Now, I have just turned 28. I have resolved to do a research on the fruitfulness of some of the giants who I admire when they were about 28 years old as I am.

Jonathan Edwards
When Jonathan Edwards was about 28 years old, his first published sermon was printed, the famous "God Glorified in Man's Dependence" where he encourages,

Let us be exhorted to exalt God alone, and ascribe to him all the glory of redemption. Let us endeavour to obtain, and increase in, a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye to him alone, to mortify a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition. Man is naturally exceeding prone to exalt himself, and depend on his own power or goodness; as though from himself he must expect happiness. He is prone to have respect to enjoyments alien from God and his Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found.-- But this doctrine should teach us to exalt God alone; as by trust and reliance, so by praise.

Charles Spurgeon
When Charles Spurgeon was about 28 years old, he was already working on the eight volume of his soon to be 63-volume published sermons. Volume 8 contains sermon numbers 427 to 486. Found in this volume is one of my favorite Spurgeon sermons, sermon 442, "God's Will and Man's Will" based on Romans 9:16 and Revelation 22:17.

If you were dying of thirst, you would just put your lips down and drink. Soul, do that now. Believe that Jesus Christ is able to save thee now. Trust thy soul in his hands now. No preparation is wanted. Whosoever will let him come; let him come at once and take the water of life freely. To take that water is simply to trust Christ; to repose on him; to take him to be your all in all. Oh that thou wouldest do it now! Thou are willing; God has made thee willing.

Adoniram Judson
When Adoniram Judson was about 28 years old, when he was on his third year as a missionary in Burma, he has already completed "Grammatical Notices of the Burman Language." He has also completed a Burman translation of the Gospel of Matthew and began to compile a Burman dictionary.

William Wilberforce
When William Wilberforce was about 28 years old, he met for the very first time Thomas Clarkson to whom he had a collaboration for almost fifty years. Clarkson has secured a commitment from Wilberforce to bring forward the case for abolition of slave trade in the House of Commons. He had written as a journal entry "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners (moral values)." His involvement in the abolition movement was motivated by a desire to put his Christian principles into action and to serve God in public life.

John Owen
When John Owen was about 28 years old, he published his work "The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished" where he comments on Romans 15:16,

Ministers preaching the gospel to the conversion of souls are said to kill men’s lusts, and offer them up unto God as the fruit of their calling, as Abel brought unto him an acceptable sacrifice of the fruit of his flock; and so also in respect of divers other acts of their duty, which they perform in the name of their congregations.

John Bunyan
When John Bunyan was about 28 years old, he published his first work "Some Gospel-Truths Opened" where he writes,

There is none but he that is the true God can satisfy the justice of the true God for the breach of his holy law: but if you compare Isaiah 51:6 with Matthew 3:17, you shall find that Jesus the Son of Mary did give God a full and complete satisfaction for the breach of his holy law; therefore Jesus the Son of Mary must needs be the great and the true God.

John Calvin
When John Calvin was about 28 years old, he was already done with the first edition of his most famous work "Institutes of Christian Religion." He was already leading the Protestant city of Geneva as a professor and pastor with William Farel. Then, after a few months, they were banished from Geneva by the city council and invited back.

David Brainerd
When David Brainerd was about 28 years old, he had just one year more to finish his work GOD has entrusted him to do. GOD was already causing a great success on his missionary work to the native American Indians. Then he became very ill and stayed at Jonathan Edwards home until his death. At this age, he was so fruitful in his entries on his journal which has inspired a lot of missionaries and workers including John Wesley and the Methodist movement.

John Wesley
When John Wesley was about 28 years old, he decided to limit his expenses so that he could give more to the poor. It was recorded that when his income was 30 pounds, he only spent 28 and gave 2 to the poor. Then his income doubled so he spent 28 pounds still and gave 32 to the poor. This continued throughout his life until his income climbed over 1400 and still spent 30 pounds and gave the rest to the poor. He said that he never had over 100 pounds in his pocket in one time.

George Whitefield
When George Whitefield was about 28 years old, he was already practicing outdoor preaching for 3 years. He has already taken a preaching tour throughout New England where tens of thousands gather to hear and weep in his preaching. And for five months, he ministered in Scotland and he has helped to form the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Association.

Personal Reflection
I can never be a pinch of any of these guys. I just thank my GOD for raising such men who, though I can't be like them, can continue on inspiring me (and humiliating me at the same time). I may not be an eye or a nose or a hand like them but at least I am still part of the same Body with them in Christ.

