Beeson Podcast, Episode 330 Christian George March 7, 2017 https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2017/Spurgeon-ology Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School, on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: So welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. Well I have the privilege today of speaking to a distinguished scholar, and my own son. One and the same person. Christian Timothy George, welcome Christian, to the Beeson podcast. Christian Georg: Thank you, Dad. Timothy George: Now Christian, we're recording this before a live audience. We haven't miked in all those laughters. They're really true. They're happening, here in reality. And you're here, on the campus of Samford University, at Beeson Divinity School, at a luncheon event, following the first of three lectures that you are giving on Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Now anyone who's been to our beautiful chapel, Hodges Chapel, will know that we have a dome with 16 figures from the Christian tradition, painted on that dome. We call those our sweet 16. Well one of those is Charles Spurgeon. And I don't think we've ever had a lectureship focused just on Spurgeon. This is the first. And you're the one to give it. So maybe you could tell our podcast audience how you got interested in Spurgeon in the first place. Christian George: Sure. Well you know the answer to this, because you were involved in the answer. I was a teenager, and my father took my to England on a Spurgeon pilgrimage. And so we committed to going to different places where Charles Spurgeon lived, where he preached, where he was baptized, and you took this snotty nosed teenage kid with you, all around England, and that did something to me. No longer could I just read Spurgeon. Now I could own a memory of Charles Spurgeon. That had a significant impact on my own life. Timothy George: And then when you finished your work at Samford, and Beeson, you went to Scotland, to University of St. Andrews, where you did a PhD. Tell us about your Spurgeon experience there. The person with whom you worked, and how you got into this as a research topic. Christian George: Well I was thinking about doing the topic of pilgrimage. My father named me after John Bunyan's character, Christian. The Pilgrim's Progress. And God sort of snapped his fingers, during my first year in Scotland. He changed the trajectory of my life, and I was talking with Stephen Holmes, who was my supervisor, at the time, and I said, well I could always just study Charles Spurgeon. I love Spurgeon. And so, over the next three years, I studied his Christology, and played a lot of golf in St. Andrews as well. Timothy George: Now what does that have to do with Spurgeon? Christian George: Well, maybe there is a connection. They called me the excavator, because I was always in the sand, digging my way to China. And my last year there, I actually did some digging, in London, and found these 400 sermons of Charles Spurgeon's early ministry. Timothy George: So your project is called the lost sermons of CH Spurgeon. Tell us about these notebooks you found at Spurgeon's College in London, how that came about, and what they contained. Christian George: Yeah, so my last year, my wife Rebecca and I went down to Spurgeon's College, in London, and it was there that ... I mean they have a lot of stuff that still needs to be published, but one of these artifacts was a stack of notebooks. When I opened the notebook, I realized that I recognized the handwriting, but I didn't exactly know what I was looking at, until I did a little research, and figured out that these were the sermons that, in 1857, Charles Haddon Spurgeon tried to publish himself, but failed to do so, because there was a massive Cholera outbreak. His life just got busy. And so my initial impulse was to fulfill Spurgeon's wish, and the road has not been easy. It has led us through some very dark places. But God has been good. And he has brought this 160 year old project to production. Timothy George: When were these sermons originally preached, by Spurgeon? Christian George: Yeah, so when Spurgeon was converted, in January of 1850, he is baptized, and within four months, he is already preaching 10 to 12 times a week. He's preaching itinerantly, at first, in the villages surrounding Cambridge. Timothy George: And he's just a teenager, right? What, 15? How old is he? Christian George: He's 16 years old, that's right. Hadn't hit puberty yet, but he's preaching the gospel. And so he's preaching itinerantly, at first, and then, during the first real year of his ministry, he accepts the pastorate, Waterbeach Chapel, which is still there today. And he preaches for three years at Waterbeach to a dying church in the middle of the country, before he goes to London, and his ministry goes viral. Timothy George: So these sermons that you've transcribed, and now published, were originally preached in the villages, and at Waterbeach, around Cambridge, right? Christian George: That's exactly right, yeah. Timothy George: Now what was Spurgeon like as a preacher? What would it have been like if you had been there to hear him? Christian George: Well, I've often thought of that. Spurgeon, he believed, with all of his heart, that only when Jesus Christ is at the center of your life, can your life be ultimately centered. And to hear the young teenager preach zealously, with earnest, maybe with a little bit of sarcasm here and there, would have been truly a treasure, I think, indeed. His first sermon, he was tricked into preaching it, actually. His