June 17, 2025 Show with Dr. Thomas J. Nettles on “Living By Revealed Truth: The Life & Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in 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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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 17th day of June 2025, and one of my favorite guests to interview is back on the program today.

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I don't know about you, but I absolutely love Christian history, and there are very few men who are capable of conducting an interview on church history as my guest today is capable of doing.

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And his name is Dr. Thomas J. Nettles. He's a renowned

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Baptist historian and prolific author with 38 years of teaching experience, including his 17 years at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, as professor of historical theology.

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And today he's going to be addressing his monumental work, Living by Revealed Truth, the

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Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Tom Nettles. Well, you're very gracious to have me on, Chris. Thank you. Well, it is my honor and privilege, brother.

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And can you tell us, what is the number you have reached with the number of books that you have published?

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Oh, I don't know. Maybe a 15 or so.

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I've been doing some commentaries lately. I have a commentary on 1 Peter and one on 2

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Peter and 1 John and James and Galatians, and then there's going to be one coming out on 1

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Peter and Ephesians soon. I've been really just fascinated with the whole idea of biblical exposition, and I think

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Spurgeon's adeptness at that was one of the things that encouraged me. So those are some of the latest things.

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I did a book on revival that came out in January and published by Founders Press called

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In the Midst of the Years. Oh, I've got to get a hold of that. Yeah.

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So the Lord has let me stay active in that way. Well, praise God for that.

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And, well, why is this book that you have written, which is a very hefty volume on Charles Haddon Spurgeon, why is this book something that you believed you were compelled to write?

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Because as you know, there are scores of books in print by and about Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and from a spectrum of authors.

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And what are the compelling factors that said to you, well, there are a lot of things out there in print about Spurgeon, but there's some void that needs to be filled here, and I have the information that will fill that void.

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And so what were the compelling factors here? Well, of course, first, you have a publisher that contacts you and said, will you do so and so?

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And so if you say yes, then you've got to come up with something to make sure you're not just wasting your time and duplicating what everyone else has done.

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So I mean, the premise of your question is really good and important. But Christian Focus Publications asked me to do this.

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It was a series of things they were doing, and it was supposed to be short, but it turned out to be big.

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And they never asked me to cut it down or shorten it or anything like that. They were willing to go with it.

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I think the thing that began to compel me in it and make me stay with it was just how much

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Spurgeon revealed about his ministry and about himself and about his times in the monthly publication of The Sword and Trowel.

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And I had noticed that there were a good many of the works about Spurgeon, some of the biographies that did not consult his work in The Sword and Trowel, and so that became fascinating to me.

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And it was like a month -by -month description of things he was dealing with and books he was reading and the polemical engagements he was having with the evangelicals of his day or the quasi -evangelicals and, of course, with the

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Baptist Union as he began to get into the downgrade controversy. So those are things that sort of propelled me forward as I began to sort of trace out what he was doing in The Sword and Trowel.

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The sheer monumental nature of his output was just astounding to me.

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Yes. And one of the things that is remarkable to me is that when

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I read Spurgeon, I get the sense that he is or was one of the most brilliant men

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I have ever read. I agree. And the thing that's interesting about that—well, makes it more interesting—is he was not formally educated, was he?

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No, he wasn't. Of course, there was no opportunity for dissenters to get any kind of advanced education in England in those days, and so he began his education on just the regular grammar school, as we would call it, elementary school education and finished a trade school,

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I think. But he went to his grandfather's library and began to read the Puritans when he was really young.

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So his education came through the books that his father and his grandfather owned.

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And of course, he was reading deep theology and applicatory theology and experimental theology and all of these things from the time he was in his single -digit years.

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So he was educating himself very profoundly in the theology of the ages.

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He taught himself languages, too, and so he could read some of the things that were written in Latin. He began to realize the importance of the patristic material and made himself deeply acquainted with that.

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And so he was, yeah, not formally educated, but as far as the knowledge of the literature, the pertinent literature,

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I don't think there was one who was more profound and insightful in his own day than Spurgeon was.

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Yes, and he was a thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist, and since he actually taught and lived out what historic

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Calvinism really is, there are multitudes of folks, especially from the independent fundamentalist

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Baptist circles, who hate Calvinism, who either totally misunderstand

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Spurgeon's position on it and think he was not a Calvinist, or they think that he was only a

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Calvinist on paper or something and that his heart got ahead of his head and he preached the truth, which they believe would be contrary to Calvinism.

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But he was remaining true to the Scriptures and true to Calvinism in his pulpit and pen, was he not?

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Oh, yeah, absolutely, and he didn't make any apology for it. I think there are two issues, two doctrinal issues that Spurgeon was very clear on that were so pertinent in our own day, and particularly as I was working my way within the framework of Southern Baptist life, and we were engaged in the conservative resurgence and the whole issue of the decline of the commitment to biblical authority that existed in the last part of the 19th century that sparked the downgrade controversy.

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This is one of the things that attracted me to Spurgeon and how he dealt with that and what he said about inspiration and therefore infallibility and therefore inerrancy and so forth.

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Those were witnesses that I wanted to be able to highlight in light of what had gone on in my own theological environment.

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And then, of course, we began to deal with the issue of the doctrines of grace, and Spurgeon again is a witness to that, the intensity and the clarity that he had on those two issues that are always pertinent sort of drew me into this desire to know more about what he said and what he did and how he actually worked it out in pastoral ministry.

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So he never separated his evangelism from the doctrines of grace.

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He believed that if you didn't preach the doctrines of grace, you weren't preaching the gospel, and if you weren't preaching the gospel, people would have a false understanding of what it meant to be converted.

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So he was very strong on those, and he would preach a sermon that would be directly on the issue of the atonement, affirming that Christ has died for his sheep and his sheep only and dealing with all the words as to why it was necessary that we believe that, because if it's substitutionary and it's propitiatory, this means that there is a sacrifice that has been made.

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Someone has already been punished and been put to death for our sins. Therefore, he would quote

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Toplady's hymn about payment God cannot twice demand, first at my bleeding shirt, his hand, and then again at mine.

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That was deeply embedded within his framework. So you have to preach that if you're going to preach the gospel, and if you don't preach the gospel, then people will not be converted by believing the truth.

