8.9.2013 SPURGEON by Arnold Dallimore

14 a spiritual experience
which is thoroughly flavoured with
a deep and bitter sense of sin
is of great value to him that hath it.
it is terrible in the drinking,
but it is most wholesome in the bowels,
and in the whole of the after life.

possibly, much of the flimsy piety of the present day
arises from the ease with which men attain to peace and and joy
in these evangelistic days.
we would not judge modern converts,
but we certainly prefer that form of spiritual exercise
which leads the soul by the way of Weeping-cross,
and makes it see its blackness
before assuring it that it is 'clean every whit'.

too many think lightly of sin and therefore think lightly of the Saviour.
He who has stood before his God,
convicted and condemned,
with the rope about his neck,
is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned,
to hate the evil which has been forgiven him
and to live to the honour of the Redeemer
by whose blood he has been cleansed.  spurgeon's autobiography c. 1890

81 in dealing with a person who testified he had come to know the Lord,
the messenger looked for three marks of true conversion.
1. had the person, knowing himself to be a sinner
and unable to do anything toward saving himself,
gone to God,
begging for mercy
and had he entirely trusted his soul to Christ,
believing in the saving merit of His death upon the cross?
this individual experience of the soul with god
was the unalterable and basic necessity,
and without it there was no recognition of the person as truly converted.
2. had the person entered into newness of life,
experiencing a change of affections,
victory over sin,
a love for the word of God
and a desire to win others to Christ?
3. did he or she possess a basic understanding of the doctrines of grace,
recognizing that salvation did not begin with himself or his own will,
but with God's choice and God's action
and the God, who saved him,
would keep him through time and through eternity?

156 the chief labor in connection with the Tabernacle
(the building where the church under spurgeon's pastoral care held services, etc.)
was spiritual.
a number of members, after attending the morning service,
filled the rest of the day with work for the Lord.

the sunday school met in the afternoon.
it was a fervent institution with well over 1000 boys and girls in attendance
and something like 100 teachers.
many of those who taught must have been truly devoted to their task,
but we notice especially the work of one of them.

back in the days when S first came to london,
mrs. lavinia bartlett took over a class of 3 girls at new park street. (former building)
under her leadership it made steady growth,
till inside of 10 years it regularly numbered 500,
and at times rose to 700 and more.
when the deacons or elders ..interviewed a woman who was not clear as to the way of salvation
they advised her to 'attend mrs. bartlett's class'
and by the time she was called home in 1875
between 900 and 1000 members of her class had come to know the Lord.

S said of her:
she aimed at soul winning every time she met the class...
in pursuing this object she was very down right
and treated things in a matter of fact style.
the follies, weaknesses and temptations of her sex
were dealt with very pointedly,
and the griefs, trials and sins of her class were on her heart...
her talk never degenerated into story telling or quotations of poetry...
but she went right a t her hearers in the name of the lord
and claimed their submission to Him.

other classes at the sunday school did not become as large as that of mrs. bartlett,
but the same purpose largely characterized them all.

on sunday afternoons and evenings large numbers of the Tabernacle people
were busy for the Lord at other places.
several assisted the college students (men 'learning' to be pastors)
some of whom were in well to do areas,
while others labored in more ordinary districts.
still others were working in the slums
and in those locations conditions were usually deplorable.
for instance, the (college) student, together with his helpers from the tabernacle,
regularly visited the inhabitants of lodging houses
-sites of terrible poverty, iniquity and sorrow-
or held a meeting in a room where the air was foul and vermin abounded.
from such scenes they came away with their clothes carrying the noxious odor,
but their hearts rejoicing in the privilege of witnessing for Christ to such needy souls.

