KNIBBEL No.37 - SPURGEON IN DIE OPELUG

MIN BOEKE OP MY RAK GEE MY SOVEEL VREUGDE as die twee outobiografiese volumes van C.H. Spurgeon, The Early Years (Vol. 1) en The Full Harvest (Vol. 2), uitgegee deur The Banner of Truth Trust. As ek bemoediging nodig het, is 'n hoofstuk daaruit sonder uitsondering balsem vir my gees. Jy sal dus een van hierdie volumes  -  wat ek by Skogheim '93 gekry het  -  gereeld langs my bed of gemakstoel aantref.
    Die afgelope week lees ek toe hierdie kosbare paragraaf in 'n hoofstuk oor Spurgeon se ervaringe as opelug-prediker (Vol. 2, p. 91)  -  dit nadat ons herlewingsverlange Maandagaand by Henri Marais se kuddegroep ter sprake was:

I preached at Bristol, many years ago, in the open air; and the service was specially interesting to me from the fact that I had a repetition in my own experience of the scene which Whitefield had there witnessed long before. He said, concerning one of his sermons to the colliers at Kingswood: "The first discovery of their being affected was, seeing the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, for they had come to the service straight from the coal-pits."
    I also had a crowd of sailors and colliers  -  men with black faces  -  to listen to me, and when I began to talk to them about Christ's redeeming work, I saw the tears streaming down their cheeks; they put up their hands, as if to brush away something from their faces, but really it was in order to hide their tears. It was an affecting sight to behold those rough men broken down under the preaching of the gospel, and I could fully sympathize with what Whitefield wrote concerning similar services: "The open firmament above me, the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands and thousands of people, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and, often, all melted to tears  -  to which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching evening  -  this was almost too much for me to bear; and, occasionally, it quite overcame me."

            Ag, Here, stuur weer vir ons sulke tye van verkwikking (Hd 3:19-20)!
            En gee weer vir ons predikers soos Whitefield en Spurgeon!
                                                                                                                         Nico van der Walt