Latest / Reformed Thinking / Where Can We Find Anecdotes and Illustrations? | Charles Spurgeon

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Where Can We Find Anecdotes and Illustrations? | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. This is where we take the
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  sources you're interested in and, well, we get right to the
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  heart of them, pulling out the most useful and clearest ideas
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  for you. And for this deep dive, which
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  we're calling Reformed Thinking, we're digging into the work of
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  Charles Spurgeon, specifically his Guide for Speakers Lectures
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  to My students. Right, we're looking at one talk
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  in particular. Where can we find anecdotes and
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  illustrations? Our goal here is pretty
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  practical. We want to layout Spurgeon's
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  blueprint for how he found such memorable, striking material to
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  make his points stick. And this is useful for anyone,
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  really, whether you're a minister, a business leader, or
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  just trying to teach your kids something.
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  If you want to convey truth clearly, you need good
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  illustrations. This is a shortcut to his
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  method. But before we get into any of
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  that, Spurgeon starts with a huge warning, a non negotiable
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  rule that really underpins everything else he's about to
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  say. Yeah, what's that?
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  He absolutely forbids making up stories.
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  He's not kidding around. What this is he?
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  Not at all, he says. If there is the slightest
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  suspicion about a story's truthfulness, you have to drop
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  it. The moment you as a speaker
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  think, is this actually based on fact?
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  You have to find something else. Why so strict on that point?
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  Because, as he argues, why would you need to invent falsehoods to
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  communicate divine truth? It's a contradiction, he says.
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  We have the entire world, all of creation and history as our
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  storehouse. We don't need to resort to
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  fabrication. That makes a lot of sense.
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  If the message is about truth, the methods have to be truthful
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  too. Exactly.
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  He does give a little leeway. He says.
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  If a story is widely believed and circulated, you can use it
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  for its moral lesson without, you know, wanting a full blown
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  forensic investigation on every detail.
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  Right. The listener gets that some
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  historical tales are about the point they make, not about being
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  a court transcript. Correct.
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  But inventing them from scratch? That's completely off the table.
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  OK, so with that ethical line drawn in the sand, where does he
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  tell us to look? The 1st and most immediate place
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  is what he calls current history, and by that he means
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  the daily newspaper. The newspaper.
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  That's fascinating because I think a lot of us see the news
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  as just noise or a source of anxiety.
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  He sees it as a teaching tool. He does, and it's not about
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  jumping on whatever political bandwagon the paper is pushing.
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  It's about seeing the day-to-day events of life as a reflection
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  of human nature and God's work in the world.
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  So it's a mirror. A mirror, Yes.
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  That's why he brings up Mr. Newman Hall's advice that every
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  minister ought to read his Bible and the Times newspaper
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  regularly. The pairing is what's key.
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  It's the pairing you're reading God's revealed will right
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  alongside the Daily Record of what humanity is actually doing.
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  The two inform each other. OK, let's get practical.
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  The example he uses from a crime report, The Wandsworth Poacher,
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  is just fantastic. It's not just a story, it's a
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  perfect map of a person's psychology when they're accused
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  of something. It's so good.
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  So the report court is about a man caught trespassing on an
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  estate. He's got a gun, he's got a dog.
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  The gamekeeper catches him red handed.
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  And what's his excuse? I was only looking for
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  mushrooms. Which is just absurd.
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  A gun and a dog to find mushrooms.
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  But that's the first stage, isn't it?
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  The immediate, blatant denial. That's the application.
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  The speaker can say you stand accused of thin and the response
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  is Oh no not me. I was just doing something
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  perfectly innocent looking for mushrooms.
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  It's that preposterous self justification we all do.
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  But the gamekeeper doesn't buy it.
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  He keeps pressing him. Right.
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  He searches the man and feels something soft in his pocket.
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  The posture then moves to stage 2 minimization because oh, it's
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  it's only a rabbit. Just a little one.
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  Exactly, but the keeper points out the ears are too long for a
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  rabbit, so the man minimizes again.
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  Well, it's just a lever it, which is a young hare.
