This post will take a little bit of explaining beforehand. Let me start with this. It is well-known with lovers of Charles Spurgeon....how his conversion took place. As a fifteen year old....who had been in church his whole life....with pastors in his family....he was not yet born again....and he knew it....and it bothered him. "It was a dark and stormy night"....isn't that how Snoopy always started his novel" Well with Spurgeon it was a cold and stormy....a snowstorm....Lord's Day morning.....so much so that he could not make the usual trek to his church....so he stopped in at a small Primitive Methodist Chapel....just to check off showing up at church. The weather was so bad that the preacher could not even make it. So as Spurgeon recounts it...." a poor man, a shoemaker or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach." The man was obviously unlearned....and according to Spurgeon...."didn't even pronounce the words rightly"....but God used that man's attempt to preach to convert that fifteen year old....and thus bless the whole world from shortly thereafter right up to today! The Scripture verse that he preached on was Isaiah 45:22...."Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."
Let me segue a little bit to a film that you can very easily watch for free on your computer....C. H. Spurgeon; The People's Preacher. (it is also on ROKU) In that sermon as depicted in the film....the man in the pulpit spoke in a distinct manner....slow....as a commoner might talk. He kept repeating the Scripture verse....emphasizing the word 'look'...."Look....look....all you have to do is look. It doesn't take a college education to look." It's a scene that kind of sticks with you.OK....now for the main message of this post. I listened to a john Piper sermon only an hour ago....in the car....on the way home from grandma's house. Now John Piper often speaks very fast.....a little too fast....but tonight in this sermon....he spoke slow.....and his speech reminded me of the preacher's speech when fifteen year old Charles Haddon Spurgeon was converted....but instead of saying...."Look....look"....he was saying....'Listen...listen"....for the sermon title that you can easily listen to....just before you go and watch the Spurgeon film....is...."Take Care How You Listen....Part 1."
It's a wonderful evangelistic sermon....powerful in the message....and because of that speech pattern....it moved me to relate the whole thing to you in this post. Is there a greater blessing in life than telling another about Jesus Christ....or pointing them to a preacher's preacher....a people's preacher? Well maybe there is....seeing someone....or hearing of someone....who has been saved....born again....and knowing that God will surely use them to reach others with the truth of Jesus Christ....just as He used someone else to reach them....just as someone once....many actually....reached out to tell me of my need of Christ....and His grace in salvation if we only but....look....or only but....listen!