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And so at the end of these sermons where he preached on election or atonement or factual calling, then there would be an evangelistic appeal that was directly in line with that particular theological issue.

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And so he did not see any necessity of compromising his commitment to the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation and a decretal theology set before the foundation of the world.

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He didn't see any contradiction between that and the mandate that God has placed on his ministers of the gospel to preach for conversion, to tell people that they're obligated to believe.

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So that was something that was just so ingrained with him that he did not think that God would contradict himself.

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And so he felt perfectly at home in preaching the doctrines of truth and calling upon sinners to believe.

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Amen. And having said what you did about Spurgeon's very staunch

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Calvinistic commitments and affirmations, he at the same time, from what

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I have read from his own words, had a very ironic and gracious attitude towards those who did not agree with him on those very important matters.

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In other words, he was not among a cult that still exists.

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And I use that term, cult, more as a description of behavior than of false theology.

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But there is a cult of Calvinists out there that believe that there is no one who has eternal life outside of those theological teachings, and Spurgeon would not have been among a group like that.

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Am I correct? Not at all. No. In fact, one person that he eventually came to have deep conflict with over the inerrancy of Scripture was a man named

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John Clifford. John Clifford was a general Baptist, which means basically an

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Armenian Baptist. But he respected John Clifford when he first moved to London, and he even preached in his congregation, preached in his church, and had great respect for the way in which he invited sinners to come to Christ.

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And at that time, Clifford was preaching the reality of the necessity of repentance and faith, substitutionary atonement, and then

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Clifford got caught up in modernism and began to reject the inerrancy of Scripture and some of those vital concepts of the gospel.

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And so it was that rejection of those central doctrines that would make

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Spurgeon begin to have some fairly energetic interactions with those who did not believe those things.

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But he still would be kind to them, and he would try to say things about them in a way like he would talk about John Clifford in The Sword and Trowel, and he would use deflective language.

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We hope that Dr. Clifford is not serious when he says so -and -so and so -and -so because he has had a good ministry and good influence.

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He would do that kind of thing, recalling the good they had done. He also would say very good things about the

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Wesleys and would quote their hymns. And so he was not embattled about it.

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He was clear in his affirmation of the doctrines of grace, and he believed them and he preached them, but he was not embattled about it so that if someone was having a good and godly ministry, even historically in the past or in the present with him, he was certainly willing to call them friends.

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And it was the evangelical General Baptist that came to the support of Spurgeon and some of the primitive

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Methodists that came to the support of Spurgeon in his engagement with the

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Baptist Union on the doctrine of inerrancy. So Spurgeon, yeah, he loved the gospel and he loved people who were committed to it and those who were earnest in their desire to see people repent of sin and come to Christ.

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And he would not engage in any kind of exclusive kind of relationship, exclusivistic kind of relationship with them.

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He even famously invited D .L. Moody to preach from his pulpit.

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Yes, he did. And he preached in D .L. Moody's crusade there in London and wrote an article defending

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D .L. Moody in the Sword and Trowel when people were criticizing him.

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He wrote one defending him because the liberals were talking about how much D .L. Moody talks about repentance and faith in Christ and trying to get people to come and have faith.

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And Spurgeon wrote an article defending the doctrine of justification by faith because he believed that's what

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Moody believed. He believed in substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness. And he knew that people need to have that righteousness before they could be fit to stand before God.

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And so he defended Moody. He was not someone who simply overlooked the inconsistencies that he found in some of the revivalistic movements.

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He knew that Finney had had a sort of a bad influence, but there were some articles in which he even defended

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Finney because of Finney's defense of the deity of Christ and his defense of the inspiration of Scripture.

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And he knew that some of the crusades of Moody preceded cases in which there was sort of wildfire.

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Am I still on? I got a screen that came up. That there was a little bit of wildfire and false conversions, and he recognized that, but he also recognized that there were many true conversions, many additions to the church that happened in Moody's campaigns.

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And so I think your characterization of him is exactly right, that he was clear and convicted on the doctrines of grace, but he loved the genuine

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Christian ministry and genuine Christian conversion. And where he found it actually happening, he would commend that ministry.

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Well, I just want to read a commendation for this book of yours, written by our mutual friend,

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Dr. Tom Askell, who is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, and also one of the leaders of the

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Founders Ministries. He says,

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What Nettles makes plain is that for Spurgeon, all theology is pastoral theology.

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I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It should be widely distributed by all who love the gospel of God's grace that Spurgeon preached.

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Every pastor, ministerial student, and those who work to train men for the ministry should carefully learn from the life and labors of Charles Haddon Spurgeon as Tom Nettles elucidates them.

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Nearly everyone who knows of Spurgeon admires him for his great accomplishments. Nettles helps us understand the theological underpinnings of those accomplishments.

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In doing so, the author, like his subject, has served the church well. And that is quite a powerful endorsement from a man of Tom Askell's caliber.

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And a good friend of mine, so he could hardly fail to stay on my good side about that.

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Yeah, Tom is a very effective pastor himself, and I really deeply appreciate the commendation that he has given on that.

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And there are quite a number of other very impressive commendations for this book as well.

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And we are going to be continuing our conversation on the theme of this book,

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Living by Revealed Truth, the Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, when we come back from our first commercial break.

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If you have a question for Dr. Tom Askell on this book specifically, or on Charles Haddon Spurgeon in general, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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And we are back with my friend, Dr. Tom Nettles, and we are discussing one of his latest books,

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Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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Before we continue that conversation on that specific book, I want you to give a plug to a couple of other books.

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One is another Christian Focus publication that you authored, has a very interesting title,

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The Child is the Father of the Man, and Donnie Morrison over there at Christian Focus, he's been a dear friend to the

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio broadcast for many years, and he always provides free copies of books for every pastor that attends my biannual

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio free pastor's luncheons. And this book was included among the free books that we received from other publishers.

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The Child is the Father of the Man, and this is obviously connected with Charles Haddon Spurgeon, so tell us about this.

30:41

Yeah, well, it's a quote from a Wordsworth poem, The Child is Father of the Man. He loved

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Wordsworth just because of the way in which Wordsworth could draw ethical principles out of his observations of nature.

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He knew Wordsworth was not necessarily an Orthodox Christian, certainly not a Calvinist, but Spurgeon loved to look at nature.

