Well, in our previous session, we looked at the childhood of Charles Spurgeon, and especially his first five years when he was living in his grandparents' house. We talked about some of the influences that exposed him to the gospel from the very beginning of his life. And so in this session, I want to talk about his conversion experience. It's extraordinary for someone who was nurtured and who grew up in the kind of environment that Spurgeon himself describes. It's unusual for him to have the kind of conversion experience that he describes. And I want to try to give you the flavor of just how extraordinary it was. Spurgeon himself said this about it. He asked, Had I never read the Bible? Yes, I read it earnestly. Had I never been taught by Christian people? Yes, I had, by my mother, my father, and others. Had I not heard the gospel? Yes, I think I had, and yet somehow, he says, it was like a new revelation to me that I was to believe and live. I confess to have been tutored in piety. Sorry. He says, I was put into my cradle by prayerful hands. I was lulled to sleep by songs about Jesus, but after having heard the gospel continually with line upon line and precept upon precept, here much and there much, yet, he says, when the word of the Lord came to me with power, it was as if I had lived among the unvisited tribes of Central Africa. He's saying that on his conversion, he understood the gospel really for the very first time. It was as if he'd never heard it before. From childhood until the end of his life, Spurgeon regarded his conversion as a marvel and a miracle. And if you listen to him describe it, and he gave his testimony frequently, in every case, if you heard him give his testimony, you would have thought that prior to his conversion, he must have been living the life of an absolute derelict until the Lord snatched him like a brand from the fire. Thank you. Sorry. And in reality, that is what it seemed like to him. So I want you to hold that thought in your mind, and we'll come back to it. But first, I want to give you a little background about Spurgeon as a teenager, so that you can see that he was never actually at any point in his life very far away from the gospel. And yet, in his own tortured teenage soul, He sensed correctly that he was very far from heaven and on his way to hell. There's a line in Spurgeon's favorite book, The Pilgrim's Progress. In fact, it's the penultimate sentence at the very end of the book, second to the last line in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, where Pilgrim says, then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gate of heaven. Spurgeon always kept that perspective, knowing that although he had every advantage grace could afford, he could easily have gone to hell. He knew he never would have responded to the gospel if God himself had not sovereignly opened his eyes and drawn him to Christ and let him see what he was prior to that spiritually blind and could not see. So let's talk about Spurgeon as a teenager. And I want you to try to get a sense of how he thought and what was going on in his heart and his mind. during those early teenage years. In our first session, I mentioned yesterday that before he was even converted, he wrote a critique of Roman Catholicism. It was titled Antichrist and Her Brood, subtitled Popery Unmasked, and it was a critique of Catholic doctrine that actually showed a fairly sound understanding of the gospel. The manuscript still exists, and if you'd read it, you would think this had to have been written by a converted person. He wrote this book, though, at least a year before his conversion experience. He was just 15 years old at the time, and it's a pretty impressive volume. Here's a description of that book from Spurgeon's biography. Now, this section of what's called the autobiography, I mentioned that it's actually a scrapbook that was pieced together after he died, and sections of it were written by someone other than him. So it's not a true autobiography. And this particular section was written either by Mrs. Spurgeon or perhaps, maybe even more likely, by Spurgeon's secretary, a man named Joseph W. Harold. You'll hear his name frequently. Joseph Harold was literally Spurgeon's right-hand man. He sat with him in the study. and did secretarial work and kept records and all of that. A very important man, Joseph Harold, spelled H-A-R-R-A-L-D if you want to write it down. Anyway, he says in Spurgeon's autobiography, quote, in the library at Westwood, Westwood is the name of Spurgeon's home, so in the library at his home, very carefully preserved is a bound volume containing 295 manuscript pages Lettered on the back, Spurgeon's Potpourri Unmasked. And on the front outside cover is a red leather label with the following words printed upon it in gold letters, thus, Antichrist and Her Brood, or Potpourri Unmasked by C.H. Spurgeon at the age of 15. So this is a nearly 300-page manuscript, and Spurgeon described it as his holiday pastime as a 15-year-old. He wrote it as an entry in an essay contest that was sponsored by a businessman in England, a man named Arthur Morley, who lived in Nottingham, England. And the assignment apparently was just to write an essay on Roman Catholicism, which that's supposed to be a simple paper. An essay, actually I wrote an, I entered an essay contest when I was the same age. And I think my essay, which actually won me a scholarship, was only three pages when I finished it. This is 300 pages. And it's a massive tome, especially for a 15-year-old. And as far as I know, it's never been published. And I don't know where the manuscript is today. I suspect it's in Kansas City with the rest of Spurgeon's books or if it still exists at all, but it was bound and preserved and it survived even after Spurgeon's death. And most of the biographies that were written about him mentioned this manuscript. It's actually an important piece of work. And the autobiography includes the full table of contents. The manuscript has 17 chapters with I don't know if you can read that, but this is the table of contents. 