We are sad to think of making our way back to Britain, we haven’t been here that long but we’ve almost settled down. We’ve been tremendously encouraged and thankful for the fellowship. These last days here in Minneapolis have meant so much to us. I know of many friends and brethren back in Britain who will be asking us when we go home and we’ll try to give, not only your greetings but a report and pass on encouragement.

There are many men in Britain who have read John Piper’s books and are deeply thankful for them, and we shall take heart. And we shall seek to remember you and we value your prayers for the work of the gospel in Britain and in Europe.

Wisdom and Discernment in Doctrine

Now I have to confess that, as sometimes happens, when it came to thinking about this last session, I was being pulled in two different directions. It was as though there were two subjects that were appealing to me. At last, we agreed on something for the program, but I still had this pull. I hope a compromise in this area is permissible. It seemed to me that both could be harmonized and I’m going to try then to harmonize two slightly different things. But I do think that they may come together.

I want to speak first of all in general about wisdom. The more mature brethren will forgive me I’m sure if I say things which are much more applicable to younger men in their early years than to those who already know these things. I’m conscious of that, but I want to speak first then of wisdom somewhat generally. And then I want to speak of wisdom as it is related to a particular controversy in history, and that is the controversy that Spurgeon had with Hyper-Calvinism. So you see, the two subjects are not exactly together but I hope they can come together. As it is my last session, I’ll do my best and I do know what time I started. I promise I’m going to be shorter.

The God of All Wisdom

Now in beginning then, I want to give a reminder of the emphasis that Scripture puts upon wisdom. That is to say, the truth is that knowledge is not enough, but wisdom is about the application of knowledge, the suitable use of knowledge. That’s what wisdom is about, isn’t it? It’s the timely use of knowledge in its application to situations. What should we do? What should our response be? We need wisdom. Sometimes we need wisdom to see that no response and no action are needed at all. It’s the right application of knowledge to given situations and problems. And we know that wisdom is not natural to us as fallen men, as we’ve already been reminded. We are directed to God, and he is “the only wise God” (Jude 1:25, all Scripture references are from the KJV). It is to him that we must go for wisdom day by day.

O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
     In wisdom hast thou made them all . . . (Psalm 104:24).

If that is true in creation, it is even more wonderfully true in redemption.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (Romans 11:33).

The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts right up at the head of the answer to the question: “What is God?” The answer:

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Wisdom in the Proverbs

Let me read just a few verses from the book of Proverbs. It gives, I think, some impression from just almost a random part of scripture of the emphasis there is on wisdom. Beginning in Proverbs 13:10, Scripture says:

Only by pride cometh contention:
     But with the well advised is wisdom.

The law of the wise is a fountain of life,
     To depart from the snares of death (Proverbs 13:14).

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise:
     But a companion of fools shall be destroyed (Proverbs 13:20).

Every wise woman buildeth her house:
     But the foolish plucketh it down with her hands (Proverbs 14:1).

A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not:
     But knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth (Proverbs 14:6).

The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way . . . (Proverbs 14:8).

A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil . . . (Proverbs Proverbs 14:16).

The crown of the wise is their riches . . . (Proverbs 14:24).

He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding,
     but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly (Proverbs 14:29).

Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that have understanding . . . (Proverbs 14:33).

The king’s favor is toward a wise servant . . . (Proverbs 14:35).

These verses are from just a small portion of the book of Proverbs regarding the importance and necessity of wisdom.

The Importance of Self-knowledge

Now let me speak of a few areas where we need this wisdom. Firstly, we need it as pastors and preachers preeminently, I believe, to know ourselves. And my experience has been that to know oneself is one, if not the most difficult thing, in all our lives. John Owen says, “Some men are strangers to themselves all their days.” It’s not an easy thing. Charles Simeon whose name has been mentioned. I know you’ve had an address on him before. Charles Simeon of Cambridge ministered in Holy Trinity from the early 1780s. He was a rather self-confident, somewhat aggressive younger man, but one of his friends writing to another friend said:

[Simeon] appears indeed to be much humbled from a deeper knowledge of himself.

Varied Gifts and Abilities

Now that is what we all have to experience. That can be broken up further. We need to know our own gifts and capacities. Don’t think that’s easy. We’re all different. There are parts of the body — the head, the tongue, the hand, the eye, etc. The Holy Spirit gives separately as he wills, and there’s this great diversity. We must discern our own gifts and put them to the utmost use. This is what we are called to do and as, I think has been said already, it is at this point that biographies can sometimes be a real hindrance to us, because we can read one of these heroes and we can try to adjust ourselves to fit their mold, and the result is disastrous. We are not all the same. We’re all very different.

A book called, The Life of John Fletcher, who was a great Methodist leader and a man of much grace, was published before the end of the 18th century. And Henry Venn, whose name you may know, was writing a letter to a friend about the life of Fletcher and he says how much he valued it. But then he says:

The last three lines of Mr. Fletcher’s life affirm that everyone may be exactly like him, if he will. I beg leave on the contrary to say that a fowl in a barnyard which mounts with great difficulty as high as the top of the barn or a lofty tree, might as reasonably be expected to accompany an eagle in its flight as myself and the bulk of Christians could be to follow dear and blessed Mr. Fletcher in his spirit and manner of life.

