Spurgeon IS the man!

Mark Driscoll thinks Spurgeon is "the man." As anyone from Ferndale will know, I agree. MD has declared this week "Spurgeon is the man" week. Shame I only realised on Thursday...

You should have a look at his posts:
Spurgeon is the Man Part 1—Introduction
Spurgeon is the Man Part 2—Spurgeon was a Bible Guy
Update:Spurgeon Prayed, Laughed, Cared, and Evangelized - Part 3

I've learned a lot from Charles (I like to think we'd have been on first-name terms) too. His books "Lectures to my Students" are awesome, and whenever I see a second-hand copy I usually buy it to give away. He's great at pricking the pride and pomposity that preachers can develop. Actually, not so much 'pricking' as 'harpooning.' One of my favourite bits is when he suggested to his church leadership that they should offer a reward to the vandal who smashed some of the church windows because the extra air stopped people nodding off in church. Then he pretty much admits smashing them himself! Brilliant.

He was also a guy who made a stand for the truth. When people weren't staying true to the gospel, he wasn't afraid to say so (it seems like sometimes he went quite far out of his way to have a dig at the pope!). And in 1887 he led his church out of the Baptist Union because of what he saw as a 'downgrade' in their theology, particularly the place they gave to Sripture. I'm always slightly amused when I hear my fellow members of the Baptist Union going on about Spurgeon. He's basically still a Baptist poster-boy, but I'd be interested to know what he'd make of us in the BU if he was around today. If time travel ever gets invented, that's something I'd love to see.

And I love the way he puts things. I often have a rummage for a quote from him when I can't find the words myself. I think this quote might find it's way into my sermon on Sunday...

"Creation is too small a frame in which to hang his likeness. Human thought is too contracted, human speech too feeble, to set him forth to the full. He is inconceivably above our conceptions, inutterably above our utterances."