Our Father in heaven, we bow to you today on this momentous occasion because You alone are God. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all things visible and invisible. You are Sovereign and through your Son, Jesus Christ, You rule and overrule in all the affairs of life. 

We thank You for your great love for people whom You have made in Your own image. And we confess that we have not lived as we ought and have sinned against You. But we also confess that with You there is mercy, that you may be feared. Thank you for delivering up Your Son to be the Savior of the world. 

We also thank you for the provisions that You have made for us to pursue liberty, joy, and justice in Your world, and for instituting government and all governing authorities for our well-being. In Your wisdom, goodness, and power, you have once again established Governor DeSantis to serve the people of Florida by carrying out his responsibilities in ways that will be good for us. We thank You for all the wonderful things that have been accomplished in his first term, including his leadership and resolve to keep Florida free through the recent pandemic and societal upheaval that plagued so much of our nation; and his compassionate, energetic and effective recovery work in the wake of Hurricane Ian. 

Today, as he takes his oath of office to fulfill his duties by Your help, we know that he will need grace from You to meet the challenges that will be thrust upon him as the civil leader of Florida. Grant Governor DeSantis wisdom beyond his years, strength beyond his abilities, and courage to help him to stand firm in every righteous conviction. Enable him to serve with joy, zeal, and in the fear of God. 

Father, grant our governor good counsel and the humility to heed it when it will help him to serve the citizens of this state well. Enable him to utilize his office to lead this state in ways that will benefit all Floridians. 

Lord, we also ask You to have mercy on our governor’s precious family. We pray for his wife Casey and children Madison, Mason, and Mamie. With all the demands that go with his office grant him the strength and discipline to love and care for them. Watch over and bless this family as he gives himself to serve this state.

So, holy Father, hear our prayers for Governor DeSantis. Receive our praise and answer our requests, because we bring them to you in the Name of Your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.

