Latest / Reformed Thinking / Qualifications for Soul-Winning - Godward | Charles Spurgeon

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Qualifications for Soul-Winning - Godward | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Reformed
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Thinking. I'm your host and I am really
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glad to be sitting down once again to dig into some of the
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great texts of Christian history.
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It's good to be here and I think this one is going to be well.
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It's a challenging one. We're tackling a real
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heavyweight today. We certainly are.
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We're opening up the works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the man
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so many people know as the Prince of Preachers.
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And usually, you know, when people talk about Spurgeon, they
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go straight to his sermons or maybe his morning and evening
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devotionals. Right, which are classics for a
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reason. He's one of the most quoted
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figures in church history. Exactly.
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But today we're doing something a little different.
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We're looking at a specific book he wrote called The Soul Winner.
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And not even the whole book we're really zooming in.
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We are. We're focusing on one chapter in
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particular, titled Qualifications for Soul Winning
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God Word. That last word is the key, isn't
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it? God Word.
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It is. It sort of stops you in your
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tracks. It sounds a bit, I don't know,
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ominous. I think it's meant to because
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our default setting, especially in the modern church, is to
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think about the man word side of things.
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What do you mean by that? Well, we focus on technique.
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We ask how do I communicate effectively?
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Am I being persuasive? Do I have the right arguments
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lined up? You know, is my delivery smooth?
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It becomes all about performance, almost like sales
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training. If I just follow the script, I
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can, you know, close the deal for Jesus.
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Precisely. We treat it like a human to
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human transaction, but Spurgeon, coming from a deep reformed
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theological well, just flips the entire table over.
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Yeah, he does. He reminds us that this whole
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enterprise is God's work. Salvation is of the Lord.
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And if that's true, then the 1st and most important question
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isn't what does the audience think of me?
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The first question is what does God think of me?
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And that is a much, much scarier question.
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It is. It really is.
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So Spurgeon isn't concerned here with rhetoric or voice control,
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or, you know, how to structure a three-point sermon.
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He's digging into the spiritual character, the very constitution
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of the person that God chooses to use.
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He's asking what makes someone a fit instrument for the hands of
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God. He kicks the whole thing off
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with this metaphor that I found incredibly helpful.
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It's about an artisan and his tools.
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It's a classic Spurgeon illustration, so simple but so
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deep. He talks about a blacksmith, and
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of course a blacksmith has to know about horses to shoe them.
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He needs to understand the shape of a hoof, the temperament of
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the animal. That's the man word side of the
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job. You have to know your audience,
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so to speak. OK, but Spurgeon says that's
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only half the equation. The blacksmith also has to know
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his tools intimately. He has to know which hammer
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delivers the right kind of blow, which tongs will grip the hot
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iron without letting it slip. And he takes that and applies it
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directly to God as the the great worker.
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Yes, God is the master artist, the master Craftsman.
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And just like a painter might have a favorite brush that just
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feels right in his hand for fine details, or a sculptor has a
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particular chisel he trusts, God has preferences.
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That's a bold thing to say. It is, but Spurgeon grounds it
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in Scripture and observation. God is sovereign.
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He can use anyone or anything he wants.
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He can make the rocks cry out. But his ordinary way of working
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is through instruments, through people.
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And this leads to the central question of this whole deep
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dive, really. Spurgeon asks us to imagine
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something to do, a bit of role-playing.
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Yeah, he says. Basically, put yourself in God's
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shoes for a moment. If you were God, what kind of
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instrument would you choose to use?
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It's such a daring question to ask.
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It forces you to get out of your own head.
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Imagine you're the thrice holy God of the universe.
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Your mission is to rescue fallen humanity.
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You look down the the workbench of the world and there we are,
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All of us, lying there like tools.
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And God sees everything. Everything he sees, our hearts,
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our secret sins, our mixed up motives, our little compromises.
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And the question is, would he reach down and pick you up?
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Would he choose you for the job? Or would he pass you over and
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reach for someone else? That's a heavy place to start,
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if I'm being honest. There are a lot of days where if
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I were God, I wouldn't pick me. I'd leave me on the bench.
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I think any Christian who is being honest with themselves
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feels that way. But that's why this chapter is
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so vital. Spurgeon isn't just trying to
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make us feel bad, he's laying out a blueprint.
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He gives us 7 specific qualifications and they have
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nothing to do with your IQ or your charisma.
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They have everything to do with the state of your heart.
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OK, let's get into them. The first one feels like the
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foundation for all the others. Qualification #1 is holiness of
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character. Be clean that bare the vessels
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of the Lord. That's the Bible verse.
