As dark as Spurgeon’s suffering was, the Lord used it. Spurgeon was able to empathize with fellow sufferers in his preaching, teaching, and writing and point them to God. Spurgeon said, “I would go into the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.”
Of the numerous nicknames aptly attributed to Charles Hadden Spurgeon, perhaps the most incisive and comprehensive description would be the title of his well-known work The Soul Winner.
“I would rather be the means of saving a soul from death than be the greatest orator on earth,” Spurgeon said.[1] “Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister” . . . “the main pursuit of every true believer.”[2]
Not only did he consistently preach from this conviction, but Spurgeon also modeled soul-winning in his personal life and leadership of Metropolitan Tabernacle. One historian reports that during Spurgeon’s 38-year pastorate, 14,692 people were baptized and joined the Metropolitan Tabernacle.[3] For Spurgeon, that staggering number was not merely a statistic, but souls to disciple.[4]
“We do not consider soul-winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more names upon our church-roll, in order to show a good increase at the end of the year,” Spurgeon said. “It is a part of our work to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them.”[5]
Soul-Winning Is Soul Care
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Spurgeon viewed soul-winning holistically, not merely as conversion, but about making converts into disciples in the local church. Spurgeon once said,
Christian labors, disconnected from the church, are like sowing and reaping without having any barn in which to store fruits of the harvest; they are useful, but incomplete. . . . We can rejoice in converts, but without membership in the local church, those converts remain hidden, undiscipled, and in disobedience to Christ’s commands.[6]
Geoff Chang’s recent research shows, amidst all the Spurgeon scholarship, his ecclesiology remains largely unaddressed. Without a doubt, Spurgeon’s biblical convictions about the church made his ministry of soul-winning a robust and well-rounded ministry of soul care, but so also did his own personal suffering.
Spurgeon’s Soul Struggles
Long before the modern biblical counseling movement existed, Spurgeon was keen on the ministry of soul care. He was deeply familiar with suffering and well-acquainted with God’s grace for sufferers.
Experts have detailed Spurgeon’s numerous trials: physical ailments including smallpox, gout, rheumatism, obesity, and a burning kidney inflammation called Bright’s disease; mental illness including severe depression and anxiety; and ongoing spiritual warfare that included slander, the weight of preaching, and suicidal thoughts. One psychiatrist noted that if he lived today, Spurgeon would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with medicine.[7]
Spurgeon’s difficult circumstances shaped him into an exemplary model of suffering, which led to his commitment to soul care.
Spurgeon’s Trauma
One significant misfortune early in his pastorate transpired on the evening of October 19, 1856. During a sermon at Surrey Hall, malicious pranksters falsely shouted about a fire. Among the thousands gathered, panic ensued. Seven people died and 28 were seriously injured.
Spurgeon was twenty-two years old and newly married. He was carried from the pulpit in a state of shock and depression, which was probably exacerbated by the recent birth of his twin boys and the pressures of moving into a new home. “The senseless tragedy and the public accusation of the press nearly broke Charles’s mind,” one author observed, “not only in those early moments but also with lasting effects.”[8]
In sermons, Spurgeon frequently verbalized his condition, “I am quite out of order for addressing you tonight. I feel extremely unwell, excessively heavy, and exceedingly depressed.”[9]
Spurgeon’s Suicidal Ideation
Spurgeon’s struggle with depression and anxiety was so immense and persistent that he spoke of his desire to die in his writings to his congregation. In modern language, Spurgeon contemplated suicide. Spurgeon’s pain would be so great, he often found biblical language to express his suicidal desires. Spurgeon once preached, “I too could say with Job, ‘My soul chooseth strangling rather than life. . . . I could readily enough have laid violent hands upon myself, to escape from my misery.”[10]
In another sermon, referring to Elijah’s prayer to die in 1 Kings 19:4, Spurgeon said of himself, “I know one who, in the bitterness of his soul, has often prayed it.”[11] In a sermon on Psalm 88, he commented, “Worse than physical death has cast its dreadful shadow over us . . . death would be welcomed as a relief, by those whose depressed spirits make their existence a living death.”[12]
As dark as Spurgeon’s suffering was, the Lord used it. Spurgeon was able to empathize with fellow sufferers in his preaching, teaching, and writing and point them to God.