G. H. Lang's Conversion Story

To all eternity No. 11 St. James’ Road will be memorable. When I was about seven-and-a-half years of age a most momentous event took place which neither can be nor needs to be repeated. I was converted, born again from above, born of God. The experience was so real and thorough, and its effects so enduring, that it is as vivid after more than seventy years as if it had just happened.

I was recovering from an illness, scarlatina I think. My mother sat by my bed and talked with me, quietly and simply; and as she spoke the Spirit of Truth spoke by her and made the truth effective. She said nothing more than I had heard from infancy, but what new and powerful influence it exerted! She spoke of sin: I felt myself the veriest sinner under the sun. No particular sins were mentioned, but there rose before me childish falsehoods, petty pilferings, anger, disobedience. I saw these as guilt, as wickedness, as making me obnoxious to the holy God and His holy wrath. I had not been brought up in a morbid, prudish, restrained manner, constantly checked, reproved, restricted, but in a simple, healthy, happy atmosphere. There can be no accounting for this sudden, intelligent, overwhelming perception of the true nature of sin by a child of seven but as a fulfilment of the words of the Son of God, “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come He shall convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).

My mother spoke of God, His holiness, His anger against sin, and the coming judgment. Her words were few, but oh, the solemnity they caused to settle upon my heart. She went on to remind me of His infinite love, love so mighty that He sent into the world His only and beloved Son on purpose to save sinners, for though He hates sin He loves the sinner. And I thought and felt what a wonderful, amazing thing it is that the great and holy God, who made the stars and this great earth, loved a naughty, sinful little boy like me. If I but shut my eyes, and lean back in my chair in thought, again I feel the hot tears that trickled down my cheeks as the sense of this overwhelming love of God melted my heart.

She said a little about the cross of Christ; how the Son of God in love to me took my place and bore my sin and its divinely appointed punishment, death. I saw this CLEARLY. It was made spiritually plain to my mind, as by a divine illumination. In the intervening years I have reflected upon the doctrine of the atonement, have read Dale, Denny, and others, have precisionized some ideas, have theorized somewhat, and, as a consequence, can talk about the subject as on that day on my bed would naturally have been impossible: but as regards spiritual apprehension of the death of Christ and its value to the sinner I have learned nothing further, for I learned then all one needs to know, perhaps all a finite being can know, and it is all in this word: “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. . . He loved me, and gave Himself up [to justice] for me” (1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 2:20).

My mother added that if only I was truly sorry that I had sinned God would forgive me for Christ’s sake. I could not doubt this; I saw the worthiness of Christ and the sufficiency of His death, as the meritorious cause, the only cause, the adequate cause, why God should pardon me. As a little child can do, I gratefully accepted the promised pardon. I knew I was truly sorry, and I was only too thankful to think that the dreadful doom of the sinner, which I so richly deserved, would never be my fate, for God had loved me, Christ had delivered me by dying for me, I was saved!

Yes, I was saved, and I knew it. There stole over my troubled heart a quiet, solemn, happy peace: I had “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1), my heart had been “sprinkled from a consciousness of evil” (Heb. 10: 22); that is to say, the Holy Spirit had enabled me, by faith in what God says on the matter, to see that the blood Christ shed, the life He surrendered, had met fully the claims of the law of God against me on account of my sins. God was satisfied; I was satisfied.

In the long intervening years I have met many spiritual dangers and had many spiritual vicissitudes. It was years before I learned that Christ saves His people from their sins as well as from the punishment of them. My experience of heart holiness came long after, and my moral life was long a secret sorrow to me. Also, I have faced atheistic and other doubts by meeting with infidels, higher critics, and the like, and by reading their writings, so as to master their position, and be able to help them. But not for one moment has that deep, settled peace through the blood of Christ been disturbed. I have grown in intelligence, but not in confidence. At that first moment I rested the whole weight of my salvation from wrath upon Christ, and therefore found complete rest; I am still doing this at this moment, and therefore still have that complete rest. It is in leaning the entire weight upon the bed that the body finds rest; Christ said, “Come unto Me, and I will rest you.” That day, in earliest life, blessed be God,

I came to Jesus, as I was,
    Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
    And He has made me glad.
                (H. Bonar)

Happy indeed is the grown man who still sleeps as a little child. This I do in Christ as regards my salvation, and all other concerns of time and eternity. A weary woman said, “Blessed be the man that invented beds!” The Christian says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And it all took place in fifteen minutes! I was brought through conviction, illumination, faith, assurance; a rational, logical, indispensable process in the divine miracle of regeneration. Nor need the suddenness and completeness of the transaction be a wonder. GOD was the worker, and He does wonders; and “I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever” (Eccl. 3:14). His work endures.

I rose in due time from my bed, and went my way as a natural, healthy boy, getting into mischief, enjoying fun and games and lessons, outwardly little different from other boys. Nor for years did I say anything about that momentous hour. But I knew a real event had happened; and if it was at all true, as my fond mother used to say, that “George never gave her any trouble”, this can be attributed only to that renewing of his inner man which God then commenced. A foremost agnostic of that period said that to him the doctrines which Christians believe were incomprehensible. How then came it to pass that they suddenly became comprehensible to a tiny child of seven and permanently and beneficially effective through a long life? The infidel can give no explanation. Human skill could not effect this miracle. It is a divine work wrought by the Spirit of God Himself, and every such case is an irrefutable confirmation of the Book which teaches those doctrines and promises that the Spirit shall use them in such manner.

Of course I believe whole-heartedly in the conversion of children. Thank God a thousand times for Sunday schools; but Christian parents should so live with God in the home, so pray, so speak with their little ones, that these may not need the Sunday school teacher or other worker to lead them to Christ. It is their parents’ own peculiar duty and joy, and if they cannot do this blessed service, let them inquire seriously why they cannot.

[This quotation is taken from the book An Ordered Life by G. H. Lang]