C.H Spurgeon By Erroll Hulse

Popular ideas of Spurgeon prevailed since the time of his death.
Many conceive of him as a great soul winner, an eloquent preacher who started a college
and who smoked a pipe.
And one believer I heard of is reputed to have abandoned all entry in Spurgeon on hearing
that he was heretical in regard to that taboo.
I'm not sure that Spurgeon was addicted in any way, but we should always take a charitable
view that perhaps he was smoking some herbs.
I have a very good friend in London who was a fellow student at London Bible College with
me and he suffers from asthma.
And he was given a prescription for the smoking of herbs, particular kinds of herbs.
And the principal at that time, EF Kevin, met him in the road one day and he actually
was smoking and he was very embarrassed, so he took his herbal cigarette and held it behind
his back, but the smoke cooled up over his head.
And anybody could see it, the fire brigade would soon know where the fire was.
Well we've heard all these stories and also many things are put into the mouth of Spurgeon
which I'm sure he never ever said.
I was only speaking at the breakfast table to one of our brothers and saying that it's
important that we should try to get the original sermons and all of them if possible.
So if you have a wealthy uncle who can spend two hundred pounds by which you can furnish
yourself with the set that are being republished, all the better.
And then nobody can tell you anything about it because you can look it all up in the index
yourself to see what he actually did say on these various subjects.
Now I'm going to quote almost exclusively from his own earlier, his own words, but I'm
also going to be quoting from the forgotten Spurgeon, the most recent edition by Ian Murray.
And I will remind you that he does document everything he says, any statement he makes
he documents so that you can look it up and check its accuracy.
But we are indebted to Ian Murray for bringing out the forgotten aspects.
We like to just think of Spurgeon as a great big koala bear, you know, all friendly and
all nice, I don't know if they are friendly, but you know, lovely, nice bear that you can
hug, a nice bear out of history, great man, very friendly, nice beard and all very lovely
and congenial.
Well, we are thankful to be reminded that there is far more to it than that.
Now my system this morning is as follows, first I'm going to give a sketch of Spurgeon's
life and in giving that sketch I'm mindful of some of the young men here this morning,
my opponents of the last couple of days, Kevin over there and Bobby and I wish to bring out
purposely and Russell over there as well, I wish to bring out purposely some aspects
which could be of real help to the young people, male and female, this morning from his early
years, from his young life when really Christ was formed in him and once he had been to
a very deep experience of the conviction of sin by which his theological outlook was
formed, he never ever wavered from that.
He never turned aside from that early experience which brought him into the doctrines of free
and sovereign grace.
These things were burned into him at a very young age.
So a sketch of his life in the first place and there of course we deal with the formulative
influences, we often see the man in his full strength, in his full ministry, but it's very
helpful to go back to the sources, what made him like that, and some attention to the earlier
years in the sketch of his life.
Then in the second place we remember that our subject is the dispersion contender for
the faith and so secondly I will consider his stand for free grace, for the doctrines
of grace as we now understand them.
And then in the third place we must draw conclusions for our prophet.
Well now we begin with a sketch of his life.
He was born at Calvedon in Essex in 1834.
We read in the scriptures to Timothy in chapter 1 Paul saying that he remembers the unfeigned
faith that was in Timothy which dwells first in his grandmother Louis and in his mother
Eunice, or Eunice, and here one could write of Spurgeon that great faith was in his grandfather
and in his father, both men were ministers and preachers, powerful preachers but particularly
the grandfather, a powerful preacher who sustained the ministry for many years.
So you see that he from the very beginning was brought up in these things and for reasons
which I have not been able to fathom altogether, he spent a considerable amount of time with
his grandfather who was actually a minister for 54 years and there received impressions
in regard to the Puritans.
Now it's very important that we should know who the Puritans were.
The Puritans lived toward the end of the 16th century but more in the 17th century and they
were men who were in the Church of England who sought to reform the Anglican Church.
Nobody has ever succeeded to do that and they didn't either and in 1662 there was a great
ejection and 2000 of these men were put out of the Church of England but they were a race
of giants, men who expounded the scripture in great debt, they were Hebrew and Greek
scholars, they were very tactical and very experimental in their exposition and there
had never been a race of men to equal them when it comes to the exposition of God's word
and it was here that Spurgeon began to partake of Christianity from these Puritans.
