Biographical Blessings: Spurgeon’s Conversion

I love to hear testimonies of God’s saving power. One of the privileges of
serving as an elder is sitting with new member candidates and hearing how they
came to faith. Every story is different, yet every story is the same. At some point,
God showed them their sin, revealed to them their Savior, and saved them. It
would have been a joy to sit with a young Charles Spurgeon during his elder chat.
Perhaps it would have gone like this:

Charles, how did you become a Christian?

A Snowy Sunday

           Well, it was a snowy Sunday and I couldn’t gather with the church I
normally attend so I decided to walk down the street to a Methodist church.
There were only a dozen or so people there, and the minister didn’t show up that
morning. I assume that he was snowed in and unable to travel.

A Short Sermon

           Then this shoemaker, or tailor, or something like that walked up to the
pulpit. I must say, he was not an educated man, and so he stuck to his text for he
had nothing else to say. The Scripture was, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.” To be honest, he didn’t even pronounce the words
correctly! But he began explaining it clearly. The preacher said, “the text says,
‘Look.’ Anyone can look; even a child can look.” But the preacher went on, “the
text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ And many of you are lookin’ to yourselves, but there’s
no use there. You’ll never find comfort in yourself. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto
Me.’ And after ten minutes or so, the preacher fixed his eyes on me and, as if he
knew my own heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable and you
always will 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.”

A Sovereign Salvation

           There in that moment, clouds of darkness rolled away, and I saw the sun.
With simple faith I looked to Christ alone. I wish someone would have told me this
simple truth before! I knew I was a sinner, but no one ever told me the way of
salvation. That was a day which I will never forget. (The Early Years, 87–88).

With love,
Michael Abraham