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The Need of Decisions for the Truth | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  We are once again doing a deep dive into some sources that you
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  send our way, and today we're looking at something that really
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  gets to the core of what we talk about here.
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  We're looking at the need for intellectual and, well,
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  spiritual clarity, and we're doing it in an age that seems to
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  value the opposite, to value ambiguity maybe even more than
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  Spurgeon's did. The source material is from
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  Charles Spurgeon's lectures to my students.
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  We're going to be looking at his case for what he calls decisions
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  for the truth. Our goal isn't just to repeat
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  what he said, but to really get into why he thought having a
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  definite decided stance on truth was so absolutely critical for
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  Christian ministry and, you know, for the Christian life in
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  general. I think it's good to frame this
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  right from the start. When Spurgeon talks about
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  decision, he's not calling for people to be, you know,
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  aggressive or argumentative just for the sake of it.
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  He's saying that there's a basic difference between what is true
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  and what is false, and that that distinction he felt was
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  collapsing all around him. He saw it creating a really
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  dangerous situation. OK, let's get into that.
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  The collapse he starts with the most, I mean the simplest
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  logical starting point there is. Some things are true and some
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  things are false. A basing axiom.
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  You can't really think without it, but he says that very
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  foundation was being chipped away in his time.
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  He talks about the current principle of the age.
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  Yes, the idea that something is either true or false, according
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  to the point of view from which you look at them.
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  It's this, this radical kind of subjectivism.
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  So black can be called white and white black and it just depends
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  on who's looking. And, he adds, the general
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  feeling is that it does not particularly matter.
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  That's the key. The stakes have been lowered to
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  0. He calls this the liberality
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  trap, which sounds good. I mean who doesn't want to be
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  liberal and open minded? But what did he mean by it?
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  He meant it was a kind of social pressure.
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  You might know what the truth is, but if you actually call the
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  opposite of that truth a lie, well, suddenly you're the bad
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  guy. You're intolerant.
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  You're rude. So politeness becomes more
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  valuable than truth. It overrides it.
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  And the danger isn't just that people get confused, it's that
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  the whole structure of belief starts to fall apart.
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  Right. He looks back at the reformers
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  and the Puritans, his forefathers, and he really
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  praises them for being, you know, so stubborn about
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  maintaining fixed boundaries around doctrine.
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  They knew where the lines were, and he has this great analogy
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  for it. He says their doctrinal fields
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  were protected by hedges and ditches.
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  I love that image, it's so clear these were real solid lines
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  separating what was orthodox from what was heresy.
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  Not just suggestions, but, as he says, fixed landmarks.
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  But then he looks at the next generation, his own, and he's
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  just, he's scathing about what they did.
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  He says they have grubbed up the hedges, filled up the ditches,
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  laid all level and played it leapfrog with the boundary
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  stones. It's so visceral.
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  It wasn't an accident. It was a conscious decision to
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  tear down the fences, to make the whole landscape blurry and
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  undefined. And what happens when those
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  boundaries disappear? He says.
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  Modern thought just laughs at the ridiculous positiveness of
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  the old timers. And this push, this glorious
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  liberality, is headed, in his view, toward a grand alliance
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  between heaven and hell. That's a strong phrase.
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  It's not just about being tolerant.
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  It's a merger. Yes, a destructive merger.
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  He's saying. If you get rid of those defining
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  doctrines, you are in effect trying to unite the sacred with
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  the profane. They're collapsing the very
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  thing that makes the Christian faith what it is.
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  He then insists on just basic logic.
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  He pulls in this example from his own day to show how absurd
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  this is in any other area of life.
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  The Tichborne test. Yeah, for anyone who doesn't
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  know, the Tichborne case was maybe the biggest celebrity
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  trial of the Victorian age. A man claimed to be a long last
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  heir, Sir Rodger. Tichborne and the whole country
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  was obsessed with it. But Spurgeon's point is dead
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  simple. The man either is Sir Rodger or
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  he is an imposter. He can't be both the true heir
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  and an imposter at the same time.
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  It's logically impossible. Of course.
