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In this meeting tonight, we are
interested in Christianity in Ireland. And it's that little
postage-size, stamp-size country right on the very western point
of Europe. And there are some people who
would like just to take a tugboat, tie a rope to the whole island,
and drag it out into the Atlantic Ocean and sink it for all time. It is a tiny island in the scale
of Europe and of the world. It is about the size of Washington
State, just to the south of us. And yet its coastline is the
same length as the border between Canada and the United States. It is a vast coastline. For fishermen, it is a dream.
And then as it is Ireland, funny enough, they put the cork on
the bottom. And the most northerly tip of
Ireland is actually in the south. There are many of those kind
of paradoxes concerning the land of Ireland. If you were to fly
over the country, you would be, no doubt, impressed with its
greenness. And that is due to the fact that
in the west, every two out of three days, it rains. And on
the east side, every one out of two days, it rains. It's a
land of green, grass, and moss. It's a land of many, many shades
of interest. And I have to thank God tonight
for the history of Christianity in my native country. Because in 1974, I heard the
gospel that I now preach. And I, at 18 years of age, came
under the Free Presbyterian Ministry of ministers in our denomination
who declared the way of salvation. And I thank God for that message
and for the light of the gospel that came to my heart. March 17, St. Patrick's Day,
is actually the date of the formation of the Free Presbyterian Church
in Ireland in 1951. It was then that Dr. Paisley,
a young man full of fire and zeal and evangelism, preached
a number of gospel campaigns. And with some opposition from
the Irish Presbyterian Church, there were people who were converted
who were revived, and they said, we need a free Presbyterian church. And so 62 years ago today, this
denomination and its sister denomination in the north of Ireland had its
very beginning. Presbyterianism is very strong
in especially the north of Ireland. In 1859, there was a very, very
unusual and extraordinary move of the Spirit of God, what is
now known as the 1859 Revival. If you go to the towns in the
north of Ireland, you will see that there is not only one Presbyterian
church, but usually two and sometimes three in small communities. Presbyterianism in Ireland goes
back to the 1600s, when King James I, who actually is the
same king who commissioned the Bible that we use in our church,
he opened up the country for people to go from England, Scotland,
Wales, and to plant the country with farms, agriculture, and
industry. They brought an industry that
the land of Ireland had never known before. If you know the
history of Anglicanism and its tensions with the Scottish Presbyterians,
tensions is a mild word, rather the persecutions, the killing
times in Scotland due to Anglican persecution. There were many
in Scotland that were quite ready to make the voyage over the Irish
Sea and to settle in what was then really the America. of British colonies. The fact is that Ulster was for
a time what America became, a refuge for the oppressed. These were
the sons of John Knox. These were the men who had Reformation
values in their blood. They went with their axes, they
went with their speeds, their hoes, they built towns and created
farms, and they turned that part of the world into something very
different. We go away back now to somewhere
in the 1100s in the history of Ireland. At that time it was
totally free from any rule of Great Britain or of the Church
of Rome. The Pope of that day was Pope
Adrian IV. He was the only English Pope
that ever made it to the Vatican. And this week, they decided not
to choose an Englishman for the Vatican. But way back in the
1100s, Pope Adrian IV was the Englishman in Rome and he was
their pope. offered a papal bull or decree
to Henry II, who was king of England, to annex Ireland. Now, there's some controversy
about this. If you go to English dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica,
you will see that there is some maybes and ifs and buts, and
historians want to revise this because this is a bit of history
that many Roman Catholics especially don't want to know. And it is
that Adrian IV gave the papal blessing on the King of England