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He starts with Isaiah. And he uses that exact analogy,
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the analogy of a vessel, a cup, a bottle, a container.
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Right. And it's a powerful image.
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Imagine you've been crawling through a desert for days.
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You're dehydrated. You're desperate for a drink.
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Someone comes up and offers you a beautiful crystal goblet
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filled with pure cold water. Sounds amazing.
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But as you reach for it, you see that the outside of the glass is
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just filthy. It's caked in mud, or worse, it
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smells like something has gone bad in it.
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Yeah, I'm not drinking from that.
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Of course not. Even if you know the water
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inside is perfectly pure, the container itself ruins the
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experience. It makes the whole thing
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repulsive. And that's Spurgeon's point.
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That's the point. The Lord, who is holiness
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itself, is extremely particular about the vessels he uses to
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pour out the living water of His grace.
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He's not going to serve his gospel in a dirty cup.
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OK. Now I want to push on this for a
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second, just to be clear, because we're approaching this
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from a reformed perspective, we hold to the Westminster
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Confession. And doesn't the confession teach
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that the effectiveness of the word or the sacraments doesn't
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depend on the moral character of the minister?
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You're absolutely right to bring that up.
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It's a critical theological point.
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If a pastor who baptized you 10 years ago turns out to have been
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living a secret life of sin, your baptism is still valid.
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You don't have to get re baptized, no.
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Because the power is in God's promise, in the work of the Holy
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Spirit, not in the perfection of the man administering the
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sacrament. OK, so if that's true, why is
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Spurgeon hammering this point on holiness so hard?
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It sounds like he's saying the opposite.
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Because there's a difference between validity and blessing.
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There's a difference between something being technically true
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and something being powerfully effective.
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OK. A minister whose life is a mess
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might technically preach a true sermon.
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He might read the right Bible verses, and God in his absolute
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sovereignty might even use a line from that sermon to save
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someone almost in spite of the preacher.
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Just to show that his word doesn't return void.
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Exactly. But, and this is Spurgeon's
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whole argument, God will not bless that ministry.
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He won't pour out his spirit and power through that man.
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There won't be a harvest. The man becomes a blockage in
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the pipe, not a clean conduit. So there won't be any thriving,
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no real spiritual impact. None, Spurgeon puts it bluntly.
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Physician, heal thyself, he says.
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If a man stands up in the pulpit and talks about repentance but
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his own life shows no sign of it, or if he preaches about the
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joy of obedience, but he himself is disobedient, he just becomes
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a joke. It's the ultimate hypocrisy.
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It is the world looks at that and laughs and God is
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dishonored. The gospel is mocked because of
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the messenger. And this leads to a statement
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that I think should be, I don't know, carved into the wall of
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every seminary. What's that?
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He says God will sooner speak through a fool who is holy than
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a genius who is dirty. Wow, that is so countercultural.
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We live in a celebrity culture. Even in the church.
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We love the genius. We forgive an awful lot of of
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dirt if the person is talented enough.
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If they're charismatic enough, we do.
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We've decided the talent is the most important qualification,
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Spurgeon says no. Cleanliness is the state of the
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tool is the main thing. He goes on to say that he sees
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ministers all the time blaming their lack of fruit on
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everything that themselves. Right.
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It's always external factor. So the culture is just so
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godless now, or these people have hard hearts or white
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congregation is just stubborn. It's never their fault, Spurgeon
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said. Hold on.
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Before you blame the area you live in, maybe you should look
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in the mirror, he says. Maybe the reason the heavens are
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like brass is because there's an H Hand in the camp.
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A reference to the book of Joshua, the man with the sin in
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the tent. The secret sin?
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It could be greed. It could be a love of worldly
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entertainment. It could even be, as he
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mentions, a failure to govern your own home.
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He specifically brings up unruly children.
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He does. He points back to Eli.
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In the Old Testament, Eli was the high priest, but his sons
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were scoundrels and he didn't restrain them.
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And the result was God's judgement on his entire house.
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Aspersion's logic is biblical. If a man can't manage his own
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small family, how could he possibly be trusted to manage
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the household of God? This all feels very abstract,
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but he makes it concrete with a story about George Miller.
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For listeners who might not know, Miller was a giant of the
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faith in the 1800s. He ran these huge orphanages in
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Bristol, England, cared for thousands of kids and he never
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once asked for donation. He just prayed and the money and
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food would show up. An incredible life of faith.
