63 VOLUMES - 3561 SERMONS  

   

London's Metropolitan Tabernacle

             INTRODUCTION...

THE FORMATIVE YEARS    1834 - 1855

The biographical history of the most remarkable nineteenth century preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon can be summed up in a few stark facts and figures. He was born at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19, 1834; was converted to Christ at Artillery Street Methodist Chapel, Colchester, January 6, 1850 and baptized by immersion in the river Lark at Isleham on May 3, 1850. After local preaching in the Fen country around Cambridge, he became pastor of Waterbeach Baptist Chapel in 1852, but a year later accepted a call to the fashionable church in New Park Street, London.

What was the secret of this early success? The Christian explanation is that of the sovereignty of God and the influence of the Holy Spirit (1 Timothy 1:12, Philippians 1:6 and 2:13). On a human level, however, the above facts and figures have to be looked at more closely.

When Spurgeon was born he was the first of seventeen children. At the age of eighteen months he was sent to live with his grandfather at Stambourne, while his father moved to Colchester to become ledger clerk to a coal merchant and pastor of the Independent Church at Tollesbury; he was also a saintly, devout and worthy Independent pastor, preaching on Sundays but farming during the week [this he did for fifty years].

From an early age Charles read his father's and grandfather's theological books. At eleven years of age he went to school in Colchester and later spent two years in a school at Maidstone. He became an assistance master [usher] at a school in Cambridge, and doubtless would have proceeded to the university of Cambridge if it had then been open to nonconformists. Instead, he taught in a school in that famous university town.

"I remember the difficulty that I had, when I was converted, and wished to join the Christian Church in the place where I lived (Newmarket). I called upon the minister four successive days before I could see him; each time there was some obstacle in the way of an interview; and as I could not see him, I wrote and told him that I would go down to the church-meeting, and propose myself as a member. He looked upon me as a strange character, but I meant what I said; for I felt that I could not be happy without fellowship with the people of God."

His youth and ability attracted the attention and roused the interest of the church officials, and he was encouraged to join the Cambridge Lay Preachers' Association, founded in connection with St. Andrew Street Chapel by Pastor Robert Hall. This association provided preachers for the various villages around Cambridge, and C. H. Spurgeon had only been domiciled in the city a month or two when he was appointed to take a village service regularly each Sunday.

Spurgeon did not even go to a theological college, attending an interview but failing to meet the Principal owing to a mistake made by the maid who admitted him. At that time he was already Pastor at Waterbeach and the congregation had grown from a mere handful to over 400. His very first sermon, as a boy-preacher of sixteen years of age, had been blessed in a cottage in Teversham, and so it continued until he went to Waterbeach. During his two years at Waterbeach the chapel had to be enlarged to accommodate those who wanted to hear him. They came from near and far.

Spurgeon recalls arriving at Waterbeach — Coming, one Thursday in the late autumn, from an engagement beyond Dulwich, my way lay up to the top of the Herne Hill ridge. I came along the level out of which rises the steep hill I had to ascend. While I was on the lower ground, riding in a hansom cab, I saw a light before me, and when I came near the hill, I marked that light gradually go up the hill, leaving a train of stars behind it. This line of new-born stars remained in the form of one lamp, and then another, and another. It reached from the foot of the hill to its summit. I did not see the lamplighter. I do not know his name, nor his age, nor his residence; but I saw the lights which he had kindled, and these remained when he himself had gone his way. As I rode along, I thought to myself, "How earnestly do I wish that my life may be spent in lighting one soul after another with the sacred flame of eternal life! I would myself be as much as possible unseen while at my work, and would vanish into the eternal brilliance above when my work is done."

