Biography and testimony of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon
CHARLES HADDON
SPURGEON was born
Spurgeon describes the occasion as follows —
When he (the layman) 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 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: 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 Unto Me!' You have nothin' to do but to look and live." I saw at once the way of salvation.
Immediately after he was saved, Spurgeon began to work for the Master. A few months later he was baptized. Being born into a Congregationalist family, it took him a brief period to see his way clear as to the sacred ordinance. But when he did, he went to a Baptist church and was baptized. Mr Spurgeon said, "According to my reading of Holy Scripture, the believer in Christ should be buried with Him in baptism, and so enter upon his open Christian life." "I became a Baptist through reading the New Testament — especially in the Greek — and was strengthened in my resolve by a perusal of the Church of England Catechism, which declared as necessary to baptism, repentance and the forsaking of sin."
Spurgeon's godly mother later said to him, "Ah, Charles! I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you become a Baptist." Spurgeon could not resist the temptation to reply, "Ah, mother! The Lord has answered your prayer with His usual bounty, and given you exceeding abundantly above what you asked or thought."
In 1851, at the age of almost seventeen, Spurgeon preached his first sermon to a group of farmers and their wives, gathered in a small cottage. His text was 1 Peter 2:7 — "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious."
From then on, Spurgeon never ceased to preach
"Christ and Him Crucified," except when the physical afflictions he had to
endure [such as gout] were too sore for him to speak of write. From "The
Boy Preacher" in the villages, he became "The Boy Preacher" in
the great city of
Once he had begun his ministry in
Spurgeon was a noted British Baptist minister who preached to throngs of souls at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England (which held a total capacity of 6000 people, including Standing Room only). Greatly blessed by the Holy Spirit, his success and worldwide popularity were due in large measure to a genius intellect, natural gift of oratory, thoroughly biblical expository messages, along with the fervent prayers of his congregational Tabernacle members. Spurgeon's many writings and brilliant sermons are still widely published today, testifying to his TIMELESS APPEAL.
"The work done by C. H. Spurgeon cannot die. 'I beseech you,' Spurgeon once said, 'to live not only for this age, but for the next also. I would fling my shadow through eternal ages if I could.' He has done it. His work is as imperishable as the truth of God. His memory shall not fade like a vanishing star, nor his WORKS be forgotten like a dying echo. He will shine on, never ceasing to brighten human lives by the truth he preached, the work he accomplished, and the stainless life he lived."
The memory of Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been cherished among
evangelical Christians for over the past 100 years. Many Christian leaders
consider him to be the greatest preacher
Spurgeon in his autobiography described his gratefulness for being blessed with
such a praying church. "I always give all the glory to God, but I do not
forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying
people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared
determined to storm the
"In Spurgeon's eyes the prayer-meeting was the most important meeting of
the week." It is here many of us find ourselves in conflict with dear Mr.
Spurgeon. We love our meetings for preaching and praising and yet sadly neglect
those set aside for praying. One of Spurgeon's greatest concerns was that his
people learn to truly pray. "He taught his people to pray, doing so far
more by his example than by any preaching. People heard him pray with such
reality that they became ashamed of their own mere repetition of words."
Throughout his entire ministry many hearers remarked that they were moved by
his preaching, but yet still more affected by his praying. D. L. Moody after
his first visit to
Spurgeon fully recognized that the Church's greatest need was not to have
another, "Prince of Preachers", but to have more princes of prayer.
One of his many published sermons expressed his feelings on this. He wrote,
"Shall I give you yet another reason why you should pray? I have preached
my very heart out. I could not say any more than I have said. Will not your
prayers accomplish that which my preaching fails to do? Is it not likely that
the Church has been putting forth its preaching hand but not its praying hand?
Oh dear friends! Let us agonize in prayer . . . "
There has been much talk lately about pockets of revival springing up in our
nation. Many are saying they desire such revivals in our own local churches, and
cities. Yet, is it not the prayer-meeting which is still most neglected? If
Christ Jesus were to visit us today with real revival power, how could such a
blessing be sustained where there is no ground work
laid in prayer? To merely exercise our words about revival and not our knees is
hypocrisy! It is time to make the prayer-meeting as crowded as our favorite
preaching and praise meetings. It is then and ONLY then, that a true revival
will come with lasting power! Like Mr. Spurgeon, let us regard the prayer-meeting
as our most important meeting!
That Day of
Days
Can
you not remember, dearly-beloved, that day of days, that best and brightest of
hours, when first you saw the Lord, lost your burden, received the roll of
promise, rejoiced in full salvation, and went on your way in peace? My soul can
never forget that day. Dying, all but dead, diseased, pained, chained,
scourged, bound in fetters of iron, in darkness and the shadow of death, Jesus
appeared unto me. My eyes looked to Him; the disease was healed, the pains
removed, chains were snapped, prison doors were opened, darkness gave place to
light. What delight filled my soul! What mirth, what ecstasy, what sound of
music and dancing, what soaring towards Heaven, what heights and depths of
ineffable delight! Scarcely ever since then have I known joys, which surpassed
the rapture of that first hour.