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  And in a courtroom, you have to decide, you have to make a
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  judgement. Is this witness telling the
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  truth or a lie? Exactly.
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  But when it comes to God, to salvation, to Scripture,
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  suddenly people are OK withholding 2 completely
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  contradictory ideas at once. They just call them different
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  perspectives. It really does expose a kind of
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  hypocrisy. If these spiritual realities are
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  based on facts, and Spurgeon believes they are, then the need
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  for a clear decision is even greater than in some inheritance
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  case. To refuse to decide isn't
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  humility, it's a willful avoidance of what's real.
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  So the world is dissolving these boundaries.
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  What does that mean for the person who has to stand up and
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  speak for God? This is where Spurgeon says the
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  minister has a definite message. A fixed message.
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  You're not an inventor, you're an ambassador.
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  The king gives you the message and your job is just to repeat
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  it. He's pushing back so hard
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  against this idea that the Bible is just raw material for us to
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  play with. He says it's not a lump of wax
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  to be shaped at our will or a piece of cloth to be cut
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  according to the prevailing fashion.
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  He sees the intellectuals of his day treating it like a box of
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  letters for them to play with, or even worse, a wizard's bottle
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  out of which they may pour anything they choose, from
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  atheism up to spiritualism. It's a brutal critique of
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  intellectual vanity. It's treating God's revelation
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  like a toy. Spurgeon's position is that the
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  Bible gives truth. That has told me for certain.
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  And there are no qualifications, no buts or perhapses.
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  No, it's revealed as infallible fact.
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  And if that's true, then the thing that opposes it is deadly
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  error that comes from the father of lies.
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  He frames it morally, not just intellectually.
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  And. That moral weight leads directly
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  to the seriousness of the ministry.
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  Why is it so vital to be decided?
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  Because you're dealing with eternal things, people.
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  Are either lost or saved and he's adamant that you cannot be
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  saved by wrong doctrine a lie can't produce eternal life the.
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  Weight extends to God too. You can't honor God by
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  misrepresenting him. He has this amazing line.
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  He can't imagine God saying, well done, good and faithful
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  servant, Thou hast mangled the gospel as judiciously as any man
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  that ever lived before thee. It's.
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  Sarcasm, but it makes the point the job is too serious for that.
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  The consequences are absolute. So the spirit you need is the
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  spirit of old Micaiah, standing before the king, and saying,
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  Whatsoever the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.
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  That's the standard absolute fidelity.
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  You don't add to it, you don't take away from it, and you have
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  to speak it in a way that shows you, the speaker, are completely
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  convinced that your confidence in God is unshakable.
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  OK, so the minister is a messenger with a definite
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  message. What then is the nonnegotiable
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  content of that message? Spurgeon saw people in his time
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  trying to water it down. Maybe God exists, but who knows
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  about his personality, That kind of thing.
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  So he. Gives a list, a list of definite
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  non negotiable doctrines. This is the fortress that has to
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  be defended. These are the pillars.
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  If you compromise on these, he says, you lose the very soul of
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  the message. Let's.
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  Go through them first. The person of God.
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  What's the certainty he requires here?
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  It has to be an absolute certainty that there is one God,
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  the Maker, the one in control of Providence, the Lord of grace,
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  and this God must be preached as a person.
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  So. Not some generic force or
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  energy, right? He's pushing back against
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  pantheism, the idea that God has just dissolved into the
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  universe. If God isn't a personal being
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  who acts and speaks, then the gospel just becomes a moral
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  philosophy. OK. #2 is biblical authority.
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  We have to be certain the Bible is God's word and that it's
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  inspired. He gets very specific about what
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  kind of inspiration he means. Yeah.
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  He's very clear it's not inspired like Shakespeare or
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  Milton were inspired. It's in an infinitely higher
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  sense. He believes the text itself, the
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  very words, are infallible and. You shouldn't get bogged down in
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  arguments about how inspiration happened, the modus, the.
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  Fact of its infallibility is the main thing for him.
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  The Bible is the last Court of Appeal.
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  It's the judge which ends the strife, so if you start
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  questioning its reliability, you're essentially getting rid
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  of your only fixed reference point.
