and you will have tied a gospel knot where it is likely to remain. 

Put A Knot In Your Thread

I remember reading of a tailor who had made his fortune, and he promised to tell his brother-tailors how he had done it. They gathered around his bed when he was dying, and he said, as they all listened attentively, “Now I am to tell you how you tailors are to make your fortunes; this is the way, always put a knot in your thread.” 

I give that same advice to you preachers, always put a knot in your thread; if there is a knot in the thread, it does not come out of the material. Some preachers put in the needle all right, but there is no knot in their thread, so it passes through, and they have really done nothing after all. Put a good many knots in your discourses, brethren, so that there may be all the greater probability that they will remain in your people’s memories. 

You do not want your preaching to be like the sewing by some machines, for, if one stitch breaks, the whole will come undone. 

Say Something That Strike Them

In a sermon, there should be lots of “burrs”—Mr. Fergusson will explain to you what “burrs” are, and I’ll bet he’s discovered them adhering to his coat frequently in his bonnie Scotland. Put these “burrs” all over the people; say something that will strike them, something that will stick to them for many a day, and that will be likely to bless them. 

I believe that a sermon, under God’s smile, is likely to be the means of conversion if it has this peculiarity about it, that it is interesting to the hearers as well as directly aimed at their salvation.

#3 Sermon that Instruct

The third thing in a sermon that is likely to win souls to Christ is, it must be instructive. A discourse must have information to save people. Light and fire are required. Some preachers are all light and no fire, while others are all fire and no light. I don’t condemn the zealous brethren, but I wish they knew more about what they teach and didn’t start preaching something they don’t really comprehend. 

Know the Gospel

It’s good to shout “Believe! Believe! Believe! in the street. But, my soul, what do we believe? What’s all the fuss? This type of preacher is like a weeping child who suddenly stops crying and asks, “Ma, please, what was I crying about?” While emotion, tragedy, and the force of the heart are excellent things in the place, use your brains a little and teach us something when you get up to preach the everlasting gospel.

Truthful sermons regarding the fall, the law, human nature, and its alienation from God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Everlasting Father, the new birth, obedience to God, and how we learn it seems to me to be the most likely to convert. Tell your listeners something, my brethren, every time you preach!

Sure, even if your listeners don’t comprehend you, good can occur. 

It’s possible, as a distinguished woman addressed the Friends assembled at the Devonshire House meeting. Although she addressed the English Friends in Dutch, she asked one brother to interpret for her, but the hearers claimed her words had so much force and spirit that they did not need to be translated. Regardless of how good a woman the esteemed lady was, I would have liked to know what she was talking about, and I am sure I would not have profited in the least unless it had been translated; and I want ministers to know what they are talking about, and to be sure that there is something in it worth saying. 

Therefore, dear brethren, to give your hearers something besides a string of pathetic anecdotes that will set them crying. Tell the people something. You’re supposed to teach them, to preach the gospel to your audience, to help them comprehend as much as possible the things that should bring them peace. We can’t expect people to be saved by our sermons unless we truly instruct them.

#4 Soul Winning Sermon

Fourthly, the people must be impressed by our sermons, if they are to be converted. They must be interested, taught, and impressed, and I believe there is more to impressive sermons than some people realize. 

Preach To Yourself

Remember that before you can preach the Word to others, you must first preach it to yourself. You must feel it yourself, and speak as a man who feels it; not as if you feel it, but because you feel it, otherwise you will not make it felt by others. 

I’m curious about what it’s like to read someone else’s sermon to the congregation. We read in the Bible of one thing that was borrowed, and the head of that came off, and I am afraid that the same thing often happens with borrowed sermons—the heads come off. 

Men who read borrowed sermons do not know our mental anguish in preparing for the pulpit, or our delight in delivering from just brief notes. 

My dear friend, who reads his own sermons, was talking to me about preaching, and I was telling him about how my very soul is moved, and my very heart is stirred within me when I consider what I will say to my people, and then when I deliver my message. But he said he felt nothing like that when he was preaching. 

He reminded me of the little girl who was crying because her teeth ached, and her grandmother said to her, “Lily, I wonder you are not ashamed to cry about such a minor matter.” “Well, grandmother,” answered the little maid, “it is all very well for you to say that, for, when your teeth ache, you can take them out, but mine are fixed.” 

Resonate With Your Sermon

When I have a sermon full of joy, but I am heavy and sad, I am totally miserable; when I wish to beg and encourage folks to believe, but my spirit is dull and cold, I am utterly miserable. My teeth ache, and I cannot take them out, for they are my own; as my sermons are my own, and therefore I may expect to find a good deal of trouble, both in the getting of them and in the using of them.

