As we come to the final message in the series of this year's Reformation Month messages, we turn to the book of Joshua chapter 1. Joshua chapter 1. We're going to commence reading in verse 1, and we'll read the first nine verses of the chapter. Joshua chapter 1, verse 1. Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, and all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divine for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou ghost. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with thee. Whithersoever thou goest. Amen. The Lord will add his own blessing to the reading of his precious word for his name's sake. Verse 2 of Joshua chapter 1 commences with words that should ring not only in the ears of Joshua, but in the ears of every man of God. Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise." Joshua was called to follow a great man. He was called to carry on a great work, to battle a great enemy and to win a great victory. His peculiar task was the task of bringing to a glorious fullness and completion the work which Moses, the man of God, had begun. When I read these words that concern Joshua, Following on from Moses, I'm struck with the fact that this is precisely where those of us who are heirs of the Protestant Reformation are called to stand. We follow in the train of great men. When you read the history of the Protestant Reformation, You can only stand back in amazement and say, surely there were giants in the earth in those days. Has the world ever seen a day like the day of the Protestant Reformation, when the greatest intellects on earth were combined with the greatest piety? the greatest devotion to Christ, the simplest, and I use that word advisedly, the simplest reliance on his word, the purest presentation of his gospel. Has the world ever seen such a day when so many giants of the faith trod the earth and did such great things for God? We follow great men. We are called to carry on a great work. I understand that the Reformation was a multifaceted series of events. It had its political ramifications. It had its cultural social and economic sides, but most of all it was a spiritual work. The driving force was a desire for the preaching of Christ, the spreading of the gospel, the saving of souls, and indeed the saving of nations. It is not too much to say that the single most potent ingredient in what went to building what we now call Western civilization was the Protestant Reformation. We are called to carry on that work. We are called in doing so to battle a great enemy. We have been singing of that enemy. This for Martin Luther was no mere little rhyming poem. This was for Luther the statement of his experience. This was for him everyday life. When he spoke of the prince of darkness grim, and then triumphantly said, we tremble not for him. That was more than poetry, that was reality. Luther came, as did all the men of the Reformation, face to face with the concentrated opposition of the powers of hell, as will every man in every generation. who seeks to stand for Jesus Christ, for what our covenant-emptying forefathers used to call the crown rights of King Jesus. We take our stand for those, then certainly we will be called to battle a powerful enemy who will come at us from every side. under every guise, who will use friend and foe to attack us, who will come from the outside, as he did in the early church, and then from the inside, as he did much more successfully, even in the early church. We battle a great enemy, but we are called to win a great victory. I would to God that we could get back into the hearts and minds of the people of God in the day in which we live, that the cause of Christ is a triumphant cause. I would to God that we could get away from the defeatism that has so gripped the evangelical cause for such a long time. The notion that we're in the last days. Evil men will wax worse and worse. So all we can do is sit back and wait for the coming of the Lord. Now let's understand something. These are the last days. But then let me back that up and say, these have been the last days for 2,000 years now. And when we say these are the last days, let us not fall into the trap of putting an X by a year on a calendar and saying, beyond this we expect nothing. I don't know where we are in the prophetic plan of God. I do not know where the hands of the clock are on the clock of prophecy. We are in the last days. Evil men, as we see every day, are waxing worse and worse. But you see, the logic of the Holy Ghost in Scripture is the very opposite to defeatism. How did the psalmist pray? It is time, O Lord, for thee to work. Why? Because they have made void thy law. Because evil men are waxing worse and worse. Because we're in an age of terrible apostasy from truth. That is a reason to pray for God to work, to expect God to work, to see God work, and to live in victory, not in defeat. we are called to win a great victory. And I don't want to get into a survey of church history tonight, but let me tell you, if we do not see in our nations in the West a significant moving of the Holy Ghost with power, then ours will be the first generation, and what a shame it is, the first generation since the Protestant Reformation not to see an outpouring of the Holy Ghost with power to make such an impact on our society as to change its course. The Reformers saw it. The Puritans saw it. The Scottish Covenanters, who were called to dye the heaven of Scotland red with their own blood, they saw it. The Pilgrim Fathers saw it. The Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, John Wesley era saw it with a mighty moving of the evangelical awakening. The next century saw it again with multiple movements of the Holy Spirit of God. And I've often said that it is a shameful thing that here in America God's people know next to nothing. Even preachers know next to