Latest / Reformed Thinking / Concern for Other Men’s Souls (Romans 9:1-5) | Charles Spurgeon

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Concern for Other Men’s Souls (Romans 9:1-5) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. So I want you to imagine
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something for a second. If you were just walking down
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the street. Right.
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OK. Yeah.
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And someone unexpectedly throws a punch at your head.
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Oh, wow. Yeah.
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You you do not sit there and calculate your response.
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Right There Is this automatic biological reflex wired straight
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into your central nervous system to protect yourself.
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Absolutely. You you throw your hands up.
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Right. You shield your face, you either
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strike back or you turn and run as fast as humanly possible.
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Yeah, it's just pure survival instinct.
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I mean, we consider that reflex to be entirely rational.
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Right, because it keeps the human race alive.
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Spot on. A person lacking that instinct
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would be, well, incredibly vulnerable.
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Which is what makes the historical figure of the Apostle
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Paul so fascinating. Oh, definitely.
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Because when you look at his life, that natural survival
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instinct seems to be, well, completely broken.
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Or at least totally rewired. Yeah, because we are looking at
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a man who faced literal assassins.
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Actual assassin. Men who took blood oaths to kill
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him. Mobs formed in cities
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specifically to drag him out and just, you know, end his life.
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And yet his primary reflex was not to fight back.
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It wasn't to call for the Roman authorities or anything.
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No, his reflex was to fall on his knees.
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Right to fall on his knees and just agonize over the eternal
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state of the very people holding the daggers.
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Which defies all human logic when you think about.
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It it really does. To an outside observer, an
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affection that intense looks like madness.
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It just looks like a total failure of self preservation.
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And that tension, that exact, well, that precise tension is
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what we're going to investigate today in this deep dive.
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Yeah, it's a massive topic. If you were listening to this
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right now, you are probably someone who wants to cut through
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all the cultural noise, right? Yeah.
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You want to get straight to the vital beating heart of Christian
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thought. And today we have an incredible
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text to look at. We do.
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We're going into a fiery 19th century sermon from Charles
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Haddon Spurgeon. Delivered from the Metropolitan
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Tabernacle Pulpit in London. Right.
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It's titled Concern for Other Men's Souls and it is based on
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the opening verses of Romans Chapter 9.
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So our mission for this deep dive is to investigate this
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intense, almost terrifying affection Paul held for his most
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vicious enemies. And how Spurgeon challenges the
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modern reader to cultivate that same heartbreaking anxiety for
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the unsaved. Yeah, so to grasp the sheer
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gravity of what Spurgeon is arguing here, we have to
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establish who Paul was before the New Testament letters.
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Right, because Paul was not always a man who loved his
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enemies, Not at all. Before his conversion on the
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road to Damascus, he was Saul of Tarsus, and he was not just some
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mild critic of the early church. No, he was a violent, cruel
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persecutor. I mean, the text points out his
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involvement in the death of Stephen, right?
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The very first Christian Martian.
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Yes, Saul actually stood there, holding the garments of the men
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who were hurling the heavy stones that crushed the life out
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of Steven. Let's pause on that detail for a
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moment, because holding the garments in a 1st century Jewish
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execution, that was not the job of just a passive bystander.
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Oh no, not at all. It meant he was the official
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witness. He was giving the legal stamp of
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approval to the mob. Yeah, he was basically presiding
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over a lynching. Saul was entirely wholehearted
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in his campaign to eradicate the church, the book of Acts says.
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He was breathing out threats and murder.
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But then he meets the risen Christ, and the alteration in
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his character is absolute. It is night and day, and
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Spurgeon argues that this specific historical conversion
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stands as one of the primary proofs of Christianity's divine
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origin. Yeah, because he goes from a
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ravenous lion hugging down believers to a lamb breathing
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out prayers for the very people he used to work with.
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Spurgeon says he becomes as tender hearted as a nurse caring
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for a fragile child. There is a really compelling
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piece of history mentioned in Spurgeon's sermon about that
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specific argument. Oh, the 218th century figures,
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yes. Or Littleton and Gilbert West.
