Okay. We ready? All right, this is Pastor Jason Cooley, OPBC Online, a ministry of Old Paths Baptist Church, Northfield, Minnesota, but we are here today in England and we're in London here at Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle here and we're standing outside of here and this is where Charles Spurgeon preached the gospel for close to 30 years, I would say. It was actually 40 years total. almost ever since he was a young man and but he was over at a different location but they built a metropolitan tabernacle which the structure is is pretty much the same but uh... during one of the world wars it was bombed and they had to change some of the inside and they shrunk the uh... the sanctuary down five times less in size, so that's a little different. But right here, we find that this is the same spot. So imagine if you would, if they were preaching, you know, Spurgeon would preach the gospel here to the tune of thousands upon thousands that would come for different services every time Spurgeon preached. many people couldn't even get in, that would want to get in. And then they had downstairs in the basement, they had groups of men and women that were praying for the services and praying that God would save sinners and praying that the Lord would save those that would hear the gospel. And they had a kind of a room that they would go to, a concern room or a room where people were being dealt with. And they would come in there and talk to people and then Many of those people would end up being saved by the grace of God under the conviction and the power of the Holy Spirit as God was moving in their hearts from the preaching of God's Word. The Bible says that God uses the foolishest of preaching to save them that believe. So that is God's way. That is God's method. God uses preaching. So right here, here's where it is, the tabernacle itself, and we're going to go up to the cemetery also where Spurgeon was buried, and we're going to broadcast live out of that cemetery there as well, or wherever we can, we don't know. But anyway, just some interesting facts here. We see right here this coronavirus precautions, the coronavirus outbreak and everything that took place over the last couple of years and all those things that transpired from that. It's interesting, Spurgeon dealt with a similar situation with the cholera outbreak. and he would go and visit sick families and he would go and preach the gospel and minister to his people that were all over the city of London. Many people would die during the cholera outbreak and, you know, people would be concerned with Spurgeon getting sick and dying and he prayed and God gave him wisdom and guidance and he just continued to minister to those people and he continued to preach the gospel to those people and Spurgeon believed that God would keep him and that he wasn't going to die from that and he didn't. God kept him through the entire thing, so that's another interesting thing. When we went to the inside, there's a big bookstore there now, and there's not much there. There are a few pictures by his son, Thomas Spurgeon, who drew these pictures of his dad's, some scenes from his dad's life, his conversion, I think his baptism, and one other scene of his childhood, I think. But that was interesting about it. So, you know, During, like I said before, I think I said this on video, but during the funeral, you would have had, when he died, you would have had for miles long, there were wagons upon wagons and horses and people lining up for his funeral to pay their respects to this man that preached the gospel here for 30 years and saw hundreds of thousands of people saved. The gospel reached millions of people around the world. They said that his penny sermons were found all the way over in Africa in missionaries' backpacks, all the way over in Africa. When they died, they looked through their stuff and they found his sermons. They would sell his sermons for a penny and they would use it to fund the orphanages and the other things like that that Because Spurgeon had orphanages, boys' homes, girls' homes. And he learned that from George Mueller and got that idea from Mueller. And he would take that and he would use that to support those orphanages. And he had a lot of different organizations that he had started through all that and to help people and charity and everything else. But it's just amazing to be on this site right here. I never thought I'd be here, to be honest with you. Or in the back of my mind, I thought maybe someday I would be, but I didn't think it'd be right now, but the Lord has allowed that to happen, so it's amazing. But anyway, this is it. I'm sorry there's not a ton more to show you, really, because things have changed over the years so much. But just to get the idea, go back and look at some of those photos that are on online and you'll see, and even in Pilgrim Publications books, you'll see some of the old pictures of different things that were there, of the Meeting House, and of what it looked like in the auditorium. Again, five times bigger than what is seen now inside that auditorium. So, an amazing difference, really, that that took place from then until now. But think about how many people and preachers were sent out of here, how much gospel was preached from this location right here. Churches were planted, missionaries were sent, preachers all over the world were sent right here from this place. Boys' homes, girls' homes, missionary work, libraries for poor pastors that Mrs. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon's wife, would put together these books and send them out and they would be produced, or they would be given to the ministers and sent out all over the the world for pastors and all over London for pastors to have books because Spurgeon believed that preachers ought to have a good library and Mrs. Spurgeon took that up and she took that ministry up and ran with that and really helped a lot of pastors and others be able to have big libraries and books that they could, for the poorest of ministers, to have those things. So lots of amazing things took place here and it's just nice to be able to stop here and see that. So, you know, we'll I should look and see. Let's see. I'll take a look here. See if anybody's awake over there in America right now. Let's see. We have Theresa's awake there. Elijah Morgan. Angie. Fabian. 22. Ross Duncan. And Rachel Bicey. All right. The famous Mrs. Rachel Bicey, right? So she's on there, too. So anyway, she's up and at it early. And Holly Smith is there. And Rachel Marshall is there, my sister-in-law. And there's Carl walking, photobombing the camera right there. That's not Fidel Castro. That is Carl, all right? I know he looks a little bit like him, but that's not him, all right? Anyway, but, and then Mary's over there in the corner hiding, being modest, and Mary, you wanna say hi to everybody? Just real quick. Carl, don't make her walk by herself. Walk over there with her. My goodness, man. Come on. All right, there you go. Say hi. Now they're famous YouTube people, all right? We got them on here. So, alarms go, ambulances going by, fire trucks and all kinds of things. The building's amazing though, when you look at it, this is, one of the things I've learned all over England is, in historical parts, it's just absolutely, the buildings are spectacular, they're amazing. We went to the London Tower, you saw us live outside of there and a few other places like that, just amazing things. and that you can see everywhere. So this is kind of a special spot though for me because Spurgeon's ministry meant a lot to me over the years. I studied his life and read many of his sermons and understand kind of the things that he dealt with with depression and anxiety and and PTSD and all sorts of things like that that he faced, read a lot of books about his sorrows, and he preached a lot of sermons about that. And one of the greatest messages on that that he instructed preachers in was called The Minister's Fainting Fits in a book called The Lectures to My Students. And in that chapter, the minister's feigning fits, he talked about what would happen here. Spurgeon would take a carriage from where he lived, and he would take the carriage right up to the tabernacle here, and this is where he would do his work. And his wife was bedridden for many years, and she was at home and couldn't come to hear him preach. So she would stay home in her sickly condition, take care of her two boys. The boys wouldn't really come in, because dad was really busy and everything like that, and mom took care of the boys. Then she finally was freed from that bedridden condition. So they went through a lot of things. She went through many things. She was very strong and stable. And Spurgeon at times was very weak, strong in the pulpit, but very feeble in other ways. And I know the feeling. So that's a real part of the history here too in understanding kind of what this man went through in the ministry and how he helped so many others. But his writings would be used. His sermons would be the largest set of theological sermons in history that were produced that would span close to 40 years of sermons. And I have it. It's called the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. And I think it's 69 volumes. And some of those volumes are doubled up, of course. But anyway, That's where he would have preached almost all these sermons besides before he was at New Park Street Pulpit. So the New Park Street Pulpit were the first sermons that he had and of course, he would be preaching at the Surrey Gardens, which I don't know where that is, and I might find that. Actually, I have that book, Carl. Grab that book out of your backpack so I can look that up. If Surrey Gardens is near there, I can talk about that, but at Surrey Gardens is where The tragedy happened where seven people were trampled to death, including one woman with child, was trampled to death when somebody went into a crowded, they went into the crowded Surrey Garden Hall, when they went into there, and they yelled fire inside there, and people were storming out of there, and one poor, seven people lost their lives. It sent Spurgeon into a mental breakdown, and he basically lost his life. got depression, went into shock, couldn't even open a Bible. When he opened his Bible, he started weeping. He couldn't really be seen by anybody. He hid himself out at his house. He basically was shuttered in fear. I know what that's like. And he went through that. And he basically would battle that the rest of his ministry. He would battle PTSD, what we would now know as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and that he would battle depression because of some physical ailments that he had, and also Satan attacking him, and he would go through many sorrows throughout his ministry, and then God would use him greatly in different ways. But he would also be more tender to those that would be subject