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How to Induce our People to Win Souls | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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So imagine you step into a leadership role of a struggling
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organization. Right, like a legacy company or
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something? Yeah, a legacy company that's
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been losing market share for years or maybe you know, just
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the local community group where the attendance is completely
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dwindled. Sure, your first instinct is
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likely to call this massive all hands meeting.
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You plan to stand up there, cast this brilliant, highly energized
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vision for the future, and you just expect everyone in the room
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to catch fire with your enthusiasm.
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Because you assume your passion will be contagious.
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Precisely. But Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who
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was one of the most effective leaders of the 19th century,
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would look at that strategy and tell you that it's a guaranteed
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recipe for failure. Which is pretty jarring to hear.
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It is so welcome to reformed thinking.
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I'm so glad you were joining us. Today we are taking a deep dive
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into an unvarnished, almost shockingly realistic manual on
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human nature and organizational leadership.
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Yeah, we are looking way past the polished biographies of
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historical figures. You know, the ones where every
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victory seems grand and every follower seems so noble.
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Right, we are getting into the raw reality of weeds, friction
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and, well, sheer exhaustion. And specifically, we are looking
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at an excerpt from Spurgeon's work called The Soul Winner.
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We are focusing on the chapter titled How to Induce Our People
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to Win Souls. Which is such a great title.
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It really is. And Spurgeon, He doesn't offer a
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sanitized or romanticized view of ministry or leadership here.
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He is writing to young leaders who are totally fired up and his
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very first move is to just lower their expectations to the
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absolute floor. Just crush them right out of the
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gate. Basically, yeah, he tells them
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to anticipate coldness, laziness and active resistance from the
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very people they are trying to lead.
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Which is a wild way to teach leadership.
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It is, but it's rooted in this highly accurate sociology of
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human behavior and of course, a robust theology of human
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depravity. So our mission for this deep
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diet is to investigate how a leader actually takes a
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disparate, apathetic group of individuals and cultivates them
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into an active, unified force. Moving from just one person
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doing all the heavy lifting to building a total ecosystem of
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action. And that shift really begins
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with a very specific agricultural metaphor.
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If you are listening to this and you lead any kind of group, you
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have likely felt that heavy burden of having to do
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everything yourself. Oh, absolutely.
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So Spurgeon contrasts what he calls the single sower with the
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spiritual farmer. A single sower takes a basket of
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seed, walks out into the field, and scatters it with their own
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hands. They do it all.
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Yeah, if a program needs to be run, they run it.
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If a conversation needs to happen, they have it.
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But a spiritual farmer manages a massive acreage.
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They don't sow every single inch of the land themselves.
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Right, because they have servants and helpers and
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laborers. The farmer directs the work,
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equipping others to do the actual sowing.
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And making that transition, you know, going from being the
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single sower to becoming the spiritual farmer, that is
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arguably the most difficult hurdle in any form of
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leadership. It's the hurdle of scale and
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multiplication, really. Spurgeon tells these young
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leaders that they cannot expect a fully functioning spiritual
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farm to just appear overnight. He warns them.
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He says don't expect in your first year the result that is
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the reward of 20 years of continuous toil in one place.
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Which makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and he uses this imagery
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of a new driver taking the reins of a horse carriage.
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He notes that it's a wonderful blessing if the horses don't
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know they have a new driver. Meaning things are running
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smoothly. Yeah, if you inherit an
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organization that has been well tended for decades, you should
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count your blessings, right? But then he immediately pivots
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to the far more likely scenario, which is that you will inherit a
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ruined or neglected field. A total mess.
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A total mess. You'll inherit a plot covered
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with nettles, full of stones, weeds, thorns, all of it.
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And the biggest mistake a young leader can make in that
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environment is to act like a veteran.
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Oh, man. Spurgeon calls it a foolish
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affectation when a young person tries to speak with the seasoned
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authority of someone who has been a father among the people
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for 30 years. I see this exact dynamic play
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out in the modern corporate world all the time.
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Oh really? Yeah, think about a junior
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employee who gets hired at a legacy company.
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They come in fresh out of Business School, full of the
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latest management theories, and on day one they try to act like
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the CEO. Oh, Ray.
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They expect immediate institutional loyalty.
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They expect the veterans in the office of people who've been
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there for 20 years to just fall in line with their grand vision.
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But they haven't earned it. Exactly.
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The junior employee hasn't bled with the team.
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They haven't put in the decades of steady plotting required to
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build actual trust, so Spurgeon is pointing out that trying to
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fake seasoned authority just makes you look ridiculous to the
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people you're trying to lead. You can't demand respect, it has
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to be accrued. Right.
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It has to be earned over time. And this touches on a really
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crucial theological concept regarding Providence and time.
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God works through means, and one of those means is the slow,
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deliberate passage of time. Because time is the mechanism
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that builds trust, improves character.
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Yes. Spurgeon illustrates this by
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pointing to John Angel James at Cars Lane Chapel in Birmingham.