nothing about the progress of one of the greatest revivals in the history of the world, when for 30 or 40 years there was a mighty constant movement of the Holy Ghost across these states. And this state and North Carolina and then moving westwards and then moving northwards. We're all vitally involved and yet we live in such utter ignorance of what God has done. But we come to our generation. We have more Christian schools than ever. We have more higher education than ever. We have more money than ever. We have more churches than ever. We have more professing evangelicals than ever. We have more of everything except the power of the Holy Ghost. May God forgive us. Unless we see a movement soon, our generation will go down in shame as the greatest failure in the history of Protestantism. I thank God that's not true in every part of the world, for why we have fumbled and faltered and failed in other places. Men have been filled and used and blessed to the saving of hundreds and thousands and millions to the glory of our Savior's name. but we are called to victory. Oh, that that would again grip the hearts of the people of God. Oh, that that would grip the hearts of men and young men in the church of Jesus Christ. That we would realize that we have a peculiar task, and that is to see come to a glorious full. A work that has begun, has been begun by greater men than we. But you know, we can do nothing until, like Joshua, we heed the call of God and, as the Lord says, arise. Rise up, O men of God. Have done with lesser things. That's the call. We will do nothing. We will amount to nothing. However successful we are in any other endeavor, we will amount to nothing until we as a people rise with Joshua to meet the challenge and obey the call that God has set before us. Last Sabbath evening, I spoke to you from the words of the Lord himself through Ezekiel in chapter 22, verse 30, I sought for a man. And I want to continue the theme of that because we're still thinking of the subject wanted man of God. Men who will epitomize the best features of the Reformation. As I pointed out last week, men of one book. Men of one book. Men who feel the power of the Word of God in their own souls. Men who have a real grasp of the gospel of Jesus Christ. wanted men of God. I want to proceed with that this evening, and I will show you that when we're talking about the need, we're talking about the need for preachers with passion and with power. Because not only is God looking for men of one book and men who feel and experience the power of the Word, men who know the gospel, but men with a passion to preach Christ. This passion to preach was one of the outstanding hallmarks of the Reformers. I suppose Luther is the prime example. Luther was many things. He was a musician of no mean ability. He was a poet. He was a philosopher. He was a lawyer. He was a theologian. He was a pastor. He was a controversialist. He was a soldier in the army of Christ. He was a leader of men. He was also temperamental, pig-headed, stubborn. and all the rest of those things that make up the mix of very interesting people. But most of all, as a man of God, Martin Luther was a preacher. He was a preacher. He wasn't alone. I pointed out last week, and this shows you just how sovereign the Spirit of God is, when the Lord Jesus said, the wind bloweth where it listeth. He was saying nothing but the truth. The Spirit of God moves as he will in utter and complete freedom and sovereignty. Before Luther had ever kneeled his thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, before Luther had ever launched upon his public career as a preacher of the gospel and a reformer in the church, Zwingli had started preaching the Seum gospel in Switzerland. Zwingli had sat at the feet of the famous scholar Erasmus. Erasmus leaves a lot to be desired. He's one of those characters in history who just makes you shake your head. He knew so much. He directed men so clearly. And yet, he seemed so small-spirited in other ways, so impoverished spiritually, you have to stand back and simply leave him to God, who is his judge. But Erasmus taught Zwingli, there is but one thing that we have to seek for in the Holy Scriptures, and that is Jesus Christ. Erasmus would do well if he could be resurrected to teach a whole lot of university professors and Bible professors the simplicity of the scriptures. Whatever else you learn of Hebrew or Greek or hermeneutics or this or that, your whole method of Bible study is gone awry if it blinds you to Jesus Christ. I have books by learned men lining the shelves of my library and Some of them I look at, and I wonder how can so great a mind, so brilliant an intellect, be so absolutely blind? They can come to the Scriptures, and they find little or nothing of Christ. They can give you the bare bones. They can give you an analysis of words and grammar and syntax and usage. but there's little or nothing of Christ. Erasmus was right. There is but one thing that we have to seek for in the Holy Scriptures, and that is Jesus Christ. That found its way into the heart of the young Ulrich Zwingli. and had burned its way into a soul, for he did seek Christ, and he found him, and then he started to preach him. It's an interesting story in his life that he was called by church authorities to the monastery in Ein Sidlen, and there he was given the task of doing research and then preaching and teaching. When he got there, he found that much of his income was raised from the gifts of pilgrims who came on purpose to that place because it was a place where there was a revered image of the Virgin Mary. The monastery carried above its gate this legend, plenary remission of all sins is to be found here. And people came and they paid lots of money to be able to see the Virgin, to be able to get their sins forgiven. When he got there and found this situation, Zwingli