Conversion, Day of—Retrospect of the – Charles Spurgeon

DO you recollect the day when the gospel carried your heart by storm? You never can forget when the great battering-ram of truth began to beat against the gates of Mansoul. You recollect how you strengthened the posts and bars, and stood out against the gospel, resolving not to yield. You were at times compelled to weep under impressions, but you wiped away your transient tears—your emotion was “as the morning cloud, and the early dew.” But eternal love would not relinquish its gracious assaults, for it was determined to save. Providence and grace together besieged the city of your soul, and brought divine artillery to bear upon it. You were straitly shut up till—as it was with Samaria, so it was with you—there was a great famine in your soul. You recollect how, Sabbath after Sabbath, every sermon was a fresh assault from the hosts of Heaven, a new blow from the celestial battering-ram. How often, when the gates of your prejudice were dashed to shivers, did you set up fresh barricades! Your heart trembled beneath the terrible strokes of justice, but, by the help of Satan, your depraved heart managed to secure the gates a little longer with iron clamps of pride, and brazen bars of insensibility; until at last, one blessed day—do you remember it?—one blessed day, the gospel battering-ram gave the effectual blow of grace, the gates flew wide open, and in rode the Prince of Peace, Immanuel, like a conqueror, riding in the chariots of salvation. Our will was subdued, our affections were overcome, our whole soul was brought into subjection to the sway of mercy. Jesus was glorious in our eyes that day, “the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.” That day of days we have registered upon the tablets of our heart: it was the true coronation-day of Jesus in us, and our birthday for eternity. When our glorious Lord entered into our souls, wearing his vesture dipped in blood, pardoning and blessing in the plenitude of his grace, then the bells of our heart rang merry peals; the streamers of our joy floated in the fragrant air; the streets of our soul were strewn with roses; the fountains of our love ran with rich red wine, and our soul was as full of bliss as a heart could be this side of Heaven; for salvation had come to our house, and mercy’s King had deigned to visit us. Oh, the sweet perfume of the spikenard, when, for the first time, the King sat at our table to sup with us! how the savor of his presence filled every chamber of our inner man! That day when grace redeemed us from our fears, the gospel was a glorious gospel indeed! Ah! dear hearer, you stood in the crowded aisle to hear the sermon, but you did not grow weary, the lips of the preacher refreshed you, for the truth dropped like sweet-smelling myrrh. You could have gone over hedge and ditch to hear the gospel at that season of first love; no matter how roughly it might have been served up by the preacher, you rolled the bread of Heaven under your tongue as a sweet morsel, for it was the gospel of your salvation.