Remember Your Leaders: Charles Spurgeon

Soul-winning is the chief business of every Christian minister; 

indeed it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.

 -Charles Spurgeon

A Biographical Sketch[1]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon stands today as one of the greatest preachers and evangelists this world has seen. His gospel-influence in the 19^th century still thunders today through his influence. He preached the central truth of God’s free grace for sinners in Jesus Christ for decades and did so with a burden and fire in his soul not for intellectual pursuit but for the salvation of the lost. Hughes Oliphant Old famously stated “There was no voice in the Victorian pulpit as resonant, no preacher as beloved by the people, no orator as prodigious as Charles Haddon Spurgeon.”[2] He is perhaps known most famously as the “Prince of Preachers.”[3] He found himself bitten by the gracious and unwarranted love of God and did all in his power to make it known by his life. We would do well to learn from this leader in the Christian faith.

Spurgeon was born on June 19, 1834 in Essex, England. He grew up in a devout Christian home with his father as a minister. He was the oldest of seventeen children. However he found himself growing up as one unconverted, even as he was exposed his entire childhood to the truths of the Christian faith growing up with his father as a minister. He stated later in life, “The light was there, but I was blind.”[4]

However God has a way of giving sight to the blind. At fifteen years of Age, on January 6, 1850, Spurgeon found his life utterly transformed. It was a Sunday morning and Spurgeon found himself walking in the midst of a raging snowstorm. To get out of the driving cold, Spurgeon took shelter in a local church in Colchester which was currently holding their Sabbath worship service. He sat in the pew and listened to the lay-preacher expound on Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth.”

“Fixing his eyes on young Spurgeon, he urged: ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.’ Like an arrow from heaven’s bow, the gospel hit its intended target. Spurgeon wrote: ‘I saw at once the way of salvation. Like as a brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me.’ Gazing by faith on Christ, he was dramatically converted.”[5]

A year later, age sixteen, Spurgeon preached his first sermon and at age seventeen he was called as minister to a Baptist church in Waterbeach. It was here in Spurgeon’s early life that his tremendous gift of preaching was recognized. At age nineteen Spurgeon was called again, this time to pastor New Park Street Chapel in London, a historic church, once of profound prominence. He would shepherd these individuals for the remainder of his life.

Spurgeon’s preaching here transformed the lives of thousands. The attendance went from 200 to 1,500 just after a year which in turn forced the sanctuary to be enlarged. The continued increase of those coming to hear the master preacher forced them to leave the restricted space of New Park Street Chapel and worship in Exeter Hall which would hold near 5,000. However even this new space could not keep up with the growing crowd. They were forced to build a new place for worship that would accommodate the growing crowds, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which was “the largest Protestant house of worship in the world.”[6] In 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened and could sit more than 6,000.

Throughout Spurgeon’s adult life he was vehemently zealous for the truth of the Gospel and the preservation of its essential doctrines. This embattled him in many controversies, similar to Luther in his zeal for the Gospel. One such controversy near the end of his life forced his resignation as pastor. Fed up with the growing devaluation of the Scriptures in his time, particularly in the Baptist Union, Spurgeon passionately pled for a return to a posture of reverence toward the Scriptures as God’s word. However others did not share his opinion and he resigned and in the ensuing turmoil passed away prematurely, on January 31, 1892, at fifty-seven years old.

“During his thirty-eight year London ministry, Spurgeon witnessed his congregation grow from two hundred to almost six thousand members. Over this time, he took 14,692 new members into the church…it has been estimated that Spurgeon personally addressed nearly ten million people.”[7]

Spurgeon was a faithful evangelist, preacher, theologian, and leader of the church in England. His wake can be felt today. Here are three examples of his faith for us to take to heart and incorporate into our lives:

The Primacy of the Scriptures

It was the end of Spurgeon’s vocation as Pastor that was defined by his defense of the primacy of the Scriptures as the authoritative revealed will of God for the life of the believer, though he never failed to preach this throughout his years as a minister. Upon the Scriptures rested all of Spurgeon’s efforts:

“For Spurgeon, the Bible was just that, the very Word of God to break the heart and bring the soul before the throne of God, thus bringing them to a redemptive knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Upon this foundation Spurgeon built his entire theology and ministry.”[8]

The Gospel was central to Spurgeon’s ministry; he was a herald of the good news, and central to the Gospel is its revelation in the Scriptures. They were to Spurgeon an invaluable gift.