began to preach the very opposite. The monastery said, here you will find remission. Zwingli taught them you can meet with God anywhere. Then he began to give them the heart of the gospel. Christ who hath once doesn't sound very revolutionary to us. But remember, in the context of medieval Roman Catholicism, reverting to the once or the once for all sacrifice of Christ was an invitation to draw down upon your head all the wrath of the papacy because that one little emphasis was a strike at the heart of the entire system upon which Rome had built her superstitions. Christ, who hath once suffered and offered himself on the cross, is the sacrifice and the victim who makes satisfaction. Then he added, even through all eternity, He didn't mean that Christ kept on offering through eternity. He meant that that one offering is efficacious right throughout all eternity. What then about Mary? What then about indulgences? What then about the so-called ability of the popes and the priests to forgive sins of those already in purgatory? No, no. The young preacher was preaching. He's saying he has made this satisfaction unto all eternity for the sins of all believers. The message was pure and clear and simple. Christ alone saves, and he saves everywhere. The result, of course, was predictable. People believed it, and people got saved. And of course, once they believed that message, they stopped coming to pay into the coffers of the monastery to see a statue of the Virgin Mary. But of course, once they stopped paying, Zwingli's income went down. There was nothing to pay him with anymore. A loss of income, but the saving of souls. You see, the Reformers were men who preached from conviction. Nothing could stop them. Nothing could stop them. When Patrick Hamilton returned to his native Scotland after studying for some time under Luther, He knew that he was taking his life in his hands. Royal blood flowed in his veins, but he knew that even that could give him no protection. But yet he went. Knowing that death stared him in the face, yet he went to preach Christ and was murdered for his troubles. George Wishart, the man through whom most probably John Knox was saved, certainly Knox's mentor, knew when he set out on a particular day to go preaching, he knew it would be his last. Knox believed it too, and he went to go with him. And Wishart stopped him when he said, no one is sufficient for a sacrifice. And yet he went. And sure enough, he was done to death. Dr. Panossian, God willing, will be here Wednesday evening in the persona of Hugh Latimer. Again, it's a tragedy that his name is almost lost to evangelical Christians. Hugh Latimer, who is he? Hugh Latimer, was appointed a bishop of the church in England. A simple man, but a brilliant man, a faithful man, a preacher of great repute and great ability, as I demonstrated last Sunday evening, a preacher of incomparable faithfulness and courage in standing, preaching to Henry VIII. When Bloody Mary took over the throne of England, Latimer's days were numbered, and he was burned at the stake, burned at the stake, because he preached Christ. His words to Ridley, Nicholas Ridley, another bishop, dying beside him in the flames, have gone down as some of the greatest, most defiant, most triumphant words ever spoken in the English tongue. They were a prophecy as well as a defiance. Speaking through the crackling flames, speaking through the pain that wracked his dying frame, Latimer cried, fear not, Master Ridley. We shall, by God's grace, light such a candle in England this day, as I trust shall never be put out." Those were preachers of conviction. That's what the church of Christ needs in America today. Did you notice when we were saying to him the boundless confidence that he had in the word that he preached? When he was speaking of Satan and all the satanic hosts against him, he said one little word. Not an army. Not a prince. One little word. will fail him." That's the confidence these men had in the word that they preached. They believed what Paul said. The gospel is the power of God. When I lectured homiletics, now, Some of you may laugh at the thought of me lecturing homiletics. You hear my homiletical lack of skill, and you say, how could he ever teach others? Well, sometimes the more prone you are to make mistakes, the more you know the mistakes to miss, and you can tell other people what they should do. And you can say, do what I say, not what I do. But anyway, I used to give the students a list of 10 things that Martin Luther laid down for every preacher. Some of them are very simple. Some of them are very profound. He should be able to teach plainly and in order. God save us from ramblers who haven't a clue what they're talking about and they have no idea how to talk about it. You know, I've gone to churches I remember going to one church when I was on vacation, and I always liked to try to get a fundamentalist church. If I can get a fundamentalist church that's going to stand up for the Lord Jesus and preach Christ, that's where I want to go. There may be Baptist, there may be Bible churches, there may be Presbyterian. There's something more important than the label. And I was on vacation in a particular place, and I went to a little church. knew very few people there. I didn't hold that against them. I hoped that we'd be an encouragement to them. But when I got there, I must confess I was totally underwhelmed. I found no interest in a visitor being there. I found the preacher, even in such a small church, had been so busy with a school. I'm all for Christian schools, but God help us when schools become the tail that wags the dog. So busy in a school, he hadn't the time to study to preach. If we don't have time to study, to preach, we are not called to preach. I have no right to be in this pulpit unless I come with a message from God. I have no right to