Impress By Your Own Sermon

I remember the answer I received when I once said to my venerable grandfather, “I never have to preach, but that I feel terribly sick, literally sick, I mean, so that I might as well be crossing the Channel,” and I asked the dear old man whether he thought I should ever get over that feeling. His answer was, “Your power will be gone if you do.” So, my brethren, when it is not so much that you have got a hold of your subject, but that it has got a hold of you, and you feel its grip with a terrible reality yourself, that is the kind of sermon that is most likely to make others feel. If you are not impressed with it yourself, you cannot expect to impress others with it; so mind that your sermons always have something in them, which shall really impress both yourself and the hearers whom you are addressing.

Tone of Your Sermon

Also, I believe our speeches should be delivered impressively. Some preachers’ delivery is terrible; if yours is, attempt to improve it. In one case, a teacher informed a student, “You have only one tone to your voice, and that is outside the scale.” 

So, some ministers’ voices have only one tone, and that tone has no melody. 

Try, as far as you can, to make your words minister to the purpose you want. 

Preach as if you were asking a court for a friend’s life, or as if you were appealing to the Queen on behalf of someone important to you. Pretend that a gibbet is set up in this room and you are about to be hung on it unless you can persuade the authority figure to let you go. 

Such sincerity is required while appealing to men as God’s ambassadors. 

Sincerely Pleading With The Listeners

Try to create every sermon such that even the most casual listener would realize that you are not joking about with them, but sincerely pleading with them about eternal matters. 

I have often felt just like this when I have been preaching,—I have known what it is to use up all my ammunition, and then I have rammed myself into the great gospel gun, and I have fired myself at my hearers, all my experience of God’s goodness, all my consciousness of sin, and all my sense of the power of the gospel; and there are some people upon whom that kind of preaching tells where nothing else would have done, for they see then you communicate to them not only the gospel but yourself as well. Such, my brethren, constantly endeavor to preach so that the audience will be impressed, intrigued, and instructed.

#5 Sermon That Doesn’t Distract

Fifthly, I think that we should try to take out of our sermons everything that is likely to divert the hearer’s mind from the object we have in view.

Focus On Key Point

The finest preaching, like the best dressing, is unnoticed. 

How was Miss More dressed when he returned home from an evening with Hannah More? “She must have looked stunning.” “Yes, she was—how was she dressed?” the gentleman inquired. “I didn’t notice her outfit; she was the focus of attention, not her outfit.” 

Like a genuine lady, a sermon should be clothed in such a way that we notice her rather than her clothing. “He did the thing so majestically, he spoke with such lofty diction, etc., etc., etc.”

Include nothing in your speech that might divert the listener’s attention from the key point. If you move the sinner’s mind off the primary issue, he is less likely to get the impression you want to transmit, and hence less likely to be converted. 

I recall reading Mr. Finney’s book on “Revivals.” Someone was about to be converted when an elderly lady in overshoe shuffled up the aisle, creating a loud noise, and that soul was gone! I understand what the evangelist meant, but not how he phrased it. Because of the elderly lady’s overshoe, the person’s thoughts were probably diverted from what he should have been thinking about. We are to treat these minor details as though they were vital while realizing that only the Holy Spirit can make the job effective.

Distract By Unrelated Material

Your sermon should not distract the audience by being unrelated to the material. If people wonder, “How did the minister get right over there? Was his conversation about the text?” 

If you stray away from your texts, you will have lost their attention, and that wandering tendency of yours may be harmful to them. 

If you don’t, you’ll be like a young kid who went fishing and was asked, “Have you caught much fish, Samuel?” by his uncle. “I’ve been fishing for three hours, uncle,” the child said, “and I have caught no fish, but I have lost a lot of worms.” 

“I did not win any souls for the Saviour, but I spoiled a lot of precious text. I confused and confounded many passages of Scripture, but I did no good with them.” I pray you never have to say. 

Stick To Your Text

Though it needed a lot of pressing and packing to get my mind into the book, I wasn’t very concerned about learning the mind of the Spirit as revealed in the text so that I might get its meaning into my mind. Stick to your texts, brethren, as the cobbler is told to do, and endeavor to extract from the Scriptures what the Holy Spirit has put into them. Never let your listeners wonder, “What has this sermon to do with the text?” If you do, the people will not benefit and may not be saved.

