Divine Humility

It seems fitting to read the following on the day the Supreme Court makes, what is expected to be, and landmark decision concerning religious liberty in America.

“But it matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.”

“Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when he thinks that their modest prosperity and happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know him they will be wretched.” And therefore he troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover.

“The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; he makes that life less sweet to them. I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud he would hardly have us on such terms: but he is not proud, he stoops to conquer, he will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had.”

“The same humility is shown by all those divine appeals to our fears which trouble high-minded readers of scripture. It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose him as alternative to Hell: yet even this he accepts. The creature’s illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creatures sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of the eternal flames, God shatters it ‘unmindful of his glory’s diminution.’ Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask. If God were a Kantian, who would not have us till we came to him from the purest and best motives, who could be saved? And this illusion of self-sufficiency may be at its strongest in some very honest, kindly, and temperate people, and on such people, therefore, misfortune must fall.”

C.S. Lewis The Problem of Pain. p 97-98

The Title Explained: Why my blog is called what it's called. (Pt 2)

Just after I became a Christian as a graduation gift from my brother-in-law I received a box full of books – just a box full of books, no fancy graduation wrapping or anything – just a box of books. As an 18-year-old kid this was, well to be honest, it was a little underwhelming. The names on the spines of the books read, “Spurgeon,” and it was a name I was hardly familiar with.

There were three sets of books some brown ones, green ones, and some that looked like they’d been printed in the sixties because of the cheesy cover art on the front. But there was something that kept drawing my mind and eye to these books among all the other gifts.

Little did I know that my world and view of the Christian tradition was about to be moved and transformed in such a way so as to never be the same and never to want look back. John Piper talks of Lewis as coming over the horizon of his life, and this is how I speak of Spurgeon, he walked over the horizon of my life and brought me into many green pastures of growth, guided me in long walks among quiet rivers and taught me the meaning of silence, prayer, words, and true eloquence. This under-shepherd of the true Shepherd herded my life along even though it was more than one hundred years after his final breath.

A shift happened for me here, I began to wonder about all these other names I’d heard about and the depth of insight they too might offer to a kid wanting to be a pastor. Names like Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Lewis, Stott, Packer, Augustine and many others became my teachers in those early days. And all of them echoed the glorious truth of the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of Scripture – that it is, “Divine Writ.”

Spurgeon taught me what it is to be a pastor, more than any other man I’ve worked for or with he has taught me what it is to be a man in the Word. Discipleing me to follow God and no other, to let the times change and the Scripture remain unassailably the same; to preach incessantly and unapologetically the gospel; to speak with heart-burning conviction; to not let up, or back off, or give in until Christ himself welcomes me with, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Therefore the title of the blog, “Aspiring Spurgeon,” might be simple to decode now. By the mercy and grace of God almighty I hope that words I write will someday impact the heart of one person in such a way that Spurgeon has impacted me. It’s a tall order to be sure, to desire to impact someone’s life for all eternity, but God has used men throughout all of history to impact and grow other men – that’s why we’re called ‘ambassadors’ – so I believe he can use the wretch that I am to impact one other person.