TWO DOZEN REMARKABLE FACTS ABOUT SPURGEON

1. CHS read Pilgrims Progress at age six and reread it 100 times after that.

2. The printed collection of his sermons (63 volumes) have as many words as the Encyclopedia Britannica yet he preached his 140 words per minute from a single sheet of notes prepared the night before.

3. A woman was converted reading a single page from a Spurgeon sermon which she found rapped around some butter she had bought.

4. Before age 20, CHS preached 600 times.

5. At age 19, New Park Street church invited him for a six month trial. He would only accept a three month trial because "I do not want to become a hindrance." When he arrived in 1854 the congregation numbered 232. Thirty-eight years later the total was 5,317 with another 9,149 having been members (moved, passed away etc.) SOME HINDRANCE

6. CHS said of politics: "I have heard it said 'Do not bring religion into politics." This is precisely where it should be brought and set there in the faces of all men as on a candlestick."

7. CHS once addressed an audience of 23,654 without, of course, a microphone or mechanical amplification.

8. One day, to test the acoustics in a hall where he was going to speak he bellowed out: "Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.." A worker in the rafters heard and was converted.

9. Spurgeon's wife, Susannah, called him, "Your Excellency."

10. CHS spoke out so strongly against slavery that his American publishers edited him.

11. CHS refused to be ordained and refused the name "Reverend." (Yet, he founded a Pastor's college.)

12. CHS personally interviewed all 14,000 member applicants during his tenure to be sure of the genuineness of their conversion.

13. Spurgeon never told his congregation who to vote for but he denounced candidates by name from the pulpit and he passed out leaflets during the week for the office seekers whom he favored.

14. Each Christmas, CHS gave individual presents to the orphans at the orphanages he started, even when that number rose to over a thousand.

15. CHS read somewhere close to a book a day on the average. He once confessed to being aware of eight identifiable groups (trains) of thoughts in his mind at the same time.

16. Concerning the orphanages as social work, CHS declared: "Socialism is only words and theory, we care for both the bodies and the souls of the poor and try to show our love of truth by truthful love."

17. Spurgeon's preachers' college provided general education as well as theological and there were no set fees.

18. Headmaster George Rogers of the college was a paedobaptist, showing Spurgeon's tolerance and magnanimity, but all faculty had to "teach the doctrines of grace with dogmatism, enthusiasm and clarity."

19. CHS, by the best estimates available, was God's direct and personal instrument in over 12,000 conversions.

20. The college, directly through Spurgeon's efforts of placement based on his assessment of gifts, sent men out resulting in the planting of over 200 churches.

21. The first book published by Moody Press was CHS's All Of Grace. It is still their #1 all time bestseller.

22. CHS once preached a message in his sleep which his wife, who was awakened, took down on paper. He preached it that morning.

23. There was continual prayer for the work of the tabernacle held in the basement.

24. In one service in 1879, the regular congregation of 4850 left the tabernacle to allow new people waiting outside a chance to come in and hear.. The building immediately filled up again.


SHORT QUOTES FROM C. H. SPURGEON There are prayers that break the backs of words; they are too heavy for any human language to carry. 1892, p. 208, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.

When I pass a day without preaching my Master's name I feel that I have not done what I ought to have done, and I do not rest satisfied till I am within the four boards of a pulpit again. 1855, p. 223, New Park Street Pulpit.

Nearly all our modern errors, I might say all of them, begin with mistakes about Christ. 1862, p. 231, MTP.

I do not find many souls have been converted to God by exquisite dissertations about the battle of Armageddon, and all those other fine things; I have no doubt prophecies are very profitable, but I rather question whether they are so profitable to hearers, as they may be to the preachers and publishers. 1862, p. 599, MTP.

A Christless gospel is no gospel and a Christless discourse is the cause of merriment to devils. 1855, p. vi. NPSP.