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He loved to see the glory of God in nature. He loved to see how there was a continuity and an integration of ideas that you could derive from nature into the character of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God.

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And so when he found poems that would elevate those ideas, he used them.

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And so he would quote Wordsworth, and Wordsworth's poem starts, My heart leaps up when

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I behold a rainbow in the sky. So it was when I was young, so shall it be when

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I grow old or let me die. The Child is Father of the Man. And then he talks about a natural piety that grows out of that.

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And so what my thesis in that book is that there were things set very early in the life and ministry of Spurgeon that did not change but expanded during his lifetime.

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And so I start off each chapter with a statement about how this conviction developed very early, the statements that he makes about it, whether it's the doctrines of grace or whether it is being a

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Baptist or whether it's his view of Scripture or what preaching is or things like that.

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So I deal with 10 different subjects and try to trace it out, how Spurgeon began very early in his convictions and then how they developed throughout his ministry.

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And he ended up with a mature and profound presentation of that same conviction.

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So that's the reason for the title, The Child is Father of the Man. Well, I want to thank

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Donnie Morrison again for his generosity, for providing free copies of that fine book to everyone who attended the last

32:58

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, and we look forward to receiving more books from Donnie in the future.

33:09

Absolutely. Well, there's another book that is virtually unknown to the vast majority of evangelicals and even

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Reformed Baptists who share a nearly identical faith and theology and ecclesiology with Charles Aden Spurgeon.

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And that is an author named Thomas Moore, who was an elder at Metropolitan Tabernacle alongside with Charles Aden Spurgeon.

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And you discovered this book, I believe, while searching the library there, if I'm not mistaken.

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Well, you could tell us more about it, but if you could tell us about this book. Yeah, Michael Gaydosh published a book.

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Thomas Moore wrote a book on—do you have the title there? I don't have it right now.

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I am looking for it right now, but I know that the word counsel is in it. Yeah, he wrote a book about counsel, about how you discern the genuineness of a person's salvation experience.

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That's what he was really good at, and he wrote this book. And I was talking,

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I was at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was going through a series of books that they have called the

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Inquirer's Books. What they did is they had a series of men who would take these inquirers that came after the service, that would come up to the

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Metropolitan Tabernacle and would want to talk to someone about their conviction of sin and so forth.

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And there were several of these men who did this. Thomas Moore was one of them. And as I was going through this,

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I was familiar with the book that Michael Gaydosh had published, and I knew that it was

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Thomas Moore. And as I began to read these Inquirer's Books, his name came up over and over. And Michael had told me that he didn't really know who this guy was, but it was a really good book.

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And then it began to dawn on me that this is who it was. It was one of these people that would take inquirers at the

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Metropolitan Tabernacle, would lead them through an understanding of what kind of conviction they had, whether it was something that was a gospel conviction or just legal conviction or whatever.

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He would lead them into that. And so there was an abundance of these interviews.

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The person would write up a summary of the interview after they had talked to the person.

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They would have the name of the person, they would have the address of the person. They would give a short statement about why the person came, and then they would give an evaluation of how the person was responding to this counseling session.

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Sometimes they would say, I advise them to continue coming to church and hearing

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Mr. Spurgeon, or I advise them to go to a certain Sunday school class where they could learn more before they would recommend them to go to Spurgeon.

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But then sometimes they would say, I'm convinced of the genuineness of this person's conversion, and so therefore

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I give him a ticket. And the ticket was admittance to go have a counseling session with Spurgeon himself.

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And so the book that we're talking about... I have the title, by the way. I found it.

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I found the book, and the title is Counsels and Thoughts for the Spiritual Life of Believers by Thomas Moore.

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And Moore, by the way, for those of you listening who want to order this from Solid Ground Christian Books, Moore is spelled

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M -O -O -R. There's no E at the end, and there's two O's. M -O -O -R. Yeah.

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Let's see. I am looking for... I have it back here somewhere.

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And then while you're looking... But anyway... Yeah. Go ahead. I was just going to give our email address for anybody who wants to send in a question, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

37:30

chrisarnson at gmail .com gives the first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

37:37

Yeah. Here's a book called Wonders of Grace.

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This is original testimonies of converts during Spurgeon's early years.

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This is gathered from the Inquiry books, and it's put together by a lady who is the wife of one of the elders there at the

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Metropolitan Tabernacle now. And so she has gathered together these testimonies, and it's just really quite astounding to read through them and to see the thoroughness with which these counselors investigated the experience of those who would come and want to have an interview with Spurgeon.

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For example, do you mind if I read a little bit of one of them? Please do.

38:32

Now, this is a person named Joseph Laker, who lives at 29

38:40

Smirks Road, Old Kent Road.

38:46

And here's the way it reads, a bookbinder was not attending any place of worship, but rather opposed to religion.

38:54

When a packet of sermons preached by our pastor was given him to bind, he's a bookbinder, so he was binding some of Spurgeon's sermons, he opened the packet with the intent to ridicule when some words caught his eye.

39:10

Sinner, thou hast an immortal soul to save, says the words seem three or four times larger than the others and was deeply impressed with a sense of sin, was induced to go and hear

39:24

Mr. Spurgeon. The first sermon was the treasure of grace, suffered much sorrow for about four months, was nearly driven to despair, sometimes a little light, or none, was darkness still, found peace in God through Jesus Christ, while engaged in prayer during one of his dinner hours.

39:51

No concert room now, no playhouse, the word of God was his chief delight.

39:57

The people of God, his best companions, wishes to be baptized to show his love to Christ.

40:05

Then it says, I was much pleased with this case and with pleasure, gave him a card,

40:12

Mr. Rowe. So Mr. Rowe was one of these inquirers, and that's the account that he gives of his talking with him, which is just one of those little highlights as to the way

40:23

Spurgeon's ministry penetrated the whole community around there. This is a bookbinder who was basically an infidel, and he was binding some of Spurgeon's books, and he saw those words, sinner, thou hast an immortal soul to save, and it just struck him.

40:40

So these kinds of testimonies are just really quite remarkable.

40:47

Who published that? This is Wakeman Press, which is an

40:52

English press that does a lot of stuff with the book.

