Counting Converts: The Spurgeon Method
Apr 1st, 2008 by Nathan White
Have you noticed how many people praise CH Spurgeon for his impact and ‘soul-winning’ and yet turn around and denounce the methodologies and theology upon which Spurgeon built his entire ministry? Spurgeon was the staunchest of Calvinists, a Sabbatarian, a holder to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and he spoke out vehemently against those who watered-down doctrine and preaching in his day. I find it troubling how so many give lip-service to Spurgeon being a man used by God, and yet turn around and revel in the very practices in which he hated.
Today I want to draw your attention to how Spurgeon counted and followed-up with converts in his day. Obviously, for those who are familiar with Spurgeon, he led a very large congregation, and is credited with leading thousands of men to Christ through his ministry.
Today I will pull information from Spurgeon: A New Biography, pages 80-84.
Spurgeon did not have an ‘altar call’
“He did not ask people to walk to the front of the auditorium, raise a hand, sign a card, or perform any outward action.”
Clearly, Spurgeon saw the dangers in this practice, and the dangers of formulating the salvation process by adding in things that are absent from scripture. Instead, earnest calls to repent and place faith in Christ were followed-up with instructions to go home and privately call upon the Lord for Him to grant faith and repentance (a far cry from the decision approach today). If those under conviction still needed further counsel, Spurgeon made himself available to individuals on Tuesday afternoons (again, a far cry from ‘walk down front and shake my hand’).
Spurgeon appointed ‘messengers’ to follow-up with professors to ascertain their spiritual condition
No doubt this was a sensitive task, but these men visited, during the week, those who professed to believe in Christ, and they looked for 3 general marks of true conversion:
“One, had the person, knowing himself to be a sinner and unable to do anything towards saving himself, gone to God, begging for mercy, and had he entirely trusted his soul to Christ, believing in the saving merit of His death upon the cross?”
“Two, had the person entered into the newness of life, experiencing a change of affections, victory over sin, a love for the Word of God, and a desire to win others to Christ?”
“Three, did he or she possess a basic understanding of the doctrines of grace, recognizing that salvation did not begin with himself or his own will, but with God’s choice and God’s action, and that God, who saved him, would keep him through time and through eternity?”
If one failed to meet these requirements, granted, there was leniency and grace shown in deciding each case, then there would be another follow-up session in three months. Without the witness of the messenger that a person had truly been born again, a person was not recognized as a believer, they were not baptized, they were not granted the Lord’s table, and they were not granted membership.
Spurgeon’s Church had a ‘List of Refusals’
The ‘List of Refusals’ was a list published containing each name of those who professed Christ but showed no evidence of true conversion. This list also included members of his church whom had not attended in four months without a valid explanation.
Wow— so we see that Spurgeon had so great a ministry, but so strict were its qualifications! Why was Spurgeon so strict, you may ask?
“[Spurgeon] truly believed in hell, and he recognized the awful responsibility should he give some person cause to believe he was saved if there was no evidence that it was so.”
What is it about today? Do the ministers of today believe that hell is real? Do they believe that false-converts are real? Do they hold their position with any sort of integrity, not just as one who counts up their own superficial converts so as to boast in themselves? Do the ministers of today have a biblical understanding of conversion, –the salvation experience that scripture speaks of? It certainly does not appear so. And certainly be warned: men who take God and salvation lightly are such easy tools in the hands of Satan.
Where are the men today who proclaim the inability of man to save himself? Where are the men who teach a true, deep, repentance? Where are the men who fill their sermons with the proper doctrine, the pure milk of the word, necessary for one to grasp the way of salvation? Where are the men who actually care about the souls in which they supposedly lead to Christ –care enough to tell them the truth if they are false converts?
My friends, how utterly foreign are these things in our day! In the convert-counting ministries like I mentioned last week, could we expect that even one of these three points would be true in all the dozens who supposedly confessed Christ? Could we expect that the messages that these people responded to were filled with clear explanations of sin, righteousness, judgment, grace, self-righteousness, the inability of man, and the perfection of Christ’s work on the cross?
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” – James 3:1
Spurgeon took the verse above with dead seriousness; do you? Does the church you attend? Wisdom is justified by her deeds, my brethren. Let us take heed that our methods and practices will either prove or disprove us on the day of Christ.
Thank you once again for your most encourageing and uplifting blog.
Awesome information. I’m getting tired of all the feel good preaching here in America. Its obvious that the church is backsliding, but repetance and hell aren’t being preached because if it was being preached people would turn but also be outcasted and many would fall away who are in the church now lining the pockets of the megachurches.
I hope we slowly wakeup and realize God is moving his work towards Asia and Africa even more so. But yeah, thanks for the great info.
I go to a private Christian college, and its rediculous how little bible knowledge these students have, and their lack of defense of the gospel, yet everyone has to partake in communion when its offered, even while living in sin… Rediculous
If you believe that God saves “all kinds of people” (not all men) through sovereign election and that conversion does not rely on the evangelistic efforts of men, what do you then make of the fact that the Christian population in China is only between .75 and 1% while the Christian population in India is also only between 2-2.5%?
Do you take these statistics to indicate some sort of judgment of God on these nations as indicated by their comparative degree of unbelief (at least compared to that of European nations)?
To me, the idea that evangelism makes “no net difference” in who God saves would be backed up by some equality among the races and nations and that Christianity wouldn’t simply predominate where the culture is already Christian (if that makes sense).