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Today, June 19, is known to Filipinos to be the day when Jose Rizal was born. I also thank the sovereign GOD for using such a genius for me to enjoy His graces as a free man. However, fewer Filipinos know that on this same day, another hero was born: Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

I did a quick comparative study on the lives of Spurgeon and Rizal and here are some interesting facts:

• When Rizal was born in 1861, Spurgeon was already preaching to the largest indoor crowd with 23,654 at Crystal Palace, London and the Metropolitan Tabernacle (with seating for approximately 5,600) was opened. Spurgeon then was about my age, 27 years old. Wow!
• When Rizal was 15 years old, he received his Bachelor of Arts with the highest honors from Ateneo de Manila. By the same age, Spurgeon won in a writing contest for his first book, the 295-page Popery Unmasked.
• By the age when Rizal joined the poetical competition for Indians and Mestizos and wrote the poem To the Philippine Youth, Spurgeon was converted to Christ and joined a Baptist church in Cambridge.
• Jose Rizal was 31 years old when he organized a mutual aid economic society: La Liga Filipina. Charles Spurgeon was 31 years old when he organized a monthly magazine: The Sword and the Trowel.
• The two were of the same age (35 years old) when Rizal wrote the poem My Last Farewell and Spurgeon released the first volume of The Treasury of David.
• When Spurgeon's The Treasury of David was completed in 1885, Rizal received his degree of Licentiate in Medicine with honors from Central University of Madrid.
• By the time that Rizal's Noli Me Tangere was finished in Berlin, Spurgeon's crash with the Downgrade Controversy has just begun in 1887.
• Jose Rizal was editing Morga’s 1609 Philippine History as he was studying in the British museum in London when Spurgeon was voted to censure by the Baptist Union in 1888. (I wonder if Rizal somehow heard about Spurgeon.)
• In 1892, Rizal was deported to Dapitan while Spurgeon's body was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.

Now, let me give at least three points why I am giving a larger birthday cake to Spurgeon over against our national hero.

I) Life's Combat: Perpetual Death Over Temporal Injustice
Rizal has indeed offered his life for a noble cause, for a fight against the injustices of Spain. However, Spurgeon saw beyond temporal injustices: the need of man to flee from God's justice in His wrath against wicked men and flee towards God's justice in His love by offering His Son for men's sins. Quoting Spurgeon,

If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

II) Life's Conclusion: "Come into the Holiest of All" Over "Mi Ultimo Adios"
In his last poem, Rizal bids farewell from the objects of all his labors.

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.

While in the closing statements of his Autobiography, Spurgeon states his excitement of falling into the embrace of the Object of all his labors,

The vista of a praiseful life will never close, but continue throughout eternity. From psalm to psalm, from hallelujah to hallelujah, we will ascend the hill of the Lord, until we come into the Holiest of all, where, with veiled faces, we will bow before the Divine Majesty in the bliss of endless adoration. Throughout this year may the Lord be with you! Amen.

III) Life's Cause: Eternity Over Momentary
The main differences between the two, perhaps, was that Spurgeon understood better what the apostle Paul had talked about in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18,

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

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This post will not do a four-in-a-row for United Methodism, three consecutive Wesleyan topics are enough. Now, I am not referring to the Wesleys, John and Charles. To whom I am referring to are John Owen and Charles Spurgeon.

John Owen (1616 - 1683)
The Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals describes John Owen as a man who "was without doubt not only the greatest theologian of the English Puritan movement but also one of the greatest European Reformed theologians of his day, and quite possibly possessed the finest theological mind that England ever produced."

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)
The Prince of Preachers is rightly labeled so for he preached over 600 times before he was 20 years old, his sermons sold about 20,000 copies a week, these sermons were translated into 20 languages, they fill 63 volumes. It was said that he reads six of the most substantial books a week and can remember what he read and where to find it. He also wrote about 150 books of his own like The Treasury of David, All of Grace, Around the Wicket Gate, and Commenting on Commentaries.

John's Conversion
In his book Contending for our All, John Piper relates Owen's conversion, "When Owen was 26 years old he went with his cousin to hear the famous Presbyterian, Edmund Calamy at St. Mary's Church Aldermanbury. But it turned out Calamy could not preach and a country preacher took his place. Owen's cousin wanted to leave. But something held Owen to his seat. The simple preacher took as his text Matthew 8:26, 'Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?' It was God's appointed word and appointed time for Owen's awakening. His doubts and fears and worries as to whether he was truly born anew by the Holy Spirit were gone. He felt himself liberated and adopted as a Son of God."

Charles' Conversion
Spurgeon, recounting his conversion on a snowy Sunday morning, "When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people. The minister did not come that morning: snowed up, I suppose. A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. The text was, 'Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.' He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter... Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, 'Young man, look to Jesus Christ.' There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ."

My Search
Owen and Spurgeon became GOD's giants. They are indeed giants. But what inspires me enormously is that both of them were fruits of the ministries of unnamed preachers. Giants as they are yet they are indebted to ministers whose names only heaven knows.

I cannot be even a pinch of Spurgeon and be a Prince of Preachers. I cannot be a nip of Owen and be the greatest theologian. But I can be an unnamed preacher history will forget who can humbly serve GOD in His raising up of Johns and Charleses. May GOD be pleased to preserve me to be faithful and enable me to find a young John or a young Charles.

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