be here. I found this gentleman could not, and I mean this literally, this is not some overstatement, he could not fashion even the first sentence of his message. I found that as he rambled, there was hardly a complete sentence anywhere. I was at a loss as to what he was trying to say. The greatest blessing I had was the reading of the Scriptures. A minister should be able to teach plainly and in order. People should know what he's talking about, where he's coming from, where he's going to, and when he has got there. And when he's finished, there should be something in the hearts of the people that says, that was a message, not a sermon. Not a sermon. He said he should have a good head. Not a big head, a good head. He should have a good power of language. Now here I get onto my hobby horse, I'd better be careful. Preachers, and some of you young fellas who are training to be preachers, remember, words are your craft. The English language is, and I suppose I'm being very, very self-serving when I say this and more than a little prejudiced, it's a unique language, the greatest language in the world. I tell people, you think of the French language is about 300 to 330,000 words in its vocabulary. That's true of most other European languages. The English language has approaching three quarters of a million words in its vocabulary. What does that tell you? There's a word for everything. There used to be a program on the radio here when we came at first. I'm very sorry they took it off. Where's Charlie? Yeah, I'm very sorry. I think it was in WMU. There's a word for it. A woman from the Greenville Library put these out over various stations and she had a strange way of speaking, a strange accent. Well, more strange formation of words than accent. But it was fascinating just to listen to her. There's a word for it, and there is a word for it. You get preachers that are so lazy, their vocabulary is almost zero. They don't know the meaning of the words they use. They don't know the nuances of the words they use. They never bother to find out how they may construct sentences that will carry the flow of the message. a good part of language. He should have a good voice and pray to God that he doesn't have little things going across his vocal cords as I have at the moment that makes mine even more difficult to listen to than usual. A good memory. And then I took this one very much to heart. He should know when to stop. He should know when to stop. Scott Heater gave me, I thought he was giving me a whole sermon of Martin Lloyd-Jones on a CD. The rascal gave me just a little snippet. I thought it was one hour and two minutes. It was one minute and two seconds. But he gave me these seconds for a reason. Lloyd-Jones was preaching. And he said, I'm only going to give you my headings. In other words, I'm not going to preach, I'm only going to give you my headings. He was an old man, you could tell that from the voice. He was an old man when he was preaching this. And then he stopped and he said, may God forgive me. May God forgive, shame on me. I was going to tell you I wasn't going to preach because I was thinking that you would think it was too long. And then he said this. If you're thinking that it's too long and you need to get away, you do not know what Christianity is! Is that strong? Why did he say that? I'm talking to you about the things of eternity. Eternity! And yet we have people and they're so interested in wrapping the church service up in 45 minutes or 60 minutes that they may go having paid their lip service like a bunch of idolaters, having said to God, this is the most important thing in the world, but let me now get to the lesser things. I'll give God 45 minutes or an hour and then I'll get the things that don't matter and I'll give them the rest of the week. Lloyd-Jones was right. May God forgive us. May God forgive us and shame on us too. I know when to stop. You may not think I know when to stop. I know when to stop. May not be when you think I should stop. I love Dr. Paisley's statement for its analytical skill. I don't like the fact that it happens. But I've quoted this before. Sermonettes breed Christianettes. Little sermons, little Christians. He should know when to stop. He should be sure of what he means to say. then he gets to the real heart of it. Remember, this is written in the Reformation period. This was not rhetoric. He should be ready to stake body and soul and goods and reputation on the truth of what he's preaching. Those were the preachers of the Reformation. Here I'm standing with a message from God. I will stake my life on what I'm preaching. Do you know many preachers like that? I don't think so. He goes on about studying diligently and suffering himself to be vexed and criticized by everyone. When you look at all that Luther says, he's saying we need preachers who are men of ability. We need preachers who are men of diligence. We need preachers who are men of utter, absolute conviction. Wanted men of God. When I think of Preaches like that I think of a man like William Farrell, red-headed, hot-blooded, quick-tempered, volcanic in his oratory. But my, absolutely intrepid in his stand for God, a flaming zeal to preach. Nothing could stop that man. He was so consumed. He was a priest, of course, of the Roman Catholic Church. Very wisely, he held on to that title for a while. And when he would travel around, He would go to the local church, and being a priest, he'd stand up and preach. He'd walk in at times, and the priest would be going through his mumbo-jumbo. He'd walk up beside him, move him off to the side, and he would take over and start to preach. There were times when the whole congregation got saved, including the priest, and he'd just moved out of the way. There were times, of course, when it put him in danger. On one occasion they took him out, they cocked a gun, they