For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. – Hebrews 10:1

Christ is substance, and not shadow, fullness, and not foretaste. This is good news for us, for nothing but realities will meet our case. Types may instruct, but they cannot actually save. The patterns of the things in the heavens are too weak to serve our turn, we need the heavenly things themselves. No bleeding bird nor slaughtered bullock, nor running stream, nor scarlet wool and hyssop, can take away our sins.

“No outward forms can make me clean,
The leprosy lies deep within.”

Ceremonies under the old dispensation were precious because they set forth the realities yet to be revealed, but in Christ Jesus we deal with the realities themselves, and this is a happy circumstance for us; for both our sins and our sorrows are real, and only substantial mercies can counteract them. In Jesus, we have the substance of all that the symbols set forth. He is our sacrifice, our altar, our priest, our incense, our tabernacle, our all in all. The law had “the shadow of good things to come,” but in Christ we have “the very image of the things.” Hebrews 10:1. What transport is this to those who so much feel their emptiness that they could not be comforted by the mere representation of a truth, or the pattern of a truth, or the symbol of a truth, but must have the very substance itself! “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0978.cfm

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; and one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches. – Proverbs 13:7

Give yourself to Christ, and when you have used yourself for His glory, you will be more able to serve Him than you are now; you shall find your little stock grow as you spend it. Remember Bunyan’s picture of the man who had a roll of cloth. He unrolled it, and he cut off so much for the poor. Then he unrolled it, and cut off some more, and the more he cut it, the longer it grew…It is certainly so with talent and ability, and with grace in the heart. The more you use it, the more there is of it. It is often so with gold and silver: the store of the liberal man increases, while the miser grows poor. We have an old proverb, which is as true as it is suggestive: “Drawn wells have the sweetest waters.” So, if you keep continually drawing on your mind, your thoughts will get sweeter; and if you continue to draw on your strength, your strength will get to be more mighty through God. The more you do, the more you may do, by the grace of the Ever-blessed One!

How is it that so many able-bodied and gifted Christians seem to be so slow in the Master’s service?…You go all the year round without caring even for the spiritual welfare of a little child. One of our friends gave a good answer to a brother who said to him, “I have been a member of a church now for forty years. I am a father in Israel.” He asked him, “How many children have you? How many have you brought to Christ?” “Well,” the man said, “I do not know that I ever brought anybody to Christ.” Upon which our friend retorted, “Call yourself a father in Israel, and yet you have no children! I think you had better wait until you have earned the title.” So do I. It would be better that we had no professors of that sort, but that all our members, even were they much fewer, should be men and women constantly bringing forth fruit unto God in the conversion of others. The Lord set you all to work with this object! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2216.cfm

The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear… – Deuteronomy 18:15

Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” – John 6:14

The miracle of the loaves carried them back to the wilderness, and to the miracle of the manna; they remembered that Moses had said, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me.” For this Deliverer they longed, and as the bread increased so grew their wonder, until in the swelling cakes they saw the finger of God, and said, “This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world.” That little lad became, by his loaves and fishes, the revealer of Christ to all the multitude; and who can tell, if you give your loaves to Christ, whether thousands may not recognize Him as the Savior because of it? Christ is still known in the breaking of bread. But the people went further with reference to Christ, after they had been fed by the loaves and fishes: they concluded that He was a prophet, and they began whispering among themselves, “Let us make Him a king.” Now, in a better sense than the text implies, I would to God that you and I, though humbly and feebly, might serve Christ till people said, “Christ is a Prophet. Let us make Him a King.” Oh, that He had a throne in the hearts of many whom He shall feed at this time with the bread of heaven! Brethren, I know that you wish to glorify Christ. Here is the way. Bring your loaves and fishes to Christ, that He may use them in His divine commissariat, and then He shall be magnified in the eyes of all the people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2216.cfm

And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. – John 6:11

A great deal of misery was removed by the lad’s basketful of barley cakes. Those poor people were famished; they had been with Christ all day and had had nothing to eat; and had they been dispersed as they were, tired and hungry, many of them would have fainted by the way; perhaps some would even have died. Oh, what would we give if we might but alleviate the misery of this world!…Perhaps I speak to some who never woke up yet to the idea that, if they were to bring their little all to Christ, He could make use of it in alleviating the misery of many a wounded conscience, and that awful misery which will come upon men if they die unforgiven and stand before the judgment bar of God without a Savior. Yes, young man, God can make you the spiritual father of many…Now, perhaps, these words come to some brother who has never yet laid hold of the idea that God can use him. You must not think that God picks out all the very choice and particularly fine persons. It is not so in the Bible; some of those that He took were very rough people: even the first apostles were mostly fishermen. Paul was an educated man, but he was like a lot out of the catalogue, one bow out of due time; the rest of them were not so, but God used them; and it still pleases God, by the base things and things that are not, to bring to nought the things that are. I do not want you to think highly of yourself; your cakes are only five, and they are barley, and poor barley at that; and your fish are very small, and there are only two of them. I do not want you to think much of them, but think much of Christ, and believe that, whoever you may be, if He thought it worth His while to buy you with His blood, and is willing to make some use of you, it is surely worth your while to come and bring yourself, and all that you have, to Him who is thus graciously ready to accept you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2216.cfm