No, a natural cast, a great capacity, a vivid impression from every object, a very quick sensibility of affection, a very uncommon degree and measure of grace must all concur and be all diligently improved before a vessel of honor of such magnitude and brilliance as he was can come forth from the great Maker’s hand.

In other words, it was a warning to a younger Christian. Don’t think that we’re all able to do or are expected to do the same things. We are not and we must avoid that impression. And sometimes real damage is done because we aren’t aware of that.

Learn What God Enables You to Do

I could illustrate that from the scene in Britain. Dr. Lloyd Jones, as you know, was an expository preacher, but it was 20 years into the ministry before he started an expository series, and then it was quite a short series on Philippians. When he had finished his short series, he went on to a somewhat longer series. But all the younger men who entered the ministry under his influence didn’t wait 20 years or even 20 months, but they plunged right into great, long series. The result was that many congregations were not at all sure that they liked expository preaching.

Spurgeon says that when he was young he heard a series preached on the epistle to the Hebrews. And he said as a child he wished the Hebrews had kept the epistle to themselves. I don’t think it was connected with that fact, but from Spurgeon’s own assessment of his own gifts, when he was asked why he didn’t preach series, he said that he didn’t really have the ability to do it with sustained interest and benefit for the people. That was his assessment of himself.

It may well be that we need much more variety. There is at the moment, certainly in Britain, a tendency amongst all Reformed men to think that extended series are the only orthodox ways of preaching. We need to know ourselves. Some men can do it, other men perhaps aren’t gifted to do it. And we shouldn’t feel ourselves constrained by what other men do or by what other men are. We must simply learn presently to be ourselves, to find out what God enables us to do.

John Newton had to learn that as a young man in the ministry. In his early days, he says that he was asked to go and preach in Warwick, a town in England. He was hopeful to get a call to settle there as the minister of the church that was vacant. He was more than hopeful because he was convinced that a text that he had read recently in the Scriptures, “I have many people in this city,” was for him. John Newton took that text to Warwick with him. When he came away from Warwick he said, “I had to learn that Paul is not John, and that Warwick is not Corinth.”

We have to know ourselves, our capacities, our gifts, and our physical makeup. And that’s not easy to do, is it? Some of us are hasty, some of us are impetuous, others are nervous, some of us are more anxious. There’s a great complexity about it. And our very physical makeup is complex. Some have blood pressure that is a little high, and some have blood pressure that is a little low. Dr. Lloyd Jones, who was a brilliant physician as I think you know, was thoroughly hostile to the idea that there’s any program of physical fitness which should be imposed on all ministers.

He said it depended entirely upon what your metabolism was and what you were. His own theory was — he used to go at it with a bit of a smile of course — that you never run if you can walk, and you never walk if you can stand, and you never stand if you can sit. And that was more or less his view. He said he took all his exercise in the pulpit, and he lived to be 80 years of age. But it is a very important thing.

We also should know the different times in our lives. He would often advise men that the early forties are a time when depression could easily attack one. There are all sorts of complexities like that in which we need to know ourselves and study ourselves.

Wisdom When Relating to Others

Now, we also need wisdom in dealing with others.

Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16).

Obviously our Lord is not thinking of serpents here in any evil or cunning sense, but he’s thinking of serpents in terms of the fact that they’re reptiles. They avoid conflict. They don’t go seeking enemies. They are aware of danger and they try to avoid it. There’s something about a serpent from every animal that we can learn. We are to be wise and astute as serpents. And then in the very next verse in Matthew 10:17, our Lord says, “Beware of men.” That is to say, we are going to represent Christ in an alien atmosphere, where the carnal mind is enmity against God, and where the heart is deceitful above all things. We need to beware and to be as astute as serpents. Don’t needlessly antagonize. Do everything you can not to offend anyone unnecessarily. Don’t stir up opposition. Be wise as serpents.

And our Lord’s own example is perfect, isn’t it? How often he was, by his enemies, led towards a trap as they thought, though it proved to be no trap at all because of his wisdom. They asked, “Is it lawful to give tribute tax to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:17). It was a perfect trap, it seemed. If he said it was lawful, he’d offend the Jews who didn’t believe in paying tax to the Romans. If he said it wasn’t lawful, he would offend the Romans. He didn’t say either. He answered the question without stirring up the offense that so easily could have been stirred up. That’s what we need to learn, more and more. We need wisdom. He perceived their craftiness, says Luke.

Our Lord listened carefully, didn’t he? Often we fall into mistakes in action and speech because we don’t listen carefully enough. Sometimes we say much more than we ought to say. You know the text in the book of Proverbs that says, “A fool uttereth all his mind” (Proverbs 29:11). We don’t have to say all that we know in every situation. It needs wisdom. We need to know when to speak and when to be silent. And wisdom is needed in the church too because I’m afraid we have to be aware of human nature even in the church. There’s no perfect church. There are weaknesses in every church. There’s no sudden way to bring every church to what we believe is the New Testament standard.

When to Turn a Blind Eye

It’s a remarkable thing when we think of people like John Calvin, who was at Geneva for more than 20 years and died before the government of the church was really brought into the sort of order that he would’ve desired. The eldership and things of that kind were not really according to Calvin’s mind. But he had more than 20 years, or thereabouts, to set it right. He had, in a sense, left it to one side. There were greater things he had to do.