It is interesting to note that he found these books, he first discovered them at Stambourne
where his grandfather was and they had in those days a tax upon houses depending on
how many windows you had, this place for instance here would be very heavily taxed, you would
be taxed according to the area of your window space, a more ridiculous kind of tax I've
never heard of because what the people did then of course was to black out all the windows
so they didn't have to pay the tax and it was in one of these darkened rooms that Spurgeon
found these original, many original Puritan works which were clothes and sheepskins and
goatskins and he began to love these at an early age so young men lay hold of the best
book and really direct yourself to reading those books while you are young, redeem the
time, see if you can clock up the reading of, the assimilation of, the understanding
of the best Puritan books as did Spurgeon from a very young age, from the age of six
onwards.
Out of those darkened rooms he said, I fetched those old orchids when I was yet a youth and
never was I happier than when in their company, out of the present contempt into which Puritanism
has fallen, many brave hearts and true will fetch it by the help of God ere many years
have passed.
Those who have gawked up the windows, blacked up the windows will yet be surprised to see
Heaven's light beaming on the old truth and then breaking forth from it to their own confusion.
Who knows, but in this very conference we may have young men who will be raised up to
bring to light these precious old truths again and apply them in a powerful way to the teeming
multitudes of our day.
See how prophetic he was.
He believed that these truths would again break forth in the earth and fill the earth
with radiant glory.
How right he was in his prophecy.
We are actually living in such a time of the recovery of these doctrines out of the contempt
into which they have fallen.
Well by the end of his life Spurgeon had collected 12,000 of these volumes, probably
the finest collection of Puritan books in England.
And it is said of him that if you turn the lights off you could find any one of them
in the dark.
He had an extraordinary memory and was a man of genius and this genius began to show when
he was very young.
Again at the age of six he was asked by his grandparents and parents to read the scriptures
and he was asked to read the scriptures in family prayer because of his remarkable talent.
So very early showing itself that he could read with a point and emphasis which was simply
marvelous in one so young.
When we read the scriptures we should speak to read them clearly and with emphasis in
the right place.
His powerful character began to show itself also very young for, and I'll illustrate this,
for his grandfather was vexed with an older man who was spending time in the public house
with his favorite part and also with his mug of beer.
And being a church member Grandad was very unhappy about it, Grandad's Spurgeon.
And the young child he noted this and took it very much to heart.
So he announced to his Grandad one day that he was going to kill old Rose, Rose is the
name of this backslider.
He was going to kill old Rose, I said Grandad, be careful please, don't do anything rash.
Oh yes, said Charles, I'm going to kill him.
And he came in one day and he said to his Grandad, I've killed old Rose, Grandpa, I've
killed him.
Oh, he said, you haven't, you haven't, what has happened my dear boy?
Well he soon found out what happened because old Rose came in very penitent, much repentant
and it transpired that the young Spurgeon had marched into the public house where old Rose
was just helping himself to his mug of beer and had stood there with his finger out at
him and said, you're breaking Grandad's heart you are, what doest thou here Elijah?
And having dressed him down then he marched out of the public house and old Rose was very
annoyed by this but also very convicted and it was effective to bring him to repentance.
The talent of the young man must have shone out alright because this drew from a distinguished
visitor to the manse of Stanbourne, that is Richard Nill, a prophecy for visiting the
manse, he took the child and put him on his knee, the young child, and then said to the
assemble company that this young child would one day preach the gospel to multitude and
would also preach the gospel in the tabernacle of Rowland Hill, who was then a famous minister.
And so that prophecy proved to be a true prophecy and those points were fulfilled.
He was very clever at school but he also was bottom of the class, now can you imagine a
genius being bottom of the class?
Well I'll tell you why he was bottom of the class at one stage, he was always at the top
of the class but the teacher noticed that he graded all the class from top to bottom
and top of the class sat next to the cold drafty door and bottom of the class was a
nice warm fire and Spurgeon saw to it that he was bottom of the class so that he could
be next to the nice warm fire.