One day he was the special speaker at a Sunday School union rally in Cambridge. A Mr. George Gould was in the congregation and recommended Spurgeon to his friend Thomas Olney, a deacon of New Park Street Chapel, London. When Spurgeon was first invited to the church, he felt there had been a mistake, and so did not immediately respond; however, there had been no mistake, as history has demonstrated. His predecessors at the church had been Benjamin Keach, John Gill and John Rippon — "GIANTS" of the faith. After four visits to New Park Street Chapel, Spurgeon agreed to serve them as a probationer minister for six months.
So in 1854, when still a teenager, C. H. Spurgeon left his flourishing pastorate at the country village of Waterbeach to pastor London's New Park Street Chapel. Within a few weeks a special church meeting was called to ask Spurgeon to become their settled pastor. In April 1854, that is what he became.

New Park Street Chapel [London]

As at Waterbeach the chapel was soon to small to accommodate the large and growing congregation. The church had not seen such blessing for many years. The influence of a Godly father and grandfather, that of a praying mother, the Puritan works with which he was surrounded (and which he eagerly devoured), and "higher" education he received from a perceptive schoolmaster (so that at an early age he could read Latin, Hebrew and Greek) — all these, during the formative years of his life, contributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon becoming the famous Prince of Preachers, first at New Park Street Chapel and then in his own Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Among members of the New Park Street Chapel was Mr. Joseph Passmore, who was a printer. Recognizing the amazing gifts of the young nineteen-year old lad and the immense opportunity for the spread of the sermons by the printed page, Passmore suggested the publication of a weekly "Penny Pulpit," a common method of sermon distribution in the 19th century.

"With much fear and trembling," Spurgeon says, he gave consent. The first sermon published was preached on January 7, 1855, beginning a new series titled The New Park Street Pulpit. The weekly "penny pulpit" met with immediate success. At the end of the year, the weekly sermons were then published collectively as one volume. This method continued through 1860 and into 1861 when Spurgeon led the church into the newly constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle. The "penny pulpit" then was called The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. Week-by-week and year-by-year the "penny pulpits" and yearly volumes went forth, their number now innumerable because no accurate publishing records were kept, neither of the early years nor of the many ways by which they were circulated. Many newspapers even carried the sermons and they were also translated in other nations.

C. H. Spurgeon died January 31, 1892, but the sermon publication continued, using the stenographically-recorded messages delivered at evening services and during the week. Nine years after his death, Spurgeon's publisher gave the following comment [on page 624] while preparing the 46th Volume for release in the year 1900:

Vol. XLVI [46] of The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit will be published by Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, early in the new year, at 7s [price]. It contains fifty-two Sermons by C. H. Spurgeon, most of which were preached in the Tabernacle in 1881; but it also includes several discourses delivered in New Park Street Chapel in 1858, and one as far back as 1855. This combination of the early and later Sermons has been greatly appreciated by regular readers, who have noted that the doctrines proclaimed by the young man of twenty-four were identical with those taught by the matured preacher when he was double that age. There may have been some change in the form of expressing certain truths, but there was no difference in the truths that were taught at New Park Street Chapel, Exeter Hall, the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, or wherever else Mr. Spurgeon exercised his marvellous ministry.

It is a fact quite unique in the realm of literature that the weekly publication of one man's Sermons should have commenced early in the second half of one century, and should be continued in the next century, even though the preacher himself had for nine years been engaged in the higher service of the upper sanctuary. The number of unpublished discourses is, necessarily, diminishing year by year; but, happily they can still be counted by hundreds. While they last, all lovers of C. H. Spurgeon, and of the gospel he delighted to declare, will increasingly prize them, and help to make them known to others. The last-published volume would make a most welcome New Year's gift to any clergyman, minister, or other Christian friend; while anyone possessing it, as well as its forty-five predecessors, would have a vast store of doctrinal and devotional reading matter of the most helpful character.

Finally, with the 63rd volume, the series ceased in 1917 due to the hardship of wartime conditions, with the then current publisher's statement — Suspension of Publication:

"It is with sincere regret that the Publishers announce the suspension of publication of C. H. Spurgeon's Sermons. This step is rendered necessary by the present shortage of paper and other difficulties due to war conditions. There are still a number of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon's Sermons which have never been issued in printed form, and it is hoped that when peace returns it will be possible to publish these in some attractive form. The last issue of these sermons, for the present, will be that of May 10th 1917. It is hoped that the suspension of publication will not in any way tend to lessen the world-wide ministry of these Sermons. Practically all the back numbers may still be obtained, so that those who know and appreciate the blessing which has been forthcoming from these weekly messages may still provide for their needs by selecting from the earlier issues." — [Marshall Brothers Pub.]

