Kiss the Wave Together: Introduction

Spurgeon was saved at the age of 15. Quickly after his salvation, Spurgeon began to gain a reputation as a gifted preacher. Spurgeon was a fiery, energetic, poetic, and provocative preacher. Soon after he began preaching, he had started to gather an immense following of people eager to hear him preach the Word of God. He knew how to communicate. He knew this so well that people today still study his sermons and read his daily devotional, “Morning and Evening.”

Spurgeon was so great at preaching that he came to be known, as he is today, the Prince of Preachers. One might think that a man with gifts as grand as his would be met with great blessing. But what actually happened to Charles Spurgeon? Well, Spurgeon was a man who knew suffering.

Spurgeon’s Sufferings:

At nineteen years old, Spurgeon was made the minister of New Park Street Chapel in London. The crowds that he gathered to hear him preach were huge! In fact, the building that he met in was too small to house all the people that came to hear him preach—even though it could seat 1200 people.

He upgraded his church to a larger building… until his congregation outgrew it. Then, he upgraded his church to a larger building again because his church outgrew the new building!

Eventually, he leased the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, a venue that held 10-12,000 people.

Imagine what this guy was thinking! Everything was going his way. The Lord was blessing his ministry in mind-blowing ways. Crowds were flocking to hear him preach the Word of God. Unbelievers were giving their lives to Christ. Congregants were being discipled. Church members were serving in the community—ministering to the needs of the hurt, the orphaned, and the needy.

Passionate to reach the lost and preach the Gospel, Spurgeon was eager to get up at the Sunday night service and preach his heart out.

On Saturday night though, Spurgeon had an “eerie premonition” and said,

“I felt over-weighted with a sense of responsibility and filled with a mysterious premonition of some great trial shortly to befall me.”

Nevertheless, Spurgeon went on to preach the following night. Little did he know that October 19, 1856, was a Sunday that would live on in infamy.

This 12,000 seat auditorium was packed full of people. No social distancing guidelines were required, so they packed as many people in this auditorium as possible. Somewhere around 15,000 had gathered in the hall to hear him speak. Outside the walls of the hall another 10,000 people were crowding around the building eager to hear him speak.

A few hymns into the service, cries emerged from the congregation:

Fire! Fire! Fire! The galleries are giving way! The place is falling! The place is falling!

This brings us to our first type of trials that Spurgeon encountered:

1. Life Defining Tragedies

Immediately, the crowd was in a panicked frenzy. Lewis Drummond, in his biography of Spurgeon, records a witness’s explanation of the event:

“The cries and shrieks at this period were truly terrific, to which was added the already pent-up excitement of those who had not been able to make their exit. They pressed on, treading furiously over the dead and dying, tearing frantically at each other. Hundreds had their clothes torn from their backs in their endeavours to escape; masses of men and women were driven down and trodden over heedless of their cries and lamentations.”

You might ask yourself, what could make this any worse? Well, how about the fact that there wasn’t even a fire to begin with.

Spurgeon, although he attempted to keep the peace, was unable to hold back the chaos. In all the tumult, 7 were killed and 28 were seriously injured and hospitalized.

Truly, this was a life-defining tragedy in the life of Charles Spurgeon. Many of us have had tragedies like this happen in our own life. So I ask you,

Have there been any life-defining tragedies in your life?

Write down on your handout what may have been a life-defining tragedy in your life.

Loss of a Child: Car Accident or Miscarriage

Loss of a Spouse

Being at the scene of a catastrophe

Physical or Sexual Abuse

Not only did Spurgeon suffer life-defining tragedies, he also endured:

2. Vicarious Suffering

On January 8, of the same year as the Surrey Garden tragedy, Spurgeon married Susannah Thompson.

The day after Surrey Gardens, October 20, Susannah gave birth to twins: Thomas and Patrick. Which, if you do the math, they were basically honeymoon babies.

Although they tried, the Spurgeon’s were unable to have anymore children.

Fast-forward nine years to 1865, Susannah was 33 years old. At that time, she became an invalid and and was seldom able to hear her husband preach for the next 27 years until his death. She had some operations done in 1869, but none of them worked.

Although these trials did not happen directly to Spurgeon, he did suffer vicariously through his wife.

So I ask you,

What suffering has someone close to you endured that has also influenced you?

Write this down on your handout.

