Category Archives: Spurgeon

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A Lord’s Day Reminder for Preachers

02202012_spurgeon

To read Spurgeon’s sermons is to hear and see, as Piper once said, “a bee buzzing around one tree: the cross of Christ.”

In a lecture to his pastoral students entitled “Sermons Likely to Win Souls” Spurgeon said, “People have often asked me, ‘What is the secret of your success?” He answered,

I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel, – not about the gospel, but the gospel – the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in every sermon.

May it be so in pulpits all across the land this day.

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Recents Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

Andrew BonarAndrew Bonar: Life and Diary.I recently reread Bonar’s edited volume on Robert Murray M’Cheyne and noticed on the dust jacket a commendation of Bonar’s own “Life and Remains.” The Church of England Newspaper proclaimed, “The whole volume is a devotional gem, far removed from the passing superficiality of many of its modern counterparts. Its very profundity and realism will help a disheartened Christian and revive the weary ministry.” I can testify to such sentiment. God used this window into Bonar’s soul mightily in my life. Like his great friend M’Cheyne, Bonar was convinced that “it is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus” and that “unholiness lies at the root of our little success.” Bonar has taught me much about humility, self-denial, and the primary of holy prayer. These are lessons I need to relearn daily and so I expect drink from Bonar’s diary with great frequency.

9781871676952mThe Soul-Winner: Advice on Effective Evangelism by Spurgeon. The Prince of Preachers would surely be at, or near, the top of any list ranking church history’s most effective evangelists. Winning souls was his passion and this volume aims to instill that passion in every Christian. The first six chapters contain lectures to his Pastor’s College students and these will be most valuable to pastors. The rest of the volume consists of various addresses or sermons on the titular topic delivered to Sunday-school teachers, open-air preachers, and church members of the Tabernacle. Spurgeon sparkles with typical pithiness and sound wisdom, and the two chapters on “Qualifications for Soul-Winning” ought to be required reading for every church leader. Highly recommended!

1590525086mThe Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Alcorn’s thesis is simple when it comes to money: “You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.” It’s all built on Matthew 13:44 and the man who finds a treasure hidden in a field and, in his joy, sells everything he has to purchase the field. So the book is simple and biblical. To those we must add, “Wise.” Over and over Alcorn deposits little nuggets of wisdom into the souls of his readers, such as, “My heart always goes where I put God’s money,” and, “Giving is the only antidote to materialism.” Not many “bestsellers” of the last decade are worth your investment, but The Treasure Principle is one of the few. I imagine every penny you spend on it will cause many more to stretch into eternity.

SilkwormThe Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. JK Rowling returns to detective work under her chosen pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Just over one year ago Rowling introduced readers to Cormoran Strike, a private investigator who prowls the streets of London with tenacity and skill, in The Cuckoo’s Calling. That delightful page-tuner was made all the more interesting in that the reader was able to sense something of Rowling’s inner thoughts on celebrity and fame, as the novel’s central victim was a world renown model. The Silkworm is a satisfying continuation of the Srike series; the pages fly and this time we hear Rowling’s thoughts on authors and publishing. One Leonora Quine calls on Strike to find her husband, a somewhat famous author, whose gone missing. Owen Quine eventually turns up as the victim of a grotesque murder and Strike moves to ensuring the Mrs. Quine isn’t wrongly accused as his murderer. Quine’s last – and unpublished – work, Bombyx Mori, holds the all clues to his death. The ensuing investigation is engrossing.

The book is longer than it needs to be and the ending is anticlimactic, yet Rowling succeeds with aplomb in matters of character development and nuanced perspective. The Strike series will supposedly stretch to seven novels and I am eager for the third to drop.

Shadow of the WindThe Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I can’t remember the last fiction book I read that was as impressive a read as The Shadow of the Wind. The book begins in 1945 in Barcelona as a young boy named Daniel journeys to The Cemetary of Forgotten Books with his bookseller father. Daniel eventually chooses – mostly for its attractive binding – the eponymously titled ”The Shadow of the Wind,” by an obscure Spanish writer, Julián Carax. And little Daniel’s life changes forever. As one review says, “The main story is too zestfully convoluted to set out in any detail and allow space for the lush side stories that weave through it.” Suffice it to say, Daniel’s subsequent search for Carax is like a lovely Matryoshka doll filled with thrillingly tragedies and alluring victories. Although I uncovered the book’s twist almost from the outset, Zafon kept my attention with the dialogue – oh, the dialogue! The conversations regularly sing with almost perfect pitch. Stephen King sums it all up quite well, “This is one gorgeous read.”