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  Throw it on the. List the Trinity certainty.
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  Here is critical. The Father, the Son, and the
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  Spirit are each distinct persons, and yet they are one
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  God. He specifically calls out the
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  errors he's guarding against, like Unitarianism and
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  Sosinianism, which. For listeners, were historical
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  teachings that basically denied that Jesus is fully God or that
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  the Holy Spirit was a distinct person.
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  That's it. Civilianism, for another
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  example, taught that Father, Son and Spirit were just three
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  different masks or modes that one God wears.
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  Spurgeon insists on the classic view. 3 distinct persons, one
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  God. If you get this wrong, the whole
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  idea of the atonement starts to fall apart.
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  And that. Brings us to the fourth point,
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  Atonement, He says. You must not leave the blood out
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  of our ministry. Yeah.
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  You cannot be unclear on this. It has to be preached as a
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  proper substitution, A vicarious sacrifice, Christ taking the
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  place of his people, taking the punishment they deserve.
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  So it's. Not just a moral example, no.
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  If that's all it is, you've stripped it of its saving
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  ability. It has to be a real transaction
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  that actually accomplishes redemption 5th.
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  Is the Holy Spirit His existence, His personality, and
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  the necessity of his work? This is such a key reform point.
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  We have to preach that a person is only born again by the work
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  of the Spirit of God. He's the one who regenerates,
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  sanctifies, and preserves believers.
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  How? Does he square that with the
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  need for human effort? Some might say that sounds like
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  it removes our responsibility He.
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  Keeps the focus on God's sovereign role in the process.
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  We put in the effort because the Spirit is at work in us, not the
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  other way around. Our effort is a fruit of the new
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  birth, not a cause of it. Grace is always the source,
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  Which? Leads right into the 6th
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  certainty. The new birth itself it.
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  Has to be preached as an absolute necessity, he warns
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  ministers not to poison their people with the idea that just
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  cleaning up your ACT, a moral reformation, is enough.
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  He's brutally honest here. He says we have to tell people
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  they're born sinners and must be born Saints and.
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  He adds that if you're a minister who thinks your whole
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  congregation is already regenerate, you're probably
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  unregenerate yourself. It's a stark view of human
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  nature. 7th. Is sin and judgment.
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  We can't be wishy washy about the tremendous evil of sin or
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  the terrors of the Lord, right? He knows that smart people raise
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  difficult questions about hell, but he says the preacher's job
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  is to stand on what Jesus said. These shall go away into
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  everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
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  Without the certainty of judgment, the offer of grace
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  loses its urgency. It loses.
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  Its context. Why do you need a substitute if
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  there's no real penalty? Faith is salvation by grace.
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  This. Has to be declared with all
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  certainty. If we're saved, it's because of
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  sovereign grace alone. Our message has to be grace.
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  Grace. It's the counter to all the
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  pride and moralism he saw creeping in.
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  And. Finally #9 justification by
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  faith. Here we have to be absolutely
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  decided. It is not of works, lest any man
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  should boast. The message has to be life and a
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  look at the crucified. 1. Trusting in Christ is the one
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  and only saving act. So after laying out this whole
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  list, the solid core of truth, he brings it all back to the
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  messenger's job. Yes.
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  We are repeaters, not originators.
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  If we tweak the gospel even a little, we take away its very
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  soul. He.
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  Uses a really simple example of sending a servant to the door
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  with a message. If she changes the words, she's
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  messed up the whole thing and she's responsible for the
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  failure. But the comfort for the minister
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  is that if you repeat the message faithfully, word for
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  word, then the final responsibility for how it's
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  received lies with God, the sender.
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  All you have to do is answer the doubters with thus saith the
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  Lord. Fidelity is our only defense.
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  OK, so we know what the content of the decision is, but what
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  does it look like to live this out?
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  How does this certainty actually show itself in a person's life
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  and ministry? Spurgeon is really careful to
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  start by saying what it is not. It's not wolfish digotry or
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  furious obstinacy. So it's.
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  Not about being a jerk. No, it's not about cutting off
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  everyone who disagrees with you on some tiny point, what he
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  calls the color of a scale of the Great Leviathan.