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So Spurgeon tells the story of going to hear Miller preach
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somewhere called Mentone. Now you have to remember who is
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telling the story. Spurgeon was the greatest
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speaker of his day. He knew all the tricks of
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rhetoric. He's a master Craftsman of
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words. But when he describes Miller's
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sermon, he says it had no novelty, It wasn't clever, There
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was no strength of thought, intellectually speaking.
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It sounds like he's saying it was, frankly, a boring sermon, a
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very basic lesson. From a technical standpoint,
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maybe, But Spurgeon says he was completely captivated.
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He says the sermon fed his soul until he was overflowing, and he
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asks why. What was the power in it?
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And the power was in the man himself.
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Exactly. The power was in the man.
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Miller wasn't just reciting theological points.
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He was speaking a reality that he lived and breathed every
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single day. He practiced what he preached.
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It was baked into him. He was a clean vessel, and
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Spurgeon's conclusion is that when a person walks that closely
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with God, their words carry a spiritual weight, a kind of
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gravity that no amount of rhetorical skill can ever
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imitate. You can just feel the difference
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between someone reading a script and someone speaking from the
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overflow of their life in Christ.
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So that's number one, holiness. You have to be clean, which
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leads right into qualification too, which is related, but it's
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more about your, your power source.
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He calls it spiritual life, vitality.
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This is the difference between, say, a mechanic working on a
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dead engine and a father giving life to a child.
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Soul winning for Spurgeon is a transference of life.
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And the principle is so simple. You cannot give what you do not
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have. If you are spiritually dead on
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the inside, you can't bring life to anyone else.
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You can't. You can go through the motions,
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you can say the words, but there's no spark.
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And he uses that story from the Old Testament to illustrate it.
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The prophet Elijah and the Shunamite woman's son.
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Yeah. Can you refresh your memory on
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that one? Sure.
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So this woman who had been blessed with his son in her old
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age suddenly loses him. He dies.
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She's obviously devastated. She saddles a donkey and rides
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out to find Elijah, the man of God.
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And when she tells him what happened, Elijah's first
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instinct is to delegate. He gives his servant Kahasi his
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prophetic staff. He says run to the house and lay
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my staff on the boy's face. It sounds a bit like a magic
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wand approach. It does let the symbol do the
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work. So Ghazi runs.
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He gets to the house. He lays this wooden staff on the
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dead child's face, and nothing happens.
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The Bible says there was neither voice nor hearing.
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The boy is still cold, still dead.
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Because the staff is just a piece of wood, it has no life in
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it. It's a dead object.
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And So what happens next? Elijah himself has to come.
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He goes into the room. He shuts the door and then he
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does this very strange, very personal thing.
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He stretches himself out over the boy's body.
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Mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes. Hands to hands, he is pressing
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his own living warmth and vitality against the coldness of
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death. Life touching death.
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And the boy's flesh begins to grow warm.
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He sneezes 7 times and his eye is open.
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He's alive. And Spurgeon's point is
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powerful. You cannot do God's work with a
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dead stick. You can't just send a program or
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a tract or even a well crafted sermon by itself.
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It requires a living person full of the Holy Spirit stretching
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themselves out and pouring their own spiritual life into the
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work. That leads to maybe the most
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vivid and honestly one of the most disturbing images in the
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entire book. Spurgeon describes this painting
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he saw once. The half alive painting.
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It sounds like something out of a horror movie.
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It really does. Can you describe it for us?
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It was some artists attempt to depict the resurrection of the
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dead, but instead of showing people fully alive, he had
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painted them in the process of coming back to life.
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So you had these grotesque figures that were like half
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flesh and half skeletons. Which is awful.
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He describes seeing a head that was fully alive.
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The eyes were open, the skin was flushed with life, but it was
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attached to a torso that was just bare ribs, or a body that
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was muscular and alive from the waist up, but from the waist
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down it was just dead, dry bones.
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That is genuine nightmare fuel. It is, but Spurgeon, in a moment
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of genius, applies it directly to ministry.
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He says I know men like that. And then he gives these
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archetypes. He talks about the man with
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living jaws. This is the guy who can talk.
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He's a great communicator, eloquent.
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He can preach a fantastic sermon, but he has a dead heart.
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He says all the right things about God's love, but he feels
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no love. He preaches on the terrors of
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hell without a single tear in his eye.
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He's a talking head on a skeleton.
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All mechanics, no feeling. Ouch, that's a sharp critique.
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And there's the man with living eyes.
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This is the theological expert, the critic.
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He can see everything. He can spot a hint of heresy
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from 100 yards. He knows all the nuances of
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systematic theology. But he has dead hands.