S encouraged his people to be out carrying the gospel on sundays.
during his career he frequently arranged to have a group of members
leave the Tab to start a new church,
and often one of the prominent men of the Tab went with them to provide leadership.

one man who led in the founding of such a mission work was J. T. Dunn.
for a time Mr. d had served as S's assistant,
doing pastoral visitation and secretarial duties.
but in 1869, with S's blessing, he launched out upon as effort in a poor district.

the building was an old shed and he began with four boys
whom he invited in off the street,
sitting them on two scrubbed wooden benches.
a candle stuck into a teapot spout served as a source of illumination...
the neighbourhood was populated with a great many fish curers,
the children helping in the business.
the building was of such a low pit that the room used was
frequently named the Black Hole of Calcutta by S.
many of the children were far from clean
and the atmosphere often rusted in
women teachers being taken out into the street to revive them from a fainting fit.

but mr. d continued his effort.
he moved the mission to another building,
but here 'rain came through the rood and rats ran across the floor'.
nevertheless, he saw
'some of the scholars converted and baptized at the ..Tab,
and then become sunday school teachers themselves.
others learned to preach in the open air,
and some were trained in S's college for the regular ministry...
in 1874 there were 500 children and young people
in regular attendance on sundays, with 50 teachers.

d remained an elder of the Tab during all the years he led this mission work.
he undoubtedly was present at the Tab
for its tue. and thur. evening meetings and also on sunday morning.
but on at least one or two weeknights
and on sunday afternoon and evening he was engaged in the activities of the mission...

this pattern was that in general of the deacons and elders of the Tab....

..an american journalist. speaking of his visit to the pastor's college he wrote:

dropping in quite unexpectedly we found everybody at his post
and the whole complicated machinery working without a hitch.
in one room we opened the door on some
30 or 40 young men celebrating the Lord's supper.
in another we found an aged lady,
with some 20 grown up girls around her,conducting a bible class.

in the spacious rooms below, tables were being laid for about
1600 for tea,
as the annual church meeting was to be held in the evening...

in another room was a man up to his eyes in books,
whose business it was to manage the 'colportage',
while in yet another was a sort of local Mudie's,
where boxes of books are packed and sent to former students,
now pastors in outlying chapels...

...on sunday evenings the number of Tab people who were out
conducting meetings amounted to at least 1000.
this amazing fact, but even more amazing is it that commencing with 1870
S began, every three months, to ask all members to remain away
from the evening service on the following sunday,
since by filling the Tab they were preventing the unconverted
from getting in and from hearing the gospel.
his people cooperated and on the sundays they were absent
the building was more crowded than ever, as thousands who did not know the Lord,
feeling that this time they would probably get in,
came with much enthusiasm.
nothing delighted S more than to have a great host of the spiritually needy to preach to
and those occasions9rare, indeed, in christian history-
were times when many believed on Christ and were later baptized.

...the affections of the members were entwined around the Tab and its activities.
the services of many a church may prove boring,
\but not so those of this great church.
with grand delight people went up from what was often the drudgery of daily life
to the house of the Lord on sunday mornings and sunday evenings
and at least two evenings of the week.
and there their hearts were lifted,
their minds informed and their souls inspired.
many of the women were there again at various hours of the day,
preparing meals or sewing garments for the orphans
and many of the young men were at the Tab in the evenings,
gaining an education or learning something more about doing the Lord's work...

..of S..'with a burning heart he pleaded with men and women to reconciled to God.

167...at the 25th anniversary of S's ministry there...
'he would have let the event pass unnoticed,
but his people saw it as an opportunity to
recognize his accomplishments and to express their gratitude.
under the arrangement of the deacons, two evenings were devoted to
a commemoration of his labors and to praising God for his ministry.
the congregation manifested their rejoicing by giving him
a large sum of money, 6,476 (pounds),
stressing that they intended he should use it for himself.
but he immediately put it into the support of his institutions, (he started over 60)
and in thanking the people he said:

some churches have one crown, some another;
our crown, under God, has been this,
-the poor have the Gospel preached unto them,
souls are saved and Christ is glorified.
O my beloved church,
hold fast that which thou hast...
as for me, by God's help,
the first and last thing i long for is to bring men to Christ.
i care nothing about fine language,
or about the pretty speculations of prophecy,
or a hundred dainty things;
but to break the heart and bind it up,
to lay hold on a sheep of Christ and bring it bock to the fold,
is the one thing i would live for.

