I want to begin just by talking
a little bit about Spurgeon himself. I would venture to say every
one of us here this evening is familiar with the name Charles
Haddon Spurgeon. If not, you ought to be, because
Spurgeon is easily regarded the greatest Baptist preacher who
has ever lived. But I would add to that, he is
the greatest preacher of the English language who has ever
lived. I would add to that, Spurgeon,
I think, is arguably the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul. He is worthy of our focus. He is called by many the Prince
of Preachers. I would say he is the undisputed
Prince of Preachers. If John Calvin was the greatest
theologian the church has known, and I believe that he was, if
Jonathan Edwards is the greatest philosopher, if George Whitefield
is the greatest evangelist, then Charles Haddon Spurgeon, I believe,
is easily the greatest pastor, preacher, evangelist to occupy
one pulpit, which he did for thirty-eight years. And the thrust
of this book is that Spurgeon held Calvinism in one hand, he
held evangelism in the other hand, and he married the two,
I believe perhaps as no other pastor ever has. Just to give
a few of the accolades for Spurgeon, there's no shortage of accolades,
but just a few. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the doctor,
has said of Spurgeon that he is one of the greatest preachers
of the last century, if not the greatest of all. 19th century
England, that Victoria era, is probably the most fertile cradle
for preachers. And Spurgeon easily stood out
of all of those great English preachers of the 19th century.
But I would add again, I think he is the greatest preacher of
any century going back to the first century. James Montgomery
Boyce writes that Spurgeon was one of the greatest evangelists
England has ever seen and one of the country's staunchest defenders
of the doctrines of grace. In other words, Spurgeon had
the depth of Calvinism, but the breadth of a passionate evangelism. And that's what all of us want
in our ministries, in our lives. We want the depth. We want to
be rooted and grounded in the doctrines of grace. but we want
the breadth of red-hot evangelism and proclaiming the gospel of
Christ to a lost and dying world. And Spurgeon is the epitome of
this. Al Mohler, who was a part of
this conference, has written, Spurgeon was a legend in his
own day. He stands alone as the most widely
appreciated and influential preacher of his century. Spurgeon preached
a full-bodied gospel with Calvinist convictions and an evangelistic
appeal. When you take Calvinism and when
you take evangelism and bring them together, it's like gas
and fire. And when you bring them together,
there is an explosion. If all you have is Calvinism,
you're going to end up with stoic eggheads who are just staring at their
navel. If all that you have is evangelism, I believe you'll
have a manipulative evangelism, and there will be untold numbers
who have a false assurance of their unconverted state. The
only one who plays with a full deck is a Calvinistic evangelist. He has a two-edged sword. He
has everything at his disposal. And so it was with Charles Haddon
Spurgeon. Let me give you a flyover of
his life very quickly. He was born June the 19th, 1834
in Kelvington, England near Essex. He was born into a family of
preachers. His father was a pastor, his grandfather was a pastor,
and he came from Dutch and French Huguenots stock. He grew up reading
the Puritans from his grandfather's house, yet he was not converted
until age 15. You're perhaps familiar with
the account of how he was walking to church as a snowstorm blew
in. He was diverted unintentionally
to a small Methodist chapel. There were only twelve people
there that Sunday. The preacher couldn't even make
it. A layman had to stand up, and he took for his text Isaiah
45, 22. Look unto me and be saved, all
the ends of the earth." And Charles Haddon Spurgeon was dramatically
converted under the preaching of the Word of God, and it would
mark his life. He immediately began to preach.
He started preaching at age 16. His gifts were immediately noticed,
and at age 17 he began pastoring his first church. The church
more than doubled. His reputation began to grow
far and wide, and at age nineteen he was called to London to the
most historic Baptist church in all of England, the New Park
Baptist Church. and there he became the pastor
at age 19. The sanctuary held 1,200. It
had dwindled down to 200. They were a desperate congregation,
and they took this young preacher prodigy, Spurgeon, and Spurgeon
began to preach in this empty sanctuary, and within the year,
it was standing room only. In fact, you had to have a ticket
to get into church, even for the midweek service. The hand
of God was obviously upon Spurgeon. Soon, they had to move the church
services into Exeter Hall, and it held 5,000. Every Sunday morning,
every Sunday evening, at age 20, he was preaching to 5,000
people, and there were traffic jams in front of the Exeter Hall. He was a phenomenon. They had
to move into a larger building, and at age 22, they moved into
the music hall at Royal Garden Surrey, which held 12,000 people. Every service for the next several
years were filled. In fact, Spurgeon said, I cannot
point to a single seat in the entire building but that there
was someone converted to Christ. in each of the seats in that
extraordinary facility. The city of London had not experienced
anything like this since the days of George Whitefield, a
hundred years earlier. At age 23, he preached to the
largest gathering of its day, to over 23,000 people on a day
of national prayer and fasting, that while he was but 23 years
of age. It became obvious that they needed
to build a facility, a permanent facility And so the Metropolitan
Tabernacle was built, and they moved into it when Spurgeon was
twenty-six years old. It held six thousand people.
