Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

• John 14:25-27

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

• 1 Corinthians 13:9-12

“First, Spurgeon believed that the Holy Spirit must instruct his mind, giving him a clear understanding of the gospel. This enlightenment began when he opened the Bible in the solitude of his study. Spurgeon remarked: ‘It is in our study-work, in that blessed labour when we are alone with the Book before us, that we need the help of the Holy Spirit. … He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. … By His light all things are rightly seen.’ He understood that it was only as the Holy Spirit gave divine enlightenment that he could rightly understand the gospel.
“This illuminating work, Spurgeon stressed, is one of the Spirit’s primary ministries, not just for the preacher but also for his hearers: ‘It is one of the peculiar offices of the Holy Spirit to enlighten His people. He has done so by giving us His inspired Word, but the Book is never spiritually understood by anyone apart from the personal teaching of its great Author.’ Spurgeon was persuaded that the same Spirit who infallibly inspired the Scriptures must inwardly reveal their truths. Without the divine light of the Spirit, the Bible remains a closed book.
“However, Spurgeon believed that the Spirit’s illuminating work did not negate his responsibility to study the Bible diligently.”

• Steven J. Lawson, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon

My wife had this tiny book squirreled away in her bookcase.  As her health began to fail, she stacked things (mostly clothing and blankets – always cold and she never had enough blankets) in front of her bookcase instead of putting them away.  Thus, I had no idea what she had put there.  Along with this book and many others, I found a couple of books that she had bought before she was sick that she had intended on giving to me for a birthday or Christmas.  They were authors that I loved, and she never read.  I did not have them on my “to-read” list, so they had to have been intended presents.

But she was fascinated by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  She had read two or three of his books before she realized that he was not a living pastor of today.  His books spoke to her so vividly and the things that he said about the world around us fit what she was seeing in the world.  Yet, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was a nineteenth century pastor.

Rev. Lawson, in this book which is a part of a series of books on followers of Christ who were Godly Men worthy to be followed, digs into Rev. Spurgeon’s theology, his background including his coming to faith, and the fire within that made him who he was.

And when it came to why Spurgeon’s sermons were so stirring, Rev. Lawson used Spurgeon’s own words.  Spurgeon put all the praise on the working of the Holy Spirit within him.

The first part was that the Holy Spirit provides understanding when reading God’s Word.  In my experience, and in the experience of many others, the Holy Spirit reveals only in part.  The verses from 1 Corinthians 13 come from four verses that do not contain the word “love.”  First Corinthians 13 has 13 verses, seven mentioning the word “love,” but the chapter’s focus is entirely on love.

Yet, these verses show how the Holy Spirit reveals our sin to us, God’s Grace and Mercy to us, and guides us to deeper understanding in small steps, the giant leap comes when we pass to the next life and we see God face to face.  (Sorry Neil Armstrong, I wrote the words before it dawned on me your famous quote about one small step, one giant leap.)

As R. C. Sproul said in a panel discussion, if the Holy Spirit revealed it all at once, we would be incapable of taking it all in.  That is why reading the Bible once and setting the Bible aside to collect dust is something we should never do.  Hopefully, when we read the Bible again, we have grown in the faith a little, and the Holy Spirit realizes that we are able to obtain deeper meaning than the last time through.

I have marveled at the small Bible stories, the ones they did not cover when I was in grade school, and after reading the Bible cover to cover so many times, I had missed that story, the entire story.  I had not skipped the words, but their meaning did not soak in until the Holy Spirit knew I could handle the information and even use its meaning in my life.

To illustrate this, if a teenager read Genesis 38, they might think “Tamar slept with a lot of men, and she used trickery to get pregnant.  And, THIS is in the Bible?!”  But then, reading it with more understanding, you see that some kind of protection system had been established within society for a man without a son.  And the understanding was in place before it became established as Law (Deuteronomy 25:5-6).  Maybe on another time reading, we see how Judah was not honorable in withholding Shelah.  I could go on.  But for me, in a recent reading of the chapter, I noticed the part of a hand coming out and the midwife tied a scarlet thread around it for it had come out first (signifying the firstborn).  The hand was then withdrawn.  Of course, it had to be.  The baby was breach.  (I used this in a recent short story when a storm chaser became a midwife out of necessity.)  But the other son was born first, Perez.  Zerah, the one with the scarlet thread, technically the firstborn, was born second.  This is yet another example of how God blessed a son that was not a firstborn.  Perez is in the genealogical line of Jesus rather than the firstborn.  Judah was the fourth born in his generation.  And Judah’s father Jacob was born grasping his “older” brother’s heal.  But I picked up various tidbits in this chapter of Genesis each time I read it, as the Holy Spirit led me to understand more.  I did not mention everything from this chapter.  I feel the concept of “Onan’s sin” is totally misunderstood, but if you know that concept, you might want to read the chapter, or those couple of verses again.  But this illustrates the point of how the Holy Spirit works in revealing God through God’s Word.

Rev. Lawson points out that Spurgeon was explaining about one part of the Holy Spirit guiding him in writing good sermons was to give him understanding.  But Rev. Lawson, along with Rev. Spurgeon, point out that each of us must read and understand the Scriptures.  We cannot sit passively expecting God to only teach us from what the pastor says from the pulpit.  Only through our reading of Scripture and the understanding that the Holy Spirit gives us, do we know when our current pastor of today has given a good sermon.

Tomorrow’s conclusion to Charles Spurgeon’s secrets to a good sermon is on the Holy Spirit’s Wisdom.  And as another GMC (God-Made Coincidence), the philosophy/theology lesson that is sandwiched between these two discussions is on learning from those that came before us.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.