Book Review: Spurgeon's Sorrows by Zach Eswine

I would wager that you know someone who is depressed, someone who is suffering sorrow, emotional pain. You may not even know who it is but you know someone I’m sure. Maybe it’s you. Maybe you’ve felt this pain for some time now or perhaps a recent tragedy has invaded your life and it hurts – more than you’ve ever hurt before. The famous preacher of years past, Charles Spurgeon, experienced this sorrow, this depression. How did he handle it?

Zach Eswine, author of Spurgeon’s Sorrows, has done the research and shares with his readers the approach to suffering in all its varying forms that Spurgeon undertook to ease his pain while remaining faithful to the Scriptures. It was certainly a difficult road for him as it is for you, me or anyone else today. But the passage of time has changed little in the methods we should employ. This book does not propose to answer all the questions sufferers may have, there is no quick fix. Yet it does offer wisdom from Spurgeon himself who not only suffered physically but with depression and spoke and wrote about it often and his story is interwoven throughout the book.

Eswine guides us methodically through the many aspects of suffering that a person may experience. Not comprehensively as no one is depressed in quite the same way another may be. Commonalities however do exist and Eswine, with his own engaging style, has plucked them out of Spurgeon’s writings and sermons.

Eswine has broken down this small volume into three parts. Part one is an overview of depression and the difficulties in understanding it. Here we read what how it can differ in degrees of intensity and longevity. The difference between sadness and depression and how they intersect. How it began and how it deeply affected Spurgeon and some of the causes. He concludes this section with how circumstantial and biological depression comes into play with spiritual depression.

Part two consists of some of the methods we may employ to comfort those who are suffering and also the necessity to avoid trite rebukes (Proverbs 25:20). Depression and suffering is varied and there is no one-size-fits-all-diagnosis or remedy. But God's grace allows many to press on under these trying circumstances. Lastly in chapter 8, we read that Jesus was a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:4) and there is much we can learn from that.

Eswine offers some practical helps in part three. Writing down God's promises and carrying them with us to refer to in the darkness and remembering prayers such as from Psalm 103:13 can carry the sufferer through sometimes. Natural helps such as rest, food and medications (taking medicine is a wise act of faith, not of unfaith) are also covered in this section. Suicide, the desire to depart from this world as Elijah did, is discussed. Even Jesus was stricken with this desire as we read in Matthew 26:38. Yet we choose life. Finally, sorrow is exceedingly beneficial for with it we know more of God's grace.

Spurgeon’s Sorrows is for all of us for we know or someday will encounter someone who is down, sad, depressed. Perhaps it will be our self. We need to have the perspectives that are found within the pages of this book and know how to use them for our good and God's glory.

A Word from Spurgeon on Prayer

He Always Listens

The Lord hath heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer. (Psalm 6:9)

The experience here recorded is mine. I can set to my seal that God is true. In very wonderful ways He has answered the prayers of His servant many and many a time. Yes, and He is hearing my present supplication, and He is not turning away His ear from me. Blessed be His holy name!

What then? Why, for certain the promise which lies sleeping in the psalmist's believing confidence is also mine. Let me grasp it by the hand of faith: "The Lord will receive my prayer." He will accept it, think of it, and grant it in the way and time which His loving wisdom judges to be best. I bring my poor prayer in my hand to the great King, and He gives me audience and graciously receives my petition. My enemies will not listen to me, but my Lord will. They ridicule my tearful prayers, but my Lord does not; He receives my prayer into His ear and His heart.

What a reception this is for a poor sinner! We receive Jesus, and then the Lord receives us and our prayers for His Son's sake. Blessed be that dear name which franks our prayers so that they freely pass even within the golden gates. Lord, teach me to pray, since Thou hearest my prayers. (Taken from Faith's Checkbook by C.H. Spurgeon)

Joy Cometh in the Morning

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” - Psalm 30:5

Christian! If thou art in a night of trial, think of the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of thy Lord. Be patient, for

“Lo! He comes with clouds descending.”

Be patient! The Husbandman waits until he reaps his harvest. Be patient; for you know who has said, “Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be.” If you are never so wretched now, remember
“A few more rolling suns, at most,
Will land thee on fair Canaan’s coast.”

Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it shall wear a starry crown ere long; thy hand may be filled with cares-it shall sweep the strings of the harp of heaven soon. Thy garments may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a little longer. Ah! how despicable our troubles and trials will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven we shall then
“With transporting joys recount,
The labours of our feet.”

