"I Cast My Anchor on Calvary...For I Know in Whom I Have Believed"

"There was an evil hour when once I shipped the anchor of my faith; I cut the cable of my belief; I no longer moored myself hard by the coasts of Revelation; I allowed my vessel to drift before the wind; I said to reason, 'Be thou my captain;' I said to my own brain, 'Be thou my rudder;' and I started on my mad voyage.

Thank God, it is all over now; but I will tell you its brief history. It was one hurried sailing over the tempestuous ocean of free thought. I went on, and as I went the skies began to darken; but to make up for that deficiency, the waters were brilliant with coruscations of brilliancy. I saw sparks flying upward that pleased me, and I thought, 'If this be free thought, it is a happy thing.'

My thoughts seemed gems, and I scattered stars with both my hands; but anon, instead this coruscations of glory, I saw grim fiends, fierce and horrible, start up from the waters, and as I dashed on, they gnashed their teeth, and grinned upon me; they seized the prow of my ship and dragged me on, while I, in part, gloried at the rapidity of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with which I passed the old landmarks of my faith.

As I hurried forward, with an awful speed, I began to doubt my very existence; I doubted if there were a world, I doubted if there was such a thing as myself. I went to the very verge of the dreary realms of unbelief. I went to the very bottom of the sea of infidelity, I doubted everything. But here the devil foiled himself: for the very extravagance of the doubt, proved its absurdity. Just when I saw the bottom of that sea, there came a voice which said, And can this doubt be true?' At this very thought I awoke. I started from that death-dream, which, God knows might have damned my soul, and ruined this, my body, if I had not awoke. 

When I arose, faith took the helm; from that moment I doubted not. Faith streered me back; faith cried, 'away, away!' I cast my anchor on Calvary; I lifted my eye to God: and here I am, 'alive, and out of hell.' Therefore, I speak what I do know. I have sailed that perilous voyage; I have come safe to land. Ask me again to be an infidel! No, I have tried it; it was sweet at first, but bitter afterwards, Now, lashed to God's gospel more firmly than ever, standing as on a rock of adamant, I defy the arguments of hell to move me; for I know in whom I have believed..."

-Charles Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 1. "The Bible," p. 28-29