Log of 2002 updates at Phil Johnson's Web site

Log of 2002 updates at Phil Johnson's Web site.

FOR THE TWO WEEKS ENDING 16 November 2002:

Added some sermons to :

FOR THE WEEK ENDING 9 November 2002:

Added 18 articles from The Sword and the Trowel:

Anticipating the Last Judgment
"In a few years you will be one of that vast assembly, and have to answer for every deed and word of your life. Think of it long; picture it vividly; let it work upon your mind. Though at the first it fill you with fear and trembling, it may conduct you to the Savior's feet."
Barking at Thunder
"The yelping of a dog pitted against the artillery of heaven!"
Folly of Delay Illustrated
"Alas, that men should think to perform the most important business of all at a time when all their powers and faculties are failing!"
Foolish Dick: An Example for Men of One Talent
"We should be very sorry to see every fool set up for a preacher; perhaps the market in that direction may be regarded as sufficiently stocked; but if there be men of rough natural ability who are muzzled by our present craving for superior elocution, we would say, 'In the name of God, loose them and let them go.'"
Language by Touch
"The practical lesson to us all is to be thankful for our senses, educate them to perfection, learn all we can by means of them, and use them for the glory of God."
A Letter From Mr. Spurgeon
"No Tabernacle enterprise has ever yet been in debt. No building raised under our immediate auspices has ever been opened without being paid for. Is this to be an exception to an admirable rule? Shall we tarnish our laurels?"
New Theology
"To suppose that theology can be new is to imagine that the Lord himself is of yesterday."
Professors of the Higher Life
"On looking back through thirty years of church life we are compelled to come to the conclusion that the most unsatisfactory members we have ever had have been those who were most satisfied with themselves."
A Singular Plea
"The plea was novel, irresistible."
Sound But Lazy
"Truth turned into a pillow for an idle head is a good thing turned to most evil use."
Sundew, A Strange Plant
"We have gathered several facts which may not unfitly be woven into parables, and made to illustrate truth."
Take Away the Frogs
"These be thy gods, O Egypt! Thou shalt have enough of them! Pharaoh himself shall pay a new reverence to these reptiles. As the true God is everywhere present; around us, in our bed-chambers and in our streets, so shall Pharaoh find every place filled with what he chooses to call divine."
To Workers with Slender Apparatus
"By a slender apparatus I mean that they have few books, and little or no means wherewith to purchase more. This is a state of things which ought not to exist in any case; the churches ought to take care that it should be rendered impossible. Up to the highest measure of their ability they should furnish their minister, not only with the food which is needful to sustain the life of his body, but with mental nutriment, so that his soul may not be starved."
Very Attentive towards the Close
"Those who grudgingly yield scanty attention to our sacred message must not complain if in return we give scanty attention to their desire for short sermons."
Warnings
"A prudent man, with the fear of God before his eyes, is almost a prophet."
What Was Become of Peter?
"We will use this striking narrative as an illustration—what if we make it into an allegory?"
Where Not to Send Poems or Blank Verse
"You string together your long lines of nonsense, with such an absence of all thought, that you are altogether unbearable."
A Word for Brutes Against Brutes
"Man is often a mere yahoo, a two-legged brute, and this yahoo proves himself to be the worst possible master to the other animals; he is a viler tyrant than the wolf or the hyæna would have been: unhappy are the creatures to be ruled by such a lord!"

FOR THE ERA ENDING 2 November 2002:

Upgraded the design of and added a few sermons:

For those who have enquired, tapes of Phil's messages at the School of Theology in London, July 2-4, 2002 Are available through the Metropolitan Tabernacle
Web Site.

FOR THE WEEKS ENDING 15 June 2002:

A note from Phil about the recent server problems:
The Web server that hosts most of my Web site unexpectedly failed a couple of weeks ago, so many of my pages were inaccessible for days. The new Web server is currently being installed, but meanwhile, some features of my pages might not work perfectly. Thank you for your patience and understanding. , my bookmarks, and are all hosted by Grace to You at no charge to me. Obviously, the priority for the GTY staff is to keep the GTY Web pages functioning. When everything is stable with the new server, we will try to fix the remaining problems with my personal pages. In the meantime, almost everything is now back on line and accessible. And if anyone wants to make a donation to Grace to You in order to help with the cost of upkeep on their Web servers, the number is 1-800-55-GRACE. Thanks.

Meanwhile, enjoy the redesign and expansion of The Cotton Mather Home Page:

FOR THE TWO WEEKS ENDING 4 May 2002:

Added 18 sermons to :

FOR THE WEEK ENDING 20 April 2002:

We apologize for a few days' down-time with the daily devotionals (Faith's Checkbook and Morning and Evening. Those .cgi scripts were inadvertently blocked by some security changes made to our server while Phil was in Italy. They should be working now. A special "thank you" to those who e-mailed us about the problem.