17 chapters with titles like, these are just a few of the titles, but you can see them up there. Potpourri, the apostate spirit. Potpourri, a massive superstition. Potpourri, a complicated idolatry with a focus on the worship of the Virgin Mary. And chapter 11, Potpourri teaches the adoration of a bread and God, because he's talking about the Catholic mass and the bread that's used in the mass, which is treated as the literal flesh of Christ as God. And they bow to it and all. So Spurgeon points that out, how the Catholic mass is a superstitious ceremony. And then, Also, Potpourri, the inventor of a false purgation. He's talking there about purgatory. And my personal favorite is chapter 15. Potpourri, a gigantic horse leech. And here's a lengthy quotation from the book, chapter three. He writes, God addresses his gospel to sinners as such in order that hearing and believing it, sinners may be saved. But the church of Rome exercises her authority to prevent as far as she is able, the word of God from reaching the ears of sinners. She allows it to be addressed only to such as will thereby receive an increase of faith and piety, that is, to persons who are already faithful and pious in some degree, and thus the Catholic Church proves herself to be in league with Satan for the purpose of keeping men under the bondage of sin to the everlasting ruin of their souls. Now notice, Spurgeon is correct in every criticism he makes of the Roman Catholic system. And he says enough to prove that he is familiar with the language of justification by faith and the core gospel truths. He talks about believing and being saved. So in his head, The words are there that frame the gospel, but he's not a believer yet. And he expressly says that through hearing and believing the gospel, sinners are saved. He understood that, at least intellectually. But it's a remarkable fact that when Spurgeon wrote those words, he himself did not yet understand from any personal conversion experience, he didn't understand what it means to hear and believe the gospel. He had not yet grasped how simple the gospel truth is. And he was in some ways, Spurgeon, when he wrote this, was in some ways just as confused as the Pope himself. And incidentally, I don't know who won the essay contest that he entered, but there's this note inside, inscribed in Spurgeon's own handwriting, explaining what the manuscript is and why he wrote it. The note says, written in the November and December of 1849 as a kind of holiday amusement and sent to Mr. Ward and company on occasion of a competition for a prize offered by Mr. Morley of Nottingham. Although the writer had scarcely a distant prospect of success, he received two years later the following note, and then below that is a note from G. Smith, who was a congregational minister in London And the note from Reverend Smith is addressed to Spurgeon. It says this. Dear sir, am I in the right place? Yes. I'll read this to you, because it's difficult to read the handwriting. Dear sir, you were one of the competitors for a prize to be awarded for an approved essay on potpourri. Your paper is not deemed entitled to the premium, but, The gentleman who offered it and who is a relative of mine, in approval of your zeal and in the hope that you may yet employ your talents for the public good, had requested me to offer you a gratuity. Now, Spurgeon doesn't disclose how much this gratuity was, but it was a sizable gift of money. It was not the prize that they had offered for a short essay, but it seems to have been a much more sizable amount. And Reverend Smith continues, if you will tell me how you wish the money to be sent, it will be conveyed to you and your manuscript shall be returned in any way you direct. I remain yours truly, G. Smith." Now, let me set the scene for you for Charles' conversion to Christ. You can see, even from this manuscript, Spurgeon's obvious interest in spiritual matters, including a profound concern for spiritual things and sound doctrine and biblical accuracy and truth in general. He valued all of those things on an, at least in an intellectual sense. Remember that he had taken a remarkable interest in his grandfather's Puritan library starting at the age of four and five. And the mere fact that he could write such a thorough critique of Roman Catholicism shows pretty clearly that he did have an intellectual awareness of gospel language and gospel themes and certain gospel doctrines. He knew hymns that contained the gospel message because he'd memorized them for his grandmother. The gospel preaching of both his father and his grandfather, he had been exposed to many, many times. But somehow, the message of the gospel had not yet penetrated his heart, and even at that age, Spurgeon himself knew it. In fact, he had known it for some time. When Spurgeon was about 10 or 11 years old, he began to be deeply convicted by the strong realization that he did