Tolle lege!

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

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8 [More] Qualifications for Soul-Winning

Spurgeon on Soul-Winning

On Tuesday the Prince gave us “Seven Qualifications for Soul-Winning – Godward”, those quintessential characteristics God looks for in His servants.

Spurgeon’s next lecture finds him taking up the same them, yet from the “manward” perspective; eight qualities “likely to be approved by the object acted upon, that is, the soul of man.”

There is indeed much crossover with the previous seven qualifications, but the manward qualification poke and prod in unique ways. Here they are with some of Spurgeon’s typical pithiness.

8 MORE QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING

#1: An ignoramus is not likely to be much of a soul-winner. A man who only knows that he is a sinner, and that Christ is a Saviour, may be very useful to others in the same condition as himself, and it is his duty to do the best he can with what little knowledge he possesses; but, on the whole, I should not expect such a man to be very largely used in the service of God.

#2: There must be about us an evident sincerity. It must be quite clear to your hearers that you have a firm belief in the truths that you are preaching; otherwise, you will never make them believe them. Unless they are convinced, beyond all question, that you do believe these truths yourselves, there will be no efficacy and no force in your preaching. I do beseech you, brethren, speak from your hearts, or else do not speak at all. If you can be silent, be silent; but if you must speak for God, be thoroughly sincere about it.

#3: He must have evident earnestness. If a man is to be a soul-winner, there must be in him intensity of emotion as well as sincerity of heart. What earnestness our theme deserves! We have to tell of an earnest Saviour, an earnest heaven, and an earnest hell. How earnest we ought to be when we remember that in our work we have to deal with souls that are immortal, with sin that is eternal in its effects, with pardon that is infinite, and with terrors and joys that are to last for ever and ever!

#4: He must have an evident love to his hearers. It is very sad when the failure of any ministry is caused by want of heart. Do you not notice that men succeed in the ministry, and win souls for Christ, just in proportion as they are men with large hearts? You must love the people, and mix with them, if you are to be of service to them. There are some ministers who really are much better men than others, yet they do not accomplish so much good as those who are more human, those who go and sit down with the people, and make themselves as much as possible at home with them.

#5: He must have evident unselfishness. A man ceases to bring men to Christ as soon as he becomes known as a selfish man. What are you, my dear brother, that people should all bow down and worship you, and think that in all the world there is none beside you? I tell you what it is; the less you think of yourself, the more will people think of you; and the more you think of yourself, the less will people think of you. If any of you have any trace of selfishness about you, pray get rid of it at once, or you will never be fit instruments for the winning of souls for the Lord Jesus Christ.

#6: He must have holiness of character. When people see that we not only preach about holiness, but that we are ourselves holy men, they will be drawn towards holy things by our character as well as by our preaching.

#7: He must have a seriousness of manner. The most of us, however, are far more inclined to that laughter which doeth good like medicine, and we shall need all our cheerfulness, if we are to comfort and lift up those who are cast down; but we shall never bring many souls to Christ, if we are full of that levity which characterizes some men. There must be a prevailing seriousness about our whole lives, otherwise we cannot hope to lead other men to Christ.

#8: He must have a great deal of tenderness. I like a man to have a due amount of holy boldness, but I do not care to see him brazen-faced and impudent. When you preach, speak out straight, but be very tender about it; and if there is an unpleasant thing to be said, take care that you put it in the kindest possible form.

I believe, brethren, that soul-winning is to be done by men of the character I have been describing; and most of all will this be the case when they are surrounded by people of a similar character. You want to get the very atmosphere in which you live and labour permeated with this spirit before you can rightly expect the fullest and richest blessings. Therefore, may you and all your people be all that I have pictured, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

In order that you may impress the Word upon those to whom you preach, remember that it must be impressed upon yourself first. 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. – Spurgeon

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7 Qualifications for Soul-Winning

Spurgeon on Soul-Winning

Paul commanded young Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist.” Every gospel ministry ever since has labored under the shadow of such an awesome command.