41:13

For anybody who wants to order the other book that we just mentioned by Thomas Moore, who was an elder in Spurgeon's Park Street Chapel in the

41:34

Metropolitan Tabernacle, Thomas Moore, M -O -O -R, Councils and Thoughts for the

41:40

Spiritual Life of Believers, go to solid -ground -books .com,

41:46

solid -ground -books .com, type in Thomas Moore in the search engine, and remember, it's

41:53

M -O -O -R, and that will come up. You may have to scroll down a little bit, because there are other things on the list before that.

42:05

But going back— Hannah Wincole is the lady who put together these testimonies,

42:13

W -I -N -C -O -L -E. Great. Well, going back to our main topic, your book,

42:23

Living by Revealed Truth, the life— may I interrupt just one more time?

42:29

The very first one in here, the testimonies, is about a man named

42:34

Charles Stapley, and it is by Thomas Moore. Here's an example of how

42:43

Thomas Moore dealt with it. Charles Stapley is, by trade, a bricklayer.

42:52

Isn't that amazing, these people that would come to the Metropolitan Tabernacle? He never attended a place of worship regularly since he was a boy, generally spending his

43:01

Sunday mornings lounging about the streets with some of his fellow workmen until the public houses were open, to one of which they would usually adjourn before they went home to dinner, the remainder of the day being spent in idleness.

43:18

One Sunday about six months ago he had lounged about as usual until dinner time, and then slept until tea time, but was quite at a loss what to do with the evening.

43:30

At last he said to his wife, I think I'll just go and hear Mr. Spurgeon. He did so, and determined to go again the next

43:40

Sunday. On that occasion the subject of the sermon was The Divided Heart.

43:46

I felt that sermon, said he, and from that time I longed to be a different man.

43:52

He is deeply convinced of sin, though without a saving knowledge of Christ.

43:58

He had come, he said, to be instructed. It was most pleasant to see the meek, childlike spirit he manifested and his emotion when told of the suffering of Christ.

44:11

A card for Brother Hank's class was given to him, Thomas Moore.

44:18

So he wanted him. He didn't believe he was converted, but it's obvious the Spirit was working on him, so he gave him the card for a

44:26

Sunday school class that he could go to and have regular instruction that way. Isn't that amazing?

44:32

Yes. I've got to get a hold of that book. I will contact the publisher if I can locate the contact information.

44:40

Going back to Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, please explain the title,

44:49

Living by Revealed Truth. Well, there are two or three places

44:54

I found in Spurgeon where he would use that phrase. He would say something, to all who are seeking to live by revealed truth, this will be instructive to them, or to all who seek to live by revealed truth, this will bring them to repentance on this point.

45:12

His life was a continual response to what he knew was the truth from Scripture.

45:21

He wanted everything that he did, from his preaching, to his writing, to his family life, to his interaction with his congregation, to his preaching engagements, to be a result of obedience to what he felt and knew was the revelation of God in Scripture.

45:40

That is the calling of not only every minister of the gospel, but every

45:48

Christian, to be so saturated with revealed truth that the

45:53

Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, can conform us to Christ. Living by Revealed Truth was the thing that governed his preaching, it governed his pastoral council, it governed his daily life, it governed the discipleship he had in writing things.

46:12

Anyway, that's the importance of the title. I think that it characterizes how

46:17

Spurgeon defined his own life. When pastors are looking for godly examples to improve their own life as a pastor, or even students in seminary, or even those who believe that they have received a call from God to enter into pastoral ministry, and they haven't even gotten to seminary yet.

46:47

But what were the pillars of Spurgeon's life when it came specifically to the pastoral ministry?

47:03

The thing that he felt was uppermost in his calling, of course, was preaching.

47:11

That was the thing that the minister does in proclamation, a public proclamation of the

47:17

Word of God with people gathered to hear, some of them saints who need to be molded by Scripture, some of them not saints, lost people who need to be confronted with the gospel.

47:28

The proclamation of the gospel was the thing that was uppermost in his mind.

47:34

Then those works that would arise out of his proclamation of the gospel, for example, the weekly sermons that he would edit.

47:45

He had people who would record these sermons during the sermon. They would write it down, and then they would give him their transcript.

47:53

On Monday, he would spend going through it and correcting it. Then he would go to the printers and Passmore and Alabaster would publish these sermons week by week.

48:01

There was a weekly penny pulpit that Spurgeon had. The distribution of those sermons to the public became a major point of ministry for Spurgeon.

48:12

That's probably one of the things that was being bound by this man who was the bookbinder that was eventually converted, was some of these

48:20

Spurgeon sermons that would be put out. Then there were a series of books that he would put out, like The Cross and the

48:28

Crown. This is gathered together of Christ's last words, seven last words on the cross that a friend of mine has put together.

48:42

Spurgeon would do that too. Christ's Glorious Achievements is a book that I had the students in the class read, which just go through the various doctrines, the various things that Christ has done, all the way from birth, life, innocent life, his perfect righteousness in his life, his death on the cross, his resurrection, his ascension, his intercession,

49:09

Christ's Glorious Achievements. There was a series of sermons he did, and it became a book.

49:15

Spurgeon would do that. His sermons drove the rest of his ministry.

49:21

Also, early in his ministry, he believed that preaching in public, going out into the fields and going out into the marketplace, into the street corners was something.

49:32

He trained men to do that, encouraged them to do that on the Sunday afternoon to go out and preach at some of the corners there in London.

49:40

There's a book by a man named E .G. Romine, The Booming Baritone Bell, let's yell,

49:49

The Booming Baritone Bell of England. Yes, I've interviewed Brother Romine on that.

49:56

Okay, good, good. Yeah, so that's the Pedagogy and Practice of Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Open Air Preaching.

50:03

Well, he'll be thrilled that you plugged that book. Well, I think it's a very good book.

50:09

I think that it may have been part of a dissertation he was doing, and I was a reader on that, but I'm glad he got it published.

50:19

So, yeah, that was primary. Spurgeon was also, evangelism was a part of his preaching, but evangelism was also something that was sort of an independent exercise that he believed the whole church should be involved in, and they should find ways to be evangelistic.

50:37

And eventually, there were like 66 benevolences that were established at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and all of them were ways in which

50:46

Spurgeon saw wedges for the gospel, whether it's gathering clothes for orphaned children, gathering food for poor people, the orphanages, first of all, for the young boys, and then for the women, eventually the pastor's college, until there are 66 of these.