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  Finally it's pulled out and it's a huge plump hair.
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  And that progression is the core of the illustration.
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  Denial, then minimization, then a forced partial admission.
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  It's how people react when confronted with their sin.
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  It is. The defense shifts.
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  OK, maybe I did something, but it was just a small sin.
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  A tiny one. Just a rabbit.
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  And then Spurgeon adds this. It's really sharp theological
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  point. He does.
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  He says that getting the poacher to admit it was a plump hair, or
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  getting a Sinner to confess that their sin is exceeding sinful,
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  that's beyond the speaker's ability.
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  So rhetoric has its limits. Completely.
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  Only the Holy Spirit can bring about that deep, genuine
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  conviction. So this simple little newspaper
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  story ends up demonstrating a core doctrine about the spirits
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  work. It's brilliant.
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  That really does change how you could read the news.
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  It's not about finding sermons in the headlines, but using the
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  headlines to illustrate timeless truths from the Bible.
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  That's it exactly. He also mentions looking for big
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  public events that everyone is talking about, like a report of
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  a terrible shipwreck that happened because the lighthouse
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  wasn't lit. An immediate illustration for
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  what happens when people lack the knowledge of Christ, the
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  light of the world. Or other things that capture the
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  public imagination. He mentions the burning of a
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  church in Santiago, a fire on the London Bridge, a royal
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  visit. Because these events were on
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  everyone's mind, they created a shared context.
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  A speaker can tap into that immediately, right?
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  The principle is that every event, big or small, has an
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  allegory or a moral pointer inside it just waiting to be
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  pulled out. This moves us into his next
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  point, which is about local history.
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  He says using stories from the specific place you're speaking
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  can grab an audience's attention in a way that general history
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  can't. Oh absolutely.
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  It gives the truth a physical anchor.
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  If you're talking to people in their own town about something
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  that happened on their own streets, it creates this instant
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  connection. They feel a sense of ownership
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  over the story they do. It happened right there, maybe
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  where their great grandparents lived.
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  He says preachers should be willing to dig through what he
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  calls dull, dry topographical books to find these gems.
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  It sounds a bit tedious. It probably is, but the payoff
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  is huge. He gives the example of when he
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  was speaking in a town called Winslow.
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  He knew the perfect local story to use.
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  The one about Benjamin Keach. That's the one.
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  Keach was a Baptist pastor back in 1664 who was arrested for
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  writing a children's primer that didn't conform to the Church of
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  England's teachings. And his punishment was severe.
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  It was he was forced to stand in the pillory right there in the
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  marketplace of Winslow. So imagine Spurgeon speaking in
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  that very town, able to point to the spot and say right there one
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  of your spiritual forefathers suffered for the faith.
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  That's so much more powerful than a generic story about a
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  martyr and some faraway country. It makes persecution real and
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  local. It does, and he gives another
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  example for a place in London called Craven Chapel, connected
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  to a story about Lord Craven during the Great Plague.
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  So Lord Craven was a wealthy nobleman and like many others,
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  he was packing up to flee London for his country estate to escape
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  the plague. He was getting all things
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  together and one of his own servants comes up to him.
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  And the servant asks this devastatingly simple question.
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  He says, My Lord, does your God live only in the country?
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  I mean, what a question. It just cuts right through the
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  fear and the self preservation. It challenges this idea that
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  God's care is somehow limited by geography.
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  And Lord Craven gets it right. Instantly he understands the
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  rebuke. He replies he is here as well as
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  there, and he cancels his plans. He stays in the city, trusting
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  in God's Providence right there in the middle of the chaos.
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  To tell that story in the very district where his Chapel stood,
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  it's more than an illustration. It becomes a piece of their
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  spiritual heritage. Yes, it anchors the doctrine of
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  Providence in a real act of faith that happened in their
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  neighborhood. So the big take away from this
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  first section is don't ignore the world right in front of you.
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  God is speaking through today's news and yesterday's local
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  history. So, moving on from the immediate
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  world around us, Spurgeon then points to these grand
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  storehouses of history, ancient, modern and religious.
