Charles Haddon Spurgeon - a Remarkable Life and Ministry

By Phil Newton

            On January 31, 1892, after several months of struggling with a series of illnesses and failing health, the pastor of London's Metropolitan Tabernacle Church died. He had spent the last few months of his life in the French Rivera city of Mentone to escape the stifling weather of London. But this time Mentone - as it had done so many times before - could not reinvigorate the worn body of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It had been seven months since Spurgeon had stood in his pulpit to proclaim God's Word to his people as he had done since he was 19 years old. People all over Britain prayed for his recovery, including the chief Jewish rabbi and leaders of the Anglican Church. News of his death stunned the nation. Upon the return of his body, 50,000 people walked by his olive wood casket. Four funeral services in the 6000-seat auditorium of the Metropolitan Tabernacle were needed to receive the mourners. The bells tolled and pubs closed along the way as the carriage carried his body to Norwood Cemetery for burial, as thousands lined the 5-mile route to catch one more glimpse of the man that everyone in London knew. What was so unusual about this 19th century London Baptist pastor that would have shaken a nation at his death?

            Perhaps the reason for the nation's attention had to do with the 10,000 people that he preached to each Lord's Day for several decades in an era that knew nothing of megachurches; or perhaps because he knew his 5000 member congregation by name; or maybe it was his sermons that were read during his lifetime, according to estimations, by as many as 100 to 300 million people. Others would say that it was his 125+ books that he wrote or the 148,000 sets of his Treasury of David, an expositional commentary on the Psalms sold in his lifetime, or the 63 volumes of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit that endeared him to the Western world. Many others would point out that Spurgeon had begun orphanages for London's street children, a pastor's college to train ministers, planted numerous churches, impacted the morality of Britain, personally supported ministers and others, or the fact that in the midst of a deathly Cholera plague, he stayed in London to minister to the sick and dying.

            All of these things, I suppose, were reasons that a nation mourned this man's death. But something else - something infinitely more important appears to be the reason that over a hundred years after his death, people are still reading and studying about Spurgeon. And it is this - Jesus Christ owned Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

            Our purpose in considering Spurgeon during these sessions is not to glory in him but to glory in his Lord - the one to whom he was devoted. So, with the Apostle Paul, Spurgeon would have gladly stated, "By the grace of God, I am what I am." With this in mind, let us take a trip through Spurgeon's life and ministry, trying to see what devotion to Christ looked like in his life.

 

Beginnings

            Born in humble surroundings on June 19, 1834, Charles' family lacked the substance to care adequately for him, so when just a boy he began living with his grandparents. His grandfather was a Congregational minister that delighted in his grandson. The young boy learned to read while a preschooler, and stayed in his grandfather's study to devour the writings of the Puritans. James Spurgeon, his grandfather, would often have the young chap with him as he engaged in theological discussions - with the little boy hanging on to every word. Charles' favorite book was John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, as well as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, both of which had great impact on him. By the time he was only five or six he was reading the Scriptures for family worship in a demonstrative way.

            Charles returned to his parents, who by this time were better established and had added two more children to the family. He missed his grandfather's study but continued to read and listen carefully. His father was a minister as well, often meeting to discuss biblical matters with colleagues. Charles would sit in on these sessions and soak in the arguments. He later said, "I can bear witness that children can understand the Scriptures; for I am sure that, when but a child, I could have discussed many a knotty point of controversial theology, having heard both sides of the question freely stated among my father's circle of friends" [Dallimore, 9].

            As Charles progressed in school, he proved to be an excellent student, studying widely. While his brother, James, enjoyed more of the outdoors, Charles kept a book in hand. He also loved mathematics, even developing a set of calculations that a London insurance firm used for half a century. He and James went off to boarding school where Charles continued to excel in his studies, and to read everything he could get his hands on, especially his beloved Puritans.

