That night dear Billy got up and started at Genesis and went right through the whole Bible and he talked about every single blood sacrifice you can imagine. The blood was just flowing all through Great St. Mary’s everywhere for three-quarters of an hour. And both my neighbors were terribly embarrassed by this crude proclamation of the blood of Christ. It was everything they disliked and dreaded. But at the end of the sermon, to everybody’s shock, about four hundred young men and women stayed to commit their lives to Christ.

The power of conversion comes from nothing less than the Holy Spirit working through the “foolish” message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It helps, then, to remember this inscrutable power by reflecting on some unlikely and unusual conversions. Here are just three of my favorite anecdotes touching on the surprising power of grace.

Elias Keach of Pennepack Baptist Church, Converted in the Pulpit

Here is the story of a pastoral fraud one Sunday morning going through the motions of preaching when the message he was declaring with no personal belief suddenly affected him. Morgan Edwards writes:

He was son of the famous Benjamin Keach of London. Arrived in this country a very wild spark about the year 1686. On his landing he dressed in black and wore a band in order to pass for a minister. The project succeeded to his wishes, and many people resorted to hear the young London divine. He performed well enough till he had advanced pretty far in the sermon. Then, stopping short, looked like a man astonished. The audience concluded he had been seized with a sudden disorder; but, on asking what the matter was, received from him a confession of the imposture with tears in his eyes and much trembling. Great was his distress though it ended happily; for from this time dated he his conversion. (Edwards, Materials Towards a History of the Baptists in Pennsylvania Both British and German, Distinguished into FirstDay Baptists Keithian Baptists SeventhDay Baptists Tuncker Baptists Mennonist Baptists, Volume 1)

From the Pennepack Baptist Church’s own historical page:

What did young Elias preach on? We’re not sure. Perhaps he had some of his fathers’ written sermons that he would read from. Or maybe he could recall from memory what dad had said and imitate whatever arm motions his father might have employed. What was his theme? Was it love, grace, sin, repentance? Did he listen carefully to what he himself was preaching, even if it was just a performance?

What was Elias saying when his heart began to flutter and speed its beating as his conscience sounded the loudest alarm he’d ever heard? What was the last word to leave his lips before he fell to the ground weeping under the weight of Holy Spirit-sponsored conviction and dread? We do not know. What we do know is that when his surprised group of hearers rushed over to him, out of concern that he might be gravely ill, with shame he informed them of the true nature of what they had witnessed.

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