The Just Ruler and The Unjust Rebel
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. The doctrine of the atonement is to
my mind one of the surest proofs of the Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture.
Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel?
This is no teaching of human mythology, or dream of poetical imagination. This
method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact: fiction could
not have devised it. God Himself ordained it; it is not a matter that could
have been imagined.
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. It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read
in Scripture that Jesus was declared to be the propitiation for sins that God
might be just. I believe it will have to come as a revelation to every newborn
child of God whenever he sees it; I mean that glorious doctrine of the
substitution of the Lord Jesus. I came to understand that salvation was
possible through vicarious sacrifice; and that provision had been made in the
first constitution and arrangement of things for such a substitution. I was
made to see that He who is the Son of God, co-equal, and co-eternal with the
Father, had of old been made the covenant Head of a chosen people, that He
might in that capacity suffer for them and save them. Inasmuch as our fall was
not at the first a personal one, for we fell in our representative, the first
Adam, it became possible for us to be recovered by a second Representative, even
by Him who has undertaken to be the covenant Head of His people, so as to be
their second Adam. I saw that, I had fallen by my first father's sin; and I
rejoiced that, therefore, it became possible in point of Law for me to rise by
a second Head and Representative. The fall by Adam left a loophole of escape;
another Adam could undo the ruin wrought by the first.
The Sinner's Friend
When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God pardoning me, I
understood and saw by faith that He who is the Son of God became Man, and in
His own blessed person bore my sin in His own body on the tree. I saw that the
chastisement of my peace was laid on Him, and that with His stripes I was
healed. It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person,
undertook to vindicate the Law by bearing the sentence due to me, which
therefore God was able to pass by my sin. My sole hope for Heaven lies in the
full atonement made upon
The doctrine of the cross can be used to slay sin, even as the old warriors
used their huge two-handed swords, and mowed down their foes at every stroke.
There is nothing like faith in the sinner's Friend: it overcomes all evil. If
Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I
cannot live in sin any longer, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who
has redeemed me. I cannot trifle with the evil that slew my best Friend. I must
be holy for His sake. How can I live in sin when He has died to save me from
it?
My Best Friend Murdered
There was a day, when I was walking, it came to mind,
forever engraved upon my memory, where I saw this Friend, my best, my only
Friend, murdered. I stooped down in shock, 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 clearly made 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 works did they kill Him? He had never breathed out anything
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 these traitors
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 one who had
indulged in vice or villainy, it might have been his desert, had it been a
murderer and 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 You were 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!
I Catch The
Murderer
And as I looked upon that corpse, I heard a footstep, and wondered where it
was. I listened, and I could tell 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 you now," said I, for
lo! He was in my own heart; the murderer was hiding within my own bosom,
dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul. Ah! Then I wept indeed, that I, in
the very presence of my murdered Master, should be harbouring
the murderer; and I felt myself most guilty while I bowed over His corpse, and
sang that plaintive hymn,
'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were;
each of my crimes became a nail,
and unbelief the spear.'
My sins were the scourges that lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned
with thorns those bleeding brows. My sins cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify
Him!" and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders. Him
being led to die is sorrow enough for eternity; but me having been His
murderer, is more, infinitely more grief than one poor fountain of tears can
express.
I thought Christ was cruel and
unkind
Ah, there are many men who are forgotten, despised, and trampled by their
fellows; but there never was a man who was so despised
as the Everlasting God has been! Many a man has been slandered and abused, but
never was man abused as God has been. Many have been treated cruelly and
ungratefully, but never was one treated as our God has been. I too, once
despised Him. He knocked at the door of my heart, and I refused to open it, He
came to me, times without number, morning by morning, and night by night; He
convicted me in my conscience, and spoke to me by His Spirit, and when, at
last, the thunders of the Law prevailed in my conscience, I thought that Christ
was cruel and unkind. Oh, I can never forgive myself that I should have thought
so ill of Him!
But what a loving reception did I have when I went to Him! I thought He would
thrash me, but His hand was not clenched in anger, but opened wide in mercy. I
thought for sure that His eyes would fire lightning-flashes of wrath upon me,
but instead they were full of tears. He fell upon my neck, and kissed me; He
took off my rags, and did clothe me with His righteousness, and caused my soul
to sing aloud for joy; while in the house of my heart, and in the house of His
Church, there was music and dancing, because His son that He had lost was
found, and he that had been dead was made alive again.
Is there power in the Gospel?
There is a power in God's Gospel beyond all description. Once I was lashed to
the wild horse of my lust, bound hand and foot, incapable of resistance,
galloping with Hell's wolves behind me, howling for my body and my soul as
their just and lawful prey. Then came a Mighty Hand
that stopped the wild horse, cut me free, set me down, and brought me into
liberty. Is there power in the Gospel? Ay, there is, and he who has felt it
must acknowledge it.
