August 31, 2016 Show with Ray Rhodes, Jr. on “The Marriage of Charles & Susannah Spurgeon: Lessons to be Learned from a Godly Couple”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, 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.

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.

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth, listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 31st day of August 2016.

I'm very delighted to have back on the program after a long absence, Ray Rhoades Jr.,

who was a guest on the old Iron Sharpens Iron program before we relocated and relaunched here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Ray Rhoades Jr. is an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia. He's the founder of Nourished in the

Word Ministries and books that nourish. He's a blogger at The Dancing Puritan and author of The Family Worship for the

Reformation Season, Family Worship for the Thanksgiving Season, Family Worship for the Christmas Season, and also

The Marriage Bed and The Visionary Marriage. Today we're going to be addressing the theme, The Marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, Lessons to be

Learned from a Godly Couple. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron after a very long time,

Ray Rhoades Jr. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be on your show, get a bit reconnected.

Well, before we go into the topic at hand, if you could let our listeners know something about Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia.

Yes, Grace Community Church is about 11 years old, formally constituted, started from scratch.

The Lord has blessed us over the years. We seek to be faithful, expository preaching.

We're just going through books of the Bible, God -centered worship, a sweet community of folks who love the

Lord. And North Georgia is a growing place. We're the northernmost metro county of Atlanta, about an hour due north of Atlanta.

So we have great opportunity, great outreach here in our area. Praise God.

And it's a pleasure to have a member of your congregation, a co -elder there, is going to be for the next year here in Carlisle, Kevin Girard.

And he is in the military. Why don't you tell us something about Kevin, who I hope to have as a guest very soon?

Yes, Kevin Girard and his family came on board our church pretty soon after its founding.

Actually, was there when we constituted. Kevin and his wife Kelly, they have four lovely children.

Godly man, Lieutenant Colonel, U .S. Marines, serving there in Carlisle for the next year.

Faithful Bible expositor himself. He's well known around the country and speaks in various situations.

But just a godly man. I'd say a leader among leaders. Great man, great family. We miss them and we're thankful the

Lord has provided them a great place up there in Carlisle. Yeah, amen. And I'm hoping to get him getting to know him better.

And God willing, he is scheduled to be my co -host a week from this

Friday when my guest will be Staff Sergeant David Carnes, who was a primary character in the

Based on Truth movie World Trade Center starring Nicholas Cage.

And the character of Staff Sergeant David Carnes, based on the actual events, he rescued a number of transit police officers,

New York City transit police officers who were trapped beneath tons of rubble after the

World Trade Center attack on September 11th, 2001. And Sergeant Carnes happened to, on his own initiative, began roaming through the areas of the ruins of the

World Trade Center that had already been given up on, where the other search parties had basically left those areas, believing there were no survivors.

And something, perhaps just the moving of the Lord, led Sergeant Carnes to those areas.

And he heard somebody banging on metal, and praise be to God, that was the trapped police officers who were hitting a metal pipe with a brick or a piece of the rubble in order to be heard.

And Sergeant Carnes did hear them and rescued them. And he is a very strong Bible -believing

Christian. And I'm looking forward to interviewing him again. This will be probably my third or fourth interview with Sergeant Carnes.

And this is going to be because of the fact that Sergeant Carnes will be in town, in Carlisle, speaking at a 9 -11 memorial at the

War College, where Lieutenant Kevin Girard is currently working.

And so I'm looking forward to introducing those two. But going back to our discussion, the theme of our discussion, just to let our listeners know, one of the reasons why our guest has some experience on the theme of marriage is because he has been married to his wife,

Lori, for 29 years. And she is a blogger. They have six daughters and three grandchildren.

I just found out something that I did not know before. Ray's son -in -law is a producer for Wretched TV, hosted by Todd Friel.

And Todd Friel happens to have been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron a number of times.

And he has become one of my favorite guests. I know I am definitely in store for not only a good belly laugh, but also to discuss serious issues.

And so he's one of those rare people that can do both things. He is. He's a great guy, Ray. We're glad to have

Todd here in the area as well. Yep. And I will be announcing later on during the program, the

G3 Conference, where I will be, God willing, at an exhibitor's booth. Thanks be to one of my sponsors,

Linbrook Baptist Church on Long Island, and also Pastor Josh Bice, who's running the

G3 Conference, Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church there in Georgia.

And they have given me the opportunity to promote Iron Sharpens Iron at this conference.

And Todd Friel is one of the speakers. So I just thank God that he, apart from my initiating anything, he directed several people who wanted me to be there because they wanted my program to be promoted and so on.

And at a very large event like this, through God's leading, they contacted me and said that they would like me to be there.

So I'm very happy and grateful that my way has been provided there. Fantastic.

Praise the Lord. Yeah. And let me give our email address to our listeners. If you would like to join us on the air with a question about the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. 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

USA. And I understand that some of you may wish to remain anonymous. Perhaps you're asking a question about marriage that is very sensitive.

Perhaps you're having conflict or trials in your own marriage and you'd rather not identify yourself. I understand that.

You may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Well, before we even go into the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, what led you to have an interest and a fascination in the life of the

Prince of Preachers, as he is known, and how did you develop such a knowledge of his life as well as his marriage?

Right. Well, I've had an interest in Spurgeon, as many pastors have, for a number of years.

Probably 15 years ago, I read a pretty substantial biography of Spurgeon, I think about Lewis Truman at that time, and that whet my appetite for more.

And over the years, anytime I'd have the opportunity, I'd pick up a Spurgeon biography and read.

Well, three years ago, in God's providence, I was able to go back to seminary. I graduated the first time in 1988 from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with an

M .Div., and I've had a desire for a long time to do doctoral studies at seminary.

I wanted to go to Southern Seminary, where Dr. Moeller is the president. Yes, he's been a guest here as well.

Excuse me? He's been a guest on Iron, Sharp, and Zion as well. Oh, great, great. Well, that had to be a great program.

I need to look that up on the archive. Yeah, it's up there. He's a great guest, a great president of the school.

And while I was there, I studied biblical spirituality. Dr. Donald Whitney was my doctoral supervisor.

Dr. Whitney's written a number of books on spiritual discipline, biblical spirituality sort of books, and he was my supervisor.

And I was trying to find a way to connect the program that I was studying under with Spurgeon.

And as I started digging, I discovered no one had really written anything on Spurgeon's marriage.

And so having to write a doctoral thesis had to narrow that down a bit from a larger picture of their marriage to something more specific.

And I was able to write on the role of Bible intake in prayer, the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon. And so for the last couple of years, three years in seminary total, last couple of years, more specifically directed to Spurgeon, I've been reading

Spurgeon, reading biographies about Spurgeon. And as you know, there are a lot of, there's mountains of material, both written by Spurgeon and written about Spurgeon.

And so I've touched the hem of the garment, maybe, maybe.

And I'm sure this, God willing, is going to become a published work, I'm assuming.

Well, I'm working on that. I'm working on a book on the marriage of Spurgeon, and I can't say a lot about that right now, but I hope to hear soon that indeed this will be accepted as a book proposal, and hopefully in the next couple of years will be on the shelves.

Yeah, I very providentially just a few days ago had on my program the founder of Particular Baptist Press, and Gary Long, and his editor,

Terry Wollover, who were discussing a book they brought back into print by Susanna Spurgeon called

Cluster of Camphor, which is another term for the medicinal plant henna.

And she basically was in this little book, which is an excellent little book for people to bring on hospital visitations, or where women can carry it around in their pocketbooks and what have you.

It's a very compact size and excellent book to reach out to wounded souls, people who are suffering.

That's right. Susanna wrote several books herself, including at least two devotional books, maybe two or three, and then two books giving an account of her book fund that she was a part of.

She wrote the first one, I believe, the first 10 years in the service of the book fund. The second was just simply called the second 10 years,

I believe. But she was quite a prolific author as well. Yeah. And in fact, our listeners, if they want to later on, they can look up the interview on Susanna Spurgeon on our archive.

But tell us something about when their eyes first met, that you know of, when they first looked upon one another and began to pursue a relationship with one another.

Right. Well, Spurgeon preached in London for the first time, in December, December the 18th of 1853.

And the church that was the most prominent, had been the most prominent Baptist church in London and probably most of England, had fallen to hard times.

And so they heard about this young preacher up in Water Beach near Cambridge, brought him down to preach.