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He doesn't do anything. He doesn't serve, he doesn't
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show compassion, he just observes and critiques from a
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distance. He's a spectator in the Kingdom
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of God, not a participant. So Spurgeon is saying you can't
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be this, this Frankenstein's monster of life and death.
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You have to be all alive. From head to foot, every part of
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you engaged. And he double s down with
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another image. The Angel in the worms.
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He really had a gift for these illustrations.
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Unbelievable. He describes A preacher who,
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when he's in the pulpit, seems like an Angel from heaven.
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He looks holy, his voice is reverent, He seems divine.
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But then you go out to dinner with him after the service, or
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you see him in a casual setting during the week, and suddenly,
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Spurgeon says, the worms crawl out.
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The worms. What does he mean?
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The maggots of his true character, A bitter spirit, a
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love of gossip, frivolous worldly conversation, a complete
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lack of any real spiritual hunger, Sturgeon says.
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This man is a fraud. You cannot be an Angel for an
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hour on Sunday and then a worm the rest of the week.
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The spiritual life has to be consistent.
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It has to pulse through every part of your being.
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So we've got holiness and we've got spiritual life, but there's
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a danger here, isn't there? If you actually start to achieve
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some of that, if you're living a clean life and you feel this
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vitality from God, there's a huge trap waiting for you.
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The trap of pride. And that is why the third
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qualification is humility. God loatheth the proud.
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It's a constant theme from Genesis to Revelation.
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God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
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Spurgeon argues that from a purely strategic standpoint,
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pride in ministry is insane. It's choosing to fail.
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Why does it guarantee failure? Because God will not share His
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glory with another, it's the one thing he refuses to do.
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So the moment a minister becomes proud, the moment he starts
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thinking, look at what I'm accomplishing, God withdraws his
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blessing, the power gets shut off.
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So the man is left to work in his own strength.
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And his own strength is nothing. Spurgeon says.
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The devil absolutely loves to see a proud minister.
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He says when Satan sees a pastor starting to get puffed up, he
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just rubs his hands with Glee and says, excellent, I don't
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even have to attack this one. He's about to self destruct.
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Spurgeon breaks down pride into two types, which I found both
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hilarious and painfully accurate.
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He calls them Type A and Type B. Yes, Type A is the pride of the
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child, the chat. Think of a little girl who's
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just been given a brand new dress.
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She runs into the room and starts twirling.
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She goes up to every single person and says, do you like my
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new dress? Don't I look pretty?
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She needs constant praise, constant affirmation.
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I think we've all met pastors like that.
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They finish a sermon and they're immediately fishing for
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compliments. So how was that?
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Did you like that point I made? Was I good today?
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Spurgeon says this kind of person sets little mouse traps
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all over the place to catch mice of trays for their breakfast.
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It's this desperate need for validation.
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It's vanity. OK, that's type A.
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But then there's type B, the Ogre.
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The ogre is the opposite. The ogre is too proud to even
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care what you think. This is the man who is supremely
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self satisfied, he says. I don't need your approval.
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I know I'm great. He looks down on other people's
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opinions. This could be the the arrogant
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intellectual who thinks everyone else is an idiot, or the
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authoritarian leader who can't be questioned.
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Exactly. And Spurgeon makes a fascinating
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point. He says the world often respects
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the ogre more than the child because the ogre seems strong
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and confident. But spiritually, the ogre is in
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a much more dangerous place. He has essentially made himself
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his own God. So what's the alternative?
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What is true humility? Because sometimes people think
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humility means walking around saying oh, I'm just worthless,
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I'm terrible, I'm no good at anything.
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And Spurgeon says that's not humility at all.
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That's often just fals piety, and it can even be a sinful
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excuse for laziness. How so?
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Oh, I couldn't possibly teach that Sunday school class.
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I'm just not gifted enough. When the real reason is you just
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don't want to put in the work. It's a sinful love of ease
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disguised as humility. So what is the real thing?
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Real humility is thinking truthfully about yourself.
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That's the key. It's not thinking less of
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yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
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As someone once said, it's acknowledging whatever gifts God
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has given you, but remembering that they are just that, gifts.
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They're on loan. They don't belong to you.
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So in success, you give God all the credit.
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And in failure, you take all the blame.
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You blame your own fallah, your own weakness, not God's
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sovereignty. He tells a story here that's
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just devastatingly powerful about a young Prince and his
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father's crown. It's a great illustration.
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So the old king is on his deathbed.
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The young Prince, his heir, walks into the room.
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The king is asleep, Or so he thinks.
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The Royal crown is sitting there on the bedside table.
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And the Prince gets an idea. He picks up the crown, this
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heavy symbol of power and glory, and he places it on his own
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head, just to see how it feels, how it fits.