Providentially, another volume

  (containing 20 more original sermons),

was printed in 1922 entitled

ABLE TO THE UTTERMOST

— Published by Pilgrim.

The complete set of volumes is 63, counting the months into 1917 in which they were published. The total number of sermons is 3,561. Will such a record ever be matched? These are all-time records, even though the Guinness Book of World Records organization will not verify published sermon sets.

In 1996, 2 additional sermons were discovered to be "missing" in Pilgrim's final volume Vol 62/63, being sermon #3,562 "Peter Walking on the Sea" and #3,563 "A Cheering Congratulation". The original volume we borrowed for reprinting (in 1979) from Mr. Sidney Norton and Mr. S. M. Houghton (both of Oxford, England), had ended with sermon #3,561. But at a 1996 visit to Spurgeon's College in England, I was shown another original copy of volume 63 containing these two additional sermons; they will be added to volume 63 when it next needs reprinting (by year 2006).

A few years before the famous servant of God went to his eternal reward, he was invited by an American lecture bureau to come to America and deliver fifty lectures. He was to speak in all the large cities of the country. As compensation, the lecture bureau offered to pay all of Spurgeon's expenses, and those of his wife and private secretary, from the time they left London until they returned; and in addition, Spurgeon would receive a thousand dollars a night for each of his fifty lectures [A thousand dollars then would be worth some twenty thousand now]. Spurgeon promptly declined this tempting offer to make fifty thousand dollars in fifty days. He said, "I can do better. I will stay in London and try to save fifty souls." No wonder that at his death more than twelve thousand converts rose to bless his memory.

C. H. Spurgeon was the foremost English preacher of the Victorian Era. His sermons were taken down in shorthand and published on Thursday for wide circulation. When weekly publication ceased in 1917, over 100 million had been sold. It was rumoured that dishonest street traders could make a living by selling fake or 'pirated' Spurgeon sermons to the public.

And now today, C. H. Spurgeon is still one of the most published Christian authors in the world, 100 years after his death!  "It is with great joy and thanksgiving to God that in His providence the present publishers have been enabled to find and republish the complete series of Spurgeon's sermons. It is our prayer that the sermons will live long after we have left the scene of life, to bless succeeding generations as they have in the past and present."
BOB L. ROSS — Director of Pilgrim Publications

The late Dr. William Robertson Nicoll,

editor of the British Weekly has said —
 "Mr. Spurgeon was never a man to rouse interest on his own account merely. No one has ever preached the GOSPEL of the Apostles more powerfully, or with a more simple heart. It was thought at first by many that he pandered to the dangerous and undermining love of sensation, but it was soon found that this was not so, that he had that moral and spiritual passion in which are to be found the true uplifting and deliverance of life, and that this passion was no mere momentary flame, but a steady and waxing light. The influence of Spurgeon was not of those that have passed or that can pass away like a dream. Even yet, people will explain his popularity by his voice, by his humour, by his oratory, and the like. But the continued life and power of his printed sermons show that his oratory, noble as it was, was not the first thing. Our firm belief is that these sermons will continue to be studied with growing interest and wonder; that they will ultimately be accepted as incomparably the greatest contribution to the literature of experimental Christianity that has been made in this century (19th), and that their message will go on transforming and quickening lives after all other sermons of the period are forgotten."

And the late Ian Maclaren, stated in the British Weekly —

"What is to take their place, when the last of those well-known sermons disappears from village shops and cottage shelves? Is there any other gospel which will ever be so understanded of the people, or so move human hearts as that which SPURGEON preached in the best words of our own tongue?"