not have a saving knowledge of Christ. He set out on a quest for salvation that lasted five years. This was an amazing and agonizing time of life for him because these were issues that Spurgeon regarded with far more seriousness than any other boy his age. And the knowledge that he himself was not even a true Christian, this is something that weighed on him like a great burden that he perpetually carried around. But he carried it privately. He didn't tell anybody that this was his concern. One of his biographers, W.Y. Fullerton, you'll hear quite a lot from Fullerton. I'm going to quote from him many times. He was also a friend of Spurgeon's, and he wrote one of the earliest biographies of Spurgeon. And he said this about those years of Spurgeon's searching for salvation. Fullerton writes, Into those years was crowded a world of experience, which enabled him in his subsequent ministry to probe the secrets of many hearts. He had learned more of the things that matter in those years than most men learn in a lifetime. That one so young, so sheltered, trained from his babyhood in the ways of God that he could have felt so much and had such exercise of soul might have seemed impossible. His own account of his darkness and despair may appear exaggerated, but those who are versed in the ways of God will understand. In other words, this was a profound weight that Spurgeon carried around, and it is hard to conceive that someone at such a young age, beginning when he was 10 years old, could think so seriously and with so much profound concern in his own soul about these things. It's remarkable. Here's what Spurgeon himself said about those dark days of conviction. He wrote this, quote, 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 honor of God's name and the integrity of his moral government. He says, 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 primitive tribesman. The light was there, but I was blind. It was of necessity that the Lord himself should make the matter plain to me. And by the way, this is one of the reasons Spurgeon was almost from the start, really not just almost, but from the beginning of his conversion, he was a convinced Calvinist, believing that God is sovereign in the salvation of an individual, because he understood that he had tried by sheer force of his own willpower to come to salvation, to come to an understanding of the gospel. And he realized that when it finally happened, it had to be God who had sovereignly opened his eyes. And listen to the poetic way Spurgeon describes the sense of guilt that he felt during this time. He's carrying around this load, this burden, a personal feeling of his own guiltiness. He writes, quote, There was a day as I took my walks abroad when I came hard by a spot forever engraven upon my memory, for there I saw this friend, my best, my only friend, murdered. I stooped down in sad affright and looked at him. I saw that his hands had been pierced with rough iron nails and his feet had been rent in the same way. There was misery in his dead countenance, so terrible that I scarcely dared to look upon it. His body was emaciated with hunger. His back was red with bloody scourges, and his brow had a circle of wounds about it. Clearly could one see that these had been pierced by thorns. I shuddered, for I had known this friend full well. He never had a fault. He was the purest of the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured him? For he never injured any man. All his life long, he went about doing good. He had healed the sick. He had fed the hungry. He had raised the dead. For which of these did they kill him? He had never breathed out anything else but love. And as I looked into the poor, sorrowful face, so full of agony and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been a wretch so vile as to pierce hands like his? I said within myself, where can this traitor live? Who are these that could have smitten such a one as this? Had they murdered an oppressor, we might have forgiven them. Had they slain someone who had indulged in vice or villainy, it might have been his dessert. Had it been a murderer or a rebel or one who had committed sedition, we would have said, bury his corpse. Justice has at last given him his due, but When thou wast slain, my best, my only beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me seize them, and they shall be put to death. If there be torments that I can devise, surely they shall endure them all. Oh, what jealousy, what revenge I felt. If I might but find these murderers, what would I not do with them? And as I looked upon that corpse, I heard a footstep, and I wondered where it was. I listened. I clearly perceived that the murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find him. I found that somehow or other, wherever I put out my hand, I could not meet with him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go. At last, I put my hand upon my breast. I have thee now, I said, for lo, he was in my own heart. The murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul. Then I wept that I, in the very presence of my murdered master, should be harboring the murderer. And I felt myself most guilty when I bowed over his corpse. That's his poetic way of saying that he felt personally responsible for the death of Christ, because as sinners, that's how we all should see it, right? It was our sin that put him on the cross. And Spurgeon, even as a young boy, understood that. As a man, he describes it in a very