And so Spurgeon’s call on his audience was to truly trust and believe in the word of God. As a preacher, he knew that “No man [would] preach the gospel aright who does not wholly believe it.”[9] His aim therefore was to so order the minds of his listeners to see and believe in the capital-A Authorship of the Scriptures.

“This volume is the writing of the living God; each letter was penned with an Almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips…Albeit, that Moses was employed to write his histories with fiery pen, God guided that pen…if I turn to the smooth page of John…the fiery chapters of Peter…if I turn to Jude, who launches forth anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find God speaking; it is god’s voice, not man’s.”[10]

Spurgeon’s resolve for the primacy of the Scriptures in our lives is a call for us to see them as the very word of God and therefore as the greatest instruction, the greatest exhortation, the greatest balm, the greatest knowledge of love that we could ever know. It is worthy then of our time and study. Or in the famous words of Spurgeon himself: “It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, your blood is bibline and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.”[11]

The Call to Evangelism

The second thing we ought to have impressed upon us from the life of Spurgeon is his obedience to the Scriptures in his resolve to show lost souls that their only hope was in the free grace of Jesus; Spurgeon was a gifted evangelist. He stated that, “Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.”[12]

Spurgeon therefore included an appeal to the hope of the Gospel in every sermon he preached. The lost soul was his target as he spoke from the pulpit, the Gospel the arrow, and his voice the bow. He longed for those who did not know Christ to know the joy that he experienced in that Methodist church in Colchester, when the darkness dissipated and light of God’s love in Christ was shed in his heart. His appeal sprang both from a passionate desire for the lost to know Christ and his peace and from a desire to be faithful to God’s call on his life—to proclaim the fullness of the Gospel without reservation.

Spurgeon then “felt that preaching that did not lead to conversions was pointless.”[13] His resolve as an evangelist should lay heavy on our hearts, in a day where evangelism can be avoided and the lost disregarded. Spurgeon’s own conscience spurs us to value those who do not know Christ, to save them from eternal peril.

“I should be destitute of all humanity if I should see a person about to poison himself, and did not dash away the cup; or if I saw another about to plunge from the London bridge, if I did not assist in preventing him from doing so; and I should be worse than a fiend if I did not now, with all love, and kindness, and earnestness, beseech you to lay hold on eternal life.”[14]

The Christian’s Witness

Lastly, Spurgeon’s example would impress upon us the importance of our witness to each other and the world as we represent the name of Christ in our life. We are all—whether pastor, accountant, student, athlete, librarian, teacher, chef, mom—ambassadors for the Gospel if we claim the name Christian. We act not on our own behalf, but upon and for Another.

In Spurgeon’s lasting Lectures to My Students, he addresses those who are discerning and being equipped for pastoral ministry. He says at the outgo that this is their beginning, “True and genuine piety is necessary as the first indispensable requisite; whatever ‘call’ a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.”[15] While he is addressing students, this foundational exhortation ought to be given to any who claims the name of Christ for all of the Christian’s life is that of ministry. When a Christian opens a door for someone, they do so in the love of Christ. When a Christian serves the poor and homeless, they do so in the name of Christ. But so too when a Christian exhibits road rage, is caught in a lie, or sleeps around, they do so in the name of Christ.

“Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade others to be, and believe that which you persuade them daily to believe, and have heartily entertained that Christ and Spirit which you offer unto others.”[16]

And so from Spurgeon’s own example as one faithful to the word of God, as one faithful to the call to share the good news with the lost, and as one faithful in living a life above reproach, we have much to remember and imitate from this great man of God.

*     *     *

JT Holderman is Assistant Pastor of Bellevue Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Gap, PA.

---

[1] The bulk of Spurgeon’s “A Biographical Sketch” has been referenced from Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL.: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2012).

[2] Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Vol. 6: The Modern Age (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 422.