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  Right, He thinks studying Roman, Greek and English history is so
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  important, not just for facts, but because it feeds the
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  imagination. It can set your soul on fire, as
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  he puts it, with lessons that are just as relevant today.
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  It seems a bit of a stretch maybe to connect to Pagan
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  sculptors with Christian preaching.
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  You think so, But he shows how human nature hasn't really
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  changed. The same pride, the same fears,
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  the same motivations that drove a Roman senator are at play in
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  any modern person's heart. OK, let's get into the examples.
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  The first one is about the sculptor Phidias.
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  Phidias carves this magnificent statue of a God, but after it's
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  all done, he takes his chisel and in tiny little letters in a
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  corner he carves his own name, A.
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  Kind of signature. A signature, yes, but it was
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  seen as a desecration. He was putting his own human
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  mark on something that was meant to be sacred, and he was nearly
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  put to death for. It and the application for a
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  speaker is pretty direct. Oh, it's surgical, he says.
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  The preacher is so apartment to want to put our little names
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  down at the bottom of any work which we have done for God.
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  It's that desire for credit, for recognition, for people to
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  remember us, for something the Holy Spirit did through us.
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  So it's a warning against ministerial pride.
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  A. Powerful one.
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  It's not about carving a statue today, but it's about wanting
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  your photo in the paper or obsessing over your social media
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  stats. It's the vanity of wanting to
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  sign God's work. That connects to the next story,
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  also about a sculptor, but this one is about private integrity.
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  Yes, this sculptor is making an image for a temple, and he's
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  finished the front of it beautifully.
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  But they're back apart. The part that's going to be
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  cemented into the wall where no one will ever see it.
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  He leaves it rough and unfinished.
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  And the temple priest calls him out on it.
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  He does, and the sculptors excuse is just, well, no one's
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  ever going to see that part. And the priests reply is the
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  sermon point. It's the whole sermon.
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  The gods can see in the wall. It speaks directly to the idea
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  that there's no such thing as a hidden fault.
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  It's not enough to have a good public reputation.
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  God sees the stuff in private, the arguments in the family, the
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  coldness in our prayers. He sees what's in the wall.
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  The standard for us should be even higher.
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  Much higher. If a Pagan priest understood
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  that, how much more should we who know the One true all seeing
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  God? OK, then he shifts to a story
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  about Cyrus the Great connecting a very human feeling to a deep
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  spiritual truth. Yes, the story of Cyrus and his
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  garden. He's showing it off to an
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  ambassador, this beautiful, spectacular garden.
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  And he tells the visitor, you can't possibly enjoy this as
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  much as I do. And why is that?
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  Because I laid out the whole garden myself, and I planted
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  every single plant here with my own hands.
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  His deep affection came from his own labor.
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  And Spurgeon turns this into an image of Christ and the church.
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  It's a beautiful application, he says.
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  This is how Jesus delights in his church.
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  It's his own handiwork. He designed it, he planted it,
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  and he watches over every single person in it.
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  It makes the relationship so personal.
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  You're not just a random plan, you were planted by the Master
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  himself. Exactly.
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  Then he dives into the history of the Crusades, specifically
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  stories about Godfrey de Bouyoung.
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  He says it's a peculiarly rich period for noble stories.
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  And the first is about The Crusaders, when they first lay
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  eyes on Jerusalem. When they finally get to the top
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  of the hill and see the city, they are just overwhelmed.
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  They fall on their faces and then they get up and shout for
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  joy. The illustration being our hope
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  for the new Jerusalem, for heaven.
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  Yes, that when we finally catch a glimpse of our eternal home,
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  all our earthly troubles will just fade away.
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  Our final moments will be full of joy.
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  And then the story about Godfrey himself.
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  After the victory, they offer him a golden crown.
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  And he refuses it. He asks them why should I wear a
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  crown of gold in the city where my Lord wore a crown of thorns?
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  That's a question that really hits home.
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  It's a lesson for right now. If our Master was despised and
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  rejected in this world, it's completely out of place for us,
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  His followers, to be chasing after earthly fame and honors.
