May 3, 2017 Show with Ray Rhodes, Jr. on “Susannah Spurgeon: Princess of the Prince of Preachers”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this third day of May 2017.

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She was married to one of the most famous preachers in history. She gave away 200 ,000 books to poor pastors and even planted a church.

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She was the author of five books, co -editor of and primary contributor to a massive four -volume autobiography of her husband and author of numerous other articles.

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However, she is the subject of only one brief biography written in 1903.

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She has been mostly overlooked by scholars and authors and I'm speaking of Susanna Spurgeon, Princess of the

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Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and we're going to discuss Susanna Spurgeon today with Ray Rhoades Jr.

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who is an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, founder of Nourished in the

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Word Ministries and books that nourish, blogger at the Dancing Puritan, and author of such books as Family Worship for the

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Reformation Season, Family Worship for the Thanksgiving Season, Family Worship for the

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Christmas Season, The Marriage Bed, and The Visionary Marriage. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Ray Rhoades.

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Well, thank you, Brother Chris. It's great to be on your show today. And in studio with me as a special guest co -host,

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Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Gerard. It's great to have you back in the studio. It's good to be back with you,

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Chris, and good to be on the same line with my friend, Brother Ray Rhoades. And he is also a co -elder at Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia.

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And in studio again is a more regular co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. Great to have you back in studio.

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Thank you very much. Good to be here. If anybody would like to join us on the air today with a question of your own about Susanna Spurgeon, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Pastor Ray, I know that you've done this before since you've been a guest on the program, but for those of you, for those in our listening audience who have just discovered you, tell our listeners something about Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia.

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Yes, sir. Grace Community Church is just over 12 years old, formally constituted, met informally before that.

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A Baptist congregation here in North Georgia committed to the doctrines of grace, expository preaching, a godly fellowship, a growing fellowship, and it's a joy to serve with my brother,

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Kevin Gerard, who is an elder with me at the church. And we're excited. It's a great place to be, the northernmost metro

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Atlanta County, Dawson County. So we're in a growing area, vibrant community, and great opportunity to preach the gospel here.

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Praise God. And for our listeners who are either living in the

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Dawsonville, Georgia area, or they are visiting there, planning to visit there, or if they have loved ones living near there, have them directed, or if it's you, please visit

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Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, and their website is GraceChurchDawsonville .org.

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GraceChurchDawsonville .org, D -A -W -S -O -N -ville .org. And you have, as I said in my announcements, quite a prolific writer, and you have the family worship books for many of the seasons.

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Are we to expect family worship for the Kwanzaa season coming out soon?

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No, I don't think so. Obviously, I was just kidding, but do you have any others coming out in that series?

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Because you haven't exactly addressed every single holiday yet. Not yet. My wife has been pressing me for a number of years to write family worship for the

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Easter season, so that will be the next one in the series. I'm just sort of focused on Spurgeon right now, but I hope to write family worship for the

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Easter season as soon as I can. Those family worship books are produced by our fellow friend,

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Michael Gaydosh at Solid Ground Christian Books, and it's been a great time working with him on those books.

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Yes, and Mike Gaydosh is not only a dear friend and a sponsor of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, but he's also the very first pastor

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I had after becoming a born -again Christian. So, I dearly treasure my relationship with Mike and always look forward to him returning as a guest on my program as well.

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Go ahead, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I was going to say the family worship for the Reformation season, we anticipate seeing a bit of a revival this year.

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The 500th celebration anniversary of the Reformation, October 31st, 1517.

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So, we have just ordered a large quantity of those for our bookstore, and Solid Ground will be promoting those as well.

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So, that's my favorite in the series. And the subject matter today, as I've already mentioned,

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Susanna Spurgeon. What is it about Susanna Spurgeon that so fascinated you that you wanted to dedicate a lot of time to researching her life?

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And in fact, did you not include something about her life in your doctoral dissertation that you're working on?

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I did. I graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary last year, this time, and my doctoral thesis was the title,

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The Role of Bible Intake and Prayer in the Marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon. So, I looked at their marriage and also, specifically, the role of the spiritual disciplines in their marriage.

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But I'm attracted to Susanna Spurgeon for many reasons. You listed a number of her accomplishments, and I'm holding in my hand right now the only biography ever written.

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Numerous Spurgeon biographies tell a bit of her story, but only one little biography of Susanna Spurgeon written in 1903 by Charles Ray.

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So, for a woman that gave away 200 ,000 books, planted a Baptist church, essentially called the pastor herself to that church, and authored five standalone books, a significant contributor and co -editor of the four -volume

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Spurgeon autobiography, and numerous other works, to only be one biography in history devoted to her is astonishing to me.

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So, I think her story needs to be told. We need to bring her out of the shadows and let her be known to our generation.

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She is a treasure to the church, and I'm thankful to... And, you know, Chris, much of the work that she accomplished happened while she was an invalid.

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Wow, sorry about that. I almost spilled a scalding hot cup of coffee on my lap. And I would have become an invalid myself, possibly.

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Now, before we even get to that point in her being an invalid, I'd like to know something about her religious upbringing as a child, if any, and what specifically that was, and how the

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Lord providentially drew her to himself and saved her. And then you can get us to the point where she actually became an invalid and so on.

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Right, right. Well, she was born on January the 15th, 1832, the only daughter of Robert Thompson and his wife.

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Very little is known for the first 20 years of her journey, but her parents were nonconformists.

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They were Baptists. They raised her in Park Street Chapel, where Spurgeon would become the pastor in 1854.

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So she was raised as a Baptist, and in the Victorian era, it had been very common for there to be morning and evening devotions.

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Bible reading was an important part of that culture, oftentimes perhaps relying on the veneer of the culture rather than penetrating to the heart of the folks.

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But nevertheless, Susanna would have grown up hearing the Bible read, and she was acquainted with religious literature.

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She was educated, refined, highly cultured, spent all of her life in London.

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Unlike Spurgeon, who was a country boy, she grew up in the city.

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And it was 1852, probably, she was attending services at a church called the

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Poultry Chapel. And while there, she heard the preacher giving an exposition of Romans chapter 10, and she traces her conversion to that point.

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So that's 1852. That's just over a year before she heard

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Spurgeon for the first time at New Park Street Chapel. Almost immediately after her conversion, she fell into a back, she was pouting, not due to any sort of great moral sin, but just doubt in her faith, not really grasping the truth of the gospel, needing discipleship and leadership, and not really having that.

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The pastor of the New Park Street Chapel had left, and the church was declining in number and biblical teaching.

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So lots of things were going on. While Susanna's spiritual declined, the church was declining as well, until Spurgeon came on the scene for the first time in 1853,

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December 18th, 1853, he preached a sermon as a guest preacher of the

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New Park Street Chapel. The morning service was just a handful of people in this historic old building that could have held many more.

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Susanna did not attend, but was encouraged to come back for the Sunday evening service and heard

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Spurgeon for the first time, December 18th, 1853, on Sunday evening, and she was unimpressed.

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Unimpressed with his hair, unimpressed with his attire, unimpressed with his language.

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There was nothing impressive about Charles Spurgeon, this refined, cultured, educated city girl.

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Now when you say unimpressed with his language, do you mean his grammar? Or his accent?

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Or was he using profanity? What do you mean by that? No, no profanity.

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But just the way he would string words together, put sentences together, just was so country fine that it offended her refined sensibilities.

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And so what was it that the Lord used to change her mind so radically that she wound up marrying him?

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Right, in fact, after Spurgeon died, she wrote about that experience, how foolish she had been the first time she heard him.

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Now Suzanne was two and a half years older than Charles, so she nevertheless saw herself as very immature during that time period.

