Posted on 02/15/2023 8:35:54 AM PST by daniel1212
is well known that Charles Spurgeon came to Christ when he ducked into a small church to escape a snowstorm and heard the gospel proclaimed. Some wrongly think Spurgeon was thus suddenly converted to Christ out of a life of sheer paganism. Spurgeon himself used to talk about how he had suffered for a long time under the weight of sin before he finally found Christ. Because of the way he described himself as a great sinner utterly in debt to divine grace, many who heard him preach came away with the impression that he was a man who had gone deeply into sin and come to Christ fairly late in life.
But the facts are that Charles Spurgeon was converted to Christ while still in his youth, and he was the product of godly upbringing in a pastor's home. Spurgeon's two main role models, his father and his grandfather, both were godly pastors.
Spurgeon was raised in his grandfather's home from his infancy until he was nearly six years old. Something, possibly economic difficulties, made it necessary for Charles to live with his paternal grandparents, in a village near the one where his parents lived, from the time he was nearly two years old until he was ready to start elementary school. Charles Spurgeon was his grandfather's constant companion, both in the pastor's study and when the elder Spurgeon made pastoral visits. Young Charles loved his grandfather's books. He was a prodigy when it came to reading, and he developed a love for books very early. He especially loved Pilgrim's Progress.
By the time Spurgeon returned to his parents' home at age six, he already had three younger siblings, two sisters and a brother. He seemed already to feel very deeply his responsibility as the elder brother to influence them for good. That perspective, which was surely part of his grandfather's pastoral legacy, made him mature beyond his years. ...
When Charles was about 10 or 11 years old, he began to be deeply convicted about his sin. He was convinced that he had no saving knowledge of Christ. So he set out on a quest for salvation that lasted about 5 years. This was an agonizing time of life for Spurgeon, because he already viewed spiritual matters with far more seriousness than any other boy his age. The knowledge that he himself was not a true Christian was something that weighed more heavily on him than language can express. It became a burden he carried around continually....
Spurgeon's own account of his struggle to find salvation does indeed leave us marveling that such a boy could feel his own sin so deeply. After all, he grew up in a godly family, in a pastor's home; he had never committed any sort of scandalous sin (probably the most serious sin he had ever fallen into was a lie); and yet the burden of his sin weighed so heavily on him that he was brought to the brink of utter despair by it.
Here's what Spurgeon himself wrote about those dark days of conviction:
When I was in the hand of the Holy Spirit, under conviction of sin, I had a clear and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared hell, as that I feared sin; and all the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honour of God's name, and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if I could be forgiven unjustly. But then there came the question,—"How could God be just, and yet justify me who had been so guilty?" I was worried and wearied with this question; neither could I see any answer to it. Certainly, I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience . . .. I had heard of the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus from my youth up but I did not know any more about it in my innermost soul than if I had been born and bred a Hottentot. The light was there, but I was blind: it was of necessity that the Lord Himself should make the matter plain to me. [C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography 4 vols. (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1897), 1:98.]...
Spurgeon's father, obviously, was a man who deeply loved Christ. His great compassion and tenderness left an indelible impression on young Charles's life. Spurgeon's father, his grandfather, and above all his mother, were therefore strong influences on him spiritually.
On Sunday evenings, Mrs. Spurgeon would gather the children together around the table for Scripture reading and prayer. Spurgeon said she used to pray like this: "Now Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish. My soul must bear swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ." Spurgeon said the thought of his own mother's bearing witness against him at the judgment seat of Christ pierced his conscience.
Because of such influences, Charles began to develop a keen sense of his own guilt by the time he was 10 or 11. The thing that burdened him so much was a clear understanding that he was guilty in God's sight. He didn't have the limited perspective so many children have—grieving only because they have offended their parents. Spurgeon very seriously seemed to realize, even at a young age, that all his sins were an affront against God Himself....
Ultimately, Spurgeon's conversion came through the most unlikely circumstances. One Sunday morning, while Spurgeon was in this phase of sampling various churches, a terrible snowstorm virtually shut down the little town of Colchester. Spurgeon was home from his boarding school for Christmas holidays. The date can be determined with absolute precision. It was Sunday, January 6, 1850. The snowstorm started early in the morning. Spurgeon had gotten up early in the morning because he had plans to go to a particular chapel on the other side of town. But just as Spurgeon began to make his way to church, the snowstorm grew worse.
Spurgeon himself recounted what happened:
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. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. 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, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. 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 should be instructed; but this 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 glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus—"My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, 'Look.' Now lookin' don't take a deal of pains. It ain't liftin' your foot or your finger; it is just, 'Look.' Well, a man needn't go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn't be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, 'Look unto Me.' Ay!" said he, in broad Essex, "many on ye are lookin' to yourselves, but it's no use lookin' there. You'll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, 'Look unto Me.' Some on ye say, 'We must wait for the Spirit's workin'.' You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, 'Look unto Me.'" Then the good man followed up his text in this way:—"Look unto Me; I am sweatin' great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin' on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin' at the Father's right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me! When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he 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 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." 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 nothin' to do but to look and live." I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, "Look!" what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, "Trust Christ, and you shall be saved" [Spurgeon, 105-108.].