to cross the Irish Sea with his army and bring it under jurisdiction
of Britain to pay taxes to Britain and pay levies to Rome. And so that was the beginning
of the formal political link under England. If you read inside
your authorized version, you will see that King James was
the first, was the king of England, Scotland, Ireland. And so from
the 1100s, England, Westminster, claimed Ireland as a part of
their dominion. From the 1100s right through
to the 1500s of Henry VIII, Some of the most diabolical,
cruel crimes were committed on the Irish by the English. They were done in the name of
political struggles to make Irishmen submit to English authority. They were also done in the name
of the Pope to try and make these people submit to papal authority. The indignities, the cruelties
that were perpetrated between 1172 when Henry II's army arrived
in England, right up to the 1500s when Henry VIII converted from
Romanism to Protestantism, and hence the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation. But as you know, his reign was
short-lived. And thereafter, there came this vacillating Protestant
king, Catholic king, Protestant king. Well, the people in Ireland
were like a football tossed about. And when Charles I became king,
he wanted to bring an army from Ireland to invade England. Again,
he was just using them for their own purposes. Hence, the Irish
have always been hostile to the British. and, unfortunately,
they have been hostile to the gospel. Evangelism in Ireland
has proven to be very difficult. Even when England was being blessed
with Reformation blessing, the Irish had no Bible in their own
language, they were expected to speak and understand English,
and missionaries were very late and very few. And it wasn't until
the days of the Wesleys in the 1700s that real efforts were
made to win the Irish to the gospel of the Lord Jesus. But let us go back a little further,
closer to Patrick. I want you to go back to the
7th century when Ireland was truly the land of saints and
scholars. This is 300, 400 years before
any formal link to Britain, any formal link to the Church of
Rome. The Irish at that time were really the saints and scholars. They had their forms of religious
institution that would be like monasteries. They were places
of learning, and they were places of libraries. Irish missionaries
that had gone to France, Germany, Italy, with the gospel, had discovered
the libraries of Rome and other great cities like Avignon in
France. And there they took those books
and those titles of learning back to Ireland so that when
Rome was pillaged by the Huns and the Vandals, When the libraries
were burned and destroyed and nobody cared for them, the seat
of archived learning was in Ireland with the saints and scholars.
Now, the blessing of that age came through men like Columba
and others who followed Patrick. But really it was Patrick's ministry. that brought the gospel and changed
the land to bring it much gospel fruit for generations to come. Now, I'm going to digress. I have a little story for you.
It's the story of Charles Darwin on his Beagle ship on the southern
hemisphere visiting New Zealand. When he arrived in New Zealand
and attended a Christmas Day function to mingle with boys
and girls who were native children, he was mightily impressed with
the behavior and with the education of these children. If he had
arrived 20 years earlier, he may have been eaten by cannibals. In 20 years, New Zealand was
won by the gospel. There were a number of missionaries
who had to learn how to sail their own vessels because no
other sea captain would take them on to shore to mission the
native people of New Zealand. One historian wrote, we see here
a whole nation of pagans converted to the faith. Where will you
find throughout the whole Christian world more signal manifestations
of the Spirit? or more living evidences of the
kingdom of Christ. That's the power of the gospel
in New Zealand in the 1800s. Where will you see something
like it or more, even better than that? Well, one place you
could look is the land of Ireland. Because through the lifetime
of one man, Patrick, Ireland was changed for generations to
come. Now, what is Patrick's history
as a missionary, or as we may call him, an apostle to Ireland? Well, he was born in Scotland,
and there he grew up with a reasonably well-to-do and stable family.
