Spurgeon and the tantalizing hope of Biblical blogging

by Dan Phillips

I am almost done re-listening to the audio-book of Spurgeon's autobiography (see here and here). Here is a bit that just leapt out at me as worth sharing with you, with reflection:

In one case, a portion of one of the Australian papers was blessed to the salvation of a reader under the singular circumstances thus related:—

“I was preaching,” says the writer of the narrative, “in the Baptist Chapel, Aberdeen Street, Geelong, a few years ago, when, at the close of an evening service, an elderly man came to the platform to bid me ‘good-night.’ As he was a stranger, I asked him where he came from, and how long he had known the Lord; he then told me the story of his conversion, and the strange way by which he was led to the Saviour. About five years before, while keeping sheep some miles beyond Ballarat, he picked up a sheet of a weekly newspaper, which the wind had blown over the plains. He glanced at a few sentences, and these drew him on to read more, and then he found he was eagerly perusing a sermon by Mr. C. H. Spurgeon. ‘If I had known it was a sermon,’ he said, ‘before I had begun to read it, I should have tossed it away;’ but having commenced the discourse, he wanted to see how it finished. It set him thinking; he carefully preserved it, reading it over and over again in deep concern, until finally it became the means of leading him to the cross. For many years he had not entered a place of worship, and he was utterly careless about his soul till this paper was blown to his feet. Now, when he has the opportunity, he always attends some Baptist service; but this is a rare pleasure, owing to his lonely life and employment in the bush. He does, however, get the weekly sermons, which cheer and comfort him with spiritual nourishment.”

[Spurgeon, C. H. (2009). C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, Compiled from his diary, letters, and records, by his wife and his private secretary: Volume 3, 1856-1878 (327). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.]

This is the tantalizing promise of blogging. I have often reflected that only eternity will tell what comes of these posts. These posts go places I will never visit. My blog gets maybe 1000 visits a day, up and down; this blog gets 3000-5000, up or (seldom) down. I look on a map of visitors to my blog, and they are from all over the globe, including countries effectively closed to evangelism.

Who are those people? What brought them? What did they read? What effect did it have?

Emails and metas give only some little glimpse. Here's one who wrote me on the verge of suicide; here's one who's an unbeliever, but listening; here's one in marital straits, in a troubled church, in no church at all...

This is why it's worth it. I thought it was worth it some seven years ago, when I had a bare trickle to my blog. I still think it. I am certain that Paul would use it, or would assign someone to it. Spurgeon likely would have as well, judging by his profligate use of every means at his disposal.

So take heart, be sobered and encouraged. You only have 100 a day? 50? 10?

Those are 10, 50, 100 people you (nor anyone else) might never have talked to by any other means.

Sow profligately and well, that we might reap profligately and well; and sow in hope (Eccl. 11:1, 6; Matt. 13:1-9, 18-23)

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