But he had an astonishing memory, it was said of him later, with his 5,000 members at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle, that sitting on the platform he could name every one of the 5,000.
Now if you could name every one of those here at this conference, you'd have a memory rather
like that of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
He went to a school at Maidstone for a year at the age of 14 and it was there that he
became friendly with the cook, not because of his good appetite but because of this lady's
strong free grace conviction and deep experience of the truth and it is said that he learned
a lot of his Puritan theology from the cook and had very deep conversation with her because
he was by this time under very deep conviction of sin.
He used to discuss the doctrine of election with her and the covenant of grace and so
on and then from Maidstone he moved to Newmarket and then to Cambridge and at this stage he
received tuition instruction in exchange for giving instruction.
He had reached the stage at the age of 15, 16 and 17 of being able to teach others and
expound on subjects and so earn his way.
Well he was converted at the age of 15 at Colchester, January 6, 1850 and this was a
very cold day, a snowy day when he wandered into the Methodist Church there and the minister
for the day was a fill-in, not a regular minister and quite a hopeless preacher really, couldn't
remember what to say, he could only remember the text really and kept on repeating the
text because it was very effective, look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth
for there is none else.
And then his eyes lighted on the young visitor, there weren't many there and he pointed to
the young man and said, yes young man, you too, it says, the text says, look unto me
and be saved.
Well it was wonderful because that was the very text that God designed to bring him to
salvation.
He had been to these terrible convictions for several years and now he was finally brought
to his salvation, to salvation in Jesus Christ.
In the early years there are many pages devoted to the experience through which he went and
the reason for this is that Spurgeon sees himself the significance of this period of
conviction.
Some of us have come to a deep conviction of sin after conversion when we came into
the doctrines of grace.
Others come into the doctrines of grace early through the teaching of their parents.
Now I wonder how it is with you, have you come to understand or have you come to believe
the doctrines of grace and what effect have these doctrines had on your experience?
Have they just affected your head or have they had an impact upon your heart?
Well, Spurgeon was very deeply convicted in his heart concerning these things.
You can read the chapter almost anywhere and you see this coming out.
He himself says that when God has a great work to do, he puts in deep foundation.
He lays deep foundations and this is exactly what happened to Spurgeon early on before
he was converted, the foundations were laid, the trenches were dug, the concrete was poured
for the structure that was to arise.
Jesus said, I'm quoting now from his early years, Jesus said to Zacchaeus, make haste
and come down.
Can I not remember when he also told me to come down?
One of the first steps I had to take was to go right down from my good will and oh, what
a fall was that.
Then I stood upon my own self-sufficiency and Christ said, come down.
I have pulled you down from your good will.
Now I will pull you down from your self-sufficiency.
So I had another fall and I felt sure I had gained the bottom.
But again, Christ said, come down.
And he made me come down till I fell on the same point at which I felt I was yet solvable.
But still the command was, down sir, come down further.
And down I came until in despair I had to let go every bough of the tree of my hopes.
And then I said, I can do nothing.
I am ruined.
The waters were wrapped around my head and I was shut out from the night of day and thought
myself a stranger from the Commonwealth of Israel.
But Christ said, come down lower yet sir, thou hast too much pride to be saved.
Then I was brought down to see my corruption, my wickedness, my filthiness, for God always
humbles the sinner whom he means to save.
And I quote that purposely because Spurgeon himself would have that stress made in regard
to his conversion.
Well, it wasn't very long before he was baptized and the way in which he expressed it to his
mother, you've probably heard of it, but it was so delightful that it's worth repeating
that they prayed for his conversion and now he wanted to be a Baptist, they were congregation-less.
And his mother said to him, oh child, she said, I've often prayed that the Lord would
make you a Christian, but I never asked that you might become a Baptist.
Ah, mother, he said, the Lord has answered your prayer with his usual bounty and given
you exceedingly abundantly above all that you could ask or take.
And as I say, he didn't waste any time in being baptized.
Now let us not forget that Spurgeon was a strict Baptist.
That is not strict in regard to his clothes because he used to wave a blue handkerchief
around instead of a white one, which rather startled the people in London when he first
went there.