And as a young boy, when he was probably scouring the shores
of the country, he was kidnapped by marauding kidnappers. He was taken into a vessel, taken
across the Irish Sea and sold as a slave into Ireland. In his own writings, sometimes
called Confessions, there is hints that he was a slave boy
where he was tending to farm animals, sheep and pigs and so
on for six years on a particular mount called Mount Slemish, visible
from the town of Balaamina. Now, those who go on Sermon Audio
and listen to one of our ministers, the Reverend John Greer, will
be familiar with that town name. Well, just a few miles out of
that town and out of that Braid Valley is this slemish mountain,
and it's like a miniature volcanic hill. And it was on that hill
that Patrick herded sheep and pigs for six years. And it was
during that time that he was converted. God used the hardship
of those years to bring this young lad, Patrick, to a knowledge
of the Lord Jesus. I'm going to read to you his
own statement or confession. But after I reached Ireland,
I used to pasture the flock each day. And I used to pray many
times a day. More and more did the love of
God and my fear of Him and faith increase. And my spirit was moved
so that in a day I said from one up to a hundred prayers and
in the night a like number. Besides, I used to stay out in
the forest and on the mountain, and I would wake up before daylight
to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither
ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the spirit was
burning in me at that time. And so we see that this young
lad was wonderfully converted, and he had something of a conversion
akin to the Apostle Paul. I wouldn't say the bright light
is on the Damascus road, but no doubt there was the power
of the gospel at work within his heart. If you turn to Galatians
chapter 1, You will see how Paul put it concerning his own conversion,
Galatians 1 and verse 15. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace,
called me by his grace, that's conversion. That's the gospel
call. And as you know, in the apostle
Paul, the most unlikely of men in the first century heard that
call and obeyed it. But if you look at verse 16,
you will see that not only did God call him outwardly, but he
revealed his son inwardly. To reveal his Son in me. There's the inward work of grace. It's not just hearing a voice.
It's not just some sudden thought. But there is that turning of
heart. that implanting new life within
the soul. And Paul the Apostle had that,
and God used it in his life to make him a preacher of the gospel. Now, the Lord revealed himself
in some such manner to Patrick on that mountain. And I can only
liken Patrick to a more modern-day Joseph. Joseph had been violently
taken from his homeland, sold into slavery, And there he was
abused and put into prison, but there God worked in him, and
his spirit was within him. And so sometime during those
six years as a slave boy herding on that little mountain, God
revealed himself to Patrick, and he was marvelously converted. At the end of six years, he by
some means escaped. He found, after some difficulty,
found a sailing vessel that would take him back to his beloved
homeland, and off he went, free from slavery, but with the Lord
in his heart. You can imagine the reunion there
was as he returned home. How his parents, who had thought
they'd lost him forever, must have been pleasantly and wonderfully
surprised to see him again in the flesh. And they asked him
that he would never again leave them. Well, parents, that's a
dangerous thing to say to your children. Never say to your kids,
please don't leave us. Because while Patrick was converted
in a way similar to the Apostle Paul, He also heard a call to
preach similar to the Apostle Paul. And that's why I wanted
to read Acts 16, verse 9. And you read there of how Paul,
with the others, was planning to go into Asia with the gospel. And we're told in verse 7 that
the Spirit suffered him, them not. And by some means, and they
said, no, that's not what I want you to do. And that door was
closed. And they passing by Mysia came to Troas and a vision appeared
to Paul in the night. And there stood a man of Macedonia
and prayed him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. Well, young Patrick, when he
was in Scotland at home with his parents, he had something
of that vision. But it wasn't a Macedonian calling,
it was the Irish. And I want to give you some of
the confessions, the statements that he has made of how that
call came to his own heart. Now, it was the power of the
gospel in his heart, and it was the call of God to preach the
gospel that took him back again to Ireland, and he became a missionary. Now, I'm sure you're interested,
what kind of missionary was he? We're talking about somewhere
around 430. We're talking about days when
means of communication were very different. when Ireland was in
a very desperate and pathetic state religiously, what kind
of ministry did he have? That's very important because
tonight, Patrick is claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as
their missionary. There are Roman Catholic authors
who would tell you that Patrick was sent from a religious organization
in France by the Pope to mission and to evangelize the Irish. And so the nature of his ministry
will confirm or deny that very account. First thing I want to
point out about his ministry and missionary work is that it
was biblical. He was given the message of the
Bible. The Word of God had traveled
throughout the Roman Empire. It was accessible in all Europe.