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But it was between January of 1854 and April of 1854, she confided in friends about her spiritual decline.

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And these friends, the only family there in London, members of the church, servants in the church, also had befriended

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Charles. And so they communicated to him Suzanne's spiritual struggles.

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And in 1854, just as a pastor to a parishioner, Spurgeon gave her a copy of the

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Pilgrim's Progress and inscribed it with prayers for her blessed progress in the faith.

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And after that time, they began meeting at this friend's home and she confided more and more in Spurgeon and he discipled her a bit in the faith.

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So her heart changed due to his preaching and his pastoral care for her and his counseling to her and his gift of her to the

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Pilgrim's Progress. Now, as we move along, I can tell you how rapidly that turned into romance.

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And I'd like to repeat our email address again. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own on the life of Suzanne Spurgeon or even on Charles Spurgeon, the email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. By the way, I do have a listener in Dawsonville, Georgia who has written us.

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Adrian, he says, I'd love to know how much Mr. Mr. Mr.

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Dr. Pastor Rhodes loves and appreciates his wonderful and talented son -in -law. Oh, that's obviously

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Adrian Rink who works alongside Todd Friel at Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. And he sent this in and said he's listening to the program today.

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Oh, that's great. Adrian is almost as tall as Todd Friel if you've ever seen

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Todd. He's a tall guy. Yeah, I've seen them both in Georgia at the G3 conference. Oh, that's right.

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You met Adrian. Well, he's a wonderful son -in -law because he moved from Minnesota, met my daughter at our church, moved around just down the street from where I live with, and he and my daughter,

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Rachel, have three lovely children, my grandchildren, and one on the way.

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So we're anticipating number four in August this year. So glory and bless with godly son -in -law and lovely grandchildren.

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By the way, we also have an email from Al Yerkes who volunteers with Wretched Radio.

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He's from Mahopac Falls, New York. And he says, did you know that Grace Community Church will be my home church when

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I move down to Georgia? Put in a good word with my future elders. So that's

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Al from Mahopac Falls, New York. Let's hear more about the blossoming romance between Charles and Susanna and their courtship and so on, things that many of our listeners, even those who love

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Charles Spurgeon's writings, might be totally ignorant of. Before you do that, Chris, I wanted to make sure that when

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Ray was describing Susanna's impression of Charles, that Ray wasn't confused in talking about his wife

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Lori's first impression of Ray. Could you confirm that for us,

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Ray? Well, I'll put it like this.

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My wife was living in Buckhead, which is a nice area of Atlanta. And I was a country boy.

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That's funny. My late wife has told people in the past that she was totally unimpressed with me when she first met me.

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And she makes fun of the clothing that I was wearing and thought it was too hip looking or whatever.

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And she thought that I just spoke about myself too much. But anyway, what do we know about what

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Charles' first impression of Susanna was? Well, we don't know exactly what his first impression was.

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We know that, again, he acted pastorally towards her. She was a lovely lady.

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At that point, she was described as, one author described her as slim with long chestnut curls, framing her delightful oval face with hazel eyes, brown hair, brown -eyed beauty.

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She was a lovely young lady, shy, again, refined.

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But we don't know all that Spurgeon thought, much about what Spurgeon thought on the first impression, however, to Susanna's great surprise, things rapidly moved along.

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So after that meeting in April, and by the way, Spurgeon was formally called as pastor of the

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New Park Street Chapel in April of 1854. He'd been preaching on and on since January, also pastoring his church nowadays an hour north, just north of Cambridge, the

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Waterbeach Chapel. So he's managing both congregations until he's formally called as pastor in 1854.

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So that same time period, he's giving Susanna, he's giving Susanna the Pilgrim's Progress. Well, in June, there's the grand reopening of the

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Crystal Palace in London. And the Crystal Palace, sort of equivalent to our

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World's Fair, but this was June the 10th, 1854. Crystal Palace is reopened.

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This is a massive structure crafted from iron and glass.

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And it's originally been built at Hyde Park in London, as the home to the

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Great Exhibition of 1851, but dismantled and then reopened in a

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South London suburb in June of 1854. So Charles and Susanna Thompson, Charles Spurgeon and Susanna Thompson are seated together with friends from the

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New Park Street Chapel. And the crowd is anxiously anticipating the palace's opening ceremony.

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During that time, Charles handed a copy of Martin Tupper's volume, and he always had a book with him from childhood.

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In fact, he would hide away and read books. And throughout his adult life, he always had a book with him.

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So he handed a copy of Martin Tupper's proverbial philosophy to Susanna.

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The book was open to a section titled of marriage. And Tupper wrote in that section that a man should prayerfully seek a wife from God.

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Spurgeon pointed to Tupper's words and whispered to Susanna, do you pray for him who is to be your husband?

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Well, a light came on. Susanna had no idea what had been going on in this young pastor's mind.

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Until that moment. And so she figured out what he was saying.

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And later in life, she would call that day and she reported, I do not remember that the question, a vocal answer, but my fast beating heart was sent a telltale flush to my cheeks and my downcast eyes, which feared to reveal the light, which at once dawned in them may have spoken a language which love understood.

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From that moment, a very quiet and subdued little maiden sat by the young pastor's side.

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And while the brilliant procession passed around the palace, I do not think she took so much note of the glittering pageant that followed before her as of the crowd of newly awakened emotions, which were palpitating within her heart.

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So that's just one section. So she went from not knowing to Spurgeon handing her this book, do you pray for him who's to be your husband, to that expression of her feelings that I've just read.

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So April 1854, parishioner needing pastoral counsel,

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June 1854, in essence, Spurgeon's saying, you know, you're the girl for me.

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And then they're engaged in August of 1854. So things are things move rather rapidly in Spurgeon's life at that point.

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Wow. Well, what do we know of the parents of Susanna Spurgeon and their attitude toward him?

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Right, very little, which is frustrating. In fact, I have dear friends in London right now who are digging through archives, trying to find any information that we can piece together about the early life of Susanna, about her parents.

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But her father, Robert B. Thompson, seemed to have been a merchant, a manufacturer, perhaps a ribbon manufacturer, pretty well off, able to give his family the niceties of life.

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We don't even know her mother's name. At least I've not been able to uncover it thus far. But there is a occasion which tells us of her godliness.

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While they were engaged, Spurgeon picked up Susanna at her home. And just a short ways away, he was preaching at an event that night.

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And this was often the case with Spurgeon. He would be so distracted, so focused, I'm sorry, so focused on the work at hand that he would forget other important details.

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For example, like the young lady at his side. So as he walks into this auditorium, side by side with Susanna, he turns the corner, forgets completely, totally about her.

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And her young heart is broken. And so she runs back home to the mother and pours out her broken heart to her mother that, you know, he's forgotten me.

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Well, at the end of Spurgeon preaches, after the service, he dolls on him, he should look for Susanna.

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He's unable to locate her. So he rushes back to her parents' home.

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And her mother wisely meets him at the door, explains the situation to him.

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And she'd already counseled her daughter that she was marrying a man who was no ordinary man.

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And that God had called him and reminded Susanna of the blessing that he was.

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And so they had a good talk that night, worked things out. And from that point forward,

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Susanna made it a point never to be self -centered in her attitude towards Charles and their marriage.

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And they laughed about that later, as is often the case in marriage.

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One bad mistake, such as brother Kevin makes often, can later lead to times of laughter and humor.

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And I know that they had children, I believe two of the children they had were twins, correct?

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That's right. They only had two children. Okay, they only had two. Okay. Yeah, Thomas and Charles. Charles is considered the oldest.

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He came out of the womb first. Thomas was right behind him. So Charles Jr., but Charles Jr.

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really lived beneath the shadow of not only his brother Thomas, but of course also his father.