And also he was a particular Baptist, which didn't mean to say that he didn't eat pork
or have such scruples, but rather a strict Baptist means that you should be baptized
before you take the communion table.
I did not sit down at the Lord's table, he said, and cannot in conscience do so until
I am baptized.
To one who does not see the necessity of baptism, it is perfectly right and proper to partake
of this best privilege.
But were I to do so, I can see would be to tumble over the wall, since I feel persuaded
it is Christ's appointed way of professing him.
I'm sure this is the only view which I have of baptism.
In other words, you honor the ordinance of baptism first and then you go to the table
and that's what it means by strict Baptist.
And then a particular Baptist is one who believes in particular redemption, that Christ died
for his elect people.
The blood of the everlasting covenant secures infallibly the redemption of every one of
his elect people, no more and no less.
That is to be a particular Baptist.
It took a surgeon three months to become a Calvinist and the light broke upon him.
He'd been studying it, of course, all through his youth and discussing it and talking about
it.
The actual realization of it again in his heart, just not in his mind, he knew these
things in his head, in his heart broke upon him in a single moment of time and he saw
the whole system very clearly.
It reminds me of Walter Brejo who was written up in Reformation today and it happened to
him on this wise that he was actually preaching in Guernsey where he became this kind of minor
apostle to the island.
And as he was preaching this doctrine of free-grass that we are saved by grace alone without any
other consideration and election all clearly came to him as he was preaching.
And he never looked back from that time and apparently the people all rushed home and
spread the rumor around the island that he'd become a Calvinist.
Well, they were quite right, of course.
He had, with certain likewise, sought in a moment of time reminding us that these things
do come from heaven, they are revealed from above.
Now, it wasn't very long after this, he was baptized in the River Lath and this year we
went there to erect a plaque.
I know we have to be very careful, we mustn't become Romanists and have plaques and all
the rest of it too much but I think there is a place for remembrance of certain events.
So a plaque has now been put up and we had a service by the riverside which was very
cold and drizzly and as I looked at that water I thought, well, I wouldn't like to go in
there today and it was May the same time, three months after January, you see, that
he was baptized.
And then we had after that a very fine service in one of the old chapels with galleries round
and very much enjoyed the remembrance of that.
Spurgeon testifies that the fishers ate up all his tears.
All his tears were washed down the river when he was baptized for from that day forward
he never had any fear of man from the time of his baptism.
Well, it wasn't long after that, I say, that he began to preach.
It was a very cunning way in which they got him to preach because there was a wise man
of Cambridge who was always looking for itinerant preachers to take engagements in chapels that
were without a minister.
So he arranged for a friend to go with Spurgeon and when they got there, of course, Spurgeon
would have to preach.
Well, they went along with Spurgeon and near the young Charles, 16 year old, and this friend
and we talked of good things and at last I expressed my hope that we would feel the presence
of God while preaching.
My friend seemed to stop and assured me that he had never preached in his life and could
not attend such a thing.
He was looking to his young friend, Mr. Spurgeon, for that.
This was a new view of the situation and I could only reply that I was no minister and
that even if I had been, I was quite unprepared.
My companion only repeated that he, in a still more emphatic sense, was not a preacher.
That he would help me in any other part of the service but there would be no sermon unless
I gave one.
He told me that if I repeated one of my Sunday school addresses it would just suit the poor
people and would probably give them more satisfaction than a studied sermon of a learned divine.
Well, anyway, there he was.
He just had to go ahead.
Well, right from the beginning he was endued with power and perception and ability and
a wonderful way of preaching.
So as soon as he had finished, an aged boy cried out from the congregation,
Bless your dear heart, how old are you?
My very solemn reply said, Spurgeon, you must wait till the service be over before making
such enquiry.
Let us now sing, he said, as soon as they had sung, the voice again, how old are you?
I am under sixty, he said, ah, said the lady, and under sixteen, two.
I think he was actually.
When I said he was sixteen I think actually he was fifteen, we sometimes don't exactly
get it right.
But you can see at this very young age and then at the age of seventeen he was called
to be a pastor at Walter Beach.