And not many people there that morning, but the folks were taken with them. So that evening, they brought a lot more folks to church, including

Susanna Thompson. Now, Susanna Thompson, with her parents, had attended the

New Park Street Chapel, as it was called then, for some time. Her parents had become less and less involved as the church had declined.

But Susanna was often there with friends of the family. Well, she heard Charles that evening, and she was unimpressed.

She was unimpressed with his country -fied manner, the way he combed his hair, his dress, the way he put words together.

She did not understand why anyone would be interested in this country preacher.

Now, Susanna had been raised as a city girl, and she was more refined and all of that than Charles was.

And so her first meeting with him was unimpressive. Now, later, she would look back on that and write about how foolish she was.

Little did she know, as she was listening to him, the difference that the

Lord would use in her life through him. So that's how that began. Now, the church and Spurgeon worked out an agreement where he could come on a trial basis for a while.

He actually formally became the pastor in April of 1854.

During that time, he discovered through mutual friends that this young lady in the church, Susanna Thompson, was struggling spiritually.

She had only been converted about a year prior to Spurgeon coming to London at a special service there in town.

The pastor was preaching in Romans 10, and her heart was awakened to the gospels. She came to know

Christ, but almost immediately felt like she had fallen into a backslidden situation. Spurgeon heard about that and simply, with pastoral concern, wanted to help her.

And he sent her a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress, and this faith.

And he got to know her a bit through that experience, and she began opening up with him more and more.

He helped her spiritually, in a personal way, through his preaching. But by June, obviously, in Spurgeon's heart, his pastoral interest in Susanna had developed into more romantic interest.

She didn't know that, but great story. This is just a few months later, so we got late

April, he's giving her Pilgrim's Progress, helping her with her spiritual life, and then by June, Spurgeon is revealing his heart to her.

And this was June the 10th, 1854, the reopening of the Crystal Palace.

The Crystal Palace was something like a World's Fair, but just a massive structure, originally built in 1851, had been moved and reopened in 1854 in South London.

And so Charles Spurgeon and Susanna Thompson were seated together there at the grand reopening of the

Crystal Palace. The crowd was awaiting, anticipating the opening ceremony. Charles handed

Susanna a copy of Martin Tupper's volume, Proverbial Philosophy. He opened it to a section entitled,

Of Marriage, and Tupper wrote in that section that a man should prayerfully seek a wife from God.

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

The light came on, and Susanna thought she understood what Spurgeon was saying, and she wrote,

I do not remember that the question received any vocal answer, but my fast beating heart, which 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.

From that moment, a very quiet and subdued little maiden sat by the young pastor's side, while the brilliant procession passed around the palace, and she talks about the new awakened emotions in her heart.

Now, I'm struck by the timeline. So in December, she's hearing him preach unimpressed. April, he's learned of her spiritual condition, giving her

Pilgrim's Progress. June, he's revealing his love to her. August, they're going to be engaged.

So once they take off, they move rather rapidly. Well, I guess a lesson to be learned, first of all, is that we should not let our very first impressions guide our decisions.

That's right. Young ladies, listen to that. My wife and I, our church graciously sent us to London a little over a year ago.

We were able to the site of the Crystal Palace. The ruins are there. It burned in the 1930s, but the ruins of the

Crystal Palace are there. We were able to sort of retrace Spurgeon's steps. Charles and Susanna left the main building, walked outside.

They walked down to the lake, and there at the lake were what Susanna called colossal forms of extinct monsters modeled.

Those are really some of the earliest dinosaur models. After dinosaurs were classified as dinosaurs, they're still there.

So it was a pretty moving experience to walk with my wife down to the lake outside of the area of the Crystal Palace and look at those dinosaur models where Susanna said during that walk on that memorable day in June, and I believe

God himself united us to each other forever. From that time, our friendship grew apace and quickly ripened into deepest love.

Wow, praise God. This would be a good time, I think, to take a listener question because he's asking, this particular listener is asking about something that would be pertinent to the very period that you are discussing in the

Spurgeon's lives. We have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who asks, how long had

Charles been preaching before he married Susanna? Yes, great question.

Well, he had been preaching about two and a half years prior to coming to London. He was at Waterbeach.

So at age 16, Spurgeon is preaching at the Waterbeach Chapel, and at 19, he is the pastor of the

Park Street Church. And in June, he turns 20 years old.

So Spurgeon was born in June of 1834. Susanna is a little bit older than him. She was born in January of 1832.

And so Spurgeon had been preaching just about three and a half years when this love is blossoming.

And we also have a listener in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, Linda, who asks, can you tell me about Charles and Susanna's education and that of their children?

And she has a follow -up question. Tell about what their sons did as they grew up.

Right. Well, Charles' education, he received education in many of the schools that would be run by individual tutors in that period of time.

He did not receive formal seminary -type training. He was a non -conformist.

He would not have been allowed into the Church of England schools. And they were the only ones that really had schools back then?

Well, there were some other opportunities for him. And in fact, there's a story I can't fully recount at the moment, but where Spurgeon was meeting with the principal of a particular school for more formal theological education.

There's a breakdown of communication. The meeting never happened. Spurgeon saw that as a sign from God that he was not to seek such great things for himself.

And Spurgeon was not opposed to theological education. In fact, he started a pastor's college himself for the training of pastors.

But he did not receive a formal seminary -type theological education.

I don't know as much about Susanna. She would have received education in the traditional schools there in London area growing up.

Again, much more formally educated, in some ways outshining

Spurgeon in certain areas, Charles, if you can imagine that. And I don't know as much about their children.

It's interesting. I wonder how did the predecessor, many years prior to Charles, John Gill, he was obviously known as a great, brilliant mind of Christendom.

How was he formally educated if he was also a nonconformist?

Right. That's a great question. I don't think I know the answer to that. Okay. All righty.

And so these two fall in love and they get married. And were the families on both sides equally happy and enthusiastic about this marriage?

Because from what you said about Susanna's initial reaction in regard to Charles being basically from the other side of the tracks, as we use that term here in America.

I don't know if they did in England back in the 19th century. But I could imagine that there may have been some apprehension on the part of her parents if she had that kind of reaction initially.

Right. I believe Susanna's father was a little slower to warm up to Charles than Charles's parents who welcomed her.

It was quite a while after they were engaged. They were engaged in 1854. They're married in January of 1856.

And I believe it was maybe the summer of 1855 when Susanna met

Charles's parents for the first time. So I think she was warmly received. Spurgeon had a little bit cooler welcome.

But eventually, in fact, it was Susanna's mother during their engagement that encouraged her daughter to be patient with Charles.

You may know the familiar story. Spurgeon was preaching somewhere, got to the building, became so focused on his duties that he simply forgot

Susanna and went his way. And she had her feelings deeply hurt.

She goes back home to her mother. They're engaged during this time. And after the service, Spurgeon had gone, and where's

Susanna? Where's Susie? Pastors can understand this a bit when you get to church.

I think men in general can understand. This could have happened at Yankee Stadium.

It could have been anywhere. Yeah, what's bad on Spurgeon, what had happened?

He raced to her parents' home, and the mother was there, and she really was the peacemaker and reminded

Susanna that she was the man that she was marrying was no ordinary man, and that his first responsibilities and duties were to his preaching ministry, his pastoral ministry.

And that being said, I mean, it's neat to hear that, and you can read a Christian marriage history among pastors and their wives,

Christian leaders, and they put the ministry first and their marriage way down the line.

John Wesley, even Whitfield had good marriage, but not the sort of marriage that the

Spurgeons had or Jonathan and Sarah Edwards had. It was still more ministry, almost everything, and marriage a distant second.

Though Spurgeon was faithfully devoted to his ministry, he did not neglect Susanna.

The story of their marriage is one of the most beautiful love stories that I've ever read.

Oh, praise God. But her mother really worked it out, and he was apologetic, and Susanna was—later in life, she talked about how they would often laugh about the occasion as it was humorous to them, as she imagined him running back from the church, and she had been weeping upstairs, and that's a story we can relate to,

I think. Yeah. And obviously, Susanna's mother, as you just said in your description of the events, that she knew that he was no ordinary man, she must have had a great appreciation for his preaching, or at least developed that great appreciation for it.

Right. By that time, I mean, Spurgeon's popularity is growing relatively soon after he gets to London, and that's good and challenging.

He's being ridiculed by the press, he's under tremendous assault in many ways.

What would the press be ridiculing him about? Well, his style, his doctrine, even.

I mean, Spurgeon was a Puritan. He embraced Puritan theology, and Puritan theology was not appreciated as much by the town of Spurgeon in London.

