If you'll take notice with me here, we have two artist renditions of one of the New Park Street Chapel here in Southwark, which is where Spurgeon started, and then the other to the left there is the actual Metropolitan Tabernacle, and it should look somewhat familiar. That front portico there is what is there today. And we'll talk a little more about the building itself as we go. And also what I've added here on this page is most of the time when you see them say the name, see it written, the name Metropolitan Tabernacle, you always see in the parenthetical Spurgeon's Tabernacle. And so they do give homage to Spurgeon, but this is a story much more than just about Spurgeon. than just about a building. It is about the fellowship that is there that has this long history that stretches all the way back. And if you will advance the slide for me and just come on down and we'll meet with the introduction. And I'm trying to give tonight a modest history of probably one of the most well-known Baptist fellowships. And I say modest because our time allotment does not allow for a full, thorough treatment of this, because there are so many great divines that have led this fellowship, many of whom are within the Baptist ranks, known for being great. John Gill, John Ripon, Spurgeon himself, and all the way back. And these men were great among the Baptists. Next one, please. In an introduction also, we want to talk about the perseverance of God's body. After all these years, it is still there in London, they are still meeting, they are still led by a man of God, and they are still reaching that dark city. And so we have to be reminded constantly that there's something more and greater than just us. We may be, as this hymn we just sung, one of Ripon's selections, the writer of that, they don't know who it was written by. It was some Christian that was touched and wrote and penned that. But then their names were lost in the annuals of history. But either way, the Lord continues His work. It is His hand upon His body and the preserving of that despite all that goes on in the world, despite governments and persecution and ridicule. He has His people and He will continue that people. We don't have to worry about the church going to nothing. We don't have to worry about it disappearing because He will not allow it to because it's His body. It's His bride. So next point. And then one more, please. I've already talked about the leaders of the Baptists through this fellowship. And this helps us to have a greater appreciation of what religious liberties we enjoy today. And as we will talk further, when this fellowship started, it was a very rough time for the Baptists. They were not in England held to be a denomination. They were considered a sect. And so they were not given the same liberties as the Presbyterians or the Anglicans or even the Catholics. And so, they started much underground, much as I feel that even in other places and times, the Baptists would have been. They would have started off in those quiet, small corners. But they were holding to God's sovereignty, and unto His Word, and that His great promises of perseverance. Please advance again. And looking at this history also helps us, even though it's not the history of our own church, or our own fellowship here, or even in this country, it does help us greatly in that it keeps our zeal. It keeps us on the path, the straight and the narrow, when we do feel the weight of the traveling through this wilderness onto the promised land. And that even the gates of hell will not prevail against God's church. And so it gives us something to look forward to and to continue on for, even though it is not our own story. It is, in a sense, our spiritual ancestry. Next slide, please. And we start with, here, I tried to insert certain dates in reference to certain things going on in England at that time period that don't necessarily deal directly with this congregation, but do, it's the climate. So they would have been, those people would have been dealing with these things. First one, please, would be 1649, Charles I was executed, and Cromwell rules. So there is a start of some type of freedom under Cromwell, even though he was Presbyterian, and very much for the Presbyterian rule. There was a little bit of freedom, but not as much as they could all of a sudden start going out and starting churches and having church buildings. Next one would be the date of the actual start of the fellowship. William Rider was the man, the pastor. And of course, William Rider, there's not much known about him. I guess due to the age, due to the fact that we as historians were not very good at keeping records. Or at least didn't have the funds and the backing of a presbytery to preserve those records. And so he served this congregation for about 15 years. And as I said, they were banned at this time because they were considered a sect. So they couldn't openly have church buildings and they had to meet in homes. And so this was their life as they started this congregation. Next slide. This deals with the years 1649 through about 1658. We see a great Presbyterian establishment. It's ruling with a heavy hand. Next advance, please. And then we have also that the Baptists are underground, under a cloud. But what do we see? Go two more down for me, please. Even during heavy persecution, we see that Baptist churches start to spring up. I was looking at a timeline done by the Reformed Reader online, and it's a very good timeline. Actually, he has it broken out into all the different epochs of time each century. And you see in this time period, you see Baptist congregations being started. So despite not being able to congregate openly like the Presbyterians or the Anglicans, they still were busy. The gospel was still going forward. They still had people coming unto them and joining their churches. And during this time, we see that there were many public disputes about baptism. They started to religiously search their heart as to what was true and right. And these things are coming about leading to the formation of the Baptist as we know them. Crosby says, In his book, this people, meaning the fellowship there at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the original fellowship, this people had formerly belonged to one of the most ancient congregations of the Baptists in London, but separated from them in the year of 1652 for some practical practices which they judged disorderly and kept together from that time as a distinct body. And one more over, Spurgeon says of this group, the people were few in number, but