Editor’s note: This article is taken from the introduction to C. H. Spurgeon’s Sermons (Expanding Ministry—Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: 1861 to 1876, Volumes 7–22) in vol. 7, pp. v–vii and pp. xiv–xv. Used by permission of Reformation Heritage Books. This collection is now available for purchase.
The first seven years (1854–1861) of C. H. Spurgeon’s ministry in London were accompanied by a surprising revival. No one could have expected it. Through a nineteen-year-old country preacher, a dying congregation was revitalized, and hundreds—perhaps thousands—were converted under his ministry during those early years. Though only a few dozen were in attendance when Spurgeon first arrived at New Park Street in 1853, by 1861 membership was at 1,473, with thousands more regularly attending.
But revival also brought its challenges. During those years Spurgeon warned his congregation, “If the Lord sends his Spirit like a hurricane, it is ours to deal with skill with the sails lest the hurricane should wreck us by driving us upon some fell rock that may do us serious injury.”[1] Spurgeon had seen churches shipwrecked in the winds of revival.[2] One church boasted of taking in a hundred or so new members in a year, only to excommunicate eighty of them the following year for “disorderly conduct and forsaking the truth.”[3] Other churches were happy to swell their ranks but gave no thought as to how to disciple or engage their people in ministry.[4] Some self-proclaimed revivalists had begun resorting to new tactics and emotionalism, hoping to fabricate the work of the Spirit.[5] Even as Spurgeon experienced a revival in his church, he refused to compromise his theological and ecclesiological convictions. “Take care, ye that are officers in the church, when ye see the people stirred up, that ye exercise still a holy caution, lest the church become lowered in its standard of piety by the admission of persons not truly saved.”[6]
At the same time, Spurgeon did not want to let the winds of revival simply pass by. There was such a response to his preaching that he contemplated at one point becoming a traveling evangelist. But in his experience of itinerant preaching, it was hard to know what the long-term effect was. While preaching in an open field in Wales, Spurgeon describes how “the Spirit of God was poured upon us, and men and women were swayed to and fro under the Heavenly message.” Still, once the meeting ended, the people went their separate ways, and he would never see them again.[7]
While one must be careful not to let the winds destroy the ship, the skillful sailor will look for ways to harness that wind. But how does one harness the hurricane winds of revival? Spurgeon believed it was through the church. As converts gave credible professions of faith, they were brought into the membership of the church, where they could be cared for by the elders and discipled under the ministry of the word. Not only that, but these church members were then engaged in the work of ministry, in both caring for one another and bringing the gospel to the lost around them. Spurgeon’s effort to harness the winds of revival was represented by the building and opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861. This magnificent new building that seated six thousand would become the base of operations for Spurgeon’s ministry for the next thirty years.
If the New Park Street Pulpit tells the story of a revival in London, then the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit tells the story of the harnessing of that revival through an established and expanding church ministry. Like the previous volumes, they are a collection of the published Sunday morning sermons that were being preached week by week at the Metropolitan Tabernacle and then collected into a single volume at the end of each year. But just as God uses the preaching of the word to revive His people, He also uses it to sustain them and send them out. These sermons were the lifeblood of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, establishing that congregation in the word and providing the spiritual vitality needed for all the endeavors that would flow out of it.
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The stories from Spurgeon’s ministry are remarkable: the vast audiences, the sermons published, the pastors trained, the churches planted, the orphans fed, the missionaries sent out, and the battles fought, all on a vast scale that is hard to imagine. Truly, it was a surprising work of God. It must be remembered, however, that Spurgeon did not do all that alone. He was surrounded in this work by his congregation. These sermons are a reminder that what motivated and sustained these congregational efforts was not human creativity or industry but God working powerfully through the preaching of the gospel. Through these gospel-rich sermons, God brought many to repentance and faith, uniting them to the church and motivating their service.
Church growth experts today will have thousands of new ideas on how to grow a church and keep people engaged. Some of those ideas may be useful. But not if they come at the expense of this one central call of the minister: preach Christ. Spurgeon’s fruitful ministry stands as a stirring commendation to the power of faithful gospel preaching. That’s not to say we can ever presume a particular kind of result. Spurgeon’s story was a surprising and unique work of God in a particular historical context.
Still, those who preach the gospel faithfully can pray and expect that God’s word will not return void. In his one thousandth published sermon, from the parable of the prodigal son, Spurgeon stated the aim of his sermon, once again echoing his words at the opening of the Tabernacle and continuing in the themes that he had already preached thousands of times before:
My desire this morning shall be to put plainly before every sinner here the exceeding abundance of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, hoping that the Lord will find out those who are his sons, and that they may catch at these words, and as they hear of the abundance of the bread in the Father’s house, may say, “I will arise and go to my Father.”[8]
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[1] C. H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit (1855–1916; repr., Grand Rapids: Refor- mation Heritage Books, 2024), 4:167.
[2] Though in some of these cases, Spurgeon would have questioned whether a real, Spirit-wrought revival took place at all.
[3] Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, 2:76.
[4] Spurgeon states, “Alas! there is such a thing as having a large addition to the church of men that are of no use whatever. Many an army has swelled its ranks with recruits, who have in no way whatever contributed to its might.” New Park Street Pulpit, 2:76.
[5] Spurgeon recounts, “I have heard of the people crowding in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, to hear some noted revivalist, and under his preach- ing some have screamed, have shrieked, have fallen down on the floor, have rolled themselves in convulsions, and afterwards, when he has set a form for penitents, employing one or two decoy ducks to run out from the rest and make a confession of sin, hundreds have come forward, impressed by that one sermon, and declared that they were, there and then, turned from the error of their ways.” New Park Street Pulpit, 4:162.
[6] Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, 4:167.
[7] C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography: Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, by His Wife and His Private Secretary (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1897–1900), 2:93–94.
[8] Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 17:386–87.