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Right, right. These were prominent
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intellectuals, highly educated men of the Enlightenment era,
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and they set out with the express design of exposing the
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biblical narrative as a complete imposture.
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They wanted to prove it was a fake.
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Yep. So Littleton took on the project
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of debunking the story of Paul's conversion.
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While W focused on disproving the resurrection of Christ.
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Right. And their methodology was quite
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modern. Very modern.
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They wanted to dismantle the faith intellectually using
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historical and logical analysis. Because they assumed that if
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they would tear down these two pillars, the resurrection and
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Paul's conversion, the whole religion would just collapse.
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Yeah, I think we can look at this like a modern courtroom
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drama, honestly. Oh, I like that.
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How so? Imagine a highly skilled defense
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attorney walking into a courtroom fully prepared to
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dismantle a key witness's testimony.
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OK, the attorney has spent months building this cross
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examination strategy, fully intending to prove the witness
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is a complete fraud, but then upon examining the actual
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evidence. The attorney realizes the
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witness has an airtight alibi. Spot on.
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The cross examination doesn't just fail, the evidence is so
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overwhelming that the attorney realizes they are fighting on
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the wrong side. So the attorney actually
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switches sides and joins the prosecution.
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Yes, that is what happened to Littleton and Wes.
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They both ended up converting to Christianity.
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Wow, and writing massive treatises defending the faith.
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Doctor Samuel Johnson, the great English writer, said of
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Littleton's work on Paul. That infidelity has never been
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able to fabricate a specious answer to it.
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That makes you wonder, you know. Is the most compelling proof of
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a doctrine the philosophical argument we can articulate?
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Or is it the undeniable radical alteration of a human being's
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character? Well, that is the core issue
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Spurgeon is driving at because Paul was uniquely equipped for
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his era. He really was.
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He had a pristine education. Sitting under the great teacher
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Gamaliel. He had a firm grasp of both
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Jewish law and Greek literature. He possessed an incredible
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intellect and a noble, driven purpose.
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Right. He was the precise instrument
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needed to take the gospel out of Judea and into the vast Gentile
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world. But all that intellect.
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All that cultural literacy. It would have amounted to
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absolutely nothing without the radical alteration of his inner
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life. And that inner alteration
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completely dictated how he preached, which is fascinating.
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Oh yeah. Spurgeon spends a significant
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amount of time analyzing Paul's homolytics, his method of
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delivering A sermon. Given his elite education, you
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know, you might assume Paul sounded like a highly polished
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academic. You would assume wrong.
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Very wrong. Spurgeon notes that Paul's
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oratory was not polished Greek rhetoric.
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He wasn't trying to sound like Demosthenes in Athens or Cicero
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in the Roman Forum. No.
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In fact, some of his contemporaries in Corinth
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actually called his speech contemptible.
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Right, because to the elite Greek ear, which prized smooth
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delivery and complex rhetorical devices, Paul sounded entirely
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unrefined. But his preaching was full of
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size, ears and an awful intensity of look and tone.
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Spurgeon uses this striking imagery to describe it.
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He says Paul poured his language out like lava from a volcano.
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Just. Straight from the flaming
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furnace of his soul. And he specifically contrasts
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that volcanic approach with preachers who speak with icicles
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hanging about their lips. Icicle imagery is brilliant.
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It really paints a picture. Spurgeon asserts that if a
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speaker values Polish over passion, if they simply read
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through a little moral essay without any heart or life, they
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have no business being in a pulpit.
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He says they are not sent by God.
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Spurgeon's exact phrasing is that the live coal from off the
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altar has never blistered their lips.
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That is a heavy statement. It is.
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So what happens when someone tries to manufacture that fire?
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What happens when a speaker stands up to deliver a message
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without that blistering coal? Spurgeon says we might as well
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be in bed and asleep. Ouch.
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Yeah, he says, if a minister is indifferent to the weight of
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eternity, they will simply teach their hearers to be indifferent.
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A cold preacher breeds a cold congregation.
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But. Paul, on the other hand.