— Both Quotes Above Were First Printed in MTP Vol 44, Year 1898, pg. 264

NOTES OF INTEREST

by Eric W. Hayden

C. H. Spurgeon — "PRINCE OF PREACHERS"

  ...from Eric Hayden's The Spurgeon Family

     — available from Pilgrim for $5 plus $2 shipping

Who had the greatest influence upon the life and ministry of Spurgeon? Was it grandfather or father, grandmother or mother? Was it devoted wife or "doctor" brother? Only eternity will reveal the answer. Suffice it to say here and now that all played their part, under God's divine plan for them and him, to help make him what he was — preacher, philanthropist, educator, evangelist, author — and above all a soul winner!

His 57 years can be summed up quite briefly. The salient points only take a few lines of cold print. But his lasting legacy is alive and well today, more than one hundred years after his death on January 31, 1892.

Various biographies old and new have referred to him as an Innovator, an Educator, an Evangelist, an Activist, a Warrior, a Controversialist, and so forth. Put all these titles together and they do not do justice to him. He was an "all-rounder," and remember he once wrote a book entitled An All-Round Ministry — Published by Pilgrim, a collection of addresses to ministers and students. "Puritan" does not sum him up adequately, neither does "Calvinist." Some would say that he was "his own man," using the phrase the present Prime Minister of Britain [John Major] uses of himself. But C. H. Spurgeon was "Christ's man!" His last words at the Tabernacle were —

"His service is life, peace, and  joy. Oh, that you would enter on it at  once! God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus Christ!"

He enlisted and became Christ's man, putting on Christ's "livery" (distinctive clothing of a servant) at the age of fifteen. Born at Kelvedon, Essex on June 19, 1834, he was born again on January 6, 1850.

The account of his conversion is well-known. It is told in every biography and in every volume of his sermons, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. It was a snowy day in Colchester. Teenager Charles Spurgeon could not get to his regular place of worship. He turned into a small Primitive Methodist Chapel. There were only fifteen people there. He sat under the gallery at the back. The planned preacher did not turn up. A man from the congregation, probably a shoemaker, went into the pulpit. He did not preach so much as kept on repeating his text: "Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else." [Isaiah 45:22] He pointed at Spurgeon and said, "You look utterly miserable, young man, and you always will be miserable, in life and in death, unless you look to Christ." Spurgeon looked and looked "until he could have looked his eyes away" and was saved.

[see the full, complete account in CONVERSION — The Great Change, and Experiences After Conversion — Published by Pilgrim — here is an Excerpt:  Spurgeon's "Death of My Best Friend "]

A few months later he was baptized at Isleham Ferry and preached his first sermon in a Cambridgeshire cottage at Teversham. He became pastor of the Baptist Chapel at Waterbeach but by nineteen years of age was called to New Park Street Chapel in London. The building was enlarged but still could not accommodate the crowds wanting to hear him so he built his own Metropolitan Tabernacle at the Elephant and Castle. For just over thirty years he preached to six thousand people twice on a Sunday and again on Thursday nights.

During the week he was busy with outside engagements near and far. Crowds gathered to hear him in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and on the Continent.

Special services were held in the Exeter Hall, the Strand, and in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall. The biggest indoor congregation was when he preached in the Crystal Palace to 24,000. It was there, at the opening of the Palace, that he first declared his love to Susannah Thompson who shortly later became his wife and help meet in the work, but she became an invalid.

He founded almshouses, an orphanage, a colportage association, and a college for the training of ministers and missionaries. His sermons were printed and published weekly and in annual volumes and reached an even larger congregation, being translated into many foreign languages.

Several times he had to enter into controversy in order to stand fast for the truth. First there was "the Rivulet Controversy," Spurgeon's answer to the "nature poems" passing as hymns — poetry without theology. Then there was the "Baptismal Regeneration controversy," in which he pointed out the unscriptural error of infant sprinkling as laid down in the Book of Common Prayer. His third and last battle was known as the "Down Grade Controversy" in which he took a stand against the liberal, modernist theology creeping into the Baptist Union. The result was that he resigned from the Union when they passed a vote of censure against him.

