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Anecdotes from the Pulpit | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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You know, there's a specific kind of high end restaurant that
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I'm sure you've either been to or like at least heard about.
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Oh yeah, the ones with absolutely no clear sign on the
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outside. Right.
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You have to just sort of guess where the door is, and inside
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it's all muted lighting, hushed tones and, you know, a tasting
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menu. Tons of culinary foams and like
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deconstructed sauces. Yeah, plates that look way more
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like modern art installations than actual meals.
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And I mean, you pay an absolute fortune for it.
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The chef is a certified award-winning genius and the
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presentation is flawless. But then you leave that
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restaurant and you immediately start looking for a drive
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through on the way home. Yes, yeah, because despite all
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that culinary brilliance, you are still just entirely
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starving. Spot on.
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It's it's a performance of culinary brilliance, but it
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completely fails at the most basic bottom line function of
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food. Which is to feed you.
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Right. It doesn't actually feed you at
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all. It's engineered to be admired
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from a distance, to win awards, to look good in a photograph.
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But you know, it isn't really meant to be consumed and
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digested. Yeah.
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And then you contrast that with, like, your favorite local diner.
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The coffee mugs are chipped. The tables are maybe a little
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sticky. 0 pretension in those places.
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None at all, but the meal sticks to your ribs.
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You walk out actually satisfied. So welcome to reformed thinking.
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Today we're taking a look at a dynamic that works the very same
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way. But not with food.
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Right. Not with food.
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With how we communicate truth. We're looking at an address by
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the legendary preacher Charles Spurgeon.
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Oh, this is such a good one. It really is.
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It comes from his lectures to my students, and specifically we're
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looking at a lecture titled Anecdotes from the Pulpit.
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We're pulling our material entirely from this single
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striking address today. It's just a brilliant piece of
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source material. I mean, Spurgeon is speaking to
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a room full of aspiring communicators.
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Young men studying theology right, preparing to step into
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pulpits. Yeah, and he's diagnosing A
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widespread disease among them. He's explaining why so many
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highly educated, brilliant speakers just completely failed
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to connect with their audiences. Leaving them essentially
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starving in the pews. Yeah, starving.
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And the goal for you, the listener, as we this today, is
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to uncover how the greatest communicators in history
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utilized simple everyday stories like the chipped mugs, if you
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will. To transmit the highest
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theological truths. Spot on, we are going to see why
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intellectual snobbery is often the absolute biggest hurdle to
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genuine understanding. I mean, we usually assume that
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high level thinking requires a high level vocabulary.
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Right. That's the default assumption,
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yeah. But Spurgeon argues the total
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opposite. He suggests that true
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communication requires stepping down from the pedestal.
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He actually quotes Martin Luther.
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Oh, the bit about sinking down. Yeah, Luther said a preacher
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must sink deep down to the listener's level.
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I want to start right there, actually, because sinking deep
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down almost sounds like an insult, or at least like a
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concession. Doesn't that mean we're just
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compromising the message? I mean, that's a natural fear,
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isn't it? And it's what Spurgeon tackles
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immediately. That phrase sinking deep down is
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kind of the crux of his whole argument.
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How so? Well, Spurgeon opens his case by
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taking aim at a group he calls the proves of the pulpit.
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The prudes of the pulpit. I love that phrasing.
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It's so biting. These are the critics, the
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academics, the highly refined thinkers who they basically look
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down their noses at simple, homely stories.
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They think those stories are beneath.
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Them. Yeah, they honestly believe that
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anecdotes and everyday illustrations are strictly for
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the vulgar and uneducated. To them, using a story about a
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farmer or a blacksmith somehow lowers the dignity of the sacred
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office they hold. So they prefer big words and
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abstract concepts. Right.
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I mean, they might be willing to use a lofty poetic emblem, or
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maybe a classical metaphor if it sounds smart enough, but a story
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about a cobbler that is entirely beneath them?
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And he doesn't hold back on these critics either.
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The language he uses to dismantle them is so sharp.
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Oh, he goes right for the throat.
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He really does, He says They suffer from an affectation of
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intellectual superiority, like they're just in love with
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rhetorical splendor. They want to sound grand,
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mysterious, and above the common fray.
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But the result is an actual dignity.
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No, and Spurgeon coins a phrase for it that I absolutely love.
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He calls it glacial eloquence. A river of ice.
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A river of ice. It's such a brilliant image when
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you break it down. Think about an actual glacier.
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Massive. Ancient.
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Yeah, awe inspiring to look at. You take pictures of it, marvel
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at its scale. But if you're dying of thirst
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and you try to drink from a glacier, you just freeze your
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lips off. Right.
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It doesn't nourish you at all. It just chills you to the bone.
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Spurgeon argues that true dignity is found in actually
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helping people you know, in turning them to righteousness,
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feeding the flock, not in swelling up huge as high Olympus
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just to show off your Greek vocabulary.
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And he illustrates this false dignity with a couple of very
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sharp, mocking stories of his own, which is fitting given the
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topic we're on. Oh, the young gentleman story.
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Tell that one. Yeah, so he talks about this
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young gentleman who delivered a highly elaborate, intensely
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academic discourse, and afterward someone told this
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young man that out of the whole congregation, maybe 5 or 6
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people actually understood a single word he said.
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And the guy's reaction is just wild.
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Yeah, he took it as a compliment.
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He literally thought it was a tribute to his towering genius
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that only an elite fraction of the room could comprehend him.
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Which is just staggering to think about.
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It reveals a total misunderstanding of what
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speaking actually is. Yeah, if your goal is to
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communicate and only 5 people understand you, you haven't
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succeeded at a high level. You have failed completely.
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But his ego was so wrapped up and sounding intelligent that he
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missed the point of opening his mouth in the 1st place.
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He wasn't there to feed them, he was just there to be admired.
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Start on and Spurgeon places that guy in the same category as
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another speaker. He mentions this man who would
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shake his head in the most vigorous, serious manner while
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speaking. Trying to make his point seem
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incredibly weighty. Right.
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He wanted to impress the groundlings, the Spurgeon puts
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it, using big theatrical gestures to compensate for a
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lack of genuine substance. Shake his head, furrow his brow,
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look incredibly serious until a sharp witted woman in the
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audience pointed out that yes, he certainly did shake his head
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a lot. But there is nothing in it.
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It's just brutal but so accurate.
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It's all performance. It's all packaging with 0 actual
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product inside. Now I want to push back a little
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here because there there has to be a line, right?
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If I'm trying to explain the doctrines of grace or the
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specifics of justification, is there a legitimate fear of, you
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know, dumbing down the message? That's a fair question.
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Like if you. Use a story about a farm animal
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or a local news event. Don't you risk losing the
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gravity, the sheer weight of the truth you're trying to convey?
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Well. That is the exact objection the
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prudes of the pulpit raise. They think the sacredness of the
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topic absolutely demands a complicated delivery.
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So how does Spurgeon answer that?
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He counters all this snobbery by pointing to the ultimate
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precedent, which is the Bible itself.
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This is where his argument moves from just a stylistic preference
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to a solid theological conviction.
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Because God himself uses stories.
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Yes, he points out that God, when instructing humanity day
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throughout scripture, uses history and biography.
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I mean, the Bible has doctrines and precepts, sure, but it is
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brought to life by records of things actually said and done by
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flawed normal people. And then he points to Jesus.
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Right Jesus, the ultimate teacher, the Word made flesh,
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didn't use abstract Greek philosophical frameworks.