poetic way, but you can sense the depth of feeling in his heart as he says these things. Elsewhere, he says this, and let me preface this by saying, Mazepa, do you know who Mazepa is? Okay, he's a European character. He was a 17th century Ukrainian warrior who, according to legend, was punished by being lashed to a wild horse and the horse was turned loose. And in fact, a generation before Spurgeon, Lord Byron had written a poem that rather vividly describes the trauma of the punishment of Mezepa. And that's what Spurgeon's referring to in the quote I'm about to read. Spurgeon says this, quote, there's a power in God's gospel beyond all description. Once I, like Mezepa, lashed to the wild horse of my lust bound hand and foot, incapable of resistance, was galloping on with hell's wolves behind me, howling for my body and my soul as their just and lawful prey. There came a mighty hand which stopped that wild horse, cut my bands, set me down and brought me into liberty. Is there power in the gospel? Yes, there is. I have felt its power in my own heart. I have the witness of the Spirit within my spirit, and I know it is a thing of might because it has conquered me and bowed me down. Now, Spurgeon's mother was the one responsible for first awakening him to the claims of Christ on his life. He said many times that her prayers and her exhortations left an indelible impact on him as a young boy. Spurgeon's father actually played a lesser role in his children's spiritual instruction, even though he was the pastor. And you might say the same thing about Spurgeon's grandfather, who nurtured him through his first six years. He didn't really evangelize young Spurgeon. I mean, he exposed him to the gospel. He sat under Spurgeon's preaching, but I don't think his grandfather ever confronted him personally about the state of his soul, nor did his father, but his mother did, and she prayed for him. And Spurgeon's father, John Spurgeon, admitted that his wife, more than he, was responsible for the children's spiritual instruction. In fact, John Spurgeon used to recount an incident when he was on his way to a preaching engagement and he became convicted about the fact that he was caring for other people and neglecting his own family using the busyness of ministry as a, I don't know, an excuse perhaps, or at least a distraction that kept him away from his own children and their needs. And so he turned around and went back home on his way to a a religious meeting, but when he got home, he heard Mrs. Spurgeon inside praying for her children's conversion, and John Spurgeon decided that his children's spiritual welfare was in good hands, and so he returned to the religious meeting that he had left, and he says he wasn't troubled about it again. I don't recommend that. In fact, you might be tempted to think that John Spurgeon was inattentive or compassionless, not a great father, but I don't think that's the case either. I don't want to overplay it. It's not that he was uninvolved in his children's lives. That's not really the case. I just think like many ministers, the priorities of ministry sometimes crowded out the more important priorities of his own family's needs. Fullerton tells this story about John Spurgeon and his relationship with Charles. Fullerton says, when the young boy, Charles, returned home from his grandfather's house, so he's six years old, he comes home, he greatly scandalized the congregation on Sunday by singing the last line of each verse twice. His father took him to task. But Charles said his grandfather did it and he was going to do it too. So apparently that was the custom in his grandfather. So we have a similar custom at least in America. I think it's universal in America where the worship leaders never let the song end. They always sing the last verse like four or five times. It's the most annoying thing to me because I'm wanting to get up there and preach. And they're singing the last verse over and over. And I'm like, end this song. We came to the end of it. And I think something like that was, nothing personal meant there. You haven't been doing that, so I can say that. But I think something like that was going on in Spurgeon's grandfather's church, where they would actually sing the last line of each verse of the hymn twice. I don't know why, but that was the custom. And little Charles said he would do it. And where was I? So his father told him that if he did this again, and I'm reading again from Fullerton, if he did it again, the father would give him a whipping that he would remember as long as he lived. So he sounds like he's quite angry about this. But Sunday came, and again, the boy sang the last lines twice. And Fullerton says, it must have been amusing because Spurgeon had no singing voice. After the service, his father asked him if he remembered what he had said. The boy said he remembered. So the father and son then walked into the woods, passing a wheat field on the way, the father trying to win his son to repentance, and then they kneeled and prayed together, and both were greatly moved, Fullerton says. Turning back to the wheat field, the father picked a stalk of wheat and told Charles to hold out his hand And then the wheat stalk was laid gently across it. John Spurgeon said, I told you I would give you a whipping you would never forget. You'll never forget that. The gentle sternness of the punishment broke him down and won him over, and he never forgot it. So that's Fullerton's account. I don't think John Spurgeon