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Right, Paul preaches, if he could hear the harps of angels
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ringing in his ears, desperate for his hearers to join that
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elect company. And conversely, he preached as
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if the groans of hell were rising through the floorboards.
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Yes, anxious beyond all things that no man or woman listening
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to his voice should ever end up in that place of torment.
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It is the absolute opposite of treating the pulpit like a
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university lecture hall. Definitely.
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But this brings up a really challenging question for me.
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What's that? If Paul was pouring out this
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emotional lava, this absolute agony of soul, who was the
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recipient of it? Like who are the specific
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targets of this affection? This is where the narrative
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becomes incredibly difficult for the modern mind to accept,
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because the first group Paul agonized over were his worst
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enemies. We are talking about the very
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people who wanted him dead. Exactly.
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The text mentions that the mere name of Paul brought the blood
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into the face of a traditional Jew of that era.
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They would spit and rage at the thought of him.
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Right, because he was considered an A cursed apostate from the
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faith of his father, a traitor of the highest order.
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And it was not just like social ostracization, it was a lethal
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threat. Oh, very lethal, I.
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Mean in the book of Acts 40, men take a literal oath, binding
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themselves under a curse that they will not eat or drink until
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they have assassinated Paul. Yeah, and even when he traveled
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far away to preach to the Gentiles, these mobs would track
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him across provinces. They would stir up violent
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riots, putting his life in constant and danger.
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Yet Paul's response to this relentless, murderous hatred was
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to carry the whole nation on his heart as a heavy burden.
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He maintained continual heaviness and sorrow of heart
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for them. And Spurgeon issues a direct
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command to his congregation based on this reality he says
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love most the man who treats you worst.
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See, I have to push back on that.
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OK, go ahead. Love most the man who treats you
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worst. That is a very tough pill to
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swallow, practically speaking. How is that not just encouraging
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someone to be a victim of abuse? That's a fair question.
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Like if someone is actively trying to ruin my reputation at
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work or spreading vicious lies about my family, dropping my
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guard feels irresponsible. It feels foolish, not holy.
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I hear you. How does a person rewire their
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reflexes to love their enemy without becoming a helpless
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doormat? That is the core struggle of the
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Christian ethic right there. Spurgeon uses the imagery of
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lifting your hands to heaven to cry.
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Father, forgive them while letting your oppressors see your
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natural grief, but demonstrating absolutely no malice in return.
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OK, but how does that play out in real life?
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Well, he brings it down to everyday situations, like
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dealing with sneers and cruel jests in a workroom or a
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factory. He says we must never use the
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devil's weapons, even though they lie very handy and look
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very suitable for the job of defending our pride.
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When you say the devil's weapons, you mean things like
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anger, resentment, Whiting, sarcasm, retaliation, gossip.
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Precisely those things we are instructed to use Christ's
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omnipotent weapon of love instead.
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OK, so it's not about being passive?
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No, it is not about abandoning healthy physical or illegal
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boundaries. I mean, you can call the police
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if someone physically attacks you, sure, but internally you
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are utilizing a completely different superior arsenal.
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You let your antagonist see that their cruelty hurts you.
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You don't have to be a stoic robot devoid of feelings, but
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you refuse to return the malice. You genuinely desire their
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eternal welfare instead of their temporal destruction.
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You pray for their salvation rather than their ruin.
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Man, that requires a supernatural amount of
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restraint. It absolutely does.
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And that brings us to the second group Paul agonized over.
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Because it wasn't just his violent enemies, it was his
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kinsmen. Yes, the people in his immediate
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vicinity. Spurgeon points out that charity
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must begin at home. Right, He notes the biblical
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principle that he who does not care for his own household is
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worse than a heathen man. Yeah, while the gospel is
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expansive and cares for the whole globe, that love doesn't
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lose force when it's just focused locally.
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In fact, it should be strongest locally.
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And Spurgeon lists specific London neighborhoods from his
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own 19th century context. Right.
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Newington, Butts. Lambeth.
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Southwork. Yeah, he's looking right at his
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congregation and telling them by all means send missionaries to
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distant lands like India and China, but do not ignore the
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people living on your own St. in London.