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That specific location was not famous or highly populated
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before James arrived. He didn't just walk into a mega
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church. No, not at all.
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And James didn't find instant success.
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He just plotted on, steadily preaching the gospel and doing
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the hard work for years. Eventually, over a long period
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of consistent faithfulness, he drew a core group of helpers
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around him. So there's a requirement for
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immense patience when you commit to working a hard field.
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Immense patience. But you know, Spurgeon's advice
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to the eager young leader feels completely counterintuitive to
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our modern sensibilities. How so?
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Well, he essentially says that you should anticipate having to
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do the work entirely by yourself at the beginning.
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He tells them to expect no assistance at 1st and to just
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tramp up and down the field alone.
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Yeah, that's a tough pill to swallow, right?
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And so I need to ask about the psychological toll of that
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advice. If you tell a young, zealous
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leader to expect zero help and to shoulder the entire burden of
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the organization alone, aren't you guaranteeing intense
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burnout? That's a fair question.
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It seems like a recipe for a complete physical and mental
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crash before A-Team can ever even be formed.
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It's a very natural concern, but Spurgeon is actually managing
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expectations to prevent a much more dangerous kind of burnout,
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which is emotional disillusionment.
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The fastest way to burnout in leadership is to expect everyone
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around you to match your white hot intensity, and then you just
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crash into despair when they fail to do so.
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Oh wow, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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By telling the young leader to expect no help, Spurgeon is
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shielding them from the bitterness that destroys so many
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careers. You tramp up and down the field
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alone, but you do it while looking to the Lord of the
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harvest. You aren't relying on the
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congregation's energy to sustain.
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You exactly. You are relying on divine
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provision. It's a protective measure for
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the leader's soul. That mentality sits in stark
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opposition to a culture that demands instant results and
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viral growth. We want our businesses to double
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in revenue in six months. We want our local churches to
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overflow with new members immediately.
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And if that doesn't happen? We assume the strategy is broken
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and we need to pivot. But Spurgeon addresses this
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impatience with a striking phrase.
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He says try and whistle for the wind and see if it will come.
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Which is such a great visual. Yeah, you can't force a genuine
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shift in an organization's culture just by whistling for
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it. You can't manufacture A genuine
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movement. He reinforces that point by
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referencing the biblical account of Elijah praying for rain
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following a massive multi year drought, Elijah goes up to Mount
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Carmel to pray. He doesn't offer a single prayer
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and immediately receive a thunderstorm.
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He prays, and then he sends his servant to look at the sky.
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And the servant sees absolutely nothing.
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Elijah repeats this process 7 times.
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He has to wait for the small cloud to finally appear on the
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horizon. Spurgeon is teaching that
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genuine shifts in organizational health don't answer to human
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timelines. You plot on, you plead on, and
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in due time the blessing comes. The leader must remain steady
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while the invisible work is happening.
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So we have established the need for patients while tramping the
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field alone, but eventually you want to start turning that
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neglected field into a functioning farm.
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You want to ignite a fire in the people around you?
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Yes, and this brings us to Spurgeon's vivid depiction of
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trying to motivate a specific, difficult demographic within an
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organization. He describes the experience of
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going to the principal Deacon, someone who has been a fixture
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in the church for decades. The guy who's seen it all.
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Exactly. The young leader approaches this
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veteran at a white heat of enthusiasm, ready to change the
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world. And the Deacon is, quote, cold
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as steel. Yeah.
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Spurgeon compares the interaction to dipping a piece
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of white hot iron into a pail of water.
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It's a brilliant, highly tactile image.
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The white hot iron hisses. It loses all its heat and it
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just turns black. The old Deacon looks at the
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young zealous leader and says, I've seen others as hot as you.
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They cool down. You will too.
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The wet blanket of institutional memory.
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Perfectly said, but what is crucial to note is that Spurgeon
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doesn't call this Deacon an evil person.
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He acknowledges that the Deacon is likely a very good man, but
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he is old and you cannot put young heads on old shoulders.
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Right. The Deacon has seen fads come
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and go, so his default posture is skepticism.
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Yeah, and then Spurgeon mentions trying to motivate the young
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people but finds they are backward retiring and tend to
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fly off at a tangent. They lack focus and discipline.
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So the leader is faced with the completely unenthusiastic
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environment. How do you actually start a fire
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in a room full of damp wood? Well, Spurgeon lays out two
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distinct methods. Method A is what we might call
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the top down, macro level approach.
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You call the entire organization together.
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You stand at the front, deliver your most passionate speech,
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cast the vision and plead for everyone to get on board all at
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once. You ask for a corporate
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outpouring of energy. And Spurgeon admits that this
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macro level approach might work. It might be like setting a light
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to dry fuel, resulting in a sudden widespread awakening
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similar to the Day of Pentecost. But his pragmatism immediately
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shines through. He has a massive caveat, warning
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that absolutely nothing might come of it.