is the perfect model of a father engaged in his children's spiritual instruction. But you can tell he was a compassionate man. He loved his children. He was as good a father as you can expect a pastor to be, I suppose. But nothing in any of Charles Spurgeon's comments about his father ever suggests that he regarded his father as sinfully aloof or apathetic. Remember, John Spurgeon was a bivocational pastor for many years, which means he had a job during the week in addition to his pastoral work. And he was simultaneously the head clerk in a shipping office of a coal company. And he was also the teaching pastor of a sizable congregation at Tollesbury. And he also did some itinerant preaching during the week. And he bore the burden of providing for a large family. None of that was unusual in those days. And it seems clear that there was always a great deal of affection between Charles Spurgeon and his father. Spurgeon never expressed any regret or criticism about his home life or his parents' instruction and influence. He wrote this, in fact, quote, this is Charles Spurgeon. I was privileged with godly parents. I was watched with jealous eyes. I was scarcely ever permitted to mingle with questionable associates. I was warned not to listen to anything profane or licentious, and I was taught the way of God from my youth up." He's saying he had a good, healthy, well-rounded education in spiritual things, both from his grandfather and his parents. Incidentally, John Spurgeon, Spurgeon's father, outlived his famous son by a full decade. He ultimately became a full-time pastor, and he shepherded four different congregations across a long career. Anyway, every evening, Mrs. Spurgeon would gather her children around the table and read scripture to them. She would explain it to them verse by verse, and Spurgeon said she used to pray like this. These are the exact words he records. She would pray, now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they do not lay hold of Christ. Spurgeon said, the thought of his own mother bearing witness against him ate at his conscience. He didn't want her to have to do that. And as I said, he began to develop a keen sense of his own guilt before God by the time he was just 10 or 11 years old. The thing that burdened him so much was this clear understanding that when he sinned, it dishonored God. It wasn't the feeling of guilt that troubled him. It wasn't the punishments he would get if he got caught. It was the sense that his sin dishonored God. It's a very mature way of looking at sin and guilt. And he seems not to have suffered from the common human failure that most of us commit where we compare ourselves to one another so that we look good by comparison. But even as a child, sorry, Even as a child, Charles Spurgeon knew better than to judge himself by comparison to other people. He wrote this, quote, I could not believe that it was possible that my sins could be forgiven. I do not know why, but I seemed to be the odd person in the world. When the catalog was made out, it appeared to me that for some reason, I must have been left out. If God had saved me and not the world, I should have wondered indeed, but if he had saved all the world except me, that would have seemed to me to be right. And now, being saved by grace, he says, I cannot help saying, I am indeed a brand plucked out of the fire. Now, I don't think any of us would describe Charles Spurgeon as a brand plucked out of the fire. We usually use that kind of language for someone who's lived the long life as a derelict and finally comes to salvation near the end. Spurgeon was the opposite, but that's the way he describes himself, a brand plucked from the fire. That also explains why Spurgeon, despite his upbringing in a pastor's home, despite the fact that he never seems to have succumbed to any kind of gross or life-destroying sin, nonetheless, he retained until the end of his life this very keen sense that he was nothing but a horrible sinner. Even though he was converted at such a young age, he included himself among those who, and these are his words, he was kept by God for a long time before he found God. Those are his exact words. And in his mind, those years, five years of carrying the burden of his own sin seemed like an eternity. and he retained the fresh memory of that guilt, that feeling of oppression by the guilt of his sin. He kept that until the end of his life. He therefore felt a close kinship with people who were converted to Christ after a long time in the depths of sin. He wrote this, quote, John Bunyan could not have written as he did if he had not been dragged about by the devil for many years. He says, I love that picture of dear old Christian. I know when I first read the Pilgrim's Progress and saw in it the woodcut of Christian carrying the burden on his back, I felt so interested in the poor fellow that I thought I should jump with joy when after he had carried his heavy load for so long, he at last got rid of it. And that was how I felt when the burden of guilt, which I had borne so long, was forever rolled away from my shoulders and my heart. I'm going to move this up so it doesn't keep making noise. Now it's going to rub my beard. All right, anyway, during all those five years of guilt, wrestling with his guilt, Spurgeon was exposed to a lot of preaching about the law of God and sin and guilt, and this only intensified his woes. This was a style of preaching that was popular at the time. He records that the books he