Shall we first read the word of God
in the book of Nehemiah and the fourth
chapter.
The book of Nehemiah and the fourth chapter.
But it came to pass that when Sanballat
heard that we'd builded the wall, he was
wroth and took great indignation and mocked the
Jews.
And he spake before his brethren and the
army of Samaria and said, What do these
feeble Jews?
Will they fortify themselves?
Will they sacrifice?
Will they make an end in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the
heaps of rubbish which are burned?
Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him and
he said, Even that which they build, if
a fox go up, he shall even break
down their stone wall.
Hear, O our God, who we are despised,
and turn their reproach upon their own head,
and give them for a prey in the
land of captivity, and cover not their iniquity,
and let not their sin be blotted out
from before thee, for they have provoked thee
to anger before the builders.
So built we the wall, and all the
wall was joined together unto the half thereof,
for the people had a mind to work.
But it came to pass that when Sanballat
and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites
and the Ashtodites heard that the walls of
Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches
began to be stopped, then they were very
wrought, and conspired all of them together to
come and to fight against Jerusalem and to
hinder it.
Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God
and set a watch against them day and
night because of them.
And Judah said, The strength of the bearers
of burdens is decayed, and there is much
rubbish, so that we are not able to
build the wall.
And our adversaries said, They shall not know,
neither see, till we come in the midst
among them and slay them and cause the
work to cease.
And it came to pass that when the
Jews which dwelt by them came, they said
unto us ten times, From all places whence
ye shall return unto us, they will be
upon you.
Therefore set I the lower places behind the
wall, and on the higher places I even
set the people after their families with their
swords, their spears, and their bows.
And I looked and rose up and said
unto the nobles and to the rulers and
to the rest of the people, Be not
ye afraid of them.
Remember the Lord which is great and terrible.
And fight for your brethren, your sons and
your daughters, your wives and your houses.
And it came to pass when our enemies
heard that it was known unto us and
God had brought their counsel to naught, that
we returned all of us to the wall,
every one unto his work.
And it came to pass from that time
forth that the half of my servants wrought
in the work, and the other half of
them held both the spears, the shields, the
bows, and the haberjohns.
And the rulers were behind all the house
of Judah.
They which builded on the wall and they
which bear burdens were those that laid it,
every one with one of his hands wrought
in the work and with the other hand
held a weapon.
For the builders, every one had his sword
girded by his side and so built.
And he that sounded the trumpet was by
me.
And I said unto the nobles and to
the rulers and to the rest of the
people, The work is great and large and
we are separated upon the wall one far
from another.
In what place therefore ye hear the sound
of the trumpet, Resort ye thither unto us,
our God shall fight for us.
So we laboured in the work.
And half of them held the spears from
the rising of the morning till the stars
appeared.
Likewise at the same time said I unto
the people, Let every one with his servant
lodge within Jerusalem, That in the night they
may be a guard to us and labour
on the day.
So neither I nor my brethren nor my
servants nor the men of the guard which
followed me, None of us put off our
clothes, saving that every one put them off
for washing.
Amen.
May God bless to us the reading of
his word.
I did not read this passage in order
to comment upon it.
But as we prepared for these days together,
this was a passage of scripture which recurred
in my mind and at certain points perhaps
in what I shall try to say, I
will make reference again to it.
I do not have a formal address of
any kind to give you, but simply a
random collection of thoughts which I hope in
some way may provide an introduction to our
time together.
It is surely encouraging that so many of
us have been able to come.
And I think that if we were asked
individually the reason why we have come, I
believe we would get a very considerable degree
of agreement in the answers that would be
given.
I'm sure we have not come because we
thought we needed a break or a vacation.
This is hardly the easiest time of year
to get away from our regular duties in
our churches and in other places.
We certainly have not come for that reason.
And I don't believe that we have come
simply to listen to speakers or to listen
to addresses.
I don't believe that that either is the
main reason of our assembling, however much we
may look forward to these sessions.
I believe that the greatest influence that has
brought so many of us together is that
we have an opportunity for conferring together, for
speaking together, for fellowship one with another.
And in that respect I think we do
remember the men on the walls of Jerusalem
in Nehemiah's day.
The work is great and large as a
scripture.
And we are separated far one from another.
God has called us to a work in
which week by week and day by day
we are in local situations, most of us.