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He used current events as literal parables.
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Like the falling of the Tower of Silom.
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Yeah, that was a local tragedy. It was a headline.
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And the tragedy of Pilate mingling the blood of Galileans
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with their sacrifice. Sacrifices.
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That was current political gossip.
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He talked about lost coins, wayward sons, farmers sowing
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seeds. Fishermen sorting their catch.
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These were real life occurrences, vivid human
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experiences. And so Spurgeon's point is, if
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the Son of God didn't think it was beneath him to use a story
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about a pig farmer to explain the grace of the Father, who are
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we to demand Latinized verbiage? That makes total sense, and
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Spurgeon brings up his own analogy to answer that Fear of
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dumbing down brings up the story of David and Goliath.
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I love this. Part I think this perfectly
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captures the tension between looking smart and being
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effective. When David went to face Goliath,
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King Saul tried to put his own royal armor on David.
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Yeah, and the armor was heavy, it was metallic, it was
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dignified. It looked like what a warrior
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you know should wear. It had the royal stamp of
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approval. But David couldn't even walk in
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it. It was completely impractical
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for the way he fought. So he took it off, went to a
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common brook, and picked up a common smooth stone.
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And the stone did the job better than the royal armor.
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Right, Spurgeon is asking his students.
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Why do we insist on wearing Saul's heavy, impractical armor
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of academic jargon when a simple story from everyday life
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actually hits the target? The goal is to defeat the Giant
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of Ignorance, not to look incredibly impressive while
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holding a heavy sword you can't even swing.
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The common stone works. It's lethal.
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And to prove it, Spurgeon takes us on this huge historical tour
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of communicators who use those common stones to absolute
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perfection. He doesn't just theorize about
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it, he shows us the receipts. Oh yeah, He starts by taking a
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huge leap back to the 16th century, introducing us to a man
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named Hugh. Latimer.
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Now, Latimer was a major figure in the English Reformation, but
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his style was anything but High Church, right?
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Latimer is a fascinating case study.
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I mean, Spurgeon quotes historians like Southie and
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fellow reformers like Ridley, and they said that Latimer
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promoted the English Reformation more than any other single man.
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Ridley called him God, standard bearer in their age.
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Yeah, and Latimer's background is absolutely vital to
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understanding his communication style.
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He wasn't raised in a palace or a wealthy aristocratic estate.
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He was raised by a Yeoman father.
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His mother milked 30 cows. Exactly.
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He grew up on a working farm in Leicestershire.
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He knew what dirt smelled like. He knew what physical labor felt
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like. He.
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Was a man of the soil. He implicitly understood the
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language, the anxieties and the humor of the working class.
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And Spurgeon says his sermons were seasoned with a homely
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humor that came straight from that farmhouse upbringing.
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And the response from the public was just insane.
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Spurgeon notes that people would rush into the churches to hear
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him literally breaking the wooden pews in the Stampede.
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It's incredible to picture that people breaking furniture just
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to hear a sermon. They were so desperate, so eager
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to hear a man speak about God in a language they could actually
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digest, that it caused physical damage to the buildings.
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Let's look at the actual stories Latimer used to 'cause that kind
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of reaction. The first one Spurgeon
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highlights is a story Latimer called The Friars Man and the 10
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Commandments. Walk us through that one.
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So the story goes that there was a Friar who was incredibly lazy
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with his preparation. He constantly preached the exact
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same sermon about the 10 commandments.
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Just week after week. Week after week, he preached it
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so often that the locals started calling him Friar John 10
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Commandments. Which, as far as historical
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nicknames go, is pretty brutal. It really is so the Friars
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servant who has to listen to this guy every single week goes
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to him and advises him to preach about literally anything else
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because he's tired of hearing his master mocked in the
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streets. And the Friar does not take that
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well. No, he gets defensive.
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He decides to test the servant. He says, well, since you've
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heard it so many times, let me hear you recite the 10
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commandments right now. And the servant confidently
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clears his throat and begins. Pride.
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Covetousness. Lechery.
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He just starts listing the seven deadly sins.
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He completely fails the test. He hasn't retained a single word
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of the actual commandments. Not a single one.
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He had heard the sermon countless times.
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He was sick of it, but he hadn't learned a single thing.
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Latimer's application here is absolute.
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Oh, it's brilliant. He uses this funny little story
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to say there are many people in the pews who complain that they
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are weary of the old gospel truths.
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They want to hear some new things, some novel philosophy.
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They think they already know the basics.
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Right. They think they are perfect in
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the old truths, but in reality they are no more skilled than
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that servant. They don't even know the basics
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they claim to be so bored of. It's such a clever way to bypass
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a listener's defensiveness. I mean, if Latimer just stood up
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and yelled, you all think you know this, but you don't, you're
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ignorant. Everyone would immediately cross
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their arms and tune them out. For sure they just shut down.
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But by making fun of the Friar servant, he gets the audience
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laughing at this foolish guy. And then, while their mouths are
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open and laughter, he turns the mirror on them.
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It's like a rhetorical Trojan horse.
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That's a great way to put it. Another story Latimer used was
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Saint Anthony and the Cobbler. Well, I want to pause on this
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one because I have a bone to pick with how we might interpret
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this today. Walk us through the story 1st
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and then I want to ask about the implications for the common
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people hearing it. Sure, it's a remarkable story,
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especially given the historical context of the Catholic Church
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at the time and the rising Protestant Reformation.
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So Saint Anthony was a famous ascetic monk.
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He lived out in the desert, right?
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Yeah, he lived alone in the wilderness, eating barely
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anything, living in an incredibly hard, strict life of
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deprivation. And the common, unquestioned
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belief of that era was that this monastic isolation was the
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highest, holiest, most perfect form of Christian living.
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If you were really serious about God, you went to the desert.
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Right. But in Latimer's story, A voice
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from Heaven tells Anthony that despite all his fasting and
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isolation, he is not as perfect as a regular, everyday cobbler
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living in the busy, noisy city of Alexandria.
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So Anthony, probably feeling a bit insulted and highly curious,
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takes his staff, hikes out of the desert into Alexandria,
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tracks down this specific cobbler and demands to know how
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he spends his time. He fully expects to find this
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guy performing extreme spiritual feats, maybe sleeping on nails
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or giving away every penny he earns.
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Yeah, and the cobbler is just completely confused by the
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monk's intensity. He basically says I have no
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great works to boast about. My life is incredibly simple.
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He tells him I wake up, I pray for my city and my neighbors, I
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sit down at my bench and do my labor.
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I earn my living without deceit or falsehood.
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I keep my promises and I spend my time with my wife and
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children teaching them to fear God.
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That's it. That's his whole life.
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That's it. It's so painfully ordinary.
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But here's my pushback. If you stand up in front of a
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bunch of 16th century farmers and tradesmen and tell them,
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hey, your ordinary job is just as holy as a monk praying in the
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desert, doesn't that risk making them lazy?
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How do you mean? Like doesn't it give them a free
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pass to ignore spiritual disciplines?
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If milking my cows is holy, why do I need to pray or read the
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scriptures? That's a really good question,
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and it hits on the tension of the Reformation's view of
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vocation. See, Latimer wasn't telling them
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that spiritual disciplines didn't matter.
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Notice the cobbler still prays for his city and teaches his
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children the fear of God. Right, he isn't totally secular.
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Exactly what Latimer was dismantling was the two tiered
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system of Christianity where the religious professionals were
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holy and the regular workers were just secular peons.