Going back to Charles Simeon for a moment, those of you who heard the address on Simeon will probably remember that when he was made the rector of Holy Trinity, the church wardens were very hostile. They didn’t want him. They wanted someone else. If you can picture an old English parish church, it was not like these pews but they had higher back pews. And the pews all had doors on them and the doors actually had locks, and these pews belonged to different people.

The church wardens, when Simeon was established in the church, actually had a lot of the pews locked so that nobody could use them. Simeon would preach in a church and people would be sitting on forms and benches in aisles. There would be masses of pews empty. Well that’s enough to make anyone’s blood boil, you would think. But Simeon let it go, appearing to overlook it. And gradually, patiently, in time, he won the situation. Wisdom involves when to not see something, when to have a blind eye. Richard Cecil says:

If there are things that we cannot change, we shouldn’t see them.

Leave them, wait, pray, and go on with your big work. Preach the truth. Win the people gradually. Be wise enough to discern what can be left.

Wisdom in Correction

Now, that can fall into a kind of compromise and weakness, can’t it? And that’s wrong. But even when we have to confront situations or confront people, it can be done with God-given wisdom. We need wisdom there, don’t we?

One of the Scottish preachers, evangelists of the last century in the north of Scotland was a man called John McDonald, the apostle of the north. On one occasion, one of his colleagues in the ministry nearby had done something that demanded some kind of reproof. McDonald gave it to him in this way. He said, “Brother, there’s not much of the old Adam in you, but what there is is good stuff.” And then he proceeded to elaborate a little upon it.

That’s wisdom in dealing with others, which is a big subject. I’m sure you’ve all given your minds to it, but we pray to God that we may all have more of it, not needlessly to antagonize, not to take up issues that can be left and without disrupting the whole church.

Wisdom in Preaching

What about wisdom in regard to preaching? The great need here, I believe, is to know and to love the people we are preaching to. Just suppose that you or I could take one of the sermons of Samuel Davies or Jonathan Edwards, memorize it perfectly, and deliver it wonderfully. It might do no good at all. We have to begin where our people are and we have to, from knowledge of our people, learn the Scriptures that are most appropriate and helpful for them. Somebody was asked, “What is a good sermon?” And the answer they gave was, “A sermon that does good.” And that is true, isn’t it? We want to do good. We want to help. We want people to be uplifted. So we have to start with the condition of our people.

It’s fatal to start with theory. A young man may come to a congregation. He discovers that the doctrines of grace have not been preached for many years. He announces a series on the sovereignty of God, hands out copies of A.W. Pink, and he wonders why he’s got a lot of trouble very quickly. We read of our Lord in Mark 4:33:

With many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.

He knew and loved the people and his words were chosen so as to really help them. John 16:12 says:

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

Now it’s a pastor’s duty and wisdom to know what his people can bear, and to preach not from theory but from the realities of the situation so as they will be profited and so that they may grow, slowly though it may be, patiently teaching Scripture. And I think it is wise to avoid using all labels. Teach the truth out of Scripture. Don’t worry about giving labels. I don’t think it’s at all wise to say, “I’m going to preach a series against Arminianism,” or even to preach on the five points of Calvinism. It’s better to preach the truth, the word of God, and let the people gradually understand as God helps them, the truth that’s being preached. It doesn’t matter what name they give to it. Names and labels very often cause more controversy than help.

Certainly in our early years in the ministry, take the big subjects. Preach much on Christ, on the miracles of Christ, the “I Am’s” of Christ. Be much in the big things. It’s fatal for young ministers to launch into theory, into a series of expositions of Jeremiah or the book of Revelation. It seems to me it’s fatal.

Structuring a Sermon

Then I just have a word about wisdom with regard to the structure of a sermon. We’ve been helped on that subject already, haven’t we? But I can tell you truthfully, I made a terrible mistake for some years in my early ministry. And that was the mistake of thinking that, so long as we’re earnest enough and fervent enough, that’s the one thing about a sermon. It didn’t seem to occur to me that we have to speak in a way that people can take away what we’ve been saying.

Old William J.F. Bath said that preaching is “to strike and stick,” and if something’s going to stick it has to be laid out in a way that people can remember. It’s no good just pouring out vehement torrents of truth if it’s not arranged so that people can get hold of it and retain it. So the Holy Spirit says in the book of Ecclesiastes:

The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd (Ecclesiastes 12:10–11).

I’m not quite sure if that is talking about sermon structure, but to me it relates to sermon structure. We need to have an order in our preaching that will enable them to memorize and to remember the main points of the sermon. I think if our brother asked us after a Sunday what we preached on last Lord’s day, if our sermon was right, we ought to be able to give him the heads, the skeleton. If we can’t do that, I think there’s something wrong with our sermon. We should have in our heads the outline in such a way that it’s clear to us, and hopefully it’ll be clear to others.

You remember how Spurgeon as a boy was at his grandfather’s home. He was sent to the grocer’s shop one day. He got the order and he put it all in his basket. It was a spring day and he ran home full of energy, and he jumped over a few fences and everything. When he got back to the kitchen, the butter was mixed with the sugar, and the bacon was mixed up with the vegetables, and he said, “That’s not the way to preach. It has to be all laid out in order.”