This last controversy caused a shadow over the ending of Spurgeon's life and ministry from which he never recovered. However, Spurgeon felt that he was standing once more for Biblical truth, especially regarding the authority and inspiration of Scripture and the final judgement and punishment of the unsaved.

He preached his last sermon in the Tabernacle on June 7, 1891 and then on October 26 went to the south of France for the last time as a very sick man, Susannah accompanying him for the very first time. He died at Menton France on January 31, 1892 and was buried in Norwood Cemetery on February 11.

How C. H. Spurgeon Found Christ —

"I looked to Him; He looked to me;

and we were ONE forever." — C. H. S.

C. H. SPURGEON'S DECLARATION

TO

THE ONE GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH

IN

THE TRINITY OF HIS SACRED PERSONS

BE ALL HONOUR AND GLORY,

WORLD WITHOUT END,

AMEN.

TO THE GLORIOUS FATHER,

AS THE COVENANT GOD OF ISRAEL;

TO THE GRACIOUS SON,

THE REDEEMER OF HIS PEOPLE;

TO THE HOLY GHOST,

THE AUTHOR OF SANCTIFICATION;

BE EVERLASTING PRAISE FOR THAT GOSPEL OF THE

FREE GRACE OF GOD HEREIN PROCLAIMED UNTO MEN.

Yours Very Truly,              

                 

———————————————

NOTES OF INTEREST

by Eric W. Hayden

SPURGEON'S ABIDING LEGACY

AS A BIBLE INTERPRETER

An Excerpt From a Lecture Delivered by Eric W. Hayden

at Spurgeon's College, London, on October 21, 1976.

2 full-length LECTURES ON SPURGEON

Delivered by Philip Hayden and Eric Hayden

— available from Pilgrim for $6 plus $2 shipping

C. H. Spurgeon has been described as "a servant of the Word," that is, though a man of many books he was "a preacher of one book, the Bible." Like Bunyan, therefore, you could 'prick him anywhere and he bled the Bible.'

As a boy preacher; during his first pastorate at Waterbeach; then at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark; and finally for over 30 years at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon interpreted the Bible to the man in the street and "the common people heard him gladly." Today we have a plethora of modern translations; Spurgeon had but the Authorized Version (King James, the 1850 revision in use today) and then the 1880 Revised Version, so he did what the modern translations have made easier for us. At each service he gave a running, racy commentary on the Bible reading. These became miniature commentaries on the whole Bible for he preached on every chapter of every book of the Bible except 2 John.

What a pity that no one has taken the time to collect these verse by verse expositions, and no publisher has been enterprising enough to print and publish them, for we to have a kind of one volume "Matthew Henry-style" commentary on the whole Bible by C. H. Spurgeon. [Note: though not available presently in a single volume, ALL of these brief scripture Expositions have been reprinted by Pilgrim Publications in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit sermon series, found between the individual sermons published in volumes 38 thru 63 (years 1892-1917). A seperate paperback Expositions Index is also available from Pilgrim, listing the scripture text and page numbers; a handy resource readers can use for locating the expositions in the MTP volumes.]

He had a quarrel with the Authorized Version for its chapter and verse divisions. He said —

"I feel vexed with the fellow who chopped the Bible up into chapters; I forget his name just now, and I am sure it is not worth recollecting [actually it was Sir Robert Stephens in 1551]. I have heard that he did the most of his carving of the New Testament between London and Paris, and rough work he make of it. Surely he was chaptering the gospel of Matthew while he was crossing the Channel, for he has divided it in such queer places."
He certainly did not believe that the Authorized Version was "let down from heaven on a piece of string," and that "since it was good enough for Paul it's good enough for me." He firmly believed in Biblical scholarship and up-to-date, as near-to-the-original-text translations as possible —
"I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any honest attempt to produce the correct text, and an accurate interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. For many years Baptists have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated in the best possible manner. All we want is the exact mind of the Spirit, as far as we can get it."
His interpretation of the Bible was not confined to his preaching ministry, but also to his teaching and literary ministry. His teaching ministry, his lecturing (especially LECTURES TO MY STUDENTS) we have already mentioned. His preaching ministry included special sermons about the Bible — over 60 in all. It seems strange that biographers, ancient and modern (except for one chapter in J. C. Carlile and E. W. Bacon) have neglected to make a special study of C. H. Spurgeon and the Bible.