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Oh, I see. Latimer's point was
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revolutionary. He was telling the farmers, the
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merchants, the mothers in his audience that upright living in
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their daily mundane vocation was an act of worship.
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He elevated the dignity of common labor.
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So it didn't make them lazy, it imbued their sweat and dirt with
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sacred purpose. Yes, you can see why they broke
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the pews trying to hear him. For generations they have been
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told they were second class citizens in the Kingdom of God
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because they had to work for a living.
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And here comes Latimer, smelling like Leicestershire dirt,
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telling them that their everyday lives mattered.
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He was validating their existence.
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That is a heavy, beautiful thing.
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It really is, and Latimer also used a story about the danger of
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prosperity. Oh, the sinking house.
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Yes, it features a Bishop who is traveling and stops to visit a
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wealthy house. The host of the house is
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bragging at dinner about having no troubles.
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He says he has no vexations, plenty of money, perfect health
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and absolutely no inward or outward struggles.
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Life is just a breeze. And then the Bishop's reaction
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is incredibly telling. He immediately orders his
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servants to saddle the horses. He flees the house in a panic,
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stating that God must not be there if there is absolutely no
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temptation, no cross to bear, and no struggle.
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And the story goes that as soon as they ride away, the house
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literally sinks into the earth. It's a dramatic, highly visual,
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almost fairy tale like narrative.
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It sounds like something out of Brothers Grimm.
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It really does, but Latimer uses it to drive home a very specific
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theological point drawn straight from the book of James.
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Bless is the one who endures temptation.
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Right Latimer was speaking to suffering, struggling, overtaxed
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listeners. By telling this story, he was
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teaching them not to envy the easy, comfortable lives of the
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corrupt, wealthy class. He was saying your struggles are
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actually proof that God is working on you.
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That wealthy guy with 0 problems?
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His house is about to sink. It gave the poor framework to
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understand their suffering. OK, so Latimer is our rustic
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farm raised storyteller. The smooth stone for the muddy
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Leicestershire brook. But Spurgeon doesn't stop there.
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No, he anticipates the objection from his students.
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Well, that works for farmers, but what if my audience is
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highly educated? Right, so he takes us forward a
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century to Jeremy Taylor. Now Spurgeon calls Taylor
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Latimer turned into Latin. His style is completely
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different. Very different.
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Where Latimer talked about cows and Cobblers, Taylor lived among
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the philosophers of Greece and Rome.
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Jeremy Taylor was a highly classical thinker.
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He was speaking to a much more patrician, educated,
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aristocratic audience. And Spurgeon describes Taylor's
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language as being like a King's palace, full of rare, exotic
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treasures. He would reference obscure
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stories from ancient Greek and Roman writers as if everyone in
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the room already knew them. His vocabulary was elevated.
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His sentences were complex. But Spurgeon's point is that the
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method was identical, the raw material changed, but the
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architecture was the same. Latimer used rural stories,
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Taylor used classical stories, but both of them absolutely
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relied on narrative to make their point.
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Right. They both refused to rely purely
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on abstract logic, and Spurgeon justifies this classical
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approach by comparing it to Hiram of Tyre in the Old
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Testament. Oh, that's an interesting
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connection. Yeah, King Solomon used Hiram,
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who was a foreign Pagan king, to help supply the cedar wood and
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the gold for the temple of the Lord.
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In the same way, communicators can rifle through the secular
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treasures of ancient heathen antiquity to teach divine truth.
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Because all truth is God's truth, even if a Pagan
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philosopher stumbles upon it. Precisely.
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Let's look at how Taylor actually did this.
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He tells a story about Menedemus, a Greek philosopher,
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and his observation about the progression of students who
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travel to Athens to study. How does that permission go?
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Well, Menedemus said that in their first year of study, the
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young boys started around thinking they were wise men.
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They thought they had it all figured out.
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Oh, classic college freshmen, Yeah.
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In the second year, the illusion started to crack and they
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realized they were just philosophers, lovers of wisdom,
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but not actually wise yet. A.
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Little slice of reality hitting them.
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By the third year, their confidence had dropped further.
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They were merely orators, just talking about things they didn't
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fully grasp. And finally.
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By the 4th year they realized there were just plebeians who
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understood nothing but the vastness of their own ignorance.
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That is just the perfect description of the Dunning
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Kruger effect centuries before psychologists actually named it.
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Oh. Absolutely.
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The Dunning Kruger effect is that cognitive bias where people
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with low ability or limited knowledge overestimate their
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competence. The classic.
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Sophomore mentality You take 1 intro to psychology class and
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suddenly you're diagnosing your entire family at Thanksgiving.
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Yes, but the further you go, the more you learn, the more the
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horizon of what you don't know expands until you feel like you
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know nothing at all. And Taylor applies this ancient
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observation about Athenian students to the progression of
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religion in a person's life. How so?
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He says People often start out violent, loud and active,
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thinking they have flawless theology and know everything.
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They're ready to argue with everything, everyone.
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But as they progress, as they actually mature and encounter
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the holiness of God, they often cool down.
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They realize their infirmities. Right.
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Their loud confidence is replaced by a quiet, humble
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reliance on grace. Taylor used a classical anecdote
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about Pagan students to brilliantly diagnose a spiritual
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condition in his own church. He also used a short, punchy
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story about a proud man. This guy was so overjoyed that
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he had supposedly been cured of his pride that he ran home to
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his wife Dionysia. Oh yeah, and he boasts loudly
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about how incredibly humble he is.
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Now, behold, I have laid aside all my pride, he shouts.
21:14
Completely unaware that boasting about your own humility is the
21:18
ultimate, undeniable proof of your pride.
21:21
It's a great little psychological mirror.
21:23
You can't brag about being humble without instantly
21:26
destroying the humility. It defeats the premise
21:28
immediately. But the one that really stood
21:30
out to me from Taylor is the story of Diogenes and the young
21:33
man. I think this is one of those
21:35
incisive psychological observations in the entire
21:38
lecture. It's a brilliant 1.
21:39
So Diogenes was known as a very severe, cynical philosopher who
21:43
lived in a barrel and carried a Lantern, looking for an honest
21:46
man. Quite the character.
21:47
Yeah, one day he spots a young man coming out of a Tavern,
21:51
which at the time was a place of severe ill repute.
21:54
The young man sees Diogenes looking at him, panics, gets
21:57
incredibly embarrassed, and instinctively steps backwards
22:00
into the Tavern to hide in the shadows.
22:02
And Diogenes calls out to him. The more you go back, the longer
22:06
you are in the place where you are ashamed to be seen.
22:08
It's. Just devastating logic.
22:10
The psychological accuracy of that is just incredible.
22:13
It is so perfectly applicable to modern habits and human nature.
22:17
Think about it. When a person makes a mistake or
22:20
gets caught up in a bad habit or commits a thin, the absolute
22:24
first instinct going all the way back to the Garden of Eden is to
22:28
hide it. We want to cover it up right?
22:31
But the act of covering it up, of lying about it, often
22:34
requires you to embed yourself deeper into the exact behavior
22:38
you are trying to escape. Oh, that's so true.
22:40
If you lie, you have to tell three more lies to cover the
22:43
first one. If you have a secret addiction,
22:46
the shame makes you isolate yourself, which feeds the
22:48
addiction further. The cover up becomes worse than
22:51
the crime and you are trapped in the shameful place even longer.
