Thank you, Dr. Adams. It's good to be here. Coming to Jarvis Street, of course, brings back memories of the four years that I spent around here. The building was different then. Those were the days before the fire and after the fire. Some changes were made, but I get thinking back upon those former days and upon lectures and personalities among faculty and students, especially, of course, remembering Dr. Shields and the marvelous effect of his influence among us. These things all come to mind as I come back around Jarvis Street Church. I've planned what I trust is something of a balance. course of lectures in your midst, dealing with this morning the work of the ministry, a subject that I hope will be an introduction and a general theme related to the other themes that follow. The other themes will be of a more, each individually, a definite nature. I want to deal tonight with the matter of hymns and hymn singing. The matter that I feel needs great emphasis today. We've come to a day when folks don't know the difference between a poor, frothy little jingle and a solid good hymn. And there's great need to show something of what true hymn singing was in the past, the heritage that we have in our English language with regard to the hymns that are available. I want also to go on in one of the lectures to deal with John Wesley. This is, again, a very important matter to see a more balanced account of, dear John, because his followers built up, as the best Methodist scholars of today fully admit, built up as, quote, one of the Methodist scholars to the effect that they built a myth. He talks about the Wesley myth. It makes it very difficult to understand what went on in the revival, what went on in others around him, without some correction of that myth. So tomorrow we want to look at something of the positive aspects of the life of Wesley, and also to recognize that there were elements of failure in that life too. Tomorrow evening I believe that I deal with what is to me a highly important matter of the present time, to show the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit in the revival of two hundred years ago, in contrast with the teachings of Edward Irving. Edward Irving was the founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church, from which has finally developed the charismatic movement of the day. I'll have something to say about the influence of the movement as I found it in England. I spent a month in various churches of England recently, and in the light of conditions in our own midst. Throughout Canada and the United States this is a very important matter also. I just mention these, the first two days of my meetings with you. And I trust that what I have to say this morning will be an introduction to that. Then a word, too, about Volume 2, for this has been, as Dr. Adams has intimated, a very great part of my life for years. I found Volume 1 came out, as I'm sure you recognize, in 1970. It did have a very good reception. I've had letters from all over the world from persons who've read it, and strangely enough, None of the letters finding fault. Only perhaps one bookstore in the States wrote in a rather uncomplimentary fashion, but I've had letters from missionaries and pastors and students and persons from all manner of walks of life expressing their thanks for the book and the feeling that they'd received blessing and instruction from it. And all of them, the question, when are we going to be able to read Volume 2? Well, that was my problem also. When are they going to be able to read volume two? I struggled much with the writing of it. First, there was the controversy between Whitfield and Wesley to be written up. It was a thing that couldn't be left out. It's impossible to know Whitfield's life without looking thoroughly into it and understanding exactly what took place at that time. Yet I found the difficulty not in discovering what took place, but rather in just how to write it up so as I wouldn't look like a cheap having an attitude of trying to pull down one man in order to build up another. I trust I've accomplished something worthwhile in that regard, and then I've gone on throughout the rest of the book to tell the final period of Whitfield's life, Volume 1 concluded with Whitfield at the age of 26. He died at the age of 55, so I've been able to tell the rest of the story in the rest of the book. This one volume came to me from Banner of Truth, two days ago, so I brought it with me. The others will be available on this continent from Cornerstone Publishers, an American publisher, will be handling sale over here, and at least I show it. Some may want to have a look at it after the meeting, just as an evidence that at last Volume 2 is on its way. Now to get to the subject before us this morning, I'm going to deal with the matter of the ministry and a title that I have given to it, Death to Self, the Road to Life in the Ministry. I'll be directing my words to pastors. Could I have some indication of hands of those who are students for the ministry, or those who are in the ministry now that I may know particularly, to whom I am addressing my remarks, students and pastors? Yes, a very large proportion of you. Who of you are students? I know we could all say we're all students, but I'm sure you know what I