It is also interesting to note the number of sermons he preached from some of the Bible books —

From the smaller books —

Besides his Lectures To My Students he taught about THE BIBLE AND THE NEWSPAPER [Pilgrim's original edition is currently out-of-print] in the preparation of which he spent three months reading, like John Newton, the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, discovering how God was really sovereign and governed His world. Incidents such as storms and shipwrecks, floods, and ladies' fashions, provided instruction in spiritual matters for the reader.

Before the days of various daily Bible reading societies he was publishing such self-helps as MORNING BY MORNING and EVENING BY EVENING ["Morning and Evening," available from Pilgrim]; the CHEQUE-BOOK OF THE BANK OF FAITH; the INTERPRETER'S BIBLE, and an annual ALMANACK.

COME YE CHILDREN was a book for parents and Sunday school teachers on training children in the Bible, and WE ENDEAVOUR [available from Pilgrim] was for a higher age group, members of Christian Endeavour Societies. AN ALL-ROUND MINISTRY was published as a collection of his presidential addresses at the annual college conferences, and in them he had much to say about the minister and his Bible.

He was keen on the old Puritan catechizing idea and so produced his CATECHISM WITH PROOFS, which also emphasized "the Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy him." By reprinting the Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 he again put out a volume that began with a chapter on the reliability of the Holy Scriptures for faith and conduct.

His literary output contained but two commentaries, one of these a posthumous work, THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM (Matthew). It was born during great pain during his last illness in the South of France and published by his wife after his death. It was a verse by verse commentary.

By contrast he spent 20 years producing THE TREASURY OF DAVID, his commentary on the book of Psalms. Orginally planned as a six-volume work, it finally obtained the Scriptural number of perfection and completion — 7 volumes. His study of all the then available literature on the Psalms made him conclude that most of them were "slovenly, and written hurriedly and superficially." His own commentary on the Psalms has surely never been superceeded for thoroughness in research. (The original 7-volume set has been printed by Pilgrim Publications.)

In what way have we been left a lasting legacy of all this Bible interpretation? First and foremost is this college and through the men who since Spurgeon's day have gone forth as servants of the Word. But others have come under his influence too. We begin with a contemporary of Spurgeon, D. L. MOODY. When he returned home to America after a visit to England in 1867, having followed Spurgeon everywhere, and wanting to buy the seat in the Tabernacle gallery in which he had sat when he first heard Spurgeon preach, he could only talk about Spurgeon and none of the sights of Great Britain. The Moody family and the Spurgeons got on famously together and Spurgeon paid high commendation to Moody's evangelistic labours on several occasions. Moody stated, "I have read everything by Spurgeon I can get my hands on," and advised his students to do likewise.

Dr. F. B. MEYER in his formative years, when beginning to preach: "...seized every available opportunity of hearing such preachers as were masters of their art... Spurgeon in particular." He became one of the foremost Bible expositors and his works, like Spurgeon's are still reprinted today. Have you ever noticed the similarity of titles? — Meyer's THE WAY TO THE HOLIEST, and Spurgeon's THE MOST HOLY PLACE. Meyer's GOLDEN SAYINGS, and Spurgeon's THE GOLDEN ALPHABET. Meyer's DAILY BIBLE READINGS, and Spurgeon's MORNING BY MORNING.

Meyer said: "You may well print the Jubilee number of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons in gold! Gold befits gold! I can never tell my indebtedness to them. As I read them week by week in my young manhood, they gave me a grip of the gospel I can never lose, and gave an ideal of its presentation in nervous, transparent and forcible language which has colored my entire ministry."