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  We have to know the difference between the essentials and the
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  secondary issues. He.
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  Has some amazing descriptions for people who just love to
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  fight, he says. They seem naturally cut on the
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  cross, like they were made to be rasps.
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  Always looking for a fight, wanting to argue over the color
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  of invisibility. These people, he says, aren't
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  driven by a love for truth. They're driven by a desire to be
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  the Pope of the party, the doctrinal.
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  Gamecock or the Orthodoxy Terrier, Yes.
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  And he mentions the Donnybrook Fair, which was this infamous
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  rowdy fair in Ireland known for its brawls.
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  Men would drag their coats on the ground and dare someone to
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  step on it just to start a fight, he's saying.
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  That spirit has no place in the ministry.
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  We shouldn't be provoking fights just to show how tough we are.
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  We need. Firmness in the substance, but
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  gentleness in the manner. So what does authentic decision
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  look like? First, he.
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  Says It shows up in your tone and sincerity.
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  Your very tone will betray your sincerity, he says.
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  A. Dishonest person has a hard time
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  telling a lie? Well, because our faces and
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  voices weren't made for it. Truth has a certain air, a
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  manner, a tone that falsehood just can't replicate.
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  He goes back to. The courtroom again, an
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  experienced lawyer can tell if a witness is being honest, even if
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  they're awkward and clumsy with their words.
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  He describes this blundering ignorant country fellow who's
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  being confused by the cross examining lawyer and the lawyers
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  thinking I need to shake this guy's testimony but he can't
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  because the honesty is just so obvious and a Christian.
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  Minister needs that same air of truth, but even more so.
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  This is what gave Luther his power, Spurgeon said.
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  He spoke with Thunder because there was lightning in his
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  faith. The second.
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  Way it shows up is through life and action.
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  A person's life is always more forcible than his speech.
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  Deeds are pounds, words are pence.
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  If a minister. 'S life doesn't match his
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  doctrine. People will always believe the
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  life and reject the doctrine every.
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  Single time and he gives these great cutting examples.
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  The quack Dr. selling a cure for a cold while he himself is
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  coughing and sneezing between every sentence or the fable.
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  Of the Seder who was disgusted with the man who blew hot and
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  cold from the same mouth. It's just repulsive to hear
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  good. Truth from a bad man, he says,
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  is like getting flour in a cold sack.
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  The container ruins the contents and this is where.
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  He really goes after what he calls the salary.
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  Hypocrite. It's the.
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  Ridiculous gap between the high calling and the low ambition.
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  He compares it to someone shouting Sir William Wallace and
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  then immediately saying give me a bit of baca.
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  It's such. A let down from the heroic to
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  the trivial. And he says it's just as sad to
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  hear a preacher say I am a servant of the Most High God and
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  I will go wherever I can get the most salary or.
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  I'm called to labor for Jesus only, but I won't go unless the
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  church is of a most respectable standing.
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  This is a direct challenge to the idea of ministry as a career
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  path defined by market forces. The third.
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  And maybe the hardest way decision shows itself is through
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  sacrifice and cost. This is the.
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  Real test. Are you ready to give up things
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  for the principles you hold? Are you willing?
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  To offend our best supporters, to alienate our warmest friends
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  rather than compromise the message.
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  Are you ready to be a beggar in purse or an off scouring in
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  reputation? He says we.
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  Have to be determined to buy the truth at any price and sell it
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  at no price. And he's sad that so many in the
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  church have a saving faith that only seems to save themselves
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  from trouble. They always.
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  Know, as he puts it, on which side their bread is buttered.
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  He calls these. People, the mollusks,
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  jellyfishes of the church. Soft, spineless, holding no
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  truth that would ever cost them anything.
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  So if all. These external pressures are
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  pushing against you. Where does this kind of decided
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  conviction come from? How is it sustained?
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  Spurgeon. Says it comes from personal
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  experience of the doctrines themselves.
