I once preached where the great C. H. Spurgeon preached. Well almost, anyway.
Some years ago on a visit back to England, the land of my birth, I was given the privilege of preaching in a small Baptist Church in a quaint, picturesque, backwater village in the county of Devon.
I noticed on the east side of the sanctuary a golden plaque mounted on the wall. It recalled the time, well over a 100 years before, when Spurgeon came to the Church to preach. (It would have been a huge honor for this Church to have such a highly acclaimed guest speaker. In his day, he was more popular and recognizable than even the Prime Minister of England. It would also be true to say that he pastored the first mega church in the city of London. Even today, Spurgeon is known as “the Prince of Preachers”).
Well though the village itself had a population of around 300, more than 1,200 people (many from surrounding villages) came to listen to Spurgeon that day. The plaque on the wall recounted how, for that one evening, the little Church building was totally inadequate, and so the service took place in the open air, on the village green.
My first reaction in seeing the plaque was the feeling of empathy for all the pastors who have served God in that place down through the years. How intimidating it must have been to preach within eye sight of that plaque. Perhaps many pastors had thought (wrongly of course) that they were abject failures because they had never had to use the village green since then, as Spurgeon had done.
Perhaps, over the years, even a demon or two had camped out next to the plaque each Sunday, goading each preacher who stood behind the pulpit, spewing out their venomous and hostile words. I have a vivid imagination and could certainly feel the shrill of such hellish words as “Spurgeon got 1,200 to hear him here. What is the point of your ministry Mr. Preacher, with this small handful in front of you.”
Yes, all those thoughts raced through my mind as I stood beneath the plaque. My preaching and service there would be over within the hour, but the Church books recalled the names of faithful men of God who served their generation in that tiny place, heroes in my eyes.
As much as I appreciate the plaque’s history lesson, I think if I was pastor there, I would want the plaque removed. Then the thought came to me that perhaps many a pastor had actually attempted to do just that, and was unsuccessful (the congregation flexing its muscles, so to speak, and voting each pastor down who sought its removal at the annual members’ meeting). All I knew was that, quite clearly, the plaque remained. Certainly, there was still an air of triumph about the place that a man such as Spurgeon had graced this village Church so long ago.
Of course, none of this was Spurgeon’s fault. It was not his problem that he was so well liked. Actually, the more I discover about the man, the more I admire both him and his God centered ministry.
I have put together some Spurgeon quotes on the theme of TULIP (the Doctrines of Grace) and because of our present study taking place here on the blog, post them here. I find that his insights and pithy comments are often the last word on any given topic as it is hard to improve on how he puts things. As I read his words, I often find myself chuckling. Spurgeon was quite the wit. I hope you enjoy the following quotes as much as I have:
“We give our hand to every man that loves the Lord Jesus Christ, be he what he may or who he may. The doctrine of election, like the great act of election itself, is intended to divide, not between Israel and Israel, but between Israel and the Egyptians, not between saint and saint, but between saints and the children of the world. A man may be evidently of God’s chosen family, and yet though elected, may not believe in the doctrine of election. I hold that there are many savingly called, who do not believe in effectual calling, and that there are a great many who persevere to the end, who do not believe the doctrine of final perseverance. We do hope the hearts of many are a great deal better than their heads. We do not set their fallacies down to any willful opposition to the truth as it is in Jesus but simply to an error in their judgments, which we pray God to correct. We hope that if they think us mistaken too, they will reciprocate the same Christian courtesy; and when we meet around the cross, we hope that we shall ever feel that we are one in Christ Jesus.”
“The doctrines of original sin, election, effectual calling, final perseverance, and all those great truths which are called Calvinism—though Calvin was not the author of them, but simply an able writer and preacher upon the subject—are, I believe, the essential doctrines of the Gospel that is in Jesus Christ. Now, I do not ask you whether you believe all this—it is possible you may not; but I believe you will before you enter heaven. I am persuaded, that as God may have washed your hearts, he will wash your brains before you enter heaven.”