Wisdom in Choosing Our Battles

Now I move on to wisdom in regard to controversy. This is where I begin to harmonize into the other subject. Controversy has existed through the ages. And one reason it has existed under the providence of God, but still oftentimes doing great harm, is that the devil stirs it up to divide Christians and to take up our precious time. Once a controversy starts, you know how long it may go on, how much time can be exhausted. I think that, mindful of that, we may easily be tempted to reach the conclusion that we should never get into a controversy at all, but that’s not being faithful. We have to sometimes do so and what wisdom it needs to discern the right time.

Joseph Tracy has a book on the Great Awakening, and I remember he discusses this. He discusses the point:

Sometimes certain issues and errors are better left. If you engage it in controversy, you’re only going to give more publicity. You’re only going to give it a higher profile. But there are other times when, if a controversy or an error isn’t stopped early enough, it can take such a hold that it will be there for generations. If ministers had come in earlier to stop it, it would never have gotten the influence that it did.

Tracy is making the point to show how careful we must be to discern the time and the issues.

Spurgeon and the Controversy of Hyper-Calvinism

Now that brings me to the second part of this address, and that has to do with Charles Haddon Spurgeon and this controversy over Hyper- Calvinism. It seems to me it is an important controversy. I know that most of you brethren are familiar with Spurgeon. I’m delighted that’s so. I wasn’t here last year, but I read the address on Spurgeon and I greatly appreciated it.

Spurgeon, born in 1834, came to London at the age of 19, and he was called to one of the great historic churches from the South Bank of the Thames in London: New Park Street Chapel. In 1853, he was the minister and pastor there. In 1854, he was still just 19. The next year, in January of 1855, he got caught in a controversy that went on for six or seven years and was a serious controversy. It has never, I believe, merely been written up.

Let me remind you of the general situation at that time. At the end of the 18th century, the Baptists had tended to be divided, not formally, but they were divided in terms of Calvinists and Hyper-Calvinists. I’ll come back to the definitions later. It was a general sort of division. In South London the Hyper-Calvinists had become very influential. Most of the churches were more Hyper-Calvinistic than anything else among the Baptists.

Now the general church scene was different. Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and the Church of England had gone a different way altogether. They weren’t Hyper-Calvinists, they were Arminian, if they had any theology at all. Because it was a time when creeds and theology and so on were being played down in the church at large. Now Spurgeon was brought up in the country as you know, brought up under Puritan parents and grandparents. He was a congregationalist. He wasn’t a Baptist by background. So he came into the Baptist churches when he was converted at the age of 15. He was baptized the same year, and he came to the conviction of believers baptism.

When he came to London, he actually came to the pulpit of the foremost Hyper-Calvinist of the 18th century, Dr. John Gill. There was his big portrait looking down on Spurgeon in the vestry at New Park Street. Spurgeon had not preached very long before he found himself in trouble on two fronts. We heard about Luther being in trouble on two fronts, didn’t we? And Spurgeon, much younger than Luther, had the same sort of problem. When he started to preach, his preaching had angles to it and truths to it that were far from comfortable for many ordinary evangelicals.

They said that he was a hard Calvinist. They said he was an old Puritan, and so on and so forth. You know that position I’m sure. But on the other side, he had a number who looked upon him as almost an Arminian and these were the Hyper-Calvinistic churches of South London. And you might think that it would’ve been wise on the part of Spurgeon to avoid controversy with both sides at once. But that’s exactly what happened. He became involved with both sides and opposed both sides. And if it occurred to him that it was a somewhat dangerous thing to do in the pulpit of Dr. Gill, he put that fear aside.

An Obstacle to Evangelism

To him it was important enough that he had to stand against Hyper-Calvinism. Why? Well, because it’s a dangerous error and because it exists only where true Calvinism exists. There’s no hyper Calvinism where there’s no true Calvinism. But when Calvinistic faith had become established in England and in the Baptist churches, then came this other thing. Spurgeon thought that that can often happen. And we need to be alert to it. And he believed that it was a great obstacle to real evangelism, a real threat to missionary outreach and that it confused people.

It confused many people into opposing what they thought was Calvinism when really it was Hyper-Calvinism they were opposing. It seemed to him essential that if gospel preaching was to be revived in London, people had to understand that the New Testament was not Hyper-Calvinistic. So, this launched him into a major controversy. It began in a magazine called “The Earthen Vessel.” Within a square mile of where Spurgeon’s church was, there were two other churches — two eminent Baptist chapels. One was a place called the Unicorn Yard where the pastor was a man called Charles Waters Banks, a little man who was five feet and three inches in height. He was genial, tenderhearted, and broad in sympathy, but a Hyper-Calvinist in his theology. A little further away was another chapel called the Surrey Tabernacle where the minister was a man called James Wells. He was a rather different proposition. He just turned 50 years of age, a big man and the dogmatic leader of the Hyper-Calvinists.

At the end of 1854, Charles Waters Banks, who edited this magazine, “The Earthen Vessel,” published an article in which he spoke favorably of Spurgeon and wished that he was somewhat more in their midst. Obviously, Spurgeon was standing somewhat on the edge of things. Banks wanted him to be drawn in. But in the next issue of “The Earthen Vessel,” there was an article by James Wells. Some people nicknamed him “King James.” Other people called him the “Borough Gunner” because his church was in Borough Road and artillery fire or something like artillery fire would come from his pulpit quite often.