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But the father isn't asleep. The King's eyes flicker open.
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He sees his son wearing the crown, and he rebukes him with
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this one line. Wait till I am dead.
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And Spurgeon just drives the point home.
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He says every time we take credit for a soul being saved,
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every time we puff up our chests over a ministry success, we are
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trying to place God's crown on our own head.
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And God's response to us is the same.
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Wait till I am dead. And since God will never die.
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We can never, ever touch the crown.
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The glory is his and his alone forever, in a way.
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That's a huge protection for us, isn't it?
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It's our only protection because that crown is too heavy for us.
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If we try to wear it, it will crush us.
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And Spurgeon gets very personal here.
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He reflects on his own early ministry in London.
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We think of him as this universally beloved figure.
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But that's not how it started. No, the press savaged him.
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They called him a clown, a buffoon, a country bumpkin.
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They made fun of his accent. He was relentlessly mocked, but
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looking back, he says he was grateful for it.
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He says that rough treatment was like ballast in the hull of his
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ship. It kept him from getting top
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heavy and capsizing when the winds of popularity started to
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blow later on. He warns about the danger of the
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Nebuchadnezzar moment. Right Nebuchadnezzar, the king
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of Babylon, walking on the roof of his palace, looking out over
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the city. And he says, is not this great
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Babylon that I have built? And the moment the words of
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pride leave his lips, judgement falls.
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He loses his mind and is driven out to eat grass like an ox.
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Spurgeon's warning is clear. Stay humble or God will be
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forced to humble you, and God's methods of humbling are rarely
20:24
pleasant. All right, that brings us to
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qualification #4 and on the surface, this one seems obvious,
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but Spurgeon really unpacks it. The qualification is living
20:34
faith. It does seem basic.
20:36
Of course a Christian worker needs faith.
20:38
But Spurgeon insists that a lack of genuine, active faith is one
20:42
of the biggest reasons for fruitless ministry.
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He keeps coming back to that principle from the Gospels.
20:47
According to your faith, be it unto you.
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He says unbelief actually ties God's hands.
20:52
It does. Just like Jesus couldn't do many
20:55
miracles in his hometown of Nazareth because of their
20:57
unbelief, our own lack of faith can create a spiritual
21:01
environment where God chooses not to work in power, Spurgeon
21:05
says. We need faith in three specific
21:07
areas. OK, what's the first one?
21:08
First, you need faith in your call.
21:10
You have to know that God actually sent you.
21:12
You have to be sure of it because if you're standing in
21:15
front of people wondering, am I supposed to be here?
21:16
Could I just make this up? You'll have no authority.
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You'll be timid, apologetic. Spurgeon tells of a letter he
21:25
wrote to a young pastor who is full of doubt.
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He wrote, if the devil opened your mouth, may the Lord shut
21:31
it. But if the Lord opened it, the
21:33
devil cannot shut it. That gives you a steel backbone,
21:36
doesn't it? Knowing you're on a mission from
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God Himself. It changes everything.
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The second area is faith in your message and this feels so
21:44
relevant for our time. We live in an age of doubt and
21:47
deconstruction. It's fashionable to be uncertain
21:50
to hold your beliefs very loosely.
21:51
You hear it all the time. Well, I tend to think or one
21:54
possible interpretation is. This is just my truth.
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Spurgeon had no time for that, he said.
21:59
You have to be utterly convinced that the gospel you preach is
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the objective life and death truth of God, he tells the fable
22:06
of the narrow neck jar. The boy trying to get nuts or
22:08
Filbert's right. A boy shoves his hand to a jar
22:11
of nuts and tries to grab a huge fistful.
22:14
He wants to hold all of them, but because his fest is now so
22:17
big and bulging, he can't pull it back out through the narrow
22:21
opening of the jar. He gets stuck because he's too
22:23
greedy. Exactly.
22:25
And Spurgeon's application is this don't try to loosely hold
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100 different complex theological ideas, he says.
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It's better to grab a few central, massive truths, the
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substitutionary atonement of Christ, His divinity, the bodily
22:38
resurrection, and grip them with all your might.
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Hold them with unshakable conviction.
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Because if you don't believe your own message, why should
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anyone else? And that leads to the third area
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of faith, faith in the power of the message, faith in the
22:52
result. And this is where he tells my
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favorite story in the whole chapter, the one about the
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student who comes to him. It's.
22:58
Like a classic Spurgeon moment, this young student from his
23:01
pastor's college comes to him all dejected and says, Mr.
23:04
Spurgeon, I've been preaching for several months now and I
23:07
haven't seen a single person converted.