Spurgeon's preaching an old -fashioned gospel, the doctrines of God's grace, and some of the same things that his mannerisms and whatnot, the way he would say things, but also his doctrine would put him in the crosshairs of the press.

So really, things haven't changed in over 100 years then, because that's exactly the treatment that modern evangelicalism very often gives to thoroughly

Reformed men who reflect the Puritans in their theology and teaching. That's right.

I don't think we can understand Spurgeon without the Puritan. Spurgeon, when he was born, about 18 months old, he was sent to live with his grandparents, not because of a lack of love by his father and mother, but it seemed it was just a practical necessity.

They needed help. Spurgeon was the oldest of 17 children. Only eight survived infancy.

This was a home that faced a lot of challenges, grief. They were not financially well off, and so at 18 months old,

Spurgeon went to live with his grandfather and his grandmother, which was very providential. Spurgeon grew up sitting at his grandfather's knee on the floor beside his grandfather.

His grandfather would study. His grandfather took him to meet with other pastors. They had folks in their home.

Family worship was a staple and also a great library. Now, Spurgeon's just a baby, and he's growing up.

He's there five or six years, but he's often coming back there, even after he moves back in with his parents, and his grandfather has a wonderful Puritan library there, and Spurgeon has full access to that.

At six years old, he's reading the Pilgrim's Progress for the first time. He's going to read that estimated about 100 times in his life, but he read it the first time at six.

He's reading the Puritans at a very young age. When Spurgeon died, about 12 ,000 volumes in his library, 7 ,000 of those were either by the

Puritans or about the Puritans. So we think of the area of the world in which

Spurgeon lived, outside of London and towards Cambridge and whatnot, just rich in nonconformity, rich in Puritan theology, and Spurgeon's grandfather, it's said, even looked like a

Puritan, the way he dressed, his mannerisms, so his diet was Puritanism.

When he came to London, that was in his bloodstream. That was the theology that he loved, and he preached passionately, and Ditz was a great evangelist.

So the Church is growing like crazy, and folks are seeing, you know, sometimes

Spurgeon's unorthodox methods, you know, in accordance with the more refined ministers in town.

Well, other large churches in town, but Spurgeon's willing to rent out a music hall to have services in, something that caused a great gasp by some of the more refined

Christians in town, that a pastor would do such a thing. And yet he had no music in his worship services, or should

I say no musical instruments. He had music. No instruments, that's right. He believed in the human voice.

Amen. And we have to go to a break right now, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Ray Rhodes on the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, obviously it can be on a broader topic of Charles Spurgeon, the theology he embraced, and I apologize to those of you who are perhaps either new

Christians, or you're not theologically reformed or Calvinistic, and you don't even know who we're talking about.

I know that I raced right into the subject of the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, assuming that the vast majority of my listeners know who

Charles Spurgeon was, but for those who may be listening who don't, he was one of the greatest preachers who ever lived, a very prolific writer, and thanks be to God his sermons, many if not most, were transcribed and are available in print, and he is known as the

Prince of Preachers. He's a man who stood against the popular trends of the day in defense of biblical orthodoxy, and he also battled hyper -Calvinists on the other side.

He was a thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist and embraced the 1689 London Baptist Confession, but there were hyper -Calvinists who disapproved of him.

So he is basically a legendary figure that is also someone that every

Christian needs to know about today, that every Christian, I believe, could benefit enormously from reading anything that Charles Edmund Spurgeon has written.

Not that he's perfect or inerrant, I'm sure that I disagree with some of the things that Charles Spurgeon believed, and I'm sure my guest does too, but he is just a very safe and a very rich resource of godly wisdom that you can revisit time and time again because there's so many things by him available today.

And you could also, if you want to find out more about Charles Spurgeon, you could go to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio archive at ironsharpensironradio .com

and look up interviews I have done with Tom Nettles and Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries, who also runs the

Spurgeon archive, and you can find out more about the man, Charles Spurgeon. But we're going to a break right now, and we would love to hear from you if you have a question for Ray Rhodes right after these messages, so don't go away.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Ray Rhoades Jr., Elder at Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, author of a number of books, and we're discussing today the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, lessons to be learned from a godly couple.

And Ray Rhoades actually wrote his doctoral dissertation on this issue, and God willing, it will be in print shortly.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Ray, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. I actually have a listener who works for Wretched Radio, who has written in a question.

Al Yerkes, he says, I just love my friend and brother Ray Rhoades. His marriage to Laurie mirrors

Charles and Susanna's. What advice would Pastor Ray give to married couples to grow in grace and intimacy?

God bless you, Chris. And please tell Al from New York, says, tell him

Al from New York says hello. Well, Al is very gracious.

He's a godly man. Looking forward to him moving down to Georgia. One of the things

I think is important is to recognize that the best of marriages struggle.

And I want to, this is a great time to point this out about Charles and Susanna Spurgeon. I can't prove that Spurgeon is talking about his marriage and his particular situation, but I think he is.

I love his devotional, Checkbook of the Bank of Fate. That's very, very popular, along with Morning and Evening and his other devotional writings.

And so there must have been some real testing in the lives of the

Spurgeons and their marriage when not only did deep depression begin to inflict

Charles, especially after the fire scare that you could mention that actually subsequently resulted in the deaths of people who were trampled by those running out of the theater where Spurgeon was speaking and who unfortunately lost their lives because of some pranksters playing practical jokes by yelling fire into the building.

And that resulted in Charles suffering from very deep depression, but that must have been a real test to their marriage.

And on top of that, Charles developing serious health problems, if you could touch on that.

Yes, that's right. We'll do that, and then we'll come back to the episode in the Checkbook of Fate.

So Spurgeon's married in January of 1856. They have twins in September of 1856, and the musical disaster that you're speaking of happens in October of 1856.

This is a busy time for Spurgeon and Susanna. Susanna is unable to go with them to the musical.

This is the first service they've held there on a Sunday evening. They're in the process of, ultimately, the

Metropolitan Tabernacle will come as they initially expand the new

Park Street. Later they'd go up the Tabernacle, but there's not a building that will hold all the folks that are coming near Spurgeon.

And so this October evening, Sunday evening, Spurgeon comes up to this hall where 10 ,000 people or so are packed inside.

There's probably that many people on the outside. He begins to preach. As you said, mischief makers start crying out, fire, fire.

Folks are panicked. Seven people are trampled to death. Others are hospitalized. Spurgeon collapses.

Many people think that Spurgeon has died that evening. Spurgeon himself said he almost did.

From a heart attack? No, he just collapsed under the pressure of the moment. It was a heart attack.

Just the overwhelming sense of the panic, the excitement, and all the rest was going on with that.

Susanna is at home praying for the service. A deacon comes to share with her what has happened.

Spurgeon is unable, really, to communicate. Eventually, he's taken to the deacon's home.

Susanna will join him there with the twins. Spurgeon goes through a time of deep suffering.

The Lord uses the scripture to encourage him and restore him through Susanna's example.

That's an early challenge that they are facing together, the loss of life.

Spurgeon suffered from depression prior to that. After that, the struggle with depression deepened.

By the way, brother, whatever you're doing right now, keep doing it as far as the way you're speaking, because for some reason you were starting to get muffled there.

I don't know if you were moving in a different direction or anything like that, but right now you sound perfect.

At least a few seconds ago, you did. Oh, I'm very sorry. That's okay.

Let me make sure I'm close in here. Well, while Spurgeon is at this deacon's home, he writes a letter to his mother.

And I was able to view this letter. I don't think the letter has ever been published. It's about to be published through the

Metropolitan Tabernacle in London now, but I was allowed to see this letter at the tabernacle. He writes a letter to his mother that gives some,

I think, some indication of how deeply his heart is broken, but also his confidence in Christ.

One of the things that struck me about this letter, Spurgeon had beautiful penmanship, and so all the letters

I examined prior to this letter, penmanship was beautiful, but not this letter.

Spurgeon is all over the page. His writing reveals a disoriented mindset in a way.

This is speculation. There are water drops on the letter. Spurgeon is known to shed a few tears.

It's very possible that Spurgeon was weeping as he wrote this letter to his mother, but if you've got a second,

I'll read a portion of that too. Oh yeah, you can read as much of it as you want because this is a two -hour show.

Okay, well, I was really moved by this. He says, Dear Mother, I could not write till now for my poor brain was hot with grief, but it is all right now, all right.

I shall rest for some days and at it again. God is on my side.

