Latest / Reformed Thinking / Ballast and Sails: How Humiliation and Adoration Sustained Charles Simeon | John Piper

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Ballast and Sails: How Humiliation and Adoration Sustained Charles Simeon | John Piper · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today, we're doing a deep dive
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into the life of Charles Simeon. Right.
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Born in 1759, he is, I think, one of the best case studies we
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have and just sheer spiritual toughness.
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Absolutely. He was an Anglican evangelical,
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a Calvinist, and he was the pastor, or vicar, as they'd say,
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of Trinity Church in Cambridge for 54 years, right up until he
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died in 1836. And that's really the core of
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our subject today, isn't it? How does a man survive that?
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I mean, he faced decades of just intense opposition.
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And not just from the outside world.
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No, that's the thing. It was from the university,
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sure, but also from his own congregation.
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How do you stay in one pulpit for over half a century when for
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a big chunk of that time, the very people you're serving
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actively can't stand you? That really sets the stage for
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the big question we're looking at.
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We're exploring Christian endurance.
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You know that quiet, stubborn kind of resilience.
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It makes you think of those verses in Scripture that are,
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well, easy to read and hard to live.
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Exactly like Romans 12.12 being patient in tribulation or James
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one can it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various
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kinds. I think a lot of us read that
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and go, OK, that's beautiful, but how do you actually do that?
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Simeon's life is almost like the answer key.
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It is, and a good place to start is to look at his perspective
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after he'd already been through the worst of it late in his
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life. He gave this fantastic visual
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for what steadfastness looks like.
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OK, it was 1831, so he's 49 years into his ministry.
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He's talking with his friend Joseph Gurney, and Gurney is
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just, you know, astonished that Simeon hadn't quit.
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He asks him point blank how he coped with all the persecution.
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So what did he say? What was the imagery?
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He used a Really sort of agricultural picture.
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He compared surviving all that opposition to getting through a
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thorny hedge. A hedge.
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Yeah. He told Gurney.
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My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering.
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For Christ's sake. When I'm getting through a
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hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear
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the pricking of my legs. That is just a brilliant piece
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of practical counsel. It completely reframes the whole
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thing. The pain you're feeling right
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now, the pricking of the legs. It's secondary.
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It's localized. The main thing of the crucial
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part is already secure. Right, your head and shoulders
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are through. And of course, he immediately
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grounds it theologically. He gives the Christian reason
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for it. He says, let us rejoice in the
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remembrance that our Holy Head has surmounted all his suffering
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and triumphed over death. Let us follow him patiently.
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We shall soon be partakers of his victory.
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So the stability doesn't come from his own grit or some kind
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of stoicism. It comes from the finished work
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of Christ. Exactly because our head, Christ
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has already passed through death and resurrection.
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All the opposition we face now. Well, it's painful, it's
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irritating, but it can't kill you.
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The death blow has already been taken by someone else.
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That's the core of it. The security of the resurrection
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makes the present pain bearable. So this deep dive is really
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about how he was shaped into a person who could consistently
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apply that truth. How he went from this
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privileged, self-centered young man into a St. who could carry
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that kind of load. OK, so let's unpack that.
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Let's look at the conditions that made him ready for this
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fight. You mentioned that his kind of
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perseverance really stands out against what the source is
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called the common problem of her own age, emotional fragility.
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Yeah, it's an interesting way to diagnose our time, isn't it?
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I mean, one of the central marks of the culture right now is just
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how easily people take offense, how quickly we back down when
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we're criticized. By how quickly things break.
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Things break so easily. Relationships, institutions,
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they just don't seem built to last under pressure.
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It does feel like there's an epidemic of low frustration
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tolerance. You see it everywhere.
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Marriages break easily. Faith breaks easily.
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Even our connection to a local church can break over something
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like the music or a sermon we didn't like, or one difficult
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conversation. Right.
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The default response to any trial, even a minor 1, is often
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to finding easier situation to blame something external.
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You just don't often see that rugged spirit from James to
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count it all joy when you face trials.
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Simeon's life, then, is a kind of template for resisting that
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spirit, that spirit that puts comfort above constancy.
