How may a young man know...(Finale)

...whether he is called or not? (Finale)

We must try whether we can endure brow-beating, weariness, slander, jeering, and hardship; and whether we can be made the off-scouring of all things, and be treated as nothing for Christ's sake. If we can endure all these, we have some of those points which indicate the possession of the rare qualities which should meet in a true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I gravely question whether some of us will find our vessels, when far out at sea, to be quite so seaworthy as we think them. O my brethren, make sure work of it while you are yet in this retreat; and diligently labor to fit yourselves for your high calling. (40)

Charles Spurgeon

Lectures to My Students

How may a young man know...(Part 7)

…whether he is called or not? (Part 7)

“I heard in conversation a plan adopted by Matthew Wilks, for examining a young man who wanted to be a missionary; the drift, if not the detail of the test, commends itself to my judgment though not to my taste. The young man desired to go to India as a missionary in connection with the London Missionary Society.

Mr. Wilks was appointed to consider his fitness for such a post. He wrote to the young man, and told him to call upon him at six o’clock the next morning. The brother lived many miles off, but he was at the house at six o’clock punctually. Mr. Wilks did not, however, enter the room till hours after. The brother waited wonderingly, but patiently. At last, Mr. Wilks arrived, and addressed the candidate thus, in his usual nasal tones:

“Well, young man, so you want to be a missionary?”“Yes, Sir.”“Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?”“Yes, Sir, I hope I do.”“And have you had any education?”“Yes, Sir, a little.”“Well, now, we’ll try you: can you spell ‘cat’?”

The young man looked confused, and hardly knew how to answer so preposterous a question. His mind evidently halted between indignation and submission, but in a moment he replied steadily, “C, a, t, cat.” “Very good,” said Mr. Wilks; “now can you spell ‘dog’?” Our young martyr hesitated, but Mr. Wilks said in his coolest manner, “Oh, never mind; don’t be bashful; you spelt the other word so well that I should think you will be able to spell this: high as the attainment is, it is not so elevated but might you do it without blushing.”

The youthful Job replied, “D, o, g, dog.” “Well, that is right; I see you will do in your spelling, and now for your arithmetic; how many are twice tow?” It is a wonder that Mr. Wilks did not receive “twice two” after the fashion of muscular Christianity, but the patient youth gave the right reply and was dismissed.

Matthew Wilks at the committee meeting said, “I cordially recommend that young man; his testimonials and character I have duly examined, and besides that, I have given him a rare personal trial such as few could bear. I tried his self-denial, he was up in the morning early; I tried his temper, and I tried his humility; he can spell ‘cat’ and ‘dog,’ and can tell that ‘twice two make four,’ and he will do for a missionary exceedingly well.”

How may a young man know...(Part 6)

...whether he is called or not? (Part 6)

Gentlemen, we shall have to prove our call by the practical proof of our ministry in life, and it will be a lamentable thing for us to start in our course without due examination, for if so, we may have to leave it in disgrace. On the whole, experience is our surest test, and if God upholds us from year to year, and gives us His blessing, we need make no other trial of our vocation. Our moral and spiritual fitnesses will be tried by the labor of our ministry, and this is the most trustworthy of all tests. (39)

How may a young man know...(Part 5)

...whether he is called or not? (Part 5)

One brother I have encountered–one did I say? I have met ten, twenty, a hundred brethren, who have pleaded that they were sure, quite sure that they were called to the ministry–they were quite certain of it, because they had failed in everything else. This is a sort of model story: “Sir, I was put into a lawyer’s office, but I never could bear the confinement, and I could not feel at home studying law; Providence clearly stopped up my road, for I lost my situation.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Why sir, I was induced to open a grocer’s shop.”

“And did you prosper?”

“Well, I do not think, Sir, I was ever meant for trade, and the Lord seemed quite to shut my way up there, for I failed and was in great difficulties. Since then I have done a little in life-assurance agency, and tried to get up a school, besides selling tea; but my path is hedged up, and something within me makes me feel that I ought to be a minister.”

