Crumbs from Spurgeon’s Table

The preacher sought to find out acceptable words
– Ecclesiastes 12:10

I’m not an expert on Charles Spurgeon. I have read a lot of Spurgeon and have much appreciation for him. There are many places to seek out the superlatives of Charles Spurgeon, so I’m going to bypass that for now. I want to look at a Spurgeon sermon and point out some lessons we can learn to help our own sermons. I went through an index and picked a sermon on Hebrews 2:10, titled: Christ—Perfect Through Sufferings. It was preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on November 2nd, 1862. I picked this particular sermon for two main reasons. First, I glanced at it and saw that it had the essential Spurgeon sermon structure. Second, it was a sermon about Christ, so I knew it would be a good representative of most of his preaching. The printed sermon has 7,442 words so I am not going to post it in this article. You can find it online here.

We are all aware of Spurgeon’s vocabulary, use of metaphor, vivid word pictures, and eloquence. I’m not so much dealing with those in this list. I’m presenting a list of 10 lessons in no particular order. The only order that needs be observed is that I am putting the most important lesson first. If you get nothing else from this article, get the first one and never let it go.

The Lessons

1. You are not Charles Spurgeon, nor will you ever be.
If you have any notion of such a thought as being like Spurgeon in your head, expunge it immediately. Occasionally I encounter someone endeavoring to compare some preacher or other to Spurgeon and I quickly conclude they do not know very much about Spurgeon. He started preaching at 17 years old and before he turned 20, he had preached over 600 times. He did that in 2-3 years.

I was 25 years old when I preached my first sermon and, on the day of my thirtieth birthday, I preached my six hundred and first sermon. It took me almost five years to get to that number and I was almost a full decade older when I started. Beside that, my first 600 sermons cannot compare to his.

2. Spurgeon was consistent in the length of his sermons.
He was reported to preach 40-50 minutes on average. The sermon I looked at had 7,442 words. He was reported to preach about 140 words per minute so this sermon would have been about 53 minutes long. Consistency is a good lesson here. In a regular ministry, it is a good idea to be fairly consistent with sermon length. Whatever the actual length is is not quite as important as consistency. When you preach consistently in length, you’re training the attention spans of your people to focus for that length of time. Perhaps this is even more important in our day.

3. Spurgeon was consistent in the structure of his sermons.
He typically had an outline that moved in a logical order. He generally had an introduction, body of three to four main divisions, and a brief conclusion. The picture with this post is a scan of his actual handwritten notes for a different sermon he took into the pulpit. You can find some samples of his notes online. He used this structure consistently. Our sample sermon has an introduction, three main divisions, and a brief conclusion. It is actually a profitable exercise for young preachers to take Spurgeon sermons, read them, and then write up the outline of that sermon. Now let’s get some lessons from the different parts of his sermon.

4. Spurgeon consistently had a brief introduction.
Our sample sermon introduction has 541 words, which is about 7% of the overall sermon. The introduction would’ve taken about 4 minutes. The lesson here is not that your introduction should be 7% of your sermon or be 4 minutes long. The lesson is that it should be brief. As a general rule, 5 to 10 minutes is probably a good aim, and the farther south of 10 minutes, the better.

Spurgeon used the introduction to set the stage for his sermon, which is the function of a good introduction. He was not an expository preacher. He was more of a textual/topical preacher. He generally took a text and focused on a main point in the text and developed it in a theological/topical fashion. If he did do contextual exposition, it would generally be in the introduction. He would also use the introduction to bring up particular theological themes relevant to the point of the text and the sermon.

In our sample sermon, he brought up the doctrinal points of God’s foreknowledge and predestination in regards to the fall and the salvation of man. This leads into the truth that Christ being perfected through sufferings was according to the foreknowledge and the foreordained plan of God. His main point to be developed in the sermon is the perfecting of Christ through suffering and he begins by showing the theological necessity and justification for it. He also does something that raises interest and attention in the hearers. He states what is at stake in what he’s preaching in the introduction.

