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Do you remember any of the details about the moment you were saved? Maybe the date? Or the location? Perhaps your emotions or even your reaction? Charles Spurgeon remembers everything – including the weather – in vivid detail.
And if you’d have met Jesus the way he did, you’d remember everything, too!
Charles grew up in the shadow of his grandfather, James Spurgeon, a pastor who had a fair amount of influence on 19th Century England. The young boy enjoyed reading in his grandfather’s extensive library, and would even sit near his grandfather’s chair soaking in the theological discussions when other pastors dropped in for a visit. In short, Charles knew a lot about religion.
But he didn’t know Jesus.
Across much of his youth he wrestled with God and fell into deep conviction. He was constantly aware of his sin and ever-seeking forgiveness, yet never finding it. And then, one bitterly cold Sunday morning in December of 1849 when he was 15 years old, Spurgeon was walking to a church when the weather became too harsh to go on.
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Church. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved….
The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now it is well that preachers be instructed, but the man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little 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. There was, I thought, a glimmer of hope for me in that text.
Spurgeon went on to describe the substitute preacher’s humble message. It lasted roughly ten minutes, and consisted of one phrase over and over again: Look to Christ and be saved. Simple yes, but it was the exact message Spurgeon needed to hear. Sitting in such a sparsely populated sanctuary, the young man felt as if the message was just for him – and him alone. He wasn’t entirely wrong….
Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, [the preacher] said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “And you will always be miserable – miserable in life and miserable in death – if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!”
The old man’s message, taken from Isaiah 45:22, was used by God to reach the heart of Charles Spurgeon. The Word of God proved powerful and true yet again, and the young man’s eternity was changed in an instant. He would go on to preach that same message for decades to come helping others look to Christ and be saved…just as he had been saved.
Resource’s Origin:
Spurgeon: A Biography by Arnold A. Dallimore. Banner of Truth, 2019, Pages 18-19.