put the gun to his head to blow his brains out, pulled the trigger, and it wouldn't fire. Did it stop him? No, sir. A man of ability, a man of diligence, a man of conviction, a man of fire, a veritable Elijah. If you want to see into the heart of a Reformation preacher, see this same pharaoh on that fateful night. And I don't mean that in a bad sense, I mean a night of destiny. When the young John Calvin was merely traveling through Geneva, spending a night as anonymously as he possibly could in the inn. Of course, to this day when you go, to Europe. It's not easy to be anonymous. I remember when we went to Geneva in the—getting back now to the 1960s, 1970s—when the Pope went first, the first time from the Reformation, to Calvin's Geneva. We went there to witness against him. It took our lives and our hands to do it, but God brought us through it. Why you registered? The police came around every hotel. They got all the registration cards. They knew who was there, why they were there, how long they were there, where they were going. They knew all about them. And that's the way it was when Calvin went. The word got around. John Calvin is in Geneva. And Pharaoh went, and he said, I want you to stay here. He said, no, I can't do that. I had my plans. Calvin was a scholar. He was an academic. He was a student. He could do more good for the Reformation, writing and disseminating his writings back into his native France. He was sickly. He had a host of illnesses, weaknesses of body, pains and aches. And he said that he was going rest, to work in the quietude of rest. And the flaming redhead stood before him and said, God curse your rest. I want to tell you that got his attention. God curse your rest. And Calvin admitted he put such a fear of God in him that night that he gladly stayed and so changed the history of Europe. We need preachers. We have had enough of PR men in the pulpit. We've had enough managers in the pulpit. We have enough businessmen who know how to run an operation. I'm not saying preachers are going to build the biggest churches. They may or they may not. I have to face this before God. If God is glorified in my preaching to a dozen, then my only reason to exist is to glorify Him. I have no other reason, no better reason, but certainly no other reason. We were singing tonight the words of Charles Wesley. I only breathe to breathe thy love. If God is glorified, then so be it. That's enough. I don't know that being a preacher will give you the biggest church or give you what the world calls the greatest success, but I will say this. Our churches are dying under the hands of cold, meticulous managers. Give us preachers. Give us preachers. Perhaps at least one of the greatest sustained demonstrations of the power and success of preachers standing for the central truths of the Protestant Reformation is to be found in the history of the Methodists. Whitfield and Wesley, the founders of Methodism, were many things, but above all, they were preachers. Did any Englishman ever preach like George Whitfield? He was Spurgeon's ideal as the greatest of preachers. We call Spurgeon, and I tend to agree to be quite honest, the prince of preachers. I don't think the world in any language has ever seen quite the equal of the great Baptist preacher. But if you'd asked Spurgeon who's the prince of preachers, he would have told you unhesitatingly, George Whitefield, a man who moved both Britain and America, though America was yet in its infancy, but moved both Britain and America with the power of gospel preaching. And though Wesley was not the preacher that Whitefield was, he lacked much of his friend's warmth and charm and preaching skill, yet John Wesley was a powerful and effective preacher. It may come as a surprise to some that I put Wesley and the Methodists right there in the Reformation tradition, but that's where he should be. Let me tell you what John Wesley said. And the sooner we get preachers like this back in our pulpits, and I say this as one who strongly disagrees with many of the outstanding features of Wesleyan theology, but oh, I would to God we had Wesley's heart. Listen to what he said. I desire to have both heaven and hell ever before my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life between these two boundless oceans." Think of that. That's where I stand as a preacher. My life is but an isthmus. On the one side, the boundless eternity of heaven. On the other side, the boundless eternity of hell, and every man and woman and child I ever address is going to live forever in God's heaven or in God's hell. Is it any wonder a preacher like that shook England? He set it ablaze with controversy. When there weren't clergymen to preach, he sent out unordained preachers. And he knew the kind of men that he needed. As I look at America today, as I look at the work of fundamental and reformed and evangelical churches today, as I look at the work of the Free Presbyterian Church today, I echo these words of John Wesley. He said, give me 100 preachers. who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God. Will you emphasize that? If you say you're called to preach, or if you ever come to say you're called to preach, here's the mark of a genuine preacher. Give us men who fear nothing but sin, who desire nothing but God. And said Wesley, I care not a straw, whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell. and set up the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. These are men to shake the gates of hell. And in Wesley's day and Whitfield's day, they did, because that's the kind of man God gave him. Oh, there were failures among the Methodist ministers, but he described his own first assistants as poor, ignorant men. Now, let's stop for a minute. That may convey something to us that it wouldn't convey to him. They were not university educated. Some of them could use