Anyway, James Wells wrote in the magazine that he was greatly dismayed that Spurgeon should be commended in this way. He feared that he was a superficial man, that he was semi-Arminian, and that he was causing confusion. In particular, James Wells opposed him because Spurgeon taught what Wells called “duty faith.” Duty faith, according to Wells, was the heresy that men are called savingly to believe in Christ. Wells didn’t believe that because he said, “Men are dead in trespasses and sins. They are powerless. And if we give people the impression that they are all called to trust in Christ, we’re denying human depravity and we’re denying divine sovereignty.” So he said that the gospel demands a historical ascent from all men, but it doesn’t demand saving faith and that no one will be condemned for the absence of saving faith. This is part of the position of all Hyper-Calvinists. Duty faith was anathema to James Wells.

From the Theater to the Pulpit

Well a man called T.W. Medhurst was an atender at Wells’s Chapel. He wasn’t a member. He rather liked going to the theater as well as to church, but he went to hear Wells. Wells was an orator. He heard him on Sunday and went to the theater during the week. But he heard about Spurgeon. He heard that he was an Arminian, but he was tempted to go and hear him. Medhurst says:

In leaving the assembly of the saints to hear an adventurer who was giving the people a stone in the place of bread. But the sermon happened to be one of a rousing kind. “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It turned out that Mr. Spurgeon was no Arminian after all.

The sermon made such a deep impression that the young tradesman gave up the theater and saw himself a sinner, lost, ruined and undone. And Medhurst became the first student in Spurgeon’s pastors college. He tried to enter into the debate and he wrote a lengthy letter to “The Earthen Vessel,” which only made more trouble. I don’t have time to give you the controversy that went on in the magazine through, three, four, or five years. It finished up with a long series of articles by Wells on divine sovereignty in which Wells took the really appalling position that God sovereignly hates men. God sovereignly judges men not for their sin but in his sovereignty alone.

The Deficiencies of Hyper Calvinism

Now the important thing in this controversy is how Spurgeon responded to it and the wisdom that was given to him in it. That’s what I want to talk about just for a little before we close. The four great points on which Spurgeon saw that Hyper- Calvinism was very seriously adrift.

Universal Promises

The first point was this: Spurgeon believed that historic Christianity and the Bible teaches that the promises of the gospel are to be preached to all men everywhere. The Hyper-Calvinist believed that you can only say, “Trust in Christ and you will be saved” to the elect, and therefore, the promises of the gospel only belong to the elect. Before people can trust those promises, they need to discover whether they are the elect. And they discover that by certain things that they find within themselves.

Spurgeon said that is not the New Testament gospel. The gospel is to every creature with promises to every hearer, like, “He that believeth on him is not condemned” (John 3:18), and, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). Spurgeon said that the preacher’s responsibility is to urge upon all men the reception of Christ as ambassadors, as Scripture says, “We beseech you in Christ stead, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Promises of the gospel come to all men. Spurgeon says:

The apostles preach the same gospel to the dead as to the living, the same gospel to the non elect as to the elect. The point of distinction is not in the gospel, but it is in its being applied by the Holy Spirit or left to be rejected by men.

The Warrant of Faith

The second point of division has to do with the warrant of faith. What is the sinner’s authority? What is his warrant to trust in Christ? The Hyper-Calvinist said, “He finds the warrant by looking for the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in his life.” They would say, “Are you penitent? Are you brokenhearted? Are you heavy laden? Are you a sensible sinner? Is God working in your heart? Then if you see enough reason to believe that God is working savingly in you, then you can come to trust the promises.”

Spurgeon said, “That is not the gospel at all. It’s nothing in us that is our warrant. The warrant is in the promise, the invitation of Christ.” He says:

Before any man has any willingness to be saved, it is his duty to believe in Christ. For it is not a man’s willingness that gives him a right to believe. Men are to believe in obedience to God’s command. God commandeth of all men everywhere to repent. And this is his great command, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.”

The warrant lies in the word and the warrant comes to every creature. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you” (Acts 2:38), said Peter at Pentecost. This is quoting Spurgeon now:

As John Bunyan puts it, “One man might have stood up in the crowd and said, “But I helped to hound him to the cross.” “Repent and be baptized every one of you,” says Peter. “But I drove the nails into his hands,” says another. “Every one of you,” says Peter. “But I pierced his side.” “Every one of you,” says Peter.”

The Hyper-Calvinistic idea that we have to find a warrant in ourselves turns men from Christ into bondage and subjectivism. And the truth is, when a person comes under real conviction of sin, they’re the last person to think that they really are under conviction of sin. A person under conviction of sin only thinks how hard he is and how dull he is. To make a person’s inner experience the warrant for believing is to turn the gospel upside down.

Whosoever Shall Come

Let me give you the typical example of Spurgeon’s preaching on this point. It’s regarding the text, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Spurgeon says:

Sinners, let me address you with words of life. Jesus wants nothing from you, nothing whatsoever — nothing done, nothing felt. He gives both work and feeling, ragged, penniless, just as you are. Lost, forsaken, desolate, with no good feelings and no good hopes, Jesus comes to you with these words and he says, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” The man may have been guilty of an atrocious sin, to black for mention, but if he comes to Christ, he shall not be cast out. He may have made himself as black as night, as black as hell.