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Both were faithful ministers of the gospel. So again, think about how rapidly things move along and move along in this person's life, romantically and with his family.

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He's married. He and Susanna get married in 1856, January of 1856.

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The twins are born in late September of 1856. So Susanna is with child pretty soon after they're married.

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And just nine months later, there's Thomas and Charles who were born to them.

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I guess more appropriately, she was with children, not with child. Oh yeah, that's right. Bob, I'm not certain if they knew that she had twins before they were born because back then

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I don't know what kind of clarity doctors had in knowing how many children were in the womb there at that time.

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But we're going to be coming right back to learn more about Susanna Spurgeon and her marriage to Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And perhaps you could think about a question that I'll ask now and you can answer it when you come back.

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We have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who wants to know what you know about the lives and faiths of Spurgeons, those that are in the family tree of Charles Haddon Spurgeon in this country and around the world today.

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So perhaps you could think about that and we'll be right back after this message with this word from our sponsors.

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

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Ray Rhodes, Elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, and an author of a number of books.

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Today we are speaking on Susanna Spurgeon, Princess of the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

34:07

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Before the break, Ray, Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, was asking about the progeny or the descendants of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, what you know of them, if anything, and what their faith is, if you know anything about it.

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Okay, yeah, I don't know a lot about that, especially from Charles Jr.'s

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side of the family. I did have the privilege to visit London a couple of years ago, and while I was there,

34:41

I had the pleasure, my wife Lori and I had the pleasure of meeting Susanna Spurgeon Cochran.

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And Susanna Spurgeon Cochran is the great, great granddaughter of Charles Spurgeon.

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Wow. So her great -grandfather was Thomas Spurgeon, and her father,

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David Spurgeon, passed away a couple of years ago as well, and her mother is still alive.

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But Susanna Spurgeon, a delightful, godly lady, a young mother, and her husband have several children, and seem to be a very godly family.

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In fact, she was at the grand opening of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, where Dr.

35:32

Christian George is the curator. She was there for the grand opening and spoke for that. So she is a

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Christian? She is. She is a godly lady. She is. And do you know if the doctrines of grace followed down the lineage of the

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Spurgeon family? I'm not as aware of the particulars of her theology, but I believe that is the case.

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We have Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana, and she says, Is there any indication of how

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Charles and Susanna handled their separation by distance when he was away preaching when she was an invalid and made to stay at home?

36:15

And she has a second question I'll ask you after you respond to that. Yes, they wrote beautiful love letters to each other and letters of various sorts.

36:26

But Susanna was confined to home after 10 or 12 years of marriage.

36:35

She had surgery that was performed by the father of modern gynecology.

36:42

Gynecology was relatively new at that point in time.

36:50

And in fact, it may be that the surgery was botched and is the reason that she was an invalid, at least partly the reason she was an invalid for the rest of her life.

37:03

And so Spurgeon did travel a lot and from the mid -1870s, due to his own health, he would travel 1 ,000 miles away to Menton, France to seek warmer weather and recovery.

37:18

So he was gone often from his wife and from his church. But the way they managed that, one way was just through letter writing to each other.

37:29

And some of those beautiful letters, I would imagine in Christian history, were between those two.

37:37

In fact, their example in that is a great example for all of us as Christians today and in our own marriages of communication in general, but returning to the art of letter writing.

37:54

And so Spurgeon was responsible for about 500 letters per week that he wrote.

38:01

Susanna helped him with some of those letters. And his correspondence with others is very insightful, but his communication with Susanna is just lovely.

38:14

In fact, it is said that his correspondence to her seemed to come from the gate of heaven.

38:21

And soon after her surgery, while she's recovering, Spurgeon wrote to her as my own dear sufferer and encouraged her.

38:31

He said, oh, may the ever merciful God be pleased to give you ease.

38:37

I must not write more, and indeed matter runs short, except the old, old story of a love which grieves over you and would feign work a miracle and raise you up to perfect health.

38:48

And then he goes on and on and on, yours to love in life, death, and eternally. So that was his primary means of communication with her.

38:58

He wrote to her. And what do we know about what this surgery was, why it was required in the first place?

39:09

What was her health problem that required this surgery? Right. Well, we think that the problem...

39:21

Ray, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you are breaking up from time to time. This may have happened the last time as well, where you cut out completely.

39:29

Can you hear me, Ray? Okay, let me try this. Is it better? Right now it is, yeah.

39:35

Okay, yes. Well, we think, and we don't know for certain, but we think that relatively soon after the twins were born in September of 1856, that Susanna began to experience health problems of some sort of female nature.

39:53

And it surmised that she was in significant pain even the first 10 years of her marriage, but able to manage that pain.

40:01

So this is a guess, but it seems like, and of course, Victorian propriety doesn't give us a lot of results.

40:10

That's not a lot of specifics on her surgery, but it's surmised that she probably had a hysterectomy in 12 years, which would be what, 1860s, late 1860s.

40:25

And by the way, I'm almost certain that a book by Diana Lynn Severance, which was published by Christian Focus Publications, A Cord of Three Strands, I believe that this book contains some of the love letters written by Charles Hadley Spurgeon to Susanna.

40:53

I know that it contains Christian love letters of famous Christians throughout history.

41:02

And I interviewed Diana Lynn Severance several months ago, and I'm almost certain that I can remember hearing her read at least one of the love letters from Charles Spurgeon.

41:15

But those of you listening who have an interest in that, you might want to go to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services website, cvbbs .com,

41:24

C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com, and look up A Cord of Three Strands by Diana Lynn Severance, S -E -V -E -R -A -N -C -E, and it was published by Christian Focus Publications.

41:40

So I think that you will enjoy that. In fact, you could also look up the interview that I did on that same subject with Diana Lynn Severance at ironsharpensironradio .com,

41:52

and then type in Severance in the search engine, S -E -V -E -R -A -N -C -E, and then

42:01

Diana Lynn Severance should come up, and you can find A Cord of Three Strands. The health problems that she had, was that a cause of Great Depression for her or Charles?

42:15

Because I know that it is quite well known that Charles Haddon Spurgeon battled his own depressions, but I don't know if it had any connection with Susanna's health.

42:28

I do know that the fire in the theater where he was holding worship services, or I should say the deaths of those trampled during the false fire alarm, or somebody yelling fire into the doorway, that was a cause of Great Depression for Spurgeon, but what kind of ramifications did

42:50

Susanna's health problems have? Yes, that's a great question.

42:57

Let me back up just a little bit if I can. Spurgeon seems to have suffered from depression even prior to becoming pastor of the new

43:09

Park Street Chapel. Not to the extent that he did later in life, but he did suffer from depression.

43:18

He writes about that a bit, and I don't remember the exact reference, but in lectures to my students as he's talking to them, a section called the

43:26

Minister's Fainting Fits, I believe is the title of the chapter in that book, and then in 1856, you know, again, the babies, the children, twins are born in September.

43:37

In October, he's preaching for the first time at the music hall. The church is growing so rapidly, they're trying to find space, and so they rent this music hall, and he's preaching on a

43:48

Sunday night there, Sunday morning services with the new Park Street, Sunday night at the music hall, and as he approaches the building, there's 10 ,000 people outside that can't get in.

44:00

He's stunned, and he could barely get in, and then he goes into the music hall.

44:05

There's 10 ,000 people packing the music hall, and I mean,

44:11

Spurgeon said himself that he could call a, announce a sermon at any given location on a midnight in a snowstorm, and it'd be packed to capacity.

44:24

Such was the popularity of Spurgeon, even in those early days, and so that's when that event that you described happened.

44:30

The mischief makers cried out, fire, fire, and people panicked, and several were trampled to death.