they had the reputation of being men of solid judgment and deep knowledge and religious stability, and many of them were also in easy circumstances as the worldly goods. So they had opportunity to come together in the houses and meet in houses. They had those places to worship in. Next slide. They lose their first pastor. It is not known what calls him home to heaven. They believe it was the last plague outbreak, which was in 1665, but they're not entirely sure. Also along this time is Cromwell dies in 1658. So the great defender is now buried. And then we begin to see a shift back to the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles II comes back in. Now Charles II and his brothers were secretly Catholics. They didn't care for the state church, the Anglican church. They played a very good game and saw to that establishment, but in reality, they were Catholics. And Charles II really was more of a closet Catholic, whereas James II, who will succeed him later, was more the open Catholic. And so that's what brings about another press down against the Baptists. Next slide. And this is a photo of John Bunyan here. These are more the years of 1660 through 1664. Next slide, please. Parliament begins to pass acts to penalize Baptists. A lot of this was done by licensing. If you didn't have a license, you didn't preach. And, of course, the license required you to subject yourself to the creeds of the Anglican Church and the Common Book of Prayer, which a lot of men would not do. Bunyan was arrested during this time period because he would not subscribe to that, but he went to a meeting to preach to the people in a congregation, and they were waiting for him and arrested him. So many of the Baptist ministers were under the same subjection. They would try to go to meetings, and of course the informers would be there, or the constables would be waiting for them, and they would arrest them. But, coming down even further, one more please, we do see that at this time there were more than 200 Baptist churches formed. 130 were particular Baptist churches, 110 were general Baptist churches, And during this day and age, there were really only three types of Baptists. You have the Particular, which believed in Calvinistic predestination, and then you have the General Baptists, which were Arminian, and then you have the Seventh-day Baptists, who were very small in number, but they were those who held to the Sabbath being on a Saturday. And they actually remain to be a very, very small number, and I'm not even sure that there are any left currently. Even though with all the flavors of Baptists, I'm sure that somewhere along the way, somebody has resurrected that flavor. So, next slide. We see after William Rider comes Benjamin Keech. And of course, this is one of the more well-known men. He was born in 1640. He died in 1704 at the age of 64. He was pastor of this congregation from 1668 to 1704. Next step down. Keech was greatly used by the Lord in this pastorate. And right now they are at Horsley Down, Southwark is where they're meeting. They did not have a church building currently because they could not get licensed to build one. So they were without a building. But while Keech is here, we see that the church grows to over a thousand members during this time. But, despite being greatly used by the Lord, his ministry was not without controversies. Now his controversies are not those of that he was dating a second woman or had a illegitimate relationship within the congregation. They were actually more of lines of defending the faith and writing books that the establishment did not care for. And we will get to those shortly. In 1668 they're actually allowed to build the first chapel which is built near Tower Bridge. Currently, the Metropolitan Tabernacle sits in Elephant Castle, and it's probably south of this location on the southern part of the River Thames. Where the Tower Bridge goes across to the Tower of London, it's on the northern side of the River Thames, to kind of give you a geographical idea of where we're at. We're in the south part of the city. Next, 1685, we see the death of Charles. Now comes his brother to the throne. Well, in 1687, James II, since he's a Catholic, and he wants to see the Catholics come to power, he passes the Declaration of Indulgence. And of course, this gives freedom to the Baptist and to all religious denominations within the UK. But the problem with that is, it dispensed with the penalties against dissenters, but the problem with it is that none of them were happy with it. Because they really knew what he was about. He was about restoring power unto the Catholic Church. So though they got freedom, they also knew what his motives truly were behind this. And so, they fought this declaration of indulgence. But they didn't have long to fight because in 1688, next slide, we see the glorious revolution and William of Orange comes to the throne. William and Mary of Orange come to the throne. And in this, James II, there's discontent within England. He flees to France because he's a Catholic, and of course the French, Louis XIV, was more than happy to accommodate him. James II was actually fleeing to France in hopes that Louis XIV would give him an army to take back England and the throne. But Louis was not as persuaded that James could endeavor to take back the throne, especially after William of Orange comes and takes the throne. And the funny thing about William of Orange is they were actually, he's from the Netherlands, and he did not really want the throne of England, and it was only through his wife that they were able to accept the throne, to be crowned, but he did not want the throne because he knew the English people, they were stubborn. And they were constantly murmuring about what the king did. But what persuaded him was he was currently locked in a great battle against the Catholics. Against Louis and France. And of all that went into that. And so he saw this as a way to gain more resources and a position upon Louis. And so they came and with this we see a great revival and the Protestants and the dissenters are now given greater freedom and they can go about congregating together and meeting. And we see also in this year that John Bunyan dies in 1688. Now in 1689, a year after this, We should be very familiar with that year. That is when the Second Baptist Confession was written. Benjamin Keech was one of the ones that went down from his church to those that congregated together to write the London Baptist Confession. I think Solid Grounds did a version of the 1689. It's a little hardback. It's