Oh! how careful should we be who have to preach it never to alter it in the slightest degree. How should we lift our prayers to heaven that God would give us a clear understanding, first, of what we have to teach, and then a clear method of teaching what we have learned, so that no mistake may be made here, for a mistake here would mar that express image of God which shines in the gospel, and prevent our hearers from seeing the beautiful fitness and proportion which are so adapted to reveal the perfect character of God. We say the plan must be what it is; it could not be otherwise so as to be in keeping with the divine character; and, therefore, it is imperative upon us that we make no alteration in it, no, not of a word, lest we should hear the Apostle’s anathema hissing through the air like a thunderbolt from God — “If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that ye have received let him be accursed!”
(Emphasis added)

We don’t want to create an artificial crisis or overstate the case in our sermons, but it can be good to raise questions in the introduction, if the sermon is going to answer them. It can be good state a crisis, if the sermon is going to speak to it. It can also be good to bring up a controversy in the introduction, if the sermon is going to address it. These things can help bring the hearers in and alert them to why the sermon matters.

5. Spurgeon consistently stated where he was in the outline during his sermon.
He generally stated his main divisions at the end of his introduction. I used to to do this in my introductions, e.g. “We have three main reasons for . . . First . . . Second . . .” and so on. I still do this, but not in quite so obvious a way. It is a good idea to give some idea of the sermon outline. It encourages and helps people to take notes. Spurgeon would also state each main division as he got to it. He wasn’t always as obvious about his conclusion.

6. Spurgeon consistently gave the bulk of the sermons to his main divisions.
Our sample sermon has three main divisions that take up 85% of the overall sermon, or about 45 minutes. The divisions got shorter as he went. The first has 3,909 words and is about 53% of the overall sermon, or about 28 minutes. The second has 1,777 words accounting for about 24% of the overall sermon and 13 minutes. The third has 575 words for about 8% of the sermon and about 4 minutes of the time.

Why do the divisions take up such a disproportionate amount of time? I think the reason is obvious. Spurgeon’s notes were really more of a bare-bones outline than sermon notes. His preaching was more extemporaneous than manuscripted. You notice in the sample sermon he warms to his subject quickly and develops his first point quite fully. Why didn’t he do the same on all points and just take however long it took? He was obviously conscious of time and aimed for a consistent length in his sermons. He stated at the end of his first division, “Thus much, then, upon our first head; I would we had more time for our second; but we will pass to it at once.”

7. Spurgeon consistently had brief conclusions.
He did not always state that he was concluding. If you read closely, you can detect the conclusion in our sample sermon. It consists of 607 words so it is about the same length as the third division ended up being and is also similar in length to the introduction. So it is about 4 minutes long. Spurgeon did not rehash his sermon in his conclusion. He actually brought the conclusion from his sermon, so it is generally practical application or exhortation that follows from the body of the sermon.

8. Spurgeon consistently used illustrations in his sermons.
He used two types of illustrations: illustrations from scripture and illustrations from elsewhere, such as nature, science, history, literature, everyday life, etc. There are a few different illustrations in our sample sermon. He uses the fact that a doctor has to have some acquaintance with a disease in order to effectively treat it. He refers to a beggar asking for crumbs. He draws a comparison with the “innumerable and detestable” frogs from the plague in Egypt. He mentions the brazen serpent on the pole. He mentions the dry earth receiving rain. He makes a literary reference to Milton.

One obvious lesson from his illustrations is that they are short. The longest one in this sermon is about the brazen serpent and it is 232 words, or about 2 minutes. Generally, the longer illustrations are the ones from scripture. Often his illustrations are just a sentence or even a phrase. He makes the reference quickly and moves on. That’s what makes an illustration good. It’s a reference everyone gets so you don’t need lengthy explanation. If you have to spend a few minutes explaining the reference so that everyone understands how it illustrates the point, it’s a bad illustration so lose it.

9. Spurgeon consistently made application throughout the sermon.
As he gets to a point of exhortation, he presses it on the hearers then. His applications flow throughout the sermon rather than being like an afterthought tacked on at the end. As the application comes naturally, press it then. Often in exposition, application comes naturally in the text itself so a good exposition of the passage will include such application. Spurgeon likewise raised and answered common objections at natural places in the sermon, which can be a form of application.