22:54
Taylor took a random story from ancient Greece about a guy
22:57
dodging a philosopher in the street and used it to perfectly
23:00
illustrate the destructive trapping nature of concealing
23:04
our faults. It's a phenomenal insight, and
23:06
it proves Spurgeon's thesis entirely.
23:09
The source material for your stories doesn't matter nearly as
23:11
much as the utility of the story.
23:13
Right. Whether you're drawing from a
23:15
Leicestershire dairy farm or the marble streets of ancient
23:17
Athens, a good story is a window that lets the light in.
23:21
The light is the truth. The story is just the glass.
23:25
I love that the story is just the glass.
23:28
Well, this brings us to the 17th century, the era of the
23:31
Puritans. Now, historically, the Puritans
23:34
have a reputation for being dense, overly analytical and
23:38
dry. Yeah.
23:39
That's the stereotype. But Spurgeon clearly views this
23:42
period as the absolute peak of illustrative preaching.
23:46
He focuses heavily on two men to start, Thomas Brooks and Thomas
23:50
Adams. Let's talk about Brooks first.
23:52
OK, yeah, Spurgeon says Brooks had the unique ability to float
23:55
his meaning on a flood of metaphor without drowning the
23:57
doctrine. That balance is incredibly hard
24:00
to strike. It is, and it's why Brooks is so
24:02
highly regarded by Spurgeon. Many speakers start using
24:04
metaphors and they get so enamored with their own
24:06
cleverness, so lost in the imagery, that the audience
24:09
completely forgets that the actual theological point was.
24:12
The metaphor drowns the meaning. Right.
24:14
It's like a heavily frosted cake where you can't even taste the
24:16
actual cake. But Brooks kept the truth
24:19
floating clearly on the surface. He use emotion and history to
24:22
buoy the doctrine, not sink it. Spurgeon gives a few rapid fire
24:26
examples of Brooks's style, right, starting with a very
24:29
emotional one. Yeah, there is the story of a
24:31
minister named Mr. Welch weeping uncontrollably at a table.
24:35
When someone asked him why he was crying, he said it was
24:38
because he could not love Christ enough.
24:41
It's a striking image, a grown man breaking down at a meal, and
24:46
Brooks uses this to show the true devotion always feels
24:49
inadequate to the object of its affection.
24:51
If you truly grasp the magnitude of grace, your own love will
24:55
always feel like a tiny drop compared to an ocean.
24:57
Yes. Then there is the historical
25:00
story of Philip the Second king of Spain.
25:03
This is a great 1. He spent three massive,
25:05
incredibly expensive years building the invincible Spanish
25:08
Armada to conquer England. And when he finally received the
25:11
news that the entire fleet was lost.
25:14
Destroyed by storms and the English Navy, his reaction was
25:18
shocking. He didn't fly into a rage.
25:20
He displayed A submissive silence.
25:23
He commanded that all over Spain they should give thanks to God
25:25
that the disaster was not even worse.
25:28
Which is an insane level of composure.
25:30
I get mad when my Internet drops out for 10 minutes minutes and
25:33
this guy lost the greatest naval fleet in human history and just
25:37
said well it could have been worse.
25:38
Right. And Brooks pairs that historical
25:41
reality with a story about Seneca and Caesar.
25:43
Seneca told a complaining friend that he had absolutely no right
25:47
to grumble about his daily afflictions as long as the
25:50
Emperor Caesar was his friend. If you have the favor of the
25:53
most powerful man on earth, who cares if your shoes are tight?
25:56
Exactly. Brooks takes that political
25:58
reality and applies it spiritually.
26:00
If a person rests in divine favor, if the sovereign God of
26:03
the universe is their friend, they can bear worldly
26:06
afflictions quietly. They can lose an Armada and not
26:09
lose their peace. He also quotes Sir Philip
26:12
Sidney, a famous military commander who was shot in battle
26:16
while the surgeons were cutting the bullet out of his body
26:19
without anesthesia. Mind you, people standing around
26:22
were pitying him and crying. And Sydney looked at them and
26:26
said, Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.
26:30
Brooks takes that historical moment of agony and coins a
26:32
phrase that just sticks in your mind.
26:35
God allows his people to groan, though, not to grumble.
26:39
I want to dissect that for a second.
26:40
The difference between groaning and grumbling.
26:43
It's an important distinction. Groaning is the physical or
26:45
emotional acknowledgement of pain.
26:48
It's honest. The Psalms are full of groaning,
26:50
but grumbling is an accusation against the character of God.
26:54
Right, grumbling says you are treating me unfairly.
26:57
Brooks brilliantly uses a wounded soldier to teach his
26:59
congregation that pain is acknowledged but bitterness is
27:02
rejected. That's a beautiful distinction.
27:05
Notice how Brooks leans heavily on emotional depth.
27:08
Tears at a table, Submissive silence after a catastrophe.
27:11
Groaning in battle. He pulls on the heartstrings.
27:14
But Spurgeon immediately contrasts him with Thomas Adams.
27:18
Oh, Adams is so different. Adams is described as having
27:22
humor that is grim and caustic. He is rugged.
27:25
He is sarcastic. He doesn't want to make you cry.
27:28
He wants to expose your hypocrisy.
27:30
Give us some of Adams's grim humor, because the tonal
27:33
whiplash between Brooks and Adams is so stark.
27:36
OK, so Adams tells a story about a husband who warned his witty
27:40
wife that he had one major bad quality.
27:43
He was given to being angry without a 'cause he just had a
27:46
short temper. In the wife's response.
27:48
The wife, without missing a beat, replied that she would
27:50
cure him of that fault entirely, because from now on she would
27:54
make sure to give him plenty of causes to be angry.
27:56
That is basically a 17th century sitcom joke.
27:59
It's a total rimshot moment. It is, and Adams uses it to
28:02
illustrate how people often complain about being offended
28:04
without cause or suffering unjustly in a world that
28:07
promises tribulation anyway. He also tells the story as a
28:10
servant who comes home and highly praises A sermon to his
28:13
master. Right.
28:13
Yeah, oh, it was a wonderful sermon, Sir.
28:16
The master asks what the central text was.
28:18
The servant says, oh, it began before I came in.
28:21
The master, a bit suspicious, asked for the conclusion.
28:24
And the servant says, well, I came out before it was done.
28:27
Right, so the master asks, well what did he say in the middle?
28:31
And the servant replies. Indeed, I was asleep in the
28:33
middle. The servant slept through the
28:35
entire middle, missed the beginning, missed the end, but
28:38
still gave it a five star review.
28:40
Adams's application is razor sharp.
28:42
He says many people crowd to get into the church building.
28:45
They praise the music, they praise the atmosphere, but they
28:48
make absolutely no room for the message to actually get into
28:51
them. They sleepwalk through the
28:52
truth. That is biting, but my absolute
28:56
favorite Adams story is the one about the painter.
28:59
Oh, the horse painting. Yeah, a guy commissions a
29:01
painter to draw a trotting, prancing horse.
29:05
He wants a majestic portrait of a horse in motion.
29:08
When the painting is delivered, the buyer unwraps it and sees
29:11
that the painter has drawn a tumbling, wallowing horse with
29:14
his hooves sticking up in the air, rolling in the dirt.
29:17
And the buyer is furious. He demands his money back.
29:20
But the painter just shrugs, completely unbothered, and says
29:24
if that is all, just turn the picture upside down and you have
29:27
your desire. It's a hilarious, absurd visual,
29:30
but Adams doesn't just leave it as a joke.