got the catechism in the back. I think up in front or either in the back, I can't remember, but it's actually got a page with all the men who were at that congregation. And I think where they were from and what churches. And so he was one of the main spearheads for getting this written and establishing this Reformed Confession. Next slide. Come on down, please. Heech was at a very early age under religious conviction, came to be baptized and was converted and came to be baptized at age 15. Further down, please. And we see the controversies that plagued him during his ministry. The first being was the writing and printing. He wrote a small book called The Child's Instructor. It had various Baptist principles in it. And for this, he found himself brought before the Chief Justice Hyde. Now, of course, this was a deplorable injustice because Justice Hyde was very prejudiced. And even though during the trial, the jury found there was indiscrepancies in the evidence and voted not guilty. But instead, Justice Hyde said, no, he's guilty. And so what happened was he was then under the guilty verdict, and his punishment was two weeks in prison. He was fined 20 pounds, which in roughly today's money would be about $4,000, which during that day and age would be very hard money to come by. And he was to stand in the pillory. And this photo here is actually a wood carving of him standing in the pillory. And while he was in the pillory, he was actually able, as the crowd gathered around, oftentimes they would gather around and pelt the prisoner with eggs, but they didn't do that to Benjamin Keech. They actually left him alone and would listen to him preach to him. So while he was up there, even though he was standing there, he was continually preaching and trying to spread the gospel to these people. And there were times that the sheriff would try to shut him up, but the people would chase him off. There was a local vicar that would come and try to whip up a frenzy and charge him with all these false accusations. But the people actually in that event actually told him, recounted his public drunkenness and how he fell in the ditch the previous week and started calling out his public sins and he went away shamed. But we see, even suffering for our Lord's sake, we count it great joy to be accounted one of those, to suffer with Him. And now the next controversy, which He is well known for, I hope we would all know this, the singing of hymns in public worship. He published a booklet in 1691, And his premise for saying that we are to sing hymns in public worship is that singing can only be done with the voice. That's the premise. That was his foundation of support for his position. And at first, what they did in his church, they would only sing during when they would have the Lord's Supper. They would sing a hymn. And then it got to where, and that was for several years, And then they started singing at the end of the worship service after the pastor gave the final prayer. And during that time when they established that, they did allow for those who were in disagreement to quietly get up and remove themselves out of the building so as not to trample on the consciences of other believers. But it took about 20 years to establish congregational singing. And this is what I was kind of talking about in the beginning. We don't think anything about these things until we look at history and what was being fought over these things. We actually take it for granted in this day and age. We take our buildings for granted and the fact that we can come together publicly and that we can preach and teach and hear the Word and then also sing. And so, these were the things that were going on in these days in age, and Keech Some of his other writings, he wrote about 43 different things, 43 different publications. One is the key to the biblical metaphors. I think it's still in print somewhere. It's more of a commentary on the metaphors in Scripture. The other is, one of the more well-known is his parables, the exposition of the parables. I've used that in several of the Gospels. It's very practical and noteworthy. Next slide, please. Benjamin Keech dies at the age of 64 in 1704. But before he dies, he calls Benjamin Stenton his son-in-law. And Benjamin Stenton would be the next pastor. And there's one more story to relate about Benjamin Keech, and I almost didn't want to relate it because I can't really prove it. It's one of those weird stories that at several places I read about it, One is 15 years before the end of his death, a friend of his, Hansard Nollies, was one of the men that was met at the 1689. He was a Baptist preacher in London, was a good friend of Keech, and came to him. Well, Keech was very sick, almost to death. And Nollies actually told him and said, no, I'm actually going to reach heaven before you, because I'm going to pray today the prayer that Hezekiah prayed. that you would have your life extended for those years. And they say that because of that prayer, the Lord granted it and extended Keech's life for another 15 years up until 1704. Like I said, that's one of those stories, it's almost miracle-like, you know, like it's some type of miracle. But it is interesting. And so his son-in-law is the next pastor and is called, but out of all the men, His is probably the shortest of the pastoral offices of this congregation. He was only there 14 years. Come on down one more time. Spurgeon says of him, he was to Keech what Isaac was to Abraham, the quietly good successor of a great man. Now, though a short pastorate, it was nonetheless busy. He accomplished many great things. And if you'll come down to the next three points, these are the things that he helped do while he was in this pastorate. He helped establish a school for the disinterested children. And he did this so their children would not have to go to the local schools and subscribe to the Anglican Church's confession. He was key on helping create these schools. He also repaired and rebuilt the Basterion and Horsley Down. Now the Basterion, what it was, that in this day, all the Baptist churches didn't have the baptism. So they either had to go to the river or had to go to another body of water to do these baptisms. Well, in the UK, if you know anything about the weather there, it's often cold and wet and nasty. and exposure killed people in those days. So they would have a local place that they could come together and have public baptisms. And so they had a Basurion for that reason, but apparently it had become in disrepair, so he helped get it rebuilt and reestablished so they