Why should I fear? I am not dismayed, for God shall help me.

Dear Susie cannot write. She is so ill. She's suffering as well.

The doctor has been today. She's very, very ill, and then says, but not seriously.

Do not mention the accident in the gardens to me at present. This is the music,

Paul. Do not mention the accident in the gardens to me at present, but pray for me. I am not almost restored to spirits, but I shall never forget this burning furnace.

I will thrash the devil yet. I will seek to be more valiant for God.

The Lord knoweth me that evening, and no unaided man in the universe could have been as brave, as calm, as fearless as I by God's grace.

Our mother, this is no small honor to be maligned for Jesus. Tremble not,

I do not. In God's name, I say to timid friends and boisterous foes, my word is own still own for Christ and for his truth.

My most fervent love to you, to you, my dear father, all your most loved son,

Charles. Amen. That was beautiful. And so he's writing it to his mother.

He and Susanna then sometime later, and this is all happening relatively soon after the disaster at the music hall.

He and Susanna are out walking together, meditating on Paul's letter to the Philippians. Suddenly during their walk,

Charles stops and he says to Susanna, oh wifey, that was sort of his nickname for Susanna, wifey,

I see it all now. Praise the Lord with me. And what he saw was

Christ exalted, Christ reigning from the Philippians 2. And as he pondered the exaltation of Christ following his crucifixion and resurrection, hope came to Spurgeon's heart.

And so he went from almost resigning from the ministry, and by the way, let me insert Christian George, who's the curator of the

Spurgeon library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has written a great article on the Broadman and academic website,

Spurgeon blog there. Spurgeon almost quit. Well Spurgeon went from almost resigning from the ministry to being revived for the ministry.

And it was while they were at the deacon's home that he and Susanna dedicated their twins to the Lord in prayer and praise.

He returned to his congregation two weeks later at the New Park Street Chapel. That's on November the 2nd, 1856.

A couple of weeks after seven people died, 20 -something others are hospitalized.

And as he comes to the pulpit, he describes his feelings of joy and sorrow that he felt.

He cried out in prayer to God, thanking him that he had brought him to the fiery furnace.

The first words from his first sermon back were, I almost regret this morning that I ventured to occupy this pulpit, because I feel utterly unable to preach to you for your profit.

Spurgeon was very honest with his church. He told them about his depression throughout his ministry, the dark nights of his soul, and the struggles that he faced.

He asked them to pray for him, and he's describing that here. He says,

I feel somewhat of those same painful emotions which wellnight prostrated me before.

He asked the congregation to excuse him if he made no allusion to that solemn event, or scarcely any.

And he encouraged them with his intent to return to the music hall again to preach, and he did that on November the 23rd, 1856.

So about a month after the disaster, he is back at the music hall preaching again. Wow. And he preaches a sermon titled

Love's Commendation from Romans 5a, and he preaches the gospel as he did every sermon.

So it's an amazing story, but you're right. That event created a depth of emotional struggle in the heart of Spurgeon that he faced for the rest of his life.

Some of his close friends believe that that was one of the main causes for his early death, was the music hall and the effect of that disaster on his health.

Of course, he had other health issues. He had developed kidney disease. He was overweight.

He was probably overworked. We would say that's probably an understatement. Susanna's health is diminishing, and so probably 12 years,

I think, after their marriage, she's having surgery from the father of modern gynecology.

We don't know a lot about that. We can surmise that some sort of female surgery.

They never had any more children. It seems that she was in a lot of pain prior to that surgery and after the surgery.

She was basically homebound after 10 years for the rest of Spurgeon's ministry. So they've got physical issues, both of them, emotional stresses, attacks from the press, all of these things that could sink many a home but didn't sink the

Spurgeon home, by the grace of God, through the word of God, the power of God's Spirit. This couple, instead of pulling apart, they came close to one another.

Now, I mentioned the checkbook of faith. He wrote this, I believe, some of your listeners may correct me,

I believe he wrote this during the downgrade controversy in the late 1880s. So he's writing this book, and on August the 30th,

Spurgeon is commenting on 2 Samuel 23 5, and he said, these are the last words of David, but they may be mine today.

Here is a sigh. Things are not with me and mine as I could wish.

There are trials, cares, and sins. These make the pillow hard.

All the research I've done on Spurgeon, somehow I miss this gem of a quote.

Wow. Our Christian heroes, sometimes we imagine that they're men and women of steel.

Spurgeon, the prolific writer of 63 volumes of the

Metropolitan Tabernacle and New Park Street, 135 additional books, editing a monthly magazine, great popularity all over the world now.

Certainly Spurgeon is doing well always, but when we dig into his life, we see the sufferings that he encountered, and this quote tells me, because he said, the words of David may be mine today, things are not with me and mine as I wish.

Trials, cares, and sins. I don't know about you, Chris, but I can relate to that. I've been married 29 years to a godly, beautiful woman with our children, a wonderful family by the grace of God, but trials, cares, and sins are part and parcel with the best of marriages, and I think

Charles and Susanna had the best of marriages. Their marriage was among the best of marriages in Christian history, and yet trials, cares, and sins.

So the downgrade is going on, this great battle for the authority of Scripture in part, and Spurgeon has friends that are departing from him, he's basically censured by the

Baptist Union, he's very isolated, one of a major donor to his ministry starts withholding support.

He and Susanna are, he is in Mentone, France, where he has to go for his health constantly from probably the early 1870s to his death to escape the cold winters of London.

So he's separated from Susanna a lot, suffering a lot, losing friendships because of his stand for the truth, and so when

I read this quote, knowing this book was written around that time, it really struck home to me, that Charles Spurgeon, a great man, a man who suffered greatly as well.

Amen, amen. That's something that we can all learn from when we are at our darkest point, and it's so sad when you hear about marriages breaking up when the couple is faced with horrific trials.

It seems there is a very high percentage of marriages that end in divorce after the death of a child.

Now I know that the Spurgeons didn't experience that, but any kind of a horrific trial like that can often end a marriage, and it's good to see that their marriage was strengthened through the trials that they went through.

Do you know if the press, or anyone else for that matter, maybe even the surviving families of those who were killed during that trampling in his church, or in the music hall, did anyone blame

Spurgeon for this himself? I don't have quotes in front of me here, but I know the press did.

You know, the press had asked us, you know, the crowds are following after this guy, he's preaching at the music hall, and they criticized him.

Spurgeon was unable to discern exactly what was going on in the music hall while this was happening, so he was initially trying to continue the service.

You can see there's something of a ruckus in the back, and so he was soundly criticized for that, but Spurgeon was unaware of exactly what was happening.

He was trying to keep calm and sort of keep the order of things as best he could before he realized exactly what was happening.

So yes, he was criticized. How did the press treat Susanna? There's not a lot of information that I'm aware of, of the press writing about Susanna.

Probably that culture, that would have been sort of off limits, we think. We don't talk about that in our culture, you know, leave a politician's wife or family out of the politics, and maybe that was part and parcel of Victorian era,

I'm not sure about that. Okay, because up until you said that, it seemed like the press was very similar to what we have today.

That's exactly right. Susanna kept scrapbooks of press releases concerning Spurgeon, both the positives and the negatives, and I think some of those still exist over at Spurgeon's college in London, some of the scrapbooks.

Now, what do you know about Susanna's perhaps activity in society?

I mean, I'm not so sure how things would have differed in Victorian England in regard to a pastor's wife's freedom or how rare it was for a woman to be getting involved in some kind of an outreach to the community, but what can you tell us about that?

Right, well, the first 10 years of her marriage, she's able to attend church with Charles.

She believes she ministers, helps with the baptismal candidates, and is involved in the ministry of the church as other ladies would have been.

After 10 years, again, she is basically homebound, and when

Spurgeon's first volume of lectures to my students was released, she read it, wanted to put a copy of that in every pastor's hand in England.

Spurgeon challenged her to do just that, to make the initial donation, and so she went and asked us to do her egg jar, we would say, and used her money to help start this book fund that was raised money to give books to poor pastors throughout the

British Isles. And so, even though she was homebound, she was heavily involved in Spurgeon's ministry, the ministry of the gospel, through the book fund, and also through praying for her husband and being an encouragement to him.

She wrote pretty regular reports for the Sorted Trials, Spurgeon's monthly magazine, giving an accounting of the book fund.

In fact, one of the most fascinating books I read in my doctoral studies was her second book on the fund.