He had by this stage three degrees.
He had no degrees from universities, but he had a degree in grace, he had a degree in
spiritual perception, and he had a degree in zeal.
Now I've made that up of course to show you that the Lord does not regard academic degrees
or intellectual degrees, what the Lord regards is grace, spiritual perception, zeal, patience,
these are the things that the Lord delights in.
He was young in body but mature in his perception.
And a wonderful spirit he showed in the first passage where he had many difficulties to
contend with, but he was gracious and had the demeanor and the behavior of an elderly
man, not a lad, of seventeen.
Well it didn't take long before they found out about what was going on in London.
And so he was invited to preach at New Park Street, a very famous church which had men
like Benjamin Keats, William Ryder, John Gill, John Rippon, as pastors that had gone before.
They'd gone right down from being a famous church to a small congregation of two hundred
in a grimy part of London, I've actually been round there to look at it, it's very miserable
down by the river, the south side of the river, so they had to cross.
I think there was a toll at that stage, the bridge to get there, from the other part of
London, the north part of London, very insignificant, but the previous minister John Rippon had
prayed that the fortunes of the church would be restored and that God would raise up a
leader again.
So those prayers and the prayers of the faithful people over a dark period were answered and
soon Spurgeon received a call to the church of New Park Street, the building seated twelve
hundred and it wasn't long before all those seats were filled.
And then they decided to extend the chapel and double it up, but in the meantime they
went to Exeter Hall which seated four thousand, soon that was filled.
And then the only thing to do was to go to the Surrey Gardens Music Hall and that seated
ten thousand and by this time, 1855, 1860, Spurgeon's name was famous and people flocked
to hear him and we again have to marvel that so young a man could achieve such a great
deal and make such an impact at such a time.
The churches were wealthy, they were respectable, they were well attended, but they were complacent.
There was no shortage of eloquence, but it was an aloof, superior kind of eloquence,
men coming up to show how much they knew and all the rest of it.
And here came a young man full of unction and spiritual power pressing the truth home
upon consciences with great spiritual conviction and God poured out his Holy Spirit upon his
ministry and he just drew the people like a magnet and many were converted from all
walks of life, working class people, young people, all kinds of people were converted
under his ministry.
In 1857 he interviewed personally no less than a thousand people who had been converted.
Now some of our young Reformed Baptist churches have hardly any conversion, you mustn't be
discouraged, you must persevere and seek revival as these people sought revival.
They hadn't had conversions for years either, it got very low and now a thousand just in
one year alone in 1857.
How remarkable that it should be so.
Never since the days of George Whitefield, said one newspaper, had any minister of religion
acquired so great a reputation, this is 1856 when this was written, as this Baptist preacher
in so short a time, here is a mere youth of perfect scripting, only 21 years of age, incomparably
the most popular preacher of the day, there is no man within her majesty's dominion who
could draw such immense audiences and none who in his happier efforts can so completely
enthrall the attention and delight the minds of his hearers.
Some of his appeals to the conscience, some of his remonstrances with the careless constitute
specimens of a very high order of oratorical power.
When this able and eloquent preacher first made his appearance on the horizon of the
religious world and dazzled the masses in the metropolis by his brilliancy we were afraid
that he might either get intoxicated by such large drafts of popularity which he had daily
to drink or that he would not be able owing to the want of variety to sustain the reputation
he had so suddenly acquired, now the result is happening.
Whatever may be his defect, either as a man or as a preacher of the gospel, it is due
to him to state that he has not been spoilt by popular applause.
It was not possible to spoil him for God had so deeply convicted him of his sinnership
that all these things simply went over his head, but what was it that was so singularly
blessed?
Was it that God gave him a unique voice?
I remember speaking to an old trustee of our chapel, he's died now, he was in his 90s,
and he used to hear Spurgeon preach and I asked him, I said, is it true that Mr. Spurgeon
had such a marvelous voice?
Oh, says the old man, I tell you it was true.
He said it was just like hearing one of those great big bells sounding, each note as clear
and as crisp and as beautiful as you can imagine, like a sounding bell, wafting over
that vile congregation.
It was wonderful to listen to.