Added 18 sermons to :

Another Royal Procession
A Call to Holy Living
Faith's Dawn and Its Clouds
The First Last, and the Last First
The Glorious Master and the Swooning Disciple
Glorious Predestination
How Can I Obtain Faith?
Lydia, the First European Convert
Mercy's Master Motive
The Only Atoning Priest
A Persuasive to Steadfastness
The Pilgrim's Longings
The Poor Man's Friend
"Pray Without Ceasing"
Precious Deaths
The Real Presence, the Great Want of the Church
The Two Yokes
What and Whence are These?

Added 11 new items from The Sword and the Trowel:

Advice Gratis
Spurgeon answers some questions from correspondents.
Advice Gratis (continued)
More questions from correspondents.
The Bridge over the Road
"At last, faith threw a bridge over the road by teaching men that where two truths are both revealed by inspiration they are equally to be believed."
Comfort for Those Whose Prayers Are Feeble
"It is our duty to seek after the dispirited and cast-down ones, and comfort them. That is our errand in this short discourse. We hear the Master's words, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," and we will endeavor to obey them by his Spirit's help."
The "Darby Brethren"
"Were these brethren to allow the same liberty to others that they claim for themselves, we should not complain, but this they refuse—'They are the people,' every other Christian is wrong; no matter how earnestly a man is working, or how many souls are added to the Lord by his ministry, if he cannot utter the Shibboleth of Darbyism, he is counted the veriest heretic."
Hindhead
"If you perish from want of shelter it will not be because there was no room for you in Christ."
Mr. Grant on "The Darby Brethren"
"There is nothing which they have so much to dread as being thoroughly unearthed and exposed; for their grosser errors are not generally made known to their dupes until they are fairly in their meshes."
Notes on Ritualism
"Many of the reformers were evidently as disgusted with the ceremonials tolerated in the Anglican church as ever we can be. Royal rather than spiritual authority, was the reason for sparing those Popish mummeries which have survived the reformers' pruning knife."
Splinters
"Pity indeed is it that the bulk of hearers are hearers only, and are no more likely to go to heaven than the seats they sit on in the assembly of the saints."
Springs Uncovered
"What man would wish to have his designs and aims exposed to every onlooker? But why this aversion to being known and read of all men? The Christian's motives and springs of action should be so honest and pure that he might safely defy inspection. He who has nothing to be ashamed of has nothing to conceal."
Tidings of Mrs. Bat's-eyes
". . . only Bat's-eyes is not now her name, for she is married into a rich family of great title and repute. Her first husband was so weak in the eyes as not to be able to see anything in the sunlight, and once upon a time, walking abroad at noon with the blind priest of his own parish, that is to say the parish of St. Elymas the Great, they both fell into a ditch, and the poor man perished in the mire."

Also:

Morning and Evening (708K download)
Spurgeon's devotional in eBook format for use on desktop and handheld computers. From Christopher M. Haywood. This eBook version requires Microsoft Reader, which is a free download from Microsoft.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING 13 April 2002:

Phil spent the week ministering in Italy and returned Saturday night with 14 new items from The Sword and the Trowel:

Acqua! Acqua!
"Sundry divines in our age have become weary of the old-fashioned well of which our fathers drank, and would fain have us go to their Abana and Pharpar, but we are still firm in the belief that the water from the rock has no rival, and we shall not, we hope, forsake it for any other."
Bands of Love: or, Union to Christ
"When the eye is clear and the soul can evidently perceive this oneness between the soul and Christ, the pulse may be felt as beating for both, and the one blood may be known as flowing through the veins of each."
Bells for the Horses
"Whoever may advocate dreary dullness, I cannot and dare not do other than impeach it as an enemy of true religion."
In a Fog
"What is life? 'Tis but a vapor; and that vapor is often a thick, light-obstructing mist!"
Life is a Maze
"To find the center of true bliss is the object of every man, but few are happy enough to enter it."
Metropolitan Tabernacle Statistics—April 1865
"Is not this the fashion after which the Gospel was originally designed to spread, and in which it can best be extended in any country and in any age?"
A Neglected Duty
"The Word of God is very plain as to the duty of rebuking sin, although, from the neglect into which the work has fallen, one might have imagined that it was left optional, or allowed, rather than commanded."
Practical Lessons from the Life of Richard Cobden
"Earnest men can always learn from one another."
Pulling Down Strongholds
"We must sharply grapple the false doctrine, driving the sharp hook of truth between its joints; we must clearly understand the error, and study the Word of God, so as to be able to controvert it."
Sermons in Candles
"The candle among illustrations is one of the most shining, and beams of truth dart from it on every side."
A Spur for a Free Horse
"It is well, if we can, to do good in all ways."
Swimming Iron and Sinking Peter
"When we can do nothing Jesus can do all things; let us enlist his powerful aid upon our side, and all will be well."
Ten Thousand Skulls
"It was hard to avoid a sickening feeling in the midst of this mass of decay, but in our case this was overcome by wonder at the want of human tenderness in the religion which allows such needless and heartless exposure of the sacred relics of mortality."
What Shall Be Done for Jesus?
"The field of work is boundless; there is no need to pause for spheres of labor. But a voice says, 'Begin at home.'"

