Chapter Two: How I Found Christ

Chapter 2.
How I Found Christ In my conversion, the key 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 hearer; my own impression about myself was that nobody ever listened much better than I did. For years, as a child, I tried to learn the way of salvation. Either I did not hear it explained, which I think cannot quite have been the case, or else I was spiritually blind and deaf and hence could not see it or hear it. Either way, the good news that I was, as a sinner, to look away from myself to Christ as much startled me and came as fresh to me as any news I ever heard in my life. Had I ever read my Bible? Yes, I had read it earnestly. Had I ever 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. However, somehow it was like a new revelation to me that I was to believe and live.

I confess that I had been tutored in piety, put into my cradle by prayerful hands, and lulled to sleep by songs about Jesus. I had heard the Gospel continually, with "precept upon precept; line upon line" (Isaiah 28:10), 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 among the unvisited tribes of Central Africa and had never heard the tidings of the cleansing fountain filled with blood, drawn from the Savior's veins. When for the first time I received the Gospel and my soul was saved, I thought that I had never really heard it before. 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. This was the difference: I then heard it as though I did not hear it. When I did hear it, the message may not have been any more clear in itself than it had been at former times, but the power of the Holy Spirit was present to open my ears and to guide the message to my heart.

I have no doubt that I heard a hundred times such texts as these: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16); "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22); "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 eternal life" (John 3:14-15). However, I had no intelligent idea of what faith meant. When I first discovered what faith really was, I exercised it. I believed as soon as I knew what believing meant.

Then I thought I had never heard the truth preached before. Now I am persuaded that the light shone often on my eyes, but I was blind; therefore, I thought that the light had never come there. 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.

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 one exception in the world. When the list 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 would have been surprised indeed; but if He had saved all the world except me, that would have seemed only right to me. And now, being saved by grace, I cannot help saying, "I am indeed 'a brand plucked out of the fire' (Zechariah 3:2)!"

I believe that some of us who were kept by God a long time before we found Him, love Him better perhaps than if we had received Him right away. We can preach better to others, and 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 around by the Devil for many years. I love that picture of dear old Christian. I know that when I first read The Pilgrim's Progress and saw the picture of Christian carrying the burden on his back, I felt so sorry for the poor man that I thought I would jump with joy when, after he had carried his heavy load so long, he at last got rid of it. 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 can recollect when, like the poor dove sent out by Noah from his hand, I flew over the wide expanse of waters and hoped to find some place where I could rest my wearied wing. (See Genesis 8:6-11.) Up towards the north I flew. My eye looked keenly through the mist and darkness to perhaps find some floating substance on which my soul might rest its foot, but it found nothing. Again it turned its wing and flapped it, but not so rapidly as before, across that deep water that knew no shore. Still there was no rest. The raven had found its resting place on a floating body and was feeding itself on the carrion of some drowned man's carcass, but my poor soul found no rest.

I flew on. I fancied I saw a ship sailing out at sea. It was the ship of the law. I thought I would put my feet on its sail or rest myself on its ropes for a time and thereby find some refuge. But, ah, it was an airy phantom on which I could not rest. My foot had no right to rest on the law. I had not kept it, and the soul that does not keep it must die (Ezekiel 18:20). At last I saw the ship Christ Jesus—that happy ark. I thought I would fly there, but my poor wing was weary. I could fly no further. Down I sank. But, as providence would have it, when my wings were feeble and I was falling into the flood to be drowned, just below me was the roof of the ark. I saw a hand stretched out, and One took hold of me and said, "'I have loved thee with an everlasting love' (Jeremiah 31:3). Therefore, I have not delivered 'the soul of [My] turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked' (Psalms 74:19). Come in, come in!" Then I realized that I had an olive leaf in my mouth. It was an olive leaf of peace with God and peace with man, plucked off by Jesus' mighty power.

Once, God preached to me by an object lesson in the depth of winter. The earth had been black, and there was scarcely a green thing or a flower to be seen. As I looked across the fields, there was nothing but barrenness—bare hedges, leafless trees, and black, black earth—wherever I gazed. Suddenly, God spoke, and He unlocked the treasures of the snow. White flakes descended until there was no blackness to be seen, and all was one sheet of dazzling whiteness. It was the same time that I was seeking the Savior and not long before I found Him. I well remember that sermon that I saw before me in the snow:

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Personally, I have to thank God for many good books. I thank Him for Dr. Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, for Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, for Alleine's Alarm to Sinners, and for James's Anxious Enquirer. However, I am most thankful to God, not for books, but for the preached Word. I thank Him for the Word addressed to me by a poor, uneducated man. He was a man who had never received any training for the ministry and probably will never be heard of in this life. He was a man engaged in business, no doubt of a humble kind, during the week but who had just enough grace to say on that Sunday, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22). The books were good, but the man was better. The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me. I must ever attach special value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.