My answer generally is, “Yes, I see; you have failed in everything else, and therefore you think the Lord has especially endowed you for His service; but I fear you have forgotten that the ministry needs the very best of men, and not those who cannot do anything else.” A man who would succeed as a preacher would probably do right well either as a grocer, or a lawyer, or anything else. A really valuable minister would have excelled at anything. There is scarcely anything impossible to a man who can keep a congregation together for years, and be the means of edifying them for hundreds of consecutive Sabbaths; he must be possessed of some abilities, and be by no means a fool or ne’er-do-well. Jesus Christ deserves the best men to preach His cross, and not the empty-headed and the shiftless. (37-38)

How may a young man know...(Part 4)

...whether he is called or not (Part 4)?

Another exceedingly large class of men seek[s] the pulpit [yet] they know not why. They cannot teach and will not learn, and yet must fain be ministers. Like the man who slept on Parnassus, and ever after imagined himself a poet, they have had impudence enough once to thrust a sermon upon an audience, and now nothing will do but preaching. They are so hasty to leave off sewing garments, that they will make a rent in the church of which they are members to accomplish their design. The encounter is distasteful, and a pulpit cushion is coveted; the scales and weights they are weary of, and must needs try their hands at the balances of the sanctuary. Such men, like raging waves of the sea usually foam forth their own shame, and we are happy when we bid them adieu.

How may a young man know...(Part 3)

…whether he is called or not? (Part 3)


Men who since conversion have betrayed great feebleness of mind and are readily led to embrace strange doctrines or to fall into evil company and gross sin, I never can find it in my heart to encourage to enter the ministry, let their professions be what they may. Let them, if truly penitent, keep in the rear ranks. Unstable as water they will not excel.


So, too, those who cannot endure harness, but are of the kid-gloved order, I refer elsewhere. We want soldiers, not fops, earnest laborers, not genteel loiterers. Men who have done nothing up to their time of application to the college are told to earn their spurs before they are publicly dubbed as knights. Fervent lovers of souls do not wait till they are trained; they serve their Lord at once.

How may a young man know...(Part 2)

...whether he is called or not?

How diligently the Calvary officer keeps his sabre clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember you are God's sword, His instrument - I trust, a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name.

It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. For the herald of the gospel to be spiritually out of order in his own proper person is, both to himself and to his work, a most serious calamity; and yet my brethren, how easily is such an evil produced, and with what watchfulness must it be guarded against!

Travelling one day by express from Perth to Edinburgh, on a sudden we came to a dead stop, because a very small screw in one of the engines - every railway locomotive consisting virtually of two engines - had been broken, and when we started again we were obliged to crawl along with one piston-rod at work instead of two. Only a small screw was gone. If that had been right the train would have rushed along its iron road, but the absence of that insignificant piece of iron disarranged the whole. A train is said to have stopped on one of the United States' railways by flies in the grease-boxes of the carriage wheels.

The analogy is perfect; a man in all other respects fitted to be useful, may by some small defect be exceedingly hindered, or even rendered utterly useless. Such a result is all the more grievous, because it is associated with the gospel, which in the highest sense is adapted to effect the grandest results. It is a terrible thing when the healing balm loses its efficacy through the blunderer who administers it.

You know the injurious effects frequently produced upon water through flowing along leaded pipes; even so the gospel itself, in flowing through men who are spiritually unhealthy, may be debased until it grows injurious to the hearers. (8)

Source: Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon

How may a young man know... (Pt 1)

...whether he is called or not?

An intensely helpful and contemplative allocution by Charles Spurgeon regarding the call to Pastoral Ministry. The following excerpts and series is taken from his book, Lectures to My Students.

1 Timothy 4:16
"Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you."

Every workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state of repair, for "if the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength. Though Michael Angelo, the elect of fine arts, understood the importance of his tools, that he always made his own brushes with his own hands, and in this he gives us an illustration of the God of grace, who with special care fashions for Himself all true ministers.

It is true that the Lord...can work with the the faultiest kind of instrumentality, as He does when He occasionally makes very foolish preaching to be useful in conversion; and He can even work without agents, as He does when He saves men without a preacher at all, applying the word directly by His Holy Spirit; but we cannot regard God's absolutely sovereign acts as a rule for our action. He may, in His own absoluteness, do as pleases Him best, but we must act as His plainer dispensations instruct us.

We shall usually do our Lord's work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when our gifts and graces are out of trim.

We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep ourselves in order. If I want to preach the gospel, I can only use my own voice; therefore I must rain my vocal powers. (7)