read during that time included Philip Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, Richard Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, Joseph Alain's Alarm to Sinners, and John Angel James' book, The Anxious Inquirer. All of those books, all of them are designed to convict overconfident people. In fact, I guarantee you read any of those, and all of those books are still available today. Read any one of them, and you will come out doubting your own salvation. because the tests, the biblical tests that they put on us to see if our faith is genuine, none of us can pass those tests perfectly. And Spurgeon felt the weight of that. All of those books written to convict overconfident people, it was the last thing Spurgeon needed to read. He said this, it was like sitting at the foot of Sinai. And Fullerton adds this. He says, he read the Bible through, but he found that its threatenings seemed to be printed in capitals and its promises printed in small type. With perverse ingenuity, he twisted everything in scripture to his own hurt. He applied the cheering words to others, but the woeful words to himself. Spurgeon said this about it. Writing about the turmoil he experienced, he described it like this, quote, day and night, God's hand was heavy on me. If I slept a night, I dreamed of the bottomless pit. And when I awoke, I seemed to feel the misery I had dreamed. Up to God's house I went, my song was but a sigh. To my chamber I retired, and there, with tears and groans, I offered up my prayer without a hope and without a refuge. For God's law was flogging me with its ten-thronged whip, and then rubbing me with brine afterwards, so that I did shake and quiver with pain and anguish. On the other hand, People who knew Spurgeon, those who were closest to him at that time, including his parents and grandparents, not one of them was aware of the inner turmoil. Fullerton says this, quote, he lived two lives, one keen, natural, bookish, observant, the other absorbed, fearful, doubting, insurgent. Fullerton says if he had spoken of his trouble, there were those around him who could help. But he battled alone, hiding his thoughts from everyone, except for once when he spoke to his grandfather about the fear of being a lost soul, and he was somewhat comforted for a while. But he would not believe because others believed. He must have an assurance of his own. He would not rest until he knew. Now, why he didn't talk to his parents or his grandparents, who he knew might have given him help and counsel from Scripture? He explained it this way, he wrote, quote, children are very often reticent to their parents. Often and often, I have spoken with young lads about their souls, and they have told me they could not talk to their fathers about such matters. Spurgeon says, I know it was such with me. When I was under concern of soul, the last persons I should have elected to speak upon religion would have been my parents. Not through want of love to them, nor absence of love on their part, but so it was. And he describes his frustration during those days this way, quote, While under concern of soul, I resolved that I would attend all of the places of worship in the town where I lived in order that I might find out the way of salvation. I was willing to do anything and be anything if God would only forgive my sin. I set off, determined to go round to all the chapels, and I did go to every place of worship, but for a long time I went in vain. I do not, however, blame the ministers. One man preached on divine sovereignty. I could hear him with pleasure, but what was that sublime truth 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 plowing up ground that needed to be sown? Another was a 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 of his exhortations were lost on me. Spurgeon says, I knew it. I knew it was said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. But I didn't know what it was to believe on Christ. These good men all preached truths that are suited to many in their congregations who were spiritually minded people. But what I wanted to know was, how can I get my sins forgiven? And they never told me that. He says, I desired to hear how a poor sinner under a sense of sin might find peace with God. And when I went, I'd hear a sermon on be not deceived, God is not mocked, which cut me up still worse and did not bring me into rest. I went again another day and the text was something about the glories of the righteous, but nothing for poor me. I was like a dog under the table, not allowed to eat of the children's food. I went time after time, and I can honestly say that I do not know that I ever went without a prayer to God, and I am sure there was not a more attentive hearer than myself in the place, for I panted and longed to understand how I might be saved. Now, I think it's likely that Spurgeon's church hopping probably exposed him to some really bad preaching. but he was careful not to lay the blame on the preachers. He wrote this, quote, when for the first time I received the gospel to my soul's salvation, I thought that I had never really heard it before. And I began to think that the preachers to whom I had listened had not truly preached the gospel. But I'm looking back, I'm inclined to believe that I had heard the gospel fully preached many hundreds of times before, and that this was the difference. that I then heard it as though I heard it not, and when I did hear it, the message may not have been any more clear