the Greek and the Hebrew. Some of them, many of them were men of considerable intelligence, but they did not have access to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which were really the domain of the Church of England, of which Wesley was still a member and a minister. But these, he said, were poor ignorant men without experience, learning, or art, but simple of heart, devoted to God, full of faith and zeal. Listen to this, seeking no honor, no profit, no pleasure, no ease, but merely to save souls. fearing neither want, pain, persecution, nor whatever man could do unto them. That's the spirit of a Reformation preacher. That's the need of the Free Presbyterian Church in North America. And I tell you, unless and until God raises us up men of this spiritual caliber, we may multiply numbers, we may add churches, we may send out men and ordain them. They will be what I talked about last week, quoting C.T. Studd. They will be no better than chocolate soldiers, and they will fail in the day of battle. These are the men, Reformation men, preachers of the caliber of Joshua, who will stand in the gap to carry on the work of the gospel. We need preachers. wanted men of God to preach. It is said that Spurgeon advised his students that if God has called you to be a preacher, do not stoop to be a king. Is there, is there, can there be a more honorable calling this side of heaven? than to be given the task of being an ambassador for Jesus Christ. Wanted preachers who are men of God, but if they're going to preach, listen to me, they must be men of prayer. men of prayer, men of the secret place. I have often said, and many a time when I say it, I feel I condemn my own heart. But it's true nonetheless. No preacher can ever be greater than his prayer life. I found it interesting that John Bradford, one of the English martyrs of the Reformation period, in his writings, the very first thing that, I think it's the first thing that appears in the writings of Bradford, is the preface that he wrote to a translation of Melanchthon on prayer. that was Luther's assistant on prayer. Melanchthon was one of the world's great theologians. His commonplaces represented the first attempt of the Reformation to put out a systematic theology. But theology is one thing, a very important thing. But unless there's a praying minister with a praying people, the work will go nowhere. Some of you may remember that over a number of Wednesday evenings, I took as the text of what I was teaching on prayer, the work of John Knox, the great Scottish reformer. Despite the antiquated English and all the rest of it, Knox's teaching on prayer to this day throbs with a vitality, a reality, a spiritual power that very few modern preachers can even approach. And if you want to know why John Knox single-handedly almost single-handedly, saw Scotland become, from the most barbarous nation on earth, the cradle of the Christianity that ultimately forged this nation. If you want to know the reason for it, you'll find it in John Knox on prayer. And you'll understand then why Mary, Queen of Scots, feared, she said, the prayers of John Knox, more than 10,000 soldiers. Men of prayer. Men who can get alone with God. John Wesley told his preachers. And of course, days were different then. They rode around on horseback and all the rest of it. They had hours of solitude, but he gave his preachers this advice. And without sticking to the figures, I think he has something that preachers nowadays need to get a grip of. And if you can't afford books, I'll supply them to the tune of five pounds. That was five months salary. So it was a lot of money. I'll supply you with the books, you read them. And then he said, read a little and meditate and pray much. And then this. He advised that every one of his preachers would make sure that every day he spent at least five hours alone, away from the company of people. We have reached the stage where ministers get up in the morning, They make their way to the coffee percolator. They grab a cup of coffee. They flip on the television. That's their day begun. Now, the few minutes, quotes, devotions. And then they're into administering churches and schools and programs, which no doubt are all very good. But you talk about a minister today getting hours away from the company of people, and it's laughable. But I'm going to tell you this. Until we get ministers who can get alone with God, we will never have ministers who will amount to anything in the work of God. They must be men of prayer. They must be men who are set for the defense of the gospel. That means they're able to discern the dangers of today, not living in the past, not fighting the ghosts of battles already won, men who can discern what's facing the church of Christ today. Men who are dedicated to oppose every threat to the gospel, both effectively and courageously, whatever the cost. Men who are equipped to teach and to establish God's truth. We need men like that. There's only one way that preachers can become such men. You may be called of God, but that in itself is but the beginning. We have read in Joshua as to how he was to walk, how this book of the law was not to be out of his mouth or out of his mind. That's the pathway of the preacher, set for the defense of the gospel. We need that. We need preachers who are men of prayer, who are set for the defense of the gospel, who are not going to work things out in terms of the cost of their stand in dollars and cents, who are not going to work things out in terms of who is going to like or dislike their stand Sometimes you've got to take your stand and say, whatever it costs us, wherever it leads us, whatever it entails, this is where I stand. I well remember when our Toronto church was in its very, very early stages. It had had a very rough baptism. The government of Ontario decided that If they could possibly