And we have strong evidence that Patrick knew the Bible and preached
the Bible. In his confession, numbered 40—now,
whether that was numbered by Patrick or the archivists or
the librarians, I'm not sure—but in confession number 40, here's
what he wrote. So for that reason, one should
in fact fish well and diligently, just as the Lord foretells and
teaches, saying, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
And again, through the prophets, behold, I am sending forth many
fishers and hunters, says the Lord. So it behoved us to spread
our nets, that a vast multitude and throng might be caught for
God, so there might be clergy everywhere, who baptized and
exhorted a needy and desirous people. Just as the Lord says
in the gospel, admonishing and instructing, go therefore and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I command you, And lo, I am with you always
unto the end. And he quotes other verses from
the Gospels and one from the book of Hosea, ye are my people,
that they will be called sons of the living God. So we see
from this particular writing that his burden was to bring
the Word of God to the hearts of the people. Now, you and I
know that that is the work of any missionary, any Bible gospel
missionary, that if we're going to win people to the true knowledge
of God, we must go forth with the Bible. We also know that
he believed in preaching, and teaching. He didn't say just,
well, here's a Bible, put your hand on it, and it'll be a magical
formula. It will be a blessing to you
just if you hold this book. He believed in preaching and
teaching, not just baptism. He believed in the need for real
conversion to Christ through gospel knowledge. And Patrick
had a preaching ministry. And we know this because he went
to the kings of Ireland to preach the Trinity. And there's quite
a lot of information available how he took a shamrock to convince
the hearers, these druid kings, and they were given to sorcery,
they were given to all kinds of superstition, and he brought
to them the message of the Trinity. Now, a shamrock is a very good
tool for the job. It's as good as any other illustration
you'll ever find or any example that you could give. And yet
we know it comes very far short of truly expounding the wonders
of the unigod, the three persons in one Godhead. Now, Patrick was tactical in
his preaching to the kings. Ireland was made up of little
tribes, family heads, and they were made kings. And he knew
what many missionaries know, that if you're going to win a
people to the cause of the gospel, you've got to reach the leadership. You've got to reach the head
of the community. And so he went with his shamrock
and he preached to the kings the message of the gospel. Now
also it was wise in that he wanted to start with the knowledge of
God. He didn't start with superstitions, he didn't start with other gimmicks,
but he sought to lead these people to the true knowledge of the
true God. And that is the work of every
missionary. And tonight, if you're here and
you're not a Christian, you need to know that God is three in
one, and that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
planned redemption, salvation, to bring you eternal life. I've
said it from this pulpit many times. I say it again tonight.
Any religion that denies the Trinity has no gospel, has no
message of salvation, whether it's the Mormons, the Jehovah's
Witnesses, the other religions of the world, the superstitious,
the New Age movement. Without the knowledge of the
Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is no gospel. If you are to become a worshiper
of the true God, you pray in the Trinitarian formula, to the
Father, through the Son, and by the help of the Holy Spirit. Is that your faith tonight? Is
that your personal religion? Do you know God as the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit? There are around us many people
who think that the sun, the moon, the very earth itself is God. Pantheism, New Ageism, anything
but the God revealed in the Bible. That was the ministry of Patrick. We also know that Patrick had
a converting ministry. He baptized many converts. Now, baptism was not to be forced,
but with the wish of the people who wanted to be disciples of
Christ. And it is the mark of giving
up the old life of paganism and of superstition to accept the
grace of God in Christ Jesus. I read one more little extract
from his own writings. Again he says, go forth into
the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who believes
and is baptized shall be saved. But he who does not believe shall
be condemned. And again, this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world as a witness
to all nations, and then the end of the world shall come.
So you can see that this man had a grasp of what it takes
to bring a person to a true relationship with God. And I glean from that
little statement that Patrick preached the need for faith.