[3] Lewis Drummond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1992), 277.

[4] Charles H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. I:1834-1854 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899), 98.

[5] Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, 5.

[6] Ibid., 8.

[7] Ibid., 17.

[8] Drummond, Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers, 624.

[9] Ian H. Murray, Heroes (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), 282.

[10] Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. I (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1981), 110.

[11] Charles H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. IV:1878-1892 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1900), 268.

[12] Charles Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner: How to Lead Sinners to the Savior (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 15.

[13] Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, 84.

[14] Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. V (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1981), 21-22.

[15] Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 9.

[16] Ibid., 13.

One Life is All You Have

A poem by CT Studd, the British missionary to Africa, struck me this past week. To some it may be an old favorite that they recited as a young boy. To others it is completely foreign. I fell in the latter category. I had heard little of CT Studd and had never heard his gem of a poem. I'm glad I did. It reminds me of what is important in this earthly life. It reminds me that my all is meant for Christ. It kills the selfish in me. 

Allow me to share Studd's poem Only One Life with you this day:

“Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgement seat;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, the still small voice,
Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave,
And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, a few brief years,
Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its clays I must fulfill,
living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

When this bright world would tempt me sore,
When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way,
Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Give me Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, “twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one,
Now let me say,”Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last. ”

— extra stanza —

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.”

C.T Studd

(From http://hockleys.org/2009/05/quote-only-one-life-twill-soon-be-past-poem/)

JT Holderman is Assistant Pastor of Bellevue Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Gap, PA.

Remember Your Leaders: Aurelius Augustine

[Augustine] has been strikingly called incomparably the greatest man whom, “between Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed.” --Adolf Von Harnack quoted by BB Warfield

Christian history is saturated with leaders whose impact has drastically changed the shape of Christian thought. Perhaps no leader, as Adolf Von Harnack has suggested, has transformed our understanding of God as much as that of Augustine. He may very well be the greatest theologian apart from Paul and Jesus that this world will ever know. He is of utmost importance for Christians today to know. We must remember this man of God and the influence he has had and continues to exert in our time. And again, our call to remember leads to imitating the faith exhibited by these Christian leaders. Augustine, a man who lived in the 4th and 5th century, has much to offer us here in the 21st century if we would but remember and seek to imitate his faith.

A Biographical Sketch
Augustine was born on November 13, 354 AD, in Thagaste, a town in northern Africa (modern day Algeria). His mother Monica was a devout Christian, she is a patron saint to many of motherly prayers since throughout her life she prayed earnestly for her son to become a Christian. His father Patrick was not a Christian in whose footsteps Augustine followed. He was a master of rhetoric and finished his doctorate at the age of 21. For the first 31 years of his life he lived far from what we should consider an example of faith. He was chief among womanizers by his own profession. The love of women was the biggest hindrance to his profession of faith. By the age of 16 he had a concubine whom he loved and eventually a son with her, Adeodatus.

As a learned man Augustine sought truth steadfastly in his life. He probed the depths of Manichaeism and platonism (and other philosophies) only to find that they were all but half-truths that he could dissect and debunk. His chief goal in life was to find lasting truth, the bedrock of all other shadows of truth. And so his search for this truth led him eventually to cross paths with many Christian leaders of his day. Chief among these was Ambrose of Milan, another leader in Christian history worthy of remembering. Ambrose directed Augustine by varying degrees towards Christian truth. One afternoon, after many days and weeks of deep struggle with his lifestyle and the incompatibility of the Christian truth he was wrestling with, he came to faith. It happened in a garden in Milan in August of 386 at 32 years of age.

In this garden Augustine wrestled with God was doing by his sovereign hand. He found himself broken, crying beneath a fig tree, when he heard some children next door singing a song with the words “pick it up and read it, pick it up and read it” (Confessions 8.12). Taking it as a sign from God he grabbed the open Bible before him and read feasted his eyes and soul upon Romans 13:13-14: Not in riotousness and drunkenness, not in lewdness and wantonness, not in strife and rivalry; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh and its lusts. Augustine then stated, “I neither wished no needed to read more. No sooner had I finished the sentence than it was as if the light of steadfast truth poured into my heart, and all the shadows of hesitation fled away" (Confessions 8.12). By God’s sovereign hand in a Garden a would be giant in the faith came to faith.