manipulate the law to keep Frank McClelland out of Scotland or out of Toronto, they would do it. The Attorney General himself broke the law in an attempt to do so. But Frank went in anyway. The newspapers were in turmoil. They were depicting these Irish bigots. They had Frank McClellan does everything from the devil downwards. I well remember a picture they showed of him. You know, you can get in close with a certain kind of lens. This was almost a fisheye lens. And, I mean, don't tell Frank I said this. I don't think he's going to qualify for the world's most handsome man to start with. He and I can get along like we would say in Ireland, you could lick thumbs to the elbows. That means we're in total agreement. He and I would not win any beauty contests. But this made him look positively scary. That was deliberately done. This is the monster. Church was born in a baptism of fire. It was meeting in the rented premises of a school. And then it was announced Billy Graham was coming to town. Graham is gonna compromise with Roman Catholics, with liberals. He's going to preach a pseudo gospel. And by the way, I don't want to get into this tonight, but there you have the real problem, not just his associations, but what has mostly been preached as the gospel is only a pseudo gospel. That little church had a decision to make. Do we take a stand or do we not? If we take a stand, we are going to be in worse shape than we've ever been before. If people were against us before, they're going to be against us more now. They said, well, whatever it costs, this is where we stand. We're going to take a stand for Jesus Christ. And they did. Humanly speaking, it should have been the death of them. They came under attack from the Christadelphians because they also were standing against Graham, only they were standing against him because they thought if he preaches what the Protestants call the gospel, they're against that. And so the little church was in another controversy. Any military man will tell you it's not a good idea when you're stretched on the ground in your small numbers to fight on two fronts simultaneously. But they did that anyway, and they were battling the cultists in the one hand and the compromisers in the other hand. Should have been the death of them. But God. That was the beginning of the years of blessing and of growth and of proving God in our Toronto church, and God has seen fit to take that witness across Canada for the glory of His name. This is what we need. But I would have to say, and with this I'll close, for I do know when to finish. We must not be blind when we study the Reformation. What we need today as men, as I said, will epitomize the best features of the Reformation. That means we need men of large heart and vision who will practice the widest charity toward differing brethren, but never yield an inch to the enemies of the gospel. If the Reformation has a failure, This is where it is. There are shameful scenes that one must admit with grief in the Reformation. That Luther would not even shake the hand of Zwingli because of a difference of opinion on the meaning of this is my body. is a shame to the name of Christ. That the Anabaptist preachers of good repute allowed themselves to stand side by side with zealots who were willing to shed blood was a shame. That the Reformers were unwilling or unable to distinguish between the two and stained the Protestant Reformation with the blood of Anabaptist preachers is a shame before God. And I make no excuse. I do not, by the way, include in that what most ignorant people do and even most non-ignorant people do, and that is the execution of Michael Servetus in Calvin's Geneva. Servetus knew the law. He was a vile blasphemer. Calvin allowed Unitarians to come and go from Geneva unmolested. But when Servetus came particularly and deliberately to overthrow the order of the city, to be the mouthpiece of the Libertines, He became a political pawn. He broke what he knew the law to be, and he knew the punishment for doing so. I do not include him, though I think it would have been better to deal with him otherwise. But there are shameful failures. Because, you see, the best of men, at best, are only men. Have we got any better than our forefathers? Listen to me, and I'm going to be very blunt here. When Bill Jones, the man who runs the New York Gospel Mission, with an opportunity to do a magnificent work for God, When Bill Jones could have premises that are now going to go to waste and rack and ruin, but could have premises from which to launch a mission that would impact this great city and throughout the world, the opportunities withdrawn. because," says the preacher, you don't agree with me on the timing of the rapture. And that's where we've come to in fundamentalism. We have got to the place, and this is a shame to us as fundamentalists, we have got to the place, we are the heirs of the men who fought the battles for the faith in the 1920s and the 1930s and through the 40s and the 50s, men who took a great stand for God, men who knew how to train the big guns on the big enemies. In the early days of the fundamentalist movement, you had Baptists and Presbyterians standing together and men of other denominations standing together. They didn't agree on every little detail, but they agreed on the person and work of Jesus Christ. They agreed on the great truths of the Gospel. They agreed on the infallibility of Scripture. They agreed on what really mattered. They stood together. That was a good day and a victorious day. When across America you had apostasy going into reverse gear. But what has happened? We have become so inward looking that you find fundamentalists fighting fundamentalists over some opinion. while the world goes on to hell. God give us men of heart, men of vision. I like what Rod Bell, chairman of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, or