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The large gathering might end with a whimper rather than a
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bang. I find his description of that
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failure absolutely hilarious and deeply relatable.
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Oh, it's so funny. He says the people will sit
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there, listen politely to your big passionate speech and then
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say to themselves it is a very nice meeting and our pastor
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expects a good deal of us and we all wish he may get it.
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And then they go home and do absolutely nothing differently.
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It's the polite applause of total apathy.
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This reveals A masterful understanding of human
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sociology. If the macro culture of an
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organization is dead, calling a macro level meeting won't revive
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it. The sheer volume of apathy in
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the room will absorb the leader's speech like a sponge.
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Because when everyone is responsible, no one is
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responsible. Yes, because the large group
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dynamic diffuses accountability. Spurgeon introduces method B.
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This is the grassroots approach. If you cannot light the entire
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pile of damp wood at once, you must pull aside one or two
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specific pieces and deal with them privately.
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He advises the leader to look for a choice young man or
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gracious matron who seems slightly more engaged than the
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rest. You don't announce this
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selection to the church. You don't make a big public
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display. You.
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Keep it quiet. Yeah, you privately invite them
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to your home for prayer. You gradually increase the
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number to two or three. You start creating a
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microculture. Right.
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This reminds me perfectly of how a tech startup launches a closed
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beta test. That's an interesting
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connection. You don't release a brand new,
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somewhat fragile piece of software to the whole
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unenthusiastic public. If you do, they will find one
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bug, decide they hate it, and leave a terrible review.
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Sure, yeah. Instead, you give the software
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to a tiny group of super users. These are people you know are
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highly engaged in forgiving. You let them work out the bugs,
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you let them catch the vision, and they become the ones who
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generate the height. They spread the fire to the rest
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of the market. That analogy fits perfectly.
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You are building critical mass from the inside out, rather than
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trying to impose it from the top down.
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And to illustrate this, Spurgeon uses an analogy that would have
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been quite shocking to a Victorian audience.
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He discusses the most effectual way to burn a house down.
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Casual arson. Very casual, he says.
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You could pour petroleum down the middle of it and set it on
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fire, which is a direct historical reference to the
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radicals in Paris during the Commune.
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Alternatively, you could light the house at the Four Corners.
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And he cheekily adds that he likes to burn churches rather
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than houses because churches don't burn down, they burn up.
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He really had a way with words. Let's examine a very specific
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and provocative phrase he uses in this section.
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He tells these young leaders to turn their small private prayer
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group into a secret society, a band of celestial Fenians to set
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the whole church on fire. For context, the Fenians were a
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real world, radical underground Irish political movement in the
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19th century. They were revolutionaries.
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They were subversive. Very subversive.
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Is Spurgeon actually advocating for a subversive rogue element
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to operate within the local church?
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That sounds incredibly dangerous for organizational unity.
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It sounds like he is telling leaders to form a faction.
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Well, it's a deliberately provocative term designed for
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shock value. Spurgeon is trying to wake up
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his students to the severity of the situation.
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He isn't advocating for theological rebellion or a
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malicious division within the church.
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OK, So what is he advocating for?
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He is advocating for holy subversion against the dominant
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culture of apathy. He explicitly warns that if you
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form the zealous inner circle, the devil will not like it and
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resistance will arise to try and break up the union.
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So friction is guaranteed. That friction is exactly what
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they should expect and even desire.
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He wants war to the knife between the Church and the
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world's habits of laziness. The apathy in the Church is the
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true enemy here. I see.
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By creating this inner circle of prayerful, zealous people, you
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are forming A resistance movement against status quo of
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dead religion. You are intentionally disrupting
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the piece of the graveyard. The piece of the graveyard that
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is intense. And he grounds this radical idea
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beautifully in the biblical imagery of the burning Bush from
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the Book of Exodus, the boost that burns with fire but is not
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consumed. He explains that if the fire is
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merely human adrenaline, it burns up the Bush very quickly.
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You see these young, zealous people who run so fast at the
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beginning of their careers that they quickly become like broken,
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winded horses. It's sad to watch.
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It is a pitiable sight to watch someone completely exhaust
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themselves because they are running on their own energy.
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Zeal required to change an organization has to be sustained
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by something outside of human effort.
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And that need for external sustenance brings us directly to
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the mechanism of how these Celestrophanians keep the fire
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burning without destroying themselves.
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How do they maintain that heat week after week?
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This leads into the Spurgeon's intense focus on the engine room
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of the church. Which is the midweek prayer
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meeting. Spurgeon targets this specific
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gathering as the true business evening of the week.
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Not the Sunday morning sermon, which is what most people assume
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is the main event, but the prayer meeting.
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Yes, and he goes after the lazy ministers in the London suburbs
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with absolutely no mercy, completely dismantling their
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approach to the weekly schedule. He paints a very dreary,
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realistic picture of the typical suburban church.