And we just see perhaps a few bricks
being added to the wall where we are.
And sometimes it may not even seem that
anything is being added.
And I believe that there is in our
hearts a constant concern for the wider cause
of Christ.
If we are his servants, then though we
serve him in a particular situation, it is
the wider prosperity of his cause which is
also very much on our minds and in
our hearts.
We want to know how the wall is
being built in other areas.
And to hear encouraging news and to share
things.
And perhaps to speak together of dangers and
difficulties which we commonly confront.
And I do believe then that we assemble
not simply for the hours that we will
spend in these actual sessions.
But for the days that we hope to
have together for as I say spiritual conference
for discussion.
In which every one of us has something
that we need to contribute.
You remember the verse in the book of
Proverbs which says, As cold waters to a
thirsty soul, so is good news from a
far country.
And I think in the scale of biblical
geography, a lot of us here have come
from far countries.
We have come from wide distances.
And we each see only a part of
the work of Christ.
To use an illustration which Jonathan Edwards used
in the 18th century.
He spoke about the work of God's providence
being like several streams.
And then he says there are times when
God causes these streams to converge and to
flow together.
And it surely must be our prayer in
this day when there is so much confusion.
That those who have one mind and heart
that they may work and pray together.
And physically we cannot often do that.
But if in such conferences as this and
other conferences.
We can actually meet together and speak and
think together.
Surely there is great blessing under God's hand
which we may expect in this exercise.
Well now beginning my random thoughts.
In the first place I wanted to say
something on the 20 years that lie behind
us.
Just a few comments on some aspect of
these years through which we have passed.
And what I want to say comes on
the two heads and the heads of these.
That these have been years of renewed hope.
And secondly they have also been years of
renewed difficulty.
Or perhaps I should say years in which
difficulties have run parallel to the hope.
Well let us speak in the first place
of these years as years of renewed hope.
I believe it is true to say that
around 25 years ago.
Something new developed in the church scene on
both sides of the Atlantic.
That new thing was a renewal of commitment
to the doctrines of grace.
It was a renewed concern for doctrinal Christianity.
It was a common awareness that began to
spread among men.
That what is wrong with the church is
not primarily that we don't evangelize enough.
But that something was wrong in the church
herself.
That we have lost the commitment to full
historic Christianity.
And with that there was a loss of
the power of the Holy Spirit.
We read in the book of Genesis in
chapter 26.
How Isaac digged again the wells which they
dug in the days of Abraham his father.
And how those wells had been filled up
by the Philistines.
And when as they began to clear those
wells.
They found at the bottom the same water
that was drunk in the days of Abraham.
And back there in the 1950s.
Independently of one another and in many different
situations.
There were men here in the states and
in the British Isles.
Who were going through that kind of experience.
Of rediscovery.
Of finding underneath buried rubbish.
Water that had been drunk in the days
of the fathers.
And these then were the twin concerns.
A recovery of doctrinal Christianity.
And a recovery also of the power of
the Spirit of God in the life of
the church.
I don't believe it is true to say
that it was the charismatic movement in the
1960s.
Which renewed emphasis on the Holy Spirit.
I believe that maybe in a quieter way.
That in the 1950s there were those who
had that concern.
And I think that the date of this
change can be placed with considerable accuracy.
And I mention this just for your interest.
Maybe for the interest of younger men here
who don't remember that.
In the year 1952.
The late Arthur W.
Pink died in Stornoway on the island of
Lewis.
He was the editor as you know of
that monthly magazine studies in the scriptures.
And right through his lifetime he began that
magazine in 1922.
Right through those years he laboured.
He laboured in his own words to help
those who were thirsty and poor and needy.
Seeking water and finding none.
And that seemed to be the worldwide situation.
There was so little preaching.
And so little preaching that was experimental and
Calvinistic.
And God's people who loved these truths were
few and far between.
And the subscription list to studies in the
scriptures was never more than about 1,000
people.
In the whole world.
And when A.
W.
Pink died in 1952 he saw not a
trace of what was to follow.
Studies in the scriptures ended in December of
1953 when Mrs. Pink brought it to a
close.
Well then in 1955 many of you have
heard of the Evangelical Library in London.
And every year the library has an annual
meeting for discussion and prayer.