FOR THE WEEK ENDING 6 April 2002:

Added 22 sermons to :

Altogether Lovely
Beauty for Ashes
"Bought With a Price"
Christ is All
The Fourfold Treasure
Household Salvation
Job's Regret and Our Own
A Last Look-Out
Lessons from Nature
Light for Those Who Sit in Darkness
Marah; or, the Bitter Waters Sweetened
North and South
Now, and Then
"Nunc Dimittis"
Our Watchword
The Pastor's Parting Blessing
Self-Humbling and Self-Searching
A Sermon to Open Neglecters and Nominal Followers of Religion
"The Sun of Righteousness"
The Unbeliever's Unhappy Condition
A Voice From the Hartley Colliery
Your Own Salvation

Also added twelve articles from The Sword and the Trowel:

Among the Quakers
"Our object was not to moot points of difference, but to stimulate brethren to strive for those precious things wherein we agree."
Heligoland
This is surely the best and funniest of Mr. Spurgeon's travelogues.
How To Raise the Dead
"We have dead children before us, and our souls yearn to bring them to life. We confess that all quickening must be wrought by the Lord alone, and our humble petition is that, if the Lord will use us in connection with his miracles of grace, he would now show us what he would have us to do."
Mr. Spurgeon among the Costermongers
"It is believed that several were convinced of sin during the services, and certainly Mr. Spurgeon's appeals will never be forgotten by many who had been unaccustomed to sympathetic, earnest entreaty."
Mr. Spurgeon at the Agricultural Hall
"There were between eleven and twelve thousand persons present—a number far greater than has ever listened to a Christian minister under one roof [for a regular Sunday worship service]."
On Returning to the Renovated Tabernacle
"Do we not all need in our own souls, every now and then, just what this building required, namely, restoration and renovation?"
Ourselves and the Annexationists
"There is no bigotry in the world equal to the bigotry of modern liberalism. Sectarianism may be bitter, but latitudinarianism is wormwood and gall."
Prepare to Meet Thy God
"Dear reader, set not your affection upon the fleeting things of time, but seek an everlasting portion, which shall be yours when sun and moon grow dim."
Slippery Places
"The poor may hear an honest word from his neighbor, but etiquette forbids that the rich man should enjoy the like privilege. . . . What man can help slipping when everybody is intent upon greasing his ways?"
There Be Some That Trouble You
Mr. Spurgeon's response to some early dispensationalist errors.
Two Episodes in My Life
"Our personal pathway has been so frequently directed contrary to our own design and beyond our own conception by singularly powerful impulses, and irresistibly suggestive providences, that it were wanton wickedness for us to deride the doctrine that God occasionally grants to his servants a special and perceptible manifestation of his will for their guidance, over and above the strengthening energies of the Holy Spirit, and the sacred teaching of the inspired Word. We are not likely to adopt the peculiarities of the Quakers, but in this respect we are heartily agreed with them."
What Is a Revival?
"Many blessings may come to the unconverted in consequence of a revival among Christians, but the revival itself has to do only with those who already possess spiritual life."

FOR THE WEEKS ENDING 30 March 2002:

Added a new book:

Spurgeon's thoughts on reaching children with the gospel and training them early in the things of God. A rare work, filled with wonderful helps for parents and teachers.

Also added ten sermons to :

All Fulness in Christ
The Ascension of Christ
Carried by Four
Compassion for Souls
The Lost Silver Piece
The Master's Profession—The Disciple's Pursuit
New Uses for Old Trophies
The Open Fountain
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
The Power of Christ Illustrated by the Resurrection

Also added some articles from The Sword and the Trowel, with special emphasis on some of Spurgeon's more plain-spoken critiques of the Roman Catholic Church. The text for many of these articles was supplied by Timothy F. Kauffman, from the book he edited—Geese in Their Hoods: Selected Writings on Roman Catholicism, (Huntsville, AL: White Horse Publications, 1997). It is a superb collection of Spurgeon's polemical writings against the Church of Rome.