It was the largest Protestant worship sanctuary in the world. And Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached
the gospel there as perhaps few have ever preached the gospel. He began to found ministries.
At age 23, for example, he founded the Pastors College. having never
attended a pastor's college himself, having never attended seminary,
but young men began to gather around him, and they were drawn
to the fire that was in the pulpit as he was preaching the Word
of God. And Spurgeon began training a new generation of men to preach
the Word of God. Countless other ministries were
established. His sermons were put into what
was called the penny pulpit. They were transcribed on the
front pew. The type was set, put in front of him on Monday.
He would make one edit, and then they were sold on the streets
of London for a penny. hence the penny pulpit. They
were cabled across the Atlantic to America. The sermons were
printed in full in various newspapers here in America. They were spread
throughout Europe, throughout Australia, New Zealand. There
was one order for a quarter of a million of just one sermon.
One man in Europe ordered one million copies of one sermon
to be distributed throughout the continent. The world has
never seen a preaching phenom quite like Charles Spurgeon.
There are 63 volumes of his sermons. I have all of them in my office. And in that, they took simply
the fifty best of a particular year. But he preached on Monday
and Tuesday and Wednesday and throughout the week, throughout
London and throughout England. And this collection of sermons
total some four thousand sermons, and it is the largest such set
by any author on any subject, not just Christianity. So he
was such a productive man. He died in January 31st, 1892
at age 57. There were five funerals. Some
50,000 people viewed the body. The picture above is taking the
casket into the cemetery. There were some 12,000 people
who just stood in respect at the gate entering into the cemetery. He is the Prince of Preachers.
And so, I want to ask, what is the inner core of the secret
of His great preaching? Time does not permit me to trace
this out in every direction. His confidence in the Word of
God, He was known for preaching Christ and Christ crucified. He would say a sermon without
Christ is like an ocean without water. It's like bread without
flour. It's like a well without water. It's like the sky without the
sun. He said a sermon without Christ is an awful thing. He
preached Christ in Christ alone. And at the heart of his preaching
of Christ was his red-hot Calvinism. He was a staunch Calvinist, and
the reason was is because he was so biblical. He was committed
to the authority of the Word of God, and there was no place
else for him to go, but that the Scripture clearly taught
the doctrines of grace. He said, I believe nothing merely
because Calvin taught it, and we would say amen to that. but
because I have found his teaching in the Word of God." Spurgeon
said, unless you can put finger on chapter and verse, I will
not believe it. It mattered not what some Reformer
taught. All that mattered is, what does
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have to say? What does Jesus,
the head of the church, have to say? And it was the Reformers,
we believe, who excavated the mines of Scripture and brought
the gold forth. And Spurgeon stood on the shoulders
of these great Reformers, but he had struck gold himself in
the mountains of Scripture. As Spurgeon was rooted and grounded
in the Scripture, he says, Calvinism did not spring from Calvin. We
believe that it sprang from the great Founder of all truth, capital
F. Calvin derived it mainly from
the writings of Augustine. Augustine obtained his views
without a 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. And we say amen to this. Spurgeon
became the single most popular preacher of Calvinism, I think,
in any century. Spurgeon said, the old truth
that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached,
is the truth that I must preach today, or else be false to my
conscience and to my God. I cannot shape the truth. I know
of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine.
John Knox's gospel is my gospel, and that which thundered through
Scotland must thunder through England again today. And I would
add, it must thunder through Orlando and Atlanta and Kansas
City and Los Angeles and New York again, because it is the
truth of the Word of God. Spurgeon clearly set forth the
five points of Calvinism. He was a card-carrying, five-point
Calvinist. Unashamedly, in fact, when the
Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened on April the 11th, 1861, the
first sermon to be preached by Spurgeon in this largest Protestant
worship house was a message entitled, An Exposition of the Doctrines
of Grace. And he proclaimed the five points
of Calvinism and then had five other preachers preach after
him, one each on the five headings of the doctrines of grace. And
just quickly, some of his quotes on the doctrines of grace, on
total depravity. The venom of sin is in the very
fountain of our being. It has poisoned our heart. It
is in the very marrow of our bones. It is as natural to us
as anything that belongs to us. He believed not only in that
the mind is darkened and that the heart is defiled, but the
will is dead and in bondage to sin and Satan and suffers moral
inability and cannot believe in Jesus Christ. For after all,
what can a dead man do? And the answer to that is nothing
except stink. That is all that a dead man can
do. and except for the Spirit of
God, resurrect and raise the dead sinner to life and to repentance
and faith, there is no coming to Christ. Spurgeon taught unconditional
election. He said, whatever may be said
about the doctrine of election, it is written in the Word of
God as with an iron pen, and there is no getting rid of it.