Perhaps no minister has done so with as much visible success as The Prince of Preachers. Charles Spurgeon delighted in soul-winning, his 19th century phrase for “evangelism.” In one lecture to his pastoral college students he said, “Our main business, brethren, is to win souls . . . so we must know about souls, and how to win them for God.”

The lecture proceeds to outline seven “Qualifications for Soul-Winning Godward”; in other words, which qualifications would God naturally look for in His servants, which qualifications He would be likely to approve, and most likely to use. Let me repackage them here with choice comments from The Prince in the hopes they will stir your soul for successful soul-winning.

7 GODWARD QUALITIES FOR SOUL-WINNING

#1: A man who is to be a soul-winner must have holiness of character. No wise man would pour his wine into foul bottles; no kind and good parent would allow his children to go to see an immoral play; and God will not go to work with instruments which would compromise His own character. In God’s school, the teachers must be masters of the art of holiness.

Dear brethren, I do beg you to attach the highest importance to your own personal holiness. Do live unto God. If you do not, your Lord will not be with you; He will say of you as He said of the false prophets of old, “I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.” You may preach very fine sermons, but if you are not yourselves holy, there will be no souls saved.

#2: He must have spiritual life to a high degree. You see, brethren, our work is, under God, to communicate life to others. Life must be communicated by a living instrument, and the man who is to communicate the life must have a great deal of it himself. You remember the words of Christ, “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” that is, the Holy Spirit, when He dwells within a living child of God, afterwards rises out of the very midst of him as a fountain or a river, so that others may come and participate in the Spirit’s gracious influences.

#3: He must have a humble spirit. Certainly, the great God has a predilection for those who are humble. He loathes the proud; and whenever He sees the high and mighty, He passes them by; but whenever He finds the lowly in heart, He takes pleasure in exalting them. He delights especially in humility amongst His ministers.

In the matter of soul-winning, humility makes you feel that you are nothing and nobody, and that, if God gives you success in the work, you will be driven to ascribe to Him all the glory, for none of the credit of it could properly belong to you. If you do not have success, humility will lead you to blame your own folly and weakness, not God’s sovereignty. Why should God give blessing, and then let you run away with the glory of it? The glory of the salvation of souls belongs to Him, and to Him alone.

#4: He must have a living faith. If you have genuine faith in your call to the ministry, you will be ready, with Luther, to preach the gospel even while standing within the jaws of the leviathan, between his great teeth. You may depend upon it that souls are not saved by a minister who doubts; and the preaching of your doubts and your questions can never possibly decide a soul for Christ. You must have great faith in the Word of God if you are to be winners of souls to those who hear it.

That is the essential point, you must believe in God and in His gospel if you are to be a winner of souls; some other things may be omitted, but this matter of faith must never be.

#5: He must be characterized by thorough earnestness. The Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem, and you will have to weep over sinners if they are to be saved through you. Dear brethren, do be earnest, put your whole soul into the work, or else give it up.

#6: He must have a great simplicity of heart. By simplicity of heart, I mean, that a man evidently goes into the ministry for the glory of God and the winning of souls, and nothing else. There are some men who would like to win souls and glorify God if it could be done with due regard to their own interests. If a man seeks to serve himself, to get honour to himself, instead of seeking to serve God and honour Him alone, the Lord Jehovah will not use that man.

#7: He must be completely surrendered to God. I mean surrender in this sense, that from this time you wish to think, not your own thoughts, but God’s thoughts; and that you determine to preach, not anything of your own invention, but God’s Word; and further, that you resolve not even to give out that truth in your own way, but in God’s way.

I am sure this self-surrender is one of the essential qualifications for a preacher who is to be a winner of souls. There is a something that must be said if you are to be the means of saving that man in the corner; woe unto you if you are not ready to say it, woe unto you if you are afraid to say it, woe unto you if you are ashamed to say it, woe unto you if you do not dare to say it lest somebody up in the gallery should say that you were too earnest, too enthusiastic, too zealous!