itself than it was at former times, but the power of the Holy Spirit was present to open my ear and to guide my message to my heart. There you hear him describing why he took a Calvinistic view of salvation. He knew that if God had not awakened him to hear, he never would have heard the gospel, no matter how many times it was preached to him. And his conversion came through the most unlikely circumstances. One Sunday morning, while Spurgeon was in this phase of sampling various churches, there was a terrible snowstorm that virtually shut down the city of Colchester, which is where he lived and was going. The date actually can be determined with absolute precision because this was the storm of the century, and it's recorded in all the records. It was January 6th. 1850, and the snowstorm grew worse just as Spurgeon began to make his way to church. He records what happened. Quote, 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. This is a picture of the chapel. as it appears in Spurgeon's autobiography. It's actually tucked in behind that other building, you see. That's not part of the church. The church is back off the street. So as you walk by on the sidewalk, it's not perfectly obvious that there is a church back there. It's a remarkable providence that Spurgeon found this church when he did at the peak of a blinding snowstorm. I've actually been to this chapel. It's still there. It looks almost exactly the same today. In fact, there it is. You see the false peaked roof over the entryway. and the distinctive shape of the upper windows. And once you get inside, it looks the same also. You can see on that side wall, there's a plaque next to the window. You might think it's another window, but that's a large stone plaque that is placed along that wall. It's a commemorative monument that was installed five years after Spurgeon died. And in fact, here's what it looks like in real life. It says, near this spot on 6 January 1850, Pastor C.H. Spurgeon found peace through Christ as described in his own words. And then it quotes from a sermon that Spurgeon preached in the New Park Street pulpit in London exactly six years to the day after his conversion. It was also the first anniversary of his ministry in London. And here's what the plaque says in Spurgeon's own words. Seeking rest and finding none, I stepped within the house of God and sat there, afraid to look upward, lest I should be utterly cut off. and lest his fierce wrath should consume me, the minister rose in his pulpit, and as I have done this morning, read his text, look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. I looked that moment, the grace of faith was vouchsafed to me in the self-same instant, and now I think I can say with truth, ever since by faith I saw the stream, his flowing wound supply, redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die. Spurgeon continues with his testimony. He says this, in that chapel, there may have been a dozen or 15 people. In other words, not a very big crowd in there. And I had heard of the primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people's heads ache, but that didn't matter to me. He said, 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 didn't come that morning. He was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker or a tailor or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. And Spurgeon says, 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 saved all the ends of the earth. Spurgeon says, he didn't 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 this way, my dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, look now, look and don't take a great deal of pains. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger. It's 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. I, he said in broad Essex, many a year look into yourselves, but there's no use looking there. You'll never find any comfort in yourself. Some look to God the Father. No, look to him by and by. Jesus Christ says, look unto me. Some of you say, we must wait for the spirits working. You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, look unto me. Spurgeon says, 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 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 sitting at the Father's right hand. Oh, poor sinner, look unto me, look unto me. And Spurgeon says, when he had gone to about that length and managed to spin out 10 minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery. Spurgeon was sitting in the back under the balcony. He says, I dare say with so few people present, he knew me to be a stranger. And then just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart, he said, young man, you look very miserable. Well, I did, Spurgeon says, but I was not accustomed to having remarks made from the pulpit about my personal appearance. However, it was a good blow and it 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 now obey this moment, you will be saved. And 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 to look and live. And Spurgeon says, I saw it once, the way of salvation. I don't know what else he said. I didn't 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. And so it was with me. I had been waiting to do 50 things. But when I heard that word, look, What a charming word it seemed to me. I looked until I almost could have looked my eyes away, and then and there 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 said his burden was immediately