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And what's so striking is that his early life gave you
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absolutely no hint that he had this in him.
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He wasn't raised for it. Not at all.
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He's the son of a wealthy attorney, part of the English
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Gentry. He's living through the
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Methodist Awakening, but it's like it's happening on another
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planet. His social standing was secure.
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Very. He gets sent to Eaton, England's
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top boarding school, at 7 years old, and he stays there for 12
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years. And what was the spiritual
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result of all that elite schooling?
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Well, when he looked back on it, he said the place was
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irreligious and morally degenerate.
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Utterly so. You've got 12 years in an
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environment like that, plus a lack of any real religious
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guidance at home. His father was known to be
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irreligious. It means when he shows up at
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university he has 0 theological foundation.
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What spiritual prep did he have? Basically just one book right
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outside of the Bible itself. Just one The whole duty of man.
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And for listeners who aren't familiar with it, this was a
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popular Anglican devotional from the 17th century, but by
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Simeon's time it really represented the worst kind of
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legalistic works based religion. What was so wrong with it?
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It was almost entirely focused on external behavior, your
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duties, your obligations. There was no real sense of
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justification by faith alone, no idea of regeneration by the
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spirit. It was basically a manual for
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how to be self-righteous. I remember reading that the
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evangelist George Whitefield hated it.
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He was disgusted by it. He once had an orphan throw a
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copy into a fire, calling it a repository of self-righteous and
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pharisaical lumber. So that's Simeon's only
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spiritual guide, a book that teaches him to focus on himself
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and his own works, which I imagine fit his personality at
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the time perfectly. Oh, perfectly.
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He was a fancy dresser. He was athletic.
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He liked to show off. He was exactly the kind of
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person who would try to rely on himself.
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And that's the person who arrives at King's College,
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Cambridge in January of 1779. Right, a society that cared a
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lot more about wit and social status than piety.
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But just three days after he gets there, his world gets
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turned upside down. And it was really just a bit of
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bureaucracy. The Provost of the college makes
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an announcement that Simeon, as a new student, is required to
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attend the Lord's Supper, and this just terrified him.
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Why? He knew just enough, probably
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from that legalistic book, to be scared of taking communion
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unworthily. The fear of damnation was real
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to him. So that sheer terror was
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actually the first sign of God's grace working on him.
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It forced him to desperately try to make himself acceptable to
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God. That's right, he starts trying
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to follow the instructions in the whole duty of man, which of
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course gives him no relief because it just points him back
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to himself. You get through that first
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communion, but the fear doesn't go away.
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Easter is coming up, end of March 1779 and he's still
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wrestling. He turns to a different book,
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this time Bishop Wilson's work on the Lord's Supper, And this
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is where the breakthrough happens.
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And what's amazing is he still doesn't know any other
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evangelical believers at Cambridge.
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He's completely on his own, spiritually speaking.
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So tell us about that moment, the realization that changed
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everything for him. He's reading Bishop Wilson's
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description of the ancient Jewish sacrifices, and Wilson
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writes about how the Jews knew what they did when they
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transferred their sin to the head of their offering.
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That single image, that idea of transfer, was like a lightning
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bolt for Simeon. It just shattered his whole
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project of self-reliance. Yes, the thought that hit him
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was what? May I transfer all my guilt to
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another? Has God provided an offering for
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me that I may lay my sins on His head?
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Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one
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moment longer. And that's it.
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That's the moment, the realization that salvation isn't
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about you bearing your guilt. It's about transferring it
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completely to Christ. That's the core of what he would
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preach for the next 50 years. The sufficiency of Christ's
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substitutionary death. He immediately tried to lay his
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sins on Christ's head. He starts to have some hope of
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mercy on the Wednesday of Passion Week, and that hope just
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builds and builds until Easter Sunday, April 4th.
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And he wakes up with the words on his lips.
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He wakes up early with this overwhelming sense of peace and
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assurance, and the words are just there in his heart and on
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his lips. Jesus Christ is risen today.
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Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
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And the sources say that from that very hour, peace just
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flowed into his soul. It's a classic Protestant
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conversion, deep guilt followed by total peace found only in
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Christ. And the change in his life was
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immediate. It was dramatic.
