We, even as Christians are so quick to forget how simple the simplicity of saving faith really is. I remember my days prior to conversion, like Spurgeon I’ve wanted to do 50 things to validate myself as a Christian, always wanting something to do, something profound to establish myself as a saint. Never did I realize that it was all vanity. Like the fool who built his house on the sand, and when the storm came the house fell and great was it’s fall (Matthew 7:24-27).

Having seen the depths of my sin in all areas of my life, in thought, word and deed, even in the secret parts of my soul, I began to tremble. I then, finally, with heart awakened went to the end of myself I cried out, “I’m lost, and I’m going to hell.”

Perhaps, dear reader, you are in that same place I have been three years ago. You keep pounding your fist on the wall of your own righteousness looking for some sense of hope, but always fail to find any. Hopelessness. A deep, profound reality of hopelessness and lostness in the pitch black pit of your own sin. It consumes you. You are helpless, powerless. Yet you try again and again to try and please God. But then you realize that all your sacrifices are an abomination to Him, for how can a just and holy God accept anything from a vile, wretched, undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinner as you are?

If indeed you are in that place of brokenness, desperate for mercy Divine, read on. And I pray the Lord would reveal in the fullness of His grace and power how indeed your sins can be forgiven.

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” (Isa. 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” (Gal. 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. (Isa. 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 (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.

—C. H. Spurgeon, My Conversion

Read the rest of Spurgeon’s recollection of his conversion here: My Conversion