44:37

Others were hospitalized. Spurgeon collapsed, almost died, almost quit the ministry himself, and from that point forward, his depression was much more pronounced.

44:52

And you have told us, as I repeated in the outset of the program, that she gave away 200 ,000 books to poor pastors.

45:02

I mean, did this involve Charles Haddon Spurgeon coming home one day and looking into his library and being shocked, seeing empty shelves in his own study, or how did she get a hold of these books?

45:14

What books did she select, and how did she know about these poor pastors to begin with?

45:19

That's quite a number of books. Yeah, well, the 1875,

45:27

I believe, is the date. Again, I'm pulling a lot from memory here, when Spurgeon handed her a copy of Volume 1 of Lectures to My Students, a manuscript,

45:41

I believe, and Susanna looked at that and she said, I wish I could place a copy of this in the hands of every pastor in England.

45:50

And Spurgeon said, well, why don't you? And so, in essence, she went up in what we would maybe call in the country, looked in the egg jar, found some money that she had stored away for future use, and the book fund began.

46:09

And so she initially, and primarily throughout the course of the book fund, from 1875 -76 to her death, she gave away copies of Spurgeon's books.

46:22

Her and the publisher worked out an agreement. She bought the books at a discount, raised funds for those books.

46:31

Home was Grand Central Station for stacking books, boxing books, mail books.

46:37

And pastors, many pastors were very poor in British Isles, and Susanna and Charles had a heart for poor pastors and their families.

46:47

Not only did she give away these books, but she raised money for clothes and food and help for these pastors.

46:55

So over the course of her life, she was responsible for several thousand books being given to these poor pastors.

47:04

And the pastors, do you know what theological background were they from?

47:10

They were from, were they predominantly Baptists and Evangelicals and so on, or were they from varying degrees of religious backgrounds?

47:18

They were from varying degrees. I believe that Baptists had priority, but pastors from various doctrines or denominational perspectives received and benefited by and wrote letters back thanking

47:36

Susanna for those books. She wrote, two of the five books that she authored were on the book fund.

47:45

The first one is titled, Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund, and the second one is Ten Years After.

47:52

And in those books, she recounts the story of the book fund, but also she inserts numerous stories of her marriage to Charles and their experience together.

48:06

I think you're starting to cut out again, Ray, but the books that she has written herself, oh, by the way,

48:13

I wanted to give a word to all the wives out there who give your husbands a hard time for buying too many books.

48:22

Well, look what Susanna Spurgeon did. She bought 200 ,000 books to give away to strangers.

48:30

But tell us something about the books that she herself wrote. Right. She wrote three devotional books, at least.

48:41

There may be one more, but three devotional books and the two books on the book fund, so five books.

48:50

And one of the devotional books is especially near and dear to my heart.

48:56

It's a book called A Cluster of Camphor, Words of Cheer and Comfort to Sick and Sorrowful Souls.

49:04

It's written after Spurgeon's death, and so it's written from her own experience.

49:10

Yes, I actually did an interview with the folks at Particular Baptist Press who brought that back into print.

49:18

That's right. I have a copy of it right here on my desk, and I'll read that. As part of my research on Susanna, I'm doing an analysis of her writing and considering books that she read that influenced her, as well as the books that she wrote and how she used

49:35

Scripture in her books and her themes. She was a theologian. In fact, if you didn't know, if you just took her name off the book and put

49:45

Charles Spurgeon's name on it, she's an excellent writer. It'd be difficult for many to discern the difference between her and Charles.

49:57

Now, I already mentioned that Particular Baptist Press has reprinted

50:03

A Cluster of Camphor. Are any of these other books available in print today?

50:10

They are. By smaller publishers, there's A Basket of Summer Fruit by Susanna Spurgeon.

50:18

My edition is just an inexpensive paperback that was done by Corner Pillar Press.

50:26

I'm not familiar with them. I just picked it up on Amazon. And Better Truth has a book,

50:34

Susanna Spurgeon's Free Grace and Dying Love, one of her devotions, and they include in this devotional book,

50:42

Morning Devotions, the biography of Susanna Spurgeon by Charles Ray.

50:48

So that's included and it's available by Better Truth. So yes, you can get all of the devotional books in print.

50:56

It is very difficult to get older editions of those or of the book fund reports.

51:04

I happen to have the first 10 years of my life book fund, which was from the 1886 edition that I had, which was about the time it came out.

51:14

So it's maybe the third printing of that. But there are some people who have reprinted those and you can find them from time to time.

51:24

Did she get any negative feedback, this being in the 19th century and being in a theologically conservative

51:35

Christian household, a theologically conservative husband who is in the ministry?

51:41

Did anybody raise eyebrows or raise an eyebrow to her writing books that involve theology and look upon this as something improper for a pastor's wife to be doing?

51:55

I have not run across anything like that, so everything

52:00

I've seen has been positive. And again, when I say she wrote theologically, in any given devotion, you may be reading about imputation, details on the atonement justification by faith, the doctrine of God, the immutability of God.

52:17

I mean, just on and on and on. All of the key doctrines of the Christian faith, the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, great sections on the sovereignty of God.

52:28

She writes as a master theologian. So no one's ever published a theology of Charles Spurgeon that I'm aware of, where maybe they have a thematic, but could put together a systematic theology from Susanna Spurgeon just from her devotional writings.

52:47

Wow, that's something. We're going to our midway break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

52:57

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

53:06

USA. So don't go away. We are going to be right back, God willing, with Ray Rhodes and more of the life of Susanna Spurgeon right after these messages.

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Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals at the

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Harvey Cedars Bible Conference in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey. The speakers include

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Alliancenet .org. Click on events, and then click on the Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat, and you'll have all the information that you need.

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I do not believe this is restricted to pastors only, so just make sure you contact them to find out all the details that you need to be able to attend.

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The next event that I'm letting you know about is restricted to church leaders, pastors, deacons, and others.

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This is the Banner of Truth U .S. Ministers Conference, which is going to be held Tuesday, May 30th through Thursday, June 1st in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the

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click on Events, and then click on 2017 U .S. Ministers Conference.

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Also coming up June 22nd through the 23rd in New York City, Sermon Audio is conducting the

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Foundations Conference that I am also planning to attend. This conference will feature such speakers as Dr.

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Stephen J. Lawson, Dr. Joel Beeky, Phil Johnson, and Todd Friel, and others.

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And that again is June 22nd through June 23rd in New York City in the

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Chelsea area of New York City. And for more details about registering for this conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com,

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thefoundationsconference .com, and I hope that you look for me while you're there and have a bit of fellowship with me if you can attend.

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Last but not least, I want you to know about the Fellowship Conference New England to be held

01:06:04

August 3rd through the 5th in Portland, Maine, and speakers at this conference include

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Pastor Don Curran, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, Pastor Jesse Barrington, Pastor Nate Pickowitz, and the theme actually of the

01:06:23

Fellowship Conference New England is that there is never a theme. They let the pastors preach on whatever has been burdening their hearts, and it's more of a free -flowing conference in that regard.

01:06:35

I'm sure the men prepare for their messages, but they do not get a title or a theme allotted to them.

01:06:44

They preach on whatever they believe the Lord is leading them to preach at this conference. It is a theologically reformed or sovereign grace conference, and for more details on registering for that conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

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fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. Last but not least, I have to remind you that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is in urgent need of additional funding.

