This week is unofficially “Spurgeon Is the Man” week. In tribute to arguably the greatest Bible preacher outside of Scripture. Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.

Prayer

Spurgeon prayed both spontaneously by breaking from the affairs of his day to speak with the Lord, and also during scheduled times of prayer for himself that included walks in the woods, days away at a cottage, and months away in France for Sabbath, study, and prayer. Prayer for him was so significant that he aptly said, “Prayer has become as essential to me as the heaving of my lungs.” His commitment to prayer extended to a team of hundreds of intercessors who were appointed to pray for his preaching and people’s hearts during the church service. They prayed on their faces in the church basement that was aptly titled the “war room.” Occasionally when Spurgeon prayed over the sick they were healed and many believed he had the gift of healing. He also told his preaching students that his power, authority, and insight came from continually praying the text of his sermon before preaching it. His church prayer meetings were on Monday nights and as many as 1,200 people attended to pray as the Spirit led, which did not included printed prayers or long prayers because he hated both.

In examining the role of prayer in the ministry of Spurgeon, one aspect in particular intrigued me. His biographies frequently note that he preferred to pray while walking outdoors. This led to his purchase of a larger home outside of town later in life that included a beautiful garden surrounded by enough quiet acreage to enable him to prayer walk often. His accounts of these times were that they were deeply refreshing to his soul, particularly in seasons of great stress and despair.

In emulation of his example, I began praying for God to give me a quiet place where I could regularly go to have silence, solitude, and sufficient acreage to prayer walk. God was exceedingly gracious and provided a wonderful place. It is less than an hour drive from my home and is overseen by a loving Christian couple who maintain it as a small retreat center nestled on forty manicured acres of forest buttressed up against a slough from which I can canoe onto a lake. They have given me my own small apartment there to enjoy one day a week, enabling me to prayer walk, write, and even stay the night if I so desire. Like Spurgeon, the burdens of pastoring a large church in a major city can become daunting and I find having a quiet retreat in creation to prayer walk for long hours without interruption is often nothing short of a life saver.

Joy

Spurgeon viewed pleasure as a gift from God and did not gravitate toward Gnosticism or asceticism in the practice of the spiritual disciplines. Rather, he enjoyed his freedom in Christ to its fullest. Though scandalous to many, he drank beer, wine, and brandy. Further, after a visiting pastor proclaimed the evils of smoking to Spurgeon’s church, he simply replied, “I shall go home and smoke the best cigar I have got to the glory of God.” Like Spurgeon, I have received much criticism over the years for my enjoyment of such things as alcohol consumption in moderation. I have found him to be a great encouragement to live by Scripture and conscience rather than critics and legalisms.

One of the things I have most appreciated about Spurgeon is his witty and seemingly continual sense of humor. Spurgeon was known to have a robust sense of humor that spilled out into his preaching much to the consternation of his many critics. Still, Spurgeon shared the Bible’s love of irony and sarcasm, and his great wit endeared him to people who appreciated the fullness of his emotional life. It made him a real human being from whom people enjoyed learning the Bible. Among my favorite Spurgeon quips is his statement that he loved church committees and believed the ideal committee consisted of three people, two of whom stayed home. Curiously, one of the least known books ever published by Spurgeon is actually a collection of his writings on the subject of humor, Eccentric Preachers. I greatly enjoyed reading it in conjunction with a sermon I preached about humor in preaching, as it argued for the place of humor and personality quirks in preaching.

Mercy

Spurgeon was committed to activism and social justice, going so far as to preach against slavery, which made him very unpopular in America, where his printed sermons were banned and burned. Spurgeon was also a very merciful man who opened and oversaw an orphanage for needy children. Many called the orphanage the greatest sermon he ever preached. His wife, Susannah, had a particular burden for poor pastors who could not afford books to assist their studies of Scripture. She raised money for a pastors’ book fund that gave away thousands of books to needy pastors.
What I find encouraging about the example of Charles and Susannah is their humble willingness to use their influence and resources for the service of others in need. Too often, it seems, those preachers who are so devoted to study are sadly less enthusiastic to do good works and serve those in need. I am continually convicted that he preached the gospel both in word and deed without being caught up in the kind of debate that raged in his day about the social gospel versus the propositional gospel. Spurgeon simply served the whole person with the whole gospel, which again helps to explain his success in reaching all strata of society.

In light of Susannah’s example I now give away a few thousand copies of each of my books to mainly young pastors and church planters. In addition, we give away my sermons online for free to the tune of a few million downloads a year at www.marshillchurch.org and on iTunes and YouTube. We also give away theological content at www.theresurgence.com and host free training events for pastors. Thus, we have seen thousands of pastors taught free of charge through Mars Hill and other Acts 29 churches around the nation and the world.

Evangelism

The hyper-Calvinists in his day disdained Spurgeon for his passion for lost people to meet Jesus and his continual offering of the gospel of grace to the masses, which led to the baptism of 14,692 converts during his ministry. Despite much mean-spirited opposition, Spurgeon never shied away from calling all people to repentance and used unconventional means, such as meeting in a public theater (not a church) and preaching from a stage (not a raised pulpit), in an effort to be more culturally relevant with his ministry style. Curiously, however, he forbade the use of choirs, organs, and other musical instruments in his church services.