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It is a call to prioritize local conversion.
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You start with the person sitting across the breakfast
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table. Your husband, your child, your
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neighbor, and then your country. Because loving the abstract
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concept of the lost in a foreign country is often much easier
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than loving the highly irritating neighbor who lives
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next door. No, without a doubt.
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Which bridges us into what I find to be the most sobering
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section of Spurgeon's entire sermon.
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Yeah, this part is heavy. Move from those who overtly hate
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the message, the rioters and the assassins, to a much more
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subtle, insidious danger. We are talking about people who
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are totally comfortable around the Church but remain completely
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unchanged by it. Right Spurgeon shifts his focus
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to the term Paul uses Israelites.
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In Paul's day, these were the people who possessed the
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adoption, the glory meaning the visible presence of God, the
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Shekinah, the covenants, the giving of the law, and the
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promises. They had every conceivable
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spiritual advantage a human being could possibly have.
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And just to clarify, the Shekinah glory refers to the
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actual visible manifestation of God's presence, right?
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Yeah, the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night that led them
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through the wilderness. Correct.
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They had a physical historical record of God dwelling among
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them, and Spurgeon draws a direct, unflinching parallel to
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the people sitting in his own cues.
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He compares these ancient Israelites to people born to
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godly parents, children who are brought to the House of prayer
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as infants, who grow up with the vocabulary of faith.
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And he makes a stark, almost brutal contrast here.
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He does. He talks about what he calls the
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gutter children. Right in Victorian London.
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These were children born into absolute poverty and vice, who
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breathe an atmosphere of blasphemy and crime from the
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moment they are born. They start the race of life with
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terrible structural disadvantages.
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But then he looks at the highly favored children of believers,
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those who have every advantage, whose paths are smooth, and who
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hear the voice of prayer from their mother's lips every single
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night. And here is the shocking claims
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Virgin makes. The most dangerous position a
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human being can possibly occupy is sitting at the table of free
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Grace, with the Bread of Heaven sitting right in front of you
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and flatly refusing to eat it. Wait.
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Worse than the criminal, Worse than the person living in
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absolute vice. According to Spurgeon, yes, Wow.
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He states that the absolute climax of all sin, worse than
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breaking the moral law, worse than overt loud rebellion, is
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refusing Christ while maintaining A pristine facade of
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external religion. That is sobering, and he gives
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specific examples of this behavior in the ancient world,
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right? Yeah, he talks about setting up
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flat tree, paying tithes of mint and cumin, fasting 3 * a week.
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Let's unpack those references for a moment.
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Phylacteries were small leather boxes containing tiny scrolls of
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the Torah that Jewish men would strap to their foreheads and
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arms during prayer and tithing. Mint and cumin meant taking
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tiny, insignificant herbs from your garden and meticulously
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measuring out 10% to give to the Temple.
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It represents an obsession with the microscopic details of
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religious habit, doing all the socially acceptable churchy
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things while simultaneously insulting God by rejecting the
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sacrifice of his dying son. The outward motions of religion
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become a deadly substitute for genuine faith.
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Because you can easily be lost religiously as well as
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irreligiously. Spot on.
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If your religious habits are not based on faith in the sun, those
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external habits actually become a shield to keep God at a
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distance. Let me pose a theory here based
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on all of this. OK, go for it.
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Spurgeon suggests it is almost easier for the gutter child to
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grasp grace than the child raised in the pews.
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Yes. So does familiarity breed a
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deadly spiritual immunity? Oh.
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That's an interesting way to put it.
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Think about how a virus mutates to resist a vaccine.
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The vaccine introduces a dead or weakened version of the virus so
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the body can build up antibodies.
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OK, I follow you. Does sitting under the preaching
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of the gospel week after week, without actually surrendering to
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it, act like a spiritual vaccine?
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Wow. You get a weakened intellectual
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version of the truth and your heart builds up antibodies
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against it. Yeah, over time, the exposure
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itself builds up an immunity, making your heart harder and
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harder. That is a brilliant way to frame
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it. It's terrifying, really.