Our trials will then seem light and momentary afflictions. Let us go on boldly; if the night be never so dark, the morning cometh, which is more than they can say who are shut up in the darkness of hell. Do you know what it is thus to live on the future-to live on expectation-to antedate heaven? Happy believer, to have so sure, so comforting a hope. It may be all dark now, but it will soon be light; it may be all trial now, but it will soon be all happiness. What matters it though “weeping may endure for a night,” when “joy cometh in the morning?” C.H. Spurgeon

An Escape From...

An escape from suffering would be an escape from the power to sympathise, and that were to be deprecated beyond all things. -C.H. Spurgeon

How very true. How can we know and help and pray for others without knowing the deep hurt that they experience? Let us embrace our suffering knowing that our kind and gracious Lord has more for us than the pains of this life. Embrace it and be enabled to help those in turmoil around you. For as believers we have a hope in this regard:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Revelation 21:1-4

The Sacrifice Has Been Accepted

If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us all these thing. (Judges 13:23)

This is a sort of promise deduced by logic. It is an inference fairly drawn from ascertained facts. It was not likely that the Lord had revealed to Manoah and his wife that a son would be born to them and yet had it in His heart to destroy them. The wife reasoned well, and we shall do well if we follow her line of argument.

The Father has accepted the great sacrifice of Calvary and has declared Himself well pleased therewith; how can He now be pleased to kill us! Why a substitute if the sinner must still perish? The accepted sacrifice of Jesus puts an end to fear.

The Lord has shown us our election, our adoption, our union to Christ, our marriage to the Well-beloved: how can He now destroy us? The promises are loaded with blessings, which necessitate our being preserved unto eternal life. It is not possible for the Lord to cast us away and yet fulfill His covenant. The past assures us, and the future reassures us. We shall not die but live, for we have seen Jesus, and in Him we have seen the Father by the illumination of the Holy Ghost. Because of this life-giving sight we must live forever. - From Faith's Checkbook by C.H. Spurgeon

Spurgeon's Words of Cheer - Are You Troubled?

Just one more portion of Spurgeon's Word's of Cheer. A small portion that can turn large profits for your soul:

Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.—Psalm 50:15

Of all things in the world to be dreaded, despair is the chief. Let a man be abandoned to despair, and he is ready for all sorts of sins. When fear unnerves him, action is dangerous; but when despair has loosed his joints and paralyzed his conscience, the vultures hover around him waiting for their prey. As long as a man has hope for himself, you may have hope for him. But Satan's object is to drive out the last idea of hope from men, that then they may give themselves up to be his slaves forever.
Let me just say to those who are in trouble, which I hope every faithful Christian will repeat again and again: There is hope. There is hope about your financial difficulties, your sickness, your present affliction. God can help you through it. Do not sit down with your elbows on your knees and cry all day. That will not get you through it. Call upon God who sent the trouble. He has a great design in it. It may be that He has sent it as a shepherd sends his black dog to fetch the wandering sheep to him. It may be He has a design in making you lose temporal things so that you may gain eternal things. Many a mother's soul would not been saved if it had not been for that dear infant which was taken from her bosom. Not until it was taken to the skies did God give the attracting influence which drew her heart to pursue the path to heaven. Do not say there is no hope. Others have been in as terrible a set of circumstances as you are. Even if it seems as if it has come to a crisis of bread, yet still there is hope. Go and try again on Monday morning. God's providence has a thousand ways of helping us if we have but the heart to pray.
...“Ah,” says one, “but you do not know my case.” No, my dear friend, and I do not particularly desire to know it, because this sweeping truth can meet it, whatever it is. “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men” (Matthew 12:31). “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). Noah's ark was not made to hold just a few mites, but the elephant, the lion, and the largest beasts of prey all entered and found room. So my Master, who is the great ark of salvation, did not come into this world to save a few who are little sinners, but “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” (Hebrews 7:25). See Him over there, see Him on the cross in extreme agony, bearing griefs and torments numberless and sweating in agony, all for love of you who were His enemies. Trust him. Trust Him, for there is hope and lifting up. However bowed down you may be, there is hope even for you in the Gospel.
...Still, nothing will avail unless there is much prayer. We need to pray that God may give efficacy to the counsels he has given us, and reward our obedience to them with abundant fruit. Oh, brethren, prayer is the grand thing after all for us who have no might of ourselves. It is wonderful what prayer can do for any of us. A dear friend said the other day, “Look at Jacob. In the early part of his life there was much that was unseemly in his character, and very much that was unhappy in his circumstances. Crafty himself, he was often the victim of craft, reaping the fruit of his own ways. But one night in prayer—what a change it made in him! Why, it raised him from the deep poverty of a cunning supplanter to the noble peerage of a prince in Israel!” Bethel itself is hardly more memorable in Jacob's history than Peniel.
And what might one night spent in prayer do for some of us? Supposing we were to try it instead of the soft bed. We need not go to the brook. It is enough that, like Jacob, we were left alone in some place where sighs and cries would be heard by none but God. One night spent thus in solitary prayer might put the spurs on some of you and make you spiritual knights in God's army, able to do great exploits. Oh, yes! May all other gracious exercises be started in prayer, crowned with prayer, and perfected by much prayer.