mentor at St. Andrew Street Baptist Chapel told another kid that Charles would be preaching, and you need to accompany him. And he told Charles that this other lad would be preaching. And so they both walked the three miles to Teversham cottage, each thinking the other person was going to preach the gospel. And you can imagine just the panic on their eyes. They get to the chapel. You know, this was their first sermon, and Spurgeon sort of spiritually manned up and said, "Well, surely I can tell a few poor cottagers of the love of Christ." And so his first sermon was extemporaneous. It was off the cuff. And many of his sermons, most of sermons afterwards, still reflect that flavor. Timothy George: And you know, I'm a theological educator. I've given my whole life into training people for the ministry, and putting a lot of emphasis on deep, hard study. Greek, Hebrew, history, theology, all that stuff. Now Spurgeon never had that, did he? Christian George: Well not formally, he didn't. Because he was a nonconformist, he wasn't allowed to go to Cambridge. It would be another two decades before they relaxed that law. But it would be incorrect, I think, to say that Spurgeon was uneducated. He had a photographic memory. We're discovering he was reading large swathes of Shakespeare and committing it to memory. He once said he could hold eight thoughts in his mind in a single moment, and choose one, as from a shelf. Timothy George: All I can do is two, or one-and-a-half. Christian George: And so you're obviously working with the Leonardo Da Vinci of preaching. This is no ordinary teenager that God got a hold of. But he did use those abilities, for the enhancement of the kingdom. Timothy George: So not formally educated, but certainly not unlearned. Christian Georg: Certainly not. Timothy George: And a great reader. A voracious reader. Reading all the Puritan literature, Luther, Calvin, the Medievals, some of them. Christian George: Absolutely. At the Spurgeon Library, we have almost 5,200 of his personally owned books. Many of them are heavily annotated, with all kinds of marginalia. And it's interesting to see what he actually was reading. His theology was shaped, in large part, by people like John Bunyan and Richard Baxter and John Owen and some of the Scottish divines. This had a way of tenderizing him to the power of the gospel. And so he was reading some of the greatest divines England had produced. It's no wonder his early sermons are so great. Timothy George: Say a little bit about Spurgeon as a family man. He had wife, Susannah. Two sons, right? Christian George: Yeah, after he goes to London, he meets this girl named Suzie. She was a city girl. And Charles was from the country. He would often preach with a polka-dotted handkerchief, and wave it in the air. That was the first thing Suzie took away, when they got married. That polka-dotted handkerchief. She hated his hair, she hated his accent. She said his dialect was more of a deformity than it was an accent. And so they were married, but like any marriage, they didn't have a smooth road. Susannah got very sick. She had a surgery that was botched. She had two sons, Charles, and Thomas, before she was rendered infertile, for the rest of her life. She spent 15 years in bed, and Charles took care of her. People always ask me, "What kind of man was he? Did he sacrifice his family on that altar of ministry?" And I don't think he did. He included his family in the ministry. Both Charles and Thomas both became preachers in their own right. And I think that says something about not just his ministry, and the way it unfolded at the tabernacle, but also his character. Timothy George: One of the interesting things about this project that you've told me about is that you've been able to reconnect with some of the living descendants of Spurgeon. Christian George: That's right. People ask me, "What's the greatest thing you've discovered?" Some of my students call me Indiana George. Always hunting some relic, or thinking about taking one of Spurgeon's bones. Don't tell anyone that. Timothy George: It's on the podcast, they'll all hear. Christian George: Well I tell people that the greatest thing I've discovered is not a thing itself, it's a person. And so last year, I came to know Spurgeon's living descendants, through Thomas's side of the family in Dublin, Ireland. And you know, as providence would have it, I was with David Spurgeon, the great great grandson of Charles Spurgeon. The actual day he passed away in Dublin. I was there just one day, and I went to hospice to see him, and he was slipping away, but one of the last things I did was to read sermons by his ancestor, on the hope of resurrection, and glory to him. I think it ministered him, as much as it ministered to me, to be there. Timothy George: Now you've talked a little bit about Susannah's illnesses, and Charles also had a number of serious life chronic diseases, right? Tell us about that, a little bit. Christian George: He did. Yeah, so Charles Spurgeon once said, "God gets his best men out of the highlands of affliction." And he himself was one such highlander. He struggled internally, and he struggled externally. A psychiatrist in London was interviewed, and he was presented with all of Spurgeon's symptoms, and he said, "This man, if he were alive today, would be treated as having bipolarity. His depression is not just endogenous. It's exdogenous. It's exterior. He would often weep without knowing why. And of course there were external circumstances. The Surrey Garden Music Hall collapse that I think dented him. But