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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
May, 1936
C h ild EVANGELISM—
THE TESTIMONY OF EXPERIENCE
B y J. IRVIN OypRHOLTZER*
I
Chicago, Illinois
I N EARLY CHILDHOOD, I was often conscious of the guilt of sin—of some special sin. I knew I was not right with God, and my fear of meet ing Him was very real. My parents were earnest Christians and faithful to their church. When I was twelve years old, I became so burdened over my sins—my whole sinful nature— that I could scarcely eat or sleep for thinking of my unfitness to meet God. I knew I should get rig h t w ith Him; but I did not know how. I
have been oh, so easy to have led me, as a child, to Christ. In fact, I would have come to Christ long before I was twelve years old, if some one had shown me the way. And what a difference that early acceptance of Christ would have made in later life ! S purgeon ’ s E x per ience Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s experience in seeking Christ in his childhood was similar to my own in some respects, yet very different in other ways. Unlike Spurgeon, I lived in the country and was shut up to thejinfluence of my limited environment, with only one churchlto attend. Spurgeon’s father and grandfather were ministers, and the boy was told how to be saved—that simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ he could have salvation. But he did not know how to believe, or what to believe. At a very early age, he, too, was burdened with a sense of sin, but he could find no one to help him. Soon after he was twelve, h e . asked permission to visit different churches in the city in which he lived. His parents had lit tle thought of what was the purpose behind the request. But Spurgeon was searching for some one to tell him how to exercise saving faith. At first his quest was fruitless. No sermon dealt with his question, and no one thought to talk with a “little boy” about accepting Christ. One Sunday he started to go to a large church (thinking, no doubt, that the larger the church the better the teaching), but was unable to reach his desti nation because of a heavy snowstorm. Because he could go no farther, he entered a little chapel. Only a few people were present, and the minister failed to come. A layman, a shoemaker, attempted to preach. He took for his text Isaiah 45 :22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” The sermon was very short, for the shoemaker had had little experience as a public speaker. In the course of his re marks he said something like this: “All you have to do to be saved is to look—a look of faith. Look to God—to Christ—He alone can save you. Don’t look at yourself; don’t look at your feelings; just look to Christ. He died to save you.” Spurgeon sat at the back of the chapel, and the preacher called out to him: “You seem miserable; why don’t you look?” Spurgeon says that then and there he understood what it meant to believe for salvation. He “looked,” and was saved that moment. His own sad experience as a small boy was no doubt the cause of his great desire for clarity in pre senting the plan of salvation in every sermon he preached. In the twenty-four volumes of his messages that I have read, I have not found one sermon in which he has not la bored to explain how to believe and be saved. When the great child evangelist, Hammond, was in London, time after time Spurgeon invited him to his great tabernacle, where there were as many as 3,000 children at one meeting, and hundreds of children were converted. [Continued on page 172]
Mr. Overholtzer
knew that Christ had died for me, but I did not know how to appropriate the benefit of His death for me. I tried to follow the commands of God and the teachings of Christ, as I knew them, but I knew that I was always falling short of full obedience. I believed that in order to have God’s favor and bless ing, I must do what was right. Since I knew I was never wholly right, and sometimes terribly wrong, I never felt that I had God’s favor. I was taught to say my prayers, and I did pray with some degree of faithfulness. But I do not recall that I received a single answer; I do not think I expected an answer. No one told me that I could be saved if I accepted Christ. No one tried to help me to believe on Him. I was told constantly to “be good.” And while my dear mother and others often told me that I was a good boy, I knew I was not. I had seen other people join the church, and I felt that, in some way, that action would save them. But I had never known a child, of twelve to join the church. In their con versation and teaching, my parents did not seem to regard religion as a personal matter. How could I bring myself to speak to any one about my soul agony, my need? When it seemed that I could bear the burden no longer, I went to my mother and asked her whether I might not join the church. She replied, “Son, you are too young.” With the utterance of those words, it seemed to me that my last ray of hope had vanished. Despair settled down upon me, and a feeling of desperation took hold of me. I felt that it did not matter much if I did keep on sinning, for since I was already lost, a few sins more or less could not matter. I know now that my dear mother was limited by the teaching prevailing in her environment. She shed many a tear over her wayward boy before I finally accepted the Saviour, at the age of twenty. I also know that it would * Director, Child Evangelism Fellowship, an interdenominational organization whose object is the winning for Christ of the 27,000,000 boys and girls who are unsaved in America today. For Christians who are awake to their responsibility and are eager to receive help for the task of winning the boys and girls, Mr. Overholtzer has written a valuable booklet entitled “Teacher's Introductory Bible Studies." See page 178 for a review of this publication.
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