29:32
He uses it as a caustic critique of theological debaters who use
29:36
needless disputes and clever arguments.
29:38
They don't actually have the truth on their side.
29:40
They just turn the picture upside down.
29:42
They twist words, they redefine terms until the matter looks the
29:45
way they want it. To we see that all the time
29:47
today in modern debates, whether theological or political, people
29:51
will take a clear concept, flip the definitions upside down and
29:55
say, see, it's a prancing horse. Which makes me wonder, how did
29:59
these preachers successfully balance such drastically
30:02
different tones? I mean, you have Mr. Welch
30:04
weeping heavy tears over his lack of love for Christ, and
30:07
then you have Adams making sarcastic jokes about upside
30:10
down horses and sassy wives. It's a huge swing.
30:14
How do they maintain the gravity of their central message with
30:17
such wild, unpredictable swings in tone?
30:20
Well, they managed it because the tone was always, without
30:22
exception, subservient to the truth.
30:25
Spurgeon points out that they never told stories just to
30:27
entertain. So Adams didn't tell the Horror
30:29
Story just to get a laugh. Right.
30:31
He used the laugh as a crowbar to expose the absurdity of
30:35
twisting truth. Brooks didn't tell the story of
30:38
Mr. Welch just to manufacture a sentimental moment and make
30:41
people cry. He used the tears as a measuring
30:43
stick for the depth of true devotion.
30:46
The emotional vehicle, whether it was sorrow, awe, or biting
30:50
humor, was always strictly a delivery mechanism for a
30:53
central, unchanging principle. That's a great summary.
30:55
The story is the horse, but the doctrine is the rider.
31:00
You can ride a weeping horse or a laughing horse as long as they
31:03
are both carrying the same rider to the exact same destination.
31:06
That is a very bruffs like way of putting it.
31:08
I've been learning from the masters.
31:09
Yeah, let's keep moving to the Puritan era.
31:11
Spurgeon next highlights William Gernell and John Flavelle,
31:14
focusing on themes of grace, Providence and extremes of
31:18
faith. Right.
31:19
He mentions that Grenell's writing is so packed with
31:21
imagery that his book The Christian and Complete Armor is
31:24
basically a preacher's playbook. Gernell excelled at vivid
31:28
imagery of protection and spiritual warfare.
31:30
Yes, Gernell was a master of illustrating the security of the
31:34
believer. One of his most famous
31:36
illustrations is about a bird and a heathen man.
31:40
Let's hear that one. Grenal says to imagine a small
31:42
bird terrified, exhausted and being actively haunted by a
31:46
hawk. In its desperation, the bird
31:48
flies straight into the coat, into the bosom of a heathen man
31:52
for sanctuary. And what does the man do?
31:54
The man, despite being a Pagan with no knowledge of God, looks
31:57
at the trembling bird and says. I will not betray you to your
32:00
enemy, seeing you came for sanctuary to me.
32:04
Grenal uses this to argue forcefully from the lesser to
32:06
the greater. If a Pagan man operating purely
32:09
on basic, flawed decency has the compassion to protect a
32:14
terrified bird that seeks refuge in his coat, how much more will
32:17
the Almighty Sovereign God protect a human soul that flees
32:20
from temptation, flees from the enemy, and takes sanctuary in
32:24
His name? It's such a tender, intimate
32:26
image of protection, you can almost feel the heartbeat of the
32:28
bird calming down. But Grenal wasn't just about
32:31
tender images, right? He also uses a more epic
32:34
militaristic metaphor. Yes, he says, to imagine a
32:38
King's son, a Prince who manages to escape a heavily besieged
32:42
city. He leaves his wife and children
32:45
behind in that city, starving, terrified and surrounded by
32:48
ruthless enemies. And when that Prince finally
32:51
reaches his father's safe, luxurious Royal Court, what will
32:55
he do? Will he just sit down at the
32:57
banquet table, pour a glass of wine, listen to the music and
33:01
forget his family? Or will he immediately rush to
33:04
his father's throne before even eating or drinking, and beg him
33:07
with tears to send the entire Royal Army to raise the siege?
33:11
The answer is obvious to anyone with a heart.
33:13
The Prince will not rest. He won't enjoy the safety until
33:16
his family is rescued. Goonel applies this directly to
33:18
Christ. Though Christ has ascended,
33:21
though he is safe from the storm and seated in glory, his people
33:24
are still left behind in the batteries and sieges of the
33:27
world. Goonel assures his readers that
33:29
they are not forgotten. The Prince is not just enjoying
33:31
the banquet, he's actively advocating for their rescue.
33:34
He is moving heaven on their behalf.
33:36
Beautifully put, Colonel also touches on the extremes of faith
33:39
through two historical figures, John Careless and Mr. Benbridge.
33:43
These were real men face an execution, correct?
33:45
Yes, Careless was a martyr who actually died in prison before
33:48
he could be executed at the stake.
33:51
His perspective on his suffering was astonishing.
33:53
He considered it a massive privilege to suffer for his
33:56
faith, saying it was an honor that even angels were not
33:59
permitted to have. He literally asked God for
34:02
forgiveness for his unthankfulness of being given
34:04
the chance to suffer. It's a level of faith that is
34:07
almost incomprehensible to us, and Gurnell knew that.
34:10
He knew his readers would feel inadequate reading about John
34:14
Careless. So right next to careless
34:17
Gurnell places Mr. Benbridge. Right, who provides a stark,
34:20
very human contrast. Ben Bridge was also brought to
34:24
the stake, the faggots were piled around him, the fire was
34:27
kindled, the flames started to rise, and his heart completely
34:30
failed him. He thrust the burning wood away
34:32
with his feet and cried out in terror.
34:34
I recant. I recant.
34:35
He broke under the sheer physical terror of the flames.
34:38
He completely. Broke.
34:39
But the story doesn't end in disgrace, does it?
34:42
It doesn't. Gurnell notes that Ben Bridge,
34:44
after this terrible moment of public failure, was placed back
34:47
in prison. And there he was, reinforced in
34:50
his faith by the grace of God. A week later he was brought back
34:54
to the stake, and this time he did not flinch.
34:57
He died cheerfully. Girl uses this pairing to show
35:00
that courage is not an inherent human trait.
35:03
Careless had strength from outside himself, and Ben Bridge
35:07
proved exactly how weak a human is when left to their own
35:10
devices, but also how completely they can be restored by grace.
35:14
That is a deeply comforting reality for anyone who knows
35:17
their own frailty. It destroys the illusion that
35:19
heroes of the faith are just biologically braver than the
35:22
rest of us. Now let's pivot to John Plabel.
35:25
If Gurnell is the master of spiritual warfare imagery,
35:29
Flavelle is the absolute master of highlighting the bizarre,
35:32
unpredictable mechanisms of Providence.
35:34
Flavelle loved to point out how the most random, accidental
35:37
things were actually precise instruments of God's sovereign
35:40
change. His examples are almost comical
35:42
in their randomness. He tells of a minister in Wales
35:45
who is somewhat lackadaisical, not taking his spiritual job
35:48
very seriously. Right, and this minister is
35:50
walking through a local fair buy some trivial item from a
35:53
peddler, and the pedley wraps the item in a torn out page from
35:57
a theological catechism written by the Puritan William Perkins.
36:01
The minister goes home, casually reads a line or two from this
36:05
ripped piece of wrapping paper, and it completely, radically
36:09
alters his life trajectory. It convicts him deeply.