This type of suffering hits very close to home for me:

Your Mom’s Disability

Spurgeon endured Life-Defining Tragedy, Vicarious Suffering, and thirdly:

3. Physical Suffering

Gout—A Form of Arthritis—and Rheumatism

Severe Pain

Redness

Swelling in Joints

Bright’s Disease

Inflammation of the Kidneys

In a letter he wrote to a friend, Spurgeon wrote,

“Lucian says, ‘I thought a cobra had bitten me, and filled my veins with poison; but it was worse—it was gout.’ That was written from experience, I know.”

For over half of his ministry Spurgeon dealt with recurrent pain in his joints that cut him down from his labors again and again.

When his diseases would flare, he would be found in immense suffering. After they subsided, he would need some time to recover.

So for over half of his ministry Spurgeon dealt with recurring pain in his joints that made him sit down from preaching and laboring for the Gospel.

His diseases were so severe, that, eventually, they took his life at age 57 while he was in France.

Are you dealing with any physical suffering? What are they?

Cancer

Chronic Pain

Terminal Illness

Spurgeon endured physical suffering. He endured vicarious suffering. Spurgeon endured life-defining tragedies. As if that were not enough, Spurgeon also endured:

4. Personal Attacks

As our experience tells us, the more exposed you are to the public eye, the more the public eye will scrutinize you.

Take John MacArthur for example: John MacArthur has received criticism and commendation nationwide due to his church’s defiance against Californian legislation regarding church’s gathering for worship in a pandemic. Most Christians know about this.

Most Christians do not know, however, about Rob McCoy and his church, Godspeak Calvary Chapel, in Newbury Park, California, and their doing the exact same thing.

What’s the difference? John MacArthur is popularly known; Rob McCoy is not.

Spurgeon was the most widely known preacher in England by this point. His influence spread far and wide. With that influence came much criticism as well:

In April, 1855, the “Essex Standard”—a newspaper of the day—wrote an article with these words:

“His style is that of the vulgar colloquial, varied by rant… All the most solemn mysteries of our holy religion are by him rudely, roughly, and impiously handled. Common sense is outraged and decency disgusted. His rantings are interspersed with coarse anecdotes.”

The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent wrote this:

“He is a nine days’ wonder—a comet that has suddenly shot across the religious atmosphere. He has gone up like a rocket and ere long will come down like a stick.”

Even fellow ministers from the theological right and left of Spurgeon criticized him.

To his theological left, Joseph Parker—from across the city of London—wrote,

“Mr. Spurgeon was absolutely destitute of intellectual benevolence. If men saw as he did they were orthodox; if they saw things in some other way they were heterodox, pestilent and unfit to lead the minds of students or inquirers. Mr. Spurgeon’s was a superlative egotism; not the shilly-shallying, timid, half-disguised egotism that cuts off its own head, but the full-grown, over-powering, sublime egotism that takes the chief seat as if by right. The only colors which Mr. Spurgeon recognized were black and white.”

To his theological right, Joseph Wells, a hyper-Calvinist, wrote,

“I have—most solemnly have—my doubts as to the Divine reality of his conversion.”

All of these personal attacks came to a climax at what is called “The Downgrade Controversy.”

The Baptist Union that Spurgeon was a part of began to spiral into doctrinal infidelity. Although he fought against this, Spurgeon was unsuccessful. In October, 1887, he withdrew from the Baptist Union. Spurgeon received an immense amount of scrutiny and was publicly condemned by the Baptist Union in January, 1888.

How have you experience personal attacks in your own life?

Write down your answer to this question.

So what do we have? Spurgeon endured, (1)… Life Defining Tragedies, (2)… Vicarious Suffering, (3)... Physical Suffering, (4)… Personal Attacks, and lastly, Spurgeon endured (5)...

5. Depression

When I picture a man with the stature of Charles Spurgeon, one of the last things I envision is this eloquent, bright, energetic, and competent man weeping like a baby for no reason at all. But this image is exactly what we have in Charles Spurgeon.

It happened for the first time in 1858, at the young age of 24. He writes:

“My spirits were sunken so low that I could week by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for.”

At what points in your life have you experienced Depression? How has it looked for you?

As you can see, Spurgeon was a man of immense inner turmoil, no doubt due to the many trials in his life.

He endured Life-Defining Tragedies, Vicarious Suffering, Physical Suffering, Personal Attacks, and Depression.

Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to suffering.

There are thousands of different waves that can crash into us during this life.

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