It's called 10 Years After. A lot of this book is just reports. This amount of money came in, this number of books was sent out, but throughout this book, she gives biographical insights into her relationship with Spurgeon and her ministry.

She's writing books herself. She's writing for the Sorted Trial, and she's raising this money, and she's got assistance helping her to mail these books out from their home.

Now, when you say she was homebound, this is where you were referring to earlier about the gynecological problem that she...

Right. I believe that she was actually pretty severely afflicted prior to that, and was homebound prior to the surgery.

After the surgery, she almost never left the home. Now, a great story, and I don't know if this is a good time to tell it...

In fact, you can pick up with a great story as soon as we come back from the station break. Okay, great.

And don't forget about that great story. That's great. Okay, and we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Ray Rhodes Jr.,

pastor of Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, author of a number of books.

And we are speaking today about the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, lessons to be learned from a godly couple.

And this actually happens to be the theme of Dr. Ray Rhodes' doctoral dissertation that hopefully will soon be in print.

And if you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We have several people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you.

But I wanted you to tell us this remarkable story that we brought up before the break.

Well, I've got a few, but let's take them one at a time.

One of the things that excites me, Chris, about this is when I read Spurgeon, not about Spurgeon, when

I read Spurgeon, he is all about Christ. And I'm excited to be a small part of perhaps leaving something behind for the next generation and the generations to come.

But Spurgeon will still be loved because of the Christ that he exalted. We have a four -year -old daughter, and she spends a lot of time in my study with me.

And she often sees me reading and reading out loud Spurgeon from time to time.

We have a Spurgeon bobblehead. We also have a Dr. Moeller bobblehead. Sometimes those two can communicate.

But she knows more about Charles Spurgeon than any four -year -old in America.

That's my Abigail. And so I'll be working on a sermon, doing exegesis, whatever I'm doing.

She'll say, Daddy, are you writing about Spurgeon? Are you studying about Spurgeon?

So our home is a Spurgeon home. And seeing Abigail at four years old learning about Spurgeon is exciting to me, not just because Spurgeon was a great man and all of that, but Spurgeon exalts

Christ. And I challenge anyone to read Spurgeon. And you don't have to read very far along, a few paragraphs, and you're learning about the gospel.

You're hearing about Christ. But anyway, I digress there. A couple of things about Spurgeon's marriage, a couple of stories.

And what I encourage out of others is Spurgeon and Susanna didn't neglect their marriage.

You say, well, how is that possible? Spurgeon is gone sometimes 1 ,000 miles away from home or maybe further.

Susanna's homebound. Spurgeon's sick. How are they able to stick closely together?

And maybe we'll talk a little later about their love letters. But that was essential to their marriage, the way they wrote to one another.

With such tender tone, such spirituality, romantic expressions.

And after Susanna's surgery, and she's recovering from that, he is also in the process of moving to their new home.

So this is 1869. They're getting ready to move to a new home. Susanna's affliction is so severe that she can't really contribute anything to the plans for that move.

And we might imagine Spurgeon spending all of his time pouring over books, preparing for sermons, writing books, leading the 60 -plus ministries that he led that was connected to the

Metropolitan Tabernacle, writing one of the 500 letters per week that he would write.

We see him in that vein. And sometimes we miss the other side of Spurgeon. It was at the heart of his character.

So Spurgeon is very busy with his ministry. But he doesn't fail to display the most tender of affections for Susanna.

And he found ways to show her in practical ways how much he loved her. So think about this for a moment,

Chris. I have a difficult time relating to this a bit, knowing my personality. But Spurgeon is out purchasing items for their new home.

Louie wouldn't want me to do that, for one. Louie likes when

I was Spurgeon knew his wife, I think. He's purchasing items that would make it more enjoyable and accessible for her.

And so he sends her a letter during one of his trips, revealing his attention, that really just uncovers his attention to detail, his love for his wife, as he prepares for their new home.

And so he says, I've been quite a long round today, if a round can be long.

First to Finsbury to buy the wardrobe, a beauty. I hope you will live long to hang your garments in it.

Every thread of them precious to me for your dear sake. Now, that's part of the letter.

I've never said anything like that to my wife. And every thread of her garments are precious to me for her sake.

That's the way he wrote to Susanna. And then he went to buy a chandelier. He said,

I went to another place. He bought a barometer, he says, for my very own fancy. For I promised to treat myself to one.

On the road, I obtained a press board of biscuits. And within their box, I send this note.

And by the way, those biscuits are different from Georgia biscuits. And so he sent her a letter in a biscuit box.

And that gives us a picture into a spurge of personality, too, I think, as well. He says, they are sweetened with my love and prayers.

The bedroom will look well with the wardrobe in it, at least I hope. It is well made, and I believe, as nearly as I could tell, precisely all you wished for.

I bought also a table for you in case you should have to keep to your bed. It rises and falls by a screw, and also winds sideways so as to go over the bed.

And then it has a flap for a book or paper so that my dear one may read or write in comfort while lying down.

I could not resist the pleasure of making this little gift to my poor, suffering wifey, only hoping it might not be in requisition but might be a help when there's a need to be for it.

Remember, all I buy, I pay for. I pay for everything as yet with the earnings of my pen graciously sent me in time of need.

It is my ambition to leave nothing for you to be anxious about. I shall find the money for the curtains, et cetera, and you will amuse yourself by giving orders for them after your own delightful taste.

That's not bad. Wow, I mean, he sounds like a regular Cyrano de Bergerac. It reminded me, on quite the opposite end of the spectrum,

I'm sure that now that my parents are in heaven, they won't mind me saying this story, telling this brief story.

But I can still remember, burned into my memory as a little kid, sitting in the living room and waiting for my parents to come home from a shopping spree that they were on, and my mother coming in the house first, running up the stairs, crying her eyes out.

My father following her, yelling at her for having mousy taste, whatever mousy taste means,

I'm not really sure, and then seeing the moving men carrying a very large, bright red and orange plaid couch that my father had insisted they buy with Revolutionary War battleships on it.

So that was quite a different experience in my household than it seems at the Spurgeon's Head. Now, we have two questions that are kind of related to what you were just discussing, and I will give them both at the same time because they're very connected.

First question is from someone that you know very well. That's Lieutenant Kevin Gerard, who is temporarily here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

He says, married couples, including the Gerards, often cite poor communication as the number one source of marital conflict.

What can we learn about communication from the Spurgeons? And the other question is from Murray in Kenross, Scotland, who is listening and writes, how did a man, meaning

Charles Spurgeon, with such a large library, have enough time to care for his wife?

So they think that they kind of went hand in hand. That's why I asked them both at the same time there.

Right, right. Well, great question, communication. By the way, the remainder of Spurgeon's library is in Kansas City at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and that is well worth your time to go to their website, look around, but also make a trip up there.

Midwestern acquired the library from William Jewell College a few years ago, paid a fortune for that.

William Jewell paid just a little bit for it when it was sold, I think in 1903, around that time after Susanna died.

Spurgeon's library was her most precious possession. In fact, after he died, she spent a lot of money on that library writing.

In fact, this second 10 years book on the book fund, she wrote much of that from Spurgeon's library.

But after he died, the state did not have a lot of money, as I understand it.

The Sons sold around 6 ,000 of the volumes. The little college in Missouri, William Jewell bought those, stayed there for a number of years until a few years ago in Midwestern bought those.

And the remainder of that, 6 ,000 volumes out of at least 12 ,000, is at Midwestern, a beautiful, beautiful place.

Again, Christian George is the curator of the Spurgeon library. You have to get me his contact information, because I definitely want to get him on the program.

Yeah, you definitely do. He is a world -renowned Spurgeon scholar, and he also did his

PhD work on Spurgeon at St. Andrews, I believe. But anyway, that's a great place, that's a great resource.

I had the opportunity to spend a week there, or several days there about a year ago, and I can't commend that enough.

By the way, and I'm coming to your question, but it's just leading me to think of other things. Altman and Holtman Academic is releasing a multi -volume set of the

Lost Sermons of Spurgeon, which no one's ever seen except a few scholars,

Christian George primarily. These are the sermons and outlines from the time

Spurgeon was, I believe, 16 to 19 years of age. Spurgeon himself had planned to publish those.

He said that in 1857, I believe. He was unable to do so, and so January of 2017, the first volume of that is coming out.

It has, as described, full color facsimiles, transcriptions, contextual material, biographical introductions, editorial annotations, critical commentary.

It's the first critical edition of Spurgeon's works, and this will be,

I forget, maybe 10, 12 volumes of new Spurgeon material hitting the bookshelves in January.