Augustine was baptized by Ambrose, his father in the faith. At his conversion God reclaimed one of the most brilliant minds ever to think on this earth for his purposes, to lead the church as an example of faith. He returned to Africa, now Hippo, where he wrote and preached as a life transforming tool of grace for God in a world of unbelievers. It is here that Augustine made a lasting impact through the ages, books such as the City of God and Confessions that have never been out of print. In his lifetime he wrote 5 million words comprising some 113 books. He was an intellectual giant. He died in 430 in Hippo, a year before the Goths sacked the city. It is here that Augustine became a primary tool of God in reshaping Christian history. Sixteen hundred years later there is much we are called to remember and imitate from him. Here are three examples of his faith for us to consider to imitate:

A Language and Life of Delight
Throughout Augustine’s writings and sermons he constantly exhibits a person of faith who utterly delights in his God. Few have written with such genuine passion that God alone is their highest delight and sweetness. In the Confessions in particular Augustine exhibits this with language such as this: “Come, O Lord, I pray. Stir us up and call us back; kindle us and take us to yourself. Set us ablaze, and cast your sweetness over us. Let us love you and run to you” (Confessions 8.4). Few talk like this. Few live like this.

Yet it is our calling as men and women of faith to seek God with our entire heart, to love Him, to praise Him, to delight in Him, to savor Him above all else, and to find Him as the only lasting sweetness in our lives. We miss the mark when we find this kind of satisfaction in things other than God: sex, money, alcohol, personal comfort, health, fulfilling relationships, sports, etc. Augustine in the display of his faith through his writings is a leader that we are called to imitate. On this point in particular we would benefit greatly to have our hearts stirred to make God alone our all-satisfying sweetness and uproot anything that has taken His rightful place on the throne of our hearts. When was the last time you referred to God as your sweetness? Maybe if we talk in this manner, if we seek and ask God to set us ablaze, he will become the passion that we all long for deep down. May we delight in God and may He be our only satisfaction in this life and the next.

Realizing the Reality of Grace
As a champion of biblical theology, Augustine fought for the true reality of grace as we see in Scripture, a free sovereign gift from God that has nothing of our earning mixed in with it. For Augustine this understanding came through a long theological battle with Pelagius. Pelagius believed that a person was not completely sinful in every sphere of life. And since this was the case he believed that it was possible for any man or woman to live in righteousness and earn their own salvation. Against this unbiblical notion proposed and maintained by Pelagius, Augustine became an ardent apologist for the teaching of Scripture on sin, grace, and salvation.

Augustine understood according to Scripture that all humanity is totally sinful (Rom. 3:23; 6:23) and therefore completely incapable at any point of living the life required to attain salvation and relationship with God. The bedrock of orthodox Christianity was defended here by Augustine, that we are totally depraved as Calvin and the Synod of Dort would later articulate. With this theological truth in view, Augustine argued that we can earn nothing but death and separation from God. Instead the biblical model of salvation includes grace as grace, a free gift given by God that no one can earn. Augustine thus paints God as completely sovereign and gracious to the sinner in Jesus Christ. As an apologist Augustine fervently fought for this and recovered and defended a truth that we as Christians stand upon as orthodox.

With this in mind, to imitate the faith of Augustine would lead us to renounce any taint of works righteousness in our understanding of justification. Instead we should look to our own sinfulness, how far we are from God’s created design, and be overwhelmed with the utterly free grace that God gives us in His Son Jesus Christ. To imitate this faith is to rest each and every day in the promises God gives us by grace alone. This causes us to live lives of constant thanksgiving to God, glorifying Him. To imitate this faith is to daily live out of grace, not of works. Let us feel grace as Augustine did.

Witness to God's Grace and Glory
Augustine’s Confessions was one of the first true autobiographies to be written. He created a new genre with its conclusion. It is a prayer, written to God, but also written to man by which Augustine’s “reader may reflect upon the depths from which we must call upon [God]” (Confessions 2.3). It is primarily a testimony to the power and glory of God in how He had worked in Augustine’s life up until it was written. As such, the pages of the Confessions are strewn about with a constant love for God, lifting Him up as the only one worthy of being glorified. And so he wrote to do just this, to testify to the great reality of our good, sovereign, and gracious God.

