Prince of Preachers
The truest lengthening of life is to live while we live, wasting no time but using every hour for the highest ends. So be it this day.
Charles Spurgeon, Faith’s Checkbook
It must be a mistake.”
Those were Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s words when he read the letter. The British Baptist preacher had received an invitation from a Reformed Baptist church: New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London. It was not unusual for one church to invite the pastor of another to speak, but New Park Street had a distinguished history, although it had fallen on hard times. The real surprise was Spurgeon’s age. He was just twenty. Still, word of his unique and gripping preaching style had spread from his church in Waterbeach near Cambridge to London. It was there that Spurgeon made history as one of the most successful pastors to stand behind a pulpit.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born into a family of clergy in Kelvedon, Essex, in 1834. His father and grandfather were Nonconformist pastors (not part of the Anglican church). It was assumed that he would follow in their footsteps, and perhaps he intended to at first. In January 1850 he was attempting to make his way to a particular church. He was serious about attending. Not even the snowstorm that came up could deter him. While it didn’t stop him, it did divert him down a side street, where he came upon a Primitive Methodist church. This branch of methodism was known for loud singing.1
Spurgeon entered and found only a handful of people in attendance. The storm had not only kept parishioners homebound but the pastor as well. One of the laymen rose to speak and Spurgeon was less than impressed. The text of the impromptu sermon was, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” The text was from Isaiah 45:22 (KJV) and the man hammered on the word “look” for much of his short sermon. Spurgeon considered the speaker uneducated and out of his depth, but there was no questioning the man’s sincerity. After ten minutes of preaching, the speaker turned his eyes on fifteen-year-old Spurgeon.
“Young man, you look miserable.”
Spurgeon was not used to seeing anyone in the pulpit speak directly to a congregant, especially a stranger. The crowd was so small that Spurgeon stood out. “It was a good blow, struck right home,” Spurgeon later admitted.2
The speaker wasn’t done. “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.”
Spurgeon was never the same. He began to question his previously held doctrine, especially the infant baptism practiced by the prevalent Anglican church as well as the Nonconformist church he grew up in. Feeling the Baptist belief in “believer’s baptism” had greater biblical support, he left behind his Nonconformist membership and joined a Baptist church. There he was baptized. He remained a Baptist from then on.
Salvation had come to Spurgeon, and he was determined to take it to others. The Methodist layman’s preaching was so unrefined Spurgeon first thought the man was stupid, but it was his direct approach that made the difference in Spurgeon’s life. Ironically, Spurgeon’s preaching would be criticized frequently, even while people came by the thousands to hear him.
A Sensation in the Pulpit
Spurgeon had minimal education, never earning a degree from a university. At best he was a self-taught man, but that is no reason to discount him. He amassed a library of twelve thousand books, and anyone who reads his writing will see a man with a keen mind and a gift for communication.
His speaking prowess was noticed early on. He began his preaching ministry as a pastor of a small Baptist church in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. The church soon filled to hear the boy preacher—he was still a teenager—and word spread.
In April 1854, he received a letter asking him to preach at the New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London. The church, although slimmer in attendance than what it experienced in its glory days, was still a significant church and the largest Baptist congregation in the area. Spurgeon thought a mistake had been made. What would such a church want with a twenty-year-old preacher-boy?
Regardless, he went and preached to a handful of people. Only about eighty came to the service. Still, the church felt he was the man to fill their pulpit. They issued a “call” for him to become pastor for the next six months. He agreed. The six-month period was extended time and time again—for forty years. Spurgeon would remain the pastor at New Park for the rest of his life.
Larger and larger crowds arrived to hear Spurgeon preach. Soon, the church moved the services to Exeter Hall, which seated 4,500, and it still wasn’t enough. Spurgeon had become the pastor of what we would now label a megachurch.
A new church was constructed that could seat 5,600, with standing room for an additional thousand. Often that was too little. The church changed its name to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and Spurgeon preached in that building for the next three decades.
Spurgeon focused on his listeners, believing he had a message from God and he was the conduit of that message. He wanted to get to the thousands of people in his church the way the unnamed lay preacher got to him that snowy day in the Methodist church. He was loud, moved around the platform, and acted out biblical stories. It was offensive to the refined clergy and some in the media. Some called him the “pulpit buffoon” and accused him of being vulgar. The Ipswich Express reported Spurgeon’s sermons as “redolent of bad taste, vulgar, and theatrical.”3
Spurgeon had a response: “I am perhaps vulgar, but it is not intentional, save that I must and will make the people listen. My firm conviction is that we have had quite enough polite preachers, and many require a change. God has owned me among the most degraded of off-casts. Let others serve their class; these are mine, and to them I must keep.”4
Other criticism came from the media, but Spurgeon kept going and the crowds kept coming.
Tragedy at Church and Criticism
It is easy to think great men and women are free from challenges, but as we have seen throughout this book, difficulties are what usually make them great. Spurgeon’s life had tragedy and challenge. As the church grew, they again moved into larger facilities. They rented the Surrey Music Hall, which seated twelve thousand people. One day, the place was packed for the service when several people—for unknown reasons—shouted, “Fire!” A panic ensued, leaving seven dead and nearly thirty seriously injured.
Spurgeon was also plagued by periods of depression. In some ways, it helped him minister to others. Perhaps only those who have wrestled with depression can know how taxing it is to mind, body, and soul.
Some of his opinions stoked the fires of criticism, not from the press but from other ministers and denominations. He managed to offend Calvinists even though he was one of their number. To him, some were too Calvinistic, others were not Calvinistic enough. He also upset the Anglicans and even accused his Baptist brethren of downgrading the gospel in the modern era. He had to withdraw from the denomination’s organization. Controversy dogged him through the last years of his ministry and may have contributed to his declining health.
Other Works
Spurgeon was more than a preacher; he was also a prolific writer, composing 140 books of sermons, devotions, and commentaries. Starting in 1855, his weekly sermons were printed, and many of these have been reprinted in collections that are still read. He started a monthly magazine, The Sword and the Trowel. He also produced a book of advice to young preachers, Lectures to My Students.
In addition to his work with the church, Spurgeon established the Stockwell Orphanage after challenging his church in a Monday night prayer meeting to begin a new work. The resulting orphanage took care of thousands of children over the course of its existence.
In 1856, he opened the Pastor’s College to train ministers. It continues today under the name Spurgeon’s College. He also created a Bible distribution organization.
Death
Spurgeon died at age fifty-seven while in France. They brought him back to London, where sixty thousand people filed past his body as it lay in state. On the day of his funeral, one hundred thousand people lined the streets to watch the hearse pass. A trail of people followed in a procession that stretched two miles.
At times controversial, at times outspoken, Spurgeon was loved by his people and the citizens of England. Today he remains the “Prince of Preachers,” an example to thousands of ministers who would follow. Through his writings he continues to move souls.