The time, a Sunday morning in January, 1850. The place, Colchester, England. A fifteen year old son and grandson of Congregationalist ministers left home to attend worship. A sudden snowstorm turned him away from his original destination to a small Primitive Methodist Chapel. He hesitated for a minute, reluctant to worship with a sect that, as he later put it, had "a reputation for singing so loudly that they made people's heads hurt." But the lad went in anyway. There were perhaps fifteen people in attendance. The preacher's text was Isaiah 45:22: "Look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth." The young man understood the words to be directed at him and responded positively. Testifying to his conversion experience, he later stated, "The cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and at that moment I saw the sun." Years later, a tablet was placed on the wall of that chapel. It read, "Near this spot C. H. Spurgeon looked and lived."

Charles Hadden Spurgeon, to use his full name, soon became an earnest Bible student. As a result, he wrote his mother, "Conscience has convinced me that it is a duty to be buried with Christ in baptism . . . ." This led him to present himself for baptism in a local Baptist church. His mother wrote back, "Charles, I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you might become a Baptist."

Spurgeon soon responded to God's call to the ministry. His first congregation met in a thatched building in a village just outside Cambridge. Large crowds came to hear him. In less than two years, he was called to pastor the New Park Street Baptist Chapel in the south part of London. The church was historic in English Baptist life but had fallen on hard times. This changed almost immediately. Spurgeon pastored this church, under two different names, until his death in 1892. Seven years after becoming pastor, the church built a large building, called the Metropolitan Tabernacle, to seat the thousands of Londoners and others, including many tourists, who crowded in to hear Spurgeon preach. Persons of all classes and creeds came to hear him. It is estimated that Spurgeon preached to over ten million people in his lifetime. He was the author of scores of books, and thousands of his printed sermons, translated into at least forty languages, were read all over the world.

Spurgeon was, by the judgment of supporter and critic alike, the foremost preacher and orator of his time. According to UT Austin history professor Patricia Kruppa, Spurgeon "played a significant part in the history of Victorian England . . . ." His life and work continue to influence Christian leaders today, especially evangelical Calvinists. One can find many of Spurgeon's writings and sermons on the Internet.

The secret of Spurgeon's success was not education, as he did not pursue schooling beyond the secondary level. It was not theological sophistication. He interpreted the Bible literally and held it to be without error of any kind. He espoused a moderate Calvinism which left room for a strong evangelistic emphasis in his preaching. He once replied to a man who was concerned if he were among the elect with these words, "I can tell you, if you are willing to be a Christian, you are elected."

The life and work of Spurgeon, at first glance, might seem to have little to say to progressive Christians in the closing years of the twentieth century. Spurgeon was a fundamentalist before the term was coined. He denounced the social gospel which was beginning to be fashionable toward the end of his life. His preaching style was a bit on the sensationalist side, especially for his time, and was characterized by racy and colloquial language. Yet, Spurgeon, according to the testimony of those who knew him, had what Christ calls all of his followers to have, a genuine love for people. In spite of Spurgeon's attitude toward the social gospel, he organized orphanages and other philanthropic institutions. His caring led a twentieth-century theologian to write, "Critics ought to see in this man Spurgeon the shepherd who was content to allow his robes . . . to be torn to tatters by the sharp thorns and stones as he clambered after the lost sheep . . . . "

More important, Spurgeon embodied in his life and ministry the great doctrine that his Calvinist forebears had believed and preached, that it is because of God' s grace that we have our beings, both temporal and eternal. No other explanation than the grace of God can account for Spurgeon's remarkable career. This even applies to his physical appearance. Spurgeon was far from handsome, but one who knew him once commented that the great preacher was "an ugly man made beautiful by the grace of God."

There is no better news for believers and seekers alike than that God graciously offers salvation to a sinful humanity that does not deserve it. This was Spurgeon's great theme. He once wrote, "What then must that grace be that produces such blessed transformations? The wonderful phenomena of ravens turned to doves, and lions into lambs, the marvelous transformations of moral character . . . wrought by the Gospel, these are our witnesses, and they are unanswerable."

In closing, let us meditate on the words of this verse from a poem by Spurgeon titled, "A Morning Prayer."

"Oh, hear us, then for we
Are very weak and frail;
We make the Saviour's name our plea,
And surely must prevail."
AMEN.

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