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I thank all of you from the depths of my heart who have already generously given to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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In fact, some of you have given multiple times, and I cannot express to you in the English language how deeply grateful

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So I thank you for your time and your patience in allowing me to give these appeals publicly for funds and for advertising, and again,

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I appreciate your prayers very much. We have, returning to our discussion today,

01:10:02

Ray Rhodes Jr. He is pastor of Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, and he is speaking today on Susanna Spurgeon, the princess of the

01:10:13

Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and in the studio with me I have a co -elder of his,

01:10:18

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, and also the

01:10:24

Reverend Buzz Taylor, who is my regular co -host here on the program. Our email address, if you have a question, is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:10:31

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and Pastor Ray, some of the things that we were discussing or that I was announcing at the beginning of the program, all the things that are so admirable about this dear woman,

01:10:49

Susanna Spurgeon. We have already discussed how she was very benevolent and generous in giving away 200 ,000 books to poor pastors, and that she actually had a fund for that and saved money for that.

01:11:04

She planted a church on her own. Tell us something about how that came about.

01:11:12

That's quite an interesting story there. Yes, after Spurgeon died, she was able to leave her home while it was being remodeled, and I think it was

01:11:28

April of 1895, she traveled to Bexhill, and while there she asked about a

01:11:37

Baptist meeting place, and someone replied to her that they had never heard of a

01:11:43

Baptist meeting place, and someone else told her, well, there had been some Baptists trying to meet some years prior, but nothing had really come of that, and so Mrs.

01:11:55

Spurgeon, vacationing while her home was being remodeled, is concerned that Bexhill doesn't have a

01:12:03

Baptist church, and so she begins pondering and praying and thinking about what to do.

01:12:10

In the meantime, she returns home, and while there a dear pastor and his wife, friends of her and had been friends of Charles, were visiting her at her home, and they were seeking a ministry as well, and nothing had come to pass.

01:12:28

So it came to her mind one day that this pastor, if God would will, would be an excellent leader to plant a congregation in this town that she had been visiting, and so that ultimately came to pass.

01:12:47

She did everything in her power to raise funds in advance. She believed, as her husband did, that the church should have no debt, and so one thing led to another.

01:12:59

They bought property, they built a building, and she said there would be no bazaars, no concerts, and no worldly entertainment.

01:13:12

Ray, you're breaking up again. Yes, I'm sorry. Let me speak a little louder. Yeah, the last thing you said, there would be no worldly entertainment.

01:13:20

Those were your last words, and then you broke up. Right, so she wanted to build this church building not relying on anything that she considered to be worldly, such as bazaars or concerts or whatnot to raise money, but that God's people would do so, and the

01:13:36

Metropolitan Tabernacle also gave money to help support the church. So in 1897, the church was formed with 40 members.

01:13:45

The cost of the building was 1 ,300 pounds, and the other cost of land and various expenses was about 250 pounds more, and so she, in essence, planted the church, organized many of the events surrounding the founding of that church, and single -handedly, of course the church agreed upon it, called the pastor of the church.

01:14:11

So this, again, is her health seems to have improved a bit after Spurgeon died, and she was able to be involved in more pursuits of her home, but that's astounding to me, that this widow lady, suffering under great grief, is able to, anyone that's been involved in church planning, know what a task, and a joyful task often, but what a task it is to plant a congregation.

01:14:40

Now, where was she herself worshiping after Charles Haddon Spurgeon and her husband went home to be with the

01:14:47

Lord for eternity? Right, well, again, not able to attend church regularly.

01:14:56

Okay, because of the physical disability. Right, but it does seem that she had improved some, and her son

01:15:03

Thomas is now the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and she supports him and his work there, and also the tabernacle has to rebuild after a fire.

01:15:17

She helps raise money for the rebuilding of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. That's another venture that she is involved in with her son

01:15:26

Thomas, so her membership and her participation, as she was able, remained at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

01:15:32

And Erin from Indianapolis, Indiana has another question. She says, could you please ask if or how

01:15:40

Susanna helped her husband with depression? Yes, that's a great question.

01:15:47

A couple of things that she would do. Sunday evenings, Spurgeon would come home, and any pastor knows what it feels like after preaching his heart out on a

01:15:59

Sunday. There's often a depression that he feels. In fact, it's often been joked that every pastor has a resignation letter that he's prepared to submit on Monday morning.

01:16:13

He puts it on his desk and prays, and by Tuesday morning he puts it away and he falls on his legs.

01:16:22

And so on Sunday evenings, Spurgeon felt that way, and Susanna would read to him.

01:16:29

She would read poetry, the poetry of George Herbert to him to lift his spirits, and when

01:16:36

Spurgeon felt that he needed a bit of convicting and confrontation, she would read

01:16:43

Richard Baxter to him. So she read to him, and also after the

01:16:49

Music Hall disaster, she had a Bible verse printed and placed over on their bedroom wall so that he would see it every day.

01:17:00

I believe it's, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So reading was frequent.

01:17:07

She would frequently read to him and write letters to him, and she put the Bible verse there to encourage him.

01:17:15

If you don't mind, Chris, earlier you'd asked me a question about how her affliction affected his own depression, and I stumbled across just a paragraph in the book, the checkbook of the

01:17:33

Bank of Faith. In fact, it's my favorite, I like it,

01:17:38

I love this book more than Morning and Evening. I love Morning and Evening a lot, and Spurgeon wrote this book,

01:17:45

I think, soon after, during and after the downgrade controversy, the last great controversy of his ministry in the late 1800s, and Susanna believed it was that controversy that killed him.

01:18:01

He was involved in about five great controversies in his ministry, but in the preface to the checkbook of the

01:18:09

Bank of Faith, Spurgeon writes these words to hint at how he was feeling about Susanna and her suffering, and also the controversy.

01:18:18

He said, I commenced these daily portions when I was waiting in the surf of controversy.

01:18:25

Since then, I have been cast into waters to swim in, which but for God's upholding hand would have proved waters to drown in.

01:18:36

I have endured tribulation from many flails, sharp bodily pain succeeded by mental depression, and this was accompanied both by bereavement and affliction in the person of one dear as life, that Susanna.

01:18:54

The waters rolled in continually, wave upon wave. I do not mention this to exact sympathy, but simply to let the reader see that I am no dry land sailor.

01:19:07

And so not only Spurgeon's own suffering, the loss of friendships due to the controversy, the bodily pain that he faced, the mental depression, but his heart was heavy over the bereavement and affliction of Susanna, the one he called the person of as dear as life to him.

01:19:27

And so, yes, he was deeply burdened over his wife's affliction and expressed that.

01:19:35

I think that's the only sort of specific reference to her affliction and how it may have affected him personally that I've read, even though he mentions that in his letter to her and he's praying for her and she for him.

01:19:49

Kevin Gerard has a question or comment. Ray, I wanted to set up a response for you.

01:19:57

So you keep talking about affliction and suffering. So I have in my mind an

01:20:04

American celebrity pastor and his wife with the aids of various age defying measures, spray on tans and who paint a picture for perhaps an unsuspecting seeker of a prosperity that accompanies gospel ministry that's very different from the picture that you are painting for us of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon.

01:20:37

So could you perhaps describe how that false picture of marriage and the gospel will lead into despair and how the affliction and the suffering that you're describing with Charles and Susanna Spurgeon lead to something else entirely?

01:20:58

Ray, are you still there? Ray, I think that we lost

01:21:04

Ray. All right. You know what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to our final break. I'm going to go to our final break now, and hopefully we'll have

01:21:14

Ray Rhodes back on the air with us when we come back from the break. If you'd like to join us as well, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:21:23

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages with Ray Rhodes.

01:21:35

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01:25:48

This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes of the next half hour to come has been and will continue to be

01:25:57

Ray Rhodes of Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, an author, a conference speaker, and today he is addressing the subject

01:26:04

Susanna Spurgeon, Princess of the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. In studio with me is

01:26:11

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Gerrard. He is a co -elder along with Ray Rhodes at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, and also my more regular co -host

01:26:20

Reverend Buzz Taylor is in studio as well. Before the break, Ray, before we lost you somehow,

01:26:27

Lieutenant Colonel Gerrard was asking a question. If you could re -ask that question. Sure.