Recently, the practice of sermon-copying received some anecdotal examination from a professional homiletician. It was not written to justify the prominent incidents of this of recent revelation. The professor used events in the life of Spurgeon to smooth the way for a more tolerant understanding of this phenomenon. One incident mentioned concerned Spurgeon’s attendance in the worship time of another congregation and hearing his own sermon from a country pastor and benefiting from it. Spurgeon was not offended and did not reprimand but thanked the minister for ministering to his soul. Spurgeon’s humility, the common possession of the word of God, and Spurgeon’s desire to benefit from divine truth is on display there.
Another incident to which he referred concerned Spurgeon’s confronting a student with preaching Spurgeon’s sermon only to find that it was from William Jay. The student and Spurgeon had a common source, so the story goes. Martin Lloyd Jones gave the anecdote. The professor who communicated this story in a twitter thread was not familiar with William Jay of Bath. He referred to him as William J. Bath. William Jay was one of Spurgeon’s favorite preachers, a much older contemporary, and perhaps he would borrow illustrations and even outlines from him. As far as I can discern, it never rose to the level of intellectual theft, or reproducing the exact language (including illustrations and errors!) for sentence after sentence. He certainly thought Jay worth emulating. In 1856 (when Spurgeon was 21) Paxton Hood noted the influence of Jay, observing that Spurgeon had “something of Jay’s plan and method, but that is all.” (Autobiography 1:355). Hood goes on to say, “He has [that is, Spurgeon] in his speech true mental and moral independence.” Another observer of the early Spurgeon (1855), James Grant, said “Models of different styles of preaching are so numerous, that originality must be of rare occurrence; but he [Spurgeon] appears to be an original genius. To the pith of Jay, and the plainness of Rowland Hill, he adds much of the familiarity, not to say the coarseness, of the Huntingtonian order of ultra-Calvinistic preachers.” (Autobiography 1:350) The “Huntingtonians” alternated between admiration and separation in Spurgeon’s evaluation.
In another place, Grant wrote, “Mr. Spurgeon evinces much aptitude in borrowing illustrations, not only from the pages of antiquity, and from modern life and literature, but also from most familiar incidents, as well as from public events.” Grant in that observation refers to Spurgeon’s genius in being able to squeeze out pertinent and vivid illustrations—short striking images or longer narratives—from a variety of sources. His own facility in application made them fit his purpose with clarity. Spurgeon recounts going to hear Jay preach when Spurgeon was living in Cambridge. “I remember with what dignity he preached, and yet how simply.” He goes on to say, “My recollections of Jay were such as I would not like to lose. It usually happens that, when we listen to a venerable patriarch, such as he then was, there is all the greater weight in his words because of his age.” [Autobiography 1:150]. He never forgot the text or its emphases, “Ever let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ.”  (Pike’s Life and Work 1:75).
It is not unthinkable that Spurgeon could have had such a vivid memory of a Jay sermon he had heard (or read), that the outline came to him in his Saturday evening work of sermon preparation. Often in these evening hours, culminating his week’s labors of unremitting writing of various sorts and a disciplined regimen of reading, Spurgeon testifies that a sermon outline and most of its argument would fall on his mind in a few moments after some lengthy time of reading through relevant volumes in his library. In his Lectures to my Students, Spurgeon used William Jay as an example of hovering over the words of a text in order to fix them plainly in the minds of the congregation: “The many are not always sufficiently capable of grasping the sense apart from the language—of gazing, so to speak, upon the truth disembodied; but when they hear the precise words reiterated again and again, and each expression dwelt upon after the manner of such preachers as Mr. Jay, of Bath, they are more edified, and the truth fixes itself more firmly upon their memories. Let your matter, then, be copious, and let it grow out of the inspired word” [Lecture 1:76].
Early in his ministry, Spurgeon opposed the distribution of sermon helps and gave negative reviews to them-such tools encouraged laziness and disingenuousness preaching. When he read the letters that Susie received from ministers applying for books from her book ministry, he himself began to write for tired minds and bodies that had labored for six days and would try to piece together a sermon in a few hours on Saturday evening. He wrote as he said, not to encourage laxness but to pour some water into the pump to generate the fresh flow of thought.
Spurgeon, especially when young, would sometimes use an outline for a sermon lifted straight from Gill’s comments. Who has not used a commentary in such a manner especially when convinced that the outline’s exegetical insight is correct? He was also influenced greatly by reading sermons from J. Edwards and certain passages in Spurgeon have clearly been influenced by Edwards’s rhetoric and images (see below). Spurgeon had the most prodigious understanding of the Puritans of any in his day and read them regularly. It is no surprise that their ideas—both theological and applicatory—appear frequently in his sermons. We would hope that similar puritanical excurses would punctuate sermons of many a modern preacher. Spurgeon could discern their peculiar talents, styles, theological contributions with great alacrity and accuracy and one would expect, in light of the common source of authority and instruction in the Bible, that they too would appear in Spurgeon sermons in ways that Spurgeon would make his own. This in fact the case.
It seems completely inconsistent, however, with Spurgeon’s manner of preparation, his homiletical style, his irrepressible genius and originality that he would simply preach another man’s sermon. I am not, however, in a position absolutely to deny that it happened. Knowing his irrepressible penchant for originality, he would avoid like the plague preaching one of the sermons of his immediate contemporaries especially. It would be interesting to know which of Williams Jay’s sermons Spurgeon preached and published as his own, if it happened. Where is it in the NPSP or the MTP? If someone knows, I would be glad to be informed. Given the manner in which the sermons were recorded by amanuenses and then edited by Spurgeon before publication, it seems almost impossible for that to have happened, though perhaps it did.
There are places where Spurgeon would imitate an emphasis, the nature of the language, a compelling manner of expression, or a peculiarly tight theological point. In the manner of his appeal to sinners, sometimes Spurgeon resembles Whitefield in passion and in brief reminiscence of Whitefield’s language and the movement from one group of his auditory to another in pleading with them. He was, after all, referred to as the “Modern Whitefield” and might have used some of Whitefield’s methods and language in the early days of his open field preaching. In a sermon on John 3:18 in giving exposition of “condemned already” Spurgeon used a series of ideas and sometimes the very language from Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
God is more angry with some of you than he is with some in hell….God’s wrath, though it come not on you yet is like a stream dammed up. Every moment it gathers force….Oh wherefore do ye stand out against him, and in this way pull down upon your heads the wrath of an angry God?” (MTP 16:681, 682).
In illustrating the fitting roles of the persons of the Trinity in the Covenant of Redemption, Spurgeon scripted a conversation between the persons concerning their common agreement to bring to completion the divine redemptive purpose (e.g. “The Gracious Lips of Jesus” MTP 54 #3081). This followed the style of John Flavel in a similar simulation of an intra-trinitarian discussion.
Yes, Spurgeon was influenced by the greatest of the preachers of the past, but that he preached another man’s sermon apart from rigorous study and preparation of his own must be proved. Spurgeon’s own testimony of the selection of a text seems to make this virtually impossible: “I confess that I frequently sit hour after hour praying and waiting for a subject, and that this is the main part of my study; much hard labour have I spent in manipulating topics, ruminating upon points of doctrine, making skeletons out of verses and the burying every bone of them in the catacombs of oblivion, sailing on and on over leagues of broken water, till I see the red lights and make sail direct to the desired haven. I believe that almost any Saturday in my life I make enough outlines of sermons, if I felt at liberty to preach them, to last me for a month, but I no more dare use them than an honest mariner would run to shore a cargo of contraband goods” [Lectures 1:88]. This does not seem like the attitude and method of a preacher who would settle for using another man’s sermon.
I am aware that the centuries have produced, by God’s kindness, a rich store of exposition, sermonic material, doctrinal discussions, and polemical engagements from which we want to benefit personally and then share with those to whom we minister. That we so benefit is, I think, an element of our stewardship of the “communion of saints.” It is an admission of our finiteness and the particular giftedness of other saints through the centuries. If a preacher is unwilling to benefit from Chrysostom, Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John A. Broadus, Charles H. Spurgeon, B. H. Carroll, J Gresham Machen, James Montgomery Boyce, or Don Carson, he is missing sources of enrichment for his own exposition. He should consider some investment of time in these pivotal thinkers, commentators, and homileticians of the past and present. But the same body of material should teach us to internalize the insights and distribute them, as they did and do, in the context of a personal pastoral stewardship of calling and obligation to the revealed word of God and the people God has given us. Paul’s concern for Timothy is true for us—“so that all may see your progress” and that we may “keep a close watch on [ourselves] and the teaching.” (1 Timothy 4:15, 16).