could all use it for that purpose. And he was key to doing this. And the last one there is he started and supported the Baptist Fund. And the Baptist Fund was for particular Baptist ministers who were poor and needed help or their churches were small and could not support their man in the pulpit. And they also helped with the training of those men and the training of men who would one day take over for those men. And so he had very many key things that he did, even though it was out of all these men we're talking about, he was probably the shortest. And it just shows that the Lord will bless his work even with those men whom may not have a large, long number on this earth. Next slide. And so after Benjamin Stenton, we come to the vulnerable John Gill, which I'm sure you are all familiar with John Gill. Now, precursor to starting this. Gil is a somewhat controversial character himself. Some charge him with high Calvinism, hyper-Calvinism. He wasn't a hyper-Calvinist. I'm not going to get into all those things. There are plenty of books written about Gil and his doctrinal positions, so we don't wish to get into that here. Next point. He was born in 1697 and died in 1771 at the age of 74. Moving further down. His ministry was not as fruitful as Benjamin Keech's because of the views held about the free offer of the gospel. And this is what I was talking about. Most of the works that I read about him state this about him. So the church, though pastored by a great doctrinal mind, the congregation started to slacken. Next is his, he received the doctorate from Aberdeen in rabbinical learning. And if you read any of his Old Testament commentaries, expositions, you can tell that he was full of knowledge about the rabbinical learning. He often quotes rabbis and men who had commentaries on the Old Testament that I don't even know you can get most of those works nowadays. And his command of the Hebrew language is probably second to none. He is called by some and considered by many the greatest Baptist theologian, which I would believe him to be that. Next slide. He held firmly to the doctrines of grace, and in this he vigorously opposed infant baptism and Arminianism. Same if you read his commentaries, you will find oftentimes he goes off the rails and starts attacking the Catholics. John Calvin is the same way. You'll be reading it, and then four pages later, you realize he just attacked the Catholics for three pages. And so, we do find that some of these men are colored by what's going on around them. And so, the next one, he was called home in 1771 and is buried at Bunhill Fields in London, and I have a slide for this later, and I actually have a photo of his sarcophagus. Just an interesting fact, the next one during this timeline, 1733, the first Baptists arrive in Georgia with General Oglethorpe. Just an interesting tidbit as we're seeing the move across the pond into the colonies and all that went on there. So next slide, we will deal with Gill's writings. And he has many well-known writings, but probably the three most well-known, The Cause of God and Truth, The Exposition of the Old and New Testament, and The Body of Divinity. And this is a photo here of the Baptist Standard Bearer's printing of this. And to my knowledge, it's pretty much the only one that does his divinity and his expositions. The quote here of Robert Oliver says of Gill became the first person to complete a verse-by-verse commentary on the whole Scriptures in the English language, which was quite a feat to spend all that time. They actually say of Gill that he did do pastoral visiting among the sheep of the congregation, but he was not very good at it apparently. But he was shaped more for this, for the writing and the doctrinal theology and the writing of the expositions. And so not all men are good at everything in the pastorate. Some have more toward writing or not writing and more people persons and things of that nature. And so our next slide goes into the years of 1739 and 1742. Our next bullets. This is the time of Reverend George Whitfield as he's moving about preaching, open air preaching, the large gatherings. And then we see in America the first great awakening in America. And George Whitfield was part of that. And despite Gil's down stiffening toward the free off of the gospel, we do see that the church at Horsley Downs supports George Whitfield. So there was no angst among the believers. They supported George Whitefield. Now, I don't know that they would necessarily invite him into the public preaching there, but they at least supported the work he was doing. Now, another interesting tidbit in the history here, 1742. The Philadelphia Baptist Association adopted the Calvinistic 1689 Baptist Confession. Of course, they made two additions, the laying on of hands and the singing of psalms. And this becomes the Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith. So all this is going on even while these men were in their own spheres of preaching and teaching and the congregations there. And it's really an exciting time. It's really an outgrowth of activity among the Baptists. And they have this freedom and liberty. But that freedom and liberty kind of gets out of hand at some point, and we will talk about that after John Ripon. Next slide. John Ripon was the longest to date to hold the pulpit of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and it was 63 years. He was born in 1751, and he died in 1836 at 85 years old. He was known for his spiritual tact. When there were difficulties, he came at solutions in a very gracious manner and dealing with people and conversation and discrepancies. And of course, he was not more of the high Calvinistic doctrine of his predecessor. He actually believed in preaching the gospel, the free offer of the gospel. Next point is numbers, they start to return. the souls start to come back in. And in his time, next point, in his time there are many useful works instituted. Spurgeon in his day, they had many works that the church did. Some were philanthropy, I mean as far as humanities, to the people and the poor, and then others were of the gospel nature. I'm sure John Ripon's establishment was the same way. Next point. He was also greatly used to the Lord. He had a collection of hymns, and it was both widely used in the UK and in America, hence what we had in our hymn book today, some of his collection. And in this ministry, next point, we see that the New Park Street Chapel was built in his late ministry. The only downside to John Ripon, even though he had a long ministry in the pulpit there, the biggest