A Great Preacher is Born (Again)

On January 6, 1850, a snowstorm almost crippled the city of Colchester, England. Because of the storm, a teenage boy was unable to get to the church he usually attended.So he made his way to a nearby Primitive Methodist chapel, where an ill-prepared layman was substituting for the absent preacher. His text was Isaiah 45:22 - "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."

For many months this young teenager had been miserable and under a deep sense of conviction. Though he had been reared in the church, and in fact both his father and grandfather were preachers, he did not have the assurance of salvation.

The unprepared subsitute minister did not have much to say, so he kept repeating the text - "Look unto Me." "A man need not go to college to learn to look," he shouted."Anyone can look; even a child can look!" About that time, he saw the young visitor sitting to one side, and he pointed at him and said, "Young man, you look miserable. Young man, look to Jesus!"
The young man did look by faith, and that was how the the man commonly referred to as "The Prince of Preachers" - Charles Haddon Spurgeon - was converted.

Why is this story significant to me? Because very often, when I step to the pulpit, I feel that I am the ill-prepared laymen. But I also remember that there may be a Spurgeon in the congregation.