in another way, I think that was the secret sauce of his preaching. Here is a man who knows what it's like to appeal to the common suffering of the Victorian person. I think, without that key ingredient, Spurgeon might not have gotten very far. Timothy George: Now Christian, I want to ask you a personal question. It may be a difficult question, but as you were really developing this research interest in Spurgeon, and digging into this material, you yourself were quite afflicted, weren't you? And how did your own affliction relate to what you were studying about with Spurgeon. Christian George: Okay. So I know I've shared my testimony in several places, but for 12 long years, I struggled with something called ulcerative colitis. It's a bleeding disorder of the colon, and you know what, I bled here on this campus for four years of college, and three years of master's level work. Bled in St. Andrews for three years. Bled in Oklahoma for three years. I would teach a class, and then I would go to the bathroom and just cry with Jesus until the next class started. Bleeding. I identified with that woman, in Luke eight. She bled for 12 years. And in two thousand and ... Rebecca, sweetie, you have to help me with the date. 2013, my appendix ruptured. And I almost passed away. We didn't find out, for about a month, that it had ruptured. And the surgeon said it was a miracle that I was still alive. But by the grace of God, Luke, chapter eight, I extended my hand, and grabbed the healing garment of God. They took my colon out, they gave me a temporary ileostomy for a year, then they sewed me back up, and sent me on my way. I'm 150% today. And yet, during that time, I was reading Charles Spurgeon's early sermons. And there was one sermon in particular. If you open your book, sermon number 14. God's grace, given to us. And there's this one line in that sermon that has haunted me ever since I read it. I don't think I'll ever forget it. It said, "Think much on grace, Christian. Think much on grace." And in the darkest places, I have thought a lot about grace. And God's grace is enough, Dr. Smith. God's grace is sufficient for our suffering. Timothy George: That's a wonderful testimony, and I know it's meant a great deal in your life to study Spurgeon while you were actually experiencing God's grace in this kind of way. Now this is an amazing project. 12 volumes in all, right? Christian George: Unless Jesus comes back to rescue us. Timothy George: Okay. We'll keep that in mind. Published by B&H Academic. It's really an amazing publishing event, really. And so Mr. Jim Baird, from B&H Academic, the publisher, is here today with us, and presenting this volume to you. So tell us a little bit about your own work, now, at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where you're not only a professor, but also the curator of the Spurgeon Library. Christian George: Yeah, well I do teach church history. I've been asked to do that, and I enjoy that quite a lot. Sometimes I mention, in chapel, you have to go back to the future. And it's so exciting to watch students' eyes light up when you unfold the life and ministry of people like William Carey, and Luther, Calvin, and Spurgeon. So that's part of what I do at Midwestern. But I'm also the curator of Spurgeon's personal library. We give tours to churches, but we're also a research institution. We have traveling scholars visit us from the UK quite often, and we're learning about Spurgeon. I have a team of about 15 people, and every day someone comes to me and says, "Do you know how much Spurgeon was worth, over the course of his life?" But he died poor. Timothy George: I didn't know that, that's interesting. Christian George: We're also in the process of scanning all of Spurgeon's works, on a website called Spurgeon.org. Jim at BNH was kind enough to give us a very expensive scanner. And so, for the first time in history, all of Spurgeon's 63 volumes of sermons, his biographies, his 140 books, all of it, most of our library, will be scanned, for free, at Spurgeon.org for pastors to use in their sermons. And I hope it'll be a benefit to the church. Timothy George: Do you have a website people could go to, to find out about the Spurgeon Library? Christian George: Yeah Spurgeon.org. www.Spurgeon.org. Timothy George: Spurgeon.org. So check it out and see what's available from the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We've just had presented, today, here at Beeson, the first of these 12 volumes. Now when can we expect volume two and three? What's the plan? Christian George: Jim, when's two due? Published this summer, is it? September. Timothy George: September of 2017? Christian George: I believe two every year. Timothy George: So we can expect several volumes a year to come out, 'til the series is complete. Now let me ask you a final question you probably have never heard of or thought of before. What are you gonna do after Spurgeon? He's dumbfounded. Christian George: I'm gonna go to glory and see him. Timothy George: Okay. Thank you, Christian, that was a good answer. And it's a pleasure to have you here at Beeson Divinity School, and to celebrate with you the publication of the lost sermons of CH Spurgeon. Thank you so much. Christian George: Thank you. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, BeesonDivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson Podcast. https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2017/Spurgeon-ology beeson-podcast-episode-330-george Page 2 of 7 Need Help? mailto:support@rev.com Get this transcript with table formatting