Author

"Church Growth Spurgeon Style: Preaching Without Notes"

I have learned that a minister may be very anxious for souls and labor earnestly for a revival, even weep over lost men, yet not have a full outfit for his work. He may earnestly believe he is fully in the work and prepared to lead his flock yet not have any real soul travail himself.

Some years ago I was holding a mission. I visited from house to house, prayed with different families and felt very anxious for a revival. I worked hard and looked pale from hard work. It seemed I would have been willing to die for souls, yet I found my heart was not thoroughly melted.

I preached quite a number of times in all the earnestness of my heart and tried more and more earnestly to get the Christians near enough to Christ to have a revival. I wondered why they did not melt down. I was half discouraged. After prayer, fasting and much labor, I went alone before God and inquired what the matter was and what more we could do.

Then God seemed to speak to me by the Spirit and say, "You are just as cold as the Christians to whom you are preaching."
It startled me!
"Am I cold?" I asked.
"Your heart has not really broken up for years."
I said, "Did I not weep while preaching this afternoon?"
"You did, but it was water running from ice when the sun is on it."

Then I saw it all; I saw it all; I saw the difference between anxiety and soul travail. I had a great anxiety, but no soul travail. I then saw why souls were not saved and God's work was not revived. The fault was largely with the minister, and in this case I was the minister.

I went to the pastor and told him what I had discovered. After a little, as he looked into his own heart, he said, "I am in the same state."

No wonder there was no more done. Ministers had not the upper-room power; they had but little power with God.

We prayed with and for each other for some days, but my heart did not melt. I knew there was power enough in Christ to break up the fountain of my heart and there was efficacy in prayer. So I resolved to spend the night alone with God.

What a night it was! I had, I think, twenty seasons of prayer that night; but my heart seemed to rebel and grow harder.

After four hours I had used all my arguments with God, and my heart had not melted. I finally used the publican's prayer for hours: 'God, be merciful to me a sinner! God, be merciful to me a sinner!'

I did not detect any immorality in my life, but I lacked the anointing; I needed the baptism of pain—the real birth pain that brings souls into the kingdom.

Toward morning the fountain broke up; my heart melted as it had not done for years.

In the morning I went out and said the very words I had used the day before. Now the wicked broke down. I preached a little sermon to the church, and they broke down, and the work broke out with power.

I found the fault had been with the preacher. I myself was in the way when I was so anxious and working so hard. I could not say the deacons and members of the church were right, but how soon they melted when the minister melted!

For more than sixty years since then I have noticed that, as soon as the pastors have melted down and led the way, the churches have usually quickly followed; and I have worked with about ten thousand ministers over the country. If the pastors with whom I have worked have not melted down and received the baptism of real soul travail, the work has usually been light and unsatisfactory; but if they have received the baptism of pain, so that they really travailed in birth for the lost men, I have never known failure.