01:26:33

So Ray, I have in my mind's eye an image of a certain American celebrity pastor and his wife who portray an image of health and wealth and prosperity that appears to many to accompany the gospel.

01:26:53

We would say the false gospel that they proclaim. But we've been listening to you talk about suffering and affliction.

01:27:02

So maybe you could compare or perhaps better contrast that image of the prosperity gospel and the false prophets that proclaim it and why it leads them to despair versus the hope there is in the lives of Charles and Susanna.

01:27:23

Yeah, that's an excellent question, Kevin. I remember talking to a prosperity minded pastor one day and he told me that Job's problem was in essence a lack of faith, as we were discussing the book of Job, that certainly the losses that Job faced were due to Job's own lack of faith.

01:27:48

And in fact, it's just the opposite. It was because of Job's faith, the faithfulness that he suffered.

01:27:57

In fact, the Scriptures say in all that he went through, he did not sin. That's right, that's right.

01:28:03

The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. I mean, he had questions, he had doubts, he went through intense struggles, but his loss was directly connected to his faithfulness, not his lack of faithfulness, which is very different from the prosperity message.

01:28:18

Now Charles and Susanna, in the early days of their marriage, they didn't have a lot of money, but that changed.

01:28:25

Their income increased substantially. And in fact, if Spurgeon had kept all of his money or invested all of his money, he probably would have been a multi -millionaire.

01:28:37

However, there was not much left when he died. He had enough to take care of Susanna for the rest of her life.

01:28:44

They had a very nice home. They had folks, a company, household managers and whatnot that helped them.

01:28:52

So they were relatively well -off financially, but Spurgeon gave away so much money to his own church, to other causes, to pastors.

01:29:02

Susanna was like that as well. They gave away their money. And so when she died, there was almost nothing left in the estate except Spurgeon's library.

01:29:12

She held on to that. In fact, she considered those 12 ,000 volumes that remained her most precious possession.

01:29:20

And when she died, the sons sold half of that library that ended up ultimately now at the

01:29:26

Midwestern Seminary because there was no money. They needed money. And that's astonishing to think that all of that money came through Spurgeon's hands, and yet he didn't hold it tightly.

01:29:38

He let it continue on into other ministries and other situations. And so in the midst of all of this, again, they are afflicted with physical suffering, intense physical suffering.

01:29:51

One of the problems that Spurgeon had, which is I think a form of rheumatoid arthritis, is gout.

01:29:59

And he said, you know, put your foot in a vice and tighten it ten times, and then tighten it ten times more, and you begin to get to the subtle understanding of what gout feels like.

01:30:10

Kidney disease. So all the physical ailments that they suffered. The mental depressions that he went through.

01:30:19

Sometimes he would cry uncontrollably and not really know why. Just dark nights that he experienced.

01:30:27

And then the controversies that he faced. Theological controversies. He battled for the faith.

01:30:33

And the last one, Fred abandoned him. He was finished by the

01:30:38

Baptist Union. Even his own brother did not stand with him at the end. So they lived a very difficult life, and yet in the midst of that, they rejoiced in Christ.

01:30:53

And when Susanna wrote about suffering, she saw suffering as God's means of displaying to his children his comfort, his love, removing their grip from this world, strengthening their faith and their faithfulness, making them more useful to others.

01:31:12

And so the opposite of the health and wealth. They had a strong foundation to stand upon and a strong confidence in a

01:31:21

God who is the God of all comfort and Father of all mercies. And that was their hope.

01:31:27

Now, Spurgeon believed, indeed, that God had made promises to his children. And that those promises are there at the bank of heaven.

01:31:37

And we must simply endorse the check and receive God's promises that he's given to us.

01:31:42

But he didn't mean by that, name it and claim it when it comes to homes and the vacations and the

01:31:51

Mercedes, those sorts of things. It was the promises of God in Scripture.

01:31:58

You know, some people think that the vicious way the press attacks well -known people and political figures, they think that this is something new, but anybody who has seen some of the old newspapers and other writings of centuries past, they discover how vicious people were even back then, perhaps even more vicious in some ways, the way that they would mock political figures and other well -known figures in society.

01:32:34

And I am sure Spurgeon must have been the butt of many a joke and the subject of a lot of attacks verbally and in writing because of the fact that he had enemies, it seemed, on several different fronts.

01:32:50

I know that he had the enemies to his right in the hyper -Calvinist camp, and he had the enemies on the other end of the spectrum involved in the downgrade controversy.

01:33:02

So he was really surrounded, if you will, very often by enemies. And we know about the wives of well -known figures, unfortunately being the target of attacks as well.

01:33:18

Was Susanna a part of the jokes and the attacks by those who opposed

01:33:25

Spurgeon and his agenda? I am not familiar with any attacks that Susanna personally received or that was written about.

01:33:35

You are right, when Spurgeon burst onto the scene in London, the newspapers, back in those days as well, the religious life of the community was front -page news, and the

01:33:49

Christian faith. Sermons would be published in newspapers and whatnot. Of course, nowadays it is hard to imagine such a scenario.

01:33:58

But Spurgeon was caricatured in cartoons. He was denounced in the press.

01:34:04

He was also denounced by the pastors. And Spurgeon was rather progressive in many ways. For example, renting the music hall.

01:34:13

And many on the far right side of things soundly criticized him for using the theater or using that which is where worldly activities take place, as they would describe it, to be a place for preaching the gospel.

01:34:30

So yes, I don't know of anything specifically that Susanna faced, but as any pastor's wife would convey, the attacks that their husbands face, the criticisms that their husbands receive, weigh heavily upon their hearts, the wife's heart.

01:34:49

Susanna felt that, and she shielded him from some of that. Well, I'd like you to lay out some of the primary things that you want our listeners most to remember about Susanna Spurgeon and also the things that you think will ignite interest and further study on this great woman of history in the lives of our listeners who may want to pursue more actively finding out more about Susanna Spurgeon.

01:35:23

Yes, well, I would encourage your readers to do just that. Start with her own writings.

01:35:30

That's the best way to get to know anyone, is read those devotional books.

01:35:36

I've been greatly encouraged by doing that, and if you can get your hands on a copy of the book, find reports.

01:35:43

Again, a lot of that's just reporting, but biographical material inserted within the biographies of Spurgeon usually have some information about Susanna, but also one of the ways to get to know a person, a

01:36:00

Christian leader, for example, a great Christian in history that you admire, is to read what they read and who influenced them, and Susanna was greatly influenced by some of the same people that Charles was.

01:36:16

Samuel Rutherford, for example, I would say, and I'm not positive about this, but my guess is the two greatest literary influences on Charles Spurgeon was

01:36:27

Samuel Rutherford and especially the letters of Samuel Rutherford and, of course,

01:36:34

John Bunyan, the Pilgrim's Progress, but equally so the Holy War. And so both

01:36:40

Charles and Susanna were influenced by Rutherford and John Bunyan. Susanna was very influenced by Francis Havergill, a hymn writer and author of other devotional books as well.

01:36:56

Andrew Murray is not...there are things about Andrew Murray that we would not agree with, but both

01:37:05

Charles and Susanna found in him and some of his writings a beauty, a description of the beauty and loveliness of Jesus Christ, and Spurgeon was relatively broad -minded.

01:37:18

If he found an author, it could even be a Roman Catholic author, and we all know that Spurgeon railed against Catholicism and potpourri and missed no words, but if he found a

01:37:30

Roman Catholic author that wrote about the beauty and loveliness of Jesus Christ, Spurgeon loved

01:37:37

Jesus, and he loved accurate portrayals of Christ. So did

01:37:42

Susanna. So I think reading...I'm not going to encourage you to read Roman Catholic authors.