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It is the repeated exposure without internal reception
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creates A calloused heart. The warnings of judgment no
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longer sound urgent. They just sound like background
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noise, right? The promises of grace no longer
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seem sweet. They seem common.
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The individual becomes inoculated against the very
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thing that is meant to save them.
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And this is the exact reason Spurgeon felt such a crushing,
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heavy burden for those who had the monopoly on light and truth
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but refused to step into it. Their judgment would be far
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worse because they sinned against the light.
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And because the stakes were so high, Spurgeon was absolutely
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ruthless against any theology that offered a false sense of
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comfort to these religious but unregenerate people.
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He strongly rejected a theological trend of his day
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called the larger hope, didn't he?
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Yes, the larger hope was the idea of post mortem salvation or
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the possibility of delayed repentance after death.
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Which was a very comforting thought for Victorian society.
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Oh, highly comforting, but Spurgeon despised it.
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He said teaching delayed repentance is like administering
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a draft of poison to a dying loved one.
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Imagine that. You are standing over someone's
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deathbed telling them they have plenty of time, that they can
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figure things out in another state of existence, when in
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reality the biblical witness says it is now or never.
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He insists that when the door is shut at the end of life, the
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final reply from heaven will be I know you not.
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There's no secondary hope of blessing for those who die
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impenitent. They must depart forever.
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It is a bleak, terrifying reality, but Spurgeon believed
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hiding that reality was an act of supreme hatred disguised as
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love. A danger that severe, that
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final, requires an equally severe emotional response from
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the believer. It does.
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If the stakes are literally eternal life or eternal wrath,
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you cannot just shrug your shoulders and say, well I hope
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they figure it out. You have to care.
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And that leads us to analyze the precise nature of Paul's and
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Spurgeon's anxiety. Let's look at Paul's declaration
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in Romans 9 where he says I have great heaviness and continual
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sorrow in my heart. Spurgeon stresses that this
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phrase was not a rhetorical flourish.
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Paul was not exaggerating for dramatic effect.
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No, it was truthful, it was constant, and it was distinctly
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gracious. Let's unpack that word gracious
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for me in this context, because usually we think of grace as
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unmerited favor. How is sorrow gracious?
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Right, good question. In this context, Spurgeon means
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the sorrow was not merely an animal instinct or a natural
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human. Feeling it wasn't just general
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human sympathy for someone having a hard time.
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Well, absolutely. This specific crushing heaviness
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was wrought in Paul by the Holy Ghost.
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It was a direct product of his union with Christ.
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Oh, I see. When Paul was walking nearest to
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his Lord, that is when he mourned the most over the souls
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of men, because he was feeling what Christ feels.
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Which creates a really fascinating paradox in the
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Christian life. How so?
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Think about it. Paul was not a universally
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depressed, unhappy man. He wrote the book of Philippians
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from a Roman prison, and that entire letter is about rejoicing
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constantly. Rejoicing the Lord always again
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I will say, rejoice. Yet at the exact same time, he
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carried this, as Virgin calls it, skeleton in the closet.
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A silent, heartbreaking grief for the loss that never, ever
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went away. It is a highly complex mental
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and spiritual state. A Christian is capable of great
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exaltation and great heaviness simultaneously.
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The theological insight we need to draw out here centers on a
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specific Greek concept that Spurgeon brings into the sermon
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storage. Yes, I want to spend some time
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on this. Yeah, we hear a lot about agape
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love or filio love. What is storage?
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Storage refers to a natural familial instinct.
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OK, Spurgeon uses it to describe a bird's absolute, undeniable
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compulsion to sit on its eggs and to feed its fledglings.
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The bird doesn't have to read a manual on how to do this.
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No, it doesn't attend a seminar. It is an inescapable biological
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instinct. In the same way, Spurgeon argues
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that the Holy Spirit creates a new, inescapable spiritual
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instinct in the believer. It is a natural love for the
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loss that you simply cannot turn off.
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This is a huge point. It means this sorrow is not
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something you can pump up in private.
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You cannot just read a book on modern evangelism techniques and
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suddenly manufacture storage. Definitely not.
