When the child runs away, when the

marriage is blank, when the child runs away,

when the finances don't reach, when the pews are bare, when the friends forsake you,

the question is far bigger than how do you live, but how do you preach next Sunday?

How did Charles Spurgeon continue to preach week after week when his life was marked by deep

suffering. To answer that question, John Piper begins a two-part biographical series on Charles Spurgeon's perseverance through suffering.

This talk was originally given at the Desireing God 1995 Conference for Pastors.

My topic this year is preaching through adversity and the man that I would like us to focus on is Charles

Hadden Spurgeon who on this day January 31st, 103 years ago, died at the age of 57 after preaching for 38 years

at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.

And there are very personal reasons for me

why I chose the topic and why I chose the man for this biographical study this year.

Everybody faces adversity without exception in the world and everybody must learn how to live through adversity.

Everybody has to get up in the morning and make breakfast and wash clothes and go to work

and pay bills and discipline children and generally keep life going when the heart is breaking.

But it's different.

It's not totally different. But it's different for pastors, for preachers, because the heart is not

totally different. creatures because the heart is the instrument of our vocation.

Spurgen said, ours is more than mental work. It is heart work, the labor of our inmost soul.

So when our heart is breaking, we must labor with a broken instrument.

And preaching his heart work, not just mental work. So the question for us is not just how do you live through adversity, but a much more difficult question.

How do you preach through adversity?

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