I cannot tell what kind of persons may have come into this hall tonight. But if burglar’s, murderers, and dynamite men were here, I would still bid them to come to Christ, for he will not cast them out. No limit is set to the extent of sin. Any “him” in the world, any blaspheming, devilish “him” that comes to Christ shall be welcome. I use strong words that I may open the gate of mercy. Any “him” that comes to Christ, though he comes from a slum or tap room, betting ring or gambling hell, prison or brothel, Jesus will not cast him out.

Human Responsibility

The third point — and this is perhaps the center of the controversy — is human responsibility. We were reminded this afternoon of the bondage of the will, the absolute powerlessness of the sinner, who is dependent entirely on the sovereign grace of God. The Hyper- Calvinist deduced from that, that no man can be called to immediate repentance or faith because that’s not in their power. It’s in God’s power, so the time must be of God. And if we call men to faith and repentance, we’re denying the necessity of divine grace. We’re denying the particularity of grace.

Now Spurgeon’s reply to that is very important. You see, the Arminian reply to that is to weaken and tone down (or even to deny) human inability. Isn’t it? It’s to say, “Well, we’re not entirely powerless. Man can make some response.” Now that’s not Spurgeon’s reply. It’s not the biblical reply. Man is indeed dead in trespass and sins. He is powerless. He is in the bondage of unbelief. But at the same time, man is wholly responsible for that unbelief. He is wholly responsible for his own sin.

It’s not divine sovereignty that keeps the sinner from trusting in Christ. No one will be able to argue that God excluded them from faith and from repentance. So Spurgeon preaches both truths simultaneously. Man is dead and powerless, and man is responsible. Man is called and man is to answer for his own unbelief. Man’s sin is his own. Spurgeon says “It’s not our duty as preachers to reconcile these two things.” Nettleton once said that he had heard a preacher who preached at one time, “No man can come to me except if the Father which has sent me draws him” (John 6:44). And another time he preached, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28). Well that’s true. It’s all sides of the gospel.

Spurgeon says:

The system of truth is not one straight line, but two, and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at two lines at once. The fact that God predestines and man is responsible are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory, but they are not. It is the fault of our weak judgment. It is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can never contradict each other.

You see what he’s saying. He is saying, “We know these are both true, but we don’t have the wisdom to know how they are to be reconciled. That’s not our responsibility. They are God-given truths. Our business then is to preach them and proclaim them.” The Hyper-Calvinist was logically, rationally making a deduction from certain truths which should never be made. The Hyper-Calvinist is afraid that because conversion is God’s work that we mustn’t appeal for any human action, lest we interfere with God’s work. It’s a total misunderstanding of human responsibility.

The Love of God

My last and fourth point is so important that I must touch on it. It’s about Hyper-Calvinism and the love of God. Hyper-Calvinism believes that God has no desire for the salvation of any apart from the elect. The only purpose of gospel preaching is to draw in the elect. There is no other purpose. There’s no demonstration of love on the part of God to all men. They would think that no man can trust in a loving God until he has evidence that he’s one of the elect and then he can. Now Spurgeon didn’t believe that. He didn’t believe it on the evidence of the New Testament.

One of the sermons he preached that caused particular controversy was in 1858 from Romans 10. The text was, “I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, ’All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people’” (Romans 10:20–21).

Spurgeon says on that text:

Lost sinners who sit under the sound of the gospel are not lost for the want of the most affectionate invitation. God says he “stretches out his hands.” What did he wish them to come for? Why, to be saved. “No,” says one, “It was for temporal mercies.” Not so my friend, the verse before us concerns spiritual mercies. Now was God sincere in his offer? God forgive the man who dares to say he was not. God is undoubtedly sincere in every act he did. He sent his prophets and he entreated the people of Israel to lay hold on spiritual things, but they would not, though he stretched out his hands all day long. They were a disobedient and gainsaying people, and they would not have his love.

Coldness as an Obstacle to Receiving Biblical Teaching

Spurgeon believed that God truly desires the salvation of all men, that God is not to be regarded as severe, angry, and remote, hating all except a small number of the human race. He believed that Hyper- Calvinism had the character of God in a wrong proportion. They were magnifying sovereignty and not understanding sufficiently the wonder of his benevolence and love. They didn’t realize that God’s love is the attractive power for sinners. Spurgeon speaks at great length on Christ’s love and what fellowship with Christ will do to ministers to make us love and be concerned for the salvation of all men.

Spurgeon says:

We are often in the dark and puzzled about difficulties. But do you know half the difficulties in the Bible spring from a cold state of mind? When the heart gets right, the head seems to get right too. I remember a person puzzling himself fearfully about the passage in Scripture of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He went and looked at Dr. Gill about it, then he went to Thomas Scott and to Matthew Henry. And these good divines all puzzled him as much as they could, but they did not seem to clear up the matter.

The good man could not understand how Jesus Christ could say, as he did, “How often I would have gathered them, but thou wouldest not.” One day he received more grace and got a love for souls. And then the old skin of narrow-mindedness, which had been large enough for him once, began to crack and break. And then he went to the passage and said, “I can understand it now. I do not know how it is consistent with such and such doctrine, but it is consistent with what I feel in my heart.”