God gave him that extraordinary voice because he had an extraordinary work to do.
Was it his powers of description?
Was it his eloquence?
What was it that shook London?
Now, these things were instrumental, but we claim it was his doctrine, for there was
a tremendous controversy when he came to London, for he came and preached Calvinism, he came
and preached free growth and this caused a great controversy and this controversy went
on for five years, says John Anderson, of those times, Mr. Spurgeon is a Calvinist,
which few of the dissenting ministers in London now are.
He preaches salvation not of man's free will, but of the Lord's good will, which few in
London it is to be feared now do.
So we come in the second place, having spent the rest of our time going through the early
years, to see how Spurgeon's views were formulated, we come now to his stand for free
growth in those early years and as we do so, just to give you a little picture with clear
lines of his life, the early years and then coming to New Park Street, 1855 to 1860 and
then the major part of his ministry, 1860 to 1887, when the downgrade controversy broke
out and from 1887 to 1892, rather like one of his sermons, three points, 1855 to 1865
years of tremendous controversy, the shaking of London and then the middle part of his
ministry, 1860 to 1887, 27 years of industry.
The college, the alms houses were started, Corportier Association, church planting, literature
work spreading everywhere, a great work of those middle years, 1860 to 1887 and then
1887 to 1892, another five years of terrible controversy and in this instance, a lost controversy.
He won the first very largely but he lost the second controversy and we may have a few
moments technically to see that, that in the outline of his life.
Now this contention in London was about free growth.
When we use the word Calvinism, we use a nickname and I think it is important to see
what Spurgeon himself says about this.
We only use the term Calvinism for shortness.
That doctrine which is called Calvinism did not spring from Calvin.
Now listen carefully to this.
We believe that it sprang from the great founder of all truth.
Since Calvin himself derived it mainly from the writings of Augustine, Augustine obtained
his views without doubt through the Spirit of God from the diligent study of the writings
of Paul and Paul received them of the Holy Ghost from Jesus Christ, the great founder
of the Christian dispensation.
We use the term then not because we impute any extraordinary importance to Calvin's having
taught these doctrines.
We would be just as willing to call them by any other name if we could find one which
would be better understood and which on the whole would be as consistent with facts.
So you see, when we speak of Calvinism, we mean the old doctrines of grace which our
forefathers preached.
Now why, we ask, why did Spurgeon see these things as so important?
Why did he proclaim these things as he did and insist upon them as he did?
And why was it that God used these doctrines to bring so many to salvation?
It wasn't as though he was just teaching people and that was the end of it, just intellectual
instruction.
No, no.
God used these truths to bring people to salvation, never let us lose sight of that.
People were converted under these sermons and very markedly so, some of his most, he
himself testified, some of his most Calvinistic sermons were the very ones which God used
to bring people to salvation.
In other words, God used this preaching and we today should seek that our preaching also
should be used in the saving way.
It was really balanced preaching.
He underlined the importance of human responsibility.
Man must repent and believe, yet man cannot repent and believe.
He must find his faith in repentance from heaven so the sinner is shut up to God and
is made to look up to God.
Now he preached this because he had experiences in all detail.
He had gone through this way himself and had come to an end of all his abilities and therefore
found all his salvation from the God of heaven.
And now having been through that, he was well able to preach it to others.
But Spurgeon saw in the denial of the doctrines of grace, great dangers.
He saw that if those doctrines are denied, the whole gospel is undermined.
These are not doctrines that you can just nicely cut off and put into a cupboard.
He saw that they are interwoven with all the teachings of scripture.
And that is why he contended so much for them.
He insisted on them as the warp and woof of the gospel.
To deny them would be to emasculate the gospel and ultimately destroy the gospel.
And also he saw that in Arminianism, in the opposite system, that the opposite system
arouses men's activity and faith in what they can do.
And he said the very opposite is necessary.
We need to kill man's activity once and for all and to show that man is lost and ruined.
That he might come to an end of himself and look to Christ only.
Remember the text by which he was saved.
Look unto me, that is Christ, all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved.
He saw it as catastrophic to produce converts who thought they were saved by what they had
done and having a false and a human faith and not a true faith.