36:12
A piece of trash, a literal piece of discarded paper used to
36:16
wrap a trinket, changes the man's heart.
36:19
It's the ultimate proof that the messenger doesn't have to be
36:21
impressive for the message to be effective.
36:24
Flavelle also tells the story of a man named Mr. Bruin.
36:28
Bruin marries into a family that has absolutely no interest in
36:31
religion. They are entirely secular.
36:33
Part of the marriage agreement is that he will live in his
36:35
mother in law's house for one year.
36:37
And Flavelle notes that Bruin didn't preach at them
36:40
constantly, but just by his daily conduct, his quiet
36:43
integrity over that single year, his mother-in-law, his wife's
36:47
sister, her half sister, two brothers and several servants
36:50
are all completely won over to his faith.
36:53
The silent influence of one person just living consistently
36:56
in a household favel loved showing how vast outcomes hints
37:00
on tiny, seemingly insignificant doors.
37:03
He mentions A notorious drunkard.
37:05
Right. Oh yeah, this guy only went to a
37:07
church gathering to mock the speaker, a man named Wilson.
37:11
The drunkard's only goal was to find material for jokes at the
37:13
Tavern later, but during the very first prayer, before the
37:17
sermon even started, his heart began to thaw.
37:20
He walked in a scoffer and walked out a changed man.
37:23
So much so that the minister who used to be afraid to even walk
37:27
past this guy's shop, now found him to be his strongest ally.
37:30
The story Favel tells that really caught my attention,
37:32
though, is about the great theologian Augustine.
37:35
Oh, this one is wild. Augustine is preaching to a
37:38
congregation and he completely forgets the argument he had
37:41
prepared. He loses his place, loses his
37:44
train of thought and just starts rambling.
37:45
He falls into a tangent about the errors of a religious sect
37:48
called the Manakees, which was not his intention at all.
37:51
It is the classic public speakers nightmare.
37:53
You are on stage, everyone is looking at you and your mind
37:57
goes entirely blank. You just start talking to fill
38:00
the dead air. Yes, but because he accidentally
38:03
fell into this unplanned tangent, a man in the audience
38:06
named Firmus, who had lived as a Maneki for many years, hears
38:10
exactly what he needs to hear, falls to his feet weeping, and
38:14
changes his life. It's incredible, but I want to
38:17
ask you about this. A professional communicator's
38:19
worst nightmare for getting the material became the exact
38:23
pinpointed instrument for the listeners change.
38:26
Does that mean preparation is useless?
38:28
Should a speaker just get up there and hope for a sovereign
38:30
tangent? Not at all, and Spurgeon would
38:32
be the first to condemn lazy preparation.
38:34
Remember the Friar with his one sermon?
38:36
Right, the 10 commandments guy. Exactly.
38:38
The point Flavell is making is about who is ultimately in
38:41
control of the outcome. The structure you build, your
38:43
study, your notes. That is just the scaffolding.
38:46
You are required to build it faithfully.
38:48
But sometimes the most vital work happens when the
38:51
scaffolding falls apart and God uses the collapse to accomplish
38:56
his precise will. It's a very humbling thought for
38:59
anyone who stands behind a microphone or a pulpit.
39:02
You prepare diligently, but you hold the results loosely.
39:05
Let's move to the final two Puritans on Spurgeon's list,
39:09
George Swinnick and Thomas Watson.
39:12
Their focus contrasts earthly realities with heavenly
39:15
perspectives. Swinnick's illustrations are
39:18
heavily focused on the security of heavenly wealth compared to
39:21
the absolute fragility of earthly things.
39:23
Swinnick gives us the story of Paulinus, a man whose city was
39:27
sacked by invading Barbarians. He lost his house, all his
39:30
silver and all his gold. Everything was gone in a day.
39:34
But his reaction was to pray. Lord, let me not be troubled for
39:37
my silver and gold which I have lost, for Thou art all things.
39:40
Swinnick compares this mindset to Noah in the Ark.
39:44
Noah lost the whole world to the flood, but he had a miniature
39:47
her version of all life and the presence of God inside the ark
39:49
with him. Swinnick argues that a person
39:52
who has the source of all mercies, God himself, should not
39:55
panic when a few drops of earthly comforter taken away.
39:58
He also uses a historical contrast with Queen Elizabeth.
40:01
When Elizabeth was young, before she was queen, she was
40:03
imprisoned. Right.
40:05
She looked out the window of her prison and saw a poor milk maid
40:08
singing while she worked. Elizabeth bitterly envied the
40:12
milk maid's freedom and simple life.
40:14
But Swinnick points out that if Elizabeth had known she was
40:17
about to have a glorious, unrivaled reign for 44 years
40:21
over a massive empire, she never would have wasted a second
40:24
envying a poor milk maid. He uses this to tell his
40:28
audience to stop envying the temporary pleasures of those who
40:31
do wrong. Because you have a royal eternal
40:34
future waiting for you. It's an argument about
40:36
perspective. It is Swinnick also tells a very
40:39
touching, almost harsh story about a young child, maybe eight
40:43
or nine years old, who is starving during a famine.
40:45
She looks at her mother and asks if God will starve them.
40:48
The mother, trying to be comforting, says no.
40:51
But the child replies, But if he do, yet we must love him and
40:54
serve him. Swinnick calls this the language
40:56
of a well grown adult in the faith.
40:58
It acts as a refining fire. It tests whether a person loves
41:01
the provider for who he is or simply for the groceries he
41:05
supplies. He also tells one about the
41:07
French Duke de Lava. The King asks the Duke if he saw
41:11
the recent spectacular solar eclipse.
41:14
The Duke replies that he has so much business to do upon the
41:17
earth that he has no time to look up to heaven.
41:19
Swinnik flips this secular arrogance on its head and says a
41:22
true believer should have so much business to do for heaven
41:25
that they have no time to mind vain, fleeting earthly things.
41:30
Now, Thomas Watson takes a slightly different angle.
41:32
Watson is highly visual, and his metaphors are often about the
41:35
hidden, deceptive dangers of worldly success.
41:38
He doesn't just give you a principle like Greed is bad, he
41:42
paints A terrifying picture. He tells the story of Tarpia, a
41:46
Vestal nun in Roman history. This is a brutal, visceral
41:50
story. It is Tarpia bargains with the
41:52
enemy army that is besieging Rome, promising to betray the
41:55
capital and open the gates for them.
41:56
Her price is that she wants what the soldiers are wearing on
41:59
their left arms, which were heavy, solid golden bracelets.
42:02
So true to her word, she opens the gates, the enemy floods in
42:06
and they do give her what is on their left arms.
42:08
But they don't just throw their golden bracelets at her, they
42:11
throw their heavy brass Shields their bucklers at her as well.
42:15
She is crushed to death under the weight of the very gold she
42:18
demanded. Watson's application of that is
42:20
chilling. He says that God sometimes gives
42:23
people exactly what they want and anger.
42:26
People think that because they are loaded with gold and silver,
42:28
because their business is booming and their bank accounts
42:31
are full, they are blessed. But Watson says the weight of
42:34
those golden bracelets might be the very thing that crushes
42:37
their soul. It is a terrifying image of
42:40
success as a judgement. Watson follows that with a fable
42:43
about a hedgehog and a group of conies, which are rabbits.