Very excited about that and really opening the door to Spurgeon scholarship for it.

And you might be also ending some marriages as all these men who are listening buy these volumes. Right, right.

You can pre -order now on Amazon. It's already up as a pre -order of volume one. But their communication, which is, as I've led marriage retreats all over the place, that's typically one of the top questions that comes is how do we communicate better in our marriage?

And I think a few things that we can learn from the Spurgeons. One is they talk to each other.

In fact, Susanna would read to Charles, and we have every reason to believe that he did so as well.

But he would come home on a Sunday night just exhausted, and they would sit by the fireplace together.

Susanna would read from George Herbert or from Richard Baxter, whatever mood

Spurgeon may have been in or whatever he may have needed at the moment. She would read to him. In fact, in one of her books, she writes of another reading occasion.

She said, I was reading portions of scripture in daily light. My husband said, what are the texts for today, wifey?

And so I read. And then she read to Spurgeon on that occasion as well.

So they read together. They had family worship together when Spurgeon was there. But I think the real key to their communication, especially because they were separated so often, was they wrote letters to each other.

And that means mostly for Spurgeon with a dip pen. He's writing letters. Now, as Spurgeon himself said, he had about 500 letters a week to answer.

That is almost unbelievable. I believe

Dr. Whitney at Southern Seminary did a calculation that that would be about an eight -hour day of writing.

Wow. Taking into consideration a certain... I mean, that's if you're having very brief letters, if all of them are relatively brief.

But 500 letters a week. And yet he's writing to Susanna from the time they meet until near his death.

And so just a couple of examples. 1855, this is prior to their marriage.

He tells Susanna, he says in this letter, I've had daydreams of you while driving along.

This is Charles Spurgeon we're talking about. Right. That's a preacher. I've had daydreams of you while driving along.

I thought you were very near me. It is not long, dearest, before I shall again enjoy your sweet society if the providence of God permits.

I knew I loved you very much before, but now I feel how necessary you are to me and you will not lose much by my absence if you find me on my return more attentive to your feelings as well as equally affectionate.

So he's in close communication with Susanna via letter. He's giving detailed descriptions of his love for her.

He's creating, he's cultivating a vision for his return home and what he expects and what he hopes will be the case, their closeness.

Susanna, he wrote so often to her that she felt that maybe she was causing him to weary himself by writing.

And he said, he wrote her back and said, don't think that. He said, it is my delight to please you and so was an absence which must be even more dreary to you than to me.

One thing that's striking in these letters, he puts her first. He's thinking of her needs. My absence is more difficult to you than this to me.

Since traveling and preaching lead me to forget. My eyes ache for sleep, but they shall keep open till I've invoked the blessings from above, mercies temporal and eternal to rest on the head of one whose name is sweet to me and who equally loves the name of her own, her much beloved.

So they talk to each other. They read together. During the engagement period, their date nights would often consist of Susanna sitting at a table beside Charles as he's editing his

Sunday sermons, getting them ready for publication. She may be reading out loud to him, but one night he hands her some of the works of Thomas Brooks.

He asked her to go through this bestial book and to point out pertinent quotes, interesting statements and to write those down.

And she does that. And the end result is a book that we know, that you know about, that doesn't have

Susanna's name on it, but it's called Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks.

Yeah. And Susanna says, you know, and writes about that as well, that few people know that Tinder loves for this happening between the lines of this book as she's working at her beloved side.

So they're engaged in projects together. They're writing together. They're reading together.

They're thinking of one another, praying for one another. And, but I think these letters were key in their particular relationship and much, in my opinion, much better than if Spurgeon could have tweeted and emailed and texted and all the other things that folks do that.

I'm sure he would have taken advantage of that, but the thoughtfulness that goes into a handwritten letter is so valuable,

I think. Amen. By the way, when you mentioned Thomas Brooks, I immediately just thought of a wonderful book that he wrote in the 17th century,

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. That's right. And I believe

Banner of Truth has that in print. And by the way, you could get a lot of these books that we are discussing today through solid -ground -books .com,

which is the, not only a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron, but they have a wealth of a treasure trove of books from the past and the present, not only ones that they publish themselves, but also from other publishers, and also

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who send out all of our free books that our listeners win when they submit questions.

Today, we don't have any books to give away, but whenever you hear about us giving away free books, they are shipped to you free of charge by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, another one of our sponsors, and their website is cvbbs .com,

cvbbs .com. And you can probably get any, not even probably, you could certainly get any book that we are addressing today that is in print still by cvbbs .com.

And so keep that in mind when you're listening to the program. And this is a side of Spurgeon that I'm sure a lot of people know nothing about, and certainly is something that I am learning more about than I've ever heard of before.

It really endears him more to my heart, as I know how precious he was to his wife and a man who is so serious about doctrine and so steeped into the word of God, seemed to be at times also even childlike in his romantic behavior with her.

And I don't mean childish, I mean childlike in a good way that is very refreshing to hear about.

That's right. One of his biographers, Carlisle is his last name, wrote that Mr.

Spurgeon's last boy is like a chapter of a New England novel. Nathaniel Hawthorne might have written it.

Wow. A lady who did her doctoral dissertation on Spurgeon, Patricia Krepa, I don't know if he's alive, and the book is not in print.

And it's not completely, in my view, it's not completely accurate in some points in her conclusions, but she examined their relationship, and it's not a book on their marriage, it's on Spurgeon's ministry in general, but she says of Charles and Susanna, to the end of their lives, they were lovers.

And what could be more touching than these two old invalids? She had grown plump and looking slightly absurd, wearing the girlish curls.

He prematurely tired and aged, yet writing each other love poems as though they were still 20 and courting under the dome of the

Crystal Palace. Wow. That's something.

To really seek to imitate there, and I'm hoping that many of our listeners who are not only married, who can perhaps begin to reflect on how their marriage needs to be improved, but also those seeking marriage, the younger folks or perhaps even older folks who are seeking marriage.

And as we said earlier, a reminder for those who immediately will dismiss someone as a romantic interest because of a first impression, they should not really solely rely on the first impression because those love at first sight experiences are very, very rare in this life.

And this is an example of one that certainly was not a love at first sight story that became a lifelong romance.

Now, what can you tell us to follow up on Linda from Hilltop, Texas? She wrote in earlier about the children.

I know that there was Thomas and Charles. I don't think that there were any others, were there? That's right. Just the twin boys.

And so tell us something about what became of them.

I know Thomas succeeded Charles as a pastor at Metropolitan Tabernacle, correct? Yes, he was there at the

Metropolitan for a while before he retired or resigned. And he wrote as well some works.

Don't recall the title. Charles Jr. was also involved in the ministries of Spurgeon.

I forget exactly one, but the Metropolitan Tabernacle had 60, 65 ministries that were attached to that church that had been developed basically mostly under Spurgeon's ministry and leadership.

And so the sons were both engaged in ministry. Spurgeon had a vision that both of them would join him in essence in using our lingo on staff at some point during his lifetime.

That didn't happen. Thomas was ministering miles away and Charles as well was serving as a pastor.

So the sons were in pastoral ministry and other kinds of ministry as well. Neither Charles nor Susanna directly led them to Christ, but both of them point to the influence of Charles and Susanna, but Susanna more than Charles even.

The influence of their mother, just essential to their coming to know

Christ as their own Lord and Savior. Do you know anything about their own reflections about their parents?

I do. Let me think on that for a moment or see if I can pull something up.

In fact, what we could do is we could go to our final station break right now. And while we're doing that, you could pull up whatever you need to and we'll pick up the conversation where we left off.

Great, that sounds good. All righty. We're going to be going to a break now. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Ray Rhodes and the marriage of Charles and Susanna.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

This is Chris Ornzen, if you just tuned us in. This is the last half hour of our two -hour program with Ray Rhodes, Jr.,

a pastor at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, author of a number of books, and who he also is the founder of Nourished in the

Word Ministries. We are discussing the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon, which was actually the theme of his doctoral dissertation.

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

And before I return to our discussion, I have to give you that announcement that I hinted at earlier in the interview from one of my sponsors in regard to the

G3 Conference. The G3 Conference is being held January 19th through the 21st in Atlanta, Georgia to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. And yours truly, God willing, will be there with an exhibitor's booth.

Thanks to Josh Bice, who is running this event, and also thanks to our friends at Lynbrook Baptist Church, who helped pay for other expenses.

