Steal Away Home: Charles Spurgeon and Thomas Johnson, Unlikely Friends on the Passage to Freedom

by Matt Carter

“What bliss to taste the sweetness of God, even as it pours through the fiercest of thunderstorms!”

“Sometimes, the Lord gives us the opportunity to see things—things that seem wrong—so that we can do something about them. So we can change them. But other times, the Lord lets us see things—things that seem wrong—so those things can change us.”

“Son, the most important thing to understand about God,” continued his grandfather, “is that He is God, and we are not.

“Remember what I said. The most important thing to understand about our mysterious God is that He is God, and we are not. When we are least expecting it, He will put something so deep inside the caverns of our heart. We won’t see it at first, we won’t even know it’s there. But one day we’ll look back and see He was in control of everything, all along the way.”

You and me, we may very well live our whole entire lives in these chains.” Ezekiel paused, filled his lungs, and straightened his back. “But here’s the Good News—you can be free. Really free. Right here. Right now. No matter where you are. No matter what you do. No matter what kinda chains you carryin’ with you.”

“Jesus sets slaves like us free. He may not take away the chains from your hands and your feet. He may never let you off this plantation. But, Jesus will do something even better than that. He will take off the chains from your heart.”

“It is a good thing for us to be sad, because when the springs that bind heart to earth are cut—then we soar.”

“The heart is made better by sorrow because it becomes more sensitive. In the house of mourning, we can hear every whisper of God.”

The night was cool, and it was so good to stand for a moment, gazing upward at the stars and the hill that stood before me. Then, I saw a single gaslight turn on, just up the road. And beyond that light . . . a few moments later . . . another light just up the hill. A few minutes later . . . beyond that light . . . another . . . higher up the hill. Suddenly with my eyes, I could see a line of gaslights, gradually ascending all the way from the foot of the hill to its top. And, do you know what thought ran through my mind?” he asked rhetorically. “I never saw the lamplighter. I do not know his name, or how old he is, or where he is from. But—I saw the lights that he had kindled, and these remained long after he was gone. How earnestly—earnestly—do I wish that my life be spent in lighting one soul after another with the sacred flame of eternal life. I may be unseen while at my work, and I will certainly vanish into eternity when my work is finished—but,” Charles raised his hand and extended his forefinger, pointing at each man in the circle, “but—the lights will have been lit. That is what matters most, Joseph. That is why we preach . . . why we serve . . . why we tell everyone we can about Christ. We are lamplighters.”

Trials drive us to Jesus. Sickness has been more useful to the saints of God than health ever has. The furnace is a blessing, Charles. Embrace it.”

Trials make the promise sweet,Trials give new life to prayer,Trials bring me to His feet,Lay me low, and keep me there.

“God often sends us trials that our graces may be discovered.” Charles spoke with precision. “God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains His soldiers, not in tents of easy and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them forge through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their back.”

As the crushing of a flower causes it to yield its aroma, so Charles—having endured in the long-continued illness of Susannah and his own constant pains—was able to sympathize most tenderly with all sufferers.

Perhaps Charles’s most prevailing sensitivity to others was found in his ability to resonate with anyone who was in bondage—bound by either physical or spiritual chains. He detested darkness with all his heart, and when he stumbled across news of women and children enslaved by evil men, or foreign tribes bound and bruised by oppressors, or men and women enchained to depression or addiction of any kind, his heart sank, as he knew all too well the darkness that came with being enslaved.

One by one, Thomas lifted twenty chains and neck harnesses that were used on Mr. Bennett’s slave plantation in Richmond, Virginia, then draped each chain over his shoulders, as the crowd helplessly watched. The clanking of the hard metal pierced the ear of every patron in the Great Hall, and it echoed up and down the aisles, bouncing to the ceiling, then back again to the platform. As Thomas added the last chain onto his shoulders, he began to weep. Memories of the whipping post, Ezekiel, and Quentin Ellis flooded his mind. Charles, without thinking, hurried to his feet. He gripped his wooden cane, and although his legs shook under the weight of his body, he continued to stand, fixated on his friend who stood at the front of the platform covered with iron chains. Thomas had never described details of his chains to Charles, and as he had now seen them for the first time, Charles was overwhelmed with reverence. Slowly and quietly, other members of the audience—Old George, Joseph, and a thousand others—rose to their feet. Some hung their head, unable to look at the terrible sight, but others forced themselves to look, so the terrible image of slavery could be forever ingrained in their thoughts, and their hearts never grow stale to the vile institution.

“May you have your heart right with Him. And He will visit you often. Every day, may you walk with God—as Enoch did—and so turn days into Sabbaths, meals into sacraments, homes into temples—and Earth into Heaven. So be it with us! Amen.”

“Sometimes the body fails,” he continued, “God’s loyal-hearted ones are placed on the sick list. Sometimes they must keep in the trenches for a while. “What I have to say is this: If you know Christ, you will find Him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest for your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was His like among the choicest of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold, He always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies on His shoulders. If He bids us carry a burden, He carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, lavish and superabundant in love—you always find it in Him.”

“These forty years and more have I served Him, blessed be His name! I would be glad to continue yet another forty years in the same dear service if so it pleased Him. His service is life . . . peace . . . joy. Oh, that you would enter on it at once. God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus even this day. Amen.”

Slowly, and only at a whisper, Susannah sang a song of hope, of freedom, of home. My Lord, He calls me. He calls me by the thunder. The trumpet sounds within my soul. I ain’t got long to stay here. She took a deep breath, then continued— Steal away, Steal away.Steal away to Jesus;Steal away, Steal away home; I ain’t got long to stay here. So steal away, Steal away to Jesus.