There was a time when I lived in the strong castle of my sins, and rested in my
own works. There came a trumpeter to the door, and bid me open it. I with anger
scolded him from the porch, and said he never should enter. Then there came a
goodly Personage, with loving countenance; His hands were marked with scars
where nails had been driven, and His feet had nail-prints, too. He lifted up
His cross, using it as a hammer; at the first blow, the gate of my prejudice
shook, at the second, it trembled more, at the third, down it fell, and in He
came; and He said,
"Arise, and stand upon your feet, for I have loved you with an everlasting
love."
The Gospel a thing of power! Ah! That it is. It always wears the dew of its
youth; it glitters with morning's freshness, its strength and its glory abide
forever. 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.
"His free grace alone, from the first to the last,
has won my affections, and bound my soul fast."
The Key: Believe and Live
The key to my conversion was making the discovery that I had nothing to do but
to look to Christ, and I would be saved. I believe that I had been a very good
attentive listener, my own impression about myself was
that nobody ever listened better than me. For years, as a child, I tried to
learn the way of salvation; and either I did not hear it set forth, which I
think cannot quite have been the case, or else I was spiritually blind and
deaf, and could not see it, and could not hear it. But the good news that I
was, as a sinner, to look away from myself to Christ, startled me, and came as
fresh, as any news I ever heard in my life. Had I never read my Bible? Yes, and
read it earnestly. Had I never been taught by Christian people? Yes I had, by
Mother, and Father, and others. Had I not heard the Gospel? Yes, I think I had;
and yet, somehow, it was like a new revelation to me that I was to
"believe and live."
I was tutored in piety, put into my cradle by prayerful hands, and lulled to
sleep by songs concerning Jesus; but after having heard the Gospel continually,
with line upon line, precept upon precept, here much and there much, yet, when
the Word of the Lord came to me with power, it was as new as if I had lived
amid the unvisited tribes of Central Africa, and had never heard the tidings of
the cleansing fountain filled with Blood, drawn from the Saviour's
veins.
The Word with Holy Spirit Power
When 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 it. But, on looking back, I am inclined to
believe that I had heard the Gospel fully preached many hundreds of times
before, and that the difference was the power of the Holy Spirit was present to
open my ear, and to guide the message to my heart. I have no doubt that I
heard, scores of times, such texts as these, "Look unto Me, and be ye
saved, all the ends of the earth," "As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," yet I had
no intelligent idea of what faith meant. When I first discovered what faith
really was, and exercised it, I believed as soon as ever I knew what believing
meant. The light was shining all the while, but there was no power to receive
it, the eyeball of the soul was not sensitive to the Divine beams.
Guilt Rolled Away
Previously I could not believe that it was possible that my sins could be forgiven.
I don't know why, but I seemed to be the odd one out. If God had saved me, and
not the world, I should have wondered indeed; but if He had saved the entire
world except me, that would have seemed to me to be right. And now, being saved
by grace, I cannot help saying, "I am indeed a branch plucked out of the
fire!" I believe that some of us who were kept by God a long while before
we found Him, love Him better perhaps than we should have done if we had
received Him earlier, and we can preach better to others, we can speak more of
His loving kindness and tender mercy. John Bunyan could not have written as he
did if he had not been dragged about by the Devil for many years. I love that
picture of dear old Christian. I know, when I first read The Pilgrim's
Progress, and saw the woodcut of Christian carrying the burden on his back, I
felt such sympathy for the poor fellow, that I thought I should jump with joy
when, after he had carried his heavy load 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.
Revealed Word Plus Preached
Word
Personally, I have to thank God for many Christian authors, but my gratitude
most of all is not for books, but for the preached Word addressed to me by a
poor, uneducated man, a man who had never received any training for the
ministry, and probably will never be heard of in this life, a man engaged in
business, no doubt of a humble kind, during the week, but who had just enough
of grace to say on the Sabbath,
"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."
The books were good, but the man was better. The revealed Word awakened me; but
it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value
to the hearing of the Truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my
soul delights. While under conviction, I decided to attend
all 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 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 Divine Sovereignty; I could
hear him with pleasure, but what was that sublime truth to a poor sinner who
wished to know what he must 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 practical preacher. I heard
him, but it was very much like a commanding officer teaching the manoeuvres of war to a set of men without feet. What could
I do? All his exhortations were lost on me.
How Can I Get My Sins Forgiven?
I knew it was said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," but I did not know what it was to
believe on Christ. These good men all preached truths 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. I desired to hear how a poor sinner, under a sense of sin, might
find peace with God; and when I went, I heard a sermon on, "Be not
deceived, God is not mocked," which cut me up even worse, but did not
bring me into rest. I went again, another day, and the text was something about
the glories of the righteous, 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 prayer to God, and
I am sure there was not a more attentive hearer than myself in all the place,
for I panted and longed to understand how I might be saved.
God-Sent Snowstorm
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 headache. The
minister did not come that morning; he was snowed-in, 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 right, but that didn't matter. There was, I
thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began,
"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
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 in the congregation,
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 worn my eyes out. 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
that looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before,
"Trust Christ, and you shall be saved." Yet it was, no doubt, all
wisely ordered, and now I can say,
'Ever since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die.'