I feel just the same. I used to be puzzled by that passage where Paul says he could wish himself accursed from God for his brethren sake. Why I’ve often felt the same. And now understand how a man in the exuberance of love to others can say he would be willing to perish himself if he could save them . . .

Against an Exclusive Spirit

So as I trust you know brethren, Spurgeon sermons are full of the love of God in Christ. Now theologically you understand he did make a distinction between a universal love of benevolence and an electing love. Electing love is a love that will certainly bring in all those whom Christ has redeemed. But he didn’t go into such theological distinctions when he was preaching the gospel. He stayed close to the New Testament. He wasn’t concerned that anyone would think he was an Arminian. He simply preached the text of Scripture.

If I was to give you a couple of words, perhaps just in conclusion, I think it would be to underline how Spurgeon in his wisdom was so much against an exclusive spirit. He was so ready to understand that the saving grace of God may be in men and women whose understanding may be very defective. He says in this lovely quotation:

The doctrine of election is intended to divide, not between Israel and Israel, but between Israel and the Egyptians; not between saint and saint, but between saints and the children of the world. A man may evidently be of God’s chosen family. And yet, though elected, he may not believe in the doctrine of election. I hold there are many savingly called who do not believe in effectual calling. There are great many who persevere to the end who do not believe in the doctrine of final perseverance. We do hope that the hearts of many are a great deal better than their heads.

We do not set their fallacies down to any willful opposition to the truth as it is in Jesus, but simply to an error in their judgments, which we pray God to correct. We hope that if they think us mistaken too, they will reciprocate the same Christian courtesy. And when we meet around the cross, we hope that we will ever feel that we are one in Christ Jesus.

So to conclude, in a word, Spurgeon was fearful of any type of Calvinism that ceased to be evangelistic and ceased to have a burden for the salvation of men and women. I do think in our own day we have seen a wonderful revival of the doctrines of grace. But by and large it has to be said, Calvinistic churches are not notable in their evangelistic passion and outreach. And why is that? Is there something that we have missed? Is there a proportion of the truth which is wrong? We don’t dilute the truth. We are to preach it in all its fullness. But if it doesn’t lead to soul winning and evangelistic preaching, there has to be something wrong about it. Spurgeon says:

During the pastorate of my venerated predecessor, Dr. Gill, this church instead of increasing gradually decreased. But mark this, from the day when Fuller and Kerry and Sutcliffe and others met to send out missionaries to India, the sun began to dawn on a gracious revival, which is not yet over.

Book Recommendations

Before I forget, can I take a moment or two to comment on books? The Banner of Truth Magazine, the February issue, has some 40 pages generally on new books published by the trust. It also has a good deal of the address that I gave last night. A good deal of the address is in the next month’s issue. If anybody wants a copy, if you write to the Banner of Truth Trust Office at Carlisle and tell them I promised you a free copy, they will send you one. On any Banner book, write to the Carlisle address. It may be a few weeks before they get there, but if you write to the Carlisle office, ask for a free copy of the February issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine. And I’m sure that they will send you a free copy. If they don’t, write to me directly and I will send you one.

Then, regarding The Baptist Confession of 1689, somebody was asking about fixed points. Well, here’s a great fixed point. It’s the same family of confessions as the Congregational and the Presbyterian, which are wonderful statements of doctrine. Alexander White says he visited an old saint who was dying and the old saint had the confession open beside him at the chapter on justification by faith. Do use these confessions and catechisms. They’re wonderful documents.

Then, consider reading [Holiness] by J.C. Ryle. Most of you will know it. It’s a magnificent volume, and certainly one of the most important. The print is a little bit small, but it’s just a splendid volume published by the Evangelical Press, and it’s selling here this week at $8.35. J.C Ryle is wonderful too on The Gospels. It’s just so readable — so simple and yet profound. It’s perfect for family reading and family worship. I think Ryle on the Gospels should be on every church book table. I’ve never met a person who was disappointed with Ryle. I think he is just constantly helpful.

Reading the Puritans

Regarding Puritan books, there are these small paperbacks. One here is by Thomas Watson, called All Things for Good. It’s on the text in Romans 8, and it is just an excellent introduction to a typical Puritan book. If you don’t know the Puritans or want to encourage someone else to get into them that would be a good starting point. Thomas Brooks is another one. He wrote Heaven on Earth, which is on assurance. And then Fred Huebner drew my attention to three other paperbacks, which are $22.50. They’re selling for $3.99, all three of them. I can assure you, because they’re Banner books, it’s not a selloff. It’s not a remainder. They’re three books by Paul Helm, who’s a professor in King’s College in London.

One of the books is on conversion. The other book is on our callings in life — how do young people decide on their work, their calling, and their view of their work? And the third book is on the last things — death, judgment, heaven, and hell. They are three important books. Somehow or other, Mr. Huebner is offering them for $3.99. He must be quite right. It must be the best bargain there is here. And then if the subject of Hyper- Calvinism interests you further, this book is on Spurgeon Versus Hyper Calvinism, which I wrote recently. That should be in the states in a few weeks time and it goes into much more fully what I was trying to say this evening.

Well, thank you brethren. You’ve all been so kind, helpful, and encouraging

Questions and Answers

Dr. Murray, could you give a bit of counsel on how to determine the controversial views that we should just let go and those that we should attack?