Dr. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN held two pastorates at Westminister Chapel, London, with a spell in American in between. His biographer comments: "He knows his Bible and he knows it thoroughly, from Genesis to Revelation. It saturates his sermons and he expounds it as did that other great expositor — Charles Haddon Spurgeon."

Dr. GRAHAM SCROGGIE was trained at Spurgeon's College and was Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle during World War II. His exposition of the Scriptures from pulpit and Keswick platform marked him down as "a Spurgeon's man."

Dr. SIDLOW BAXTER, another son of the college, is known on both sides of the Atlantic for his Bible minstry and he has obviously been influenced by Spurgeon in his exposition of the Scriptures.

Dr. D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES, for over 30 years minister of Westminster Chapel, London, was a fervent admirer of Spurgeon. IN PREACHING AND PREACHERS Dr. Lloyd-Jones pays his respects to Spurgeon, and on a Jacket cover for the Pilgrim Publications reprint of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit for year 1872 writes: "All Spurgeon's preaching is teaching. He is no mere talker on topics of the times. All the way through he is expository and is a superb master in the art of opening up of the rich deep truths of Holy Writ with accuracy and lucidity."

Dr. STEPHEN OLFORD of New York comments: "Ever since I can remember, I have read Spurgeon. Even as a boy I was brought up on his sermons."

JOE T. ODLE, the editor of THE BAPTIST RECORD, Jackson Mississippi, says: "As a boy I spent many hours browsing and turning through these volumes of Spurgeon's sermons. Some of the ideas for my earliest sermon efforts came from reading C. H. Spurgeon's message."

Dr. RALPH G. TURNBULL gives his testimony in these words: "When the call came to leave business for the business of life in the ministry of the gospel, Spurgeon's sermons were gathered and read. Living with this treasure of truth for many years, a taste for Biblical truth was cultivated."

CARL HENRY, the editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY writes: "As a young minister I bought as many used copies of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit that I could find in secondhand bookstores."  [END OF LECTURE]

Charles Spurgeon..  

                       

 A PREACHER

TO

by Estus W. Pirkle

 PREACHERS!

New Albany, Mississippi

www.preacherscorner.org/estus-pirkle.htm

Out of 4000 volumes of books in my personal library, outside the Bible, none are so often used as the books by Charles Spurgeon. Scarcely a week goes by in which I do not consult Spurgeon on some subject. In fact, I usually go to Spurgeon at some time in every sermon I prepare.

My method of sermon preparation is as follows:

1) First, I read and re-read the passage I am to preach from. Then I meditate on the passage and write down what the Lord gives me on the subject.

2) Then I start to look into my commentaries and sermon books. The first two men I usually consult are Charles Spurgeon and Matthew Henry. Many times this is as far as I need to go. If I must go furthur, I usually have to go through a dozen authors to get as much as I get from Charles Spurgeon and Matthew Henry alone.

Since being called into the ministry in 1948, I have tried to lay my hands on everything that Spurgeon has in print. My heart leaped for joy when I heard that PILGRIM PUBLICATIONS was re-publishing the unabridged 56 volumes of Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.

All through my ministry, I have urged young preachers to buy Spurgeon's books. Now with the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit set available, there is no reason for any preacher, young or old, being without the greatest aid in Bible study and sermon preparation since the publication of books has been a reality. There is no substitute for the Bible but next to it, I rank Spurgeon's books.
As a pastor, evangelist, Bible conference speaker, movie producer-distributor of various classic Christian films ["The Burning Hell" || "The Believer's Heaven" || "If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?", etc.], I do not have much time to get preached to. Always giving out and not receiving can begin to tell on you even when one maintains personal Bible reading, study, and prayer. At such times I just read one or two of Spurgeon's sermons for my own need to be preached to, and then I'm ready to go again.

Without reservation I recommend Spurgeon to every preacher, teacher or ordinary layman who wants to know more about his Lord. Also they are good books to give to sinners for pointing them to Jesus.

— Pirkle's comments above are from the Jacket Cover for MTP Vol 46, Year 1900

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