Be Precise In Your Delivery

I would advise you, brethren of these two Colleges, to get as much education as you can from your teachers. It will take all your time to pull everything out of them, but you should try to learn everything you can because ignorance might hamper the work of soul-winning. 

What mischiefs can be caused by the omission of the letter “h” where it should be, or by aspirating the “h” to the point of exasperation? She was so horrified by your terrible manner of putting “h’s” where they shouldn’t be, or leaving them out where they should be, that she couldn’t listen to you with any pleasure, and your mistakes of pronunciation distracted her attention from the truth. The letter “h” is “the letter that killeth” most times, and grammatical errors might cause more harm than you think. 

You might think I’m talking about minor issues that warrant little thought, but I’m not; these issues can have far-reaching consequences, so study as much English as you can.

Move With time

“Well, I know such-and-such a successful brother, and he was not an educated man.” Someone may remark. True, but the times are changing. Then she said, “I don’t see why we girls have to learn so many lessons.” “The young women before us knew little and married, anyway.” “Yes,” her friend agreed, “but then, you know, there were no Board Schools in them days; but now the young men will be educated, and it will be a poor look-out for us as ain’t.” But now, after they have all been to the Board Schools, it will be a pity if their mind is taken off the solemn things which you like them to think about because they cannot help noticing your deficiency. 

But wisdom instructs us not to allow our lack of knowledge to impede the gospel from benefitting men. “But,” you may object, “they must be very picky.” So, do hypercritical individuals need to save as much as others? I would not have a hypercritical individual declare my sermon was so jarring and disturbing that he couldn’t possibly accept the teaching I was attempting to present. 

Mind The Details

Did you know that Charles Dickens was not a spiritualist? He requested to see Lindley Murray’s ghost at a séance. “Are you Lindley Murray?” Dickens asked the spirit who claimed to be Lindley Murray. “I are.” he said. After that grammatical response, there was no chance for Dickens’ conversion to spiritualism. 

You may chuckle at the story but remember the message. 

With a little care, you may easily distract your listener’s attention from what you’re attempting to say and keep the truth from reaching his heart and conscience. 

So rid your sermons of everything that could divert your listeners’ attention from the one subject before them. All the people’s attention and thinking must be focused on the truth we are preaching to save those who hear us.

#6 Christ-centered Sermon

Sixthly, I believe that those sermons which are full of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be Christ-centered from start to finish. 

Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. For me, brethren, I can only teach Christ and His cross since I know nothing else, and like Paul, I resolved long ago not to know anything else except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 

“What is the secret of your success?” people often ask. 

Every Route to Christ

I usually respond that I have no other secret than the fact that I have preached the gospel—not about the gospel, but the gospel—the full, free, beautiful gospel of the living Christ, the embodiment of the good news. 

Preach Jesus Christ constantly and everywhere, brethren, and be sure to include Jesus Christ in your sermons. 

“If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon.” the senior pastor stated when asked what he thought of a young man’s sermon. 

“I didn’t see Christ in the text,” he said. “

” Oh!” replied the elderly minister, “but do you not know that there is a route running to London from every town and village in England?” 

“There is a route from here to Jesus Christ,” I think whenever I get a Text.” 

“Well,” he said. “But suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?” 

“Then I will go over hedge and ditch, but what I will get at Him.” 

In all our discussions, whether they contain Christ, we must have Christ. Every sermon should contain enough gospel to save a soul. If you are asked to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, or to charwomen or chairpersons, make sure that every sermon contains the true gospel.

I heard a young man inquire when he was going to preach somewhere, 

“Is it a church? What do the people believe? What is their doctrinal view?” 

Teach Jesus Christ to them, and if that does not fit their theological beliefs, then preach Jesus Christ the following Sunday, and the next Sunday, and the next, and preach nothing else. Those who dislike Jesus Christ must be preached to until they do. They are the ones who most need Him. 

Remember that all traders claim to sell their goods when there is a need for them, but our goods both generate and supply demand. We teach Jesus Christ to those who want Him and to those who don’t until they realize they need Him and can’t live without Him.

#7 Sermon That Appeals to Heart

Seventhly, brethren, it is my firm conviction that those sermons are most likely to convert men that really appeal to their hearts, not those that are fired over their heads, or that are aimed only at their intellects. 

Preacher That Lacks Heart

Sorry to say, I know certain preachers who will never do much good in the world; they are excellent men, with lots of talent, strong speaking skills, and a lot of shrewdness; but they have a terrible defect in their nature, for everybody who knows them knows they lack heart. I know one or two men who are as dry as leather. They would be useless as a weather indicator if hung on the wall like seaweed. They are unaffected by the weather.