Augustine should encourage us by his faith to imitate his testimony, to seek with how we live and what we say to reveal to others around us the saving power of God in Christ. Augustine states regarding his readers, “Let them love you not less, but more. Let them see that it is through you, who have saved me from the sickness of my sins, that they too do not suffer the same degree from the sickness of their own.” Our call to imitate his faith leads us to show the world around us that our salvation from our sins comes only through the grace of God. How often do we tell neighbors and friends (Christian or not) what it is that God has done for us? This goes hand in hand with seeing God as sweet to us. For if we delight in God it will exude out from our lips and actions and people will see that we are a living testimony for the grace and love of God. Let us testify that there is none greater, none more loving, none more willing to save us than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If you are looking to read something of Augustine, which I believe Hebrews 13:7 would suggest, I would begin first with his Confessions. It is a wonderful entrance into Christian biography and his grand language of delight while upholding orthodox theology. John Piper also has a wonderful series of biographies in his The Swans are Not Silent series, of which the first book titled The Legacy of Sovereign Joy contains a great succinct chapter on the influence of Augustine. If you would like to go deep theologically with Augustine may I suggest On Christian Doctrine.

**Next Week: Remembering Your Leader The Apostle Paul

Remember Your Leaders: Martin Luther

The call to remember our leaders and imitate their faith in Hebrews 13:7 is not a suggestion for the Christian, it is a command. Both "remember" and "imitate" are in the imperative mood as verbs. In the same way as parents might tell their children to "stop running!" or to "eat your vegetables" or as a friend might say to another "don't move!" when she spots a spider crawling across her. These are imperatives. They are commands. We are called to remember and to imitate the faith of our leaders (those who spoke the Word of God to us and whose lives reflect the faith they profess) not as optional, but as essential for our sanctification and endeavor to glorify God with our lives. And so we continue this week in seeking to remember for the purpose of imitating by looking at the faith of Martin Luther.

A Biographical Sketch

Luther is the prototypical German reformer. He was born in Eisleben and died in Eisleben. His devotion to the reality of the Gospel was focused on his people, the Germans. At the age of 21 Luther found himself caught in a lightning storm. In a moment of desperation he called out to his father's saint, "St. Anne help me! I will become a monk." (Bainton, 25) Out of fear he entered into vocational ministry. It would be this fear that drove much of his movement to reform. He found himself tormented by a God of wrath and confessed daily, for hours on end, so that God might not be mad with him. But as he taught New Testament in Wittenberg "justification by faith" dawned upon him, instead of by works, and the terror that had attended him was replaced by the joy of the gospel.

His reforming call branched at every point from this doctrine of justification by faith. It propelled him to vehemently oppose the current Catholic practices that attended justification with works. Chief of these were the papal indulgences being sold for varying forms of justification in order to help pay for St. Peter's in Rome. His opposition to the Catholic abuses landed him eventually before a tribunal in Worms (Vorms) where cardinals and officials required that he recant his writings or he would be excommunicated. He did not recant. He went on to translate the Bible into the common German language and gave feet to the protestant reformation and break with Rome. Protestants are indebted to no person more than this man for his ardent pursuit of truth. So what can we learn from him 500 years removed? 3 things:

Luther's Only Authority 
Martin Luther had one authority in his life, the Word of God. However it wasn't always that way. Luther had many authorities in his life who were vying for his allegiance (the Catholic Church, the Pope, Abbots). But as he grew in his understanding of the Christian faith, really as he read the Scriptures and studied them for himself, he found that nothing should take an ultimate place of authority in our lives save Scripture alone since it is there that God alone speaks and reveals Himself. Whereas the church and pope had been the ultimate authority for years, Luther began something new. As Heiko Oberman says, "What is new in Luther is the notion of absolute obedience to the Scriptures against any authorities; be they popes or councils." (Oberman, 78)

For him there was no greater authority and director in life than God Himself revealed in His written word. Even when Luther knew that his stance on Scripture would bring persecution, he stood his ground. Before the Diet of Worms, fearing excommunication and all that it entailed, he said famously: "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason--I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other--my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen." (Bainton, 144)

We learn from Luther that nothing should hold our allegiance beyond the Word of God itself. This was Luther's conviction and it is our conviction as well. Scripture truly is the only rule for faith and life for the Christian. We cannot neglect to submit to it daily.