51:11

And there's another book by Alex de Prima called

51:16

Spurgeon and the Poor, How Gospel Compels Christian Social Concern.

51:22

That's this one. And Spurgeon was deeply concerned about social issues.

51:29

He believed the gospel demanded it, and that if the church was not involved in it, this would compromise their evangelistic message.

51:37

Because if you don't care about the difficulties that people have in a fallen world, how can you convince them that you are actually concerned about where they spend eternity?

51:47

If you can't be concerned about them temporally, then what evidence is there that you're really concerned about them eternally?

51:54

So he saw these benevolent enterprises as supporting his evangelistic work and ways in which people would come to hear the preaching.

52:07

And so there are hundreds of conversions that come out of the social ministries that that church was doing.

52:16

So I think those are the three big things. It's his preaching ministry, which resulted in his books, a lot of them.

52:25

The evangelistic ministry, in which preaching on the streets and other places and training the men to do this.

52:33

And then the social ministry also, which was to feed into the evangelistic ministry, which finally would culminate in the hearing of the preaching.

52:44

Now, of course, he has writing that he does also independently of that. He believed that just keeping a constant flow of literature was a good thing to do.

52:56

His monthly publication of The Sword and Trowel, his almanac every year,

53:03

John Plowman's almanac. It's just amazing what he put out. But all of it is to get the gospel out there, to get spiritual truth for people to read and to absorb.

53:16

Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now, and we do have some folks waiting for their questions to be asked and answered on the air.

53:23

If you'd like to join them and get in line, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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That's royaldiadem .com. Before I return to Dr. Tom Nettles and our conversation on Charles Haddon Spurgeon and specifically on his new book about Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, before we continue that conversation,

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click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card, or if you prefer snail mail, mailing a physical check from your post office to a physical address the old -fashioned way, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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Go to www .irontripandsironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a

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Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where you live on the planet earth,

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I may be able to help you find a church that's biblically faithful, as I have done with many Iron Trip and Zion Radio listeners spanning the entire globe.

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So if that is you, you are a person without a solid church home, no matter where you live in the world, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question about Charles Haddon Spurgeon to Dr.

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Tom Nettles, chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:12:00

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. We have

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Kent, who is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Kent wants to know, how would you say

01:12:18

Spurgeon is different from your average Reformed Baptist pastor in the 21st century?

01:12:29

Well, I guess I would have to know a whole lot of Reformed Baptist pastors to be able to answer that with any degree of acuity, but I think that Spurgeon has served as something of a model.

01:12:42

Every Reformed Baptist pastor has read something by Spurgeon and admires him, and so he is one of these persons who sets a standard that when investigated, we find out that it is a biblical standard.

01:12:59

It is a standard that relates to a stewardship of the overall gifts that he has, and any person who evaluates the number of things to which he contributed will realize that his gifts were quite numerous and very well used and many.

01:13:22

So normally, us pastors, people who are

01:13:27

Reformed Baptists now, we just try to be faithful in our local congregations.

01:13:32

We do not anticipate having the kind of expansive ministry of writing and worldwide influence that Spurgeon did.

01:13:43

If God gives it to us, then that is a wonderful thing. That is in God's hands. But I think the basic difference is not a theological difference, not a difference of valuing certain things, but just the nature of the gifts that God gave it.

01:14:00

When someone transcends Spurgeon in gifts, then the same kind of influence and the same kind of attribution of his worthiness will come forth.

01:14:21

So I do not think that it is a difference in the overall theological convictions. It is just that he was uniquely gifted by God to do all the things that he did.

01:14:31

Well, one thing that immediately pops into my head as far as a minor theological or eschatological difference is that most

01:14:43

Reformed Baptists that I know personally—not all, but most— are

01:14:50

Amo and Eel, and from what I understand, Spurgeon was a historic pre -mill. Am I right on that?

01:14:57

Yeah, I think so. If he had to identify himself, that is what he would say. There are some sermons, though, where it sounds almost like he is post -mill.

01:15:07

Yes, I've heard that. Because he had an exuberant kind of confidence that the gospel is going to sweep across all nations.

01:15:15

There will be massive conversions. So that does not fit just precisely with historic pre -mill.

01:15:21

But when he did his exposition and when he set out his views of how the gospel was progressing and what the millennium was and all those sorts of things,

01:15:30

I would say that he fits within the historic pre -mill framework, and most Reformed Baptists now are not there.

01:15:39

They are either Amo or—my good friend Errol Hulse was, of course, post -mill. Yes, I remember him. He actually preached at the church where I was saved, where the aforementioned

01:15:50

Mike Adosh was pastoring. I think it might have been in the 1980s when

01:15:57

Errol preached for us. It could have been the 1990s. But I remember very fondly meeting

01:16:03

Errol and hearing him preach. He was a profound man of God. Well, Kent, guess what?

01:16:12

I have some good news for you, Kent. If you give me your full mailing address, you are going to receive compliments of Donnie Morrison and Christian -focused publications.

01:16:25

You're going to receive a free copy of Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

01:16:32

Thank you so much for submitting the excellent question. And we have another listener.

01:16:42

I was just looking at the question. Okay, we have Jeremiah, who is located in Denton, Texas, and I remember

01:16:54

Denton, Texas, very well. My friend Mack Tomlinson is a pastor down there.

01:16:59

I don't know if— Yes, he is. I just spoke with Mack for the show. Well, Jeremiah asks,

01:17:08

I had heard Chris, a number of years ago, interview a Reformed Baptist pastor in Rochester named

01:17:14

John Price, who wrote a book called Old Light on New Worship, which was advocating exclusively a cappella music in the church, not exclusive psalmody, but exclusive a cappella worship.

01:17:29

And during that discussion, it was mentioned that Charles Haddon Spurgeon shared that view of exclusive a cappella worship.

01:17:37

Do you agree with that assessment? And also, why is that view so rare amongst Reformed Baptists today?

01:17:46

Yeah, well, I think that in his regular worship service, that is exactly what Spurgeon did. He didn't want the human voices drowned out by any kind of instrumental performance.