problem with John Ripon is he overstayed his welcome. He got to the point that he couldn't preach, but he stayed in power. And oftentimes when men came on his invite to preach for him, he would either chase them out of the pulpit, or he would stand heckling them, or heckle them from the pew. And it is even said that when they instituted the New Park Street Chapel, he wasn't even present, even though he was the pastor of this church, because of his advanced age. And so it's a lesson that sometimes, as we grow older, that sometimes we need to release the reins and let others take over for us. And so, the next here. During this time, like I said, there was just a hive of energy The Baptists, due to their liberty and freedom, are starting to now, they set up the individual churches, independent churches, but now they start to come together and form unions. Now, of course, the union is not like what we think of with the Southern Baptist Convention. It's not quite like that, but it's just a grouping of like-minded churches that fellowship together on a regular basis. Next one, 1776 is the Declaration of Independence. And what a time it must have been to have been alive during this time, when there's a king, and there's colonies, and all this is going on, and you think we talk about politics, I'm pretty sure they were heavily talking about politics. Next slide. This is from the year 1770 to 1772. This is the various controversies that within this freedom we started to see coming out. Next point. The ten years are filled with various controversies, and these, of course, shape the Baptist landscape, as often controversies do. And they're important because they settled many essentials to the local church, and what people would be called or whether they would practice these things. And so they were essential to have them. Next point. The first one will be the communion controversy. And this is from 1772 to 1781. And what we have here has always been debated but now led to certain distinctive groups. And you see extremes start to take place now. You see on one hand it's closed communion. No, we do not allow anybody to take communion unless they are a member of the local body. And then of course you have those that say the other side of that, the ones that say no, if they're Christians we ought to be able to let them all have communion. And so we begin to see these distinctive groups start to be forming. Here is probably where you would find the first naming convention of those who did not believe that any but the members of the local body would be called strict Baptists. That's where you often catch the name strict in particular Baptists. They were strict in their order of communion. And then they were particular in that they believed in particular redemption. And so these are the things where we start to see because of the freedom, it's no longer about just having, coming together for the scriptures and preaching that we start to see now, they start to fan out and start to diverge. And that's of course where we get all these flavors, where they start to come across. Now, this kind of was taking place in a time when there were parallel calls for greater religious and political freedom. And a lot of this hinged on, took place against the background of the North American resistance in the Revolutionary War. And they desired to determine wider terms of communion. Now of course this church, our church here, is always held to a close communion. That is what the Metropolitan Tabernacle holds to today. It is a close communion. As long as you are a believer and in good standing of a local body, wherever you come from, you can have communion with them. The first time we went, we actually had communion with them. Now they have their deacons and their men. You go get a card from them and they ask you if you're a member of a body that has like-minded doctrines. So they don't just leave it open to everybody, but they do, in some sense, keep the table. And this is where all this was born from, is in these various controversies. The next one, next slide. Come on down. It is the free offer of the gospel. Since Gil's day, there was a starting to grow cold to the free offer of the gospel as far as persuasive gospel preaching and offering the gospel to all men. And many of these men, that's why I said earlier with Gil, I don't know that he necessarily held to that definitively. Men have said he does, and some have said not. I think maybe he was maybe the catalyst, and other men took those teachings and then went to the opposite extremes. But this is also the same thing we see with the communion. You start seeing opposite extremes. You see those born in the Armenian ranks who say, we offer to everybody, we give them an offer, they can come down. And then you see those who are among the strict Baptist or the gospel standard as they call them, which we would call them primitive, the hyper-Calvinists. We can't offer it to all men because we don't know who's going to fake salvation. So we just won't offer it. But Andrew Fuller, that should be another name that we well know, wrote a paper called the gospel worthy of all acceptance in 1785. This kind of set this controversy off. Because Fuller said, we're not offering it to all men so they can just come at their own will, but we offer it because we don't know who is the elect. And not only that, men are told in the scriptures, are commanded by God to repent and believe. It doesn't give a distinguishment of whether they're saved or not. It's a blanket command. Repent and believe. And so this was the challenge, the growing hyper-Calvinism within the particular Baptist churches. But there and again, what we see is the same thing. We see a divergence. The gospel standard primitives go off to one side, and then the free offer particular go off to the other, and then of course you have the Arminians that take it to the far extreme and go the other way. But I believe these talks of the free offer of the gospel is what gave root to the foreign missions. because William Carey was known to Andrew Fuller. And later on in the late 1700s, we see Carey, the Foreign Mission Society comes together and they send Carey to India. Next slide. Our last major controversy here, come on down one more time, is antinomianism. Antinomianism is a dual word, a compound word. It means against law. It is a controversy that kind of, out of all three of these, was the longest run. It ran about 50 years. And this controversy bears upon the relationship of the Christian to the moral law of the Ten Commandments. Basically, what an antinomian