He saw these dangers in free grace.
And that is why, as I say, he contended so strongly for these things.
Now the abandonment of the old free grace position during the life of Spurgeon was the
reason for the downgrade controversy.
The second controversy arose out of the first controversy.
When Spurgeon went to New Park Street when he first came to London, he established the
fact for all his congregation that the 1689 Confession of Faith, the Calvinistic Confession
of Faith of the Baptist was the confession of that church.
And when he went to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he again asserted this.
He had a series of sermons on the subject and then he took that Confession of Faith
and put it under the foundation stand.
Now the tabernacle was burned down in 1898.
They rebuilt it and it was bombed down in 1944.
And it was the bombing down of it that was needed because in 1941 it was bombed down
and then they discovered this very Confession of Faith under the foundation stand.
And it reminded them of what Spurgeon believed.
And it is pointed out that there wasn't a single college, not even his own in 1941,
that preached free grace, nor one church in the whole of the British Isles of any influence
that preached Spurgeon's Gospel.
How remarkable.
But the Nazi bombs reminded us what Spurgeon really believed at that time.
Now in the middle of his life it was pointed out by a man called Dale in the Midlands of
England that there was already such a decline that were it not for Mr. Spurgeon there would
hardly be any Calvinism left.
He said that Calvinism would be almost obsolete among Baptists were it not still maintained
by the powerful influence of Mr. Spurgeon in 1873.
And there was a decline going on and liberalism was coming in at a very rapid rate.
And the Baptist leaders, not having a strong foundation themselves, not having clear principles
of teaching, were compromising all the way along the line.
John Aldiss, Joseph Angus and Alexander McLaren, all Baptist evangelical leaders, took opposite
sides to Spurgeon and in 1887 declared, we feel that the imposition of theological tests
or a human creed would defeat the object of Christian union.
You can see the zeal early on for Christian union, for unity.
And they saw the advance of modernism and so on and they thought well the best thing
we can do is all unite together, but if we're going to unite together we mustn't let doctrine
divide us, we must just all be united.
And by having unity together we will be able to assimilate the new learning and it will
soon pass away like a bad dream.
But Spurgeon said nonsense, this is nonsense.
He said the only way that you can deal with modernism is with the truth.
The only way you can maintain the gospel is by clear teaching.
You can't just imagine that by all coming together in large numbers anything's going
to happen.
Well in 1887 a Spurgeon resigned from the Baptist union and then it was that there was
a great controversy breaking out and tremendous turbulence.
And here Spurgeon was to lose the battle, they had a great meeting in London where they
were to vote on a new little statement of faith about what the Baptist believed.
And everybody knew or nearly everybody knew that Spurgeon insisted on a full confession
of faith, a proper confession, one that would be adequate, that they were voting for something
that would be nice and easy and the voting was two thousand votes to seven.
And many people took that to be a great victory over Spurgeon, that they were right, Spurgeon
was wrong, two thousand votes to seven.
One man, an elderly man who had been through all these things said he was broken hearted
to see some of Spurgeon's students and people he had helped money wise and personally shouting
with great joy because their master had been overthrown.
And now they had their short articles of faith, everything was fine, Spurgeon was just a warmonger,
he was a scaremonger, he was quite wrong, but Spurgeon responded by saying that they
were going downhill at breakneck speed and he was proved to be absolutely right.
Baptist Union has descended into the very pit itself so that we have had in recent days
the denial, the public denial of Jesus Christ, by Principal Taylor of the Northern College,
no discipline, you can deny Jesus Christ, you can blaspheme, makes no difference, well
certainly I would not call that a church.
And this is the kind of thing we have come to, where you forsake the doctrines of the
Bible, the clear doctrines of scripture, you end up in chaos.
Spurgeon has been proved correct.
But now what about these prophecies, these amazing prophecies which he made, that the
truth would be re-established.
Now I come very shortly to my conclusion, said Spurgeon, the doctrine which is now rejected
as the effete theory of Puritans and Calvinists will yet conquer human thought and reign supreme.
Now that's a strong statement to make, listen again.