And just am thankful that I will be there, because I did really eagerly want to go and did not think

I was going to be able to make it. But thanks to the generosity of several forces that converged together, totally unknowing of one another.

Just showing the hand of God in this. I will be there at the G3 Conference, unless God has other plans

I don't know about yet. And I will have an exhibitor's booth right next to the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. So please look me up if you are attending. The lineup is absolutely phenomenal.

It's one of the longest, in fact, the longest lineup of speakers I've ever seen at a conference.

And it's not only a long list of speakers, but it's a very impressive list of speakers that includes

Paul Washer, Stephen J. Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vody Baucom, James R.

White, Tim Challies, Conrad M. Bayway, who is probably the most powerful preacher alive on the planet

Earth. A friend of mine since 1995, who has spoken at the church where I was formerly a member on a number of occasions.

Phil Johnson, who we discussed earlier today, who is the Executive Director of Grace to You Ministry and who maintains the

Spurgeon Archive. And Rosaria Butterfield, a former leftist lesbian tenured professor at Syracuse University who is a born -again believer and wife of a pastor and now a prolific writer.

And also Todd Freel, who we mentioned before. And Todd Freel actually is host of the

Wretched TV and radio program and our guest's son -in -law. Our guest today,

Ron Rose's son -in -law, is the producer of that TV show, Wretched, hosted by Todd Freel.

He will be there. And that's just about half of the speakers at the G3 Conference. So go to their website, g3conference .com

g3conference .com So, Ron, before the break, you were digging something up to share with our listeners. Right, we were talking about their sons.

And Charles and Thomas, they were born in 1856, September the 20th, 1856.

Charles would live to 1926, Thomas to 1917. Spurgeon considered them, quoting

Spurgeon, as the best of sons. Charles was referred to as the older because he was delivered first.

And the one writer, one author, a gentleman by the name of Burley, A.

Cunningham Burley, wrote a book called Spurgeon and His Friendships, was good friends with Charles.

And Burley had suggested that Charles write a biography of his father.

And Charles responded to Burley, he said the power of hero worship was too strong in him to do justice to the many -sided character of his father.

So there's Charles Jr., in essence, saying, you know, I can't write this story because he's my hero, and didn't feel like he could give a fair treatment to that.

Now, some of the challenges that the boy faced, at least Burley and his friendship with young Charles, Charles the

Younger, said that in their early years, they didn't experience as much personal time with their father as they would have enjoyed, but that the loving friendship was there, the happy relationship, the relationships were there, and they were tender and loving and trained them in family worship and otherwise.

But Susanna was really the most, as many of our wives are, most on -the -scene, hands -on trainer and teacher and parent of the two.

And Charles Reddy, who's written the only biography of Susanna Spurgeon, a small biography, a

Banner of Truth publication as well now, modern publication, he says that Mrs.

Spurgeon was a faithful trainer of her twin sons in the Christian doctrine. She had the joy of seeing both of them brought to the

Lord at an early age. I trace my early conversion, Pastor Thomas Spurgeon has written, directly to her earnest pleading and bright example.

And so she ministered the word of God to their family. He said, my dear brother was brought to Christ to the point of word of a missionary, but he too gladly owns that mother's influence and teaching were essential to his own salvation.

Spurgeon baptized his sons in 1874, which they came to know

Christ much earlier. The baptism was delayed as probably was the custom in Spurgeon's church until they were older.

So 1874, born in 1856, baptized 1874.

They were 18 years old and they were baptized and received formally into church membership.

Well, one of the sons, it was Charles, I believe, who wrote that he was head and ears in love with his father.

He said, I do not know whether even mother loves him more than I do. So that gives you just a glimpse into the relationship between Charles and Susanna and their parents.

The sons loved them. It was said of Thomas by one Bible, for never once did

I hear him refer to Spurgeon without moistened eyes and deepest emotion.

And Spurgeon wrote letters to his sons just as he did to Susanna and lots of other folks as well.

And he was always concerned that his sons remember Susanna, remember their mother in various ways.

So a great relationship. Spurgeon's got a lot, again, a lot of love that's fallen to Susanna. And to care for them, she's faithful to do so while he is away.

And I know that Solid Ground Christian Books actually has a book that they brought back into print by Thomas Spurgeon.

So if you'd like to go to solid -ground -books .com, you could look for that book.

Just type in Thomas Spurgeon in the search engine. We have a listener.

It's a bit off topic, but it does address Charles Spurgeon anyway. And since he's a first time listener,

I would like to allow him to ask his question. Can it be narrowed down what eschatological view

Spurgeon had? That's beyond my pay grade and expertise.

From what I could gather, Spurgeon was probably a historic premillennialist.

That's what I've heard from everybody that knows anything about Spurgeon. Right, but I can't say that with absolute certainty.

Yeah, well, if he had another view, I've never heard it before because every single person that I know that has written on Spurgeon and studied him intensely knows, well, has told me that he was historic premill.

We would say he was correct on his eschatology then. Is that right? Well, actually,

I happen to be amillennial, but I don't hold that against anybody. Not a matter of fellowship at all.

Spurgeon would not have seen it as such either. And of course, I know that there are postmillennialists who say that at times

Spurgeon wrote as if he was postmillennial, and his ministry was really prior to any catching on with any kind of dispensational movement with pre -tribulationalism.

That didn't even really exist, I don't think, in the life of Spurgeon, did it? I mean, it was just about towards the tail end of Spurgeon's life, perhaps, that dispensationalism started to catch on in America, right?

You know, that sounds right. Yeah, that sounds right. But anyway, by the way,

Charles, since you're a first -time listener, you are getting a free New American Standard Bible, a really beautiful edition of this with an embossed cross on the cover.

It's really a gorgeous Bible. And so give us your full address there in Fortville, Indiana.

And just also got to quickly let you know that there is a

Bible conference that I hope you can attend if you live near Pittsburgh, Indiana.

I don't know how close Fortville is, but the Pittsburgh Baptist Church is having a conference next week, next weekend.

Let's see here. It's going to be September 9th and 10th.

That's Friday and Saturday. And one of my dearest friends who almost became my pastor, and God had mercy on him, and I moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, so he was spared having me as a congregation member.

But Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, New York is one of the speakers, as is

Reverend Isaac Evans of Glastonbury Baptist Church in Glastonbury, Connecticut, and Pastor John Peoples of Grace Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Dr.

Russell Fuller, who is the main plenary speaker.

He is a professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, or Al Mohler, who we discussed a little bit earlier, where Al Mohler is the president.

And if you want more details about this conference, it's pittsburghbaptistchurch .com,

P -I -T -T -S -B -O -R -O, Baptist Church. I'm sorry, there's no church in the website.

It's just pittsburghbaptist .com, P -I -T -T -S -B -O -R -O, baptist .com.

So Charles, I hope that you can attend that. I can't imagine it would be that far away from you in Indiana.

So let us know if you attend and what your thoughts were at the conference. So we have reached the point where Thomas and Charles have already grown up and so on.

What else from the marriage of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Susannah can our married listeners gain from this?

This really, as it turns out, was a very precious and beautiful and intimate marriage. Yeah, well, if we have a few minutes,

I would like to take us to the end of his life and an amazing providence.

I mean, just one of the striking things about their marriage happens near the end of their journey.

And so Spurgeon is back in Midtown in 1890. Again, he's there to recover, planning to come back home.

He writes to Susannah from Midtown. He tells her what a blessing she is to him.

A beautiful line in one of his letters, my love to you grows, and yet I do not know how at any time it could have been greater.

Susannah had never been able to travel the thousand miles from London to Midtown, France with Charles.

He so desperately wanted her there with him, but he knew that her physical condition would not allow it.

So Spurgeon goes back home. June the 7th, 1891 is the last time he preaches at the

Metropolitan Tabernacle. He goes to visit Stambourg, his grandfather's land, soon after that, but poor health sends him back home again to London.

He's determined he needs to make another trip to Midtown to seek recovery. And so here's the great story.

On Monday, October the 26th, 1891, Charles left for Midtown with Susannah.

But of all of these years, there are 36 years of marriage, he'd been going to Midtown at least since the 70s.

She's never able to go with him, and now she's able, the Lord has given her sufficient strength to make this journey.

So Charles leaves for Midtown with Susannah, his secretary, Joseph Harold, his brother,

J .A. Spurgeon, and his wife. They get there on October the 29th, 1891, and they enjoyed what she described as three months of perfect happiness before the, quote, sorrowful separation.