Let us praise God for these men who have gone before us and left us a written legacy from their lives and from their preaching and teaching on how we today may attain a greater love for our Lord.

Is Your Heart Aching?

It is to our great benefit that Charles Spurgeon has left a wealth of written material for us. One such work is his Words of Cheer and within its pages we find a Cure for Heartache. Its well worth a read. Here is a portion that is perhaps most instructive and insightful:

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.—John 14:27

It is the easiest thing in the world in times of difficulty to let the heart be troubled. It is very natural for us to give up and drift with the stream, to feel that it is of no use “taking arms against [such] a sea of trouble,” but that it is better to lie passively and to say, “If one must be ruined, so let it be.” Despairing idleness is easy enough, especially to evil, rebellious spirits who are willing to get into further mischief that they may have the wherewithal to blame God more, against whose providence they have quarreled. Our Lord will not have us be rebellious. He bids us to pluck up heart and be of good courage in the worst conditions.
Here is the wisdom of His advice, namely, that a troubled heart will not help us in our difficulties or out of them. It has never been perceived in time of drought that lamentations have brought showers of rain. Doubtings, fears, and discouragements have never been observed to produce a thaw in seasons of frost. We have never heard of a man with a declining business who managed to multiply the number of his customers by unbelief in God. I do not remember reading of a person whose wife or child was sick, who discovered any miraculous healing power in rebellion against the Most High.
...A troubled heart makes that which is bad worse. It magnifies, aggravates, caricatures, and misrepresents. If but an ordinary foe is in your way, a troubled heart makes him swell into a giant. “We were in their sight but as grasshoppers,” said the ten spies who gave the evil report, “and we were as grasshoppers in our own sight when we saw them” (See Numbers 13:33.) But it was not so. No doubt the men were very tall, but they were not so big after all as to make an ordinary six-foot man look like a grasshopper. Their fears made them grasshoppers by first making them fools. If they had possessed but ordinary courage, they would have been men, but being cowardly, they subsided into grasshoppers. After all, what is an extra three, four, or five feet of flesh to a man? Is not the bravest soul the tallest? If he is of shorter stature, but nimble and courageous, he will have the best of it. Little David made short work of great Goliath. Yet so it is. Unbelief makes our difficulties seem to be gigantic. Then it leads us to suppose that no soul had such difficulties before, and so we egotistically cry, “I am the man that hath seen affliction” (Lamentations 3:1). We claim to be peers in the realm of misery, if not the emperors of the kingdom of grief.
...Yet it is not so. Why? What ails you? The headache is excruciating! It is bad enough, but what would you say if you had seven such aches at once, with cold and nakedness to back them! Twitches of rheumatism are horrible! Well can I endorse that statement! But what then? Why, there have been men who have lived with such tortures all their lives, like Baxter, who could tell all his bones because each one had made itself heard by its own peculiar pang. What is our complaint compared with the diseases of Calvin, the man who preached every daybreak to the students in the cathedral and worked on till long past midnight, all the while a mass of disease with a complicated agony? You are poor? Ah, yes! But you have your own room, scanty as it is, and there are hundreds in the workhouse who find sorry comfort there. It is true you have to work hard! Yes, but think of the Huguenot galley slave in the old times, who for the love of Christ was bound with chains to the oar and scarcely knew rest day nor night. Think of the sufferings of the martyrs of Smithfield, or of the saints who rotted in their prisons.
...Be of good cheer, soldier, the battle must soon end. That blood-stained banner, when it will wave so high; that shout of triumph, when it shall thrill from so many thousand lips; that grand assembly of heroes, all of them made more than conquerors; the sight of the King in His beauty, riding in the chariot of His triumph on streets paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem; the acclamations of spirits glorified; and the shouts and songs of cherubims and seraphims—all these shall make up for all the fightings of today:
“And they who, with their Master,
Have conquered in the fight,
For ever and for ever
Are clad in robes of light.”