And then an address is given by the
president of the library who is Dr. Martin
Lloyd-Jones.
And in his address in 1955 he said
this.
He said, I feel that we are witnessing
a remarkable thing.
And the remarkable thing to which he refers,
he says, is a true revival of interest
in the Puritans.
And a number of young men are studying
their literature constantly.
Well then in 1956 Dr. Lloyd-Jones was
here in the United States.
And when he came back to London, again
to resume his ministry of course, but in
the annual meeting of the library in 1956,
the little booklet which they printed, and in
his address in 1956 this is what he
said.
I spent some time in the United States
and Canada recently.
And I can tell you something about the
religious situation there.
I found one thing there which is the
most encouraging trend I have encountered for many
a day.
Among the leaders in evangelical work, and especially
among the students, I found something which really
did amaze me.
After meeting a number of young men who
came forward to speak with me, and every
single one talked to me about Puritan literature,
and asked whether there was a possibility of
getting Puritan books from this country.
He said this is true of an increasing
number of them.
They, like us, are turning to the Puritans,
and for the same reason.
Then he goes on to speak at more
length about it.
I have a feeling that we are going
to witness a change.
We are all getting tired of going round
and round in circles, and are conscious of
a need of deepening our understanding mentally and
spiritually.
Many men in America told me that they
had read John Owen, and had begun to
wonder whether they were Christians at all.
Well that was in 1956.
That was two years, or at least a
year and a half, before the work of
the Banner of Truth Trust began.
And I think that it's not a profitable
thing to discuss where this new interest first
began.
Because I'm sure that it began independently of
men, and it began simultaneously in many places.
To discuss where it first began would be
like discussing which part of the beach got
wet first when the tide comes in.
The tide was coming in simultaneously in different
places.
And it was God's work.
And it was God's work in the sense
that the means that were used had existed,
well they had been there all the time.
Puritan books, old books, they were there all
the time.
They were cheap, they were comparatively easily obtainable.
But there was no interest in them.
There was no hunger for them.
The difference was not the availability of the
books in the first instance, but the beginning
of a real hunger.
And that hunger came surely from God.
And there's something else which perhaps should be
noted about the beginning of this change.
You know that both in the British Isles
and in the United States there were at
that time, and there still are, denominations traditionally
Reformed and Calvinistic.
And these denominations in various degrees have borne
their witness to the faith.
But by and large it wasn't from these
denominations that this new interest began.
It began amongst those who were converted in
fundamentalist churches, converted, it may be, under Arminian
preaching, converted out of liberal churches.
It began amongst men in a wide variety
of backgrounds.
And I say that not to draw any
particular lesson from it, but simply as an
observation.
And I do think it helps to underline
the fact that it wasn't organized.
It wasn't expected.
It was something that happened.
I can remember very clearly meeting an old
Christian in the 1950s who had belonged all
his life to a Calvinistic denomination.
And he really had a problem in understanding
the excitement which men were showing in the
doctrines of grace.
They had been long familiar to him in
his denomination, amongst his people.
But here there was an awakening of concern
amongst those who had no traditional contacts with
these things.
And when the banner of truth trust work
itself began later in the late part of
1957, beginning of 1958, there were those in
Christian literature work who said that it could
not possibly succeed.
And I don't know that we should be
critical of that opinion because on the basis
of all information that was a fairly sensible
comment.
There were no indications it would succeed apart
from interest in these scattered groups.
So looking back I think over these years
we can surely say there have been years
of renewed hope.
And that this comment that I've made on
the 1950s generally borne out even in conferences.
I know that is true in Britain.
There are men still in the ministry who
were ordained in the 1920s.
The 1930s, 1940s.
But generally in conferences it's not until you
get about the 1950s that you start coming
across men who are involved in this commitment
to experimental Calvinism.
Now I say generally.
There were of course a few older men
who were of tremendous help and influence to
younger men in the 1950s.
And we remember them with thankfulness to God.
But by and large there was a new
generation who came into the ministry in the
mid 1950s and soon after.
And I'm sure that is borne out in
the presence of many of us here today.
So what were the signs of hope?
Well one was this new hunger for the
truth.
And I'm sure that there's nothing that we
find more encouraging in Edinburgh.
We don't see people so often but we
get a good deal of mail.
And so often we get the assurance that
there is real hunger for the truth across
the whole earth.