mean by that term. Thank you, that's good just to recognize that. And I will be addressing my remarks especially to students who have the work of the ministry before them. I turn you to a text of scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I'm going to read the opening verses. I'm sure you recognize Paul has much to say about the work of the ministry in these opening chapters of 2 Corinthians. Chapter 4, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness or handling the word of God deceitfully. but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Verse 5, We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Now, in good homiletic fashion, we find three main thoughts arising from this verse. First of all, the matter of preaching. We preach, which I would term the minister's task. We preach, and under that heading we look into this glorious work of preaching. Secondly, the minister's temptation. We preach, not ourselves. We'll find that the minister is tempted to get away from preaching Christ and be very much taken up with himself. We preach not ourselves. The ministers triumph. We preach Christ and ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. The ministers triumph. So we'll look at this text. on the basis of those three main headings, the minister's task, the minister's temptation, and the minister's triumph. The minister's task we preach. Brethren, there is no duty beneath the sun that demands more versatility than the work of the ministry. We as ministers of the gospel are called upon for all manner of duties. Now, in various aspects of business there are assistants to carry on this and that and the other area of the business. But oftentimes, especially in the smaller church, all the duties devolve upon a pastor. There is an administration of the work at large, a business administration of things. The minister has got to be a student. And he has his library and he's building it and often spending every possible dollar that he can obtain to enlarge his library. And he becomes and remains a student and hours to be devoted unto study in a general way and unto particular preparation for the Sunday after Sunday. There's the matter of knowing people. getting close to our people. God save us from the ivory tower existence where we're somebody important up there in a different area of life. No, we're there with our people, entering into their homes, entering into their circumstances, knowing father and mother and grandmother and grandfather, knowing the children, knowing the teenagers, and entering into their lives. We have the I was going to talk about office work. I had to learn to run a mimeograph machine out into the pastorate. I suppose most of the pastors now have a secretary to do all this work, but in my day we got out and did this kind of thing ourselves. Some of us became fairly expert at mimeographing, and we all had to learn to type. These are just some of the duties of the pastor. I'd better hurry with them. There's the visitation of the sick. As no one else in all of life, the minister goes to the sickbed and to deal with the sick, to be there in the presence of the dying. We're the ones who take charge of the funeral, deal with the sorrowing relatives when a hand of death has entered into a home. We're there in the marriage festivities, the joining together of lives as one. in the marriage vows. We're there in counseling to talk to those who are in their problems, and they come with their problems to us. We could talk about advertising and promotion. Again, in the larger church there may be a committee to whom this may be committed, but in the smaller church the pastor finds all of this is his. When there's a building enlargement or a new building to be built, much of that, even the planning, etc., falls to the work of the pastor. So we might go on with the various aspects of our duty, the versatility that's demanded of the minister of the gospel. But over and above all of this, one task is supreme. We preach over and above all other duties. the all-importance as the Lord's day dawns, standing there in the pulpit with the open scriptures before us to declare the word of the Lord, we preach. Let me remark that it is a called task. We've all seen times when A pastor in a church will call some young man in his church into the ministry. Oh, we haven't had anyone out of this church go into the ministry in so many years, and there's a young fellow there, he's bright and smart, and I'll influence him to become a pastor. I hope none of you were called in that way. Or we've seen the times when mother says, I'd just love to have my boy in the pulpit, and so mother takes it upon herself to call the boy into the ministry. various human influences, but I trust you are students. This morning can say I have experienced the goings of heaven upon my soul, and there has come an experience that I can't altogether explain, but be able to say I know that God has singled me out, and I have had an experience when I know that he called me to be able to say with Paul, God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. God called me by his grace. You look forward to the work in the ministry. Take to you especially those words that I might preach him among the heathen. Go out into this heathen world with the glorious task