Evening Devotion

Evening devotion from Spurgeon:

Are they Israelites? so am I.” - 2 Corinthians 11:22

We have here A PERSONAL CLAIM, and one that needs proof. The apostle knew that his claim was indisputable, but there are many persons who have no right to the title who yet claim to belong to the Israel of God. If we are with confidence declaring, “So am I also an Israelite,” let us only say it after having searched our heart as in the presence of God. But if we can give proof that we are following Jesus, if we can from the heart say, “I trust him wholly, trust him only, trust him simply, trust him now, and trust him ever,” then the position which the saints of God hold belongs to us-all their enjoyments are our possessions; we may be the very least in Israel, “less than the least of all saints,” yet since the mercies of God belong to the saints AS SAINTS, and not as advanced saints, or well-taught saints, we may put in our plea, and say, “Are they Israelites? so am I; therefore the promises are mine, grace is mine, glory will be mine.” The claim, rightfully made, is one which will yield untold comfort. When God’s people are rejoicing that they are his, what a happiness if they can say, “SO AM I!” When they speak of being pardoned, and justified, and accepted in the Beloved, how joyful to respond, “Through the grace of God, SO AM I.” But this claim not only has its enjoyments and privileges, but also its conditions and duties. We must share with God’s people in cloud as well as in sunshine. When we hear them spoken of with contempt and ridicule for being Christians, we must come boldly forward and say, “So am I.” When we see them working for Christ, giving their time, their talent, their whole heart to Jesus, we must be able to say, “So do I.” O let us prove our gratitude by our devotion, and live as those who, having claimed a privilege, are willing to take the responsibility connected with it.

Spurgeon on Prayer

In God’s word we are over and over again commanded to pray. God’s institutions are not folly. Can I believe that the infinitely wise God has ordained for me an exercise which is ineffectual, and is no more than child’s play? - Charles Spurgeon

And we shouldn't believe it either. We are go to the Lord repeatededly, spend our day in prayer. We fall short of this command all our lives but that does not erase the command. Spend time in prayer today.

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

Morning Devotional for 5 May

From Charles Spurgeon we read today's morning devotional:

“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
- 2 Corinthians 6:16

What a sweet title: “My people!” What a cheering revelation: “Their God!” How much of meaning is couched in those two words, “My people!” Here is speciality. The whole world is God’s; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s, and he reigneth among the children of men; but of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others-”My people.” In this word there is the idea of proprietorship. In a special manner the “Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” All the nations upon earth are his; the whole world is in his power; yet are his people, his chosen, more especially his possession; for he has done more for them than others; he has bought them with his blood; he has brought them nigh to himself; he has set his great heart upon them; he has loved them with an everlasting love, a love which many waters cannot quench, and which the revolutions of time shall never suffice in the least degree to diminish. Dear friends, can you, by faith, see yourselves in that number? Can you look up to heaven and say, “My Lord and my God: mine by that sweet relationship which entitles me to call thee Father; mine by that hallowed fellowship which I delight to hold with thee when thou art pleased to manifest thyself unto me as thou dost not unto the world?” Canst thou read the Book of Inspiration, and find there the indentures of thy salvation? Canst thou read thy title writ in precious blood? Canst thou, by humble faith, lay hold of Jesus’ garments, and say, “My Christ”? If thou canst, then God saith of thee, and of others like thee, “My people;” for, if God be your God, and Christ your Christ, the Lord has a special, peculiar favour to you; you are the object of his choice, accepted in his beloved Son.

What a wonderful promise on which to meditate as we go through our day.

S.D.G.

More Thoughts on Meditation from Spurgeon

Remember that souls grow more by meditation than by anything else.

and....

Meditation is the soul of religion.

Spurgeon on Meditation

A man who wants to see a country, must not hurry through it by express train, but he must stop in the towns and villages, and see what is to be seen. He will know more about the land and its people if he walks the highways, climbs the mountains, stays in the homes, and visits the workshops; than if he does so many miles in the day, and hurries through picture galleries as if death were pursuing him. Don’t hurry through Scripture, but pause for the Lord to speak to you. Oh, for more meditation!