“Battling Criticism”
Few preachers have experienced the kind of criticism that Charles H. Spurgeon did when he began his ministry in London. A steady stream of magazine articles and pamphlets examined the young preacher's character, words, works, and motives, and most of them were anything but sympathetic. More than one writer expressed doubts that Spurgeon was even converted!
His sermons were called “trashy,” and he was compared to a rocket that would climb high and then suddenly drop out of sight! “What is he doing?” one writer asked. “Whose servant is he? What proof does he give that, instrumentally, his is a heart-searching, a Christ-exalting, a truth-unfolding, a sinner-converting, a church-feeding, a soul-saving ministry?”
At first this criticism deeply hurt Spurgeon, but then the Lord gave him peace and victory. Hearing slanderous reports of his character and ministry week after week could have led him into defeat; but he fell to his knees and prayed, “Master, I will not keep back even my character for Thee. If I must lose that, too, then let it go; it is the dearest thing I have, but it shall go if, like my Master, they shall say I have a devil, and am mad, or like Him, I am a drunken man and a wine-bibber.”
Mrs. Spurgeon, knowing the trials her husband was going through, prepared a wall-motto to hang in their room, with Matthew 5:11-12 as the text. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” The Word of God did its work, and the preacher won the battle.
Luther was right when he said that “the love of a woman is a great help in days of discouragement; and blessed is that pastor's wife who knows when her husband needs that extra touch of love and understanding.
-Selected
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