is, is they believe the moral law has no bearing upon the Christian's life today. This is still something that's alive and well today. I don't think many that actually believe this would even understand the term antinomian, but it is among some groups, and you will run into it here and there. I think you can even find it among the sovereign grace men to some extent. And it's the same thing of the three we've been talking about. It's extremes. Legalism says you have to keep these things to be a believer, to be saved. The antinomians say, well, wait a minute, we don't want legalism. None of this has any bearing upon salvation. It's only grace. We don't need these things. We just need grace. The problem with that is, the Lord did give these laws. And oftentimes, these that say these things are mistaken about the different laws in Israel. the civil, the nation, and then the moral law. But the moral law is what has continued forward. It is a binding rule of moral conduct for believers. And so this is why we should keep the Ten Commandments. Now, of course, in our sin, we can't by any means keep them perfectly. That's what we still need grace for. That's what we still need repentance and Christ's blood. And at the bottom here, we have a couple more. As I was talking about earlier, 1792 is the formation of the Baptist Mission Society. And of course this is the society that with Andrew Fuller and William Carey, William Carey then leaves for India in 1799. The first Baptist foreign missions. And of course he was the catalyst that led to all the other men that went. Hudson, or I don't know, Judson, whom we'll watch a movie about here. And all these men that went to the field, this was the catalyst. So we see, you almost have three phases. You have those, they're just trying to get freedom to meet together and congregate. And then you have where they have freedom and now it's about coming together in unions. And then those unions, of course, give birth to the missionary. They're now in a position to send men to the field. Next slide. Now, the period of 1837 through 1853. Rippon passes away, and they're without a pastor. But there are three more men before we get to Spurgeon. So come on down and just bring them all up. These are relatively unknown men. This is James Smith's church in Chetlandham, which will be where we're going at the end of the week. But Dr. Angus was there from 1837 to 1840, and it was a brief ministry, but there was usefulness. There were believers added to the body, but he left to pursue labors elsewhere. And then James Smith, probably the longest out of these three, was there about eight years, saw conversions, but he wrote many useful little books. and then left to go to Chetlandham to labor until his death. And then Mr. Walters would be the third and final, and it was 1851 to 1853. Not much is said about him, except for he is the placeholder before our next man, which is the next slide, which will be Charles Spurgeon. And he was called to the pastorate at 1853 from Water Beach, as a young man. He was born in Kelvingdon, Essex, June 19, 1834. Come on down, please. Started preaching when they were in New Park Street Chapel. At this time, there were only 80 in the congregation when he was called, but soon it began to fill 1,500. It soon got to such a great capacity that they ended up, next point, that they drew so many, next one down, that they had to rent the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall to accommodate the numbers. And of course, while here, there was a tragedy. When they first opened the doors, the first time he preached, there was a great number of people in the thousands. There were so many, they couldn't even get all in the building, and somebody yelled fire. And it was just a mad chaos to get out. And there were seven killed and many injured. And of course, this plunged a young Spurgeon into a deep depression. He didn't preach for several weeks and almost gave up the pastorate altogether. But the Lord was gracious and saw him through this dark time and brought him forward. And of course, when they were renting this hall, Many charged him with being a circus leader, having a bunch of, you know, a great circus there to attract all these people, but it was really just about the preaching and about the gospel and this great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Come on down one more time. And the fruitful ministry. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, pastor of the church, for 38 years, founding a pastor's college, an orphanage, a Christian literature society, and the Sword and Trial magazine, which that is still in print today. Dr. Masters has continued that work and has continued many of these works, actually, except for maybe an orphanage. Over 200 new churches were started in the home counties alone and pastored by his students. His printed sermons, still published even today, fill 63 volumes. In 1887, toward the end of the ministry, Spurgeon led the church out of the Baptist Union because of the widening influence of theological liberalism in the union. Today we continue as an independent Baptist church obeying the biblical command to have no common ground with unbiblical teaching." And I got this quote from the Metropolitan Tabernacle's history page. That kind of gives a nice summation of what he accomplished while there. Now the next slide, we'll get in further here to Spurgeon's battle. Come on down for me please. And it's called the Downgrade Controversy. Now of course this conflict was not over non-essential points of faith. Spurgeon had no interest in fighting over small things. He was not interested in going to battle with other believers over things that were of no consequence. This was something about essentials. He became concerned about the Baptist Union as there became a creep from orthodoxy in 1887. In his Sword and Trial publication, there were several articles that were published, one by him also and one other man, that detailed this downgrade controversy. A really good rendition of this time period is done by Tom Nettles on Living on Revealed Truth, which is a Spurgeon's biography that Tom Nettles did. It's a very nice work. He actually goes in and takes a lot of these sword and trial articles and puts them in and kind of gives them context. And so this is eye-opening. But the Baptist Union itself was turning a blind eye to liberal theology. The largest problem with it was the fact that they had no creed. They had nothing as far as new churches coming in to join it to stop certain doctrines from coming in. It was just a free-for-all. And