of preaching Christ. Oh, make sure you're called of God. Don't enter the ministry any other way. But called of God, you'll be able to say there's nothing else in all the world that will satisfy me. I must go and preach Christ. I remark also, this is a special New Testament task. Ah, this is a work different from any and all others beneath the sun. Now what I'm doing this few days in your midst might be called lecturing or speaking, but surely when it comes to our work of standing in the pulpit, especially our Lord's Day work as we stand with the word of God before us to declare the message of God, it's something superior to mere speaking. When I'm going to preach somewhere for Sunday, I don't want to be mentioned as the speaker for the day. I have a superior task than mere speaking. That's all right if you're dealing with politics or some subject of science, some aspect of human learning. You can be called a speaker. But, oh, when you're coming to stand behind the pulpit in holy ground, indeed, to expound the word of God, then let it be turned by a scriptural word, preaching. A New Testament task over and above all other tasks beneath the sun. You students of Greek will recognize some of the Greek words. I used to try to remember my Greek by the law of association. For Caruso, I would think of a rooster. It goes together well, doesn't it? Caruso and rooster. And then I thought of the rooster who stands on a fence post in a farmyard. It's still dark in the morning, sun's going to come up, but he'll stand there and open his mouth. He doesn't care if he wakes people up or disturbs their sleep. Maybe that's what he wants to do, but he lets go with that cry of his there in the dark in the morning. He's an alarmist. He's bold, he's courageous. Good word by which to remember the term Caruso. John Berridge, the quaint old English preacher, 200 years ago in the Revival, had a sermon on Peter's rooster, that rooster that crowed there and reminded Peter of his sin, and applied that to all other preachers who were to be like Peter's rooster. But, oh, this is a work of proclaiming. We are to stand with authority to declare, to proclaim the Word of the Lord. Yeah, we live in a day when they're telling us, oh, preaching is passé. Some of the modernists have said it's utter nonsense for a man to stand there on a platform raised up above others and to stand as though he has something authoritative to say. We answer that's exactly what preaching is. We do stand and have something authoritative to say. We do have an inspired and inerrant and infallible book. We have the message from God. Here's our basis of our authority. Well, may the modernist who's thrown away his Bible say, I've got nothing to say, I've got nothing to preach. Well, may he do away with preaching. Those who have their Bible and have a call from God, have an authoritative message to declare, to proclaim, the whole idea of proclamation. behind the whole of the Greek wording of it, the thought of a herald, an ambassador, one sent by the King of Heaven to a rebellious world to stand in his name and to declare his word. Brethren, go forth with authority, not with human authority, but, oh, to go with a sense of being sent of God and having an authoritative Bible and the gospel to declare and with authority to declare it. The world needs to hear today. When I come to the message on singing, I want to mention we're told today you've got to talk in today's musical language. Bring in the whoop-de-doo of modern singing or the young people won't hear. To which we answer the man of God goes in all that he does with a cry, God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Oh, earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. We go with authority. That's the task to which God's called us in the work of preaching. Oh, that I might preach Him among the heathen. The work of preaching in the sense of a declaration, a proclamation, declared with authority, standing in God's name to deliver and to declare His word. But let me emphasize there is also that langolidzo. Always in our preaching let men and women hear the good tidings of great joy. I stand as one who has had an experience of coming into the doctrines of grace and come to some very real convictions about these great truths that they relate together and become one consonant whole. and that this is the program, doctrinal program of the Word of God, the basic message. It's God in His sovereignty, man in his utter corruption, degradation and helplessness of his sinfulness and salvation coming from God, salvation by grace, salvation that brings the gift of faith and the gift of repentance to those who have no faith and who cannot believe and who will not believe. and who cannot repent and will not repent, and grace that comes to such and gives these blessings as the gift of God and an eternal salvation in Christ. And oh, may God raise up more and more men who have grasped this great system of biblical truth. But men, let me give the emphasis, as we preach the sovereignty of God, as we recognize also the responsibility, not the free will, but the responsibility of mankind. Let it be from a broken heart. Oh, God, give us some tears in our preaching. God, give us to preach good tidings of great joy. I must say there are many men who come in to