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It is not generated because you want your local denomination to
21:08
grow or because you want credit for building a massive mega
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church. If the motive is institutional
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glory, personal influence, or even just feeling good about
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your own morality, it will not stand the test of the Holy
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Ghost. This affection has to come
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irresistibly upon you. It becomes a master passion that
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dictates your actions without you even having to think about
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it. It brings to mind how a computer
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operates. A computer.
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Yeah, think about the RAM, the memory in your computer.
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You can be fully engaged in a joyful, active task on your
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screen. Maybe you're watching a great
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movie or typing up an exciting document.
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OK, I'm with you. But there is a background
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process running constantly behind the scenes, continually
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consuming your mental RAM. You are functioning, you are
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experiencing joy, but that underlying process never stops
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running. That makes total sense.
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My question is, how does a human mind sustain that?
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How do you keep that continual heaviness from crashing the
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system and turning into paralyzing despair?
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Well. That is where the concept of
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sustaining grace comes in. Paul would have sunk entirely
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under the weight of this grief if he were carrying it alone.
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He felt it acutely whenever his thoughts turned toward his
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unsaved brethren. But he was upheld by his daily
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communion with Christ. The same spirit that gives the
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burden also gives the strength to bear it.
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And this intense spirit wrought grief leads Paul to write
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something in the text that is so streams so completely out of
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bounds logically that it has baffled biblical scholars for
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2000 years. Yes, we are talking about Romans
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9.3. The text reads.
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For I could wish that myself were a curse from Christ for my
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brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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Let's just pause and let the sheer weight of that sentence
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land on us. I could wish that myself were a
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curse from Christ. He is talking about taking the
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eternal damnation, the wrath of God meant for his enemies upon
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his own head so they could be saved.
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He's offering to go to hell in their place.
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It is a staggering, terrifying statement.
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He really is. And Spurgeon launches A fierce
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critique against academic commentators who try to water
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this verse down. Because that makes them
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theologically uncomfortable. He notes that many expositors
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try to tear the bowels out of this text to get rid of its
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obvious bleeding. Meaning.
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Yes. How do commentators try to
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explain it away? What is their argument?
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A common academic argument is that Paul meant he used to wish
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he was separated from Christ before his conversion, back when
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he was a Pharisee persecuting the church.
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They try to make it a statement about his past rather than his
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present emotional state. Right.
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That makes absolutely no sense in the context of the passage.
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Spurgeon entirely agrees. He points out that Paul begins
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the chapter with a massive, solemn oath.
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I say the truth in Christ. I lie not, my conscience also
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bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.
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You don't build up that massive mountain of legal and spiritual
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expression just to deliver the insignificant historical fact
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that you used to be an enemy of Jesus.
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Everyone already knew that. Right, the Greek grammar simply
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does not support that watered down rendering.
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Spurgeon has this great biting phrase for these commentators.
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He calls them icy hands dissecting texts.
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Icy hands. He says when you take passionate
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expressions to pieces with icy hands, you will never understand
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anything that comes from the heart.
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Because true passion grinds words to dust, the literal
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logical grammar matters far less than the boiling heart behind
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the words. Spurgeon parallels Paul's
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statement with the story of Moses in the Old Testament.
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Oh right, the scene where the Israelites sinned by building
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and worshipping the Golden calf, the base of Mount Sinai.
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Moses goes up to intercede with God and says, Forgive their sin,
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and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou
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hast written. Let's analyze Moses's request
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for second Did Moses actually want to be blotted out of the
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Book of Life? Did he want to be separated from
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God? Of course not.
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Separation from God would be the most horrifying thing imaginable
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to Moses. He had seen the glory of God.
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But his love for the rebellious people pushed him to that
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absolute extreme of verbal expression.
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This is what Spurgeon refers to as holy hyperbole.
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Love knows nothing of grammar. When a man's soul is seething
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like a cauldron, with pity from men who are actively being lost,
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he speaks words that in cold blood, in a quiet study, he
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would never say. I see a real tension here for
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the modern Christian. What?