Relentless Proclamation In Luther we also see a relentless drive to proclaim the good news of the Gospel. He was driven as a preacher and teacher to proclaim Truth, the love of God for His creation in Jesus Christ. If Scripture was his authority, then this relentless proclamation was the natural response to what Scripture said. It must be told! Look at his rhythm as a preacher, it's astounding:

"On Sundays there were the 5:00 AM worship with a sermon on the Epistle, the 10:00 AM service with a sermon on the Gospel, and an afternoon message on the Old Testament or catechism. Monday and Tuesday sermons were on the Catechism; Wednesdays on Matthew; Thursdays and Fridays on the Apostolic letters; and Saturday on John....Luther was one of the greatest preachers in the history of Christendom...between 1510 and 1546 Luther preached approximately 3000 sermons...so the average in [his pastorate] was one sermon every two and a half days." (Piper, 86-87)

We learn from Luther than an obedience to the truth of the Gospel should naturally work itself in us in our proclamation of the Truth. To hold onto the greatest Truth this world has and ever will know and not share it would be utter selfishness. We may not be vocational preachers like Luther, or maybe we are, but nonetheless it is our call to proclaim this news with relentless fervor.

Justification By Faith Alone 
Lastly we see from Luther the central doctrinal tenant of salvation, Justification by Faith alone. As one whose life completely opposed anything of works mixed in with our justification in God's sight, he championed that it was by faith alone that one is redeemed and reconciled in God's sight. Where God originally for Luther was a God of vengeance ready to condemn us for the smallest sin, Luther then after reading Paul's letters found an inexpressible joy that came from the reality that it's not by works but by faith alone that one is saved. And so Luther said:

"Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that "the just shall live by his faith." Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise." (Bainton, 49)

Above all from Luther's influence in the history of Christianity, we learn that our right standing before God rests upon nothing other than God's own sheer grace towards us and the gift of our faith. Our salvation has absolutely nothing of works mingled in with it. It is solely by God's sheer grace that one is saved. This is the Truth that we stand upon as Christians, this is the Gospel.

There are many wonderful resources on Martin Luther today. Desiring God has some free resources, sermons and biographies here. The texts I have referenced for this article are worth a read if you are interested in knowing more about this man of God:

Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Penguin Books, 1955). Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (New York: Doubleday, 1992). John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God's Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000).

**Next Week: Remembering Your Leader Augustine of Hippo

Remember Your Leaders: Jesus

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Hebrews 13:7

This imperatival statement from Hebrews is our aim to fulfill in the coming weeks. There are many whom the author of Hebrews is commending to us Christians as examples of faith to imitate. Yet we often spend little time thinking about those who have prepared the way for our faith today, they are distant memories and saints no longer living. It would be a tragedy to forget these champions in the faith; we must instead remember them and imitate their faith.

Imitate With Reservations
Last week we stated that Hebrews 13:7 defines a particular kind of leader worthy of our imitation and following. They must be 1) someone who spoke the word of God to you, and 2) someone whose lifestyle matches their proclamation. We are not called in this verse to imitate whomever we please; there are specific people who adorn the position of a leader in the faith through speaking the truth of the gospel and living it out.

So when Hebrews states we are to imitate their faith, we must be very careful whose faith it is we are imitating. We must have reservations about who it is that we are imitating lest we be led astray as we follow someone's faith that doesn't line up with the reality of the gospel. Satan would love for God's children to be swept up in simply trying to obey this verse and not really focusing on whose faith is worthy of our imitation. There are many charismatic leaders, intelligent leaders, and persuasive leaders whose lives are far from fulfilling the requirements of a leader according to Hebrews. There are indeed many giants in the faith throughout history whose faith we would esteem as worthy of imitation, but whose lives would be folly to imitate in many areas (i.e. many great leaders have worked at the expense of being a good father and husband, these are not secondary calls). We must be careful who we deem worthy of following, we must imitate with reservations.

