Living by Revealed Truth by Nettles Tom

Author:Nettles, Tom [Nettles, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity
Publisher: Christian Focus Publications
Published: 2013-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Spurgeon’s College

The greatest influence for good or evil in the world, and peculiarly in the church, Spurgeon believed, consists of those that purport to be ministers of the gospel. And yet preachers of power are “few and far between.” 65 It is but justice, Spurgeon believed, that ministers be withheld from the church if the churches do not learn how to value such gifts. True ministers are of the Lord’s choosing, endowing, and qualifying. An effort to supply the churches by eliciting services of the unconverted is foolish and destructive and an intrusion into the office of the Holy Spirit. Wolves are set over the sheep and the evil one is allowed to sow seed in the field of the kingdom. Neither universities nor Episcopal hands can supply a divine call and endowment.

The depth of his conviction that no human agency can call, set aside, and endow a minister of the gospel overflowed in one intense and extended sentence. “Both those who usurp the Spirit’s office and send, and those who admit to the imposture and are sent, may think themselves mercifully favoured that they escape the immediate judgment of God; but they may be assured, beyond all hope, that no power of a divine kind ever will or can rest upon the ministrations thus inaugurated, for God will not own the messenger of men, nor set his seal to a commission which did not originally emanate from his throne.” 66 The surplice may fall on uncalled shoulders, but not the prophetic mantle.

Those men, however, whom God has converted and commissioned must receive instruction—neither the eloquence of Apollos nor the humility of Timothy will alone suffice, but Aquila and Paul must come alongside. Pure churches have not only prayed the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers, but always found ways to give instruction to a called ministry without fear of intrusion on the work of the Spirit. Some of delusive conviction have feared this, but “their own decline both in numbers and ability will ere long either convince them of their error or cause their extinction.” The Spirit will not do by supernatural means what he has already provided for by natural means. “He has given us an inspired book, but he does not enable human beings to read it without having learned their letters, neither does he miraculously endow men with a knowledge of the original tongues.” 67 Since men in their pursuit of the divine will are not to be as passive recipients like Belshazzar’s wall or Balaam’s donkey, “preachers must be instructed in some measure, and the only rational questions which can be raised relate to the measure, the manner, and the subjects of the instruction.” 68

Spurgeon fervently hoped that the church had gone beyond the day “in which we need seriously to argue for the utility of mental and spiritual culture.” He resisted and resented that “conceited ignorance which is infallible in its own assertions, and therefore refuses further light.” God needs not our

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