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The minister assumes he can't get his congregation to come out
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for both a prayer meeting and a teaching lecture during the
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week, so he decides to combine them into one hour.
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The dreaded combined meeting. Yeah, and Spurgeon mocks this
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compromise relentlessly. He says the lazy man gives a
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short, uninspired address, calls it a combined meeting and ends
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up being neither fish, flesh, fowl nor good red herring.
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It's a watered down, confused event that achieves nothing.
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Consequently, the Minister soon gives it up entirely because the
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people stop attending, correctly assessing that the meeting is
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useless. The meeting is useless because
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it has become a passive ritual rather than an active engine.
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Spurgeon insists on making the prayer meeting highly engaging,
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calling it the best service between the Sabbath's.
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Yes, the best service. And here we encounter perhaps
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the most shocking piece of pastoral advice in the entire
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text. He addresses the very common
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problem of people who pray too long in public.
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Oh, this part is brilliant. He tells the leader, do not
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hesitate to tell good Mr. Snooks that he shall not pray for five
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and 20 minutes, earnestly entreat him to cut it short, and
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if he does not stop him. Stop him right in the middle of
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it. And Spurgeon then provides an
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analogy that makes modern sensibilities wince.
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He compares the act of stopping a long winded prayer to stopping
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a man from cutting his wife's throat.
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I need to push back on this, or at least ask for a deep
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explanation. Go for it.
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In almost every religious tradition, interrupting someone
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while they are praying out loud is considered the height of
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irreverence. It's a sacred cow.
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When someone closes their eyes and begin speaking to God, the
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social contract dictates that you just endure it until they
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say Amen, no matter how long it takes.
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Even 25 minutes. Exactly how does Spurgeon
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justify such a seemingly harsh, violent analogy?
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And how do we reconcile that ruthlessness with his broader
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reputation for very tender, loving pastoral care?
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To understand this, we have to look at the mechanics of what
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Spurgeon believes the Church actually is.
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The justification becomes clear when you realize he loves the
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collective church almost as much as he loves his own wife.
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To Spurgeon, a dull, droning 25 minute public prayer is not an
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act of genuine piety, it is an act of spiritual murder.
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Spiritual murder. It mechanically kills the
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vitality of the room. It causes the minds of the young
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people to wander. It extinguishes the energy of
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the celestial Athenians. It quenches the Holy Spirit.
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Because everyone is just zoning out.
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Exactly. He views the collective zeal of
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the congregation as infinitely more precious than the fragile
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ego of Mr. Snooks. This advice shows a remarkable
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pastoral spine. He's acting as a protector.
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Yes, the leader is acting as a protector.
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You are protecting the flock from the boredom that leads
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directly to spiritual death. He tells the long winded man to
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finish his lengthy prayer at home in private.
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Public prayer must serve the public good, and if it fails to
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do so, it must be stopped. That is a massive paradigm shift
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for anyone who leads meetings. You are guarding the energy of
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the room. Because he views the prayer
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meeting as the literal source of strength, he demands radical
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flexibility to make it happen. Radical flexibility is right.
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He says if the people seem heavy and tired, change the format
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immediately. Have them sing Moody and Sankey
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hymns, which were the catchy, upbeat revivalist tunes of his
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day, to wake them. Up.
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Just drift them awake. Yeah, and when they learn all
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those tunes, switch back to the regular, more solemn hymn book.
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Keep them on their toes. But his radical flexibility goes
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far beyond just changing the music.
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It extends to the very structure of the schedule.
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Oh yeah, He tells his students to abandon predictable time
19:32
slots if they are not working. Hold a meeting in the country at
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4:30 in the morning or 60 in the morning to accommodate
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agricultural workers before they go to the fields.
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Which makes practical sense. Hold a meeting at midnight.
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Try 1.00 AM, 2.0 AM or three-point AM.
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I was trying to envision what a modern equivalent of this would
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look like today. Everything in our corporate and
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religious life is thoroughly sanitized and locked into
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predictable calendar invites. Right Sunday at 10 AM, Wednesday
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at 7:00 PM. It never changes, but Spurgeon
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says if they won't come to the church building, take the
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meeting to them. Tell a family you are having a
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prayer meeting in their parlor. Just invite yourself over.
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Yeah, and if the wife is worried about the house being messy or
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the carpet getting dirty, go out into the coach house or stand in
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the garden. Go trudge down the street with
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50 people and hold a prayer meeting in the open air.
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It's relentless. He references the women in
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America who fought the liquor sellers by literally praying
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them out of the traffic, kneeling on the sidewalks
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outside the salons. This approach completely breaks
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the script of polite contained religion.
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It's the sheer relentless creativity born out of
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desperation for spiritual vitality, he says.
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If we cannot stir the people without doing extraordinary
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things, in the name of all that is good and great, let us do
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extraordinary things. The method doesn't matter as
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much as the outcome. The specific method or time slot
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is entirely secondary to the ultimate goal.
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The goal is to get the people praying together right?