so Spurgeon tried to get them to create a creed. Not necessarily take the 1689 like their church had done, but at least something that outlined the tenets of faith. But they refused. Now, of course, Robert Oliver here in his book on the Baptist history says men were denying the doctrine of eternal punishment, weakening their teaching on the atonement, and forsaking the authority of Scripture. Many of the same issues and errors that we see today. And so he pulled out of the Baptist Union in the fall of 1887. And what's even more amazing is he tried to get them to come up with a creed for membership. They declined, but they ended up taking a creed eventually. But the creed was actually so watered down and so ambiguous that it still allowed for everybody under the sun to join it. And we see that even today. among the Southern Baptist Convention. If you go look at their statement of faith, it has Baptistic tendencies, but it is very open door. And so, that is the great controversy, and it's very sad. And it's not only sad, because shortly after this also, that's when the general Baptist actually joined ranks in the Baptist Union. And the Baptist Union is actually still alive and kicking today, but it is exactly what you would expect to find it, just like the SBC. It welcomes all shades and walks of doctrine. It is some of the most liberal stuff you can find as far as contemporary worship and what they do in the churches, big mega churches, all these things are present within it. Same as in our SBC here. Now, of course, this was toward the end of his life. He wasn't preaching every Sunday. He often spent time in France because of physical ailment. He was having issues, I think, with kidney failure or kidney decline. And this weighed heavily upon his health, and it probably helped end his life at the age of 58. And this was on January 31, 1892. And next slide, this is the Metropolitan Tabernacle itself. Next point. It was built, building was completed in 1861. So it's been there over 100 years. Next site, the present site where, in Elephant Castle where it was built, was chosen because of the burning of the Southward Martyrs. They think it's this site. Now, next one is, on the cornerstone of the church, it is written, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And through history, how do we find that to be very true? Just like in the early days of this congregation and even in the Baptist history, we find the most fruitful times among us, among the growth of the church and starting congregations to be when there's pressure applied. And so, sometimes that pressure is what the Lord uses to start and move the church. Just like we saw in the Jerusalem church, persecution came and they all got out of the city and started to preach the gospel. Next two points. Now, the original building, like I said, won't look totally like the original photo on the title page, and it's because there have been two fires there. The first one was 1898, and it was supposedly they were having a minister's meeting there, and somebody left the oven on or something, and it burned from the kitchen. And it burned down the back half of the building, everything down to the basement. The only thing that survived was, well, the only thing that survived was the front portico and the basement. And then, of course, in World War II, it was hit by a bomb. And the same thing burned again. Everything but the front portico and the basement. So they've rebuilt twice. Now of course each time they rebuilt they rebuilt with a mind to how many they actually had worshipping there. So the Sanctuary actually would get smaller each time and now it's built and I think it holds about 3,500 4,000 people It's still quite large, but it's still not as large as it had been in the heyday So I think in Spurgeon's day when it was built in 1861, I think it would hold about six or seven thousand Next slide. And I put this in here, even though it's not directly related to the history of it, but it shows the work that is going on there today. And if you'll just bring down all the points. Many of you are familiar, of course, with Dr. Peter Masters. He was called to the pulpit there in 1970 and has been serving there ever since. Now, whether or not He can, of course, surpass Rippon in the length of time. I don't know, he's probably early 80s now. He's still preaching almost every Lord's Day. Currently within the fellowship, some of these numbers are a bit old, but within a couple of years, about a thousand, and that's counting the the current that are there on a permanent basis. They do have a lot of visitors and temporary members and things that come and go because of the nature of the church. But one of the more greater things to think about with this, the greater joys, is the fact of the Sunday schools. They have over 600 children at the five different locations all over London on Sunday afternoons. They bus in these kids and they give them the gospel every Lord's Day. That's a lot of children. And many of these children come from unsaved homes. So otherwise they wouldn't hear the gospel. but they hear it every Lord's Day. And they take it back to their homes. And of course, in the Lord's providence, they may never become saved, they may not be the elect of God, but one day they'll grow up and have children. And maybe somebody will come knock on their door and ask if they can take their children to Sunday school, and they might remember these times. And they would be more ready to allow their children to go to this than some who have never been to church. So it is more than just them saying, well, we can get a thousand children in here and give them the gospel. And it's not like the SBC that says we just want to raise a hand and proclaim that they've been saved and then disappear for all their life. But they're actually laying foundation, and those who are not saved, there is lingering effects to it. They have visitation and contact work, and they do a Bible stall at different events. They have student outreach. They have a deaf Bible fellowship. During the services, they have sign language, those who do sign language, so the deaf members can know what's being said in the sermon. They do audio-video ministries. There are several languages in which they have men from that congregation, Korean, Spanish, and some of these other languages that they actually translate while he's preaching. So these who are challenged, whether English is like maybe a second language, can still partake in the services. They do an annual school of theology, much like this conference, or the conference, the