Disease, sickness of body, poverty, need, friendlessness, hopelessness, desertion — he knows all these. You cannot cast human suffering into any shape that is new to Christ. “In all their afflictions he was afflicted.” If you feel a thorn in your foot, remember that it once pierced his head. If you have a trouble or a difficulty, you may see there the mark of his hands, for he has climbed that way before. The whole path of sorrow has his blood bedabbled footsteps all along, for the Man of Sorrows has been there, and he can now have sympathy with you. “Yes,” I hear one say, “but my sorrows are the result of sin.” So were his; though not his own, yet the result of sin they were. “Yes,” you say, “but I am slandered, and I cannot bear it.” They called him a drunken man, and a wine-bibber. Why, when you once think of the sufferings of Christ, yours are not worth a thought. Like the small dust of a balance that may be blown away with the breath of an infant, such are our agonies and our trials when compared with his. Drink thy little cup; see what a cup he drained. The little vinegar and gall that fall to thy share thou mayest gladly recede, for these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to be compared to the sufferings through which he passed.

And finally . . .

10. You are not Charles Spurgeon, nor will you ever be.
Spurgeon’s ministry lasted for 38 years and he was 57 years old when he died. In that time, his sermons were published weekly and sold around 20,000 copies per week in 20 different languages. His collected and published sermons are in 63 volumes and is still today the largest single-author set of books ever published. He also wrote and published over 140 other books besides his sermons. He pastored a congregation of 4,000 members, edited a magazine, answered 500 letters per week, read six books per week (usually of puritan theology), founded and oversaw more than 60 organizations, maintained a pastor’s college, had a near invalid wife and twin sons, regularly counseled what he called difficult cases, and lived with physical pain and constant criticism and slander. I have not listed everything the man did.

I am not Spurgeon and you are not Spurgeon, nor will we, or anybody else, ever be. We can learn from him though. If you think about it, he lived and experienced several lifetimes in his 38 years. He constantly urged his brothers forward and embodied the idea of wearing out rather than rusting out.

The Purloining Preacher

Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. ~ Titus 2:10

He had other pursuits and interests in life, and one was tied to his experience and knowledge of magic. Later in life he became adept at exposing and debunking psychics, mediums, spiritualists, and others who claimed to perform feats through paranormal power. He could reproduce their effects or identify the sleights and tricks they used. At one point, he worked with Scientific American and offered a cash prize to anyone who could fool him with their paranormal powers. Many tried but no one ever claimed the prize.

Houdini identified many tricks that people used to deceive others into thinking they had supernatural powers. Houdini I am not, but I have seen some preachers using tricks to make people think more highly of them and their preaching than they ought to. Sometimes they have the dubious skill of covering weak preaching with pulpit flourish. I am not talking here about “faith healers” or “prophets” or anyone like that. I’m talking about preachers who stand before a crowd of people and seem to preach the Bible to them. They’re not speaking prophecies or describing visions but just preaching.

Usually you have two kinds of fault. There are those who deliberately use tricks because they seek the attention or fame they can bring. Then you have those who unintentionally use some of these while they are endeavoring to preach well. I think the latter group is often the younger, inexperienced preachers. I’m not bashing young preachers. One of the difficulties young preachers face is that they don’t yet know what they don’t know. Unless they have been unusually blessed to come up under faithful expository preaching, they’ve probably heard a lot of pulpit flourish preaching. This type of preaching is popular and well-received in many places. Young preachers are trying to learn how to preach and end up following this style to try to preach well. It takes time to develop discernment but hopefully this post can be helpful. The following is a list of tricks I’ve seen preachers use to misdirect the congregation. I do want to qualify that just because a preacher may sometimes do some of these, that doesn’t mean they’re using a trick. It’s typically when you see a regular pattern that you can discern a greater desire to perform than to preach.

The Old Testament out of context

Beginning a topical sermon in the Old Testament is a way to give the sermon and the preacher the appearance of depth. When a preacher reads an Old Testament text, spends a scant few minutes talking about that text, and then launches into a topical sermon that has little or no connection to the context of Old Testament passage, he is misdirecting to give his preaching more weight.

No dictionary required

Using terms such as covenant, law, priesthood, sovereignty, etc. is a way to make the preacher look intellectual. When a preacher peppers his sermon with high-sounding terms but doesn’t explain nor even demonstrate that he understands them, he is misdirecting to assume intellectual superiority and authority for his sermon.

It happened on this wise

Using real-life experience stories is a way to make the preacher appear experienced and streetwise in the world. When a preacher tells stories of outlandish situations and especially if he tells a lot of stories of events that didn’t happen to him but someone he knows, he is misdirecting to appear more traveled and experienced than what he is.