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  It forces you to check your own ambitions.
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  That theme of self sacrifice continues with the story of
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  Queen Eleanor. Right, the classic story of her
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  sucking the poison from her husband's wound.
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  Whether it's historically accurate or not doesn't really
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  matter for the illustration. The point is the principle.
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  The point is the willingness to endure personal pain, to protect
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  the body of Christ, the Church, to suck the venom of slander
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  out, to bear suffering yourself so that God's cause isn't
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  dishonored. It's a radical call.
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  These stories then lead us into religious history specifically,
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  which he calls a mine of precious treasure.
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  And these stories are great because they often illustrate
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  specific doctrines like God's Providence or the nature of sin.
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  Let's start with Luther and the would be assassin.
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  Right. So there was a man, a Jew, who
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  is planning to stab Martin Luther.
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  But someone found out and sent Luther a portrait of this man.
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  So Luther knew what his enemy looked like.
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  Exactly. He was always on guard, always
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  watching for that face. And Luther himself used this as
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  an illustration. He said that God has given us
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  portraits of our most dangerous enemies, our sins in the Bible.
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  So when we read about pied or lust or greed in scripture.
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  We're seeing a portrait of the very thing that wants to destroy
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  us. We can say that's the sin that
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  would stab me. I need to stay far away from it.
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  It makes spiritual warfare very concrete.
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  And there's the one about Hugh Latimer, the English reformer.
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  This one is about God's omniscience.
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  It's a great story. Latimer is being examined by
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  bishops before his martyrdom, and he senses something is off
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  about the room. He notices the fireplace is gone
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  and there's a heavy curtain and heiress hanging there instead.
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  And the bishops ask him to speak up because one of them is
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  supposedly hard of hearing. But Latimer is sharp.
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  He suspects a trap. He quietly goes over to the
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  curtain and listens. And he hears a pen scratching.
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  A pen scratching. They'd hidden the clerk behind
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  the curtain to write down every single word he said, to use it
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  as evidence against him. And his application of that is
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  just unforgettable. It is he would warn his
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  listeners. There is a recording pen always
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  at work behind the errors of your life.
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  Therefore, be careful what you say and do.
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  It's such a powerful image for God's constant awareness.
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  It communicates that idea of divine accountability so much
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  better than a dry lecture. It really does.
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  And then we have a whole series of stories about God's special
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  care, His Providence. The one about John Knox is a
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  classic. He refused to sit in his usual
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  chair one night. For no particular reason, he
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  just had this feeling, this aversion to sitting in that
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  spot, and later that evening a bullet comes flying through the
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  window and hits the Candlestick right where his head would have
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  been. God's quiet intervention saved
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  his life. Then there's the minister hiding
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  from persecutors in a hay loft. Soldiers come in and they're
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  stabbing the hay with their swords, trying to find.
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  Him and he gets scratched by one of the swords, but they don't
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  find him. The cold steel actually touches
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  his foot, but what's amazing is how God provided for him.
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  A hen came and laid an egg for him every single day near his
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  hiding place. So both protection and
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  provision. Exactly.
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  God uses both miraculous near misses and the simple daily
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  routine of a farm animal to care for his people.
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  And the third one is maybe the most amazing, the one with the
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  spider. A minister is hiding in an empty
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  kiln, a small dark opening, and as soon as he gets in, a spider
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  comes down and spins a huge thick web right across the
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  entrance. And when his pursuers come, they
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  see the web. They see the web and one says he
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  can't be in there. Look at that spiders web.
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  He would have broken it getting in and they just move on.
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  God's Providence can use the smallest, most fragile things to
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  protect His own. These stories just make that
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  doctrine so real and personal. There's one more from a later
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  period, the American War, that illustrates God's constant
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  presence. The one about the prisoner in
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  the cell. Yes, he was in a cell with a
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  tiny slit in the door, and through that slit a guard's eye
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  was always watching him, day and night, never a moment of
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  privacy. And the prisoner said the
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  feeling of being constantly watched drove him mad.