01:17:57

He was responding and perhaps reacting against the massive use of the organ in Anglican services, which he felt was turned into some sort of a professional concert rather than aiding in worship.

01:18:13

Also, he didn't like professional singers that were used sometimes in the Anglican services.

01:18:19

He wanted the music to be something that rises from the congregation, that expresses their conviction.

01:18:28

There have been several people who observed this and were just quite impressed with the way in which the congregation would sing at the

01:18:37

Metropolitan Tabernacle. There was one in particular who described it as beginning with just sort of low rumblings, like thunder, way off in the distance.

01:18:47

And then all of a sudden, everyone joins in and there's this big clap of lightning and sound that comes forth as the whole congregation joins in, and Spurgeon just loved that.

01:19:02

And so I do think that that is what his normal worship was. It's interesting, however, though, that when he sent out evangelists, there was one evangelist that led music in evangelistic crusades and played a trumpet, and Spurgeon bought him a trumpet for his...

01:19:23

I can't recall his name right now. I'm getting old and decrepit in my mind. But anyway, he bought this trumpet for him, and he had a scripture verse inscribed on the bell of the trumpet.

01:19:40

So he was not principally absolutely opposed to using instruments in worship.

01:19:47

He believed that the playing of the trumpet somehow might be attractive and bring people in to these evangelistic services that were being preached by one of the men that was trained in his pastoral school.

01:20:03

And he did not object to Ira Sankey leading music in the D .L.

01:20:09

Moody. In fact, Ira Sankey led music one time in the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

01:20:14

Really? Because I heard that Spurgeon made Ira Sankey leave his music box in the basement or something like that.

01:20:22

Is that not true? I don't know. That might be true, but I probably don't have firsthand knowledge of all the anecdotes that have arisen around Spurgeon.

01:20:35

But yeah, I think overall he did appreciate Sankey, and Sankey was even present in the funeral of Spurgeon.

01:20:47

But generally, in the congregational singing and the worship service, he didn't want anything intruding on the voices.

01:20:57

I personally don't hold that position.

01:21:04

I don't see any reason for the advocacy of using instruments that are in the

01:21:09

Psalms. I don't see any sort of term limits on that. I don't think that it has a sort of a symbolic ceremonial thing that has now been fulfilled.

01:21:19

So I don't personally have objections to the use of instruments if they are not something that are featured and drown out the human voices.

01:21:28

If they're an aid, if they add some degree of sense of the excitement of the words themselves,

01:21:36

I think they can be useful personally. And what

01:21:41

I was going to say actually just flew out of my head. Perhaps it will return to my mind.

01:21:49

That's okay. No, what you have to say is much more important than—oh, now I remember.

01:21:55

When you said that Spurgeon purchased a trumpet for an evangelist who used the trumpet in their public evangelistic efforts,

01:22:06

I'm assuming perhaps outdoor efforts, even many strict advocates of exclusively a cappella worship today are only mandating that restriction in the regular corporate gathering of God's people.

01:22:25

For instance, many of them will attend Christian concerts that have musical instruments and might even run and host

01:22:36

Christian concerts and things like that. I knew a pastor who was one of the rare pastors in the

01:22:47

PCA, and I heard that he has since joined the Covenanter Presbyterians, the

01:22:53

Reform Presbyterian Church of North America, who have an exclusive a cappella and exclusive psalmody view.

01:23:00

But when he was still in the PCA, he held that view. And although in his worship service they never used musical instruments and exclusively sung the psalms, before and after the worship service, during times of fellowship, they had a piano in the basement and would sing

01:23:21

Christian hymns. Oh, so he must have sensed that there was some value then to an instrument accompanying voices that gives sort of an intensity and an energy to it that you might not have otherwise.

01:23:43

Yeah, I don't know. Those are matters of conviction, and I've been in churches that have—that do just human voices, no instruments, and the singing in there is quite marvelous and really a blessing.

01:24:01

Well, guess what, listener? You have also won a free copy of the book that we are addressing,

01:24:09

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01:24:21

CVBBS .com will be the ones that actually ship the book out to you if you give us your full mailing address so that they could get that out to you in a timely fashion.

01:24:36

Let's see here. We have

01:24:42

Goldie in Stewart Manor, Long Island, and Goldie wants to know,

01:24:52

I know many non -Reformed Baptist pastors uphold Charles Saddon Spurgeon as a hero, but was not

01:25:02

Spurgeon opposed to the so -called altar call invitations? Yes, Spurgeon did not give those kinds of altar calls.

01:25:16

Sometimes he would criticize it when he knew that this was used in evangelistic services. He would feel free to criticize those.

01:25:25

He believed that the fruit of those kinds of high -pressured mechanisms for evangelistic success would often prove to be false.

01:25:39

He believed that the gospel was quite sufficient to bring about the proper response and the effectual call of the

01:25:46

Spirit. This would not be without counsel. It would not be without a biblical examination of a person's desires and a person's experience.

01:25:55

But he did not practice that in his congregation. He did, as I mentioned earlier, he would have this group of men who were astute and experienced in giving evangelistic interviews and examining the experience of a person, seeking to discern as much as humanly possible if there was a genuine operation of grace in their heart.

01:26:23

He relied on that. If they felt that, Spurgeon spent a lot of time doing personal interviews with people who would be recommended to him by these advisors in the various inquiry situations that they would have.

01:26:44

The people who give these really extremely high -pressured invitations and yet respect

01:26:54

Spurgeon because of his evangelistic success are not following the same kind of biblically -oriented, experientially -robust method that Spurgeon did.

01:27:09

Yes, and did he not have a lot of caution even about inquiry rooms?

01:27:17

I thought I remember a quote by him that he said something of the effect that much mischief has arisen in those rooms or something like that.

01:27:30

Yeah, yeah, he did. That's very close to what he said. He says, you need to be suspicious of the inquiry room.

01:27:38

You need to leave that behind and go home and pray and confront God yourself.

01:27:44

Now, he was not opposed to inquiries and to counsel, but the inquiry room where it was done quickly and where there were high -pressure techniques, he just thought that should be laid aside.

01:28:00

Amen. Let's see. We have

01:28:06

Justin in Spokane, Washington, who wants to know, what is your favorite memory and all the research and reading you've done about Charles Sadden Spurgeon?

01:28:19

Oh, boy, that's a great question and puts the pressure on the person.

