YOUTH of some sixteen summers might have been seen one Sunday morning, in the year 1849, wandering distractedly in the town of Colchester, bowed under a heavy burden. All his efforts to disengage himself had proved unavailing. From friend to friend, from place to place, he wandered, seeking relief, and finding none; no one could help him. Life became a misery; he was well-nigh driven to despair.
Who was this youth? Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
What was his burden? Sin; unforgiven sin, unnumbered transgressions, but over and above all, the sin of not believing in Jesus.
How did he get rid of his burden? In a look—yes—a look! Just listen to his own account.
“It pleased God in my childhood to convince me of sin. I lived a miserable creature, finding no hope, no comfort, and thinking that surely God would never save me. At last the worst came to the worst; I was miserable; I could do scarcely anything. My heart was broken in pieces. Six months did I pray—prayed agonizingly with all my heart, and never had an answer.
“I resolved that, in the town where I lived, I would visit every place of worship, in order to find out the way of salvation. I felt I was willing to do anything and be anything, if God would only forgive me. I set off, determined to go round to all the chapels.
“At last, one snowy day, it snowed so much I could not go to the place I had determined to go to, and I was obliged to stop on the road. It was a blessed stop to me. I found rather an obscure street, and turned down a court, and there was a little chapel. It was the Primitive Methodist Chapel.
“In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people. The minister did not come that morning—snowed up, I suppose. A poor man, a shoemaker, or a 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, as you would say. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason he had nothing else to say. The text was: ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ (Isa. 45:2222Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22).) He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text. He began thus ‘My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look!’ Now that does not take a deal of effort. It ain’t lifting your foot or your finger; it is just ‘look.’ Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look; you may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Any one can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says. Then it says, ‘Look unto Me.’ ‘Ay,’ said he in broad Essex, ‘many on ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there.... Look to Christ. It runs, “Look unto Me.”’”
“Then 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, I am dead and buried. Look unto Me—I rise again. Look unto Me—I ascend. I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. Oh, look unto Me! Look to Me!’
“When he had got about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the length of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few people present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said, ‘Young man, you look very miserable.’
“Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. He continued:
“‘And you will always be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death, if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’
“Then he shouted as only, I think, a Primitive Methodist can, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ!’
“I saw at once the way of salvation. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun, and I could have risen 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 that before! Trust Christ, and you shall be saved. It was, no doubt, wisely ordered, and I must ever sing:
“‘E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy wounds supplied for me;
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.’”
Thus did Mr. Spurgeon relate how he was saved.
What did he see?
The mist of his own righteousness was dispersed—his eyes were opened. God “shined into his heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Just as the bitten Israelite looked to the serpent that was lifted up, so he looked to Christ, he saw the substitutionary work done for him completely; he saw the burden of his sins borne by Christ; he saw the punishment due to him endured by Another.
What was the effect of the look?
Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Peace—perfect peace—came to his heart. Oh, the happiness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!
Did he cease looking?
By no means. Not only is a look at the Crucified One the secret of salvation, but looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, is the secret of growth in grace.
Look and Live.
Believe and be Saved.
Don’t be diverted from blessing by inquiry how or why, but just look. Reasonings and explanations will only confuse you. Don’t let what you know be disturbed by what you don’t know.
Look, man, look! that is your plain duty.
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved,” is the divine message.
And just as a simple look saves the soul, so simple faith avails at death. Mr. Spurgeon testified at the last: “My theology is simple; it may not be enough to live on; it may not be enough to preach; but it is enough to die on—it consists of four words:
‘Christ died for me.’”
C. B.