The grass withers, the flower fades away, but the Word of our
God abides forever. It is forever written in Scripture
that He has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of
the world." Spurgeon believed in definite atonement, and I
will tell you this, I have some barn burner quotes on definite
atonement that I have found and put, and time does not permit
me to share these with you right now, but just one. Spurgeon said
regarding definite atonement, I would rather believe a limited
atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended. than a universal atonement that
is not efficacious for anybody except the will of man be joined
with it." Now, the fact is everyone limits the atonement. It's either
you limit the extent or you limit the application, but Spurgeon
believed that Christ died for the sheep of Christ, that He
bought the church with His own blood. He taught irresistible
grace. A man is not saved against his
will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy
Ghost. A mighty grace, which he does not wish to resist, enters
into the man, disarms him, and makes a new creature of him,
and he is saved." In other words, it is the Holy Spirit, Spurgeon
said, who overcomes our resistance. And it is He who makes us willing
in the day of His power, and that all glory goes to God, for
He is the one who has applied salvation to our rebellious hearts. And He taught preserving grace. He said, if ever one child of
God did perish, or if I knew it were possible that one could,
I should conclude at once that I must, and I suppose each one
of you would do the same. No, he believed that all the
sheep which were purchased by Christ and brought to saving
faith in Him shall be safely guarded and carried all the way
to glory, and not a one of His sheep shall perish. So, Spurgeon
was committed to the doctrines of grace. He said concerning
the fact that it is necessary, it is necessary to preach these
truths. He said, I question whether we
have preached the whole counsel of God unless predestination
with all of its solemnity and sureness is continually declared. He affirmed that every preacher
must teach these truths. He said, some of you have never
preached upon election since you were ordained. These things,"
you say, are offensive. And so, gentlemen, you would
rather offend God than you would offend man? But you reply, these
things will not be practical. I do think that the climax of
all man's blasphemy is centered upon that utterance. No, these
truths are gloriously practical. They are the greatest pride crusher.
They are the greatest worship enlarger. They are the greatest
fire for evangelism. They launch missions. They bring
the fear of God to the hearts of men. They purify the souls
of those who are followers of Christ. No, it is these truths
that give boldness and confidence to God's people to carry the
gospel to the ends of the earth. Spurgeon went on to say, tell
me that God put a thing in the Bible that I am not to preach? You are finding fault with my
God. But you say it will be dangerous. What? God's truth dangerous? I should not like to stand in
your shoes when you have to face your Maker on the day of judgment,
after such an utterance of that. And I'll tell you this, Spurgeon
went on to say it is nothing but potpourri. It is potpourri
that says that the truth must be withheld from the common man.
that only the pope and only the cardinals and only the laity
can understand the Bible, but that the people are just too
ignorant and too stupid and too pedestrian in life to understand
the truth. The Roman Catholic Church has
held back the truth for centuries from their people, and Spurgeon
applies this to the doctrines of grace. And he says, to withhold
these glorious truths is nothing more than to fashion your ministry
after Rome. Spurgeon went on to say, God
gave me this great book to preach from, and if He has put anything
in it you think is not fit, go and complain to Him. In other words, it's not my message,
it's God's message, and we are to declare it from the housetops.
Let me tell you," Spurgeon said, the reason why many of our churches
are declining is just because this doctrine has not been preached. He went on to say, I am often
charged with preaching doctrines that may do a great deal of hurt.