 

Looking to Christ

            Even though he was brought up in a minister's home, and was exceptionally knowledgeable about theology, Charles Spurgeon was deeply troubled over his sin. In his own words of describing that time that conviction of sin set upon him, "I had rather pass through seven years of the most languishing sickness, than I would ever again pass through the terrible discovery of the evil of sin" [Dallimore, 15]. Though he read books that had helped others in their journey to Christ, Charles felt only bitterness in his soul. He, like Martin Luther in the 16th century, felt that he must do something for God to save him from his sins. All the while, as he put it, "That simplest of all matters - believing in Christ crucified, accepting His finished salvation, being nothing and letting Him be everything, doing nothing, but trusting to what He has done - I could not get hold of it" [Dallimore 16].

            On a bitterly cold January Sunday in 1850, Spurgeon tried to make his way to church but the blizzard conditions kept him from his normal attendance. He stepped into the Artillery Primitive Methodist Chapel, completely unknown to any present. Their own pastor was not able to get through the snow, so a layman that lacked education, stood to preach in the pastor's absence. His text was from Isaiah, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." Spurgeon later said that the man did not even pronounce the words clearly, but as he spoke that brief message, the anxious young man found a glimmer of hope. The preacher chimed, "This is a very simple text indeed. It says 'Look." Now lookin' don't take a deal of pain. It aint liftin' your foot or your finger; it is just 'Look." Well, a man needn't go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn't be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look."

            "But then the text says, 'Look unto Me.' Ay! Many on ye are lookin' to yourselves, but it's no use lookin' there. You'll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some say look to God the Father. No look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, 'Look unto Me.' Some on ye say 'We must wait for the Spirit's working.' You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, 'Look unto Me.'"

            "Look unto Me; I am sweatin' great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin' on the cross. Look unto Me, I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sitting at the Father's right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!"

            Spurgeon described the man as "at the end of his tether" after ten minutes, when he turned to the face of the stranger that had wandered in, and said, "Young man, you look very miserable." Spurgeon, unaccustomed to accusations about his appearance from the pulpit, felt the blow of the man's comment. "And you will always be miserable - miserable in life and miserable in death - if you don't obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved." Then he lifted his hands, shouting, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!"

            Spurgeon's own words explain what happened next. "I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said - I did not take much notice of it - I was so possessed with that one thought... I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, "Look!" what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away.

            "There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him" [Dalimore 18-19].

            As soon as he arrived home, his family knew that a wondrous change had come over him, and Charles Spurgeon testified of the joy of sins forgiven and the faithful work of Jesus Christ in his life. Though he was a Congregationalist, a denomination that practices infant baptism, he was convinced through studying the Scriptures that he needed to be baptized by immersion. So he sought out a Baptist pastor, and on May 3, 1850, he said that his timidity was washed away in the River Lark, along with a thousand fears.

 

The Work of Ministry

            Spurgeon immediately plunged into Christian work, serving beside others diligently in teaching Sunday School, passing out gospel tracts, and working with indigents in mission endeavors. When he was 17 years old, he was instructed by the pastor to accompany another church worker, telling him that a young man would be preaching and would appreciate having company. Spurgeon, of course, thought that the other young man would be preaching. So along the way he told the other one that he hoped that his preaching would be blessed. Shocked, his companion said, "I have never done such a thing in my life! You're the one who is to preach! I'm hear to keep you company!" Though quite surprised, Spurgeon quietly meditated along the way, thinking that as he had taught Sunday School he could also "tell a few poor cottagers of the sweetness and love of Jesus" that he felt in his own soul. He preached on the text, "Unto you therefore which believe He is precious," and spoke with a measure of power about Christ's glory and grace. The cottagers were enthusiastic about the young man's preaching, inviting him to come back [Dallimore 33-34].