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When we talk about the ordinary means of grace, things like the
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preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and corporate
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prayer, we need to understand how they function mechanically.
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Think of it like setting a broken bone in a medical
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concept. OK.
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I like this analogy. A doctor cannot force a bone to
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heal through sheer willpower or a motivational speech.
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The healing is a biological process that occurs naturally,
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provided the conditions are right.
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So what does the doctor do? The doctor's job is to set the
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bone in a cast. The cast is the means.
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It holds everything in the correct position so the body's
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natural biology can do the work. I see.
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In a spiritual context, corporate prayer is the cast.
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It aligns the congregation's posture.
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It holds them in a state of dependence and expectation,
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creating the conditions where the Holy Spirit operates.
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You cannot have a zealous church with a slow coach minister who
21:55
refuses to apply the cast. A slow coach minister.
21:59
I love the 19th century Burns. They are the best.
22:01
That concept of the congregation's posture segues
22:04
directly into the next phase of our analysis.
22:07
Once you have this fire burning, once the engine room of prayer
22:10
is running and the cast is set, what do the people actually do?
22:13
Right. What's the next step?
22:14
Spurgeon says the pastor cannot reach everyone alone from the
22:17
pulpit. The spiritual farmer needs
22:19
laborers. He calls for a band of what he
22:21
terms sharp shooters. The sharp shooters.
22:25
These are individual church members who are trained to pick
22:27
people out of the crowd. They don't wait for the pastor
22:30
to make a general appeal. They engage in targeted
22:33
one-on-one interactions. And Spurgeon calls this practice
22:37
buttonholing people. Yes, buttonholing.
22:40
The imagery he uses to describe buttonholing is both hilarious
22:43
and slightly alarming. He references the biblical story
22:47
of Absalom, King David's rebellious son.
22:49
Oh boy. During a battle, Absalom was
22:52
riding his mule under a great oak tree and his thick hair got
22:55
caught in the boughs. The mule kept going and Absalom
22:57
was left hanging there, completely trapped and unable to
23:00
escape. Just suspended in the tree.
23:02
Spurgeon looks at that story and says to his congregation it is
23:06
pretty close work when you hold a friend by a lock of his hair
23:09
or by his coat button. Absalom did not find it easy to
23:12
get away. So try to get a close quarters
23:15
with sinners. To a modern listener, that
23:17
sounds like a massive violation of personal space.
23:19
It sounds incredibly aggressive calling a church member a
23:22
hunting dog who waylays visitors in the aisles.
23:26
I mean, is there a danger here of treating visitors like
23:28
targets rather than actual human beings?
23:31
It conjures images of high pressure sales tactics where the
23:34
customer feels cornered and manipulated.
23:37
That is a very valid concern for today's context where high
23:40
pressure tactics are widely distrusted.
23:44
However, we have to look at how Spurgeon qualifies the
23:47
instruction immediately after the Absalom reference.
23:50
What did he say? He says, talk gently to them
23:53
till you have whispered them into the Kingdom of heaven.
23:56
Ah, whispered them. Right.
23:58
The intent isn't a loud, aggressive sales pitch.
24:01
The intent is highly intentional, deeply personal
24:04
pastoral care that is distributed among the
24:07
congregation. He wants members who ensure no
24:10
one leaves the building without a personal invitation to know
24:13
Christ. He wants to turn the Church into
24:15
an act of Salvation Army rather than a passive audience.
24:19
And when the congregation is acting like that, you know,
24:21
handling the ground game and the personal interactions, the role
24:24
of the preacher completely changes.
24:25
It shifts. Dramatically, he confrats what
24:27
he calls flummery with the clear orders of a commander in chief.
24:31
Flummery refers to fine, flashy Thunder and lightning sermons
24:36
designed to show off the speaker's intellect.
24:38
All style, no substance. Right.
24:40
Spurgeon points out that people who are actually out there
24:43
working in the harvest field do not want Thunder and lightning.
24:46
They don't need a theatrical performance.
24:48
They want to rest under a tree, wipe the sweat from their
24:50
foreheads, get clear instructions and get back to
24:53
work. They want practical direction.
24:55
Exactly. The sermon should be short,
24:57
sweet, and direct. There are the enemy.
24:59
Do not let me know where they are tomorrow.
25:01
This shift in the preacher's role relies entirely on one of
25:05
the most vital concepts in the text, the atmosphere of do.
25:09
Do like morning condensation. Yes, Spurgeon asserts that we
25:14
are sure to get the blessing we are seeking when the whole
25:16
atmosphere of the room is favorable to soul winning.
25:20
To explain this mechanically, he shares a story about an
25:22
Irishman's theory on agricultural irrigation.
25:25
OK, the Irishman observed that watering plants while the sun is
25:29
shining brightly is not very effective and might even scorch
25:32
the leaves, turning them yellow and killing the plant.
25:35
Because the sun just bakes the water right on the leaves.