I have my witnesses here present to prove that the things which
I have preached have done a great deal of hurt, but they have not
done hurt to morality or to God's church. The hurt has been to
Satan. It has crushed the kingdom of
darkness. The sovereignty of God is a treasure
that God's people cling to. He said, these are the old truths
of Scripture and we must come back to these old paths. Spurgeon
said, it is no new novelty then that I am preaching. No new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong
old doctrines. They are called by nickname Calvinism,
but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as
it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth, I make my pilgrimage
into the past, and as I go, I see church father after church father,
confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr standing up to shake
hands with me." It is a long line of godly men down through
the centuries who have blown this trumpet in Zion and who
have declared these truths from the housetops. So he held Calvinism
in one hand. He held evangelism in the other
hand. And Spurgeon said, I've had only
one model in the ministry, and it is not John Calvin. It is
George Whitefield. The great evangelist George Whitefield
is my model in all things, he said. Spurgeon said, other men
seem to be only half alive. But Whitefield was all life,
fire, wind, force. My own model, if I may have such
a thing and do subordination to my Lord, is George Whitefield. With unequaled footsteps must
I follow his glorious track." By the way, it was Martin Lloyd-Jones
who said of Whitefield, other men merely existed, Whitefield
lived. Robert Murray McShane said, oh,
for one week of Whitefield's life. Spurgeon said, that is
my model, that he is my mentor in the ministry. So Spurgeon
was committed to preaching the gospel, pleading, urging, exhorting. begging sinners to come to the
cross and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He extended
the free offer of the gospel constantly and continually and
pleaded with lost sinners to come this very moment to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was once asked, how do you
reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility? And
Spurgeon replied, I never have to reconcile friends. Divine
sovereignty and human responsibility have never had a falling out
with each other. I do not need to reconcile what
God has joined together. Where these two truths meet,
I do not know, nor do I want to know. They do not puzzle me,
since I have given up my mind to believing them both." And
listen, that's exactly the way it is with us in the doctrine
of the Trinity. Is God one or is He three? The
answer is yes. Is Jesus Christ fully God, or
is He fully man? The answer is yes. Who wrote
Romans? Did God write? Is that God's
book, or did Paul write it? The answer is yes. We can go
through every major doctrine in the Bible, and there is tension.
And Spurgeon understood that as we come to the doctrine of
election and the free offer of the gospel. Which is it? The answer is yes. We embrace
it all as believers in the full counsel of God. Now, I want to
set before you two sermons very quickly. I just want you to see
how Spurgeon laid this out. One is a sermon I read thirty-five
years ago. I'll never forget reading this
sermon on John 6, verse 37. "'All that the Father has given
Me shall come to Me.'" and him who comes unto me I shall in
no wise cast out." There you have in one verse the sovereignty
of God in salvation, and you have the free offer of the gospel
in the second half of the same verse. And what Spurgeon would
do, and I have the outline in front of you, his first main
heading was as he preached this sermon, grace triumphant in speciality. And time does not permit me to
look at each of these subheadings, but what he laid out in indisputable
logic and exegesis from the text is that every single one of the
elect whom the Father chose, He gave to the Son, and within
time they shall be brought to saving faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Not a one will be lost. And then for the second half
of the sermon, he moved to the second main heading, grace triumphant
in its liberality. And he moved into pleading, urging,
calling people to faith in Christ. The gates of paradise are swung
wide open. This is a day of opportunity
for you to commit your life. to Jesus Christ, and if you will
come, you will not be cast out." And in his mind, he began to
reason what people would be saying who yet need to come to Christ,
that I have rejected the gospel again and again and again, but
the offer still goes out. It is never too late to give
your life to Christ. This sermon I would just urge
you to read on your own, but it is a glorious example of His
evangelistic fire. I'll give you one other. I don't
have time to comment on it, and I don't have a slide for it,
but a sermon that He preached compelled them to come in. from
Luke 14 and verse 23, how God's servants are to go out into the
highways and into the byways, and whoever they find, we must
compel them to come in. And Spurgeon moves through every
angle on what it means to compel an unbeliever to come to faith
in Jesus Christ. Everything from bold proclamations
to open invitations to tender appeals, sound reasonings, compelling
persuasions, authoritative commands, as well as severe warnings if
you do not come to faith this very day. in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to conclude with this
other sermon. I'll never forget reading this
sermon some thirty years ago. The title of the sermon is simply,
It's from 2 Corinthians 6 verse 2. Behold, now is the accepted
time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. And Spurgeon models for us the
urgency with which we must preach the gospel, the sense of immediacy. And my fear is that many who