Lordship Conference that we have earlier in the fall. And then they do, they've resurrected the Spurgeon's College, which is the London Reformed Baptist Seminary. It's a four-year program. It was only taking place on-site, but they have since moved it onto online, and so it can be taken advantage of around the world. And they also, through this seminary, they brought in, in the early 90s, they piped in about 30 men from various countries and trained them on site. Well, then those 30 men went back to their home countries and started churches, and that's the 30 men that they're supporting on the field. And they do many great things for these men. One of them in India, he's a doctor, and he ministers medicine in very poor areas as he's giving the gospel. Well, they needed a ultrasound machine, and the Metropolitan Tabernacle put the money in and sent them an ultrasound machine. And in this part of India, it's the first time they had ever had an ultrasound machine. So, they do great work with these men, and of course now, they are in the metropolitan area of London, so they have deep pockets to do these things. Not all churches are able to do that, but it is a great blessing of the Lord that they do partake in these things. They're not just building 30 million dollar chapels to put congregants. They're helping the work. Now, next slide, as we're getting to the end here, if you bring down the names, This is Bunhill Fields. It's in central London. It's actually across the street from Wesley's Chapel, where Wesley lived and labored there in London when he was there in London. And it is the Dissenters' Cemetery. And these are some of the more well-known Baptist men buried there. John Owen rests here. Susanna Wesley rests here. I think Goodwin rests here. There are several Puritans, many, many. Rippon is here. I think this is Rippon here on this side. This is Gills. And then that is John Bunyan's, if you can't tell from the pilgrim with the pack on the back. And so it is an amazing place to visit. If you're ever in London, this is probably one of the best places to go. And they, at certain times, they open it and they will take you back. If you want to see John Owen or Gill or any of those people, they'll take you back there and you can stand next to the place where they were buried. The saddest part about this is it's like a thorough way between two major roads and people use it as a shortcut. And many of those people do not realize what they're walking by as they go to and fro. of all the dear divine saints that rest there now. There is another Baptist burying site apparently in London. That's where Keech and Stenton and some of the other men are buried. I've never been there. If we'll continue on to the next slide, be the conclusion. This is a photo that we took I think when we first went Yeah, there's snow on the ground. So, as you can tell, the portico here is this front with the pillars. That is all the original that would have been there in 1861 and that survived the various fires. And of course, oftentimes, they just go in these sideways and go in. It's several stories. But it is a wonderful and amazing thing to actually see in person and would recommend it to anyone if you get a chance to go and see it. And what's beautiful also is this congregation is very mixed ethnicity. They are not all old British citizens. Many of them are islanders. Many of them are from the local area, like right across the road from here is a Jamaican-like marketplace, and you can go right across there and go in the open market, and that's a lot of what makes up this body. And so they have strived to reach out to that local mass of people and not hold to just certain genres of people. And some will even, like they have their own hymn book that they authored several years ago. And that's why you'll find in their hymn book that oftentimes they'll sometimes dumb down the language and change some of the original terms. It is because a lot of their people are not native English speakers. And so they try to make it as easy as possible. I know some have seen that hymn book, and I've heard, oftentimes, objections of them changing certain words in certain songs. But it is a reason behind doing that. And just bringing it all down for the conclusion, we see that we have a rich history that the Lord has given us as believers. And this history, of course, it goes even closer to home than just the history that we find in the Scriptures. We're given a history there too. The Old Testament, New Testament, all this bears upon our spiritual heritage in Christ. But it's nice to be able to talk about those who come before us that are close to us in proximity and time. It's sometimes hard to relate to the nation of Israel in the middle of the wilderness because we're not Israelites in that day and age. So it's nice to actually come and put in context what the Lord has done and how He's continually cared for the body of Christ, and how He's preserved it, and how He's not let it slip away. When Dr. Masters was called to this pulpit in 1970, they literally had maybe ten people. They wouldn't even fill one pew in that auditorium. The man that was there previously to him was of the mind that he would be the one, the last one to lock the doors and walk off from the building. That was what he thought the Lord had called him there to do. And so after all these years, it wasn't some fast break of outpouring and a bunch of people to start to come. It's taken them this long to get to 1,000, 1,100 members, but they're going strong. And sometimes the Lord does not bless and just downpours, it's a slow trickle. And so they have been faithful. And it should encourage us to be faithful in our own spheres. What the Lord has called us to do in our own lives, not necessarily worrying about having our names put in the annuals of history, but that we serve Him and that we are faithful to Him in all that He has called us to do. And may we have a spirit to pray that the Lord will give this congregation, our congregation, a rich history of faithfulness to Him. That's what's important. Isn't that what we all want to hear when we reach heaven? Well done, my good and faithful servant. It doesn't matter whether we are known or well known or have a bunch of books in our name, but that we served Him faithfully in what He has called us to do. And that is what this congregation has done. Even through all the turmoil and chaos of kings and parliaments and rules and men being thrown in jail for their beliefs, He has preserved them and made them faithful. And may that be our prayer today. Amen.