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  You can't give up a truth that you feel is vital to your own
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  soul, the ultimate. Test is how it holds up when you
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  face death and eternity, the truths you're willing to live
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  and die on, those are the ones you'll never let go of in a
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  debate and he. Gives these really personal
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  examples from his own life, showing how his theology was
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  forged by his experience. Take the.
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  Doctrine of election. A lot of people find it
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  controversial or just abstract, but for.
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  Him. It's deeply personal, he says.
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  I'm quite sure that if God had not chosen me, I should never
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  have chosen him. His own experience of his
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  resistance to God forces him to conclude that God must have been
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  the one to start the process. It takes it.
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  Out of the realm of just philosophy and puts it into the
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  realm of personal testimony. And then there's.
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  Depravity. He says he has to hold this
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  doctrine because he daily finds himself depraved in heart, that
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  there is no good thing in his flesh.
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  It's a constant daily battle for him and atonement.
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  His own conscience demands it. He feels that there has to be a
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  payment for sin before there can be forgiveness, because his own
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  sense of justice isn't satisfied otherwise.
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  His peace rests on it. And this brings us to what he
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  calls the test of reality. When a skeptic comes along and
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  denies the truth, your best response isn't a better
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  argument. It's your own experience I love.
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  His analogy of the honey. A man tells you honey isn't
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  sweet. How do you respond?
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  You just say but. I had some for breakfast and I
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  found it very sweet. Your direct personal experience
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  just overrules his theory that. Daily lived experience of God's
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  truth builds a kind of firewall against intellectual attacks.
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  He contrasts this with people who are easily shaken, the mere
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  skimmers of the word they get their.
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  Religion by jumping into it like a cold bath, he says, and
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  they'll jump out just as quickly there's no deep conviction
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  there, but the. Unshakable Soul is the one who
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  has been dragged through the mud of despair, stripped of all
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  self-reliance, and then filled with the peace of God.
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  That's the person you can trust and when.
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  A skeptic brings up some old, tired argument against the
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  faith. The experienced believer just
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  kind of smiles. He's thinking, I've wrestled
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  with things 10 times harder than that in my own soul.
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  Right, we who have. Fought with horses, Our own
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  internal spiritual battles are not going to be tired out by the
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  footmen of external critics. Lion.
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  Killers are not scared by Wildcats.
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  It's that simple. If you've wrestled with Satan
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  himself, you're not going to be intimidated by some pretentious
• 18:34
  skeptic, he says The. Quickest cure for modern doubt
• 18:37
  is a fresh glimpse at the thorn, crowned head and pierced hands
• 18:40
  of Christ. And he references the dying
• 18:43
  preacher of Summerfield who looked into eternity and said he
• 18:46
  realized how differently he should have preached with so
• 18:48
  much more weight on the eternal realities.
• 18:51
  It's the mount. Clearview from Pilgrim's
• 18:53
  Progress When the character atheist tells Christian and
• 18:56
  Hopeful there's no Celestial City, what do they say?
• 18:58
  They just say. Did we not see it from the top
• 19:00
  of Mount Clear? Our personal testimony is the
• 19:03
  final answer. We testified to what we have
• 19:05
  seen and know so. Why was this decision so
• 19:09
  necessary in Spurgeon's time? And by extension, why is it
• 19:12
  necessary now? Because.
• 19:14
  He saw his time as a doubting age, he says.
• 19:17
  It's swarmed with doubters as Egypt of old, with frogs.
• 19:21
  People doubted everything, religion, politics, economics.
• 19:26
  It was an age where everything was coming loose and in an age.
• 19:29
  Like that, when everything is shifting, the minister has to be
• 19:31
  the one who puts his foot down and stands still, right?
• 19:34
  And he said something interesting about being
• 19:36
  conservative. He says the conservative side
• 19:38
  must be ours, or rather the radical side, which is a truly
• 19:42
  conservative side. What does he mean?
• 19:43
  By that he means. We have to go back to the radix,
• 19:47
  the root of the truth, and stand there.
• 19:49
  By going back to the root, we can serve the original gospel in
• 19:52
  an age that's drifting away from it and he.
• 19:54
  Details just how intense the assault on that root was.