It's not enough just to be baptized. And there are many people in
the world who may have been baptized, whether as infants, by parents,
or as adults into some religious organization. But water doesn't
make you better. Water doesn't wash away sins. It is faith in the Lord Jesus
and his redeeming work that deals with the power of sin. Patrick
here put faith before baptism. That must always be done. Any
presentation of the gospel that reverses the order is all wrong. No missionary can land on the
shore and just baptize multitudes of people and expect them to
be real Christians? And yet that's what the Church
of Rome has done all around the world. Mexico, South America,
and the farthest flung corners of the world, that has been their
attempt to try and Christianize people. But Patrick, he preached
faith. before baptism. He also put in
the warning, as we read there, that he who does not believe
is condemned. And I can hear Patrick preaching
in the villages, the markets of ancient Ireland, the poor
pagan people who have never heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus
prior to this, never had a Bible, never knew what it was to worship
the God of Christ, hearing for the first time the way of salvation. Another little statement he wrote,
so how is it that in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge
of God, but always until now cherished idols and unclean things,
they are lately become a people of the Lord? and are called children
of God, the sons of the Irish and the daughters of the chieftains."
This was the remarkable ministry of Patrick. He saw many, many
converts. It even staggered himself. So
his ministry was biblical. His ministry was the gospel. His ministry was not just the
tool of baptism, but it was real conversions, and he saw multitudes
converted. He also was a planter of churches. He didn't leave the people to
their own old ways. They needed the ongoing teaching
ministry of the Word. I read again from his writings,
what is more, when I baptized so many thousands of people,
did I hope for even half a jot from any of them? If so, tell
me, and I will give it back to you. And when the Lord ordained
clergy everywhere by my humble means, and I freely conferred
office on them, If I asked any of them anywhere, even for the
price of one shoe, say so to my face and I will give it back."
Now that gives us information that he organized churches, he
organized ministers for the preaching, teaching of God's Word, and his
method of biblical ministry was biblical, simple, teaching, nothing
like what later would be the ministry of the Church of Rome
or the papacy, nor even of prelice as in the Anglican system. There
is no mention of the papacy, no mention of Mary worship, no
mention of auricular confession, no mention of those ways that
are now considered Roman Catholic. His manner of worship was simple
and pure from these things. Historians like the model of
church life under Patrick closest to Presbyterianism. Now, I'll
not say tonight what I said this morning that maybe it even was
free Presbyterianism. I'll not say that tonight. But
you can see that he was a man who took his cue from the Word
of God, the Bible. was his map and his model. Now, Patrick died on March 17th,
either in the year 465, some other would say 493, and he was
buried in the town called Downpatrick. Now, it takes quite a doing to
get a town called after your name, especially when you're
dead. But Patrick had that town called
after his name. And there are quite a number
of places called after his name. Now here is the question, will
we meet Patrick in heaven? Will he be in heaven? Did he
believe that he was going to heaven? Let me say something
for you, that no Roman Catholic priest, bishop, cardinal, or
pope is able to say, I am going to heaven. Everyone needs the
last rites, and at the last rites they are cast upon the mercy
of God. For every Roman Catholic, masses
are said, and this includes the laity and the clergy, masses
that they might be delivered from a place called purgatory. No Roman Catholic dies with assurance
that it will be absent from the body, present with the Lord. Patrick never mentions purgatory. He never mentions masses or prayers
for the dead. Let me read to you what he did
say. For the sun we see rises each day for us at his command,
but it will never reign, neither will it splendor last, but all
who worship it will come wretchedly to punishment. that is, those
who worship earthly sun. We, on the other hand, shall
not die who believe in and worship the true son, Christ, who will
never die. No more shall he die who has
done Christ's will, but will abide forever, just as Christ
abides forever. who reigns with God the Father
Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time
and now and forever and ever. That was the hope in the heart
of Patrick before he died. Will he be in heaven? He died
with this gospel hope. Now, the next question is, was
he a saint? Was he a saint? Well, yes, in
the sense that all born-again Christians are saints. And you
have letters in the Bible where you have the apostles writing
to various churches and groups of Christians, and they are referred
to as saints. Turn to Romans chapter 1. And
to verse 7, you have Paul writing to these Christians at Rome.