Spurgeon has deeply impressed upon me the importance of always inviting people to repent of sin and trust in Jesus. He rightly shared God’s heart for lost people and his example reveals that one can believe in both election and evangelism, as the Apostle Paul did also. Too often those of us who are theologically reformed spend more time criticizing evangelistic methods than doing evangelism ourselves. I too consider myself something of a reformed evangelist and appreciate that Spurgeon shared a deep love for lost people that God used to save many lives.

An Interview with Dr. Sam Storms

In the book Signs of the Spirit by Dr. Sam Storms we see articulation of many things about Jonathan Edwards' view of the spiritual life. Edwards' Religious Affections were written in the time of Revival or what folks might call a Holy Ghost Party. The outcome from Dr. Storms book is a fresh and encouraging look at getting to really understand one of the greatest works by an American theologian. This book is in no way trying to help people police the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact the attempt is to get people understanding Edwards' thoughts on believers who love Jesus to have a heart aflame for God and life. By staying biblically grounded one can truly embrace full humanity, emotions, intellect, spiritual affections in the redeemed image of God. Please take a listen to Sam Storms thoughts.

There are many popular misconceptions about John Calvin. Who is the true Calvin behind the image?

Will Durant, the famous author of the eleven-volume series on the History of Western Civilization, said of Calvin: "We shall always find it hard to love the man, John Calvin, who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense."

The year was 1812. America had just declared war on Great Britain in June and lost its first battle in October. In the midst of that climate, a young, unimpressive minister on his way to an assignment in New York stopped at a church in the community of South Britain, Connecticut. ¹ When he was invited to preach, no one could have anticipated the impact his ministry would have, not only on this small church, but also on all the East Coast over the next three decades.

The dashing young minister had a captivating personality. Educated at a prestigious college, this brilliant scion of a distinguished family was a magnetic preacher. When spiritual awakening came to his area of New England, he gathered his congregation for a special meeting. Unbelievably, he preached to as many as would listen for twenty-four hours-until he collapsed. From then on he called those he regarded as truly saved "brother" and "sister," and the rest "neighbor." When speaking as a guest preacher in a Connecticut city, he concluded his address by sauntering down the center aisle crying out, "Come to Christ! Come to Christ! Come away [from the world]!" Then he went into a pew full of women and sang and prayed intermittently. Women joined in with him, some fainting and others erupting in hysterics. This continued into the evening, when he marched off through the streets singing at the top of his lungs.

It is well-known that Puritans were lovers of the Word of God. They were not content with the bare affirmation of the infallibility, inerrancy, and authority of Scripture. They read, searched, sang, and heard the Word with delight, always seeking for and relishing the applying power of the Holy Spirit accompanying the Word. They regarded the sixty-six books of Holy Scripture as the library of the Holy Spirit graciously given to them. For the Puritan, Scripture is God speaking to us, as a father speaks to his children. In Scripture God gives us His Word as both a word of truth and a word of power. As a word of truth, we can trust in and rest our all upon Scripture for time and eternity. As a word of power, we can look to Scripture as the source of transformation used by the Spirit of God to renew our minds.

Our material for the previous issue, on the theme of "Puritanism," became so vast that, as previously noted in Volume Five, Number Two, we decided to expand this theme to a second full issue; thus this volume is "Puritanism, II." With the present ongoing recovery of Puritan literature, sermons, and practical works it becomes increasingly necessary that we know the subjects and thoughts of the Puritans. This theme is genuinely worthy of this double issue. I hope that you agree as you read the articles in this present issue.

Theologian and contemporary author James I. Packer has written:

Horse racing is said to be the sport of kings. The sport of slinging mud has, however, a wider following. Pillorying the Puritans, in particular, has long been a popular pastime on both sides of the Atlantic, and most people's image of Puritanism still has on it much disfiguring dirt that needs to be scraped off.¹

In recent years there has been, happily, a wonderful recovery of interest in the writings and lives of the Puritans, both of the English and American variety. Hundreds of reprints have been issued, scores of modern studies written, and conferences on Puritan thought and practice now abound. As recently as the 1960s the evangelical world knew next to nothing of these Gospel worthies of the seventeenth century. Now, a few decades later, translations of Puritan works are even available in numerous languages, making this rich mine of pastoral and devotional wisdom accessible to millions of potential Christian readers.

We sometimes sing a hymn which includes the words, "Tell me the story simply as to a little child."

It would have helped if someone in my Christian experience had told me the story of the Puritans simply, as to a little child. I am a South African in background and upbringing. I learned history at school. Some of it was English history, but I would not have been able to give an outline of British kings and queens. Soon after coming to England in 1954, I was introduced to the Puritans and began to attend the annual two-day Puritan Conference at Westminster Chapel, near Buckingham Palace. Fascination with the Puritans, their lives and their theology, greatly increased my appreciation of the history of those times. I listened to the original papers on the Puritans by Dr. Jim Packer, which he has now brought together under the title, The Quest for Godliness-The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life.