president of the FBF, I like what Rod Bell said when he went up to Canada He was preaching in our church there at a fundamental conference, and some Baptist brethren up there got in touch with him, and they said, that's a Presbyterian church, and if you go there, you will never, never be invited back to our churches. And I like what Rod said. He said, I am first a Christian. I am second a fundamentalist. And I am third a Baptist in that order. These are my people, Christians and fundamentalists. These are my people. And if you don't want me back, then I'll not be back. I like that attitude. It's the attitude of a leader and a gracious man of God. And I say publicly, a man I greatly admire. That's the kind of man we need. I lay before you the need tonight, and I say this to all of us to pray about, but I address this particularly to young men in this church. Young man, saved by grace, with as the Lord wills your lives before you, The Lord says, I sought for a man. Not a machine. Work of God's never gonna be won by computers. We can use them. But it's man. In the front line. Man. Not apologies for man. Not cardboard cutouts. Man. That's the need. When you look at that need, you can only throw up your hands and say, with Paul, who is sufficient for these things? I remember when God began to speak to me about the ministry. I wanted nothing to do with that. Not because I was afraid of the battle, Though I never found myself particularly courageous, I was not holding back for fear of the battle. It was not because of the cost, and to be a free Presbyterian minister when I came in meant you were coming in to abject poverty without the thought or the hope of ever getting beyond. Well, to be poor, actually, you had a huge increase in income just to reach the level of poverty. That's where we were. That didn't bother me. What bothered me, how can I ever do this work? I'm afraid of people, believe it or not. Afraid of people, especially females. I remember going into a hospital to visit a friend, my own family almost passing out. Possibly the heat, the smells, whatever. Dealing with people was never easy. Who is sufficient? But then Paul answers in the next chapter, 2 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 6, and he says, our sufficiency is of Christ. He it is who makes us able ministers or sufficient as ministers. And I learned a great lesson. I am no intellectual, and I don't say that with mock humility. I am no intellectual. I realized I had a very, very limited area of talent, if that. But I knew I had the call of God. And I quickly came to this. Well, maybe not so quickly, because I remember times of turmoil, of feeling the, how can I continue? How can I ever do the work of God? Feeling a failure, and then having to come to realize, if God calls me, if God is with me, if he gives me a message, then I need nothing more, and I can go with the authority of heaven, fearing not the face of man. Who is sufficient? The work of the Christian ministry is the greatest work on earth, but in many ways it's the loneliest and the hardest, the most trying, You go from great highs to terrible lows. You rejoice with those who rejoice, and immediately you're in the valley to weep with those who weep. You do your best, and as Luther said, you've got to suffer yourself to be vexed and criticized by everybody and anybody. Your best is never good enough. but you have a Savior who is all-sufficient. I have a Christ who's able to save anybody, and I can preach Him to everybody. And when I look back over these years, and forgive the personal reminiscence, but I'm speaking to young men to whom God has been speaking. And the struggle is in your heart, can I ever be sufficient as a minister of the gospel? I look back over those years, When I wondered, could I ever preach? Could I ever amount to anything? And feeling the answer must be no. And I'll be honest tonight, when I look back, I still would answer no. And yet, my mind goes to one scene after another. Seeing little children come and put their faith in Christ and go on with God. Seeing drunkards converted and made sober. Filthy harlots washed and made clean. Religious Pharisees humbled and brought to Christ. Husbands brought in an answer to prayer and saved. churches built up to send out missionaries of the cross. Is it worth it to serve Jesus? When Martin Luther came to the end of the way, was it worth it all? When John Calvin or John Knox died and they looked back, was it worth it all? Oh, it's worth it all, and yet the best has yet to be. For one of these days, we're going to stand before the Lord, and I think of the words of the old hymn, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. You'll never be sad that you gave your life to the service of Christ when you stand before the Lord. America's dying tonight for the want of men of God, men who know him, men who love him, men who will burn out for him. America's dying tonight for preachers consumed with the message of redemption through Christ's blood. Justification through His merits received by faith alone. That, my friend, is the need of the hour. I sought for a man. as the Lord looks over this meeting tonight. Can he find one? Are there those to whom God has spoken, on whose heart has been placed the nail-pierced hand of the Savior? I sought for a man Do not waste that life in the follies of this world on things that will not matter in eternity. Remember to stand where John Wesley stood on the isthmus of life between the oceans of eternal heaven and eternal hell. And as you stand there, that's the time to cry out, by thy grace, O God, I will arise. Thy will will be my command. Here am I. Here am I. Body, soul, and spirit, redeemed by precious blood, I give my life away. take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee." Let us bow our heads in prayer. Let us all pray.