I had a letter last Friday from an
evangelist in India who lives in a town
near the banks of the river Ganges.
I've written to him several times.
We know each other to some extent.
And last Friday I had a very moving
letter from him.
Their whole town has been flooded and hundreds
of homes utterly destroyed.
He had said that he had spent much
time with friends in rescuing people from these
great floods of which I'm sure you have
seen and read here in the States as
we have in Britain.
And he said recently they had as many
as 25 crowded into their homes staying there
because their own homes had been destroyed.
Well he was writing for help.
But the help that he wanted was not
money, was not food, was not clothing.
He wanted more books.
He wanted more of Spurgeon.
This is what he wanted.
It was a beautiful letter.
I wish that I'd brought it with me.
That kind of letter reminds you that God
by his spirit does create spiritual hunger.
And then another particular blessing in these years
of renewed hope has been the bond that
has been forged across the Atlantic.
The Lester Conference which began in 1962 was
really a transatlantic effort to some degree.
Two of the men involved from this side
of the Atlantic were Marcellus Kick although he
wasn't able to come in the end and
then Professor John Murray, although John Murray of
course was a Britisher he really was long
stationed here in the States.
But it was a little while after that
that the bonds between the States and Britain
became much closer I mean between men who
fought and worked together.
And these bonds have been a great blessing
and source of encouragement.
Now let me hurry on to say something
about the difficulties.
If these have been years of hope they've
also been years surely of difficulty.
And I think perhaps if we were to
ask the men here who began their ministries
in those days if we were to ask
each other what looking back was our main
weakness at the time.
Well we had many weaknesses but I think
it could be perhaps that our main weakness
was that we underestimated the difficulties.
The difficulties were greater than we thought.
We didn't give sufficient weight to that word
which Paul spoke to the disciples at Iconium
and Lystra and Antioch when he exhorted them
to continue in the faith saying that we
must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of
God.
Now these difficulties have been of many kinds.
The difficulties in the situations in which we
have lived.
The difficulties of inheriting situations where the spiritual
climate and tradition was so different to the
one of which we read.
You know men were reading Spurgeon and Whitfield
and the Puritans and then they compared the
present time with what they saw there and
it seemed to be a different world.
And to some extent it was a different
spiritual world.
The superficiality, the disinterest in doctrine the utter
lack of biblical church discipline.
Men were coming into pastorates and literally what
Judah says there in Nehemiah 4 was true.
There is very much rubbish.
The situations that were inherited were situations of
great difficulty.
And then there was much to learn about
the difficulty inherent in human nature itself.
I'm sure we could all speak at some
length on this point.
How fickle for example people are.
How fickle people are.
When Paul and Barnabas preached at Lystra and
when that cripple was raised the people marveled
they said in the speech of Lyconia that
the gods are come down to us in
the likeness of men.
They were ready to do their worship to
Paul and Barnabas.
But then you remember just a few hours
or was it days later that certain Jews
came down from Antioch and we read that
they persuaded the people.
They persuaded the people and having stoned Paul
drew him out of the city supposing he
had been dead.
Well my friends that spirit in human nature
is not changed.
Martin Luther said that when the German New
Testament was first published the excitement was so
tremendous that people would almost give anything to
have a copy.
But he says within ten years what a
change of spirit.
People are very fickle and human nature at
its best is weak.
And surely we had a great deal to
learn on that score.
But then of course chiefly difficulties in ourselves.
Difficulties in ourselves.
Is it not true that the besetting sin
of young ministers is pride.
And although we knew such texts as Paul's
words when he said we are not sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves.
To think anything as of ourselves.
But our sufficiency is of God.
I say although we knew those texts my
brethren it's another thing to live and to
learn.
And although I'm sure we were unconscious of
it there must have been a good deal
of feeling that if only we were active
enough and vigorous enough and earnest enough then
surely there would be quick and speedy success.
Just as Melanchthon at the beginning of the
reformation believed that if they pressed ahead with
all they were doing the whole land would
be reformed in a short space of time.
And then you remember he came to say
that he learned that old Adam was too
strong for young Melanchthon.
Well that's true of all of us.
Old Adam is too strong for young whoever.
And we had difficulties in our situations.
Difficulties in human nature.
But I say chiefly surely difficulties in ourselves.