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And Spurgeon, like a wise old teacher, sets a little trap for
23:12
him. He looks at the young man and
23:14
asks, Do you expect the Lord to save souls every time you open
23:18
your mouth? And the student trying to sound
23:19
humble and realistic says what you'd expect.
23:22
Oh no, Sir, of course not. And boom, Spurgeon springs the
23:25
trap. He leans in and says that is why
23:29
you do not get them. That just hits like a ton of
23:31
bricks. It really does because it
23:33
exposes the subtle unbelief in so many of our hearts.
23:36
We preach, we share our faith, we teach our kids, but deep down
23:39
we don't actually expect God to do anything.
23:42
We treat it like buying a lottery ticket.
23:44
Well, maybe this will be the one.
23:46
Virgin says no. True faith expects a harvest.
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It casts its bread upon the waters and then goes to the
23:51
shore every morning to watch for its return.
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So good. OK, Qualification 5.
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This one deals with the the emotional temperature of our
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work. He calls it thorough
24:01
earnestness. Yes, and this is the great
24:03
antidote to what he calls the bright poker.
24:06
The bright poker, you have to explain that one.
24:08
It feels like a very specific Victorian England reference.
24:11
It is so in a well to do Victorian drawing room you would
24:14
have a fireplace and next to the fireplace you'd have a set of
24:18
tools, a shovel, tongs and a poker for stirring the fire.
24:23
But in the fanciest houses they had a special set of these tools
24:28
that were just for decoration. They were made of highly
24:31
polished brass and they were kept shiny and perfect.
24:34
They never touched the fire. They were just for show.
24:36
Purely ornamental, and if the fire of dying down and some
24:39
clueless guests grabbed that bright shiny poker to smash a
24:43
log and stir up the embers, the lady of the house would have a
24:46
fit. Don't touch that.
24:47
You'll get sit on it. You'll scratch the finish.
24:49
It's a tool that's not allowed to do its job.
24:50
It's a useless tool, and Spurgeon says that's what too
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many sermons are like. They are bright poker sermons.
24:56
They are perfectly polished. The language is elegant.
24:58
The structure is flawless. The pastor looks very dignified
25:01
delivering it. But they are cold.
25:04
They have no heat. They have no real connection to
25:07
the fire of heaven or hell or the human heart.
25:10
He has a great line where he says there's not enough power in
25:12
them to kill a cockroach. Let alone raise a dead soul.
25:17
He says he would rather hear a sermon from a man using a rough,
25:21
rusty iron bar, Something that's maybe not pretty, but can
25:24
actually break up the hard goals and get the fire going.
25:27
Then listen to a beautiful polished, useless ornament.
25:31
He connects this earnestness directly to the urgency of what
25:35
we're talking about, the illustration of the fire at the
25:37
house. This is such a great self check
25:39
for any of us, he says. Imagine it's 2:00 in the
25:42
morning. You're sound asleep.
25:44
You hear a knock at your door. You look out the window and
25:46
there's a man standing on your porch.
25:48
He's got his hands in his pockets, leaning casually
25:51
against the door frame. And he whispers, pardon me?
25:54
So sorry to bother you, but I do believe the back of your house
25:57
is engulfed in flames. You would assume he's drunk or
26:01
crazy, you tell him to get lost and you'd go back to bed.
26:03
Exactly. But if that man is pounding on
26:05
your door, screaming at the top of his lungs, fire, wake up.
26:09
Get out now. If his face is filled with panic
26:12
and urgency, you believe him instantly.
26:15
Because his tone matches his message.
26:17
His manner confirms his matter, and Spurgeon's question for us
26:21
is devastating. How can we stand up and talk
26:23
about eternal life and eternal death, about the wrath of God
26:26
and the infinite love of Christ in a calm, dispassionate,
26:29
monotone voice? If we do that, we are liars.
26:33
Our demeanor is telling everyone that we don't really believe
26:36
what our mouths are saying. He has another one of his
26:39
colorful phrases for ministers who lack this earnestness.
26:42
He calls them chips in porridge. Just floating there, tasteless,
26:47
useless, taking up valuable space.
26:49
He is absolutely brutal about the kind of pastoral visitation
26:53
that is just an excuse to drink tea and gossip for an hour.
26:56
He says no, the work of soul winning requires vehement agony.
27:01
It requires passion. If you're not sweating, if your
27:03
heart isn't breaking for the lost, you're not really in the
27:06
fight. That leads to qualification 6,
27:08
which is simplicity of heart. This feels like it's all about
27:11
our core motivation. It's entirely about motive.