And Spurgeon was like a schoolboy. He was so excited about having

Susannah there that he would take her around the area, point out his favorite spots and sites.

He was her tour guide, places that were precious to him. She said those were glorious days.

Never should I cease to bless God for his mercy in permitting me to be there with my beloved, to minister to his happiness and comfort.

She said that he was full of fun and childlike pleasure. He looked for ways to surprise her, to laugh with her.

At mealtimes, he was delighted with a party, with a smile and a kind word for everyone around the table.

And then she writes, she says, I can never describe the pride and joy with which he introduced me to his favorite places and the eagerness which he showed me each lovely glimpse of mountains, sea and landscape.

He was hungry for my loving appreciation, and I satisfied him to the full.

We took long daily drives. Every place we visited was a triumphal entry for him.

His enjoyment was intense, his delight exuberant. He looked in perfect health and rejoiced in the broadest of spirits.

Not a care burdened him, not a grief weighed upon his heart, not a desire remained unfulfilled, not a wish unsatisfied.

He was permitted to enjoy an earthly Eden before his translation to paradise. During one of those daily trips, he pointed to a lovely scene.

He pointed at Susanna and said, there wifey, isn't that wolf coming all the way to see?

And after he died, she wrote, yes, truly. And if there'd been nothing else to see than his happiness and my long desired presence with him, this would have well repaid any effort of love on my part.

And so Spurgeon's dream of Susanna being with him in one of his favorite places there in France, Menton, comes true.

They're having a delightful time. He mostly completes his final work, the gospel of the kingdom, which is an exposition of Matthew's gospel.

Susanna writes the introduction to that book over his last precious legacy.

They're right home, they're communicating. And then Spurgeon falls ill the final time.

And New Year's Eve of 1891, 1892, he gets two addresses to small groups that are gathered there.

He does again on January the 10th and the 17th. He gives out the hymn on the 17th, hymn that we're familiar with, the same old

Rutherford song, the sands of time are sinking, the dawn of heaven breaks, the seven men I've sighed for, the fair sweet morn awakes, dark, dark at the midnight, the day spring is at hand, and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.

What an appropriate hymn. And Wednesday the 20th, Spurgeon goes to bed. His health is declining.

He's in his bed until he dies. Towards the end of the week, he musters up enough strength to tell his secretary, my work is done.

By the 26th, he's in and out of consciousness, and yet he rallies a bit. He writes a letter to the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

And on January the 31st, 1892, just after 11 o 'clock, Spurgeon died with Susanna at his side.

And the autobiography says this, then all was over. Mr. Harold offered prayer, and Mrs.

Spurgeon thanked the Lord for the precious treasure so long lent to her and sought at the throne of grace, strength and guidance for the future.

And yet she felt the pain of loss. She said, oh, my husband, my husband, every moment of my desolate life,

I wonder how I can live without thee. The heart that for so many years has been filled and satisfied with thy love, must needs be very empty and stricken now that thou art gone.

And she had other things to say as well. They had a service there in Mentone for Spurgeon.

Susanna did not make the trip back to London at that time. So she was not there for the week -long services that were held for Spurgeon in London.

Later, she would go back and had some wonderful things to say after the fact as well. That they were in love in June of 1854 at the

Crystal Palace when Spurgeon revealed his heart towards her.

They were in love at his deathbed as she thanked God for the precious treasure so long lent to her.

And she loved him throughout the rest of her life. She died in 1903, died with a hem on her lips in essence.

And singing God's praises, thanking God for the life that he had given her.

Praise God. That's just a portion of a great love story. Yeah, well,

I hope that some financially blessed individual involved with the production of documentaries and films and movies and that kind of thing will someday fall in love with this story and create a film of this love story.

This is just... It could be easily a movie, I believe. Right, right.

And how long... Go ahead, I'm sorry. Now, so there is a Spurgeon movie. I think it's called

A People's Preacher perhaps. It does have a little bit of a story. It does show them at their death, at Spurgeon's death and this scene that I'm describing,

I believe. But nothing on a major scale has been done. And how much longer after Charles went home to glory with Christ, how much longer did

Susanna tarry on this earth? Susanna lived till she was 1903.

She continued to lead the book fund. Seems that her health improved some.

Again, to me, that's just an amazing providence that she's able to go with him after being so afflicted so long and she remains in the area for a while.

But she dies in 1903 and again, towards the end of her life, she's quoting

Job, though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. And she says, his lab and Tom's past forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in trouble to think, which is a verse for him.

And she has those in the room with her, complete the verse. She lives a few more weeks after that. At the very end of her life, she testifies, blessed

Jesus, blessed Jesus, I can see the king in his glory. She died on Thursday, October the 22nd, 1903, buried alongside of her beloved husband and dying with confidence in Christ.

I mentioned earlier that she loved his study and after he died, she would retreat to his study.

And I think this is beautiful. It'll take just a minute. She said, I'm writing in my husband's study where he thought and prayed and wrote every inch of the place, sacred ground.

Everything remains precisely as he left it. His books, now my most precious possessions stand in shining rows upon the shelves in exactly the order in which he placed them.

And one might almost fancy the room was ready and waiting for its master. But oh, that empty chair, that great portrait over the door, the strange solemn silence, which pervades the place now, but he is no longer on earth.

I kneel sometimes beside his chair and laying my head on the cushioned arms, which so long supported his dear form.

I pour out my grief before the Lord and tell them again that though I am left alone, yet I know that he has done all things well in wandering from room to room, looking with tear -dimmed eyes at the home treasures, my dear one loved and admired, almost expecting to hear the sound of his footsteps behind me and the sweet tones of his tender voice and loving greeting.

I have a last to realize afresh how true were King David's words when he said in his sorrow,

I shall go to him, but he shall not return. Wow, that's powerful.

That is powerful. Well, before we run out of time, I definitely am going to give your websites.

GraceChurchDawsonville .org is the church website. GraceChurchDawsonville, which is D -A -W -S -O -N -V -I -L -L -E .org

for Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia. We also have NourishedInTheWord .org,

the ministry founded by our guest, Ron Rhodes Jr., NourishedInTheWord .org.

He also has BooksThatNourish .com, BooksThatNourish .com.

And last but not least, his blog is The Dancing Puritan. I love that name.

DancingPuritan .com, DancingPuritan .com is the blog of Ray Rhodes Jr. Do you have any other contact information that you'd like to give?

Because I do want you to spend the final minutes of the program really unburdening your heart and leaving our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds.

Right. Well, I would just send your readers also to the bhacademicblog .com.

That's how it's, bhacademicblog .com. Look at the Spurgeon link.

There's a number of articles there, including a number that I've had the opportunity to write. That's the Broadman and the

B &H academic blog. But the Bible says that marriage is about Christ and the church.

And that is why it's so important. It's been so set apart by God to display the love that Jesus has for his people.

When did he love the church? When she was lost, when she was sinful, when she was his enemy, he died for her.

And the scripture says a husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. Now, we can't atone for the sins of our lives.

We can certainly sacrifice. We can certainly love them with a view towards their sanctification. We can certainly love them in a very specific way, the way

Christ loves the church so that we only have eyes and heart for the woman who is our wife.

We can certainly love like that. And the wife responding with regard, respect, and honor to her husband as unto the

Lord. And so when a husband and wife love one another like Charles and Susanna did, there's a lot bigger things that are happening other than saying, well, that was a wonderful, happy marriage.

The gospel is being proclaimed. And that's what Spurgeon was all about. And that's what we are to be all about.

The gospel of Christ, that Jesus Christ bore in his own body the wrath of God that we deserve for our own sins.

He lived righteously, died on the cross for sinners, was buried and raised again. And all who will come unto him like Spurgeon did, look unto

Christ, repenting, believing, trusting in Christ and be forgiven of their sins, counted righteous in Christ, and know the joy of walking with Christ through good times and bad.

Amen. Well, thank you so much, Ray Rhodes, for being a part of our program today.

And I look forward to having you back. And I want to remind our listeners that with not only the anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation coming up in October, but also Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have these books that have been written by Ray Rhodes that you could purchase as gifts.

The Family Worship for the Reformation season, the Family Worship for the Thanksgiving season, and Family Worship for the

Christmas season. Go to cvbbs .com, cvbbs .com,

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com, and contact them and ask them about all the books available by Ray Rhodes, Jr.

And of course, you can always go to booksthatnourish .com, booksthatnourish .com.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in, and perhaps even more, especially our first -time listener there in Fortsville, Indiana.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guests next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.