In our own black and spiritual poverty.
Now these difficulties have been very real.
I know there are many men here who
could speak to that point.
Churches have been sometimes divided.
Friends have been lost.
Sometimes men's health has literally been broken.
All kinds of difficulties.
And yet surely we are conscious brethren that
these difficulties also are of God.
They have been good for us.
You know Arthur Pink when he was dying,
to quote him again I think it was
one of the last things he said to
his wife or it was among them.
She was standing beside him and the tears
were on her cheeks and he could see
that.
And he said, my dear, he has done
all things well.
And then he enlarged on the word all
things.
Not just some things.
Now I don't know how much you know
about the life of the Pinks.
So good to see with us Mr. Lowell
Green and others too I believe who had
contact with Mr. Pink many years ago.
They had a very difficult life, humanly speaking.
But this was his testimony.
He has done all things well.
And that surely is something which is true
for us.
These difficulties, they are designed to humble us.
And is there anything that's more needed with
historic Calvinism is there anything that's more needed
with it than a tender, broken hearted spirit.
Is there not something abhorrent about a Calvinism
which is hard and self-conscious and censorious.
That is something which does immense harm.
And God in his goodness has brought us
these twenty years, so many of us, through
many difficulties.
And these difficulties are good for us.
John Bunyan says that the soil in the
Valley of Humiliation was the most fruitful soil
in all those parts.
It brought forth fruit, he said, by handfuls.
Then you remember the song of the shepherd
boy, he that is down needs hear no
fall.
Now men don't learn that from books.
Don't learn it from banner of truth books
or any books.
God has to teach it to us.
The difficulties then.
And I think also these difficulties have been
a value in God's providence in sifting men.
There's no doubt at all that in the
early 1960s in our country, in Britain, there
were those who had come to believe that
Calvinism was the key to filling your church.
They read a little of Spurgeon, they heard
a little about Whitfield's preaching, they came to
the conclusion that this was what was needed
to revive the church, to change the church.
Perhaps they were very zealous.
But many of these men fell by the
way.
And they fell by the way because God
has called us to preach and to love
the truth, not because it's successful, but because
it is truth.
Because it is his word.
And because we have to be faithful to
it if no one else is standing to
it.
And difficulties are good for the church in
sifting out men who are not really holding
the truth out of love to Christ alone.
Now moving on, just some general lessons.
The times through which we have been, there
have been times of renewed hope, times of
real and deep difficulty.
And now some lessons, just three.
I try to think in my own experience
of matters which were lessons for me and
that is what I'm giving to you now.
In the first place, I believe that God
has been teaching us the lesson that if
we are to have his blessing, we are
not to be followers of movements or of
men.
Call no man to Jesus' master, that is
leader.
Don't call any man your leader.
Neither be ye called masters.
For one is your master, even Christ, and
all ye are brethren.
Now it sounds simple to say that, but
again I don't think it's an easy lesson
to learn.
And I'm afraid a number of people are
still not learning it.
We sometimes get letters reading like this.
These people I'm sure want to encourage us,
but they write and say, we believe everything
that the banner of truth prints.
Well, that's disturbing.
And also it's very foolish of course, because
on some subjects we print quite opposite views.
I'm sure all you ministerial brethren know that.
It's good that we do.
Anybody who says we believe everything the banner
of truth says, well, they haven't read very
much of the banner of truth.
If you want to read independent church government,
you can read John Owen.
If you want to read Presbyterian, you can
read Bannerman.
You can read Spurgeon, and so on.
No, the banner of truth, trust, whatever it
is, is not intended to be that.
We have to judge everything from Scripture, and
we are accountable to God for the way
we respond to Scripture.
And it's difficult, isn't it?
Especially in our younger years when we are
so tremendously helped by the Puritans, or by
Spurgeon, or by whoever.
It's very difficult, not unconsciously, to make them
in some way our authorities.
And God forbids that we should.
And God equally forbids that we should make
any living man our authorities.
And again, it's easy to fall into that.
I'm sure in all our experiences there are
particular men who have greatly helped us.
And the easiest thing for us is to
assume that what these men teach us is
always right, and we must follow them.
And I say God would not have us
to do that.
And one of the signs of spiritual ill
health of the 20th century has been this
tendency to organise round men and round movements.