            Soon he began to preach regularly in different villages, delighting in the whole experience, and showing unusual maturity in his content. One Sunday he preached in the Waterbeach Baptist Church. Being without a pastor, they immediately asked him to return. He did just that, and soon was called to be their pastor, even though he was only seventeen. He quickly became known as "The Boy Preacher," as the little church began to burst at the seams with those crowding into the building to hear him preach. But Spurgeon not only preached but also jumped in enthusiastically to do pastoral work, witnessing to unbelievers, praying for the sick, comforting those that suffered, and caring for the dying. A transformation occurred in the village as a spiritual awakening seemed to follow the young man's preaching and the congregation's praying.

            After two years at Waterbeach, Spurgeon was invited to fill the vacant pulpit of New Park Street Baptist Church in London. He stayed in a boarding house on Saturday, and was taunted by the residents for being only 19 years old and preaching at a rather large, established church. Spurgeon appeared to be a 'country bumpkin,' come to the city that was known for great pulpit orators. New Park Street Church had a long history of great pastors, Benjamin Keach, John Gill, and John Rippon. The large chapel was an imposing sight for him that Sunday morning, and he felt some temerity as he prepared to step into the pulpit. But he had prepared his heart before the Lord, and after entering the pulpit all the anxiety fled like a morning fog before the rising sun. He preached as he preached each Sunday at Waterbeach but the congregation felt as though they had never heard anyone like him before. That night the crowd was larger. After the sermon many of the people were urging the deacons to bring the boy preacher back!

            The invitation arrived for Charles Spurgeon, the 19-year old preacher to begin serving as pastor of New Park Street Church on a three-month trial basis. He accepted the call on one basis, "that in private as well as public, they [the church] must all wrestle in prayer" that he might be sustained for so great a work. He candidly added, "Remember my youth and inexperience and pray that these may not hinder my usefulness. I trust also the remembrance of these will lead you to forgive mistakes I may make, or unguarded words that I may utter" [Bacon, 35]. That spirit of humility marked his entire ministry. In February 1854, he began a pastoral charge that lasted nearly 40 years until his death.

            The 1200 seat chapel of New Park Street was soon filled, with Londoners coming from all over to hear Spurgeon preach. Jealous ministers often reproached him. Newspapers attacked him. But the crowds could be heard to say, "We're goin' to 'ear Mista' Spugun!" Taxi drivers would call out, "Over the water to Charlie," to add to their loads. People soon began to stand outside since the seats were all filled, hoping to get in.

After only a year, alterations were made to enlarge the chapel. Meanwhile the 4500- seat Exeter Hall was rented to hold the crowds. Week after week the people came, in spite of the continued caricatures and attacks by some newspapers that called him "a nine days' wonder," and likened him to a comet streaking across the sky and suddenly dying out [Bacon 46]. Some were supportive, comparing him with George Whitefield, the incomparable 18th century preacher that shook both sides of the Atlantic during the First Great Awakening. Though he felt completely unequal to the comparison, Spurgeon did look to Whitefield, the great open-air preacher, as his model. Even Exeter Hall, by this time, proved to be too small. So by the time they returned to the refurbished New Park Street Chapel, the building was far too small.

Recommendations were made to rent the Surrey Music Hall, comparable to a modern convention center. It could seat 12,000 people! The first service saw 12,000 inside and another 10,000 waiting outside, hoping to get in. But in the early part of the service, some ruffians planned to spoil the event, and they did just that. With the place filled to the brim with people, someone shouted, "FIRE!" Others cried, "The galleries are giving way, the place is falling!" It created a panic, so that in spite of Spurgeon's attempt to keep them calm, the crowds rushed to the exits, trampling seven people to death and injuring twenty-eight more. The blow was more than Spurgeon could take. He fainted in the pulpit and had to be carried out. He plunged into a deep depression, thinking that he could never preach again. But after some days at a friend's home trying to recover his mental equilibrium, he found comfort in the text, "Wherefore God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above every name." It was just what he needed, as he saw that the work of ministry was not about him but about Christ the Lord! He plunged back into the work, even returning to the Surrey Music Hall with overflowing crowds listening to the young man preach the gospel. This arrangement continued for three years while the new church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was being constructed.