42:47
During a terrible freezing storm, a hedgehog comes to the
42:50
rabbit Burrows and begs for shelter, promising to be a very
42:54
quiet, unobtrusive guest. The rabbits take pity on him and
42:57
let him in out of the cold. But once he's inside, he sets up
43:00
his prickles, rolling around and stabbing the poor rabbits until
43:03
they're bleeding and forced to flee their own home.
43:06
The hedgehog violently evicts his hosts.
43:08
Spot on. Watson compares the hedgehog to
43:11
covetousness or greed. It comes to the door of your
43:15
heart with fairpleas asking for just a little room.
43:18
It says it won't take over, but once you let it in, it never
43:21
stops pricking until it has choked out all good beginnings
43:24
and thrust everything else out. I think that hedgehog analogy is
43:27
so perfectly applicable to modern technological
43:30
distractions, specifically the smartphone algorithm.
43:34
Think about a new social media app.
43:36
It starts out exactly like the hedgehog in the storm.
43:39
It just asks for a little space in your day.
43:41
I'll be a quiet guest, I just need 5 minutes of your time
43:44
while you wait in line for coffee.
43:46
But once it gets entertainment established in your mind, it
43:49
sets up its prickles. The algorithm starts demanding
43:51
more. The push notifications start
43:53
stabbing at your attention. You sit down to pray or read or
43:56
talk to your spouse and you feel that prickle to just check your
43:59
feed one more time. And eventually it violently
44:02
pushes out quiet reflection, family time, deep reading, or
44:06
anything else that used to live in your daily routine.
44:08
You are evicted from your own mental Burrow by the thing you
44:11
invited in. The mechanics of the hedgehog
44:13
are identical to the mechanics of modern distraction.
44:16
It's small, it seems harmless, but its fundamental nature is to
44:20
expand and expel. That is a phenomenal modern
44:24
application of Watson's fable. It bridges a 17th century
44:27
Puritan warning directly into the 21st century living room.
44:30
Yeah, totally. All right.
44:32
So Spurgeon has walked his students through the Reformation
44:34
in the Puritans, highlighting this golden age of storytelling.
44:37
We've seen weeping ministers, sinking houses and violent
44:41
hedgehogs. But then Spurgeon identifies a
44:44
massive historical gap. After the Puritans, we hit the
44:47
era of Queen Anne, and Spurgeon calls this a barren age.
44:50
The story's completely, completely stopped.
44:52
Spurgeon is absolutely brutal in his assessment of this era.
44:56
He says. The preachers and dignitaries at
44:57
this time relied entirely on decorum, respectability and
45:01
Latinized verbiage. They viewed the earthy stories
45:04
of Latimer or the emotional metaphors of Brooks, and highly
45:06
undignified and low class. He says they tried to hide the
45:10
nakedness of their discourses with fig leaves of Latinized
45:13
verbiage. That is an incredible insult,
45:17
comparing academic jargon to the fig leis Adam and Eve used to
45:20
hide their shame. It is a devastating critique,
45:23
but Spurgeon diagnosis the root 'cause he says the reason the
45:26
story stopped isn't just because fashions changed.
45:29
It's because spiritual life was gone.
45:32
Because these men had no internal fire, no genuine
45:35
experience of grace, they had nothing actual to explain to the
45:38
common people. They were just reciting dry
45:40
philosophy. The pulpit had no voice for
45:43
anyone except formalists who just wanted to observe Sunday
45:45
decorum. Spurgeon calls the whole era a
45:48
dignified death. I want to ask a diagnostic
45:51
question here. Is there a direct historical
45:54
correlation between the speaker's refusal to use
45:56
everyday market language and a decline in the audience's
45:59
engagement and vitality? Like does dead language always
46:02
equal dead orthodoxy? According to Spurgeon's
46:04
historical analysis, yes, absolutely.
46:07
When the language of the pulpit becomes artificially elevated
46:10
and disconnected from daily life, it is a glaring symptom
46:13
that the speaker no longer understands the daily struggles
46:16
of the audience. If you cannot explain your truth
46:18
using the objects in a farmer's barn, a merchant shop, or a
46:22
mother's kitchen, it suggests your truth has become purely
46:26
theoretical. It has lost its vital practical
46:29
reality. It's a museum piece, not bred
46:31
for the hungry. The dignified death of the Queen
46:34
Anne era was a frozen wasteland, and it was broken only when the
46:38
Great Revival occurred in the 18th century, led by figures
46:41
like George Whitefield. Whitefield is fascinating.
46:43
He was a highly educated Oxford man, but he intentionally
46:47
brought back the stories. He famously said.
46:49
I use market language. He spoke pure, good English, but
46:53
he was as simple as if he were speaking to children, and he was
46:56
highly active and visual. People didn't just hear his
46:59
stories, they saw them through his intense gestures and
47:02
dramatic delivery. Spurgeon gives us a few of
47:04
Whitefields punchy, aggressive anecdotes.
47:07
There's the story of a nobleman who kept 2 chaplains on his
47:10
payroll. Right.
47:12
He had a deistical chaplain, someone who believed in a
47:15
distant, uninvolved creator who doesn't interfere in daily life
47:19
for his own intellectual amusement, and a Orthodox
47:23
Christian chaplain for his wife. But when the nobleman was lying
47:26
on his deathbed, terrified of the unknown, he looked at his
47:29
deistical chaplain and said, I liked you very well when I was
47:33
in health, but it is my ladies chaplain I must have when I am
47:37
sick. Because theoretical distant
47:39
philosophy is fine on a sunny day when you're healthy and
47:42
wealthy, but when the storm hits?
47:44
When death is in the room, you need something solid.
47:47
You need a God who actually intervenes.
47:50
Whitefield also told the story about a man who was never
47:52
satisfied, illustrating the absurdity of greed.
47:55
The man started low. First he wanted a small house,
47:58
then he got it, and he wanted 2 houses, then 4, then 6.
48:01
Once he finally had six houses, he told his friend, I think I
48:04
want nothing else. I'm finally satisfied.
48:07
And his friend replied, yes, you will soon want another thing.
48:10
You will want a hearse and six to carry you to your grave.
48:12
It is a sobering reality check on ambition.
48:16
You spend your whole life collecting real estate and the
48:19
only piece of property you'll actually keep is a six foot plot
48:22
of dirt. Wakefield had a knack for
48:24
puncturing human pride like that.
48:26
He told another story about a woman who was absolutely charmed
48:29
by a preacher named Doctor Manton.
48:31
She went up to him after a service and said, oh Sir, you
48:34
have made an excellent sermon today.
48:36
I wish I had your heart. And Doctor Manton, knowing his
48:38
own internal sinfulness, replied, Good woman, you had
48:41
better not wish for it, for if you had it, you would wish for
48:44
your own again. The best of men see themselves
48:46
in the worst light. Manton knew his own internal
48:49
flaws, even if the audience only saw the polished, holy exterior.
48:54
Whitefield used these stories to bypass the intellectual defenses
48:58
of his audience. He didn't argue with them about
49:00
ambition. He just showed them a man asking
49:03
for six houses and ending up in a hearse.
49:05
The image does the work of 1000 logical syllogisms.
49:09
This brings us to the final era in Spurgeon's historical tour,
49:13
the 19th century, arriving at the great evangelist DL Moody.
49:18
Now, Moody had a style that was highly emotional, incredibly
49:21
immediate, and very different from the Puritans.
49:24
Moody was working in a vastly different context.