And it's not God honouring, and it's something,
my friends, that we should flee from.
It's not who is Paul and who is
Apollos, says the Scripture, but ministers by whom
ye believe even as God gave the increase.
Be not, says the Apostle to the Corinthians,
be not the servants of men.
Ye are bought with a price.
We belong to Christ and to Him alone.
Let us continue to say that and to
believe it and to act on it.
And let us beware of anything that would
give the impression of anything else.
Now another lesson that we have learned is
the need to distinguish between matters fundamental and
matters secondary.
Now again that seems a simple thing, but
I don't know how you have found it,
but personally I've found this very difficult to
learn.
Distinguishing between basic fundamental things and secondary issues.
And I think many of us have found
it difficult for this reason.
You've heard the popular slogan that all we
need is the simple gospel.
And when it comes to matters of theology
or church polity or discipline, people say these
are not things about which we should concern
ourselves.
These are not things we should debate about.
All that we need, all that we've time
for is the simple gospel.
We've all heard that.
And it's right that when we hear it
we should be indignant about it.
Because it's God dishonoring.
Every grain of truth is precious.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God
that the man of God might be fully
furnished unto all good works.
And it's for that reason I say that
it's a difficult thing for us to adjust
to this lesson that there are things fundamental,
there are things secondary.
Because we are reacting to that kind of
attitude which has dismissed as being almost indifferent
a great many things which are spoken of
in the Word of God.
And in response to that wrong attitude we
have sought to say that our one hope
it depends upon being faithful to the Word
of God.
It is by honoring the Scripture that God
the Holy Spirit will work in the Church.
That's what, is it not, we have sought
to say.
We have sought to say that no part
of the Word of God can be safely
ignored.
That's right.
But that does have its own dangers.
And these dangers have often appeared in history.
Let me give you one or two illustrations.
Think of a great reformation.
When the reformers began with those doctrines of
man's sin, God's sovereign grace, justification by faith.
There was that great movement of evangelism and
reawakening in Europe.
And then there came discussion on church order.
The Puritans said against Anglicans and Episcopal men
they said that God has not ruled that
the church should be led by bishops but
by a parity of men.
And the Puritans, as you well know, began
to suffer and to stand for those and
other truths.
But then other men came who were later
called separatists and they said these Puritans haven't
seen enough.
That there is more that has to be
done.
And so the separatists began to organize themselves
apart.
And then the separatists among themselves began to
divide on other issues.
And some followed Brown and some followed Ainsworth
and you can think of the various men.
And what happened?
What happened was this.
That come 60, 70 years after the reformation,
the focus was no longer on the fundamental
truths of the gospel of grace, but the
focus of attention was on these other issues
that were now dividing men who were equally
reformed.
That has happened many times.
It happened to some extent with the great
Robert Haldane.
You know his commentary on the epistles of
the Romans.
In the 1790s in Scotland, in the beginning
of the last century, there was this spontaneous
awakening that Robert Haldane and his brother James
and others were involved in.
And they began to evangelize and to preach
a simple, Calvinistic, servant, evangelistic message.
But then they also were conscious of this
truth that we have to be faithful to
the whole word of God.
And new discussions began on the order of
the church, the New Testament pattern, the relation
of elders to pastors, Baptists, church, all these
things.
And what happened?
Well something, I believe it's true to say,
was lost.
Something was lost.
The direction, the focus was not what it
was at the beginning.
You can see what I'm trying to say.
I'm trying to say that not all things
in scripture have the same priority of importance.
And that we must not allow our attention
to become focused on secondary things.
And that's what Satan is constantly seeking to
get us to do.
Just as in the church of Rome, that
question of meats and drinks that Paul discusses
in chapters 13 and 14 of Romans.
That was an important question.
Paul just doesn't dismiss the question.
He deals with it.
But then he goes on to say, For
the kingdom of God is not meat and
drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost.
In other words, brethren, don't for a moment,
he says to the Christians at Rome, imagine
that this thing that you're talking about is
the big thing in the kingdom of God.
Not at all.
For the kingdom of God is not meat
and drink, but it is this.
We always need to say that to ourselves.
It's amazing how men can get excited and
divided on all sorts of issues.
And brethren, I need hardly remind you that
there are endless issues for men to divide
over.
There's a group in a part of Africa
which I won't name just now.