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It was a complete reorientation, which is what you need for any
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kind of long term spiritual endurance.
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So give us some examples of that.
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How did his life change? Well, you see it first with his
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relationship to money and possessions.
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He had been extravagant, but that just stopped.
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He chose to live in very simple rooms on campus for the rest of
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his life. He wasn't giving up wealth
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because he was poor. No, he was giving it up because
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he saw it as a potential distraction from obedience.
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He chose simplicity. And that was really tested when
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he came into a large inheritance, wasn't it?
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It was when his brother left him a fortune.
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His first instant was to reject it.
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Flat out, he saw it as a snare. Eventually he accepted a portion
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of it, about £15,000, but only on the condition that he viewed
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himself as a steward, not an owner.
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So he channeled all the extra income into charity and
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missions. His entire life he just saw
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himself as a pipeline for God's resources.
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That kind of detachment was one of his earliest spiritual
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disciplines. And he also instituted a very
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strict private spiritual practice.
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The sources use the term Methodism to describe it, but we
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should probably clarify what that meant back then.
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That's a key point. In the 18th century, Methodism
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didn't always mean the denomination.
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It could just refer to any methodical, disciplined approach
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to the Christian life. Early rising, regular Bible
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study, prayer, fasting. Simeon adopted all of this with
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real zeal. There's that great story about
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his struggle to get up early for his prayer time.
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Yes, it shows how seriously he took it.
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He had to create external accountability for himself.
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He started imposing fines. What was the first fine?
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Initially, if he overslept, he promised to pay his bed maker,
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his servant, half a crown. But that created a new
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temptation. Well, what was that?
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Lying there in his warm bed, he'd start to rationalize.
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He'd think all the poor woman could probably use the money
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more than I need to get up. He was using a fake charity as
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an excuse for being lazy. That's just the sneakiest kind
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of self deception, isn't it? Hiding your own indulgence
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behind a mask of virtue. So he had to raise the stakes.
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He made a new vow. The next time he overslept, he
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would throw a Guinea into the river A.
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Guinea was a gold coin, a lot of money.
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A lot of money, enough that it would actually hurt to lose it.
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And did he ever have to do it? The story goes he did it once,
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and only once. He realized pretty quickly he
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couldn't afford to pave the riverbed with gold coins, and
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that one severe act of self correction fixed the problem for
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good. That just tells you everything
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about the seriousness of his repentance.
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So by 1782, he's ordained and he's called to Trinity Church,
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the place he'd stay for 54 years.
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Right ordained a Deacon in May and then becomes vicar of
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Trinity Church that November. And around that time he also
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makes a key personal choice, celibacy.
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He saw it as a deliberate decision to focus all his energy
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on his ministry at Cambridge, a kind of spiritual discipline for
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this specific endurance he was called to.
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And being at Cambridge gave him this incredible platform.
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He wasn't just a parish priest, he was training generations of
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evangelical students. Absolutely.
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Men who went on to lead the Church Missionary Society.
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People like Henry Martin, who had a massive influence on
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global missions. Simeon's work created the stream
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of evangelical thought that flowed through the Church of
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England and far beyond. But as you said, that long and
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fruitful ministry was earned through fire.
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We really have to look at the opposition he faced to get the
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full picture, and the trial started the second he walked in
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the door. He was appointed to Trinity
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Church, but he was, for all intents and purposes, the
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unwanted vicar. Oh, that's putting it mildly.
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His appointment was basically a favor because his wealthy father
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had influence with the Bishop. The parishioners though, they
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wanted the previous assistant curate, a man named Mr. Hammond.
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So when Simeon showed up, they were furious.
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Did he try to back out? He did.
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He was actually willing to step down to keep the peace.
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But the Bishop made it clear that even if Simeon left,
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Hammond would not get the job. It was either Simeon or some
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other stranger. So Simeon stayed.
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And that's how his 54 years of ministry began, serving a
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congregation that from day one, actively hated him.
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And their resistance wasn't just quiet crumbling.
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It was organized. It was long term.
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It was sabotage. I mean, it's set a shocking
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level of disrespect. For 12 solid years, from 1782 to
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1794, the leaders of the congregation refused to let
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Simeon preach the second Sunday afternoon lecture.