01:37:48

That would be very rare. At the Avid and Spurgeon's day, there'd be someone like that, but Samuel Rutherford and John Bunyan, read her devotional books.

01:37:59

Read her love letters. As you mentioned, one book also. I would encourage everyone to get at least the abridged two -volume autobiography of Charles Spurgeon that Banner of Truth has published.

01:38:13

If you want the full four volumes, Pilgrim Publications has the entire four volumes and two large volumes, but the

01:38:20

Banner is sufficient information there. So Susanna tells their love story in that, and she's pretty open.

01:38:29

So I would love to see young couples read the love story of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon and emulate that love, that care that they had for one another.

01:38:40

I mean, I can still see a picture that was painted in one book of a gentleman who was visiting the

01:38:47

Spurgeon home, and Susanna's very ill and Spurgeon's leading in family worship, and he inches his way over to the sofa where Susanna is and puts his arm around her and prays for the dear one.

01:39:01

And the way they talk to one another, the way they laugh together, and Susanna's goal after Spurgeon died was to continue her husband's, promote her husband's writings and promote his influence and encourage others to spend time reading

01:39:18

Spurgeon's books, and she did that, invested her life in that. Also... Ray, you're breaking up again.

01:39:28

Are you there, Ray? Yes, can you hear me? Now I can, yeah. Okay, I'm very sorry, but suffering with faith and being fruitful,

01:39:39

I know it is very tempting when a person is going through the depths of physical and mental pain to imagine being fruitful, but Susanna Spurgeon is an example that oftentimes, by God's grace and His Spirit, we can do more than we think we can do.

01:39:59

Our lives can bear much fruit, even from the sickbed, and Susanna certainly exemplifies that through our prayers, through our letters, and in her case, through writing and giving books and goods to poor pastors and their families.

01:40:16

So we all may be afflicted, and who knows the sort of afflictions that will come our way, but Susanna's life tells us that we can be faithful and fruitful in the midst of intense suffering.

01:40:33

So those are a few things I could go on and on. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know if Susanna Spurgeon benefited at all from G .K.

01:40:44

Chesterton, even though he was a Roman Catholic. I am not familiar.

01:40:51

I've not come across Chesterton's name in any of the Spurgeon literature that I've read.

01:40:57

You know who the primary people that blessed both Susanna and Charles, outside of Charles, of course, in literary form?

01:41:06

Who were the writers and perhaps even preachers that they most admired? Again, Puritans.

01:41:15

Spurgeon, when he died, had 12 ,000 volumes in his library. It had been ridiculous. He'd given away some of his own books, but of those 12 ,000 volumes, 7 ,000 of those were either by or about the

01:41:30

Puritans. So Spurgeon's blood was Puritan blood.

01:41:35

In fact, his grandfather, one of the most significant influences in his life, arguably the greatest influence, is described as not only preaching like a

01:41:48

Puritan, but looking like a Puritan. And of course,

01:41:53

Spurgeon's land is Puritan land. So he grew up drinking into Puritans, and so did

01:42:01

Susanna, especially after her marriage to Charles. She was exposed to more and more.

01:42:08

Certainly she would have been exposed to Bunyan from her childhood as well, but after marrying

01:42:14

Spurgeon, it would be John Bunyan against Samuel Rutherford, Andrew Murray, to some extent.

01:42:21

Hymn writers, both Charles and Susanna, are constantly quoting hymns in their books.

01:42:29

But the Scripture, you read any one devotional reading from Susanna, and you will find numerous references from the

01:42:40

Old and the New Testament, and I would say especially the Psalms. So they knew the

01:42:45

Bible, and they knew how to connect the dots from the Old to the New, from passage to passage, illustrating, applying, and explaining the

01:42:54

Scriptures. Let's see, we have

01:43:00

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, did they have any struggles in their marriage like John Wesley and his wife did that were not so beneficial to their married lives?

01:43:16

Yeah, that's quite the contrast, the Wesleys. Is it true that John Wesley didn't attend his wife's funeral?

01:43:24

I've heard that. I don't know, I've never heard that one. Yeah, I believe that may be the case.

01:43:31

So someone told me that John Wesley, I don't know if you could verify this, but John Wesley was at some kind of a gathering of ministers, and I don't know if he walked in during a conversation or how this came about, but there were men who were chuckling and making fun of John Wesley's marriage, and he said something to the effect in retort,

01:43:55

I am sure that none of you are married to a woman who kept you on your knees in prayer more fervently and more often than I have been.

01:44:04

But I don't know if you can verify that or not. That marriage was certainly not exemplary, and there are lots of opinions on the reasons why.

01:44:16

But in Spurgeon's case... Yeah, breaking up again,

01:44:22

Ray. In Spurgeon's case, you just don't feel that.

01:44:28

Of course, they're human, of all the struggles that we've already discussed.

01:44:35

Someone asked me, in fact a professor asked me when I began my research on Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, he asked me, he says, tell me if you find a wife.

01:44:49

And I said, okay, I've never heard that, but I will look for that. And I have found...

01:44:56

I'm sorry, you're going to have to repeat that because you did break up and I couldn't understand you.

01:45:02

Okay, is this working better? Yes, right now it is, yeah. Okay, I'm very sorry.

01:45:08

Next time we'll have to find a direct line somehow to call maybe. It's probably my location.

01:45:15

Okay. But someone had asked me if Susanna was a complainer and unhappy, and I found no evidence of that.

01:45:26

In fact, just the opposite. Early in their marriage, Susanna was weeping a bit when

01:45:32

Spurgeon was about to go and preach, and he gave her some instruction from God's Word.

01:45:39

I mean, she was separated from him a lot, and that's very difficult on any wife, to be separated from her husband for extended periods of time.

01:45:50

And yet she wrote that she made it her aim to never be a hindrance to him and his ministry, and he wrote to her that she never was a hindrance to his ministry.

01:46:03

He saw her only as a blessing, and so he did everything he could to build up his wife.

01:46:11

In fact, when she was recovering from her surgery and they were moving homes,

01:46:18

Spurgeon did the shopping, and he delighted in picking out furniture and other items for their new home.

01:46:26

Now, Brother Kevin's wife, Kelly, and my wife, Maury, would have to be institutionalized.

01:46:38

If they imagined us picking out anything, any kind of decor for our home, Spurgeon did that.

01:46:47

And he picked out a wardrobe, and he wrote her, and he said nothing to the effect that,

01:46:53

I imagine you hanging your clothes in this wardrobe, every thread of them precious in my sight for your sake.

01:47:02

Amen. Yes, I remember, I'm almost certain that Diana Lynn Severance read that same love letter after Charles had purchased something for Susanna.

01:47:12

How long did she outlive Charles? Yeah, Charles died in January the 31st, 1105, 1892.

01:47:24

And Susanna died in October, I believe the 22nd of October of 1903.

01:47:31

So she lived about, well, even though she was two and a half years older than him, she lived,

01:47:37

I'm doing the math here, what about 12 years after Spurgeon died? Now, as you have said, and as we all know, although these were two godly and faithful Christians, very admirable heroes, they still were in the flesh, they still had sins in their lives that they battled, but nonetheless, they are in many ways role models for us.

01:48:07

How would you say that the ladies listening should look upon her as a role model for not only a married life and for the life of a wife, but just the life of a

01:48:25

Christian woman in general, some primary ways that you think that Susanna was a godly role model that should be imitated in many ways?