01:28:28

Exactly. Well, I still think the narrative that he gives of his conversion, of going to hear the primitive

01:28:44

Methodist preacher, the Artillery Street Methodist Church, where the pastor couldn't show up because it was snowing and so a mere mechanic got up and preached out of Isaiah, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am

01:29:01

God and there is no other. He goes through and talks about how the preacher preached, and it's really an interesting narrative that he gives.

01:29:14

He says, this is Jesus talking. He says, look unto me and be ye saved. It ain't the Father, it ain't the

01:29:19

Spirit. You don't look to the Father, the Spirit for salvation. The one to whom you look is the

01:29:25

Lord Jesus Christ. The Father sent him, the Spirit draws you, but you look to him, and then he would go on, for I am

01:29:32

God and there is no other. He would talk about that, and then he said at the end of the sermon, after he had sort of run his course after six or seven minutes, he looked at Spurgeon and he said, young man, you look miserable.

01:29:48

He said, I suppose I did. I was miserable, but I wasn't accustomed to people talking about it from the pulpit.

01:29:56

But he says, he said, look, young man, look, if you do not look, you will be forever miserable.

01:30:03

And he says, I looked and Jesus accepted me. And so that story he loved to teach, and he would preach on that periodically during his ministry, look unto me and be ye saved.

01:30:19

So that's probably my favorite story, just because it's told in such a humorous way about such a transformative experience and something that is so powerful when you have that immediate confidence of the calling of the

01:30:37

Spirit to have you look to Christ. And he was only 16 when that occurred, right?

01:30:43

Right, yeah, he was 15. Yeah, amazing. Well, listener in Spokane, you've also won a free copy of Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

01:31:00

And this is quite a pricey book, so this is quite a gift you're receiving, and all of you who have won a $50 hardback.

01:31:10

So please send us your full mailing address in Spokane, Washington, and cvbbs .com,

01:31:17

we'll ship that out to you. And we want to thank once again our dear friends at Christian Focus Publications for their abundance of generosity in providing these books today.

01:31:32

We have Timothy in Douglasville, Georgia, who said, upon reading the autobiography of Charles Spurgeon, I discovered he believed that all infants who die in infancy must be of the elect and therefore will be in heaven.

01:32:02

Do you agree with that, and why is that such an uncommon thing to be held by Reformed Baptists today?

01:32:10

Yeah, I agree that today is a rare belief, and it's basically the view that I hear most of the time is an agnostic view over it, where there'll be an admission that there are elect infants who will be in heaven who die in infancy, but there is a hesitancy to have any committed view on whether or not all infants will be in heaven if they die in infancy.

01:32:46

So if you could answer the listener's question. Yeah, well, what you've stated is pretty much where I am standing there.

01:32:57

It is true. Spurgeon felt that the damnation of infants was something that was held up against Calvinism.

01:33:04

It was one of the chief objections that many people have. And so there are several occasions that I've read where Spurgeon, even in sermons, would talk about how that is an abominable doctrine, and he doesn't believe it, and he believes that they're death before they reach any kind of age of an active conscience is an indication of their election.

01:33:26

I think that we have to be agnostic about that.

01:33:31

I do think the Second London Confession talks about elect infants dying in infancy.

01:33:37

It doesn't say how many of them are elect or how few of them are elect. It could be all of them. It could be very few.

01:33:45

But I think that we need to take seriously the doctrine of the corruption of the human heart, where David says,

01:33:53

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin. My mother conceived me. Paul says we are by nature children deserving of wrath.

01:34:02

And so we cannot hold it up against God that he is somehow an intolerable and mean -spirited deity if it is true that he has revealed to us that corruption of heart makes us susceptible to wrath.

01:34:20

For God to therefore damn infants may be something that disturbs us because we are not sufficiently aware of how grotesque the corruption of our hearts is as a result of our being children of Adam.

01:34:42

So I would not impute God with any kind of injustice in the condemnation of an infant, for the foundation of all of our sinfulness, that which out of our sinfulness flows from, is our corruption of heart, which is in itself worthy of punishment.

01:35:03

So I'm not sure exactly why Spurgeon would take that view, because when he preaches on depravity, he is very strong about corruption of heart.

01:35:12

He's very strong about the fact that all of these things flow, all of our actual sins flow out of the indwelling sin, the original sin that we have received from our being of the race of Adam.

01:35:28

And so I can't answer as to why Spurgeon did that, but it is true that he did it.

01:35:33

He rejected it partly as a defense of Calvinism, because he knew that that had been imputed to Calvinism as a terrible feature.

01:35:44

Yeah, and I remember reading that, and it seemed as if he wasn't even aware that it was a commonly held view.

01:35:51

That's the way the wording, that I remember from reading that myself. Yeah, because he just represents it as what

01:36:00

Calvinism teaches. He says, Calvinists don't believe. So I don't know if he would just do that for rhetorical effect, or if he was just simply not aware that there was some degree of disagreement on that issue.

01:36:14

Right. And the reason I would be in that minority of Reformed Baptists today who lean in the direction of infants dying, all being among the elect, not as a hard and fast doctrinal belief, but I lean that way.

01:36:34

Because unless you can correct me in the Scriptures, whenever there is a description of somebody being damned and cast into the lake of fire and so on, there always seems to be a description of the person as a conscious rebel.

01:36:52

Now, I'm not saying that, and I know that Spurgeon wouldn't agree with many who have a

01:37:01

Pelagian understanding of infants being perfect and without any taint of sin and that kind of thing.

01:37:10

I know he did not believe they were going into heaven for that reason, as if they did not also require the blood of Christ to cover them.

01:37:18

But it just seems to me that that is the biblical case. Whenever hell is described, everybody that seems to be being cast there is a conscious rebel.

01:37:31

Am I making sense? Yeah. I think, though, that if we extended that to who is it that goes to heaven, we have the picture of all the people going to heaven as rational people also who are enjoying the fellowship of the saints and who are among the spirits of just men made perfect and so forth.

01:37:52

I'm not sure that we can draw from the picture of the maturity of a person either going to heaven or going to hell to make our conclusions about infants.