Frivolous Man

But I also know some men who are the very reverse of these brethren. They won’t win souls because they are so flippant, frivolous, and foolish that they lack seriousness and show no sign of living in earnest. I can’t detect a soul in them; they’re too little to keep one; it couldn’t exist in the inch or two of water they hold; they look to be made without a soul, so they can’t preach the gospel. You must have souls to care for your brothers’ souls, just as you must have the heart to reach your brother’s heart.

Lack Emotion

Here is another kind of man,—one who cannot weep over sinners,—what is the good of him in the ministry? He never did weep over men in his life. He never agonized before God on their behalf. He never said with Jeremiah, “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” 

I know a brother like this. In a meeting of ministers, after we had been confessing our shortcomings, he said that he was very much ashamed of us all. Well, no doubt, we ought to have been more ashamed of ourselves than we were. He told us that, if we had truly meant what we had said in our confessions to God, we were a disgrace to the ministry; perhaps we were. He said he was not like that; so far as he knew, he never preached a sermon without feeling that it was the best he could preach, and he did not know that he could do any better than he had done. 

He was a man who always studied just so many hours every day, always prayed exactly so many minutes, always preached a certain length of time, in fact, he was the most regular man I ever knew. 

When I heard him talk as he had done to us, I asked myself, “What does his ministry show as the result of this perfect way of doing things?” 

Why it did not show anything at all that was satisfactory. 

He has great gifts of dispersion; for, if he goes to a full chapel, he soon empties it; yet he is, I believe, a good man in his way. 

I could wish that his clock would sometimes stop, or strike in the middle of the half-hour, or that something extraordinary might happen to him because some good might come of it. 

He is so regular and orderly, that there is no hope of his doing anything, the fault with him is that he has not any fault. You will notice, brethren, that preachers who have no faults have no excellences either; so try to avoid that flat, dead level, and everything else that makes people less likely to be converted.

Man With Two Hearts then None

“Do you have a good heart?” I questioned a young girl who had recently joined the church. 

“Yes, sir,” she said. 

Said I “Have you pondered that? Do you have a bad heart?” 

“Oh, yes!” she said. 

“How do your two answers agree?” I asked. 

“Because God gave her a new heart and a right spirit,” she said, and she also knows she has an evil heart that often opposes her new heart. She was right, and I had sooner felt that a minister had two hearts than that he had none at all. 

Work With Heart

If you want to win many souls, you must work with your heart, not your brain. Amidst all your studies, mind that you never let your spiritual life get dry. There is no necessity that it should, although with many studies have had that effect. My dear brethren, the tutors, will bear me witness that there is a very drying influence about Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew. That couplet is true, “Hebrew roots, as known to most, Do flourish best on barren ground.”

There is a very drying influence in the classics, and there is a very drying influence in mathematics, and you may get absorbed in any science till your heart is gone. Let it not be said of you, “He knows much more than he did when he first came amongst us, but he has not as much spirituality as he used to have.” Take care that it never is so. Do not be satisfied with merely polishing up your grates, but stir the fire in your heart, and get your own soul all aflame with love to Christ, or else you will not be likely to be greatly used in the winning of the souls of others.

#8 Prayed Over Sermon

Lastly, brethren, I think that those sermons which have been prayed over are the most likely to convert people. And I mean actual prayer, both in preparation and delivery, for there is much so-called prayer that is simply pretending to pray. 

I once traveled with a man who claimed to perform miraculous cures using the acids of a certain wood. He told me about his wonderful medicine, and I questioned, “What is there in that to effect such cures as you profess to have wrought?” “This is the secret of its curative properties!” he said, “more than the stuff itself!” I rub it for a long time, and I have so much vital power in me that I give it my life.” 

The method to produce sermons is to work vital electricity into them, putting your own life and the life of God into them by serious prayer. The difference between a sermon that has been prayed over and one that has been prepared and given by a prayerless man is like the distinction Mr. Fergusson made in his prayer when referring to the high priest before and after his anointing. 

You must anoint your sermons, brethren, and you can only do so through prayer. May the Holy Spirit generously anoint every one of you into winning souls for our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.

This article is an edited version of the article ” Sermons Likely to Win Soul” from Charles Spurgeon’s book “The Soul Winner”. Check out our related posts for more information on this topic, or get a copy of the book from Amazon.