A Life Changed by Preaching
First and foremost, Charles Spurgeon gave himself to the work of preaching the gospel. He preached his first sermon at the age of sixteen and would continue to preach in the villages around Cambridge as an itinerant lay preacher. By seventeen, Spurgeon was called to pastor the Baptist church in the village of Waterbeach, even while he continued his itinerant preaching ministry. By nineteen, when he was called to pastor the New Park Street Chapel in London, Spurgeon had preached nearly 700 sermons, the equivalent of over 10 years’ worth of preaching. This remarkable preaching ministry would only grow for the rest of his 38-year pastorate, resulting in a worldwide impact that continues to our day.
But where did Spurgeon’s commitment to preaching come from? To understand the Prince of Preachers, it’s important to recognize that he not only gave himself to preaching, but he himself was radically changed by preaching.
Growing up in a pastor’s home, Spurgeon gained an interest in spiritual matters at a young age. The discipline of his father and grandfather kept him out of trouble, and the teaching of his mother deeply impacted him. Even so, beneath his religious, church-going exterior, Spurgeon knew the sin of his heart. Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Spurgeon struggled with doubts, discouragement, and the guilt of his sin. As a result, he fell into despair. At one point, he even experimented with atheism and skepticism, but when he saw the void of “the nothingness of vacuity,” he turned back. For years, he sought relief in the Puritan works in his grandfather’s library, by going to church, by being active in religious societies, by refraining from worldly activities, and more. But none of these relieved his guilty conscience. All the while, Spurgeon wondered, “What must I do to be saved?”
The answer came during the Christmas break of 1849–1850. Fifteen-year-old Spurgeon was home from school, in Colchester. While hoping to find the way of salvation, he decided to visit every place of worship in town that winter. On Sunday morning, January 6, 1850, on his way to another church, a sudden snowstorm forced Spurgeon to turn in to the Artillery Street Primitive Methodist chapel, with a dozen or so people in attendance. The regular minister was unable to make it, so an unknown lay deacon took his place and preached on Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (KJV). He was not eloquent or well-educated. But he preached clearly about what it meant to respond to the gospel.
Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death,—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.”
For years, Spurgeon had known about Christ’s death on the cross for sinners, but he had never understood what was required of him. Preachers normally emphasized God’s power and the need to prove one’s faith by acting like a Christian. But now, sitting there in the pew, dripping wet, Spurgeon understood for the first time that faith was not doing anything for Christ but looking to Christ as your all-sufficient Savior.
The unique circumstances of Spurgeon’s conversion would forever leave a mark on his subsequent ministry. Spurgeon never got over the fact that he was converted under the preaching of the Word.
Personally, I have to bless God for many good books . . . but my gratitude most of all is due to God, not for books, but for the preached Word. . . . The books were good, but the man was better. The revealed Word awakened me; but it was the preached Word that saved me; and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.
Spurgeon understood that preaching was only the medium. The substance and power of preaching lay in “the revealed Word,” the gospel, not in the preacher himself. This understanding was underscored by the fact that this sermon came from a poor, uneducated man with no training, who barely got through the sermon.
Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon was not afraid to use other mediums to communicate the gospel, and he gave himself to writing books, organizing Sunday schools, encouraging private devotions, equipping his people for evangelism, and more.
But because of his experience, he always believed there was a “peculiar value” in the preaching and hearing of the Word. Something unique takes place when the Word “comes with a living power from living lips.” As he states in the Preface of his first volume of sermons, “The Preaching of the Word by the chosen servants of the living God, is the ordained means for the gathering in of the elect.” It was this conviction that he carried with him into pastoral ministry.
Excerpted with permission from Spurgeon the Pastor by Geoff Chang. Copyright 2022, B&H Publishing.
Geoffrey Chang serves as Assistant Professor of Church History and Historical Theology and the Curator of the Spurgeon Library. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin (B.B.A.), The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.). Most recently, he completed his Ph.D. at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he wrote his dissertation on Charles H. Spurgeon’s ecclesiology. Prior to Midwestern, Geoff worked as a database consultant until he discerned a call to ministry. Since leaving the business world, he has served on the ministry staff at Houston Chinese Church (Houston, TX) and Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, DC), and most recently as associate pastor at Hinson Baptist Church (Portland, OR).