The president of the Christian Union – the IVCF – at
So off I went to that event, thinking I was going to be in the hot seat with questions coming from all directions. "You’ll enjoy that," one of my members said with a knowing look. Of course. No preparation needed – except the forty years of preparing three messages a week. I got there to discover that there were three others on the panel, two students and the CU staff worker
"How could evil have ever originated if a holy God made everything? Should women preach in church? Do you pray to the Virgin Mary? How can you reconcile the sovereignty of God with man’s responsibility? Doesn’t ultimate authority lie with the church as it determines the canon of Scripture, rather than with the Bible? Is the Pope the anti-Christ?" On and on like that, for two hours. Yup. The pattern of questions was established early on in the meeting; the three others being asked to give their generally sensible answers first of all and then I was turned to. I, of course, went on and on and on. I tried to be good; I can only plead some thought on those subjects for years, and a considered response. The dynamics of the meeting were affected by the presence of a humanist student, a pretty able guy, and two Roman Catholic students. They were great kids, nice looking, earnest and gracious. They did help the discussion to be civilised. They made a vital contribution. I was conscious of how much it had become a "Geoff Thomas shows how smart he is" occasion by the end and so I hung around and ate popcorn with them and spoke to the humanist and the Roman Catholic boys and the other panel members and Tim Pickles (who is going into the army) and anyone standing alone. I apologised if I had dominated or been too sharp, but they did not think so, which was kind of them. I was the age of their grandfathers. I drove
The previous week we had had a day conference in Bala of the evangelical ministers of
I enjoyed some things that a Protestant Reformed man wrote recently about the focus of the hope for the future of the
een minimal and there is no fear of God in the land. I once said forty years ago that if ten men were converted from the world to Jesus Christ in this town it would make an enormous impact. I have yet to see that. The coming of the soundest theology must be accompanied by the coming of the convicting life-giving Spirit. When this brother says about a great awakening, "Pinning all their hopes for the future of the church in
“Both parties are wrong. The New Testament teaching on the Spirit is related to individuals or individual churches. There is no promise, for instance, that if the church at
“Of course, Dr Lloyd-Jones believed that God may so bestow his Spirit upon many at the same time (the traditional meaning of revival). But he did not teach that enduements of the Spirit belong only to times of revival. As in the New Testament, the point of his teaching was for the individual and the local situation. There can be personal ‘awakening’ to the glory of Christ and a local giving of the Spirit. This he saw, this he knew; and for him this was the essential for churches to be brought into closer approximation to the New Testament. The Christian’s love and compassion to the souls of men are the overflow of Christ’s greater love. Evangelism is not to be postponed until there is another revival. Spirit-filled Christians are to be an evangelistic force at this present time, and to question that possibility is to cast doubt upon the word of Christ. Man-centredness and low views of God, arising from remaining indwelling sin, are our great enemies. If any message comes to us this quarter century after Lloyd-Jones’s death, it should be, ‘Cease from man.’ ‘From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.’ The effect of his help is to humble, to restore the true fear of God, and to put us in constant dependence upon him. ‘God is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.’”
A group of men at the Baptist Tabernacle in
I went on to
astor. What a splendid ministry he has. There were eighty present on Sunday morning and over fifty in the night. Nine years ago they planted a church in Ulverston across