“A controversialist once said, “If I thought God had a chosen people, I should not preach.” That is the very reason why I do preach. What would make him inactive is the mainspring of my earnestness. If the Lord had not a people to be saved, I should have little to cheer me in the ministry.”
“I believe that God will save his own elect, and I also believe that, if I do not preach the gospel, the blood of men will be laid at my door.”
“There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer – I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it.”
“We believe in the five great points commonly known as Calvinistic; but we do not regard these five points as being barbed shafts which we are to thrust between the ribs of our fellow Christians. We look upon them as being five great lamps which help to irradiate the cross; or, rather, five bright emanations springing from the glorious covenant of our Triune God, and illustrating the great doctrine of Jesus crucified.”
“I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel… unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah. Nor do I think we can preach the Gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of his elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend the Gospel which allows saints to fall away after they are called.”
“I believe nothing merely because Calvin taught it, but because I have found his teaching in the Word of God.”
“I believe the man who is not willing to submit to the electing love and sovereign grace of God, has great reason to question whether he is a Christian at all, for the spirit that kicks against that is the spirit of the devil, and the spirit of the unhumbled, unrenewed heart.”
““But,” say others, “God elected them on the foresight of their faith.” Now, God gives faith, therefore he could not have elected them on account of faith, which he foresaw. There shall be twenty beggars in the street, and I determine to give one of them a shilling; but will any one say that I determined to give that one a shilling, that I elected him to have the shilling, because I foresaw that he would have it? That would be talking nonsense. In like manner to say that God elected men because he foresaw they would have faith, which is salvation in the germ, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment.”
“Our Arminian antagonists always leave the fallen angels out of the question: for it is not convenient to them to recollect this ancient instance of Election. They call it unjust, that God should choose one man and not another. By what reasoning can this be unjust when they will admit that it was righteous enough in God to choose one race—the race of men, and leave another race—the race of angels, to be sunk into misery on account of sin.”
“Some, who know no better, harp upon the foreknowledge of our repentance and faith, and say that, “Election is according to the foreknowledge of God;” a very scriptural statement, but they make a very unscriptural interpretation of it. Advancing by slow degrees, they next assert that God foreknew the faith and the good works of his people. Undoubtedly true, since he foreknew everything; but then comes their groundless inference, namely, that therefore the Lord chose his people because he foreknew them to be believers. It is undoubtedly true that foreknown excellencies are not the causes of election, since I have shown you that the Lord foreknew all our sin: and surely if there were enough virtue in our faith and goodness to constrain him to choose us, there would have been enough demerit in our bad works to have constrained him to reject us; so that if you make foreknowledge to operate in one way, you must also take it in the other, and you will soon perceive that it could not have been from anything good or bad in us that we were chosen, but according to the purpose of his own will, as it is written, “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.””
“Recollect also that God himself did not foresee that there would be any love to him in us arising out of ourselves, for there never has been any, and there never will be; he only foresaw that we should believe because he gave us faith, he foresaw that we should repent because his Spirit would work repentance in us, he foresaw that we should love, because he wrought that love within us; and is there anything in the foresight that he means to give us such things that can account for his giving us such things? The case is self-evident—his foresight of what he means to do cannot be his reason for doing it.”
“There was nothing more in Abraham than in any one of us why God should have selected him, for whatever good was in Abraham God put it there. Now, if God put it there, the motive for his putting it there could not be the fact of his putting it there.”
“Grace does not choose a man and leave him as he is.”
“Our Saviour has bidden us to preach the gospel to every creature; he has not said, “Preach it only to the elect;” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet, since he has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads, or to put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform; whereas, when we preach the gospel to every creature, the gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear his voice, and follow him.”
“God neither chose them nor called them because they were holy, but He called them that they might be holy, and holiness is the beauty produced by His workmanship in them.”