the doctrines of grace and their messages are cold and dry and hard and often almost boring. Brethren, as you preach the gospel of redeeming grace, preach it, I say, from a broken heart. Preach it with good tidings of great joy, so that your own soul is enlivened with it. And as men and women listen to it, it isn't some dreary intellectual set of theories, as is so often the case. or some grand, deep exposition of the Word of God that's way up there and the people are down here and it's completely over their heads, but a message at the level of those who are in the congregation. Preach from a broken heart and preaching constantly, no matter what our subject. Good tidings of great joy, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ died for our sins, according to the gospel. This is part of the greatness of this task, which is ours as preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've said it is a versatile task. It is a called task, a New Testament task. It is a weighty task. Paul cried out, oh, who is sufficient for these things? Paul says, wherever I go and as I preach Christ, I'm a divider of men. He said, my gospel is a savor of life unto life to some, but it becomes also a savor of death unto death for others. Oh, Paul says, I see the dividing effect of this gospel. And Paul is almost trembling under it as he says, oh, who is sufficient for these things? It's a weighty task. Nowadays, possibly many a day in the past, Ministers get together, they have their jokes, and oftentimes after a minister's through, special session perhaps somewhere, people go away saying, oh, I remember his jokes. Oh, what a good jokester he is. Now, there's a place for humor in preaching, but it's a very minor place. I've seen some men become mere comedians, but oh, far better if they were forced to say, as Paul said of Timothy, I remember thy tears, something of the broken heart, under the burden of this weighty task. Our men in the revival 200 years ago had the saying, used the phrase, the burden of the Lord. John Senech tells how God called him and he said, the burden of the Lord came upon me. That's a phrase that comes from the Old Testament prophets, the burden of the Lord. The true minister of the gospel lives. and labors under a sense of the burden of the law. He's not there to fulfill a mere profession. He's not there just to go through a prescribed round of duties, a formality. But, oh, he labors under the burden of the law. In one of Whitefield's churches, perhaps in more of them, but there was a sign on the wall where the preacher could see it. not for the people to see, but as he preached. The sign was there, and it was before his eyes constantly as he ministered the word. And the words were this, If the sinner perish in his sin, his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. Oh brethren, as we enter the pulpit, a great solemnity should come over us. God save us from all that nonsensical clowning that goes on in many a pulpit today. But a great solemnity come over us. This should become holy ground indeed. Not only ground concentrated in some way by ecclesiastical authority, but holy ground in the purpose that it fulfills. We're there to declare the word of God, this solemn, glorious proclamation of divine, majestic truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, I say this is a weighty task. Brethren, prepare yourselves for it as fully as you possibly can. I learned a little Greek in seminary. I wish I'd learned a lot more. I've forgotten some over the years, but I would say to all of you, learn your Greek as thoroughly and fully as you possibly can. The days when I was in seminary here were depression days, and we lived in rooming houses around about, and we were all virtually in poverty. Times were very difficult. And I'm sure some of the difficulty of the times affected our studies to some extent. But I look back now and I say, oh, how I wish I had got down to, especially the Greek study, far, far more than I ever had. Brethren, learn that if you're going to be A proclaimer of the New Testament. Learn your Greek as thoroughly as you possibly can. Know your tenses and your accents as well as the vocabularies, etc. Be all the authority you can in Greek. What should we say about Hebrew? I'm sure there are many who say, well, it's impossible to go through life with the knowledge of Hebrew. There are some pastors who use their Hebrew lifelong. I heard one dear pastor give us a message in a ministerial meeting on five Old Testament words, each translated, Wait upon the Lord. Five different words, five shades of meaning, and it brought out, oh, wonderful richness of waiting upon the Lord. He's a master of his Hebrew language. If at all possible, learn and continue with the Hebrew, but then you'll have your other world of studies. Every area of human learning can be brought and placed under tribute to the great task of preaching Jesus Christ. You must become learned with regard to your scriptures, biblical history, biblical background, etc., church history, literature in general, and so I could go on. Oh, the weightiness of this task of preaching Christ. Prepare for it, brethren, as fully as you possibly can. What a glorious life, however, called of God, certain of His call, gladly bidding farewell to the pursuits of