That's the trouble with these tapes.
We can't just speak to each other in
conference, but tapes travel round.
And sometimes they can limit the amount that
men can say.
Tapes aren't an unmixed blessing.
Well however, that's an aside.
There's a group in a part of Africa
in which, amongst whom God is surely welcome.
But one of the last letters I had
from them was to say that there was
great tension amongst them on the question of
music.
The Christians' attitude to music.
And it seemed to me some real danger
that this work which had begun so hopefully
would even split on this issue.
Now you can think of other issues.
Prophecy.
Are we post-millennial, or amillennial, or premillennial?
Do we hold services on Christmas Day, on
Easter Day?
What do we think of the church calendar?
These and innumerable other questions we can debate.
And I don't say we shouldn't debate them.
But what I do say is that there's
a constant danger that other things will move
into the centre of our attention.
And this is what the devil works for.
And we always need to remember that we're
going to die and leave this world understanding
still.
Or I should put it the other way
round.
We're going to leave this world not understanding
a great deal that is in the Word
of God.
That's another temptation, especially when we're younger in
the ministry.
To imagine that every issue that crosses our
path, we have to sort it out.
Well, Paul says, For we see through a
glass darkly, but then face to face.
Now we know in part.
We need to underline that.
We know in part.
And it's because we know in part that
we should take such care that on the
secondary issues we are not divided.
If men are one on the great needs
of the hour, then, my brethren, what a
tragedy it would be to be divided on
that offence.
He that winneth souls is wise as a
teacher.
That's what is getting our chief attention.
They that turn many to righteousness shall shine
as the stars forever and ever.
That's what we need to be looking to.
That's the main thing.
And I do believe that this is a
lesson that repeatedly has been brought back to
our attention.
When the Leicester Conference first began, the first
conference was on preaching needed today.
And then we had two conferences on matters
of church, order, church unity, church confessions.
And these conferences became progressively more difficult.
And in fact, we stopped the conference altogether
after the second of those conferences.
We made little headway.
There did not seem to be any movement
forward in it.
And then in 1967, the conference was started
again by the same people, but with a
deeper emphasis on the things about which we
were sure.
The things about which we were united.
And it was at that point that God
forged these closer links across the Atlantic.
Some of the brethren here, who you know,
were over.
And God blessed us with this spirit of
unity so that we knew that our first
need was to be spiritual people and that
we needed churches.
It was spiritual churches under spiritual preachers.
That's the great need.
Well, I'm almost done.
I had a third lesson which I'll mention
briefly.
The lesson that we have to seek to
learn of maintaining our vision and our spiritual
ambition.
To maintain our vision.
Our vision for ourselves as Christians.
I'm sure many of us would say that
when we were young Christians and in our
early days in the ministry, we gave a
good deal of time into self-examination.
We sought the Lord earnestly.
We vowed to serve Him.
We sought to love Him.
We spent much time alone.
And what a danger there is as we
become more busy and more active, that we
become in a sense self-forgetful.
Now of course there's a sense in which
we ought to be self-forgetful.
But there's another sense in which we need
always to be examining ourselves to see that
we are pressing on.
That we are not losing out.
It's so easy, especially perhaps in those middle
years, to lose one's edge.
To get tired of offending people.
You know however nice we are, people are
offended by the truth.
And with experience in the ministry, you come
to recognize the things which offend people.
And it's very easy to develop a sort
of spirit in which you become tired of
offending people.
We all like to have friends.
And there are many temptations that come to
men simply to become a little more lax,
a little more indefinite, a little more ready
to let things go which we wouldn't have
let go in earlier years.
I read a letter of Calvin a little
while ago and I wished I could find
it and I couldn't.
But Calvin was writing to a brother pastor
on this point, on the very point of
the difficulty of continuing, of maintaining one's position,
of not coming to the end of one's
life and saying with regret, we might have
been different men.
We might have done so much more.
Now I haven't put that very well because
I believe if we continue to the end
of our days as lively Christians, we will
say that.
You know one of the greatest evangelists Scotland
ever had, a man called Hector Macphail in
the 18th century.
When he was dying, his wife could see
he was in some kind of distress and
she asked him, was he in pain?
No, he said, he wasn't in pain.
Well, she said, was there a cloud over
his assurance?