Prop preachers

Using props for “object lessons” or “illustrative sermons” is a way to compensate for lack of content and substance in a sermon. This is done today with objects brought in or even video clips and presentations during the sermon. Object lessons can be helpful when done sparingly and simply, but when preaching turns into a multimedia production it is no longer preaching in the biblical sense of the term. When a preacher relies on props or skits to convey his message, he is misdirecting from a weak sermon and entertaining more than exhorting.

Have you seen the wiggle worm?

Using movement is a way to keep people engaged, artificially inject energy, and make it appear that a lot is happening. This goes beyond hand gestures into theatrics like running, jumping, dancing, and a host of other things. Many consider this sort of thing to be anointed or Spirit-filled, but the work of the Holy Spirit within a man yields the fruit of self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). I’m not suggesting that a man has to stand flat-footed behind the pulpit with hands folded in front of him in order to preach. However, when a man starts behind the pulpit, reads a passage of Scripture, and then moves around all over the place for the next 30-40 minutes without ever returning to the Bible, he is not preaching the Bible. He is misdirecting to make an impression with his “passion.”

It was the best of preaching, it was the worst of preaching

Using clichés, platitudes, alliterated phrases, and clever turns is a way to immediately connect with people and make them think you’re actually saying something. If you can take a cliché and tweak it just a bit, you can appear very clever. The Christian world is not immune from bumper sticker sloganeering. Political speeches are full of applause lines that are meaningless—Hope and change, or, Make America great again. These are meaningless statements but they draw the cheers. When a preacher rattles off Christian clichés without any explanation or meaningful statements, he is misdirecting to get an emotional response and steering clear of offending anyone.

The padded sermon

Using jokes and stories is a way to interest the audience, make them laugh, or build emotional tension and they add filler to sermons, turning a devotional into a full-length sermon. Jokes and stories may be able to convey truth in a memorable way but there is a danger in making truth statements without authority. Jokes and stories are not authoritative. When a preacher relies on jokes and stories to make his points, he is misdirecting from a lack of study and preparation to preach the truth authoritatively from Scripture.

Did you hear?

Using news headlines is a way to connect with people because they have probably heard something about it and give off the appearance of being thoroughly informed and up to date on all things happening in the world and Bible prophecy. I have heard statements such as, “Did you hear about what’s happening in _____ (insert Russia, Syria, Iran, or some other place in the Middle East)? Jesus is getting ready to come back.” Such statements are seldom ever explained. What exactly is happening in that place? What specific prophecy is fulfilled by it? What is the connection to Jesus’ return that that specific event means it is closer? When a preacher makes random prophecy-related, current events statements without any explanation, he is misdirecting to appear at the pinnacle of Bible knowledge for understanding all prophecy.

The legend

Using personal stories where you always say and do the right things is a way to appear super-Christianly and a master of wit, knowledge, and personal conversation. When a preacher tells a lot of personal experience stories where he is always the hero, he is misdirecting to appear flawless and enable himself to “humbly” receive all the inevitable praise.

Deja vu

Using the sermons, stories, and work of others as your own is a way to appear more advanced than you are and to shield yourself from risk by using something that has already worked. Much could be said about plagiarism but that will have to be for another time. I’m talking here about straight copying something from someone else and passing it off as your own. Of course, in so doing you receive all the credit and praise that belongs to someone else. When a preacher steals from someone else to present it to others, he is misdirecting from a lack of study and preparation. If he can add in some of the other tricks we’ve considered, his purloined sermon can also appear fresh.

Conclusion

Many of the tricks I’ve listed can be used in a non-trick and legitimate way. However, when you see a pervasive and persistent presence of these things in a man’s ministry, you know he is pulling tricks. You probably also noticed that many of these tricks provide cover for a lack of study and preparation to preach. When a man studies as he ought to study (1 Timothy 4:6-16; 2 Timothy 2:15; 4:1-5), he has no need of tricks and won’t have time for them, because he will have too much Bible to preach to his people. I hope this will be a help to young preachers to take heed how they hear (Luke 8:18). Don’t assume that because something is well received by a group of people that it is of God or good Bible preaching (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Preaching Historical Narrative

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
~ Romans 15:4

Most of the stories were tales from childhood and were told to humorous effect. A good storyteller is able to hold your interest, build suspense, pique your curiosity, make you laugh, and deliver a satisfying payoff at the end. They accomplished this by their voice and gestures in the delivery, but also by arrangement of the story. They wouldn’t simply recite the facts in strict chronological order—this happened, then this happened, then that happened. They would arrange them to the effect they wanted and they would emphasize certain parts over others. A good storyteller can make a mundane occurrence interesting and a bad storyteller can make the most exciting incident unbearable.