01:48:35

Right. Well, her marriage being one part of that, of course, we have to place the

01:48:42

Spurgeons in their context. It's easy for us to lift folks out of history and place them in 2017

01:48:49

Georgia and Pennsylvania and New York and California. And so we have to understand a bit of their times and their culture and the thinking that went into that, but there are principles from their lives that we can look to, and in Susanna's case, the way she loved

01:49:09

Charles was through praying for him, through encouraging him, by again reading and writing to him, by working with him.

01:49:20

In fact, she helped him from time to time on researching sermons and books and other things.

01:49:27

He would put her to work. He saw Christian service as a great way for her to be disciple, and especially early in their relationship and their engagement early in their marriage.

01:49:38

So she prayed for him, she encouraged him, she supported him in any way that she could, so she was exemplary as a wife and fruitful in her endeavors.

01:49:50

Again, and also her writing. Now, not everyone is a gifted writer, but everyone can write something, and perhaps one lesson that godly ladies might learn from in Susanna is journaling, just taking a pen and a journal and remembering the providences of God in their family and in their life.

01:50:16

As a parent, both Thomas and Charles contributed much of their spiritual understanding to Susanna, in fact, perhaps more than Charles, because she had more...she

01:50:31

spent more time with them, and she invested more in their spiritual upbringing and was responsible in part in Thomas's conversion.

01:50:41

Charles was converted by a missionary, but he also traces his conversion back to the step of his mother, praying for them, reading the scripture with them, pleading with them for their souls.

01:50:52

So just being faithful to not give up, to plead with your children, pray for your children, read the scripture to your children, to be faithful in that endeavor.

01:51:04

But Spurgeon stepped in as well. There were times when he felt Susanna was doing too much, that she was going beyond what she needed to do, and he would put his foot down and say, you need to rest.

01:51:18

And so he would veto certain activities from time to time so his wife could recover better, and he would take over those responsibilities, such as giving the book fund report from time to time, for she seemed to struggle with that a bit, maybe more than some of the other things that nuts and bolts of the report.

01:51:39

Yes, I remember from my interview with Diana Lynn Severance that his favorite pet name for Susanna was

01:51:45

Wifey, am I correct? That's right. They had a number for one another, but Wifey. Now, especially after Charles went home to Glory with Christ, did

01:51:57

Susanna have any correspondence in writing or even in person, personal meetings and so on, with either other famous evangelists or their wives?

01:52:11

I mean, I know that, for instance, D .L. Moody had visited the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was invited to preach there actually by Charles Adams Spurgeon, and other folks that are fairly well known globally in the

01:52:26

Christian faith. Did she have any such correspondence with people, especially after Charles went home to Glory?

01:52:35

She received a number of letters from dignitaries around the world and there in England as well, and I don't recall at the moment how many visits she had, but Spurgeon was well known, and Christian leaders, when they came to London, they would try to see

01:52:57

Spurgeon and hear him preach, and many of them were welcomed into the Spurgeon home, and they knew Charles and Susanna and witnessed their marriage together.

01:53:05

I'm not certain on the specifics of who may have visited her and the letters that she received after his death, but I'm confident that those relationships continued.

01:53:17

I did think of something sort of humorous, Chris, related to lessons we can learn from Susanna.

01:53:24

My wife and Kevin's wife, our wives are godly women, and they are like Susanna in many ways, but neither of them will allow us to smoke cigars.

01:53:37

You broke up right at the appropriate point, I think. No, no, neither one.

01:53:43

Cigars, I'm assuming you were saying. Are you there, Ray? Well, yeah, they will not allow us to smoke cigars in our home.

01:53:52

Okay. Nor will they allow us to grow a beard, and Spurgeon, as you know, loved his beard and he loved his cigars.

01:54:03

Did Susanna complain about the beard? I don't think so.

01:54:09

I didn't read any complaints, nor about the cigars, and I think someone asked Spurgeon what it was smoking in moderation.

01:54:17

He said, well, you know, moderation smoking only two cigars at a time, I think. Well, before we run out of time, we're going to be closing up in about four minutes.

01:54:30

Just conclude with that in summary form that you most want our listeners to remember.

01:54:36

Yeah, the gospel. Both Charles and Susanna, it is difficult to turn to either of their writings, any page on either of their writings, without hearing the gospel in some form.

01:54:53

It was all about Jesus, and Spurgeon, though he had a great sense of humor, and he was a personality and character in many ways, he was about the gospel, and Susanna was about the gospel, and so if Charles and Susanna Spurgeon were listing in on this, they would say, look, guys, stop talking about us and tell people about Jesus.

01:55:16

And I was reading just before I came on this show today that Susanna writing about the sinners being under God's wrath, how

01:55:25

Jesus willingly bore God's wrath in our stead and died for sinners like us on the cross of Calvary and was raised again and is interceding for us at the right hand of the

01:55:35

Father, and he's calling sinners to come unto Christ, or as Spurgeon converted from the passage in Isaiah, look unto

01:55:42

Christ and be saved. That's the message that Charles and Susanna would give all of us today.

01:55:48

Look unto Christ and be saved, and as Christians, never stop looking unto Christ.

01:55:54

In fact, look unto Christ, wasn't that the words that the preacher kept repeating when

01:56:03

Charles was 15 years old and wandered as a lost boy, wandered into a primitive

01:56:09

Methodist church during a blizzard, wasn't that what the minister kept repeating? That's right.

01:56:14

It wasn't even a minister, I think it was a layman who was there because the pastor was unable to get to the church because of the blizzard, and he was not a very gifted man with his oratory abilities and just kept repeating something, and that's what the

01:56:30

Lord used to crack open the heart of stone within the breast of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

01:56:37

That's exactly right. He even pointed Spurgeon out. He said, you young man, even a fool can look, and you can look.

01:56:46

He commented on how Spurgeon looked so miserable, and Spurgeon was a bit taken aback by that, was not used to being called out in public in a sermon, but nevertheless, that was the text from Isaiah, look and be saved, and Spurgeon looked unto

01:57:01

Christ, and though he had been trained under the scriptures, under the

01:57:06

Puritans, by godly grandparents and godly parents, he didn't know

01:57:11

Christ as his own, and that day, on that snowy January day, he looked unto

01:57:18

Christ and was saved. So God saved sinners, whether they be moral, theologically astute sinners, or whether they be out in the cesspools of society, living in open immorality.

01:57:33

God saves all sorts of sinners by grace through spending in Christ. Amen. Well, I want our listeners to know that the

01:57:41

Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, where Ray Rhodes serves as pastor, you can discover more about that congregation by going to gracechurchdawsonville .org.

01:57:57

You can also go to Ray's website, booksthatnourish .com.

01:58:12

And there is also another website, it is the blog called

01:58:18

The Dancing Puritan, and that's thedancingpuritan .com. Thedancingpuritan .com.

01:58:24

Do you have any more contact information or websites that you care to point out, Ray? We have some websites that are basically down right now, so the best way probably to get in touch with me is through our church website.

01:58:38

If someone would have me come and speak on Charles Spurgeon or lead a conference or whatnot, it's just contacting our church website, gracechurchdawsonville .org.

01:58:47

gracechurchdawsonville .org, gracechurchdawsonville .org. I want to one more time remind our listeners about how to get more information on registering for the conferences that I will be attending.

01:59:02

The Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, April 15 through the 17th.

01:59:08

Go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org. Click on events and click on the

01:59:15

Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat. We also have the Banner of Truth Conference, Minister's Conference, The Living and Enduring Word, May 30th through June 1st.

01:59:26

If you'd like to register for that, go to banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org. The Foundations Conference in New York City, June 22nd through June 23rd.

01:59:35

Go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com, and also fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

01:59:43

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com for the Fellowship Conference New England this August in Maine. I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater