The People's Christ and Other Sermons

This volume contains sermons preached by Mr. Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, in 1855. His first sermon in London was preached in New Park Street Chapel on December 18, 1853. He was then little more than ninet-een years old, having been born at Kelvedon, Essex, on Jmie 19, 1834. Young as he was this first sermon in London was the 673rd that he had preached. When he came to New Park Street Chapel the congregation was greatly reduced in numbers, and almost on the point of dissolution. Very soon, however, it was densely crowded, and while it was being enlarged the congregation met in Exeter Hall, where many of these sermons were preached. The enlarged chapel when opened proved too small, and the Metropolitan Tabernacle was projected. Mr. Spurgeon’ s career in the Metropolitan Tabernacle to his death in 1892 has no parallel in the history of the pulpit. To the end the place was crowded by some 6,000 hearers at every Sunday service. Considering that sermons here published were preached by a yomig man of twenty-one, their maturity is amazing. The youth was from the first a ripe theologian, master of a great system of thought, definite and precise in his teaching. It is little to say that he did vi INTRODUCTION

not shrink from great themes; from the first he chose them by preference. In his preface he makes some sHght apology for the humorous allusions, saying that it is at any rate less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half-hour’s profound slumber. But the solemnity and urgency of the discourses are overpowering. There is very little from which the preacher would have dissented in his later years. He came, however, to give much less place to the preaching of Calvinism as distinct from Arminianism, and he gave over describing the physical torments of the lost. On the subject of the millennium he never seems to have reached a stable position. On this subject he says that ‘* He who is learning truth will learn it by degrees.” In his later discourses passages may be found on both sides of the controversy. But substantially what the preacher was at the beginning, he was at the end. In their printed form his sermons have had an unprecedented circulation, and they will long survive him. Their strong, racy, Saxon English style, their theological grasp, their evangelical earnestness, their rich and homely wisdom, and their amazing fertility of thought within the limits which the preacher resolutely prescribes for himself, give them a separate place in the literature of the pulpit.

W. R. N

I have exalted one chosen out of the people. — FsALaf lxxxix. 19.

ORiGEsrAXLY, I have no doubt, these words referred to David. He was chosen out of the people. His lineage was respectable, but not illustrious; his family were holy, but not exalted; the names of Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Ruth awoke no royal recollections, and stirred up no remembrances of ancient nobility or glorious pedigree. As for himself, his only occupation had been that of a shepherd-boy, carrying lambs in his bosom, or gently leading the ewes great with young — a simple youth of a right royal soul and undaunted courage, but yet a plebeian — one of the people. But this was no disqualification for the crown of Judah. In God’s eye the extraction of the young hero was no barrier to his mounting the throne of the holy nation, nor shall the proudest admirer of descent and lineage dare to insinuate a word against the valour, wisdom, and the justice of the government of this monarch of the people.

We do not beUeve that Israel or Judah ever had a better ruler than David; and we are bold to affirm that the reign of the man “chosen out of the people” outshines in glory the reigns of high-bred emperors, and princes with the blood of a score of kings running in their veins. Yea, more.

we will assert that the humility of his birth and education, so far from making him incompetent to rule, rendered him, in a great degree, more fit for his office, and able to discharge its mighty duties. He could legislate for the many, for he was one of themselves; he could rule the people, as the people should be ruled, for he was “bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh” — their friend, their brother, as well as their king.

However, in this sermon we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ; for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who was chosen out of the people; and of whom His Father can say, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.”

Before I enter into the illustration of this truth, I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Saviour Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people; but this merely respects His manhood. As “very God of very God” He was not chosen out of the people; for there was none save Him. He was His Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s fellow, co-equal and co-eternal; consequently, when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of Him as a man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man He was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing —

A Man there was, a real Man,
Who once on Calvary died.

He was not man and God amalgamated — the two natures suffered no confusion; He was very God, without the diminution of His essence or attributes; and He was equally, verily, and truly, man. It is a a man I speak of Jesus this morning; and it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorioxis miracle of incarnation, and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother — inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life, and, for a little while, a fellowsleeper in the cold chamber of death.

There are three things spoken of in the text: first of all, Christ’s extraction — He was one of the people; secondly. His election. He was chosen out of the people; and thirdly, Christ’s exaltation — He was exalted. You see I have chosen three words, all commencing with the letter E to ease your memories that you may be able to remember them the better — extraction, election, exaltation.

I. We will commence with our Saviour’s extraction. We have had many complaints this week, and for some weeks past, in the newspapers, concerning the families. We are governed — and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed — by certain aristocratic families. We are not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be; and this is a fundamental wrong in our government, — that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seem to have a patent for promotion; while a man, a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense, cannot rise to the government. I am no politician, and I am about to preach no political sermon; but I must express my sympathy with the people, and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by One chosen out of the people. Jesus Christ is the people’s man; He is the people’s friend; ay, one of themselves.

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