Charles Spurgeon overcame slander and assassination attempts to spread the Gospel

Glenn Beck stepped into the Vault Tuesday night with Riaz Patel and Dr. Christian George, curator of the C.H. Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, to discuss how the challenges faced by massively successful 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon are still prevalent today. Spurgeon began preaching around the age of 16, leading some segments of society to dismiss him as an unqualified upstart — or even to threaten his life, as Christian explained:

"Spurgeon was almost murdered four times that we can tell. Four times he escaped death and assassination. Two of them: a man showed up at his house looking for Spurgeon with a knife. Spurgeon talked him out of it. He said, 'Oh, you must be looking for my brother. I'll go get him.' He goes back and calls the police.

"Another time the Irish Republic Brotherhood, they planted bombs in his church. They planted bombs because they hated the English, the big animosity between the Irish and the English. And they did not detonate, and they saved his life.  He would've been dead along with many dignitaries that day. He had a miraculous way of escaping death, and he attributed it to the fact that he still had something in this world to do. God wasn't done with him."

Christian then described Spurgeon's unique gift for uniting people, helping him build a coalition of erstwhile opponents that protected and supported him when he was caught up in the "Down-Grade Controversy" near the end of his life.

To see more from Glenn, visit his channel on TheBlaze and watch full episodes of “Glenn” live weekdays 5–6 p.m. ET or anytime on-demand at TheBlaze TV.