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.