to depression and anxiety and all of those other things. It would make them tender. It would make him tender to that. So anyway, that was the Surrey Gardens. Is it over there? It might not be there. It might be gone by now. I'm not sure. You can hand me that. But anyway. It was really an amazing situation though. But anyway, that's what happened there. But that massacre after that happened there of those seven people, he would later develop episodes of PTSD where his mind would be triggered and he would... it would just debilitate him. I mean, there were times when he had to stay off the pulpit for weeks because of it and get rest and everything else like that. So, anyway, but that's why he kept himself so busy and he kept moving. He had to keep pressing forward and moving forward in the ministry and moving forward with things so he didn't regress back into the past and he didn't, you know, get triggered. One time he was riding a horse and he the horse slipped and it sent him down and it triggered him into that same type of massacre. There was another time, 20 years later, when he was getting ready to preach for a large assembly of people that he stood out and he looked at them and he just dropped his head and he said, Oh Lord God, why now? And it triggered him and went straight back to that situation. So anyway, the man went through a lot of things and Praise the Lord for his steadfastness, though, until God took him home. And he was a young man. I pray God gives me till I'm 90 and preaching and teaching and everything else. We'll see what the Lord does. But he was only really 57 years old. He wasn't that old when he died. A lot of great men have died early like that. Pastor James Beller, who was very influential in my life, died at 57 years old. So, you know, we know not what hour, right, what day. That's why we must be saved by the grace of God and have our sins forgiven us. repent and believe the gospel Jesus Christ, okay, that you might be saved, that you might know the truth and the truth will set you free, make you free and set you free. It does both. But anyway, praise the Lord for this. So, exciting to kind of be out here. We'll have more about this probably some other time, but anyway, it gives you a good idea of just where everything is. You probably can't move that too easy, Brother Andrew, I know, so I don't want to, but If you look at around here, can you? Okay, I'll take you around here in the front and just show you kind of this. I got you, I'm looking at all of you on here right now and Brother Andrew's going to follow me here and we'll just go around here just a little bit and just show the outside of it here. Don't get run over by the runners and the bicycle guys but we'll pop over here for a second and I'll show you the front of the building here which is Really rather amazing. It's actually warmer today than it has been the last couple days. It was very cold. You can see that right there. I don't know how that works, brother, but if you can go up there and look at that, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, you see that right there. It's just, it's really amazing because you look around and there's skyscrapers, buses, brand new buildings, and if you want to scan over there, brand new buildings and everything like that everywhere around here. And then you have the tabernacle that is right here in the middle of everything. And you could see that. I mean, you got every bit of weirdness around you could possibly imagine. Thank God for the gospel. But anyway, sorry, I got triggered by the tranny. I had to say that, but if you look at that right there, that's amazing, isn't it? And still preaching the gospel. Brother Ross Duncan tells me there's still King James too. They still preach the King James Bible there, so praise the Lord for that. That's good. They may not be like we are on it, but they still preach the King James Bible, so that's a blessing for sure. So anyway, amazing place to be and a blessing for sure. We're gonna try to head to the cemetery now where Spurgeon was buried, and I want to broadcast live out of there. Hopefully they let me. Hopefully it's not restricted. We'll see. If he has to do it on an iPhone, we'll do it on an iPhone if it triggers him too much with us doing it with professional equipment here. Hi, how are you? Good, good to see you. But anyway, Praise the Lord. I know in the States right now, it is 6.40, so it's early over there. My wife's not even awake yet. I was talking to her too late on the phone last night, but early this morning. Anyway, it looks like, let's just say hi to some folks here real quick. And we've got Teresa, Daryl's wife on there, Elijah Morgan, Rachel Marshall, who else? Ross Duncan. Everybody else is sleeping. Let's see, Eyes to See, I don't know who that is. Let's see. uh... pilgrim ladies on their gregory paces on their jodie hammond how are you jodie i hope you're doing well uh... let's see All right, good deal. So lots of good contact even this morning. And when everybody else wakes up and gets their coffee and reads their Bible and gets done, they'll be able to watch this, too. That's why we'll have these on there. And they can just click on there. They'll get the notice when they wake up that they were sent something, and they'll be able to watch it, too. But for now, we'll let you go here. But praise the Lord for the ministry and the legacy that we have here that God has provided. All right, everybody. We'll talk to you real soon.