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Do you mean? We are taught to deeply Revere
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the precise words of Scripture. We are taught to study the
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grammar, the syntax, the historical context.
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Sure, yeah, if Spurgeon's. Telling us that if we analyze
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the logic of this specific verse too closely, we miss the entire
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point. Right?
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It is like trying to measure the temperature of a raging forest
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fire with a cheap plastic thermometer.
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The tool literally melts before you can even get the data.
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That's a great analogy. Are we too analytical, too
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obsessed with exact theology today to understand this kind of
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raw, bleeding affection? We very well might be, Spurgeon
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says. Men are extravagantly prudent
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nowadays, extravagantly dubious and extravagantly cold.
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We want everything to fit neatly into a theological spreadsheet.
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But Spurgeon argues we need to permit the minister of Christ to
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be extravagant in his love. He's cites to him by the poet
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Joseph Addison to prove his point about poetic hyperboli.
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Yeah, yes, oh, I remember this part, the line in the hymn goes.
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But oh, eternity's too short to utter half his praise.
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And Spurgeon mentions A literalist critic who actually
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complained about that line, saying eternity cannot be short,
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therefore it cannot be too short.
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The math does not work. What a miserable, joyless way to
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read a poem. Seriously.
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Spurgeon notes that if the Lord had put a single drop of poetry
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into that critics nature, he would not have dealt so harshly
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with the language. And if the Lord put a little
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fire of grace into hard headed commentators, they would
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understand that Paul's words are not meant to be cut to pieces
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and discussed logically in a classroom.
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Spurgeon says the text is intended to be taken boiling hot
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and poured straight on the enemy.
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He compares it to the defenders of an ancient walled city
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pouring melted lead or boiling pitch down on the besieging
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army. Such a text must be fired off
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red hot. It completely spoils if it cools
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down. It is a heart business, not a
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head business. Paul meant that there was
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nothing he would not suffer if he might save his kindred.
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The exact mechanism of how that would work theologically didn't
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matter in the moment of his grief.
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So what happens to a normal person when this boiling love
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takes up residence in their daily life?
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Well, Spurgeon doesn't just leave this in the realm of lofty
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theology or Apostolic history. No, he brings it right down to
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the practical results of possessing this spirit in
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Victorian London, which applies just as much to us today.
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The 1st and most significant result is that it makes you like
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Christ. Because Jesus did not just wish
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to become a curse for his brethren in a moment of poetic
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hyperbole. Right, he actually did become a
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curse to save others. He passed under the awful sword
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of divine wrath so we could be delivered.
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Feeling this weight for souls aligns our hearts with His
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actual historical sacrifice. Secondly, it completely
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eradicates what Spurgeon calls pharisaic selfishness.
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Think of the elder brother and the famous para of the prodigal
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son. Oh yeah, he was safe, he was
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well fed, he was in the father's house, but he had zero concern
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or joy for his younger brother who had been out feeding swine
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and ruining his life. In fact, he was angry when the
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younger brother came back. When you have a heavy heart for
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the lost, you cannot wrap yourself up in that kind of smug
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self contentment. You are constantly looking out
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the window, so to speak, waiting for the prodigals to come home.
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It also eliminates the difficulty of forgiving people.
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Yes, if you genuinely love mankind with all your soul,
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bearing with their scoffs, their idleness or their insults
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becomes much easier. Because you are looking past the
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insult to their eternal destiny. But the point I find most
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fascinating in this entire practical section is how this
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affection kills our petty griefs.
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Yes, Spurgeon talks about people who keep a growlery in the
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house. A growlery.
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What a fantastic Victorian word. I really want to bring that back
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into common usage. It is essentially a trouble
29:19
factory. He is describing people who are
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always fretting because they have nothing significant to
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think about. They lack a grand purpose, so
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they invent grievances to fill the void.
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He gets highly specific and quite humorous here.
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He talks about people whining over a dead dog or sick cat or
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the crotchets of a family. Which means the minor irritating
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habits of the people you live with.
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Maybe they chew too loudly or leave their shoes in the
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hallway. These people make massive
29:44
mountains out of these tiny molehills.