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  A terrifying image. Terrifying, yes, but it's a
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  perfect picture of God's omnipresence.
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  We are never unobserved. For someone running from God,
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  that's a dreadful thought. For a believer, it's the comfort
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  of knowing you're always under your Father's care.
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  So these historical accounts, they're not just stories,
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  they're vehicles for deep theological truth.
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  That's precisely their power. This seems like a good place to
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  bring us to the next big storehouse, which is all around
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  us all the time. The natural world.
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  Yes, Natural History and 1st Spurgeon Using nature to
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  illustrate straight scripture isn't just a clever trick, it's
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  based on very sound theology. And what's the core idea there?
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  The core idea is that the God who wrote the Bible is the same
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  God who created the world. The author of Revelation is also
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  the author of Creation. So they're two books by the same
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  author. Exactly.
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  So when you use something from nature to explain something in
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  Scripture, you're just explaining one of God's books by
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  using another one that he also wrote.
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  It's totally consistent. He has this great analogy for
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  it, the primer analogy. He does imagine an author writes
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  a very simple primer, a book for children, and also writes a
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  deep, difficult classic for scholars.
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  The primer is Creation is the book God wrote even for people
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  who don't know him so they can see his handiwork.
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  The classic is Scripture, the book for the spiritual.
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  And if you're stuck on a difficult part in the classic,
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  you. Can look at the simple pictures
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  in the primer to help you understand it.
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  Because the same mind is behind both.
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  The universe is full of visual aids for the Bible.
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  It's this idea that there's a unified thought that runs
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  through everything God has made. The visible world is meant to be
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  a symbol of the invisible spiritual world.
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  Right, so connecting nature and grace is enforced.
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  God designed it that way. But he warns against getting
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  stuck on one thing. He tells that funny story about
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  the very learned doctor. The one whose congregation
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  complained he was giving them spiders all the time.
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  Yes, you have to have variety. You do.
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  You need to pull from geology, astronomy, botany, all of it.
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  All of creation is meant to shine a light on scripture.
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  So the skill you need to develop is what he calls the observation
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  habit. You just have to keep your eyes
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  open all the time. Watch a dog following its master
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  or a mouse peeking out from a hole.
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  If you're alert, you'll find illustrations everywhere.
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  Even in your own house with your cat.
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  He says you shouldn't be able to pick up your cat without finding
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  an illustration. Yeah, and the cat is a perfect
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  one for temptation. How so?
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  How soft are Pussy's pads? He says.
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  And yet, how sharp will be her claws?
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  That's good. It's.
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  The perfect image Temptation comes to us, soft and gentle,
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  purring, seeming harmless. But then it reveals how deadly
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  and destructive its claws really are.
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  He also tells that story from his own garden about the dog.
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  The dog that kept messing up the garden.
• 18:51
  Spurgeon was frustrated trying to write a sermon and he just
• 18:55
  throws his walking stick at the dog to chase it away.
• 18:57
  And the dog's reaction is what's so striking.
• 18:59
  The dog just turns around, picks up the stick, brings it back to
• 19:03
  Spurgeon and wags its tail, looking up as if expecting a
• 19:07
  thank you. And Spurgeon was just ashamed of
• 19:09
  himself. Instantly.
• 19:11
  And he used it in his sermon the next day as this incredible
• 19:15
  example of how non resistance and simple trust can overcome
• 19:19
  even righteous anger. The key is that he was looking,
• 19:22
  he was wrestling with the truth, and then this real life event
• 19:25
  provided the perfect picture for.
• 19:27
  It exactly. Another time he was desperately
• 19:29
  looking for a sermon topic. He looks at his window and sees
• 19:32
  a stray Canary on the roof. And it's being attacked by all
• 19:35
  the other birds. Yes, a whole swarm of common
• 19:37
  sparrows just pecking at this one brightly colored bird.
• 19:40
  And a Bible verse just pops into his head.
• 19:42
  Immediately mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird.
• 19:46
  The birds roundabout are against her.
• 19:50
  The text was literally acted out right in front of him.