While under concern for my soul, I resolved that I would 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 set off, determined to go around to all the churches.

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 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 his exhortations were lost on me. I knew it was said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31), but I did not know what it meant to believe on Christ.

These good men all preached truths suited to many in their congregations who were spiritually-minded people; however, 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, can find peace with God; and when I went to church, I heard a sermon on, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked" (Galatians 6:7). Such topics cut me up still worse; they 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. Furthermore, 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 could be saved.

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now if it had not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning while I was going to a certain church. 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 gave people headaches, but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I could be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. 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 to the pulpit to preach. Now, it is good for preachers to be instructed, but this man was really unintelligent. He was forced 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. (Isaiah 45:22)

He did not even pronounce the words correctly, but that did not matter. I thought, "Now there's a glimpse of hope for me in that text." The preacher began thus: "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 wealthy to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.

"Then the text says, 'Look unto Me.' Ay, many of ye are lookin' to yourselves, but it's no use lookin' there. You'll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by and by. Jesus Christ says, 'Look unto Me.' Some of ye say, 'We must wait for 'the Spirit's workin'. 'You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, 'Look unto Me.'"

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 managed to go on for ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his resources. Then he looked at me under the gallery. I dare say, with so few present, he knew I was 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 was not used to having remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance. 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 do not know what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought. It was similar to when the brazen serpent was lifted up, and the people only looked and were healed (see Numbers 21:6-9); 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 have almost looked my eyes away!

There and then the cloud was gone; the darkness had rolled away. That moment I saw the sun. That instant I could have sung with the most enthusiastic of them about 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 will be saved." Yet my circumstances were, no doubt, all wisely ordered, and now I can say,

E'er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die.

I do confess from my soul that I was never satisfied until I came to Christ. When I was still a child, I had far more wretchedness than I ever have now. I will even add, more weariness, more care, more heartache than I know at this day. I may be alone in this confession, but I make it and know it to be the truth. Since that dear hour when my soul cast itself on Jesus, I have found solid joy and peace. Before that, all those supposed joys of early youth, all the imagined ease and happiness of boyhood, were only vanity and vexation of spirit to me. That happy day when I found the Savior and learned to cling to His dear feet was a day I will never forget. An obscure child, unknown, unheard of, I listened to the Word of God, and that precious text led me to the cross of Christ. I can testify that the joy of that day was utterly indescribable. I could have leaped; I could have danced. There was no expression, however fanatical, that would have been out of keeping with the joy of my spirit at that hour.

Many days of Christian experience have passed since then, but there has never been one that has had the full exhilaration, the sparkling delight which that first day had. I thought I could have sprung from the seat on which I sat. I could have called out with the wildest of those Methodist brothers who were present, "I am forgiven! I am forgiven! A monument of grace! A sinner saved by blood!" My spirit saw its chains broken to pieces. I felt that I was an emancipated soul, an heir of heaven, a forgiven one, accepted in Christ Jesus. "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings" (Psalms 40:2). I thought I could dance all the way home. I could understand what John Bunyan meant when he declared he wanted to tell the crows on the plowed land all about his conversion. He was too full to hold it in; he felt he must tell somebody. Not everyone can remember the very day and hour of his deliverance. However, it was the same way with me as it was with Richard Knill. He said, "At such and such a time of the day, clang went every harp in heaven, for Richard Knill was born again." The clock of mercy struck in heaven the hour and moment of my emancipation, for the time had come. Between half-past ten o'clock, when I entered that chapel, and half-past twelve o'clock, when I was back again at home, what a change had taken place in me! I had passed from darkness into marvelous light, from death to life.

Simply by looking to Jesus, I had been delivered from despair. I was brought into such a joyous state of mind that when they saw me at home, they said to me, "Something wonderful has happened to you." I was eager to tell them all about it. Oh, there was joy in the household that day when all heard that the eldest son had found the Savior and knew himself to be forgiven—bliss compared with which all earth's joys are less than nothing and vanity.

Yes, I had looked to Jesus as I was, and I had found in Him my Savior. The eternal purpose of Jehovah had decreed it thus. As, the moment before, there was none more wretched than I was, so, within that second, there was none more joyous. It did not take any longer than a flash of lightning. It was done, and never has it been undone. I looked and lived and leaped in joyful liberty as I beheld my sin punished upon the great Substitute and put away for ever. I looked unto Him as He bled upon that tree. His eyes darted a glance of love unutterable into my spirit, and in a moment I was saved.