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This was a service that was supposed to be in under his
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control. And who do they give the pulpit
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to instead? For the first five years they
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gave it to Mr. Ham, and after Hammond left, they found another
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man to do it for seven more years.
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So for more than a decade, the head pastor of the church was
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banned from preaching at one of the main services just because
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the people didn't like his evangelical message.
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That kind of sustained passive aggression is just exhausting to
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even think about. Yeah, but it went beyond that.
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They used physical obstruction too.
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Oh yes, the church wardens decided to lock the Pew doors on
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Sunday mornings. And we have to remember pews in
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the 18th century were often private property.
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Exactly. So the Pew holders were
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protesting by refusing to attend themselves and also refusing to
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let anyone else sit in their seats.
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The church was mostly empty. So what did Simeon do?
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How did he respond to that? His first move wasn't to fight,
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it was to accommodate the few people who actually wanted to be
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there. He paid for new seats to be
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built and set them up in the aisles and corners of the
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church. And the wardens just threw them
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out into the churchyard. Just threw them out.
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It was pure spite. It was meant to break his
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spirit. And when he tried another angle,
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starting a later Sunday evening service which was popular with
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the townspeople, the wardens locked the church doors
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completely. I remember reading he got a
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locksmith one time. He did, but they just locked
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them again the next week and he decided to relent.
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He dropped the service, and this is so important for
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understanding his endurance. He was willing to be insulted
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and humiliated as long as he could hold on to the main pulpit
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and keep preaching the gospel. He eventually won a legal case
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that would have let him stop the queue locking, but he chose not
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to enforce it. He let his slow, steady, patient
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ministry wear them down over time.
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So for a decade, he's preaching to a small group of people
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standing in the aisles while the rest of the church is empty and
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locked. That's the institutional
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resistance. But the contempt from the
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university was just as bad, if not worse.
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Yes, the university despised him.
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At that time, evangelicalism was seen as something for the lower
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classes, something overly emotional.
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It wasn't for the sophisticated intellectuals at Cambridge.
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Simeon was personally slandered as a hypocrite from the very
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beginning. And the students just followed
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the lead of their tutors. They did.
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There were repeated disgraceful tumults during his services.
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We know stones were thrown at the windows.
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There was one incident where a group of undergraduates plan to
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physically assault him as he left the church.
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He only avoided it by chance because he took a different exit
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that day. And.
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They came up with a nickname for his followers.
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Evangelicals associated with him were called Sims, and their
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theology was dismissed as simianism.
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It was a derogatory label that stuck for decades, a way of
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marking you as intellectually and religiously second rate.
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The academic shunning must have been incredibly hard for a
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Fellow of Cambridge. It was crushing socially.
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We read about his peers actively working against his ministry.
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One fellow deliberately scheduled his Greek classes on
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Sunday nights just to stop students from going to Simeon's
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service. One student who was academically
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brilliant was denied a prize just because he was a known SIM.
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It paints a picture of just profound isolation.
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He admitted it himself. He said that in those early
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years he was so alone that he was quite surprised.
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Surprised that a fellow of my own college ventured to walk
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with me for 1/4 of an hour. He felt like an outcast.
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And this wasn't just an early career problem. 34 years in, in
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1816, he was still dealing with grossly unfair treatment from
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his peers. The sheer length of the conflict
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is what's so hard to grasp. But even after things in his own
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church calm down a bit, the public opposition flared up
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again. That's right.
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Around 1812, thirty years into his ministry, he faced a new
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wave of opposition. He wrote to a friend saying he
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used to sail in the Pacific, but now he was learning to navigate
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the Red Sea that is full of Shoals and rocks.
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At age 53, most people would see that as a sign to retire, but
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Simeon just stayed put. And then on top of all that
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external pressure, he faced a massive personal health crisis.
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In 18 O 7 his health just collapsed and for a preacher it
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was the worst possible thing. His voice failed for 13 years.
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He was often forced to preach in a whisper.
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He said that after his sermon, he felt more like 1 dead than
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alive. 13 years of that preaching in a whisper while
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still facing all that hostility. That is the definition of
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perseverance. And then we get to the really
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remarkable part, how that weakness ended.
