By Elizabeth Prata
I’ve written before about how, when I was not saved yet but the Spirit was strongly drawing me, that there was a pastor of a Bible believing Baptist church in my town. I used to work at the Post Office putting up the post office box mail. The wall didn’t go all the way to the ceiling and of course the boxes were open at my end and with a door at the customer’s end.
So, I could hear all conversations in the lobby. When the pastor came in he would always mention blessing, or Jesus, or the Savior, or something that was like acid on my soul. I used to shove the mail into the boxes while grinding my teeth, thinking, “Why does he always talk of Jesus? How foolish! Doesn’t he know that no one’s listening!”
Of course, I was listening. The Lord used throwaway words, not even aimed at me, to grab me at the scruff of the neck and force me to look at my sin like a bad puppy.
I’ve also mentioned before how John Bunyan heard conversations from three or four ladies at their doorstep, and how Bunyan marveled at how they seemed to ‘know’ the savior, who to Bunyan at that point, was a remote God. Their grace-filled words words carried to his heart and eventually were used to bring him to Christ.
Famously, Augustine heard a child’s song in the next-door walled garden, of a child singing a song Augustine had never heard before (or since) including the words “Tolle lege!” which means ‘pick up and read’. He felt a compulsion to do so, and he did pick up the Bible and read. He was convicted by what he read in Romans. We know the rest from there.
Wholesome words are never wasted even if they seem throwaway. God’s word never returns void. It always makes its intentions sure and profitable, and this includes words in conversation. (It’s why we mustn’t gossip or slander, because those words have an equally negative impact as much as wholesome words have their positive effect).
Charles Spurgeon never knew the following anecdote until the end of his life, though the incident occurred at the beginning of his pastorate. The following are his own words from “The Autobiography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon“.
THE FAST-DAY SERVICE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
During the time of our sojourn at the Surrey Gardens, it was my privilege to conduct one service which deserves special mention, for it was the occasion on which I addressed the largest congregation to which I ever preached in any building. This was on Wednesday, October 7, 1857, when 23,654 persons assembled in the Crystal Palace to join in the observance of the day appointed by proclamation “for a solemn fast, humiliation, and prayer before Almighty God: in order to obtain pardon of our sins, and for imploring His blessing and assistance on our arms for the restoration of tranquillity in India”.
[link to Spurgeon’s Fast-Day Service at the Crystal Palace]
About a month previously, in my sermon at the Music Hall on “India’s Ills and England’s Sorrows”, I had referred at length to the Mutiny, and its terrible consequences to our fellow-countrymen and women in the East. The Fast-day had not been proclaimed, but when it was announced, I was glad to accept the offer of the Crystal Palace directors to hold a service in the centre transept of the building, and to make a collection on behalf of the national fund for the sufferers through the Mutiny.
The Lord set His seal upon the effort even before the great crowd gathered, though I did not know of that instance of blessing until long afterwards. It was arranged that I should use the Surrey Gardens pulpit, so, a day or two before preaching at the Palace, I went to decide where it should be fixed; and; in order to test the acoustic properties of the building, cried in a loud voice, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In one of the galleries, a workman, who knew nothing of what was being done, heard the words, and they came like message from Heaven to his soul. He was smitten with conviction on account of sin, put down his tools, went home, and there, after a season of spiritual struggling, found peace and life by beholding the Lamb of God. Years after, he told this story to one who visited him on his death-bed.
It was a service I was not likely ever to forget, and one result upon my physical frame was certainly very remarkable. I was not conscious, at the close of the service, of any extraordinary exhaustion, yet I must have been very weary, for after I went to sleep that Wednesday night, I did not wake again until the Friday morning. All through the Thursday, my dear wife came at intervals to look at me, and every time she found me sleeping peacefully, so she just let me slumber on until–“Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,”
I was greatly surprised, on waking, to find that it was Friday morning; but it was the only time in my life that I had such an experience. Eternity alone will reveal the full results of the Fast-day service at the Crystal Palace.
We never know the effect of words spoken from His word either to the direct listeners in the pew or behind the radio or TV, nor do we know the effect of His word on those we have no idea are listening nearby, or even unseen within in hearing distance, like that workman. Spurgeon didn’t even know the workman was there, the Bible believing pastor didn’t know I was behind the wall, nor did the child in the garden know there was a spiritually agonized sinner named Augustine behind the garden wall.
God is great and His purposes ALWAYS accomplish exactly what He intends. He is worthy of so much praise.
the-end-time.org 