Imitate Without Reservation
However there is One with whom we should hold absolutely no reservations when it comes to following: Jesus, the Son of God. No other person in history is worthy of our most focused imitation than the person of Jesus Christ. As Christians we are followers and disciples we follow only Jesus. Every other leader simply leads us to the source of our faith, the supreme example of righteousness. We must seek daily to imitate the faith that Jesus displays in the Scriptures. This is fundamental to being a Christian.

The Epistle of John puts it plainly: By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked (1 John 2:5b-6). If our lifestyle is to genuinely reflect the reality of our saving faith in Christ, we will produce certain fruits in our lives, our lifestyle will look different than those in the world. Fundamental to this difference will be a life focused on imitating the faith of one individual, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. John emphasizes that in order for us to know that we are in him, or in other words simply that we are genuine believers, we ought to walk in the same way in which Jesus lived His life. At the center of Christianity is a deep devotion to following Jesus, to imitating His faith.

A Dangerous Imitation
The command to imitate Jesus is dangerous. I'm convinced that we in the church do a poor job of presenting the reality that is implied by following Jesus: that we too will experience the suffering that He experienced on our behalf. We tend to play suffering down in the church and instead talk about the blessings that Jesus has purchased for us. But at the heart of following Jesus, of imitating His faith, is a dangerous call. The First Epistle of Peter speaks to this reality: For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps (1 Peter 2:21). Peter is not the only person to emphasize that our following, our imitation doesn't simply lead to comfort. If we are disciples, our faith will lead us into times of suffering, just as Jesus suffered for His faith. The Christian faith is a dangerous one in that we will be sure to face suffering in this life for our imitation of the Son of God.

Thomas Kempis' The Imitation of Christ
Thomas Kempis, the 15th century Augustinian monk, has written a classic in Christian literature on this very topic. To any who would seek in their life to endeavor to imitate Christ by their life, I would commend this book. But may we always remember that our salvation is not one that is earned by how well we live, by how closely we imitate the life and faith of Jesus, it is given as a free gift of grace, based only upon what God has done for us in Jesus alone. I leave you with this quote from Kempis:

"Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness," [John 8:12] says the Lord. These are Christ's own words by which He exhorts us to imitate His life and His ways, if we truly desire to be enlightened and free of all blindness of heart. Let it then be our main concern to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ. Thomas Kempis, Imitation of Christ, I.I.I

**Next Week: Remembering Your Leader Martin Luther

Justification and Indulgences?

Can we earn our forgiveness with God? For many centuries of the Christian church, the issue of how we are saved from our sins and reconciled to God has been center stage. The term the church has used to describe one’s salvation has been justification. The term implies a legal reckoning, that there has been a breach against certain laws which a person was required to keep. Due to Adam’s sin in the garden humanity is now seen by God not as righteous, but as sinful and wretched living in open rebellion. God therefore instituted the covenant of grace in His Son Jesus Christ and His work on the cross for humanity. The death of Jesus Christ provides the opportunity for justification before God, for our sins to be wiped clean and a verdict of righteousness given to us. How then does this justification take place, is it earned?

Luther, Pope Francis, and Indulgences

In the 1500′s, a German monk named Martin Luther took this question on in full force. He bucked the answer that the Catholic Church church gave and thereby defied the most powerful institution in the world. The Catholic Church, under the leadership of the Pope, held as orthodox that salvation is obtained not entirely by God’s grace, but instead may be earned by works on our part. Chief example was the widespread practice of indulgences, an assurance that one could purchase for themselves or a loved one that ensured their salvation. Just yesterday the current pope (Francis) continued this practice of indulgences, promising those who follow him on Twitter will be recipients of “indulgences.” In response to indulgences, Luther wrote his famous 95 Theses on October 31st, 1517 (a date often referred to as the beginning of the Reformation) as a vehement rebuttal of the theological abuse the Catholic Church was practicing. Luther says:

Indulgences are most pernicious because they induce complacency and thereby imperil salvation. Those persons are damned who think that letters of indulgence make them certain of salvation…His Holiness abuses Scripture…I deny that he is above Scripture. 
                                                     Roland Bainton, Here I Stand, 63.