No, I don’t think I can, because we all have different duties. It may be that some of us here have a duty to take up certain issues. It depends on our situation. I don’t think our responsibilities are uniform in that regard. I didn’t mention it — I hope I don’t offend anyone here — but I do think that the controversy over Theonomy and the Reconstructionist movement could have gone differently. If that had been taken up earlier from a biblical standpoint, it might have saved a lot of damage. It seems to me that those who didn’t believe it, and that includes a great many of us, were silent when someone should have raised a witness much earlier. Because no witness was raised earlier, it spread and has taken quite a hold. I think it’s done a lot of damage. But I really don’t think I can do that. I think it’s going to vary.

As you were talking about Spurgeon and how he handled controversy, it reminded me of your book on Jonathan Edwards and how he handled a lot of controversy with wisdom. My question is that today a lot of groups that have gone into excessive areas are now appealing to Edwards as being somehow a supporter of their viewpoints, as well as Martin Lloyd Jones. They say if he were here, he would support what was going on. And yet to read their writings and to read your book, especially, how do you suppose people are coming to those viewpoints? For example, people say Edwards would be a supporter of the laughing revival.

Well, it doesn’t worry me too much. I think they’re just being shortsighted. The fact is, let people get into Jonathan Edwards and get into Dr. Lloyd Jones, and it’s just a fact they’re going to start moving in their thinking. A person who says, “Jonathan Edwards or Lloyd Jones supports our position” is really showing that they don’t understand these men, but if they’re going to encourage others to read them for themselves, that’s what we want, isn’t it? I admit there will be some people who won’t read the originals and they may believe it and they would be misled, but if people read the originals, they’ll very soon get a different mindset. I’m certain of that.

I like the phrase “their hearts are better than their heads.” I think that’s true for most of us, I hope. But would Spurgeon have taken up arms against those people if they had used their wrong heads to start promulgating wrong thinking. To say, “Their hearts are better than their heads,” is one way to gather at the cross with ordinary people who are in the process of growing. But it’s another thing to say that those people whose heads are worse than their hearts are now becoming teachers. In other words, we can say, “I love you and in the judgment of charity, I believe you’re a Christian and I don’t want to fight you.” But then if that person with that wrong head and good heart begins to influence many, many people, or takes a position in a school, or takes a pulpit, or wants to be on the eldership or something, then you start drawing lines. You can still say, “Bless you, brother.” But you say, “With those views, good heart that you are, don’t take this position.”

Yes, he would say that and he would say to the people in his own congregation, “If you don’t hold to our confession, you shouldn’t be members here. You’re being disloyal. This is what we hold. We don’t unchurch other people, but go to a church where they believe what you are teaching. Don’t come here introducing teaching. That’s against our confession.” He would say that without any hesitation, wouldn’t he?

Is there a good, shorter book on church history that you might recommend?

There’s a book called Sketches from Church History by S.M. Houghton. I think that’s the best short, broad sweep that I know. It’s published by Banner of Truth. I’m sure there are other good books too, but that’s quite a small one.

I wonder if you could comment a little bit on the exhortation that we heard about being like Martin Luther today, and then knowing ourselves and my own capability. How much should I aspire to be like Martin Luther?

My first immediate response would be that we should emulate the spirit of the man, but understand that the things that he did and was able to do, were much connected with his gifts. We are not called to do the same things. We want to have as much of the spirit that he had but whatever is God honoring and Christ honoring in his spirit, we should cover that, and we should learn from it. It’s a balance, isn’t it? By setting up an ideal, we can all improve on what we are and God can give us grace. We can all develop, and yet if we take that too far, we can get ourselves into bondage.

I think the old biographies, sometimes they don’t give you flesh and blood. The old biographies of Payson and Brainard never dream of telling you what time he got up in the morning or what he ate for his breakfast, or what color his eyes were. They’re just ethereal. They’re almost too heavenly, aren’t they? But they do have that one advantage, that you can’t sort of mimic them in their natural lives. It’s more the spirit of the man that comes across.

It was said that Simeon believed that there were texts that Calvinist didn’t like because they favored Arminians and vice versa. Isn’t it true, if you take that between what you described as “Jerusalem, I’m Weeping for You.” Are there not texts like John 12 where Isaiah is quoted, where God is hardening hearts? If you’re true to that text, won’t you, on that Sunday, be forced to sound like a Hyper-Calvinist?

I don’t really think so because I don’t think that’s what that text is saying. I think a true Calvinist really believes that people’s hearts are hardened. I don’t think one would have to become a Hyper-Calvinist to treat that text. When we are preaching a text of Scripture, we must preach it in its fullness. We mustn’t be afraid that someone may think we are Hyper-Calvinists because we preach that text just as it is. I’m changing the subject slightly, but it’s the same as texts like, “Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). There are texts that one very rarely hears in Scotland, in our orthodox churches. And I fear it’s because preachers are half afraid, “If I preach on a text like that, I might sound like, who knows what?” And that’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?

Spurgeon was delivered from the fear of men. When he was preaching a text that was about God’s universal love and compassion and invitation, he preached it to its full and he didn’t look over his shoulder to think what Dr. Gill or anyone else was thinking. And that’s what we have to do. We have to be delivered from fear of men. We need to stand on the word of God alone.