Another Week's Travel and Another Theme
"Would the outer array of Popish worship strike the candid observer as being in accordance with the spirit of the New Testament?"
Bishops! Bishops! Bishops!
"The town swarms with bishops as Egypt once swarmed with frogs."
Columbus before the Council at Salamanca
"Anything new, however true, was stigmatized as heresy in those Inquisition times, and Columbus might well fear the consequences of indulging any thought that savoured of heresy. Priestcraft, that great curse of mankind, was sure to oppose a new theory which overturned the testimony and traditions of the Church."
The Confessional
"The peace of families can never be maintained while the confessional exists, the word home may as well be left out from the Englishman's vocabulary when the women of the household have other confidants for their most secret thoughts besides their natural guardians."
A Curious Instance of Papal Infallibility
"If we had hitherto believed in the infallibility of the Pope of Rome, the fact here recorded would have delivered us from the delusion, and we trust the making of it known may have a like effect upon those who are now the victims of that fiction."
The Florentine Monk
"Besides improving the social condition of the poor, [Savonarola] endeavoured to reform the church. He never spared the priests—they were 'the devil's midwives.' Referring to the primitive church, he once said, 'In those days they had a golden priest and wooden vessels, but now we have golden vessels and a wooden priest.'"
From England to Italy
"It is the mark of a feeble mind to despise the wonders of nature because we prize the treasures of salvation."
Holy Water
"Holy water, indeed! a vile mixture, neither fit for man nor beast."
In My Fiftieth Year, and Getting Old
"This fiftieth year of mine has not been without its peculiar heart-searchings."
No Law Against Begging of God
"The more often we cry for help the better."
The Pastors' Advocate
"Do not many of the wealthy and of those who are thriving in business need to blush when they see themselves giving towards their pastor's maintenance no more than is given by domestic servants and day laborers?"
A Political Dissenter
"They call us "a Political Dissenter," and seem as if they had delivered themselves of a terrible epithet, whose very sound would annihilate us."
Priestism Brought to the Touchstone
(S&T Tract #27)—"No person in the Christian church, whether he be an apostle, an elder, or an evangelist, is ever spoken of in the New Testament as a priest; nor do we find the most distant allusion to the appointment of an order of priesthood."
The Religion of Rome
"The superstition of Rome is the worst of all the evils which have befallen our race; may the Lord arise, and sweep it down to the hell from whence it arose."
The Religious Revolution in France
"The Romish Church avails herself of the national cry, and claims liberty in France, although if dominant she would not give liberty to France. She employs the watchword of the opposite camp to obtain the key of the position she assails. Liberty! cries she. But the French are awaking to the conviction that they must not give up common-sense under the magic spell of three syllables. If they would defend the fortress of freedom they must not put the key into the hands of the foe."
A Sermon and a Reminiscence
"Unto you therefore which believe He is precious."—1 Peter 2. 7.
Simon the Pedlar
"All compliance with that which we know to be erroneous and unscriptural is a form of bowing the knee to Antichrist, and should be loathed by every follower of the Lord Jesus. Union with unsound churches, and compliance with unscriptural ceremonies stain the integrity of many."

FOR THE WEEK ENDING 23 February 2002:

Added four sermons to

FOR THE WEEKS ENDING 16 February 2002:

Added two miscellaneous items to

"Pure Fun"—a delightful chapter about Spurgeon's sense of humor from the Autobiography.
The Great Pot and the Twenty Loaves

. . . and five sermons:

FOR THE WEEKS ENDING 12 January 2002:

Added some sermons to

Christ Triumphant (Transcribed by Clarence Honnold of Free Grace Ministries.)
Personal Service

FOR THE WEEKS ENDING 5 January 2002:

Added some material to

Fragments of Popery among Nonconformists—Spurgeon's thoughts on ordination, the use of the title "Reverend," etc.
The Need of Decision for the Truth—"Don't go about the world with your fist doubled up for fighting, carrying a theological revolver in the leg of your trousers. There is no sense in being a sort of doctrinal game-cock, to be carried about to show your spirit, or a terrier of orthodoxy, ready to tackle heterodox rats by the score. Practice the suaviter in modo, as well as the fortiter in re. Be prepared to fight, and always have your sword buckled on your thigh, but wear a scabbard; there can be no sense in waving your weapon about before everybody's eyes to provoke conflict, after the manner of our beloved friends of the Emerald Isle, who are said to take their coats off at Donnybrook Fair, and drag them along the ground, crying out, while they flourish their shillelahs, "Will any gentleman be so good as to tread on the tail of my coat?" There are theologians of such warm, generous blood, that they are never at peace till they are fully engaged in war."
The Power of Nonconformity—"In proportion as the preaching becomes political, and the pastor sinks the spiritual in the temporal, strength is lost and not gained."
Two Sights Which I Shall Never Forget—"The reflections which rushed upon our mind we have committed to paper, and here they are."

Note: A record of last year's updates is available.