The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. 1855, p. 1, NPSP.
Few preachers of religion do believe thoroughly the doctrine of the fall, or else they think that when Adam fell down he broke his little finger, and did not break his neck and ruin his race. 1855, p. 401, NPSP.

Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne . . . But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. 1856, p. 185, NPSP.

To be a minister of Christ is in my estimation an infinitely higher honor than the world can bestow. 1856, p. 190, NPSP.

As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God. 1859, p. 41, NPSP.

Thy feelings are fickle things . . . To ask a sign from God when he pledges his word seems to me to be out of all reason. 1869, p. 608, MTP.

The most useful members of a church are usually those who would be doing harm if they are not doing good. Sword and Trowel, 1881, p. 6.

There is no room for indifference where the gospel is concerned--it is either the most astounding of impostures, or the most amazing of revelations; no man can safely remain undecided about it, it is too weighty, too solemn to be snuffed at as a matter of no concern. 1866, p. 697, MTP.

To every saved man, it is the greatest miracle of all that he is himself a believer. 1866, p. 705, MTP.

He that will not believe in Christ would murder God if he could. 1870, p. 679, MTP.
No man should give sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids while he has a doubt about his eternal state. 1884, p. 402, MTP.

To claim to live without sin is to walk in the dark; for the claim is a false one. 1884, p. 404, MTP.
I am greatly afraid of men who make loud professions of superior sanctity . . . I have now become very suspicious of all who cry upon their own wares. 1873, p. 305, MTP.

The doctrine which I preach to you is that of the Puritans; it is the doctrine of Calvin, the doctrine of Augustine, the doctrine of Paul, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. Sword and Trowel, 1887, p. 4.

Some ministers believe nothing except that nothing can be believed. Sword and Trowel, 1888, p. 265.

Do you think to come to Jesus up the ladder of knowledge? Come down, sir, you will meet him at the foot. 1886, p. 574, MTP.

You spoil the harmony of nature's concert if even the sparrow's chirp is unheard. Sword and Trowel, 1869, p. 243.

You may take it as a rule that the Spirit of God does not usually do for us what we can do for ourselves, and that if religious knowledge is printed in a book, and we can read it, there is no necessity for the Holy Ghost to make a fresh revelation of it to us, in order to screen our laziness. Sword and Trowel, 1869, p. 219.

The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. 1863, p. 668, MTP.

Trust is the infallible mark of election; it is by this we make our calling and election sure. 1863, p. 660, MTP

We do not regulate our theology by the clock, but by eternal truth. We may not know what's o'clock in the Christian world, but we believe in "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." Sword and Trowel, 1883, p.650.

We do not believe according to the counting of heads . . . I shall not believe the gospel any the less if I am left alone, nor shall I believe it any the more if the whole world shall cry it up. 1885, p. 216, MTP.

Rise above the babyhood which cannot believe two doctrines until it sees the connecting link. 1871, p. 137, MTP.

If only one second ago I trusted the Saviour I am safe; just as safe as the man who has believed in Jesus fifty years, and who has all that while walked uprightly. 1871, p. 142, MTP.

Possibly there may come an age when it will be wise to expatiate mainly upon the deep things of God; but, for this present distress, we may wisely give our whole strength to telling out the foundation fact, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Our sermons must repeat times out of number the story of the cross. 1872, p. 293, MTP.

Everything is a trifle to a man who is a Christian except the glorifying of Christ. "Felix has drivelled into an ambassador," said good old William Carey when they told him that his son Felix [once a missionary] had been made a great ambassador; but his father said, "He has drivelled into an ambassador." 1874, p. 166, MTP.

"At one time in my life, I read a Spurgeon sermon every day. Our preachers might not like for me to say this, but I would rather read a Spurgeon sermon than to hear a sermon by any preacher living today." -- A comment made to me by Dr. Curtis Vaughan when I visited his office at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1970's. -- Bob Ross, Pilgrim Publications.