Back in 1885, British author Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (published in the early 1700s) inspired the take-no-prisoners preacher Charles Spurgeon to put together this sermon.Here's how Spurgeon, also a Brit, starts: "Robinson Crusoe has been shipwrecked. Sick, feverish and miserable, he is left on the desert island alone. He has no one to help him—none even to bring him a drink of cold water. Accustomed to sin, he had all the vices of a sailor; but his troubles now prompt him to seek help from the God he had ignored.... He finds a Bible in a chest he had rescued, and he discovers this passage:
'Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.' Psalm 50:15
That night he prayed for the first time in his life, and ever after there was in him a hope in God ... "
What a difference a sincere plea/prayer can make for a castaway.
Spurgeon's ending is also preachy but edifying.
Sidebar: Robinson Crusoe describes his education, at the beginning of the story, thusly: "My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning ... " A very early form of homeschooling, no?
In the photo: Crusoe statue in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland
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