of S a biographer said,
..'He was well versed in the three things which, according to luther, make a minister:
temptation, meditation and prayer.
the school of suffering was one in which he was deeply taught.

of S's power to express himself in writing.
...'we have scores of ministers who are ambitious of writing for the world of the cultivated;
but a book frankly and successfully addressing he average man,
in language which he can understand,
is one of the rarest products of the press.
it really requires very exceptional power.
it requires knowledge of human nature and knowledge of life.
if requires common sense;
it requires wit and humour;
it requires command of simple and power for saxon.

whatever the requirements may be, mr. S had them in an unexampled degree.

...speaking of S's decision to earnestly contend for the faith as well as preach it...a brief survey..
he was born in 1832..started preaching in 1847 and by the early 1850s was preaching to thousands in london.
...in 1859 there was a great revival of spiritual interest in england as well as the united states
...in 1859 darwin published his 'origin of the species' which contained:
no divine creation but blind chance
direct contradiction of the bible
an obviation of the very idea of the existence of God.
....for a number of year the bible had been exposed to Higher Criticism
which reconsidered the sources of the books of the bible 
and brought new ideas as to the identities and dates of its writers
..led to explaining away miracles in the bible
and reduced it to a mere human book.
...in the 1870s this was all starting to bear fruit in a few of the pulpits
S called this all a 'downgrade' and came out against it
he wrote in his magazine, the sword and the trowel, about this starting with the
august 1887 edition and for the next three editions.
he stated...
'no lover of the gospel can conceal from himself the fact that
the days are evil...
yet our solemn conviction is that things are much worse
in many churches than they seem to be,
and are rapidly tending downward.
read those papers which represent the
Broad School of Dissent, and ask yourself,
how much further could they go?
what doctrine remains to be abandoned?
what other truth is to be the object of contempt?
a new religion has been originated which is no more christianity
than chalk is cheese;
and this religion, being destitute of moral honesty,
palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements,
and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching.
the Atonement is scouted (to treat with scorn, make fun of),
the inspiration of Scripture is derided,
the Holy Ghost is degraded into an influence,
the punishment of sin is turned into a fiction,
and the Resurrection into a myth,
and yet these enemies of our faith expect us
to call them brethren
and maintain a confederacy with them!

at the back of the doctrinal falsehood comes a natural decline of spiritual life,
evidenced by a taste for questionable amusements
and a weariness of devotional meetings...
are churches in a right condition
when they have only one meeting for prayer in a week
and that a mere skeleton?
...the fact is, that many would like to unite
the church and the stage,
cards and prayer,
dancing and sacraments...
when the old faith is gone and the enthusiasm for the gospel is extinct,
it is no wonder that people seek something else in the way of delight....
it now becomes a serious question how far those who abide by
the faith once delivered to the saints
should fraternize with those who have turned aside to another gospel.
christian love has its claims,
and divisions are to be shunned as grievous evils;
but how far are we justified in being in confederacy with those who
are departing form the truth?
it is a difficult question to answer
so as to keep the balance of the duties.
for the present it  behoves believers to be cautious
lest they lend their support and countenance  to the betrayers of the Lord.

it is one thing to overleap all boundaries of denominational restriction
for truth's sake;
this we hope all godly men will do more and more.
it is quite another policy which would urge us to
subordinate the maintenance of truth
to denominational prosperity and unity.
numbers of easy minded people wink at error so long as it is
committed by a clever man and a good natured brother,
who has so many fine points about him.

let each believer judge for himself;
but for our part we have put on a few fresh bolts to our door
and we have given orders to keep the chain up;
for under colour of begging the friendship of the servant,
there are those about who aim at robbing THE MASTER.

...(in the third edition he stated)
..one thing is clear to us:
we cannot be expected to meet in any union
which comprehends those whose teaching upon fundamental points is
exactly the reverse of that which we hold dear...
with deep regret we abstain from assembling with
those whom we dearly love and heartily respect,
since it would involve us in a confederacy with those
with whom we can have no fellowship in the Lord.