25:38
Precisely. But when it rains, the
25:40
environment changes. There are clouds blocking the
25:43
sun, the sky is shaded, the humidity rises, the general
25:47
feeling of everything is damp all around.
25:50
The atmosphere is prime to receive the moisture.
25:53
Any experienced gardener knows you water in the evening when
25:56
the sun is off the plants and the air is cooler.
25:59
The favorable influence in the atmosphere allows the moisture
26:02
to actually penetrate the soil and benefit the root system.
26:06
That makes total sense biologically.
26:08
And Spurgeon applies this biological reality directly to
26:11
spiritual things. When a minister preaches in a
26:14
room full of people who have been praying for hours, people
26:17
who are deeply expecting God to move, that room is full of
26:20
spiritual dew. He.
26:21
Compares it to Mount Gilboa, which David cursed to have no
26:25
dew or reign. Contrasting it with the day of
26:27
Pentecost which possessed completely saturated, highly
26:31
charged spiritual atmosphere. I was thinking about this
26:34
concept of do and how to frame it outside of agriculture to
26:38
really grasp the mechanics of it.
26:39
Think about the science of acoustics.
26:41
OK, let's hear. It if you take a master
26:43
violinist and have them play a beautiful, complex solo in a
26:47
small room lined with sound absorbing foam, the performance
26:51
falls flat. It sounds dead and muted.
26:54
Because there's no reverberation.
26:56
Right. The environment actively works
26:58
against the music, absorbing the vibrations before they can reach
27:01
the listener's ear. But if you take that same
27:04
violinist playing the exact same notes on the exact same
27:07
instrument and put them in a massive ancient stone cathedral,
27:11
the sound resonates. It fills the whole space.
27:14
It swells. It carries to the very back row
27:17
the congregation's expectation. They're prayerful readiness.
27:20
Is that stone cathedral? That's a fantastic way to put
27:23
it. Spurgeon says he often feels no
27:25
credit is due to him when he preaches because he steps into a
27:29
room where people are sitting with their mouths open,
27:31
practically demanding a blessing.
27:33
He describes the sensation by saying when a man is put on a
27:35
horse that runs away with him, he must ride.
27:38
The momentum of the praying congregation carries the
27:41
preacher along. That's incredible.
27:43
We see the cooperative work between the Holy Spirit and the
27:45
local church here. You cannot force conversions.
27:48
Regeneration is solely an act of God.
27:51
But God uses the atmosphere primed by corporate prayer as
27:55
the ordinary environment for that miracle to occur.
27:58
Right, the environment facilitates the work.
28:01
Spurgeon explicitly mentions the Apostle Peter sermon at
28:04
Pentecost. It was a great plain sermon, but
28:07
the massive number of conversions weren't the result
28:10
of the words alone. The disciples had been praying
28:13
together in one place for days. The atmosphere was incredibly
28:17
damp. The heavenly electricity was
28:19
concentrated at that specific spot.
28:21
Yes, and because that atmosphere is so crucial, he expects the
28:25
church members to share in a divine dissatisfaction if the
28:28
dew is ever missing. He mentions a specific Deacon
28:31
who complained to him after a communion service.
28:33
Oh, this is a great story they. 'D only taken in 14 new members
28:37
that month and the Deacon looked at him and said, Governor, this
28:39
won't pay. Governor, this won't pay.
28:41
They were used to seeing 40 or 50 new members a month.
28:45
Now, many modern pastors would be deeply offended by that
28:48
comment, thinking the Deacon was being ungrateful for the 14.
28:51
Most would be. But Spurgeon loved it.
28:53
He praised that holy discontent. That specific environment of
28:57
high expectation is what creates the hunting dogs.
29:00
He mentions a friend he explicitly calls his hunting
29:03
dog, a man who wailies inquirers and brings them directly to the
29:06
pastor for counseling. This man keeps a Bible ready
29:10
with targeted texts pasted inside the cover in bold type.
29:14
He has texts like the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that
29:18
which was lost or him that cometh to me.
29:21
I will in no wise cast out ready at a moment's notice.
29:24
Just locked and loaded. Having those texts physically
29:26
prepared shows that evangelism is both a sovereign divine act
29:29
and a highly intentional human interaction.
29:32
Spurgeon quotes an observer who evaluated a series of special
29:35
services and noted that the successful evangelist possessed
29:38
a faculty for the precipitation of decision.
29:41
Precipitation of decision. That's a weighty phrase.
29:44
They didn't just present information, they helped bring
29:47
the internal wrestling to a head.
29:49
The atmosphere of do makes the precipitation possible, but the
29:53
hunting dogs are the human instruments walking people
29:57
across the finish line. Let's bring this back to reality
29:59
for a second. We have painted this beautiful,
30:02
highly functioning picture of the stone cathedral acoustics,
30:06
the spiritual farm operating under heavy dew, and the hunting
30:09
dogs successfully precipitating decisions.