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It's 1819, he's crossing the border into Scotland and the
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weakness just lifts quite suddenly and without any evident
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physical 'cause he said he felt revived almost as perceptibly as
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the woman who touched the hem of Jesus garment.
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A sudden, miraculous seeming recovery.
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And he had a very specific theological interpretation of it
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didn't. He he did.
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It gives us a window into his spiritual self analysis.
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He admitted that before he got sick, he had this plan for his
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life. He'd work hard until he was 60,
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and then he'd have a nice, quiet Sabbath evening of rest.
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He planned to coast. So what do you think God was
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telling him when his health returned right at age 60?
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He felt God was saying, I laid you aside because you
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entertained with satisfaction the thought of resting from your
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labor. But now you have arrived at the
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very period when you had promised yourself that
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satisfaction, and have determined instead to spend your
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strength for me. I have doubled, trebled,
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quadrupled your strength. So at the very age when most men
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were slowing down, he renewed his zeal.
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He preached vigorously for another 17 years, right up until
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a couple of once before his death at 77.
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It really forces you to ask a hard question about our own
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culture, doesn't it? This modern idea that old age is
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supposed to be a time for easing up, for playing golf.
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Does the Bible actually support that?
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Simeon's life suggests that maybe God grants greater
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strength to older Saints who resolved to keep serving rather
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than just pursuing comfort. His life shows that endurance
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isn't just about weathering a storm.
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Sometimes it's about accepting a quiet period of correction and
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restarting with a renewed mission.
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OK, so let's move from the trials themselves to the
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strategies he used to make sure he didn't quit.
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Simeon's long tenure wasn't an accident.
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It was built on some very deliberate practice strategies
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and the first one on the list is just so powerful, this intense
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sense of accountability to God for the souls in His church.
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This is the engine, this is the theological motive behind
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everything. He truly believe Hebrews 13.17
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that one day he would have to give an account for the souls of
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his flock, and that fear outweighed any fear of man.
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I remember in his first year he told his congregation that if
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his sermons ever sounded harsh or alarming, it wasn't him being
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emotional. Right, he said.
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It was the rational dictates of a heart impressed with a sense
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both of the value of the soul and the importance of eternity.
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He saw himself as a kind of lighthouse keeper.
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That image really captures it. A friend recalled A sermon where
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Simeon painted this vivid picture of a rocky coast strewn
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with bodies, the sound of weeping widows and orphans.
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Then he imagines the lighthouse keeper being dragged out and
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asked what went wrong and the only answer for the disaster is
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one word asleep. For him, staying awake, enduring
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in his calling was literally a matter of life and death.
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It didn't matter if his people were against him, God had given
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them the job. They were his responsibility.
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Now, given all the insults, the locked doors, the slander, you
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would expect him to get bitter. You'd expect him to use the
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pulpit to hit back, but the sources all point to the absence
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of the scolding tone. His biographers all noted this.
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His preaching, even in the hardest years, was totally free
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from that easy but fatal mistake of troubled pastors, the
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scolding accent. He just didn't use the pulpit to
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settle personal scores. How did he manage that?
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Just be cheerful on the outside when he must have been in
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turmoil on the inside. It seems to have been a very
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conscious piety, based on Matthew chapter 6.
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You wash your face, you anoint your head so that you're
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fasting, and your trials are seen by your father in secret,
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not by men. A friend said Simeon kept a
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cheerful, happy demeanor in public, even when he was
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privately weeping over the state of his church.
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That's a staggering level of self-control, especially when
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your pride has been so wounded. And over time, it just disarmed
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his critics. The poet William Cowper
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describes Simeon's smile as gentle and affable and full of
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grace. That gentle approach ended up
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being far more effective than any angry sermon could have
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been. Another strategy he used was a
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kind of willful ignorance about insults.
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He refused to be a rumor tracker.
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This is such a wise defensive strategy for anyone in ministry.
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He was publicly wronged in a big way in 1821, but he didn't
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retaliate. His personal role was simple,
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never to hear or see or know. What if heard or seen or known
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would call for animad version from me?
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It's a way of avoiding self-inflicted wounds.
