If you have never read a Charles Haddon Spurgeon sermon.....or heard someone preach one of his sermons on YouTube....I recommend that you give it a try....for there has been no preacher like him in the church over the last two centuries at least. He was called The Prince Of Preachers for a reason. I have yet to find a pastor who knew of Spurgeon....whose face did not light up at the mere mention of his name....although I have unfortunately met a number of pastors....primarily in mainline denominations.....who did not know who he was.
Charles Spurgeon was born in England in 1834. A churchgoer as a youth.....although not 'saved'....he ventured into a small local congregation on a snowy wintry day when he could not get to his own church....and heard a sermon by an old....uneducated in preaching....elder of the church....for the regular pastor could not make it to his church in the snow. Charles Spurgeon was converted that day....by the reading and stumbling commentary on Isaiah 45:22...."Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else"
The Holy Spirit moved upon Charles Spurgeon right from the beginning of his ministry. He preached for over forty years to the common folk....and to royalty....and to Prime Ministers....and huge congregations. His sermons were sent immediately by the Atlantic Telegraph Cable to America. Someone transcribed these sermons as he preached.....and after the service Spurgeon would go over that transcript.....and add corrections if necessary. As I type I'm looking at a genuine copy of one of those pages....ink splotch and all...on the wall in front of me....a gift from our son. Spurgeon said that he read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress....100 times! To my left I'm looking at a series of four beautiful graphic map renditions of Christian's journey from that book....also on the wall....and also a gift from our son.
Spurgeon was involved in a great controversy late in his life. His wife believed it contributed to the illness that caused his death. The church was sliding on a great downgrade into a modern liberal gospel. He was censured by the same ministerial group of which his preaching and theological school had been instrumental in supplying many of its members....and this rebuke from them....was for his defending the gospel of Jesus Christ! The great Anglican preacher J. C. Ryle warned right along with Spurgeon....but the people would not heed these warnings....just as we today will not heed the warnings on the downgrade in today's church in America.
American theologian and scholar from the first half of the twentieth century J. Gresham Machen was actually defrocked....for challenging the liberal element in the Presbyterian church. Billy Graham had more than his share of criticism and ridicule....and R. C. Sproul was thought by some of his peers to be deranged.
I've written this post to Christians....to tell them this....that there will be times....and this is certainly one of them....when you have to break away from the crowd....and not only think for yourselves....but stand up for what you will find to be right....even if it appears that you are the only one to do so....for we may be 'saved'....and our essential theology may be sound....but if we do not remain vigilant....at all times....we can take a wrong path.....and follow a wrong movement....and that unfortunately is exactly what has happened in our unwavering and unquestioning support today for a genuine biblical false prophet....Donald Trump....who uses the word 'God' all the time....repeating incessantly that we are...."One glorious nation under God".....and prophesying that the best is yet to come....when God's Word says the opposite....but unlike the Bereans who went to Scripture....we go no further than talk radio to see if these things that he says are true.