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And the cure for this, according to the 19th century essayist
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John Foster, whom Spurgeon quotes approvingly, is the
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expulsive force of a new affection.
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The expulsive force of a new affection.
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That is a brilliant psychological insight.
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Introduce a massive overwhelming concern and it literally expels
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the trivial ones. I think about it like someone
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having a total meltdown over a scratched bumper on their car.
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OK, they are pacing in the driveway yelling on the phone,
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completely consumed by the scratch.
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But then they look up and see a category 5 tornado ripping the
30:20
roof off their house. Wow.
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Instantly the massive immediate reality of the tornado cures
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them of caring about the scratched bumper.
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The bumper ceases to exist in their mind.
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Does cultivating a burden for eternity act as the the ultimate
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cure for our modern obsession with micro stressors and petty
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anxieties? That is precisely how it
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functions. When a person is weighed down by
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the eternal destiny of human souls, they stop stewing over
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idle talk or minor disrespect at the office.
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The great Grief drives out the little griefs.
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Your life becomes sublime because it is focused on a
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monumental, eternal task. You simply do not have the time
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or the emotional bandwidth to hold a grudge over a perceived
31:02
slight. And this naturally alters the
31:04
way a person prays. Prayer moves from being a
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scheduled mechanical habit to an uncontrollable reflex.
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You no longer pray just to order at a set time because it is your
31:13
religious rule to pray before breakfast.
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You pray because you have an awful wait upon you and you
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simply must pray to survive it. Spurgeon says the very oaths and
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blasphemies you hear men speaking in the street will
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trigger you to pray for the people speaking them.
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It is an organic response, and that organic, desperate prayer
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inevitably leads to bold personal effort.
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You might not have the perfect words.
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You might not have a theology degree.
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Spurgeon says you might just put your hand on someone's shoulder
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and blunder out. Friend, I am concerned about
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your salvation. But that evident bleeding
31:44
concern in your spirit will be used by God far more effectively
31:48
than a perfectly polished logical argument delivered by a
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scholar with icicles on their lips.
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The genuine emotion breaks through, or the intellect alone
31:57
cannot. Humans are remarkably adept at
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sensing genuine concern versus a sales pitch.
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When they see the lava, they pay attention.
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We have covered massive ground today.
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We started by looking at Paul's dramatic shift from an
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orchestrator of murder to a weeping advocate, which stands
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as an undeniable proof of the gospel's reality.
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We confronted the lethal danger of privilege at apathy, the
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absolute tragedy of starving to death while sitting at the
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banquet table of grace, building up an immunity to the truth.
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We looked into the absolute necessity of a spirit created
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heartache for the lost, that inescapable storaging instinct
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that we cannot generate on our own, but must pray for God to
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grant us. And we looked at the beautiful,
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reckless hyperbole of genuine love.
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A love that is willing to be poured out like boiling pitch.
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A love that cures us of our petty growlery, grievances and
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drives us to relentless organic prayer.
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It is a comprehensive vision of life entirely reoriented toward
32:56
the eternal welfare of others. Which brings us to a final
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thought for you to consider, something that builds on
33:00
everything we have discussed today.
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Yes, let's hear it. We live in an era that highly
33:04
values emotional boundaries. The prevailing cultural wisdom
33:07
tells us to protect our peace, to curate our mental space, and
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to systematically distance ourselves from the heavy burdens
33:13
of others to avoid burnout. Right.
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But looking at the life of Paul and listening to the plea of
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Spurgeon, we have to ask a difficult question.
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Is the pursuit of total emotional safety actually
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starving us? Of the very heartbreak that
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makes us most like Christ? Remember that survival reflex we
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talked about at the very beginning of the show?
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The instinct to put your hands up and protect yourself from the
33:33
blow? Yeah, maybe the most unnatural,
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yet most divine thing a person can do is to willingly lower
33:40
their guard. Let the sorrow in an allow their
33:43
heart to break for the sake of someone else's soul.
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Thank you for joining us today on Reformed Thinking.
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Until next time.