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A Festival, Not a Funeral

Good FridayFor the last few weeks I’ve been preaching through Mark 15 and the events of Good Friday. Sadness and loss imbued the first century followers of Christ as our Lord was rejected, beaten, mocked, and killed.

And there is a sense in which such emotions are appropriate for the 21st century Christian. But they ought to never dominate our thinking of Good Friday. Why? For we know how the story ends! We know the fulness of what Christ did on that cross in a way the 1st century participants did not immediately comprehend.

With typical eloquence, Spurgeon encouraged his people to see Good Friday more as a festival, than a funeral:

The Lord of life and glory was nailed to the accursed tree. He died by the act of guilty men. We, by our sins, crucified the Son of God.

We might have expected that, in remembrance of his death, we should have been called to a long, sad, rigorous fast. Do not many men think so even today? See how they observe Good Friday, a sad, sad day to many; yet our Lord has never enjoined our keeping such a day, or bidden us to look back upon his death under such a melancholy aspect.

Instead of that, having passed out from under the old covenant into the new, and resting in our risen Lord, who once was slain, we commemorate his death by a festival most joyous. It came over the Passover, which was a feast of the Jews; but unlike that feast, which was kept by unleavened bread, this feast is brimful of joy and gladness. It is composed of bread and of wine, without a trace of bitter herbs, or anything that suggests sorrow and grief. …

The memorial of Christ’s death is a festival, not a funeral.”1

The takeaway for preachers? Let joy permeate your spirit when you proclaim the glories of Calvary. Be reverent, not flippant. But don’t be dour as though you have come to a funeral. The opposite is true, you have come to the soul’s festival of salvation.

  1. The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit No. 2248, “Sad Fasts Changed to Glad Feasts.” ↩
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The Church’s Spiritual Thermometer

Spurgeon Prayer

Spurgeon is commonly known today as “The Prince of Preachers,” but he would just as rightly be called “The Prince of Prayer.”

D. L. Moody, the prolific 19th-century American evangelists, was asked after his first visit to England, “Did you hear Spurgeon preach?” He replied, “Yes, but better still I heard him pray.”

Spurgeon taught his students that “the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he has undertaken.”1 Spurgeon modeled this counsel with legendary fervor as he spontaneous and reverent prayer punctuated his daily routine.

An American man, Dr. Wayland Hoyt, wrote,

I was once walking with him in the woods . . . and . . . we came upon a log lying [by] the path. ‘Come,’ he said, as naturally as one would say it if he were hungry and bread was put before him, ‘Come, let us pray.’ Kneeling beside the log he lifted his soul to God in the most loving and yet reverent prayer.2

One of his pastoral students would often attend family devotions at the Spurgeon home and he later recalled, “How full of tender pleading, of serene confidence in God, of world-embracing sympathy were his prayers. With what gracious familiarity he could talk with his Divine Master!”3 Another wrote, “His public prayers were an inspiration, but his prayers with the family were to me more wonderful still. Mr. Spurgeon, when bowed before God in family prayer, appeared a grander man even than when holding thousands spellbound by his oratory.”

PASTORING A PRAYING CHURCH

He was a man of prayer who led a praying people. When you spot a pastor in church history mightily used by God you can expect two things: 1) he was a man of prayer who 2) led a praying congregation. Spurgeon was once asked why his ministry was so effective and he replied, “My people pray for me.”

The prayers of his people was cause for deep gratitude as he later said, “I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession.” Seven hundred people could be found praying in the Tabernacle’s basement, its “boiler room” as Spurgeon called it, before the Sunday morning service and a few thousand would show up for Monday night prayer meeting. For Spurgeon, the prayer meeting was the best thermometer of the church’s spirituality.

WE WANT PRAYING PASTORS AND CHURCHES!

Spurgeon is a titan of the Christian ministry that is utterly impossible to replicate, but emulation is possible. In our age of fast paced self-confidence the reality of prayer seems to have vanished from pastors and churches. How many churches today have prayer meetings or have large portions of their worship gatherings devoted to prayer? If we are honest, a precious few.

