Because Truth Matters
by the Editor
Find out what sets The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon Volume I (Collector’s Edition) apart as a historical artifact celebrating the early ministry of one of history’s greatest preachers, Charles Spurgeon. These previously unpublished sermons are featured in a magnificent book complete with historical information, full sermon notes, full color photos and charts, and more. Even the cover is a work of art!
by Christian George
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born into an age of upgrade and downgrade. Over the course of his life, lightbulbs replaced gas lamps, engines replaced animals, and with the publications of Essays and Reviews, The Life of Jesus, and On the Origin of Species, nineteenth-century evangelicalism sparked as much controversy as electricity. A crisis of faith—or better yet, a crisis of doubt—walked the aisles of England’s newly lit chapels. Was Jesus God? Did miracles happen? Can faith and science coexist?
By the time Queen Victoria was crowned in 1838, the world of Wesley and Whitefield was vanishing. Gear-driven gadgets and inventions of all types alleviated the discomforts previous generations had tolerated. It was the age of rubber bands and safety pins. Sewing machines could stitch an astonishing 1,000 yards of fabric each day. Lawn mowers and “clod crushers” revolutionized agriculture. Photography, still an industry in infancy, captured history as it happened.
by David Bebbington
In 1856 Elias Lyman Magoon, pastor of Oliver Street Baptist Church, New York, published a collection of the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Magoon had visited Britain in the previous decade and continued to be supplied with newspapers from the United Kingdom. He had written two books on oratorical achievements past and present. The New York pastor was therefore fascinated to discover that a youthful preacher of his own denomination had taken London by storm.
Spurgeon, though only a teenager when he accepted the pulpit of New Park Street Baptist Chapel, Southwark, in 1854, was the talk of the British capital. His chapel was thronged every Sunday; his services were sought throughout the land; and his sermons flooded from the press. Magoon decided to publish a sample for consumption in the United States. Spurgeon, according to the American, was “as original in his conceptions as he is untrammeled in their utterance.” Over the years down to his death in 1892, Spurgeon was to prove to be the greatest preacher of the century. What, asked Magoon, was the explanation of his powers?
by Christian George
Southern Baptists ranked among Spurgeon’s chief antagonists. The Mississippi Baptist hoped “no Southern Baptist will now purchase any of that incendiary’s books.” The Baptist colporteurs of Virginia were forced to return all copies of his sermons to the publisher. The Alabama Baptist and Mississippi Baptist “gave the Londoner 4,000 miles of an awful raking” and “took the hide off him.” The Southwestern Baptist and other denominational newspapers took the “spoiled child to task and administered due castigation.”
In the midst of this mayhem, Spurgeon attempted to publish several notebooks of sermons from his earliest ministry. His promise to his readers in 1857 would not be fulfilled, however, due to difficult life circumstances in London. How poetic, then, that 157 years after The Nashville Patriot slandered Spurgeon for his “meddlesome spirit,” a publishing house from Nashville would complete the task he failed to accomplish. How symmetrical that Spurgeon’s early sermons would be published not by Passmore & Alabaster in London but by Americans. And not only Americans, but Southern Americans. And not only Southern Americans, but Southern Baptist Americans with all the baggage of their bespeckled beginnings.
In 1857, Charles Spurgeon—the most popular preacher in the Victorian world—promised his readers that he would publish his earliest sermons. However, the demands of ministry prevented him from fulfilling that promise. For almost 160 years, these sermons have been lost to history. His earliest sermons, meticulously handwritten in a series of notebooks, were stored away in Spurgeon’s College library for over a century.
Now author Christian George and publisher B&H Academic will release a 12-volume set that includes full-color facsimiles, transcriptions, contextual and biographical introductions, and editorial annotations. Written for scholars, pastors, and students alike, The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon adds approximately 10% more material to Spurgeon’s body of literature. Volume 1 (releasing February 2017) contains a 30-page introduction to Spurgeon’s life and times, 77 sermons he preached itinerantly and as a pastor of Waterbeach Chapel, and an analysis of these sermons by editor and Spurgeon scholar Christian George.