this world, coming to a place where all that be of this world would almost want, as it were, to trample it underfoot and, oh, to go out and give my life over to the task to which God has called me, that I might preach Him among the heathens. Brethren, I challenge you, be all you possibly can, by the grace of God, in this great work of God, of preaching Jesus Christ. We preach, but I mention the minister's temptation. As soon as God has called a man to the ministry, the powers of hell will do their best to interpose and to turn a man away from the task to which God has called him. I find an example in the instance of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the baptism by John in Jordan, then being driven of the Spirit into the wilderness, the fasting for forty days, and then the presence of the devil and the temptation. First, a temptation to put a question mark. about that word of God, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Is this really so? Question the word of God. Then don't seek for self-discipline by this rigid fasting, but make bread. Bread is more important than self-discipline, the first temptation. Now the second is the one I want to refer to. He taketh him to Jerusalem, and he setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple. Now you are called the Son of God. You're the Messiah. This is the work of being made known unto Israel, presented unto the nation. When's it going to come about? How's it going to come about? Why not do it by a sudden miracle? Why not a great, glorious, tremendous display? Something spectacular that will make them recognize you immediately. Don't go through a long three years of preaching. Don't above everything. Do something that's going to take you to a cross. Don't make a big important fellow out of yourself here on the pinnacle of the temple. See the crowd down there below? Humanity milling around down there? You get on the temple, they're going to all look up. Look at that fellow up there in the pinnacle of the temple. He's going to jump. And then jump. And work the miracle. Call upon God for a miracle that There will be something done before you hit the ground. He will give his angels charge concerning thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. You are going to be able to perform a great miracle. You are going to jump off the pinnacle of the temple and you won't be hurt. How much pinnacle jumping have we attempted and professed the day. You look at your newspaper in Toronto on a Saturday night and you'll find one professed jump off the pinnacle of the temple after another. We've got something bigger and more spectacular than you've got at your place. And how many Toronto people and the same in all manner of other cities are looking over the Saturday paper to see where's the biggest jump off the temple? Where's the biggest spectacular thing coming tomorrow? Part of what we've developed, and a lot of that is related to evangelicalism. The devil says, jump off the pinnacle of the temple, and oh, you won't have to go through Galilee and quietness of a ministry there and down to a cross, but they'll immediately say that by this miracle we know this is the Messiah. The crown is the Messiah. Great, immediately. much to be said for it. All Satan's temptations, there is something to be said for them. The Lord Jesus, as we all recognize, turned from that temptation as he did from the others. But this is the temptation in various regards that we all face. Satan will come, and as soon as there is a little bit of success in the ministry, he'll see to it that the young pastor gets very, very concerned about the measure of his success. Until one becomes taken up so easily, not now with preaching Christ, That thought of being called of God to do nothing but make Christ known and that being sold out unto the Lord, take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee, that's forgotten. And man becomes taken up with the thought of my self-importance, trying to climb Mount the Ecclesiastical Ladder to come to a bigger church and bigger church or bigger position, more and more popularity. more and more self-importance, and we find in our churches some dear persons who will always have high commendations for any pastor. Now, that's good, and I'm strongly in favor of encouragements being given to everyone who is doing service for the Lord. We need encouragement. There are some who will come with especially laudatory comments, and little by little the mind becomes taken up with the thought of my importance until we stand in the pulpit and our thought isn't, first of all, about presenting Jesus Christ, bringing men and women into direct worship with God, but our thought, when we're through, the thought is, how well did I do today? make a little more important fellow out of myself this time than I was last week. Our thought taken up with the measure of our own self-importance. Some ministerial lives get completely taken up with this kind of thing. There are some who will stand and preach my scholarship. I met a dear man who just graduated from Oxford two or three years ago, and he has a marvelous opportunity in life. Church where he is, but I don't think he's going to be very much used of God till God handles him in some way that he forgets Oxford, forgets his scholarship. He