아랫글은 찰스 스펄젼의 Conversion 에 대한 내용입니다.
시간상 다 해석은 못하나,
제게 다가왔던 글귀만 해석을 해드리겠습니다.
정말….Amazing Grace.. 말로 형용 할 수 없는 그 은혜.
매일마다 경험하고, 매초마다 경험하길 기도하면서……
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[앞에 부분 생략]
자신의 죄 때문에 신음하던 스펄젼, 영국의 한 콜체스터라는 조그마한 마을에 있는
4-6명 모이는 Chapel에서 눈보라를 피하기 위해 잠시 머뭅니다. 그 조그마한 교회를 담당하시는 목사님께서는 눈보라 때문에 못 오시고.. “바보같이, 말을 더듬는 한 사람”(스펄젼을 인용) 이 강당에 올라섭니다. 그 사람이 성경의 한 구절을 읽으며 이렇게 말합니다.
바라봐라, 눈을 들어보는 것은 그렇게 힘이 드는 일이 아니다. 손가락을 발을 움직이라는
소리도 아니다. 그냥..바라봐라. 사람은 대학을 가야지만 바라 볼수있는 것을
배우는 것이 아니다. 너가 이세상에서 가장 바보일수도있겠지만, 그래도
바라 볼 수는 있지 않느냐? 아무나 다 바라 볼수 있는 것이다. 심지어 꼬마아이도…
“나를 봐라.. 피를 흘리고 있는 나를 봐라.. 나를 봐라. 십자가에 매달려있는 나를…
나를 봐라. 죽었고 무덤에 묻힌 나를.. 나를 봐라. 다시 부활하는 나를. 나를 봐라
천국으로 올라가는 나를. 나를 봐라. 아버지 오른손 옆에 앉아 있는 나를.
오..이 죄인이여. 나를 봐라! 나를 봐라!
[중간부분 생략]
하나님의 은혜는 이 은혜가 어디에서 필요로하는지 상관 안 합니다. 그저 그 은혜는
가서 (simply Goes), 구하고 (saves), 이끌어내고 (delivers), 그리고 하나님의 길을 걷게 합니다 (sanctifies). 하나님은 큰 공간을 가진 교회를 필요로 하지 않으십니다. 갖갖은 테크놀로지로 가득찬 교회도 필요로 하지 않으십니다. 그의 은혜는 주권적이며, 주위의 환경에 대해 전혀 상관없습니다.
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아래는 원문: (www.banneroftruth.org)
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A VISIT TO ARTILLERY STREET CHAPEL IN COLCHESTER
At first we couldn’t find it. We walked a long way down Artillery Street in a less than thriving area of Colchester, England. I was the guest of Graham Stevens and Abbeyfield Community Church, where he is the senior pastor. I had spoken there on Saturday night and Sunday morning (February 23-24, 2008 ) and we took the opportunity that afternoon to go in search of the tiny chapel where Charles Spurgeon was converted.
Graham insisted he knew where it was, having been there before. But it had been a while and there was nothing in the area that alerted us to its presence. We passed several taverns where local soccer fans were overheard debating the matches of the previous day.
Finally, Graham remembered! It was easy to miss. Set back from the street amidst rows of attached homes, there was nothing to alert you to anything special other than a few small signs announcing that it was here that Charles Haddon Spurgeon was saved.
In one of the many magazines to which I subscribe there was recently an article describing, together with colour photos, several of the larger and more innovative church buildings here in the U.S. Trust me, Artillery Street Chapel in Colchester would never have qualified, then or now. There is still a very small congregation meeting there. Before Pastor Derek Hale arrived in 1991 it had three members. When he died of cancer in October of 1999 the church had grown to eight. By 2006 the membership had grown to fourteen.
The chapel is quite small, perhaps capable of holding seventy-five people. There is nothing to distinguish it physically, but spiritually, well, that’s another matter. As I walked in, I immediately noticed a large bronze plague on the wall which indicated that it was supposedly near that very spot where young Spurgeon sat on January 6, 1850, although he never planned on being there.
Spurgeon lived a few miles away in the village of Hythe. On that Sunday morning he was intent on attending another service, desperate as he was to be rid of the guilt of sin that burdened his soul. ‘I sometimes think’, wrote Spurgeon, ‘that I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm.’ The unexpected shift in weather forced him to seek shelter in what was then a nondescript Primitive Methodist chapel where no more than a dozen people were in attendance.
Said Spurgeon, ‘I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache.’
The minister was not present, evidently snowed in. Finally, a thin-looking man went up into the pulpit to preach. ‘Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed, but this man was really stupid.’ [Spurgeon's words, not mine!] ‘He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say.’ The text he selected was: ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ ‘There was,’ Spurgeon thought, ‘a glimpse of hope for me in that text.’ The preacher continued: ‘Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, “Look.” Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look . . . “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!”‘
After about ten minutes, ‘he was at the end of his tether,’ noted Spurgeon. ‘Then he looked at me under the gallery,’ [which by the way, is still there, but has long since been boarded up] ‘and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before . . . He continued, “and you always will be miserable – miserable in life, and miserable in death – if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved” . . . I saw at once the way of salvation . . . Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.” Yet it was, no doubt, all wisely ordered, and now I can say -
“E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”‘
Who would have expected that life-giving, sin-cleansing, soul-redeeming grace could be found in that little chapel? Who would have expected that God might use the solemn words of an incredibly simple and stammering man?
Grace cares little of where it is needed. It simply goes and saves and delivers and sanctifies. God doesn’t need a spacious sanctuary or multi-media technology or cutting-edge sound equipment. His grace is sovereign and not the least concerned about the surroundings in which it does its work.
Make no mistake about it. On that day the breath of God blew and a blizzard turned aside a searching young soul into an out-of-the-way chapel. That same breath confined a minister to his home and stirred an uneducated layman to ascend a pulpit. And that same, saving breath brought life to the dead, dry bones of a fifteen year old boy. And we are all the better for it. Spurgeon too.
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유럽에 있는 큰 성당들을 한 번 가보셨다면, 여러분들은 영적권위를 보여주는 빛나는 후광들과 함께 실제 크기보다 크게 만들어진 스테인드글레스의 사도들을 생각할 것입니다. 그러나 사실은, 그들은 아주, 아주 평범한 사람들이었습니다.
오늘의 포스트는 1884년도의 스펄전의 설교입니다. 비록 한세기가 지난 설교지만, 이 설교가 말하는 요점은 그때나 마찬가지로 오늘날에게도 관련있습니다.
지금부터 올릴 개심에 관한 시리즈는 