James, your question which you attempted to answer yourself has nothing to do with the blog post. Why are you even here?
Jonathan, the premise is that salvation is 100% God acting upon man. Man is and can only be reactive, not proactive. Thus, evangelization is done not so much to convert or persuade but simply out of obedience, for God commands it even though it is technically not needed for God to work out the salvation of men.
Hence, my question: what does this seem to state about the great pockets of the world where the number of the saved is very low? If the voices of men are not needed, God could just as easily save men to the same degree He does in America or South America.
Do you feel that the number of unsaved in these nations is then due to the lack of men preaching (lack of men doing) in these places, or is it a judgment of God on these nations as witnessed by the fact that He has not intervened? I can think of no other alternative. The implications then seem to be either that:
a) the activity of man is needed in God’s plan of salvation, or
b) God has passed judgment on these nations, perhaps even abandoning them altogether
By the way, I don’t deny the fact that there are indeed false converts. This is obvious. My question is more related to the role of humanity in God’s plan of salvation.
Oh, in that case I see what you mean. Thats a very good question. I think it comes down to something that is beyond our comprehension, and thats God’s reasoning behind his plan for creation.
On one hand like you said scripture states we are to go make disciples of all men. But also on the other hand, there are thousands of new muslim converts, many of whom have said that Jesus has appeared to them in dreams and called them to follow him. In islam, having dreams is held in very high significance. Knowing that its literally impossible to preach the gospel of Christ to muslims, it looks as if God is doing things his way in this case out of his love for saving some of them.
As you said though and on the other hand, God allowed millions of people in history to die, possibly many of whom didn’t know God or want to know him. Paul states in his writings that the knowledge of God is in the being of every man, just that many deny it. So on the other hand quite probably many were given a chance to hear the gospel in some form whether through dreams, evangelism, etc. We don’t know. There have been reports of angels speaking to tribes in untouched regions of the world and those people coming to Christ.
Another very big idea but also a difficult to grasp idea that some theologians are backing up with scripture is that Jesus didn’t come to die for everyone. He only came to die for those whom God has called. One scripture in John has Jesus saying “If I explained to them what the parables meant then they might turn from their sin and be saved.” Jesus was saying the reason he didn’t explain the meaning of the parables is because they woulda have understood them and changed.
Sounds strange doesn’t it? I don’t believe we were given the minds and knowledge to comprehend many things that occur in this life. If we believe God to be omniscient and all loving, then we just have to use our faith and follow in obediance best we can, the rest we have to leave up to God. Even if we question God about things, which he wants us to do, he doesn’t have to respond or tell us anything. Kind of the same way Job questioned God about his troubles and God came back with statements questioning Job about secrets of the universe.
I believe its both yes and no. If people are supposed to go as part of God’s plan for them to preach to lost people and they don’t, I believe God will use another avenue to reach those people. If a particular people group never hear the gospel, which we can’t prove by the way whether they were given dreams, messages, signs, or the gospel from angels, then we have to chaulk it up that its part of God’s greater plan for things which we can’t comprehend because its not our plan, its his. He reveals the parts of his plan with us that he wishes to, and never gives us more than we can bear to live with.
Nathan,
I absolutely agree with this post, and for a few years now have implemented Spurgeon’s methods into the way I do ministry. I do have a nagging question, perhaps you can help. It concerns the way that Spurgeon would wait before baptizing professing believers. I like this practice. It would really curb the swarm of false converts in our churches. Here is what is nagging me. How is this reconciled with the “quick” baptismal practices in Acts? Perhaps, I am just reading into the text, but it appears to me that they would baptize upon profession and not so much upon fruit.
Mike–
Excellent question. I expected it to come up much sooner than it did.
Let me try to briefly explain how I deal with this issue:
First, it is not wrong to immediately baptize a professor. We see this practice in scripture, and there is NO warnings against it. It is not immediate baptisms that I am warning against (neither is Spurgeon), it’s rather these shallow, make-a-decision gospel messages that actually manipulate people into flimsy, emotional decisions.
Secondly, we must ALSO remember that we are not apostles. Although we see instant baptisms in scripture, we do not have the revelation that the apostles had to assist them. I cite the Ethiopian Eunuch as an example. The Holy Spirit actually miraculously put Philip in that situation for that specific purpose. We do not have these luxuries –especially to see into the hearts of others.
Next, we must always, always be careful not to speak where scripture is silent. Spurgeon’s methods above are very good, and I agree with them, but we must be careful that we do not enforce them as rules, as though there is no other way to do things. Scripture is sufficient in the matter, and scripture gives no real, detailed outline as to how we are to do some of these things.
Now, as to why I would not agree with immediate baptisms in *most* circumstances:
-Salvation is so widely misunderstood and misapplied in this age and culture, that people have lost the scriptural truths surrounding the matter.
-These professions are usually the result of massive ministries, campaigns, and sermons, where the immediate baptisms in scripture usually surround a more intimate situation, where the Apostles were involved personally with the individuals. When we’re involved personally, we can better determine whether someone is sincere or not.
-Because of the great danger of false conversion, the great danger in leading others astray, the great danger in baptizing someone into Christ who is not really in Christ, and the integrity that we should have for these things, we owe it to ourselves, not just to the other person, to act with pure motives, sincerity, and diligence, so that their blood will not be on our hands if they are indeed unbelievers. It’s not that baptizing immediately is a sin; it’s that flippantly acting in these things can bring great danger to us and others.
Hope that helps. Excellent question. I’d recommend you research this further.