lifted, and he was filled with a joy that he'd never before known. These are his exact words. I thought I could dance all the way home. I understood what John Bunyan meant when he declared that he wanted to tell the crows on the plowed land all about his conversion. He was too full to hold. He must tell somebody. Now, here's a bit from Spurgeon's written testimony that I want to read because it sums up the gospel so well. As he's giving his testimony, he includes this. He says, I've always considered with Luther and Calvin that the sum and substance of the gospel lies in that word substitution. Christ standing in the stead of men. If I understand the gospel, it's this. I deserve to be lost forever. The only reason why I should not be damned is that Christ was punished in my stead. And there's no need to execute a sentence twice for sin. On the other hand, I know I cannot enter heaven unless I have a perfect righteousness. And I am absolutely certain that I shall never have a perfect righteousness of my own, for I sin every day. But then Christ had a perfect righteousness. And he said, there, poor sinner, take my garment and put it on. You shall stand before God as if you were Christ, and I will stand before God as if I had been the sinner. I will suffer in the sinner's stead, and you shall be rewarded for works that you did not do, but which I did for you. Spurgeon said, I find it very convenient every day to come to Christ as a sinner, just same way I came at the first. You're no saint, says the devil. Well, I'm not. I'm a sinner. And Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, I go to him. Other hope, I have none. By looking to him, I received all the faith which inspired me with confidence in his grace, and the word that first drew my soul, look unto me, still rings its clarion note in my ears. There I once found conversion, and there I shall ever find refreshing and renewal. Now, Spurgeon began preaching almost immediately after his conversion. As I said, he was converted on January 6th, 1850. Exactly five years and one day later, he preached his first sermon as a pastor of the congregation that he would then shepherd until the day he died. He never attended any university or seminary. He seems to have sprung full grown into maturity as a preacher and a theologian. But the truth is there were many circumstances arranged by Providence that made Spurgeon what he was. There was his father's and his grandfather's influence, of course. There were all those Puritan works that he'd been reading ever since he was a child. But still none of that fully explains Spurgeon's extraordinary life and ministry. Ephesians chapter four tells us that evangelists, pastors, and teachers are gifts from Christ to the church. Those aren't, the gifts there are not the office. He's not saying I'm giving you the office of pastor as a gift. He's saying that the pastor, the man who leads and teaches the church, he is a gift from Christ to the church. And Spurgeon was quite simply a very special gift from Christ to the church during a time when the church desperately needed a voice like his. Someone who was tireless and bold and uncompromising and full of wisdom and refused to get involved in petty disagreements and things like that, but just devoted himself to Christ with a deep and abiding love for scripture and a burning passion to see souls saved. Those are the elements of a fruitful ministry. And as we're going to see, And we'll see this, especially tomorrow, by the way. I have two more messages today with a lot of biographical information. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about Spurgeon's conflicts that he dealt with and the struggle he faced with depression. We'll talk about all that tomorrow. But I want to continue the biographical material today. But you're going to see that what makes Spurgeon stand out is that he stood firm in an era when other leading pastors all around him were selling out, selling out to modernism. At the time of his death, Spurgeon was completely worn out, totally spent, tired, discouraged, burdened with a wish that he could do more but without the strength to do it. And yet, I believe his greatest and most enduring legacy has been to many generations, including ours. clearly see that he was right to fight the drift of modernism. He's an example to us because of his steadfast refusal to buckle under to worldly pressures and internal conflicts in the church. None of these things deterred him from doing what he was supposed to do. And he has left us an example and lots of teaching that if the Lord delays his return, will continue for many generations yet to come to influence the church for good. In our next session, we're going to talk about Spurgeon's early ministry and the remarkable story of how just five years after he was converted, he became the most sought after preacher in the world's most important city. We'll take it up from there next time. All right, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the work of the spirit that does open our eyes and convert us and Change us, Lord, we pray that we might be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It may not be as dramatic as what we see in Spurgeon. but we have access to the same power through the Holy Spirit, and we pray, Lord, that we would be submissive and devoted to your word and to take spiritual matters as seriously as Spurgeon did, that we might be as useful to you as he was. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.