When he was only twenty-three, Spurgeon was asked to preach at the Day of National Humiliation event that was held in the Crystal Palace. The largest crowd to that point ever to hear the gospel preached in a building, 23,654 people, listened to a powerful sermon on divine sovereignty and grace. Before the crowds came, workmen prepared the building for the event. Spurgeon went inside to check out the acoustics, and unknown to him a lone worker remained in an upper gallery of the building. Spurgeon stood on the platform and trumpeted the text, "Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." The workman was smitten, fell under strong conviction of his own sins, and did not rest until he knew Christ as his Savior. Spurgeon did not know of this until much later.

 

The Metropolitan Tabernacle

New Park Street Church moved into their new building, constructed debt-free, in March 1861. It was renamed the Metropolitan Tabernacle. In his opening sermon at the dedication Spurgeon let it be known where he stood upon biblical revelation and proclamation.

I would propose (and O may the Lord grant us grace to carry out that proposition, from which no Christian can dissent), I would propose that the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist... but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must reply -"It is Jesus Christ" [Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. VII, 169].

And then he concluded with a most challenging remark.

My I entreat, in closing, your earnest prayer, each one of you, that in this house as well as in all places of worship round about, Christ may evermore be preached, and I may add my own sincere desire that this place may become a hissing and the abode of dragons, and this pulpit be burned with fire, or ever any other gospel be preached here than that which we have received of the holy apostles of God; and of which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner stone [MTP, vol. VII, 176].

            There followed three weeks of special services, with ministers from other denominations as well as Baptists preaching. Octavius Winslow preached on "Christ's Finished Work," Hugh Stowell Brown preached on "Christian Baptism," and a series of five expositions followed on the doctrines of grace or the "five points of Calvinism," in this order: "Election," "Human Depravity," "Particular Redemption," "Effectual Calling," and "The Final Perseverance of Believers in Christ Jesus," all by guest ministers. There was no question where Spurgeon and "The Met" stood upon biblical revelation.

            But there was also no doubt as to the central message of Charles Spurgeon and the Metropolitan pulpit: Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead. The centrality of Christ in the fullness of His divine and human personalities, bearing our sin in His own body on the cross, receiving as a substitute the full measure of divine wrath against sinners, dying a bloody, propitiatory death, bodily raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, exercising the intercessory ministry as our Great High Priest, and the returning, triumphant King stood at the heart of his preaching. Go through anyone of the 63 volumes of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit; pick any sermon, and you will find that the central message is Jesus Christ. The oft-repeated maxim of Spurgeon, preach any text and "make a bee-line to the cross," was not puffery; it was his practice for the 40+ years of his ministry.

            Spurgeon's pulpit practice is a much-needed antidote for our times. So much emphasis seems to fall upon appealing to men's desires rather than proclaiming Christ crucified for sinners. Man-centered appeals can draw crowds but have nothing to offer those that feel the weight of divine condemnation upon their souls. It is only the message of Christ and His cross that gives hope and relief. As Spurgeon outlined in his first sermon at the Met, Christ must be preached "in his infinite and indisputable Godhead,... his true humanity,... as the only mediator between God and man,... as the only lawgiver and Rabbi of the Church,... as the sole King of the Church,...as King of kings,... Christ preached as the sum and substance of it all" [ibid. 170-172]. It matters not what kind of person is present to hear the proclamation of God's Word, "Preach Christ; it will suit them" [174].

 

Sources:

Ernest Bacon, Spurgeon: Heir of the Puritans (Arlington Heights, IL: Christian

Liberty Press, 1967, reprinted 1996).

Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth,

1984, Reprinted 1991).

C. H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street and Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,

(Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1861, reprinted 1979).

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