More than Conquerors according to Spurgeon

Admin OptionsStop Featuring Edit Post Add Tags
Cancel
Delete Post Edit Blog Posts "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Romans 8:37

Today, I submit just the opening remarks to Charles Spurgeon's sermon called More Than Conquerors he delivered in 1867, to show you the difference between the spokesman then and the spokesman today and to remind us, as Spurgeon does, the type enemies the early church dealt with compared to the enemies we deal with today. For them to be "more than conquerors" most likely meant much more to them than it does to us today; the entire sermon covers 13 pages. (Thursday and Friday's posts will be excerpts from it as well.) In my opinion, today's preacher pales in education, eloquence, dedication, enthusiasm, passion, and zeal. If you want to read the entire sermon click here.

With no formal theological training, Spurgeon (1834 - 1892) became the most popular minister of the nineteenth century, regularly attracting crowds of 6,000 each Sunday to his London - based Metropolitan Tabernacle church. In the history of Christianity, no other cleric is more widely read - after Biblical ones - than Spurgeon. He has more material available to readers than any other Christian author, dead or alive.

Over the course of his lifetime, Spurgeon read the book Pilgrim's Progress more than 100 times. By the time he was an adult, he read an average of six books a week. At his death, he had 12,000 books in his personal library. Spurgeon spoke 10 to 12 times per week. He typically took just one page of notes into the pulpit, yet talked at a rate of 140 words per minute for an average of 40 minutes. Once, he reportedly addressed a crowd of more than 20,000 - without any mechanical amplification. He was so popular that at times he urged his own members not to attend services so newcomes could hear him speak. In 1865, his printed sermons sold 25,000 copies a week and were translated into 20 languages. His sermons continued to be printed weekly until 1917, 25 years after his death.
__________________________________________________________________________




THE distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of Christ and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First, faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the Apostle, "Christ loved me and gave Himself for me." Then love gives the countersign and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. "We love Him because He first loved us." "God is love," and the children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love-the love of Christ constrains them. They believe in Jesus' love and then they reflect it. They rejoice that Divine love is set upon them. They feel it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to them, and then by force of gratitude they love fervently the Savior with a pure heart.


In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this double mark was very clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus. They were men who knew the love of Christ and rested upon it as a man leans upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. They did not speak of Christ's love as though it were a myth to be respected, a tradition to be reverenced-they viewed it as a blessed reality and they cast their whole confidence upon it, being persuaded that it would bear them up as upon eagles' wings, and carry them all their days. They were assured that it would be to them a foundation of rock against which the waves might beat, and the winds blow, but their soul's habitation would stand securely if founded upon it.


The love which they felt towards the Lord Jesus was not a quiet emotion which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only spoke of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week and sung hymns in honor of Christ Jesus the Crucified. It was a passion with them of such a vehement and all consuming energy that it permeated all their lives, became visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of their eyes--even in their most common glances. Love to Jesus was a flame which fed upon the very marrow of their bones, the core and heart of their being, and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man and shone there.


Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ's love they dared much! And because of their love to Christ they did much. Because of their reliance upon the love of Jesus they were not afraid of their enemies! And because of their love to Jesus they scorned to shun the foe even when he appeared in the most dreadful forms. The Christians of the early ages sacrificed themselves continually upon the altar of Christ with joy and willingness. Wherever they were they bore testimony against the evil customs which surrounded them.


They counted it foul scorn for a Christian to be as others were they would not conform themselves to the world they could not, for they were transformed by the renewing of their minds! Their love to Christ compelled them to bear their witness against everything which dishonored Christ by being contrary to truth, and righteousness, and love. They were innovators, reformers, image-breakers everywhere! They could not be quiet and let others do as they pleased while they followed out their own views. And their protest was continual, incessant, annoying to the foe, but acceptable to God.