Story in the Old Testament

A sizable portion of the Old Testament is historical narrative, or story. I don’t mean story in the sense that it is made up, but story refers to the narrative structure of the account. The stories in the Old Testament are there for a reason. They are intended to teach us (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11).

The structure of the account, what’s there, what’s not there, and the emphases made are all guides to the intended meaning. Our first concern with every passage of Scripture is to find out what it means in its original context. That is true regardless of whether it is historical, prophetic, poetic, or didactic.

Finding original intent can be very challenging in historical narratives of the Old Testament. Many preachers err at this point with Old Testament story. They use them for analogy or illustration without giving any attention to what the story means. I was at a conference many years ago and listened to a preacher take an obscure Old Testament passage and proceed from it to preach a message about the New Testament church. I remember after the message someone remarked that they never knew that [Old Testament story] was about the church. I could only respond that the Holy Spirit never knew it either.

What that preacher did was make an analogy between that story and the church. He said true things about the church but the problem was that he didn’t preach it as analogy but presented it as what that story meant. I would say to such preachers that they’re obviously clever and creative. They have been gifted by God, but they should always subject their creativity to the text and never subject the text to their creativity. It can be legitimate to make an analogy or illustration from an Old Testament story, but preach it as an analogy and not as what the passage means. And, by all means, know what the story means in its original context.

So I want to consider an Old Testament story for an example. I’m not going to do an exposition of the story but rather I want to point out some of the story structure aspects and maybe give you some help in asking the right questions and noticing the clues in the account.

Judges 19

Judges 19 is one of the most disturbing accounts in Scripture and it’s not familiar to us. One of the first clues to the significance of the story is the length of it. It takes a while to unfold and lead to the civil war in chapter 20. So it has our attention, how do we determine its meaning?

First, you want a big picture view. What’s the connection to the story before this one and after it? You need to know somethings about the book the story is in. What kind of book is it? What is the main theme of the whole book? What are the main divisions of the book? Where is this story in the book?

In this case, Judges is structured in three main sections.

• 1:1-3:6 is introductory and provides a quick summary of the failure of Israel to complete the conquest of Canaan after the death of Joshua.
• 3:7-16:31 is the main section of the book and gives the account of the judges, who were deliverers of the people from the pagan nations who were afflicting them.
• 17:1-21:25 is the final section of the book and these chapters differ significantly from the rest of the book. There are no judges and no threats from foreign nations. These accounts are all inside Israel.

When you dig into the chronology of Judges, it is not at all certain that the events of chapters 17-21 happen after the death of the last judge. So why are these chapters placed where they are and what does that tell us about their meaning? If we consider just this last section of Judges, we find it also divides into three main parts.

• Chapters 17-18 begin the section with religious sins in the form of idolatry and corrupt worship.
• Chapter 19 proceeds to narrate an account of the grossest immorality within Israel.
• Chapters 20-21 tell of the bloody civil war where the tribe of Benjamin was nearly wiped out and the unjust reconstruction they suffered at the hands of the other tribes.

This section reveals a connection and a progression. Chapter 19 gives a picture of moral failure down to the man-on-the-street in Israel. It’s not about leaders or international politics. It deals with marriage, hospitality, and uncommon lust.

The main nasty business of this story happens in Gibeah, but it takes a while to get there. From verse 3 to verse 10, we are stuck in Bethlehemjudah. This part of the story is so fascinating because it seems so un-fascinating. It seems monotonous and why does it take so long? The Levite has gone to Bethlehemjudah to recover his wife from her father’s house and day after day he tries to leave and his father-in-law convinces him to stay. It takes eight verses to say what could have been said in a couple of sentences. Why?

Well I’m not going to do all the heavy-lifting for you but hopefully this has been helpful to how to approach Old Testament stories. One other thing I would mention is to pay attention to what things are emphasized in the story. For instance, in Judges 19:1-20:6 the Levite’s wife is called a concubine ten times. Why is that emphasized? The fact they were married is emphasized also by reference to the Levite being a husband twice, the Levite’s father-in-law three times, and the Levite being a son-in-law once. It certainly seems there’s something significant being said. Happy studying.