In the two-minute video below, Christian George explains who Spurgeon was and why he matters today.
by Ray Rhodes
Charles Spurgeon’s productivity staggers the imagination. To pastor a mega-church, write as prolifically as he did, lead 60 ministries that were connected to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, write upwards of 500 letters per week, and faithfully care for his wife and two sons, required a uniquely disciplined manner of life.
by Ray Rhodes
What is your plan for communion with God during your vacation? Charles Spurgeon often visited the coast of France for rest and healing. He wrote:
Go forth, beloved, and talk with Jesus on the beach, for He oft resorted to the sea-shore. Commune with Him amid the olive-groves so dear to Him in many a night of wrestling prayer. If ever there was a country in which men should see traces of Jesus, next to the Holy Land, this Riviera [Mentone] is the favoured spot. It is a land of vines, and figs, and olives, and palms; I have called it “Thy land, O Immanuel.” While in this Mentone, I often fancy that I am looking at the foot of the Mount of Olives, or peering into the mysterious gloom of the Garden of Gethsemane. The narrow streets of the old town are such as Jesus traversed, these villages are such as He inhabited. Have your hearts right with Him, and He will visit you often, until every day you shall walk with God, as Enoch did, and so turn week-days into Sabbaths, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven. So be it with us! Amen.
Spurgeon argues for spiritual (but real) visitations from Jesus to His people. Such visits are “something more than for us to have the assurance of our salvation.” They are more than simply knowing that “Jesus loves me” or contemplating Christ. Spurgeon said, “It is the actual, though spiritual coming of Christ which we so much desire.”
In 1857, Charles Spurgeon—the most popular preacher in the Victorian world—promised his readers that he would publish his earliest sermons. For almost 160 years, these sermons have been lost to history. Beginning in January 2017, B&H Academic will start releasing a multi-volume set that includes full-color facsimiles, transcriptions, contextual and biographical introductions, and editorial annotations. Written for scholars, pastors, and students alike, The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon will add approximately 10% more material to Spurgeon’s body of literature and will constitute the first critical edition of any of Spurgeon’s works.
by Ray Rhodes
Charles and Susannah Spurgeon’s marriage provides an exemplary model of employing spiritual means in the regular routine of family life. This is especially evident in their commitment to family worship. In a sermon from Philemon 1:2, Spurgeon explained that the church which met in Philemon’s home mostly or perhaps even exclusively consisted of his own family.
In 1857, Charles Spurgeon—the most popular preacher in the Victorian world—promised his readers that he would publish his earliest sermons. For almost 160 years, these sermons have been lost to history. Beginning next January, B&H Academic will start releasing a multi-volume set that includes full-color reproductions, transcriptions, introductions, and editorial annotations. Written for scholars, pastors, and students alike, The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon will add approximately 10% more material to Spurgeon’s body of literature and will be the first critical edition of any of Spurgeon’s works.
Photo credit: Personalincome.org
Charles Spurgeon awoke one morning during a general election to find his house vandalized. During the night, hoodlums had painted his front gate and walls blue—the color of the Conservative (Tory) party. That evening, Spurgeon addressed the defacing of his estate in a sermon: “It is notorious that I am no Tory, so I shall not trouble to remove the paint; perhaps those who put it on will take it off when it has been there long enough to please them.”
by Ray Rhodes
Fact and fiction are intertwined in the modern recounting of the story of St. Valentine and his surmised connection with romance. However, he is remembered each year on February 14th, a day considered to be a day of love. Valentine’s Day is celebrated with cards, candy, and flowers given to one’s romantic interest. In 2015, Americans spent on average $142 per person on Valentine’s Day and almost $19 billion total. (1) However, while the business of romance is booming, the world is strewn with broken marriages and relational disharmony. The marriage of Charles and Susannah Spurgeon provides an encouraging counterexample of what love and marriage can be when Christ is front-and-center in the relationship.