49:27
He was speaking to massive industrial age crowds in both
49:30
America and Europe. He didn't have time for
49:32
elaborate classical setups or drawn out metaphors about
49:35
Spanish armadas. His stories hit like a hammer.
49:38
Spurgeon notes that Moody was constantly preaching, moving
49:41
rapidly through campaigns and using anecdotes to fasten nails
49:44
securely into the conscience of his listeners.
49:48
Let's look at a few of Moody's nails.
49:49
The first one is absolutely heartbreaking.
49:51
It's about a mother who had an idiot child, a child with severe
49:54
cognitive disabilities. She gave up all society,
49:57
rejected all personal comfort and devoted her entire life to
50:00
this child. After 14 years around the clock,
50:03
exhausting care, the mother bursts into tears and says, I
50:06
have tended it and loved it and it does not even know me.
50:09
It is breaking my heart. Moody takes that agonizing,
50:12
deeply relatable human experience of unrequited love
50:16
and applies it to his audience. He asks how many of them have
50:20
been cared for, fed, and protected by God their entire
50:23
lives, yet still do not even recognize Him, let alone thank
50:27
Him. The emotional weight of that
50:29
story forces the listener to confront their own ingratitude.
50:33
It's not a theological treatise on total depravity.
50:35
It's a gut punch. Moody also used a story from
50:38
Belfast about a leading surgeon before performing any painful
50:41
operation. Often without the modern
50:43
anesthetics we have today, the surgeon would tell the patient
50:47
take a good look at the wound and then fix your eyes on me and
50:49
don't take them off till I get through the operation.
50:52
Do not look at the pain, look at the healer.
50:54
Yeah, Moody told his audience to take one good, honest look at
50:58
their own sin, their own moral wound, but then to fix their
51:01
eyes on Christ and never look back at the wound.
51:04
It is better to look at the remedy than the problem.
51:06
It is a perfect psychological tool for people paralyzed by
51:09
guilt, constantly staring at their own failures.
51:12
Moody also told a story about an orphan child.
51:15
The child's parents died and she was taken in by a new family.
51:19
The first night in her new home, she knelt down to pray the way
51:22
her mother had taught her. She added a little prayer of her
51:25
own. Oh God, make these people as
51:27
kind to me as Father and Mother were.
51:30
She paused, looked up as if expecting an immediate answer,
51:33
and just said Of course he will. The simplicity of that faith is
51:36
striking. She expected the request to be
51:39
granted because she trusted the character of the one she was
51:41
talking to. Moody contrasted that with the
51:44
cynical, doubting, complex prayers of adults.
51:48
And then there is the story of the roll call.
51:50
A soldier is lying on his deathbed during the Civil War.
51:52
Suddenly he puts up his hand and says, hush, they are calling the
51:55
roll of heaven and I am answering to my name.
51:58
He whispers here and passes away.
52:01
It is a story of total, unflinching assurance in the
52:04
face of death, but Moody balances it with a story of
52:06
total unpreparedness. He tells of a wealthy man who
52:10
was dying unexpectedly. He calls his lawyer to
52:12
frantically draw up a will. He wills his property, his
52:15
houses, his money. When he gets to his wife and
52:18
child, he says he wants them to have the home.
52:21
But the little child standing near the bed asks Papa, have you
52:25
got a home in that land you were going to?
52:28
The arrow reaches the heart, but it is too late.
52:31
The man had made a will for everything on earth, but he had
52:33
made absolutely no preparation for his soul.
52:36
He had no home beyond the grave. Moody's stories are intensely
52:40
focused on the immediate urgency of life and death.
52:43
But Spurgeon, after praising all these men, Latimer, Taylor,
52:46
Brooks, Adams, Colonel Flavelle, Swinnik, Watson, Whitefield and
52:49
Moody, closes his lecture with a very strict boundary.
52:52
He issues a final warning to students.
52:54
This warning is crucial. Spurgeon is not advocating for
52:57
preachers to just become stand up comedians, entertainers or
53:00
fireside storytellers. The anecdote must always, always
53:03
remain subordinate to the design.
53:05
The goal is not a round of applause.
53:07
The goal is conversion and truth, Spurgeon says.
53:11
An illustration should be a window that lets light into a
53:14
room. If the window doesn't let light
53:16
in, or if you build an ornate hallway that leads to a blank
53:19
wall, you have failed. There is a real tension here.
53:23
As a communicator, you have to capture attention.
53:25
If you are boring, people tune out like the servant sleeping
53:29
through the middle of the sermon.
53:30
But if the attention is solely on the story itself, if they
53:34
only remember the tumbling horse or the ripped wrapping paper,
53:37
and they completely forget the central truth about God's
53:40
sovereignty or grace, the speaker has still failed the
53:43
listener. They entertain them into hell.
53:46
Spurgeon uses 2 striking metaphors to seal this warning.
53:49
He says offering a string of amusing anecdotes without sound
53:52
doctrine is like offering a starving man a bouquet of
53:54
flowers instead of a loaf of bread.
53:56
The flowers are beautiful, they smell nice, they are highly
53:59
entertaining to look at, but the man will starve to death holding
54:02
them. And the second metaphor is
54:04
giving a freezing naked person a garment made of gossamer instead
54:09
of heavy wool and cloth. Gossamer looks delicate, refined
54:13
and beautiful in the wind, but it will not keep you warm in a
54:15
Blizzard. You need the heavy wool of
54:17
actual substantial truth. The stories are just the dye
54:21
that colors the wool, but the doctrine must be the fabric.
54:24
Well said. The story answers to the truth.
54:27
The truth never answers to the story.
54:30
If people leave saying what a great storyteller, you failed.
54:33
If they leave saying what a great savior, you succeeded.
54:36
This brings us to the summary of our deep dive.
54:38
Today we have traced a lineage of of communication from a dairy
54:42
farm in Leicestershire to the philosophical academies of Rome,
54:45
through the metaphor heavy minds of the Puritans, past the barren
54:48
frozen dignity of the Queen Anne era, all the way to the massive
54:52
industrial crowds of DL Moody. And the thread connecting them
54:55
all is the realization that abstract truth requires concrete
54:58
vessels. The greatest communicators
55:00
rejected the false dignity of obscure language.
55:04
They realized that glacial eloquence freezes people, while
55:07
a simple, well placed story, even a common smooth stone from
55:11
a brook, can defeat giant walls of ignorance.
55:15
They used weeping ministers, tumbling horses, ripped
55:18
catechisms, hedgehogs and orphans to sink deep down to the
55:22
listeners level. And that leaves us with a final
55:24
challenge for you, the listener. If you look closely at the
55:27
examples we discussed today, you realize that the world around
55:30
you is constantly preaching. The masters we studied didn't
55:33
invent these stories out of thin air.
55:35
They observed them. They lived with their eyes wide
55:38
open. If a horse painted upside down,
55:40
a youth hiding in a Tavern, or a tiny hedgehog caught in the
55:43
storm can be used to illustrate eternal concepts, what mundane,
55:48
everyday occurrences in your own life right now are actually
55:51
striking parables just waiting for you to notice them?
55:53
The material is all around you. The theology is embedded in the
55:57
dirt, the workplace and the home.
55:59
You just need the eyes to see it.
56:01
Remember the tasting menu from the beginning of our
56:02
conversation? You don't need rhetorical foam
56:05
and linguistic microgreens to be fed.
56:08
Sometimes you just need the chipped mug and the hearty meal.
56:11
The truth is found in the common brook.
56:14
Pick up the stone.