No, he said he was as sure of
being in heaven as he was then lying
upon his bed.
But oh, he said, this troubles me.
How will I look him in the face
when I think how little I have done
for him?
That was an old saint, a man who
had served his Lord as few did.
So I must take back those words.
When we come to the end of our
days, we will realize we've done so very
little.
But at the same time, brethren, it's a
sad thing to realize that we aren't what
we once were.
And it's that need continually to reassess, to
press forward in the work of Christ as
Christians ourselves.
I read this little piece from Archibald Alexander
and I must read it to you.
He says, In vain do we seek to
awaken our churches to zeal in evangelism as
a separate thing.
To be genuine, it must flow from love
to Christ.
It is when a sense of personal communion
with the Son of God is highest that
we shall be most fit for missionary work,
either ourselves or to stir up others.
And then he gives this good quotation from
John Wesley.
Find preachers of David Braynard's spirit, said John
Wesley, and nothing can stand before them.
But without this spirit, what can be done
with silver and gold?
So Wesley, it doesn't matter how much affluence
we've got, what we need is Braynard's spirit.
And Archibald Alexander says, Let this love to
Jesus Christ be the ruling passion and it
will communicate the thrill of evangelical zeal to
every member in our congregation like an electric
chain.
A church of such ministers, of such members,
could be an apostolic, a heavenly church.
So I say, brethren, the need to maintain
true spiritual ambition, not simply to settle down
in our routine, to press towards the mark
of the prize of our high calling.
And lastly, under this same head, not to
lose our vision for the church of God.
Isn't this the greatest thing of all?
This is what I tried to say at
the beginning.
Isn't it a common concern for the church
of God which brings us together?
And when we read the Old Testament, how
rebuked we are by the spirit of Nehemiah
and Daniel and David.
David says, I will not give sleep to
mine eyelids, nor slumber to mine eyes, until
I find a place for the mighty God
of Jacob, until the ark was brought back
and so on.
And that is the spirit of God's servants
who have advanced his kingdom.
Of William Carey.
Those men who saw what the church should
be, of what the church will become, because
God has promised it.
The God of the whole earth shall he
be called.
These were the texts that men like Carey
looked to.
God is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we can ask or think.
And unto him, said the apostle then, unto
him be glory in the church throughout all
ages, world without end.
Now, my friends, I find it a great
temptation to lose one's vision of the possibility
of a great awakening.
We haven't seen it yet.
We have read it.
We have heard it.
But to believe that just as God in
1740 and in 1857 and in countless other
years came with power and grace so to
awaken the church that the truth of the
gospel went through the land.
God is able to do that work in
our day.
And how easy it is for us just
to fall into a routine of preparing our
sermons, of keeping our churches going, of seeing
a little encouragement.
But my friends, that would be simple to
stop there in the day in which we
live.
We need a great and mighty movement of
the Spirit of God and the advantage of
Christ.
He will give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask Him.
We sang that beautiful hymn of Dwight, Timothy
Dwight.
I noticed it was written in the year
1800.
I love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of
thine abode, the church our blessed Redeemer saved
with His own precious blood.
And that third verse, You
know, about two years after Dwight wrote those
words, there was a great revival in the
place where he ministered, in Yale, in New
Haven.
The whole college, the whole body of students
were visibly affected by the power of the
gospel.
But God gives men these prayers before He
gives the blessing.
Prayer is the shadow that precedes the blessing.
And the prayer that we need to pray
is the prayer that God will pour out
His Spirit.
These, brethren, then, are a few introductory thoughts.
Perhaps we can speak together of these things
in our discussions.
Let us pray that God will help us
in our days together.
Shall we pray?
O Lord, O God, we do seek to
thank Thee for enabling us to meet together.
We thank Thee for journeying mercies.
We thank Thee for the refreshment that it
is to see one another, to come consciously
together into Thy presence.
We pray for Thy Holy Spirit to be
with us and upon us.
O Lord, teach us that we do indeed
know nothing yet as we ought to know.
Bless those who will speak to us.
Grant them the anointing of the Spirit.
Give to us all the spirit of prayer
that we may be waiting upon Thee.
Bless our talents together and grant that as
a result of these days we may be
better fitting to be Thy servants and to
be Thy people.
O Lord, hear our cry and pardon our
sins as we ask it in the name
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.