are Calvinists have actually in practice become hyper-Calvinists,
where there is no pleading for lost sinners to come to Christ
this very moment. In doctrine, they may not be
hyper-Calvinists, but in practice, they are. Listen to Spurgeon
in this sermon now as he is preaching. The most of men procrastinate. It is not that they resolve to
be damned, but they resolve to be saved tomorrow. It is not that they reject Christ
forever, but that they reject Christ today. And truly, they
might as well reject Him forever, as continue perpetually to reject
Him today. Spurgeon would go on to say,
tomorrow is the devil's day. Today is God's day. There are
souls who have procrastinated towards Christ, and they have
procrastinated their very souls into hell. If you are to be saved,
you must believe in Christ now, today, while the offer is being
presented. Spurgeon said, now is the day
of salvation. You need it now. God is angry
with you now. You are condemned already, now
without God, now without hope, now an alien from the commonwealth
of Israel, now dead in trespasses and sins, now in danger of the
wrath to come. Now, therefore, you need to be
saved. He goes on to say, "'But, sir,
I do not think such a thing should be done in a hurry.'" A hurry? What does David say? I made haste
and delayed not to keep thy commandments. A hurry when a man is on the
edge of damnation and on the borders of the grave? Do not
talk of hurry, sir, when it is a case of life and death. Let
us fly as swift as a flash of lightning." Spurgeon said, if
the gospel command were, think and be saved, I would cheerfully
allow you a month's thinking. But the command is, believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and now is the accepted time. Well, says
one, I do not feel convinced enough. Dear friend, you do not
think that now is the accepted time? Here is a quarrel that
you have with God. God says now, you say no. He went on to say, you say, yes,
but I would like to get home and pray. My text does not say
it will be the accepted time when you get home and pray. It
says now, and as I find you are now in this pew, now is the accepted
time. Now you think about that. Delayed
obedience is no obedience. Delayed obedience is disobedience. We have become way too passive
in our preaching of the gospel, way too passive in our witnessing
and sharing the gospel with others. Tomorrow is the devil's day.
Today is God's day. Spurgeon went on to say, If you trust Christ now, you
will be accepted. If now you are enabled to throw
yourself simply into the hands of Christ, now is the accepted
time between you and God. And then he went on to say, some
of my hearers who listened to me last year and in the years
that are past are now, now in hell, now where no hope can come,
now where no gospel shall be preached, now where they bitterly
reject their wasted Sabbaths. Now where memory holds a dreadful
reign, now where their worm dies not, and the fire is quenched
not." There are souls in hell now because they procrastinated
yesterday, is what Spurgeon said. Ian Murray in his book, Forgotten
Spurgeon, said, he puts the sinner in the vice grip. On one side,
he tightens divine sovereignty and says, you cannot believe.
With the other vice grip, he tightens it and says, you must
believe. And tightens it, tightens it
until there is such deep consternation and deep upheaval within the
soul that they throw themselves upon God's mercy, and the sinner
is begging God to save them. Spurgeon said, I always feel
that I have not done my duty as a preacher of the gospel if
I go out of this pulpit without having clearly set before sinners
the way of salvation. I mean, after all, we are ministers
of the new covenant, are we not? After all, we are commissioned
by the head of the church to preach the gospel to every living
creature. Spurgeon said, preach the gospel,
the gates of hell shake. Preach the gospel, prodigals
return. Preach the gospel to every creature. It is the master's mandate. In other words, this is non-negotiable. You may be a barber, but if you
don't cut hair, you're not a barber. You may call yourself a bus driver,
but if you don't drive a bus, you're not a bus driver. You
may call yourself a preacher, but if you don't preach the gospel
and urge people to come to faith in Christ, you're not a preacher.
My last slide. May God put this into our hearts
and souls. May I be like this. May you be
like this. This is what true Calvinism communicates. If sinners will be damned, at
least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will
perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees.
imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least
let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one
go there unwarned and unprayed for." It is hyper-Calvinism,
that dreaded death stench. that does not plead with lost
sinners to come to Christ. It is that death's stench upon
a church that does not pray for the lost to come to faith in
Christ. God deliver us from the abominable
disease of hyper-Calvinism. God give us true Calvinism. Give us biblical Calvinism. Give us gospel-preaching Calvinism. Give us cross-centered, Christ-exalting
Calvinism that offers the gospel and pleads with lost sinners
to come this very moment to faith in Jesus Christ. and then to
leave the results with a sovereign God in heaven who will save His
own people from their sins. In this book, The Gospel Focus
of Charles Spurgeon, I have tried to show his commitment to the
doctrines of grace, but also his fierce commitment to be a
soul winner. and to be an evangelist with
the gospel. Spurgeon said, I would rather
lead one soul to Christ than to unpick all the mysteries of
the Bible. May God use us to lead souls
to Christ. And those of us who stand in
pulpits, let us preach as though souls are truly perishing. and that there is but one Savior,
who is Jesus Christ our Lord. God bless you.