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Really. Why seek out information that
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you know is only going to destroy your peace?
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Exactly. He figured out that almost
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nothing good comes from chasing down rumors about yourself.
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If they're good, it feeds your pride.
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If they're critical but true, it's discouraging.
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And if they're false, it just makes you angry.
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He chose peace by avoiding the information that would breed
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conflict in his own heart. I can see the wisdom in that.
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But what about theological disputes?
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Cambridge in the 18th century was a contentious place.
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Did he avoid those two? He was very cautious about them.
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He warned against becoming a heresy hunter.
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Now he was a firm evangelical Calvinist.
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He held to the doctrines of grace.
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But he had very little time for needlessly argumentative
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Calvinists. What was his worry about
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constant controversy? He was worried that the love of
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the fight would replace the love of truth and the love of people.
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When a pastor asked him to knock down a doctrinal error, Simeon
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wrote back and warned him that once a man starts enjoying
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controversy, it is surprising how the love of it will grow
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upon him and he will find both a hair in every Bush and will
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follow it with something of a huntsman's feelings.
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That's a fantastic image, chasing hairs in every Bush for
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the sport of it. Not out of any real concern for
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the truth. That's a danger.
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That's it'd be even greater today.
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He really pushed for kindness and unity in the essentials.
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There's that famous story of his conversation with John Wesley.
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Right. Tell us about that.
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Simeon just asks Wesley three simple questions.
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Do you feel deplaved? Do you look for salvation only
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through Christ? Do you rely on God's grace
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moment by moment? And when Wesley says yes to all
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three, Simeon says, Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my
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dagger again, for this is all my Calvinism.
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He cared more about the substance of the gospel than
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fighting over labels. So he chose silence for rumors
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and caution for theological fights.
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But when a real public dispute happened, he insisted on dealing
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with it directly. Yes, face to face.
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When a man named Edward Pearson publicly attacked his preaching
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in 1810, Simeon immediately wrote to him and asked to meet.
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He said that people who basically agree on the gospel
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often stand further apart from each other than from their real
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enemies, and it leads to all this mutual crimination.
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It's that tendency to be harshest on the people who are
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almost, but not quite on your team.
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He believed that half an hour of direct conversation could clear
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up most of the misunderstandings.
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It shows his willful ignorance wasn't cowardice.
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It was a filter to save his energy for the conflicts that
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actually mattered. And to endure for that long, you
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also have to be good at taking a rebuke.
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Simeon's view was based on Genesis 50.
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Point €20 What enemies mean for evil, God means for good.
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That was his operating system for suffering, he thought.
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If I suffer with a becoming spirit, my enemies, though
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unwittingly, must of necessity do me good.
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If they point out a real fault, he could correct it.
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If they point out a false one, it was a chance to practice
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patience. The story of the John Softly
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letter is the perfect example of his humility when a friend
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called him out. Right.
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Simeon had a notoriously quick temper about small things.
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The story goes he was at a friend's house and got so
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annoyed by how a servant was stocking the fire that he
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actually swatted the man on the back.
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Then later the servant mixed up a horse's bridle and Simeon's
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temper just exploded. So his friend decided to get
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creative. He did.
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The friend wrote a letter to Simeon pretending to be the
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servant and signed it John softly.
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The letter said the servant couldn't understand how a man
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who prayed so beautifully could get into such a passion about
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nothing and wear no bridle on his tongue.
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A devastatingly accurate critique, but.
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Simeon's response is the real lesson he wrote back, addressing
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it to the servant he thought, wrote it, and signed it to John.
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Softly from Charles, proud and irritable.
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I most cordially thank you, my dear friend, for your kind and
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seasonable reproof he took look at completely humbly, and that
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willingness to be humbled was key to his survival.
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It's also much harder to attack a man whose personal conduct is
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spotless, especially with money. His financial purity just gave
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his enemies nowhere to go. His noble indifference to money
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was well known. He lived simply.
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He gave away all his excess income.
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He used his inheritance to help the poor.
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No one could ever claim as evangelical.
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Zeal was just a cover for greed. It's like first Peter a 2.15 in
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action, his good conduct put to silence the ignorance of foolish
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people. And finally, his steadfastness
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came from being able to see hope in discouraging situations.