wants everyone to know he's graduated, he's got a doctor's degree from Oxford. By all means, let's rejoice in doctor's degrees from Oxford for any evidence of true learning, but, oh, God forbid, we should pray and display that kind of thing and make people concerned about our scholarship rather than about Jesus Christ. One dear brother of mine, he's gone to glory now, years ago he said to me, I'm getting out of Canada and I'm going to go to the United States because I can get a D.D. over there. And he went over to the United States and he got an utterly bogus D.D. and came from no institution whatsoever, then he got an ability to give degrees, a degree mill, we term it, from some school in the southern states. And he came back to Detroit and he had a little handful of men falling on him, just anything at all, to get a bogus D.D. given to him. And then my dear friend used to love to get calls to a church. He'd make it evident that he was available and he was a very capable preacher. I made it evident he was available and he'd get a call to this church and he'd wait six months to tell them he wasn't going to accept it. He knew from the first he was never going to accept it. But he'd go around and tell us, I get a call to so-and-so. And so this went on. And a good man who could have been much used of the Lord was taken up with the size of himself. And a columnist in one of the Detroit papers learned about it. Also, it was a man who had a TV program, and he wrote up, my dear friend, in his magazine, mocking and scorning titles that some preachers use. My dear friend died three months after that, and what could have been a life that could have been useful for the Lord? Preaching Christ was to a very large extent a life of preaching himself. Brethren, let us labor to see that Satan doesn't sidetrack us so that our time is spent in preaching self. Let me hurry with it. Don't try to make some oddity of personality manifest to be peculiar in some way or get folks talking about the peculiarities. I mentioned a comedian I had a friend years ago who was marvelously gifted at telling a joke, and he had a Scotch accent, and it was a beautiful Scotch accent, and he could have made a fortune in Hollywood as a comedian. But, oh, he did so much in joke-telling in the pulpit that his last few years in life one could say, as I heard an unsaved man say when he went out to one of his meetings, he's no preacher but a marvelous comedian. And what could also have been a good life? Preaching Christ, waylaid into preaching self, drawing attention to self. I'm sure a multitude of ideas come to your mind as the ways in which man is sidetracked from the great task that God has called him until he's taken up with the idea of self-importance, always conscious of how big and how important am I in everything that he does. God give us grace to rise above a condition like that. We preach not ourselves, but we preach Christ Jesus the Lord, the minister's triumph. We need to die to ourselves. I don't preach as some would want to do, a definite second experience in grace that all must have. But there may be a very definite second experience and a second, third, fourth, and a hundred and second experience. especially in the life of the minister, where he learns to die out unto himself. It may come out of some deep sorrow, some life-shattering disappointment, some experience of a terribly broken heart, but in it all God to bring forth out of the fires of trial gold, silver, and precious stones unto his glory. We need to learn to die to those thoughts of self. I quote from a little card track that used to be available years ago. To one who once asked him the secret of his success, George Mueller said, and as he spoke his aged form bent lower and lower till it seemed he would touch the ground, said George Mueller, there came a day when I died. to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will died to the approval or blame of my friends or my foes. Since that day, I have sought to show myself approved only unto God. I hurry to bring an illustration from Whitfield. In my volume one, I tell of the success that he had there as a young man of 22 in the cities of Bristol and London. The crowds would run to touch him on the street thinking there was virtue coming from his garment, thronging into his lodgings and flooding any building in which he ever spoke. Tremendous popularity. And he mentions, he said, I used to plead with the Lord to take me by the hand and lead me unscathed through the fire of popularity. He heard my prayer and gave me to see the vanity of all commendations but his own. Men and brethren, we must rise above a concern about the commendations or even the blame, even of the people of God and above all, seek to live in the light of the judgment morning when we'll stand to give an account before God and to seek to be worthy of the approval in that day of him who sees and knows all. I bring one other word of illustration. I've got my eye on that clock and I know I'll be through in a moment. unknown to many an aspect of Whitefield's life, he built the Methodist movement, the organization. He had his 60 societies and 60 to 70 preachers. He left to go on a third trip to America, and he had previously turned it all over to the hand of Wesley, and Wesley had