Looking unto Him, the bruises that my soul had suffered were healed; the gaping wounds were cured; the broken bones rejoiced; the rags that had covered me were all removed; my spirit was white as the spotless snows of the far-off North. I had melody in my spirit, for I was saved, washed, cleansed, forgiven through Him who hung on the tree. My Master, I cannot understand how You could stoop Your wondrous head to such a death as the death of the cross. I cannot understand how You could take from Your brow the crown of stars that from eternity past had shone resplendent there, but it astonishes me far more how You could permit the thorn-crown to encircle Your temples. That You would cast away the mantle of Your glory, the azure of Your everlasting empire, I cannot comprehend. But it is even harder to comprehend how You could have become veiled in the ignominious purple for a while to be mocked by impious men, who bowed to You as a pretended king. It is incomprehensible how You could be stripped naked to Your shame, without a single covering, and die a felon's death. But the marvel is that You suffered all this for me! Truly, Your love to me is wonderful, "passing the love of women" (2 Samuel 1:26)! Was there ever grief like Yours? Was there ever love like Yours, that could open the floodgates of such grief? Was there ever love so mighty as to become the fount from which such an ocean of grief could come rolling down?

There was never anything so true to me as those bleeding hands and that thorn-crowned head. Home, friends, health, wealth, comforts—all lost their luster that day when He appeared, just as stars are hidden by the light of the sun. He was the only Lord and Giver of life's best bliss, the one well of living water "springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). As I saw Jesus on His cross before me, and as I mused upon His sufferings and death, I thought I saw Him cast a look of love on me. Then I looked at Him and cried, Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly.

He said, "Come," and I flew to Him and clasped Him. When He let me go again, I wondered where my burden was. It was gone! There in the sepulcher it lay, and I felt light as air. Like a winged sylph, I could fly over mountains of trouble and despair. Oh, what liberty and joy I had! I could leap with ecstasy, for I had been forgiven much, and I was freed from sin. With the spouse in the Song of Solomon, I could say, "I found him" (Song of Solomon 3:4). I, a lad, found the Lord of glory. I, a slave to sin, found the Great Deliverer. I, the child of darkness, found the Light of Life. I, the uttermost of the lost, found my Savior and my God. I, widowed and desolate, found my Friend, my Beloved, my Husband.

Oh, how amazed I was that I was pardoned! It was not the pardon that I was so amazed at; the wonder was that it should come to me. I marveled that He was able to pardon such sins as mine, such crimes, so numerous and so dark. I marveled that, after such an accusing conscience, He had power to still every wave within my spirit and make my soul like the surface of a river—undisturbed, quiet, and at ease.

It did not matter to me whether the day itself was gloomy or bright, for I had found Christ; that was enough for me. He was my Savior. He was my all. I can heartily say that one day of pardoned sin was a sufficient recompense for the whole five years of conviction. I have to thank God for every terror that ever scared me by night and for every foreboding that alarmed me by day. It has made me happier ever since; for now, if there is a trouble weighing on my soul, I thank God it is not like the burden of sin and conviction. That was a burden so heavy with distress and affliction that it bowed me to the very earth and made me crawl like a beast. I know I can never again suffer what I have suffered. I can never, unless I were sent to hell, know more agony than I have known. Now, that ease, that joy and peace in believing, that freedom from condemnation that belongs to me as a child of God, is made doubly sweet and inexpressibly precious by remembering my past days of sorrow and grief.

Blessed be God forever, who by those dark days, like a dreary winter, has made these summer days all the fairer and sweeter! I need not walk through the earth fearful of every shadow and afraid of every man I meet, for sin is washed away. My spirit is no longer guilty; it is pure and holy. The frown of God no longer rests on me, but my Father smiles. I see His eyes; they are glancing love. I hear His voice; it is full of sweetness. I am forgiven, I am forgiven, I am forgiven! When I look back on it, I can see one reason why the Word was blessed to me as I heard it preached in that Primitive Methodist chapel at Colchester. I had been up early crying to God for the blessing. As a boy, when I was seeking the Savior, I used to rise with the sun that I might have time to read gracious books and seek the Lord. I can recall the kind of pleas I used when I took my arguments and came before the throne of grace: "Lord, save me; it will glorify Your grace to save such a sinner as I am! Lord, save me, or else I am lost to all eternity. Do not let me perish, Lord! Save me, O Lord, for Jesus died! By His agony and bloody sweat, by His cross and passion, save me!" I often proved that the early morning was the best part of the day. I liked those prayers of which the psalmist said, "In the morning shall my prayer prevent thee" (Psalms 88:13).