A Conversion That Shook the World

4 July 2008

Scripture: Isaiah 45:22

According to William Cathcart, on "December 15, 1850 Charles H. Spurgeon happened to go into a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Colchester, and heard a sermon on the text, ‘Look unto Me and be ye saved.' From that hour he rejoiced in salvation."¹ However, in a sermon that Spurgeon himself delivered in the New Park Street Chapel on Sunday, January 6, 1856, he gave the date of his conversion as January 6, 1850.² Nevertheless the conversion of the fifteen-year-old can never be called into question, for his life was changed radically when he placed his trust in the finished work of Christ for his redemption.

It was a cold, snowy day, and the storm was so fierce that the scheduled preacher did not arrive to preach his message. Fifteen people fewer made up the congregation. A local layman finally agreed to preach, and he chose for his text Isaiah 45:22, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." In a brief few minutes, the speaker had exhausted the text of all he could find, and thus he emphasized the idea of looking to Christ. Seeing the guilt-ridden face of the lad under the balcony, he fixed his eyes upon Charles, and pointing with his finger he shouted, "Young man, you’re in trouble! Look to Jesus Christ! Look! Look! Look!"³ And Spurgeon did look in faith, believing, and God brought peace and purpose to his heart and life.

Little could that layman have known that the storm in Spurgeon’s heart was more severe than the storm outside the building! In his Autobiography, Spurgeon gives an entire chapter to the subject of his conviction. "Moreover, in telling of it, this master of description seems almost at a loss to fix upon words severe enough to portray the agony he suffered."⁴ One cannot read the account of the spiritual battle that the young man experienced without thinking of the similar experience of John Bunyan. Spurgeon himself wrote,

Let none despise the strivings of the Spirit in the hearts of the young; let not boyish anxieties and juvenile repentance be lightly regarded. He incurs a fearful amount of guilt who in the least promotes the aim of the evil one by trampling upon a tender conscience in a child. No one can guess at what age children become capable of conversion. I, at least, can bear my personal testimony to the fact that grace operates on some minds at a period almost too early for recollections. When but young in years, I felt with much sorrow the evil of sin. My bones waxed old with my roaring all the day long. Day and night God’s hand was heavy upon me. I hungered for deliverance, for my soul fainted within me. I feared lest the very skies should fall upon me, and crush my guilty soul. God’s law had laid hold upon me, and was showing me my sins. If I slept at night, I dreamed of the bottomless pit; and when I awoke, I seemed to feel the misery I had dreamed.⁵

In our day of confession without deep conviction or thorough conversion, we would do well to pray for the convincing work of the Holy Spirit, making the desperate need of Christ known.
--DLC

[1]William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia ed. Louis H. Even (Philadelphia: Louis H. Evens, 1881), 2:1093.

[2]Charles H. Spurgeon. The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon (Philadeiphia American Baptist Publication Society, n.d.), 1:108.

[3]Richard Ellsworth Day, The Shadow of the Broad Brim (Philadelphia: Judson Press. 1934), p. 57.

[4]Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon (1984; reprint ed., Glasgow: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), p. 15.

[5]Spurgeon, Autobiography p. 79.