Tweet Share

After undergoing an intensive ordination process, completing a PhD in two diverse disciplines, and almost two decades of Great Commission service, only then did I begin to see how frequently Christians (and especially Great Commission servants) confuse biblical precepts and biblical promises. Only then did I realize how deadening it was to my soul to misunderstand and misapply the law of God and the gospel of God. Many presume the law is relegated to the Ten Commandments (specifically for OT Israel), while the gospel comprises the teachings of Christ to show us how to live a life of abundance and love for God (specifically for the NT church). And so, the popular notion proposes that the Great Commission and the Great Commandment are two sides to the same proverbial coin. 

The way Christians supposedly fulfill the Great Commission, therefore, is by transforming the world with the love of God in every sphere of society. And the way Christians truly love God and others is by living missionally, which means incarnating the gospel, which means being the face of Christ, which means pursuing love and justice, which means building Christ’s kingdom, which means loving on the least of these, which means engaging this cultural moment, which means leaning into the heart of Jesus for the world, which means… I don’t think anyone really knows. But such sloppy jargon and sappy sentiments inspire activistic laptop-warriors, hot-selling Christian best-sellers, multi-million-dollar conferences, and niche-marketed Christian experts to peddle their relics that have rock-your-world impact. Many evangelical thought-leaders have amalgamated the empathetic niceness of the Great Commandment with the be-a-blessing-activism of the Great Commission. This grafting has not produced the distinctive spiritual fruit that the big evangelical industrial complex has guaranteed.

The bottom line is this: The Great Commandment—love God and love others perfectly and perpetually—sums up all the law and the prophets. Essentially, the law of God is anything in the Bible where blessings, reward, and life are conditioned upon perfect and perpetual holiness that is explicitly required, suggested, implied, or assumed. And for those who don’t know the law from Scripture, it is any moral code written on the human conscience that corresponds to God’s standards of impeccable and infinite righteousness. Only by keeping this moral code fully and forever without one infraction and unholy inclination can we earn righteousness and have a ground on which to stand acceptable in God’s sight. And no, God does not grade on a curve because “He knows our heart.” That He knows our heart is actually terrifying news. Indeed, God expects us to be perfect as He is perfect. Yet, it takes no developmental psychologist to admit the universal human problem: there is none righteous, not even one. 

The good news of the gospel is that the righteous Man anticipated in the Hebrew Scriptures has come, has obeyed God’s law perfectly, and has suffered the consequences of the law in place of all sinners who will receive Him. And He was raised from the dead for our justification. Having been justified through faith, recipients of such grace have peace with God. So, now, out of gratitude, the grace-endowed church labors in the Great Commission to announce to all the nations that the God-Man from Galilee has fulfilled the impossible demands of the law written on everyone’s conscience. He has satisfied the wrath of God against law-breakers. And this announcement is a message of free grace for any who would receive it. There are no covenant stipulations or contractual conditions. All that is required of recipients? Nothing. The only thing we can give God is our debt. He pays the bill, but we have thereafter no debtor’s ethic. No paying back God. No obedience to maintain favor. So, the Great Commission is the glad-hearted charge to take that marvelous message to the nations and to make disciples who rest in grace through Word and worship.

This is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, E.D. Burns, Seeds and Stars: Resting in Christ for Great Commission Service (Cape Coral, FL: Founders, 2023). You can pre-order the book here.