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When the pews were locked and the church was nearly empty, he
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didn't fall into despair. No, he had this way of reframing
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it. He reasoned that if God would
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just give a double blessing to the small group that did show
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up, then the same amount of good could be done as if the church
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were twice as big with only half the blessing.
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It's a focus on the quality of God's blessing, not the quantity
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of people in the room. And he saw that happen in
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unexpected ways. Yes, there's that great story
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about his trip to Scotland. He meets a miserable unconverted
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minister named Stewart. Simeons witness completely
26:47
transforms the man. Stewart then has a powerful
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ministry for 15 years and his family in turn raises Alexander
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Duff, the great Scottish missionary, to India.
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So a double blessing on one conversation multiplied a
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hundredfold a generation later. Exactly.
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You just never know. But maybe his highest strategy
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for endurance was seeing suffering itself as a privilege.
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This was when the university hostility was at its worst.
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He's walking along one day feeling completely buffeted and
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afflicted, and he's carrying his testament.
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He prays for help and the first text his eye falls on is about
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Simon of Cyrene. They found a man of Cyrene,
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Simon by name him they compelled to bear his cross.
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And of course, Simon and Simeon are the same name.
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The connection was personal. He saw it instantly.
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He saw this compulsion to suffer not as a burden, but as an
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honor. He connected his own suffering
27:37
directly to Christ, and it allowed him to leap and sing for
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joy as one whom Jesus was honoring with the participation
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of his sufferings. That reframing just changes
27:48
everything. We've talked about the
27:50
strategies, the sort of outward mechanics of his endurance, but
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all of that had to be fueled by something deeper.
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We have to look at the root of his strength, his devotional
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life. This was the hidden spring.
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It wasn't rushed. It wasn't superficial.
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A friend who lived with him said that Simeon got up every single
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morning at 4:00, even in the middle of winter. 4:00 in the
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morning. And he spent the 1st 4 hours of
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his day before anything else in private prayer and devotional
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study of the scriptures. His friends said this was the
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secret of his great grace and spiritual strength. 4 hours of
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focus communion before the day even properly began and he was
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specific about how you grow in that time.
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Yes, he said, meditation is the grand means of our growth and
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grace. Without it, prayer itself is an
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empty service. So it wasn't just reading, it
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was that sustained, focused contemplation on the Word that
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gave him the strength for the public battles.
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And this practice led to the central metaphor for his whole
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inner life growing downward and upward.
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This is the absolute key to his balance, his biographer said.
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Simeon was always growing downwards in humility.
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That's the ballast for the ship. And at the same time he was
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growing upward in adoring communion with God.
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Those are the sails. They weren't 2 separate steps,
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they were happening at the same time.
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OK, let's talk about the ballast first, the cultivation of
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humiliation before God. Why was it so vital for him to
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know his own sinfulness? Simeon believed that real
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adoration could only grow in the freshly plowed soil of self
29:16
humiliation. He felt that if he wasn't
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constantly working to know his own remaining sinfulness, he'd
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become spiritually unstable. He said his sense of his own sin
29:26
would sink him into despair, except that he had an assured
29:29
view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save
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me. So the two have to be held
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together, the deep awareness of the disease and the absolute
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certainty of the cure. And he thought the ballast was
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necessary to keep him from getting proud even of his own
29:41
salvation. He wrote, even after 40 years as
29:44
a Christian, that God's forgiveness was no reason for
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him to forgive himself. He said he judged it better to
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loathe myself the more in proportion as I was assured that
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God was pacified towards me. That's a reference to Ezekiel
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16, where God's people are humbled and ashamed even after
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he's reconciled with them. That runs so contrary to the
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modern idea of self affirmation. He was always striving for two
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things equally. The one is my own vileness and
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the other is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and I
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have always thought that they should be viewed together.
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Without that ballast of humiliation, the sails of
30:18
adoration would just tip the ship over in the first strong
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wind of pride. Which is such a contrast to so
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much of the teaching today that tells Christians to minimize
30:27
their self reproach, all in the name of grace.
