How Charles Haddon Spurgeon personally entered into God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.
His Own Testimony
“I had been about five years in the most fearful distress of mind as a lad. If any human being felt more of the terror of God’s law I can indeed pity and sympathize with him. Bunyan’s1 “Grace Abounding” contains, in the main, my history. Some abysses he went into I never trod, but some into which I plunged now and again, he seems to have never known2.
I thought the sun was blotted out of my sky – that I had so sinned against God that there was no hope for me. I prayed but I never had a glimpse of an answer that I knew of. I searched the Word of God. The promises were more damning than the threatening. I read the privileges of the people of God but with the fullest persuasion that they were not for me.
The secret of my distress was this: I did not know the gospel. I was in a Christian land, I had Christian parents,3 but I did not fully understand the freeness and simplicity of the gospel. I attended the places of worship in the town where I lived but I honestly believe I did not hear the gospel fully preached. I do not blame the men however.
One man preached the divine sovereignty. I could hear him with pleasure but what was that to a poor sinner who wished to know what he should do to be saved?
There was another admirable man, who always preached about the Law but what was the use of ploughing up ground that needed to be sown?
Another was a great practical preacher. I heard him but it was very much like a commanding officer teaching the maneuvers of war to a set of men without feet! What could I do? All his exhortations were lost on me. I knew it was said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. ”( Acts 16:31) but I did not know what it was to believe in Christ.
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm on a Sunday morning when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no farther, 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.
Now, it is well that ministers should be instructed but this man was really simple! He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason he had nothing else to say. The text was, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved; all the ends of the earth. ” Isaiah 45:22 He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text.
He began thus: ‘My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, “Look!” Now, that does not take a deal of effort. It ain’t [is not] lifting your foot or your finger; it is just “Look.” Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool and yet you can look. A man need not be worth thousands a year to look. Anyone can look. A child can look. But this is what the text says!’
“Then it says, *Look unto Me. ” Aye,’ said he, in broad Essex,4 ‘many of you are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You’ll never find comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him later. Jesus Christ says, “Look unto Me.” Some of you say, ‘I must wait the Spirit’s working.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. It says ‘Look unto Me’.”
Then the good man followed up his text in this way:
‘Look unto Me, I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hanging on the cross. Look; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend, I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. O, look to Me! Look to Me!’
When he had got that far and managed to spin out [stretch the time] ten minutes or so, he was at the length of his tether [ability]. Then he looked at me under the gallery and I dare say, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger.
He then said, Young man, you look very miserable!’ Well I did but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck.
He continued, ‘And you will always be miserable – miserable in life and miserable in death, if you do not obey my texts, but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved!’ Then he shouted as only primitive Methodists can, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ.’
Then and there the cloud was gone. The darkness had rolled away. That moment I saw the sun. I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. O that somebody had told me before.
”Look to Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. ” Isaiah 45:22
“Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. ” John 1:29
Footnote:
[1] John Bunyan’s other great book besides “THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS” -Ed.
[2] It is important to note and record here that the soul of Charles Spurgeon had been much exercised before God. Here then was the ploughed-up “heart-field” of a person, deeply convicted of sin before the holiness of God and the perfection of God’s holy Laws. “By the Law is the knowledge of sin. ” The Law had already done its work as ‘the forerunner’ and ‘the preparer’ for the gospel of the grace of God. -Ed.
[3] C.H.S.’s parents were professing Christians of Dutch dissenting ancestry. – Ed.
More about C.H. Spurgeon:
C.H. Spurgeon was born in Essex, England. Early in 1850 he experienced personal salvation in Jesus Christ as he heard the gospel simply and plainly preached in the Artillery Street Primitive Methodist Chapel, Colchester, Essex. After his baptism he became the pastor of the Waterbeach Baptist Chapel in 1851. In 1854 he moved to New Park Street Chapel; Southwark, London. Soon that place was filled to overflowing. The necessity was seen to have a larger and more suitable place and so the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built in 1859. (The Tabernacle still functions as a Baptist meeting centre.)
Spurgeon’s deep love for Christ and the Word of God, his grasp of Scripture, as well as his mastery of the English language produced much noble preaching that had a profound effect upon London and the society of his day even until today.
Charles H. SPURGEON 1834-1892
Acknowledgement: © CHRISTIAN BOOK ROOM
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Photo by: M. E. Head