As effective of an evangelistic preacher as C. H. Spurgeon was, he knew that he could not evangelize his community alone. He needed his congregation alongside him.
Ephesians 4, too, presents the risen Christ giving gifts to the church of pastors and teachers to equip the body for the work of ministry. Ephesians 6 then says that this ministry includes wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The church, in other words, is an army advancing onto enemy territory with sword in hand.
This is what C. H. Spurgeon longed to see in his day.
We ought to regard the Christian Church, not as a luxurious hostelry where Christians may each one dwell at his ease in his own inn, but as a barracks in which soldiers are gathered together to be drilled and trained for war. We should regard the Christian church, not as an association for mutual admiration and comfort, but as an army with banners, marching to the fray, to achieve victories for Christ, to storm the strongholds of the foe, and to add province after province to the Redeemer’s kingdom.[1]
Spurgeon viewed the church as an army engaged in the same fight that
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