Pastor’s Pen: Give God the worship He is worthy of

Robert Eaglen was a deacon in his church in Colchester, England.

He woke up one Sunday morning in January. The ground was blanketed with a foot of snow. He started to turn over and go back to sleep, but he thought to himself: “I’m one of the deacons in my church. If the deacons don’t go, who will go?” He put on his boots, hat, and coat and walked six miles to church. He was right. Most of the members did stay home. As a matter of fact, even the pastor didn’t show up.

Only thirteen people were at church - twelve members and a thirteen-year-old boy he had never seen before. Somebody said: “Why don’t we just sing a little bit and go home. We don’t have a preacher.” But Robert Eaglen said: “It’s foolish for us to come all this way and not have a worship service.”

“Who’s going to preach?”, they asked. Impulsively, Robert said: “I’ll preach.”

He’d never preached in his life. He got up and did not know what he was going to preach.

In his quiet time the day before he had been reading in Isaiah, so he turned to Isaiah 45:22: “Look to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.” Later he recalled: “I preached maybe twelve minutes, and I must have said fifty times “Look to Jesus.” He looked at that little thirteen-year-old boy and said: “Young man, if you’ll look to Jesus you’ll be saved.” And they had prayer and left.

That boy, years later, wrote these words: “I did look, and then and there the cloud on my heart lifted, the darkness rolled away. At that moment I accepted Christ into my heart, and I was born again.” That thirteen-year-old boy was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers this world has ever known. That deacon shared the gospel with a thirteen-year-old boy and gave that boy an opportunity to be saved.

Maybe you are not in the habit of attending church - let me encourage you to attend a local church on Sunday. Give to God the worship He is worthy of and let Him use His Word to speak into your life.