• 19:57
  He quotes another writer, Arthur Marcel, who describes the
• 20:00
  systematic takedown of the Bible by the critics of the day.
• 20:03
  It's sweeping. The Penteuch is dismissed.
• 20:05
  Creation and the flood are called fables.
• 20:08
  The language used to describe the criticism is it's violent.
• 20:12
  Isaiah. Is quartered and hacked in
• 20:14
  pieces. Ezekiel is ground to Adams.
• 20:17
  Daniel is devoured bodily by the learned lions and Jonah.
• 20:21
  Is swallowed with a more inexorable veracity than the
• 20:24
  fish, for they never cast him up again.
• 20:27
  The point is that these critics see the Bible as just flawed
• 20:30
  human literature ready for dissection.
• 20:32
  What about miracles? Pooh.
• 20:34
  Poohed as an absurdity, they're all explained away with natural
• 20:38
  theories. A simple science experiment in a
• 20:41
  dark room is supposed to explain the parting of the Red Sea.
• 20:45
  A hot air balloon explains the pillar of fire and cloud and the
• 20:48
  new. Testament gets the same
• 20:49
  treatment, no defence. Is paid.
• 20:51
  Christ is just a well meeting man with faults.
• 20:54
  His miracles are explained away. The Gospel of John is called a
• 20:57
  forgery. The atonement is scouted as
• 20:59
  bloody and unrighteous. Paul is a fanatic, so the Bible.
• 21:02
  Is just ground down until there's almost nothing left and
• 21:05
  he says who's. Driving this, a lot of the time
• 21:07
  it's not honest deep thinkers, it's just the mere satellites of
• 21:11
  fashion people going to. Lectures to show off their new
• 21:13
  clothes taking up. Skepticism is a hobby like
• 21:16
  croquet or archery. He calls it an age of millinery
• 21:19
  and dolls in comedy, and this lack of seriousness leads to
• 21:23
  those mollusks and jellyfishes in the church, but he.
• 21:27
  Says the age is also very impressible it can be influenced
• 21:30
  and he uses the ritualists, the high church movement as a hard
• 21:34
  lesson he thinks their. Theology is intolerable
• 21:36
  nonsense, and their practices are childish foolery.
• 21:40
  But they were earnest. They were decided and because.
• 21:43
  Of that earnestness, they had a huge influence.
• 21:45
  They endured riots and backlash, but they kept pushing their
• 21:49
  cause because they really believed in it and they became a
• 21:51
  dominant force. So his.
• 21:52
  Point is, if this condition can push a message that he thinks is
• 21:56
  false, how much more should those who hold the truth
• 21:58
  proclaim it with that same vigor and decision?
• 22:00
  The danger? Is trying to be too clever, too
• 22:03
  intellectual, and losing that fire of conviction.
• 22:06
  So the final call is to stand against the current, he says.
• 22:09
  The age is manifestly drifting southeast toward Cape Vatican,
• 22:14
  the reef of Roman Catholicism and the.
• 22:15
  Job is to get on the glorious steam beam tug of gospel truth,
• 22:20
  turn it around and head in the other direction.
• 22:22
  Right around. Cape Calvin, he says, and up
• 22:24
  into the Bay of Calvary to anchor in Veracruz or the Cross.
• 22:29
  It's a call for a definite course toward a definite
• 22:31
  historical anchor point. So after all.
• 22:33
  This we see that decision, is about the clarity of our
• 22:36
  message, the integrity of our lives, and the personal strength
• 22:39
  of our own experience. That's the engine that drives
• 22:42
  conviction into a world that's wavering, we're called.
• 22:45
  To be repeaters, not inventors. Our whole credibility rests on
• 22:49
  being faithful to the fixed, certain record of God's Word.
• 22:53
  Spurgeon. Said that if the age is
• 22:54
  drifting, the minister has to be the one who stands still.
• 22:58
  So we should probably leave you with this question to think
• 23:00
  about. What concrete, non negotiable
• 23:03
  anchor are you holding onto today that's strong enough to
• 23:06
  resist the currents of modern thought?
• 23:08
  What revealed truth? Are you ready to buy at any
• 23:10
  price and sell at no price?