sought to take it all to himself. and to supplant Whitfield. I'll get into that possibly tomorrow. But after that, Whitfield built the movement and the organization. My friend Lloyd Jones said to me, I'm utterly amazed. He'd read in TypeScript my volume two, so I'm utterly amazed to realize he was the organizer. But he went again to America, as I've said. And when he came home, his followers expected him to take over where he had laid down his work four years previously, leading this movement. Whitfield could see that it would mean a lifetime of rivalry with John Wesley. The Arminian Methodism, the Calvinistic Methodism, and the people were antagonistic one to the other. Whitfield, when he came home from that third trip to America, said to his people, no, I'm not going to take up the movement and lead it again. And some would say to him, but oh, you must, that your name may go down in history and the fame that's properly yours. Whitfield said to them, no, let the name of Whitfield perish, but Christ be glorified. And there was constant pressure on him from his people as they said, we stayed loyal to your work throughout all these four years you're in America. We waited for you to come home. He had a great tabernacle there in London and it needed him. And they said, we have furthered the work of the tabernacle. And there were the preachers all over his 60 societies. And they said, we've waited for you to come home. You've got to lead it now. Take up. No, no. I won't lead it. Let the name of Whitfield Parish, Christ be glorified, and let me be but the servant of all." That was in 1748. He didn't die until 1770, 22 more years. And during those years he was the servant of all. He worked with the evangelical movement in the Church of England and did much to create that movement with all of the good it has been to the world. The many scholars, hymn writers, etc., the evangelical Church of England has raised up. He worked with the independents, the congregationalists, and I could go on to enlarge upon the effect of that. He worked with the Presbyterians in Scotland, and under his ministry there was a vast change in the whole religious condition of Scotland. He worked with the Baptists. He had trouble at first. He called them Baptist teachers, and it was a while before he would recognize them as true preachers, ministers of the gospel. But, oh, how much he did for Baptist cause. So I might go on, he was simply the servant of all, but above everything, he worked with John Wesley's movement. And much of Wesleyan Methodism came out of George Whitefield's ministry and influence. He could get the crowd. And when Wesley's work in some place was suffering, and they couldn't get a hearing, call in Brother George, and Brother George would come, the crowd would come, and he'd recommend Wesley's work. This got him in wrong with his own people again. What are you doing helping Wesley's work out? Do a work that will stand true to your own theology. He said, no, I can work with John on the basis of the great area of the gospel in common. Whether we'd agree with him or not, I don't know, but this is what he did. And it was a marvelous evidence of a man who could have had the greatest of earthly fame instead of now his being somewhat a forgotten individual and Wesley so widely known. He could have been as he was in his own day, the great known popular figure, but he was willing to let all that popularity go. Only he could make Jesus Christ known and go among Wesley's people, Presbyterians, Baptists, someone else, preaching Jesus Christ. To bring the illustration further to close with it, we preach Christ. Francis Whelan, Jr., went over to England in the 1880s to hear some preachers. The party went on a Sunday morning to City Temple to hear Dr. Joseph Parker. great crowd, there would be 1,500 undoubtedly in City Temple. Powerful, ponderous personality in the pulpit, man of great voice, domineering manner, great preacher. They came away at the close of that morning service. Oh, what a great preacher, what a great preacher. Sunday evening they went to hear Spurgeon, a much vaster congregation, 5,000 or more present, a much greater mind and intellect, a much superior power of oratory and preaching, etc. When they left, coming out of the building, they said to one another, What a great Savior is Jesus Christ! As you stand to preach, are you going to make people say, What a great preacher! What a good boy am I! If you've got any thought at all of trying to make something big and important out of self, ask the Lord to let it be crucified, mortified, put to death. But as we stand to preach, oh, to be filled with that thought, to let men and women see Jesus Christ, the awful failure of showing to poor, lost sinners, dead in sin, a smart man who can't save a soul of any kind. But all to show them the Savior. Did time allow I talk about preaching Christ? All the fullness and tremendousness of the task to preach Christ in his person, in his work, in his atonement, his resurrection, in his intercessory ministry, in his coming again. All the fullness of a subject here to keep thee going if ye had all eternity on earth. This the task to which God has called you. We preach. We preach not ourselves. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your servants, for Christ's sake.