Best Classic Sermon Collections: 14 Books of Great Sermons, Free
If you want to start reading classic sermons, start with Spurgeon's Twelve Soul-Winning Sermons. Spurgeon picked these twelve himself, out of more than sixteen hundred in print, because God had used them to convert so many people. Then read Moody's Great Sermons, plain and full of stories, and Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, which includes "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
Why read sermons rather than books? Because a sermon is written to be heard by ordinary people and to move them to act now. It is usually short, about half an hour of reading. It takes one text and presses it home. The great preachers of the past believed God spoke through the preaching of His Word, so they preached for decisions: repent, believe, come to Christ, take up your cross. Reading them, you sit in the pew at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, in a field in Gloucestershire or in a Dundee church during revival. Many readers find a good sermon does more for them on a Sunday afternoon than a chapter of a long book.
Here are fourteen of the best collections in TheWay Library, all free to read.
Start here
1. Spurgeon's "Twelve" volumes
Spurgeon's sermons were printed every week for decades and are still the most read sermons in English. The best way in is through the small themed collections of twelve. Twelve Soul-Winning Sermons is for the unconverted and for anyone who wants to share the gospel. Twelve Sermons for the Troubled and Tried is for people in trouble of body or soul.
The Christian life is begun, continued, and perfected altogether in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Twelve Soul-Winning Sermons, Coming, Always Coming
Messages to the Multitude is a fine sampler too, with his 1,500th published sermon. See Who Was Charles Spurgeon?
2. Moody's Great Sermons, by D. L. Moody
Twenty-four of Moody's best-known sermons from his campaigns, with a sketch of his life. Moody had no theological training, and you can tell. He talks to you like a friend, tells a story, and asks you to come to Christ tonight.
There is not a need that you feel in your heart to-day but that Christ can meet if you let Him.
Moody's Great Sermons, Preach the Gospel
See Who Was D. L. Moody? and our guide to D. L. Moody's books. Read Moody's Great Sermons.
3. Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Seven of Edwards's sermons chosen to show the preacher behind the Great Awakening. "God Glorified in Man's Dependence," "A Divine and Supernatural Light," "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and his Farewell Sermon to Northampton are all here. People who know only "Sinners" are often surprised at how much Edwards writes about the beauty of God.
There is not only a rational belief that God is holy and that holiness is a good thing, but there is a sense of the loveliness of God's holiness.
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, chapter 2
See Who Was Jonathan Edwards? and Jonathan Edwards' books. Read Edwards's sermons.
4. Selected Sermons of George Whitefield
Six sermons by the evangelist who preached to tens of thousands in the open air on both sides of the Atlantic, including "Regeneration" and "The Almost Christian." The introduction is honest that print can't capture his voice, but the gospel is all here.
We often pray, Lord, give us Abraham's faith, but never pray, give us Abraham's trial at the same time.
Selected Sermons of George Whitefield, chapter 5
The great preachers
5. Forty-Four Sermons, by John Wesley
Wesley's standard sermons, which he said contain the substance of what he preached, written plainly for plain people. Salvation by faith, the almost Christian, the witness of the Spirit, the Sermon on the Mount, Christian perfection and the use of money. Methodist preachers were expected to know them. See Who Was John Wesley? and John Wesley's books. Read the Forty-Four Sermons.
6. The Sermons of Robert Murray M'Cheyne
Ninety-two sermons from the young Dundee minister who died at twenty-nine. They are short, warm and searching, full of Christ and full of tender pleading with the unsaved.
God the Father made and preserved me; God the Son came into the world and died for me; God the Holy Ghost came into my heart, and made me love God and hate sin.
The Sermons of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Sermon XXXVII
7. The Secret of Power and Other Sermons, by Alexander Maclaren
Maclaren of Manchester was called the prince of expository preachers. This volume of twenty sermons opens with the disciples asking, "Why could not we cast him out?"
Our power is God's power in us, and our faith is the power with which we grasp God's power and make it ours.
The Secret of Power and Other Sermons, Sermon I
If you like him, his Expositions of Holy Scripture run through the whole Bible in sermons. Our guide to Alexander Maclaren's books shows where to go next. Read The Secret of Power.
8. Sermons of Christmas Evans
The great Welsh Baptist preacher, born on Christmas Day, who could not read at seventeen and became one of the most powerful preachers Wales ever heard. This volume has a memoir and his sermons in translation, including "The Triumph of Calvary." Read Christmas Evans.
9. Speaking to the Heart, by Thomas Guthrie
Twelve sermons by the Edinburgh preacher, famous for his pictures and illustrations. He opens with a soldier's rule that he applied to preaching: fire low, at the heart and conscience.
Men are not to be scolded into the love of God; nor can the terrors of hell frighten any into the love of heaven.
Speaking to the Heart, chapter 7
10. The Candle of the Lord, by Phillips Brooks
Twenty-one sermons by the Boston preacher who wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem." The title sermon, on "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord," pictures the human spirit made to be lit by God's fire. Read The Candle of the Lord.
Revival preaching
11. Sermons on the Way of Salvation, by Charles G. Finney
Twenty-five sermons that argue the sinner step by step from conviction to faith, in Finney's lawyer-like style, with sermons on prevailing prayer near the end. See Who Was Charles Finney?
Consequently Christians are often called on to believe God, not only without, but against, present evidence.
Sermons on the Way of Salvation, chapter 17
12. Revival Addresses, by R. A. Torrey
The sermons Torrey preached in campaigns around the world, printed in the order of a campaign: God, God's love, the judgment, the way of salvation, and the cost of not being a Christian. See Who Was R. A. Torrey? Read Revival Addresses.
Older voices
13. Quaint Sermons of Samuel Rutherford
Eighteen sermons printed in their old Scots spelling, homely and burning with love for Christ: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob," the weeping Mary at the tomb, and the prodigal son.
No man can love Christ till He love him first, because our love of Christ is nothing else but an effect of this love to us.
Quaint Sermons of Samuel Rutherford, chapter 12
14. The Pulpit of the Reformation
A short collection of Reformation sermons by John Welch, Hugh Latimer and John Knox. It takes about three hours and gives you the voice of the men who preached at risk of their lives.
As we die so we shall rise again.
The Pulpit of the Reformation, Hugh Latimer
Read The Pulpit of the Reformation.
A few more worth finding
- F. W. Krummacher's The Martyr Lamb, German sermons on Christ as our substitute, from Eden to Emmaus.
- B. B. Warfield's The Saviour of the World, chapel sermons to Princeton students that join careful exegesis to warm devotion.
- J. C. Ryle's The Two Bears, eight short sermons for children, good to read aloud at home.
How to read a sermon
Read one at a sitting, and read it out loud if you can; these were written for the ear. Look up the text first. Then ask what the preacher wants you to do, and do it. If you preach yourself, Spurgeon's advice in Lectures to My Students and his advice to preachers pair well with these. More collections are on the Sermons topic page.