Justification by Faith Alone

Luther instead insisted that our theology of justification be based upon the Word of God alone. He came across passages such as Ephesians 2:1-10 (for by grace you have been saved through faith) and cried “foul!” The clear means of justification to Luther according to God’s Word was that it happened by faith alone, through grace alone. Justification was not a by product of something that we merited, something that we earned by either being good (which would do nothing since the law was already broken) or by purchasing indulgences which promised salvation (though no such authority is given according to Scripture). To Luther and the Protestant Reformers, nothing but the grace of God alone could justify a person and declare them righteous. It had nothing to do with our striving and any such effort on our part was “striving after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

While the Reformation was successful in that it instituted faithfulness to Scripture in the Protestant church, there are still many who have yet come to know this glorious reality of God’s grace. It is part of every Christian’s calling to communicate the truth of the Gospel, that it is by grace alone that we are forgiven, that we are justified in God’s sight.  This is the good news of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the foundation of our faith.

Simone's Surprise, Early Conversion, and Children of the Covenant

My daughter Simone professed faith in Jesus today. She's only three. Is that possible?

(For an adorable video, click here).

Simone didn't "come forward" after church, or raise her hand at a gospel invitation (Every head down and every eye closed!) What happened is that she walked into my bedroom unprompted on an unremarkable  Monday--completely unexpectedly--and announced to me that she "was ready to be a Christian now" (her words).

But I think there is more to the story.

For weeks at our dinner time devotions, we have been talking about what it means to be a Christian. We've been studying the stories in the Gospel of Matthew along with our church reading track. Simone knew full well both her mommy and daddy are Christians. She knew her brother and sister are too.

She also knows that sin (we don't call it 'mistakes' in our family) is rebellion against the Law of God. She had been told that becoming a Christian required repentance and faith (two sides of the same coin: repentance is turning away from sin and faith is turning to Christ).

To be honest, I had been avoiding repeat-after-me-style "Sinner's Prayers" with Simone because I wanted to avoid the error of her growing up believing she had to get saved every other weekend. Instead, I have been praying for a legitimate movement of the Holy Spirit to work in her preschool-sized heart. So, we focused our family Bible times on simple concepts: the Law (including the fifth commandment!), the Cross (Jesus took away our sins there), and faith (trusting in Jesus as our King).

Finally today, it all clicked. I think. I hope. I'm pretty sure.

Of course she could have made her announcement just to please her parents, as some will probably point out. That motivation in and of itself wouldn't be entirely wrong, though. Pleasing our parents (honoring them in the language of the second table of the Law) is of course central to the life of a three-year old.

The fact that she is only three does gives me some pause. Could she really understand substitutionary atonement? Total depravity? Grace? Probably not in the way that a systematic theologian should. For that matter, as an ordained pastor, I'm still learning too. The Lord Himself will alone determine the authenticity of any of our professions of faith, whether we are 3 or 93. 

But all of this makes me both grateful and burdened for the opportunity of raising "covenant children."

Children of the Covenant--that's what we in the Reformed tradition call them--those kids who are raised in Bible-reading, Sabbath keeping, Christ-honoring, Church-serving homes. Do these small persons need to legitimately repent of their sins and express true faith? Yes. Must they be born again to see the Kingdom of God? Certainly. Is it possible that this could even happen at a young age. I don't see any reason why not.

When a child is raised in the covenant from birth, baptized with the sign of water and regarded as a legitimate member of the covenant community--with all the duties and privileges incumbent upon them from an early age--no wonder it sinks in at some point and they "get it." That's the way it is supposed to be. All glory to the Triune God.

Yes, it is astounding when a drug addict turns to Christ, or a gang member repents and turns to faith in Jesus, or a death-row inmate gives a stunning and shocking testimony of God's saving grace.

But one of the best testimonies of all is this one, "I was raised in the faith."


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville Florida.