01:38:03

Of course, when you have the judgment of God coming on people, one of the things that's done is not only are all of the conscious moral agents killed, but infants also are killed, come under that particular judgment in the

01:38:22

Old Testament. I'm not sure if we could say, well, the children of the pagans would go to heaven, but all of their parents would go to hell.

01:38:34

It seems to be a general judgment that comes simply because of the religious perversity of these people, these

01:38:45

Canaanite people. I don't know. That's the reason I say my position on it is agnostic.

01:38:53

There are just too many questions that I think are unanswered as far as our ability to perceive the fullness of divine revelation on that.

01:39:02

Amen. You have also, one listener, a free copy of the book Living by Revealed Truth by our guest today,

01:39:11

Tom Nettles. Please make sure you get us your full mailing address. We're going to our final break.

01:39:19

If you have a question that you'd like to be read to Dr. Nettles and answered by him before we run out of time, please submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:39:31

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

01:39:56

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

01:40:13

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Dr. Tom Nettles. And perhaps we will have one more question before we have

01:51:54

Dr. Nettles summarize what he most wants etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about the pastoral theology of Charles Adams Spurgeon.

01:52:06

But we have Albrecht in Bellevue, Nebraska, and Albrecht wants to know, with a church as large as the

01:52:16

Metropolitan Tabernacle, did Charles Adams Spurgeon visit individual members on his own, or did he delegate that to other elders in the church?

01:52:30

Yeah, he visited individual members on his own. Not everyone who was in need was able to do that, but he was very insistent on doing that.

01:52:40

In fact, there was a story that Spurgeon himself talks about where he was on his way to,

01:52:51

I think it was one of the weekday services, and his driver of the carriage that he had, and he had a horse, was wanting him to take a road that would go by one of the members' house who was sick.

01:53:07

And he thought that it would be good to give a pastoral visit because he was going to be early for the service anyway.

01:53:13

And the driver said, no, sir, I'm not going to do that because this would stress the horse.

01:53:20

The horse needs rest just like people do. And so Spurgeon talked to him and said, well,

01:53:25

I think that a person is a whole lot more worthy than a horse. I want you to go and take me by this man's house because I've got to visit with him.

01:53:34

And so he did. He took him by there over the objections of the carriage driver, but he visited with this man who was sick and just needed pastoral visit.

01:53:46

So Spurgeon took that seriously, and he would do that frequently. Obviously, with the output that he has on all of the writing and the sword and trowel coming out every month and the evangelistic services and preaching all over the country, at least during the early part of his ministry, he didn't have as much time for that.

01:54:05

But conscientiously, he was committed to it and knew that it was a good thing. That is one of the things that his deacons did.

01:54:11

The deacons were very active in visiting members that were sick or members that had been absent for two or three

01:54:18

Sundays in a row. They would look at these little things they were supposed to turn in to let them know they'd been there.

01:54:26

So the deacons would visit these people. So he was all for home visits, and some of it he did himself.

01:54:32

Well, great, Albrecht. You've won our final copy of the book that we have been discussing today,

01:54:39

Living by Revealed Truth, The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Edmund Spurgeon. Compliments of our dear friends at Christian Focus Publications, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:54:55

We'll actually be shipping the book out to you, Matt, no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:55:01

Before I ask you to summarize your thoughts on this topic, do you have a favorite anecdote or at least one that pops into your head out of many of Charles Edmund Spurgeon, whether it be a conversation he had or anything else that you could think of?

01:55:22

Well, I shared about the account that he gives of his conversion, and that's one of my favorite things.

01:55:29

But also, he was going out quite often to preach, and his wife, who had become an invalid after she had these twin boys, sometimes didn't like him to go out.

01:55:43

And he would talk about, he told her about the fact that these sacrificial lambs that were given were lambs that had been raised in the family, and sometimes the children had become attached to them, and then they would take this lamb and sacrifice it at one of the ceremonial sacrifices.

01:56:01

And the children would cry and would be all upset about it. And he says, that's just what you remind me of that, my wifey.

01:56:10

He called her wifey. He said, you're not willing to give up your sacrificial lamb for the service of the

01:56:17

Lord. And so every now and then, when he would be leaving to go out to a place to preach, and she would be sad and wanting him to stay around, he said, ah, hard to give up your lamb again, wifey.

01:56:32

So he had set that as sort of the standard, the sacrificial lamb that was dear to the children, but necessarily needed to be sacrificed.

01:56:39

And so that was his calling, to go out and preach as much as he could. But they had a wonderful relationship.

01:56:44

It wasn't like he was ignoring her either, but I think that little way of handling it is an interesting story.

01:56:52

And if you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about the pastoral theology of Charles Adam Spurgeon.

01:57:00

Well, I was just looking at this book, The Army of God, by Jeffrey Chang, which is

01:57:06

Spurgeon's vision for the church, and there's a chapter in it on the regulated principle. I think that's what the whole idea of the living by revealed truth is, is absorbing

01:57:18

Scripture to such a degree that your whole life is governed by it, and especially if you're a pastor or a church officer, wanting the church to worship according to how

01:57:28

God has revealed He is to be worshipped. I think that is the thing that is important.

01:57:33

We don't invent worship as we go along. We don't just say the church is a place of entertainment and bring in things that may not contribute at all to the pure worship of God.

01:57:45

We are to be regulated by Scripture, that it is revealed truth that governs our lives not only individually, but corporately in the church.

01:57:55

Amen. And I want to remind our listeners of the website of Christian Focus Publications.

01:58:03

It is christianfocus .com, christianfocus .com.

01:58:08

Once again, I want to thank my friend Donnie Morrison for his generosity in providing the books that we gave away to listeners today, and also for his ongoing generosity in providing many more books for the pastors who attend my biannual

01:58:27

Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheons. And we hope that all of you men in ministry leadership listening to this interview today can make it to the next

01:58:36

Free Pastors Luncheon on Thursday, September 18th at Church of the

01:58:41

Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, when my guest speaker will be once again

01:58:48

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and he will be preaching the following Sunday, September 21st at the church where I am a member,

01:58:58

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle. For more information on the

01:59:04

Pastors Luncheon, go to irontripandzionradio .com. For more information on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, go to trbccarlisle .org,

01:59:16

trbccarlisle .org. I want to thank you so much, Dr. Nettles. I look forward to your return to the show.

01:59:22

I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater