His name was known around the world. Crowds flocked to his church to hear him preach, and everywhere else people devoured the printed editions of his sermons. When he died, 60,000 admirers filed past his casket and 100,000 lined his funeral route. Even today, people visit his grave in London, England to pay tribute. Even more read his books and are inspired by his sermons. Yet before Charles Spurgeon was “The Prince of Preachers,” he was a young boy in the arms of a godly mother – Eliza Spurgeon. Amid all his success and all his fame, he would not forget his first and best instructor. “I cannot tell,” he said, “how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother.”
Charles Spurgeon was born on June 19, 1834, in Essex, England, the first child of John and Eliza. John Spurgeon, like his father before him, was a bi-vocational, pastor who worked as a clerk through the week to support his ministry on the weekends. His work and ministry often took him away from home and left Eliza in charge of the children. And there were many children! Eliza gave birth to 17, though nine would die in infancy.
Some of Charles’ earliest memories are of his mother gathering the children to read the Bible to them and to plead with them to turn to Christ. Charles remembered that on one occasion she prayed in this way: “Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.” The thought of his own mother bearing witness against him pierced his soul and stirred his heart. Her intercession made such a deep impression on her young son that many years later he would write, “How can I ever forget her tearful eye when she warned me to escape from the wrath to come?”
Eliza’s prayers dogged young Charles until one snowy January morning when he was drawn from the cold into a little Primitive Methodist chapel. At thirteen-years-old, Charles responded to the Gospel, after hearing an ill-prepared deacon give a brief sermon. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. Young man, look to Jesus Christ and live!” Indeed, Charles did look upon the Son that day and he was born again.
Soon after his conversion, Charles wrote his mother a letter in which he expressed his gratitude for her faithfulness. “You, my Mother, have been the great means in God’s hand to guide me to Christ. Your Sabbath-evening addresses and Bible lessons were too deeply settled on my heart to be forgotten. You prepared the way for the preached Word. I love you as the first preacher to my heart and the effectual prayer warrior of my youth. Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother.”[1]
If you follow the greatest men of God back to their beginnings, you will often find yourself in a hidden closet or lonely pew, where a mother kneels to pray. Those who know their Bibles should hardly be surprised. Like the star the wise men saw, the stories of God’s redemptive movements often lead us to a home where a woman, hidden from the great ones of the earth, caresses tiny, beautiful feet that will take the Good News to the world (Rom. 10:15). In the prayers of a mother, spiritual awakenings are born and peoples won, idols are toppled and devils undone, dry bones are raised, prodigals rescued and nations influenced. Again and again, before God laid his hand on a man, he laid it on his mother. Thank God for praying moms! -DM
[1] Tim Challies, “The Power of a Pleading Mother (Christian Men and Their Godly Moms), 27 May 2017 <https://www.challies.com/articles/christian-men-and-their-godly-moms-charles-spurgeon/>
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