Could this sad shortfall find a direct correlation to a decreasing number of men known as “praying pastors”? Sure, we have numerous pastors known for their preaching and personality – two things that distinguished Spurgeon as well – but what of pastors who are militant and reverent before the throne of grace?

I for one hope the surging popularity of Reformed theology will create a surge in that most basic practice of Reformed spirituality: prayer.

May God give us more praying pastors who lead praying churches.

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  1. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 747. ↩
  2. Dallimore, Spurgeon, 178. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩

People come to me for one thing . . . I preach to them a Calvinist creed and a Puritan morality. That is what they want and that is what they get. If they want anything else they must go elsewhere. – Spurgeon

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Preaching for Conversion

Spurgeon Preaching Tips

He is known as “The Prince of Preachers,” but “The Soul-Winner” would be just as apt a title for Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Nothing gave him greater joy than seeing a sinner come to Christ.

One of his greatest lectures is titled “On Conversion as Our Aim.” He says, “Our great object of glorifying God is . . . mainly achieved by the winning of souls. We must see souls born unto God.” From there Spurgeon goes on to provide various actions necessary to bring souls to Christ.

Lest any Calvinist bristle at his emphasis on human means, Spurgeon says from the outset, “Since conversion is a divine work, we must take care that we depend entirely upon the Spirit of God, and look to Him for power over men’s minds.” The Spirit is sovereign over salvation and thus we must long for his unction and movement in our preaching.

One final exhortation in the lecture is worth our concentration. The Prince calls his students to consider how tone, temper, and spirit in preaching are essential elements of “soul-winning preaching.”

LET THEM SEE, HEAR, AND FEEL YOUR GOSPEL

“If you preach the truth in a dull, monotonous style, God may bless it, but in all probability he will not; at any rate the tendency of such a style is not to promote attention, but to hinder it. It is not often that sinners are awakened by ministers who are themselves asleep. A hard, unfeeling mode of speech is also to be avoided; want of tenderness is a sad lack, and repels rather than attracts,” Spurgeon exhorts.

His belief in God’s sovereign work through the ordinary means created great confidence in the work of preaching, “Happy shall we be if we preach believingly, always expecting the Lord to bless his own word. This will give us a quiet confidence which will forbid petulance, rashness, and weariness. . . . “Mean conversions, expect them, and prepare for them. Resolve that your hearers shall either yield to your Lord or be without excuse, and that this shall be the immediate result of the sermon now in hand.”

He also understood the appropriate balance between gravity and humor, saying, “Preach very solemnly, for it is a weighty business, but let your matter be lively and pleasing, for this will prevent solemnity from souring into dreariness. Be so thoroughly solemn that all your faculties are aroused and consecrated, and then a dash of humour will only add intenser gravity to the discourse, even as a flash of lightning makes midnight darkness all the more impressive.”

His final instructions are well worth a block quote. Read them carefully and let them challenge your perspective on preaching,

Impressed with a sense of their danger, give the ungodly no rest in their sins; knock again and again at the door of their hearts, and knock as for life and death. Your solicitude, your earnestness, your anxiety, your travailing in birth for them God will bless to their arousing. God works mightily by this instrumentality. But our agony for souls must be real and not feigned, and therefore our hearts must be wrought into true sympathy with God. Low piety means little spiritual power. Extremely pointed addresses may be delivered by men whose hearts are out of order with the Lord, but their result must be small. There is a something in the very tone of the man who has been with Jesus which has more power to touch the heart than the most perfect oratory: remember this and maintain an unbroken walk with God. You will need much night-work in secret if you are to gather many of your Lord’s lost sheep. Only by prayer and fasting can you gain power to cast out the worst of devils. Let men say what they will about sovereignty, God connects special success with special states of heart, and if these are lacking he will not do many mighty works.

Brothers, let us use all our faculties in the grand aim of soul-winning. May God awaken our hearts to the glory of His sovereign grace, power of His gospel and ordinary means, the plight of sinful men that stand around us, and let us preach with passion and power. We want Spurgeons in our pulpits!

At Gethsemane we come to the Holy of Holies of our Lord’s life on earth. No man can rightly expound such a passage as this; it is a subject for prayerful, heart-broken meditation, more than for human language. – Spurgeon