And he says, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, call to
be saints. The word saints means holy. They have been made righteous
by the power of the gospel. Now, I want you to notice something,
that the people that Paul was writing to at Rome, they were
already saints. but they were still living. They
were living saints. You don't need to wait till you
die. You don't need to wait to some time in the future. You
don't need to wait till somebody canonizes you because you were
able to perform some miracle. And that's something I could
never figure out. It usually takes until a person is dead
before they can be canonized, because it's only after they're
dead they can figure out that they really did a true miracle
on earth. Well, Patrick did none of those things, but he was a
saint in the sense that the Christians at Rome were saints. Now, if you turn to 1 Corinthians
1 verse 2, you will see that when Paul wrote to these Christians
at Corinth, that these people at Corinth, they were not always
saints. Indeed, they were made to be saints. 1 Corinthians chapter
1 verse 2, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to
them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints. And this is the wonder of the
gospel. It takes a sinner and makes him a saint. It takes someone
who is unholy and makes you holy. How can that be? Not by the pronouncement
of a church. but by the work of the Redeemer
on the cross. Christ died on the cross to redeem
men from sin, that their sins may be pardoned and given a righteousness
that makes them perfect. And so a sinner is made a saint
through the gospel. Christ came into the world to
redeem lost souls, to give a peculiar people who are zealous of good
works. Now, I believe that Patrick is
in heaven, and many will be there because of his faithful witness
as a missionary of the cross. Not because of his church authority,
not because of some institutional magical powers, but because he
preached the name of Jesus, his work, his triumph at Calvary. And that's how people are converted.
The church can't make you a Christian. The church can't make you ready
for heaven. You must come personally to the
Lord Jesus and trust him. as your Lord, as your Savior,
and He promises that He will save you. I pray tonight that
this little sketch on the missionary work of Patrick, that it will
stir us to the great things that God can do and has done in many
places on the earth. I couldn't bypass that little
sketch of what happened in New Zealand, especially when it was
Charles Darwin the man who went on to preach that we are the
product of evolution. And yet in that land, he saw
the power of the gospel with his own eyes. And as the historian
said, if he had been there 20 years earlier, he may have been
eaten by cannibals. Missionaries have seen cannibals
converted. The preaching of the cross is
the power of God unto salvation. to everyone that believeth."
And this is our gospel tonight. We're not living in Patrick's
time. We're not living in that part of the world. But we have
a gospel to preach and a people to win. May we go out and tell
them the good news that Jesus saves. And I want us to close
the meeting with that hymn, Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves. We have heard the joyful sound
Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Spread the tidings all around.
Jesus saves, Jesus saves. 692. Ah, numbers do help. 692
Jesus saves. Let's stand as we sing together. ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪
Spend the time it's all about ♪ ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪ Prepare
the news to every land ♪ ♪ Guide the spirits and all to praise ♪ ♪ Offer a dance and all over
the land ♪ ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪
The God, the holy God, Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪ And sinners
are wiped, and sinners are wiped ♪ ♪ Jesus saves ♪ ♪ In the islands
of the sea ♪ ♪ And the land the ocean waves ♪ ♪ There shall be her
jubilee ♪ ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪ She will love you ♪ when the heart for mercy praise
♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪
In the midst of mighty wars ♪ ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ ♪ Let the
nations now rejoice ♪ ♪ Jesus saves, Jesus saves ♪ Father, we give thanks tonight
for the work that you have done throughout the world in various
generations. You have given us hope this evening
that this gospel has the power of God and by your blessing is
able to transform societies. Lord, remember this country tonight. Make us missionaries of the cross. Glorify your name in the preaching
of Calvary. Bless us in this Easter season
that we may have many opportunities to tell sinners what our Lord
Jesus accomplished on that cross. Bless our fellowship this evening.
Bless the food. May your presence be with us
as we mingle together. And as we later depart, go with
us. Bring us back again in the fullness of the blessing of the
gospel. By the grace of our Lord Jesus,
the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with your
redeemed people now and evermore. Amen.
Patrick - Apostle of Ireland
Series MIssions
Patrick was a missionary in Ireland. He was converted to Christ when a slave in Ireland and heard the call of the Irish to preach to them.
| Sermon ID | 31713194110 |
| Duration | 50:14 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Acts 16:9 |
| Language | English |
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