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Simeon would say if you throw that ballast overboard, you
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become spiritually light. You get easily capsized by
30:36
criticism or hardship because you don't have that deep anchor
30:39
of knowing who you are. Before a holy God, his life was
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steady because he was willing to look at his own sin.
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But this deep sense of his own failure existed right alongside
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this overpowering joy, the sales of adoration.
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They were the two poles of a sphere and profound experience.
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A friend once walked into Simeon's room and found him so
30:59
absorbed in the contemplation of the Son of God that he was
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incapable of pronouncing a single word.
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When he finally managed to speak, all he could say was
31:06
glory. Glory.
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And just days later, that same friend found him in a completely
31:11
different state. Yes, scarcely able to speak from
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a deep humiliation and contrition over his own
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failures. The fact that those two states
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could exist so closely together, That was his balance.
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Deep sorrow for sin leading to immediate rapturous joy and the
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sufficiency of Christ. Simeon was convinced that the
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truest biblical doctrines are the ones that at once most abase
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and most gladden the soul. He thought if a teaching doesn't
31:36
humble you or if it doesn't give you joy in Christ, you probably
31:39
haven't understood it, right? He told the Duchess that
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brokenness of heart is the key to the whole system of
31:44
Scripture. So if humiliation is the ballast
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and adoration is the sales, what's the theological center
31:50
that keeps it all in balance and creates that spiritual
31:53
toughness? It's Christ in the cross.
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Simeon's whole preaching agenda, which many in the Westminster
31:58
traditions still site, had three aims to humble the Sinner, to
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exalt the Savior, to promote holiness.
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Christ was the center of everything.
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The test of any sermon was whether Christ was clearly held
32:10
up as Savior and Lord. So the cross served a critical 2
32:13
sided purpose for him. It was both death dealing and
32:16
life giving. It was the absolute root of his
32:19
assurance because Christ was crucified for him, taking his
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guilt, but at the same time, by the cross he was crucified with
32:26
Christ. It dealt a death blow to the
32:29
world's appeal, to its condemnation, and to his own
32:32
sinful nature. That's Galatians 6.14 and.
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That spiritual security, being dead to the world and alive in
32:38
Christ, was what made him able to withstand all the threats and
32:42
temptations at Cambridge. It let him find comfort in being
32:45
lowly, what Bunyan called the Valley of Humiliation.
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He loved that place. He wrote that he longed to be in
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his proper place, feeling safest, with his hand on my
32:53
mouth and my mouth in the dust. He was confident that the God
32:57
who did all that in Christ will not despise the broken and
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contrite heart. And it's so important to note
33:02
that this confidence didn't come from looking at himself, at how
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disciplined or humble he was. Never.
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His gaze was always outward toward God's character.
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He found rest in the sovereignty of God in choosing such a one,
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and the mercy of God in pardoning such a one, and the
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patience of God and bearing with such a one, and the faithfulness
33:20
of God in perfecting his work. It was all about God's virtue,
33:24
God's character acting on him. That's what gave him the
33:27
lifelong capacity to endure. The result of all this, this
33:31
unique balance, was a life that ended in just deep, settled
33:34
peace. In his last months, dying in
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October 1836, he was already there.
33:39
A friend asked him what he was thinking about at that moment,
33:41
and Simeon just replied. I don't think now I'm enjoying.
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The fight was over. The enjoyment of Christ was all
33:47
that was left. The lesson from Charles Simeon's
33:49
54 years, then, isn't that perseverance comes from
33:52
willpower. It comes from integrating that
33:54
heavy ballast of self humiliation for sin with the
33:57
upward sales of active adoration for Christ, all held steady by
34:01
the truth of the Cross. Simeon was famous for sticking
34:04
to the text of Scripture. He said he wouldn't have a
34:07
single expression in the Bible altered to fit some neat
34:10
theological system. So if we want to imitate his
34:13
ability to stand firm for decades, maybe the question for
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us is this. Are we listening to every part
34:18
of Scripture, even the parts that tell us to take on that
34:21
heavy ballast, the doctrine of sin, the need for brokenness?
34:23
Or are we just selectively throwing overboard the truths
34:26
that humble us in favor of only those that promise immediate
34:29
comfort?