30:12
The ideal scenario. But Spurgeon is a realist and he
30:16
knows that is not where most leaders start, and it is
30:19
certainly not what every environment looks like.
30:22
This takes us to the final major theme of our discussion, dealing
30:26
with hostile fields, tears and pulling the horse.
30:28
This is where the rubber meets the road.
30:31
He shares this incredibly tense, uncomfortable anecdote about
30:35
visiting a church that clearly did not want him there.
30:37
The church authorities had only invited him because of the
30:40
financial benefit of the large crowds his name would draw.
30:43
The church members themselves didn't expect a spiritual
30:45
blessing and consequently they didn't receive 1.
30:48
Only the visitors benefited. Right.
30:50
Only the visitors from other churches benefited from the
30:53
sermon. After the service concluded,
30:55
Spurgeon walks into the vestry and finds the two deacons of the
30:58
church standing on opposite sides of the mantelpiece.
31:01
That is a brilliant visual representation of division.
31:06
They are standing as far apart from each other as the room will
31:09
physically allow. It's so petty.
31:11
Spurgeon looks at the situation, assesses the atmosphere and asks
31:15
them. The church does not prosper,
31:17
does it? They both say no, and Spurgeon,
31:21
possessing absolutely no filter, looks at them and says I should
31:25
not think it would with such deacons.
31:27
It is stunning bluntness just right to their faces.
31:29
The deacons are offended and ask if he knows anything specific
31:33
against their character. He replies no, but I do not know
31:36
anything in your favor. Because he couldn't reach the
31:38
whole church through his sermon due to the dead atmosphere, he
31:41
button holed the two leaders right there in the vestry.
31:43
And what was the result of that direct confrontation?
31:46
One Deacon left the church in anger and the other was
31:49
irritated in the right way, stayed, and eventually helped
31:52
improve the church. Following that story, Spurgeon
31:55
gives us an analogy that perfectly captures the
31:57
frustration of leadership. He says dealing with this kind
32:00
of internal resistance is hard enough under normal
32:02
circumstances. It's like rowing a boat against
32:05
the wind in the tide. You are expending massive energy
32:08
just to stay in one place. But it's infinitely worse if you
32:11
have a horse on the bank pulling a rope, dragging your boat the
32:14
opposite way. You are fighting the elements
32:17
and active sabotage simultaneously.
32:19
And his advice for this situation?
32:21
Work away all the harder and pull the horse into the water.
32:24
Pull the horse into the water. It's a remarkable, highly
32:27
aggressive strategy for dealing with entrenched institutional
32:31
opposition. If you are listening to this and
32:34
you manage A-Team, maybe you are the head of department at a
32:37
massive corporation. You might be sweating a bit.
32:41
You're thinking, practically speaking, how do you do that?
32:44
How do you pull a hostile leader, a horse on the bank into
32:48
the water without capsizing your own boat in the process?
32:51
Isn't there a huge risk of splitting the congregation,
32:54
destroying the team's morale, or triggering a massive HR crisis?
32:59
Let's look at the mechanics of this strategy to understand why
33:01
it works. Spurgeon's approach is not to
33:04
drop the oars, get out of the boat and go fight the horse on
33:07
the bank. Oh, so you don't engage
33:09
directly? No.
33:10
If you fight a toxic leader directly, you validate their
33:13
influence. You turn the situation into A2
33:16
sided debate, elevating them to the status of a peer in the eyes
33:20
of the organization. Which is exactly what they want.
33:23
Exactly his strategy is to row harder in the direction of truth
33:27
and vitality. You overwhelm the resistance
33:30
with positive momentum. He notes that it's actually
33:33
preferable to work on the borders of the infernal lake,
33:36
working with the worst, most acknowledged sinners in society,
33:39
than to deal with dead professing Christians inside the
33:42
church. He refers to these toxic
33:44
insiders as tears. Tears.
33:46
Yes. That is a direct reference to
33:48
the parable of Jesus, where an enemy sews weeds or tares among
33:52
the wheat in a field. In the parable, the master
33:55
servants ask if they should pull up the weeds.
33:57
And the master says no. Right, the master says no, do
34:00
not uproot the tares, lest you accidentally uproot the healthy
34:03
wheat with them. You have to let them grow
34:05
together until the harvest. It's about patience again.
34:08
Spurgeon plies this agricultural parable directly to toxic church
34:12
culture. He says you have people in your
34:15
organization with a name to live, but they are actually
34:18
dead. They exert A baneful,
34:20
suffocating influence on everything around them.
34:22
But we are largely powerless to cure the evil directly.
34:25
Because we can't possess perfect omniscience to know exactly who
34:30
is a tear and who is just struggling, so we can't just
34:32
kick everyone out. Right.
34:33
Given that limitation, what is his counterintuitive strategy?
34:37
You water the wheat. Wagger the wheat.