• 19:52
  Wow, that's when you know the system is working.
• 19:55
  Right. And his last example from nature
• 19:57
  is a simple 1 snow. It's just the image of fresh
• 20:00
  snow covering the black, muddy ground.
• 20:02
  Making everything look clean and white.
• 20:05
  For a time, he says, this is like temporary reformations in
• 20:08
  people. They look pure for a little
• 20:09
  while, but then the sun of trial rises, or the heat of temptation
• 20:14
  comes, and all that surface goodness just melts away,
• 20:17
  revealing the blackness underneath.
• 20:19
  The whole world really is a gallery of pictures.
• 20:21
  Painted by God, yes, and the speaker's job is just to learn
• 20:25
  how to take them down from the wall and explain what they mean.
• 20:27
  So finding these pictures isn't just about passively waiting for
• 20:31
  them to appear. It takes active work, discipline
• 20:34
  and training. A lot of it.
• 20:36
  And his first method for training is maybe the hardest
• 20:40
  teaching children. Why?
• 20:41
  Children. Because children are the most
• 20:43
  honest audience you will ever have.
• 20:45
  They demand clarity. If you are boring, they will let
• 20:48
  you know immediately. He says they'll start making
• 20:50
  wheels of themselves on the benches.
• 20:52
  They will provide instant, unfiltered feedback.
• 20:56
  He even tells that story about the boy in his class who, when
• 20:59
  the lesson got dry, just blurted out Pitch Us a yarn.
• 21:03
  Tell us a story. Exactly.
• 21:05
  That pressure forces you to learn how to be interesting, how
• 21:08
  to tell stories simply and memorably.
• 21:11
  OK, so that's the first training method.
• 21:13
  The second is to study the masters.
• 21:16
  Right. Read books by people who were
• 21:18
  masters of illustration, like the Puritans, Colonel or Matthew
• 21:21
  Henry. But you have to read them in a
• 21:22
  specific way. With a specific goal, you read
• 21:25
  through once just to mark all the metaphors and illustrations
• 21:28
  you see. Then you read it again to see
• 21:30
  all the ones you missed. You're training your eye to spot
• 21:32
  them. He also mentions looking for
• 21:34
  contrasts, not just comparisons. This.
• 21:36
  Is a really sharp point. Sometimes the most instructive
• 21:39
  thing is the difference between two things.
• 21:42
  Like the difference between the Old Testament sacrifices, the
• 21:45
  type, and Christ's final sacrifice, the anti type.
• 21:48
  The contrast shows the superiority of the gospel.
• 21:51
  It does. Seeing how they are different is
• 21:54
  just as important as seeing how they are similar.
• 21:56
  The third step is about organization, The commonplace
• 22:00
  book. This is so practical.
• 22:02
  Basically, it's a journal or a notebook where you write down
• 22:05
  and organize all the illustrative material you find.
• 22:08
  So you categorize stories or facts under headings like pride
• 22:12
  or Providence? Exactly.
• 22:14
  The Puritans did this all the time.
• 22:16
  It's how they could write such massive books filled with quotes
• 22:19
  and stories. They had a system for collecting
• 22:22
  and retrieving everything they learned.
• 22:24
  It prevents you from becoming repetitive.
• 22:26
  And the fourth source, which he calls the highest of all.
• 22:29
  Is searching the scriptures. The Bible is its own best
• 22:32
  interpreter. It's full of its own
• 22:34
  illustrations, especially the Old Testament types and symbols
• 22:38
  that point forward to Christ. If you know your Bible well,
• 22:41
  you'll never run out of material.
• 22:43
  Never. And that brings us to the final
• 22:44
  point, which is the actual art of making comparisons yourself.
• 22:48
  Practicing it. He says you have to be
• 22:50
  deliberate about. It very he even suggests this
• 22:53
  exercise, the study prison exercise.
• 22:56
  You lock yourself in your study and you don't let yourself out
• 22:59
  until you have come up with six good illustrations.
• 23:02
  You force creativity through discipline.