Spurgeon began preaching right after his conversion. He was converted in January, 1850. Amazingly, less than five years later he was called to be the pastor of the largest Baptist church in London. So within four years after his conversion, he preached his first sermon as the pastor in the pulpit of the congregation he would shepherd until the day he died. He never attended university or seminary. He seems to have sprung full grown into maturity as a pastor, preacher and a theologian.
But the truth behind Spurgeon's remarkable ministry is that many of the influences that made him what he was were related to his earliest upbringing. They were the influences he gained from a godly home life, under the oversight of godly parents and grandparents.
You do not have to agree with certain aspects of Calvinism, nor did Wesley, in order to glorify His salvation thru penitent, heart-purifying, regenerating effectual faith, (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9) which is imputed for righteousness, (Romans 4:5) and is shown in baptism and following the Lord, (Acts 2:38-47; Jn. 10:27,28) who was sent by the Father to be the savior of the world. (1 John 4:14)
And by which faith the redeemed soul is "accepted in the Beloved" and positionally seated with Him in Heaven, on His account, glory to God. (Ephesians 1:6; 2:6; cf. Phil. 3:21)
And those who die in that obedient faith will go to be forever with Him at death or His return (Phil 1:23; 2Cor. 5:8 [“we”]; Heb, 12:22,23; 1Cor. 15:51ff'; 1Thess. 4:17) In contrast to those who were never born of the Spirit or who terminally fall away. (Gal. 5:1-4; Heb. 3:12; 10:25-39)
If i may add more length (sorry), let me post the words of the very famous preacher Charles Spurgeon whostates regarding Jn. 17,
In all the truly Elect children of God who are called, and chosen, and faithful, there is a bond of Divine mysterious Love running right through the whole, and they are one and must be one, the Holy Spirit being the life which unites them.
There are tokens which evidence this union, and prove that the people of God are one. We hear much moaning over our divisions. There may be some who are to be deplored among ecclesiastical confederacies, but in the spiritual Church Unity in Christ of the Living God, I am really at a loss to discover the divisions which are so loudly proclaimed. It strikes me that the tokens of union are much more prominent than the tokens of division.
But what are they? First there is a union in judgment upon all vital matters. I converse with a spiritual man, and no matter what he calls himself, when we talk of sin, pardon, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and such like themes, we are agreed. We speak of our blessed Lord. My friend says that Jesus is fair and lovely - so do I. He says that he has nothing else to trust to but the precious blood; nor have I anything else. I tell him that I find myself a poor, weak creature; he laments the same. I live in his house a little while - we pray together at the family altar, you could not tell which it was that prayed, Calvinist or Arminian, we pray so exactly alike, and when we open the hymn book, very likely if he happens to be a Wesleyan he chooses to sing, "Jesus, lover of my soul." I will sing it, and then next morning he will sing with me, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." If the Spirit of God is in us, we are all agreed upon great points.
...leave the letter and get to the spirit, crack the shells and eat the kernel of spiritual truth, and you will find that the points of agreement between genuine Christians are something marvelous. But this union is to be seen most plainly in union of heart . I am told that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that is true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians. Where the Spirit of God is there must be love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my Brother in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ compels me no more to think of him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints...
Believers address the Throne of Grace in the same style, whatever may be the particular form which their Church organization may have assumed. So is it with praise . There, indeed, we are as one, and our music goes up with sweet accord to the Throne of Heavenly Grace. Beloved, we are one in action; true Christians everywhere are all doing the same work. Here is a Brother preaching; I do not care about that white thing he has on, but if he is a genuine Christian, he is preaching Christ Crucified; and here am I, and he may not like me because I have not that white rag on, but still I delight to preach Christ Crucified. When you come to the real lifework of the Christian, it is the same in every case, it is holding up the Cross of Christ! - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons12.titlepage.html
but there are many Christians in the world preaching this and that and the other.†I am saying nothing of them or about them; I am saying nothing about their ecclesiastical belongings; I am saying nothing about those who merely cling to the Church; I am speaking of the Elect , the precious ones, the simpleminded Christ-taught men and women, and their motive of action is the same, and there is among them a true union which is the answer to our Lord’s prayer. He did not plead in vain—what He sought He has obtained—and the truly quickened are this day one, and shall evermore remain so.
Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines.
Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan; but I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his high Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul, and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like him. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did, and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not; there is no room for question, for I cannot help myself; unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love him. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 12, p. 6; http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols10-12/chs668.pdf)
Bkmk
BFL
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