The doctrine which is now rejected as the effete theory of Puritans and Calvinists will
yet conquer human thought and reign supreme, as surely as the sun which sets tonight shall
rise tomorrow at the predestined hour, so shall the truth of God shine forth over the
whole earth.
You can see then that he truly believed in the restoration of these things.
He said again in 1889 when the downgrade controversy was killing him because he didn't enjoy that
and he could see things going from bad to worse and people being deceived by the growth,
he said I'm quite willing to be eaten of dogs, he said, for the next 50 years that his name
would be in distribute, but a more distant future shall vindicate me.
The very fact that we're doing, or having this paper in Sydney, Australia, now 1973,
is in small part vindication of C. H. Spurgeon.
The re-publication of his books, of his sermons, his sermons have been more read than any other
man in history.
His output literature-wise was phenomenal.
Before his death 120,000 volumes of his large expository work, seven volumes apiece, 120,000
sets of seven volumes were sold by that time.
He was responsible for 125 books which he wrote, besides planting of churches, hundreds
of churches he was instrumental in planting.
The running of the college, the support of the old people's home, the itinerant work
which he engaged in, all the extraordinary labor, 10,000 people coming in every week.
In 1886 the total congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, morning and evening, exceeded
10,000 people, that's 10,000 different people coming in just on one Sunday.
The editing of all those sermons, which have been translated into more than 23 languages,
not all of them of course, but as a whole they have been more read, as I say, than any
other preacher in history.
Well what are the conclusions then, the main conclusions?
Well first of all a weak, non-doctrinal, non-definitive, non-confessional evangelicalism will get
us nowhere.
We must do as spiritual suggested, seek to regain a definitive confessional doctrinal
Christianity and we will not get anywhere I believe until we do that.
Don't shun the efforts of local churches when they produce a proper basis of faith, covenants
and articles and work things out in detail, don't be upset if you don't agree with every
little nook and cranny of those things, at least they are doing it, thank God for it.
If you were living in Spurgeon's day I have no doubt you wouldn't agree with the way he
ran the Tabernacle, he had to accommodate himself to a very fast growing situation.
You won't agree in all the details but throw yourself in, give yourself to the furtherance
of a recovery of a definitive fully confessional evangelical faith.
Most important it was the lack of this which meant that there was no resistance to the
incoming tide of liberal and modernist teachers because they didn't have adoption, they didn't
have clearly formulated views, there was nobody to fight it, Spurgeon alone couldn't hold
back the whole scene, he was stressed out but we must build again, it's no good just
being negative, it's no good saying well let's come out of the ecumenical movement, let's
be separate, we must be separate because the Bible says so but it doesn't achieve anything
just in being separate, that doesn't achieve anything does it, it's just being faithful
to be separate.
So what are we to do?
We are to labour, we are to build, we are to construct adequate foundations for faith
and practice, we are to seek to build, to plant local churches and I'm thrilled to see
this happening in various parts of the world again, the establishment of local churches
in which these very churches are adopting the 1689 confession, just the same confession
that Spurgeon used when he began in London and which he put under the foundation stand
at the tabernacle, these are the conclusions that we come to.
We have to go back to those solid foundations and I began by mentioning the young men present
and I would issue this challenge to the young men, study, don't spend all your days with
trifling things, it's good that we should relax, it's good that we should have fitness
and so on but be sure to study, give yourself to study, if Spurgeon could read six books
a week then you can at least read one good book a month, get hold of the early years,
get hold of these volumes, read them, assimilate them, capture your friends about them, form
a club if you like, a reading club, a study club, get to know these things and enjoy these
and if you haven't been converted yet but you know about the doctrine, get hold of the
chapter in the early years and read about what Spurgeon went through and look at the
very same text that says him, look unto me says Jesus, look unto me, well young man you
look this morning, look unto Jesus for salvation, it's never in yourself, it's all in him, you
come to the end of your own ability, look to the Lord Jesus Christ and be ye saved and
then you will have the same as Spurgeon had, you may not have his gift, you only get one
such man essentially, one essentially but you will have the same salvation as he has
and you will enjoy the same heaven as he now enjoys and may we be stirred to arise and
build with proper foundation and proper material. Thank you.