People look to many things for happiness, fulfilment – for peace and quiet, for daily necessities, wellbeing and prosperity. Whether from the government, local authorities, doctors, employers, teachers, the church, family… regardless of whatever we look to, our expectations are inevitably going to be let down and disappointed.
That’s simply because, there’s just no human ‘agency’ that can ever be enough.
Murray Smith
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a remarkable English19th century preacher. As a 15-year-old Spurgeon found Christ and he began writing and preaching for the next 40 years to audiences of thousands until he went to heaven on January 31, 1892. It began when an exhausted teenager, battling through a snowstorm, ‘accidentally’ slipped into a church service to take shelter. The scheduled speaker couldn’t make it… just a handful of people were present.
Here’s Spurgeon’s own description of that meeting:
“At last a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went to the pulpit to preach… he was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was, ‘Look unto Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.’ (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 that text. The preacher began: “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 worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.
“But then the text says, Look unto Me. Ay,” said he, in broad Essex, “many of ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Jesus Christ says, Look unto Me. Look to Christ.”
When he had managed to spin out 10 minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable”. Well, I did; but I was not accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit.
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, lifting up his hands, he shouted, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live”.
Spurgeon “looked to God” on that stormy night – and never looked away.
Don’t be robbed. Looking to anything other than Jesus for the life we inwardly crave, will result in eternal remorse.
Photo: Brett Jordan. pexels.com