34:38
Rather than engaging in endless church discipline, constant
34:41
arguments, or political maneuvering to pull up the
34:43
tears, you intentionally ignore the tears and pour all your
34:46
resources, your best preaching, and your pastoral care into the
34:50
healthy members. You focus entirely on the
34:52
celestial Athenians, yes. You generate so much spiritual
34:56
heat and vitality within that inner circle that the overall
35:00
environment shifts. He literally says that he has
35:03
known ungodly men who have had the place made so hot for them
35:06
that they have been glad to clear right out of the church.
35:09
They just leave on their own. They walk away complaining,
35:11
saying the preaching is too strong for us and these people
35:14
are too strict to suit us. And Spurgeon's reaction to
35:17
losing members? He says, what a blessing.
35:21
We didn't drive them away by force or legislation.
35:24
The plain truth drove them away. Let them go and pray for them
35:29
from a distance. It reveals A robust, unshakable
35:32
confidence in the truth. It really does.
35:35
To understand why watering the wheat works, we have to look at
35:38
the theological distinction between the visible church and
35:41
the invisible church. The visible church, the people
35:44
sitting in the pews on a Sunday morning, will always contain a
35:47
mixture of true believers and hypocrites.
35:51
The leader's job is not to play God, possessing perfect
35:53
omniscience and purge the membership roles with absolute
35:57
precision. Because you'll inevitably pull
35:59
up the weed by mistake. Precisely the leader's job is to
36:02
faithfully administer the means of grace, preaching the Word and
36:06
praying fervently until the tree believers are so nourished and
36:10
active that the hypocrites find the atmosphere socially and
36:13
spiritually unbearable. So you don't capsize your boat
36:17
fighting the horse on the bank. No, you just row so faithfully
36:20
and build so much momentum that the rope eventually snaps or the
36:24
horse gets dragged into the water.
36:26
The environment itself does the sorting.
36:28
That is such a strong synthesis of this entire excerpt, and it
36:31
brings us to a clear conclusion. As we wrap U this Dee dive,
36:36
let's look at the massive paradigm shift we have
36:38
investigated today. It's a lot to take in.
36:40
Spurgeon completely dismantles the modern celebritydriven idea
36:44
of the solitary hero holding a microphone.
36:46
The goal of a true leader is never to be the single sower
36:49
doing all the work forever. The goal is to become the
36:52
patient spiritual farmer. Right.
36:54
It requires understanding the sociology of your group well
36:56
enough to know when macro meetings will fail and when you
36:59
need to launch a secret Society of celestial Finian to spark a
37:02
fire from the inside out. And it requires the ruthless,
37:06
unapologetic defense of corporate prayer.
37:09
Even if it means interrupting Mr. Snooks so his 25 minute
37:13
drone doesn't kill the energy of the room.
37:14
It involves cultivating the sharp shooters and the hunting
37:17
dogs, the everyday members who are armed with scripture and
37:20
ready to do the close quarters work of bringing people across
37:23
the finish line. It demands an understanding of
37:26
the spiritual do, recognizing that the atmosphere is primed by
37:31
collective expectation. And finally, it requires the
37:34
steady, confident strategy of watering the wheat until the
37:38
tears are choked out by the sheer heat of the environment.
37:41
If you are listening to this right now, these principles
37:44
apply directly to whatever field you are currently tramping.
37:47
Whether you are walking into a broken corporate culture, trying
37:50
to build a new team, trying to set a different tone in your
37:53
family dynamic, or seeking to wake up a sleepy local
37:56
congregation, the mechanics hold true.
37:59
Cultivating that atmosphere of dew requires collective
38:01
expectation. You cannot force the rain to
38:04
fall on your own timeline, but you can gather the people, get
38:08
the umbrellas ready, and look at the sky together.
38:10
And you must possess the patients to let time do what's
38:13
required work. The harvest of 20 years cannot
38:16
be reaped in the first year. So.
38:18
True, you must be willing to tramp the field alone at first,
38:21
shielding yourself from disillusionment by trusting the
38:24
Lord of the Harvest to sustain you when the people around you
38:27
will not. Which leaves us with a final
38:30
thought to chew on as we close. We started this deep dive
38:34
talking about Spurgeon's striking realism.
38:37
His absolute refusal give us a sanitized, pristine view of the
38:41
people we work with. He tells it like it is.
38:43
We so often assume that the biggest threat to our growth,
38:47
our success or our spiritual vitality is the hostile secular
38:51
world outside our doors. We think the enemy is always out
38:54
there actively fighting against us.
38:56
Sure, that's the default assumption.
38:58
But what if Spurgeon is right? What if the most dangerous
39:01
obstacle to your organization's success is actually the cold,
39:05
polite apathy sitting right next to you in the Pew, or across
39:08
from you in the boardroom? That's a heavy thought.
39:10
And more pressingly, if you look at your own habits, your own
39:14
level of zeal, and your own willingness to pray, how can you
39:18
be absolutely certain you weren't the horse on the bank
39:21
pulling the rope the wrong? Way Ouch.
39:23
Yeah.