27:13
It's about having a single eye. Why are you doing what you're
27:15
doing? Is it only for the glory of God
27:18
or are there other mixed motives polluting the stream?
27:21
He has a great time mocking what he calls the Celestial Dandy.
27:25
I love that phrase so much. The celestial dandy.
27:28
This is the spiritual snob, the guy who thinks the plain, simple
27:31
gospel is beneath him. He can't be bothered with the
27:34
milk of the word. Oh no.
27:35
His refined palate requires a spurgeon, says Chinese bird's
27:39
nest soup. He needs some exotic, novel
27:42
spiritual delicacy. He's always chasing the new
27:45
thought, the fresh take. Yes, the stale herring.
27:48
That's another great image. Spurgeon talks about men who
27:51
find some obscure, dusty old theological idea a stale herring
27:56
and they run around waving it and everyone's face shouting
27:58
look what I found, A new truth, just to show off how smart and
28:02
deep they are. And in the process, they're
28:03
stepping right over the simple life giving truths that actually
28:07
save people. It's the idolatry of novelty.
28:09
We see that all over the place today.
28:10
And Spurgeon says the true soul winner is simple.
28:13
He has one target, one goal to see that soul, one for Christ.
28:18
He doesn't care if he looks clever, He doesn't care if he
28:21
sounds original. He just wants to get the arrow
28:23
to the heart. This is where he introduces the
28:25
Jemima factor. The Jemima Factor.
28:28
This is Spurgeon at his most pastorally sharp.
28:31
He gives this warning against trying to preach to please God
28:34
and Jemima. And Jemima is just a stand in
28:37
name. She's a placeholder for that one
28:39
specific person in your life whose approval you crave a
28:43
little too much. We all have a Jemima.
28:45
It might be your spouse. It might be that wealthy donor
28:48
who sits in the front Pew. It might be the seminary
28:51
professor you're trying to impress.
28:53
It's that person whose eyes you're looking for when you're
28:55
speaking. You find yourself thinking.
28:57
I hope Jemima liked that point. Or I wonder if Jemima thought
29:00
that was funny and Spurgeon says the moment you do that, it's
29:04
idolatry. You're trying to serve 2
29:06
masters. And he says God will not accept
29:08
a man's leftovers. God will not have a man's
29:10
leavings. He demands the whole throne of
29:12
your heart. If you're trying to share that
29:14
throne with Jemima. God vacates the premises.
29:18
The goal is not to be seen as a splendid man.
29:21
It's not to be so popular that the crowd unhitches the horses
29:24
from your carriage to pull you through the streets and triumph.
29:27
Which apparently was the thing that happened back then.
29:30
It was, but the goal is for you to become smaller and smaller so
29:34
that Christ can become larger and larger.
29:36
If people walk out of the church saying, wow, what a great
29:38
preacher, you have failed. If they walk out saying wow what
29:41
a great Savior, you have succeeded.
29:43
That's the test. And that brings us to the 7th
29:46
and final qualification, which sort of gathers all the others
29:49
up. Complete surrender.
29:51
This is the capstone. It takes us right back to the
29:53
beginning, to the metaphor of the tool.
29:56
The paintbrush must yield completely to the hand of the
29:58
artist. The harp must surrender to the
30:01
fingers of the harpist. If there is any resistance from
30:04
the instrument, the art is spoiled.
30:07
And he uses the story of Gideon to make this point.
30:10
It's such a perfect story for this.
30:11
Gideon has this huge army, 32,000 men ready to go fight the
30:15
Midianites and God looks at this impressive force and says it's
30:19
too many. Which is the opposite of every
30:21
military strategy ever. It's humanly insane, but God
30:25
explains his reasoning. He says if you win with this
30:29
army, Israel will boast and say my own strength has saved me.
30:34
So God forces Gideon to whittle the army down and down and down
30:38
until there are only 300 men left.
30:40
Why so? The instrument is so obviously
30:43
weak, so inadequate for the task, that when the victory
30:47
comes, the glory can only go to God.
30:49
And Spurgeon applies this directly to sermon preparation.
30:52
This part, I have to admit it really stung when I read it.
30:54
He says sometimes a sermon can be too good to be blessed by
30:57
God. That is a hard, hard saying.
30:59
You spend hours crafting this message.
31:01
It's a work of art. It has 14 logically perfect
31:04
subdivisions. It has this brilliant quote,
31:05
this gem. You found some obscure Puritan
31:08
writer and you can't wait to use it because, let's be honest, it
31:11
makes you look smart. It feeds your own ego.
