I've spent my free time reading this issue cover to cover over the past few days and highly recommend you do the same when you get a moment.
Spurgeon missed being admitted to college because a servant girl inadvertently showed him into a different room than that of the principal who was waiting to interview him. (Later, he determined not to reapply for admission when he believed God spoke to him, "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not!")
"The most useful members of a church are usually those who would be doing harm if they were not doing good."
OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!........ his sermon "Compel Them to Come In"....preached on December 5, 1858.
What may seem paradoxical to some today is that theologically, Spurgeon tenaciously clung to traditional Calvinism. Evangelistic appeals came from this preacher who adhered to the traditional five points of the Synod of Dort, including unconditional election. Spurgeon was once asked how he could reconcile his stance between Calvinistic theology and his fervent preaching of the gospel. He replied...."I do not try to reconcile friends."
"Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit and did not see the grace of God. I remember sitting one day in the house of God and hearing a sermon as dry as possible, and as worthless as all such sermons are, when a thought struck my mind - How came I to be converted? I prayed , thought I. Then I thought, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How cam I to read the Scriptures? Why - I did read them and what led me to that? And then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of all, and that He was the author of faith."
Jun 28, 2010
Charles Spurgeon / Christian History
Labels: A Day In The Life, Bible, Home-Education, worldview
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2 comments:
Sorry, this is a long quote, but sooo good ~ love Spurgeon!
The great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon was a five-point Calvinist. He was also a passionate evangelist and soul winner. On August 1, 1858, he preached a sermon entitled, "Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility." The words of wisdom that flowed from his mouth on that day could only come from a capable pastor/theologian with a shepherd's heart and a love for the lost. We would do well to heed the counsel of this Baptist hero upon whose shoulders we stand today.
"I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions to his own will, in a great measure. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act, that there was no precedence of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to Atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring ....You ask me to reconcile the two. I answer, they do not want any reconcilement; I never tried to reconcile them to myself, because I could never see a discrepancy .... Both are true; no two truths can be inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe them both."
Here is a good place to stand. Here is a theology we can all affirm in service to our Savior.
Amen!!!!!!!!!!!
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