• 23:04
  Right. He jokes that when you start
• 23:06
  getting hungry for dinner, your mind will suddenly get a lot
• 23:09
  more creative. The pressure helps.
• 23:11
  And if you're stuck, you can go for a walk.
• 23:13
  Go for a walk with the specific purpose of finding comparisons.
• 23:17
  Look in a shop window, wander through a field, even.
• 23:20
  Just listen to people talking. The world is full of objects
• 23:24
  that can represent the truth you're trying to explain.
• 23:27
  And he also mentions visiting the sick.
• 23:29
  Which is a profound source because you hear real stories
• 23:33
  from real people going through deep trials.
• 23:37
  Those illustrations, drawn from lived experience, are often the
• 23:40
  most powerful of all. So to help train the mind, he
• 23:43
  actually proposed some homework exercises for his students.
• 23:46
  Yes. Four of them and they're really
• 23:48
  useful. OK, what's the first one?
• 23:50
  Exercise 1. He gives you a subject and an
• 23:52
  object and you have to find the resemblance.
• 23:54
  For example, the subject is faith and the object is an
• 23:57
  anchor. And you have to explain the
• 23:58
  connection. Right.
• 24:00
  An anchor holds a ship steady even though it's thrown into a
• 24:03
  place you can't see. Faith holds the soul steady by
• 24:07
  taking hold of Christ, whom we can't see.
• 24:10
  The exercise forces you to think analogically.
• 24:12
  OK, exercise too. He gives you a subject but no
• 24:15
  object. So what is virtue like?
• 24:17
  And you have to come up with the object.
• 24:19
  You do so you might say virtue is like a diamond, and then you
• 24:23
  have to explain why it's rare, it's valuable, it's polished by
• 24:27
  friction and trials, and it shines by reflecting light.
• 24:30
  I see. So the third exercise is the
• 24:32
  reverse of that. Exactly.
• 24:34
  He gives you an object, but no subject.
• 24:37
  Here's a diamond. What can you use that to
• 24:38
  illustrate? And it could be virtue, or the
• 24:40
  gospel, or God's promises. Right, you have to let the
• 24:43
  object suggest the spiritual truth.
• 24:45
  And the final, hardest exercise. Given either, just bring me an
• 24:49
  illustration. Total freedom.
• 24:51
  Which requires total of the other steps.
• 24:54
  It's about training your mind to see the connections instantly,
• 24:56
  every way you look to see the river and think of time flowing
• 24:59
  into eternity. The whole point of all this is
• 25:02
  that this ability to see parables everywhere is a vital
• 25:04
  skill for a communicator. It's how Jesus taught.
• 25:07
  It is, and if you don't naturally see these likes, he
• 25:11
  says, you have to train yourself until you do.
• 25:14
  The goal is to be a thoroughly interesting teacher of the word.
• 25:18
  So as we wrap this up, the big picture from Spurgeon is these
• 25:20
  five huge storehouses, current events, local history, classical
• 25:26
  and religious history, and then the whole of nature itself.
• 25:29
  And the real application for you as a listener is to start
• 25:32
  looking at the world this way, to see it as God's art gallery
• 25:36
  just filled with pictures that are waiting to be used to make
• 25:39
  truth clear and memorable. This whole system really shows
• 25:42
  that effective communication isn't an accident, It comes from
• 25:45
  hard work and deliberate practice.
• 25:47
  Spurgeon, one of the greatest speakers in history, needed to
• 25:50
  do all this. The reading.
• 25:51
  The Common Place book. The exorcise sizes.
• 25:54
  And if he, with all his natural gifts, needed that level of
• 25:58
  discipline, what does that say about the rest of us?
• 26:02
  I think maybe the most powerful illustration you'll ever find
• 26:05
  won't be in a book, but the one you find for yourself on a walk
• 26:08
  tomorrow by actively looking for it.
• 26:10
  That's something to think about. We hope this look into reformed
• 26:13
  thinking has given you some really practical tools.
• 26:16
  Thanks for joining us for this deep dive.
• 26:18
  We'll see you next time.