31:13
And Spurgeon says, if that brilliant point, if that gem
31:17
doesn't actually serve the simple spiritual needs of the
31:20
people in front of you, if it's just there for show, you have to
31:24
have the humility and the surrender to cut it.
31:26
You have to be willing to Kill Your Darlings, as writers say.
31:30
You have to be willing to sacrifice the literary
31:32
perfection of your sermon for the spiritual good of a soul.
31:36
That requires being completely fearless about what people
31:38
think. Completely, he says.
31:40
You have to be willing to offend the old Deacon in the back who
31:43
likes things a certain way. You have to be willing to offend
31:46
the schoolmaster critic who is grading your grammar.
31:49
You have to be willing to offend the hyper, the hyper Calvinist
31:53
in the gallery who is checking all your theological boxes.
31:56
You have to say what the Spirit of God prompts you to say,
31:58
regardless of the fallout. He ends this whole section with
32:01
one last image, a contrast between a massive ship and a
32:05
simple quark. The Great Eastern In Spurgeon's
32:08
day, this is the largest ship in the world.
32:10
An enormous iron steamship. It was so massive, so heavy,
32:13
that it could plow through the waves and barely even notice
32:16
them. It was impressively stable.
32:18
That sounds like a good quality for a ship.
32:20
For a ship, yes. For a soul winner, no.
32:23
Spurgeon. Contrast that great ship with a
32:26
simple piece of cork floating on the surface of the water.
32:29
The cork is light. It has no agenda of its own.
32:32
It's totally responsive. If a tiny Meadow swims by
32:35
underneath, the cork bobs. If a gentle breeze blows, the
32:39
cork drifts. It is exquisitely sensitive to
32:42
the slightest movement of the water around.
32:44
It and we are supposed to be the cork, not the ship.
32:47
We're supposed to be the cork. We should be so yielded to the
32:49
Holy Spirit that the slightest nudge, the faintest prompting
32:53
from God moves us. We can't be like the Great
32:56
Eastern, so weighed down with our own plans, our own dignity,
32:58
our own five year strategy, that when the Spirit moves in a new
33:01
direction we just sit there immovable.
33:05
This radical responsiveness to God is the final mark of a truly
33:08
fit instrument. So let's just run through that
33:10
list one more time. The seven qualifications.
33:12
Holiness of character being a clean vessel.
33:14
Spiritual life being all alive from head to toe.
33:17
Humility, refusing to touch God's crown.
33:19
Living faith, actually expecting God to work.
33:22
Thorough earnestness, no cold bright mokers.
33:26
Simplicity of heart. Doing it only for God, not for
33:30
Jemima. Complete surrender being the
33:32
cork on the water. It's an overwhelming list, but
33:35
notice what's not on it. There's nothing about having a
33:37
PhD, nothing about your social status or how much money you
33:41
have, nothing about being good looking or charismatic.
33:44
These are qualifications of the heart.
33:47
They are in theory accessible to the poorest, least educated
33:51
Christian in the world if they are willing to pay the price of
33:55
dying to self. It brings us right back to where
33:57
we started, to that first question Spurgeon posed.
34:00
If you were God. That's where he leaves us.
34:02
He tells us to judge for ourselves.
34:04
He says, look at your own life right now.
34:06
Look at your own heart, your motives, your secret habits.
34:09
Be brutally honest. If you were the master Workman
34:12
looking for a tool to accomplish your most precious work, would
34:15
you hire you? It's a haunting question.
34:17
It's meant to be convicting. It is.
34:19
But it's not meant to lead us to despair.
34:22
The point isn't to make us throw up our hands and quit.
34:24
The point is to drive us to the blacksmith's forge.
34:27
If we look at ourselves and see that we're a dirty tool, or a
34:30
dull one, or a proud one, the response isn't to give up.
34:34
The response is to go to the Lord himself and say, Master,
34:37
make me into the kind of tool you can use.
34:39
Cleanse me, sharpen me, humble me, empty me of myself, and fill
34:43
me with your spirit. Because the wonderful truth of
34:46
the gospel is that our God doesn't just find perfect tools,
34:49
he forges them. Amen to that.
34:51
He can take a crooked stick and use it to hit a straight blow,
34:55
but how much better, how much more glorious for him, if we
34:58
would surrender to be made into a straight stick in his hand?
35:02
Well, that is more than enough for us to think about and pray
35:04
about. We really hope this deep dive
35:06
and Dispurgence the Soul winner has been a sharpening for you as
35:09
it has been for us. Indeed, may we all desire to be
35:13
fit vessels for the masters use. Thank you for listening to
35:16
Reformed Thinking. We'll talk to you next time.