Somewhere between proud presumption and dead despair is the believer’s hope. Somewhere between fleshly familiarity with deity and slavish fear there is the believer’s hope. Somewhere between modern, easy-believism and medieval fatalism there is the believer’s hope.
Someone once said, “God has hedged us about on one side with his promises of mercy lest we despair, and he has hedged us about on the other side with warnings of apostasy lest we presume.”
I have read in the Scriptures of those who laid down their lives for him, but I have also read of those who “walked no more with him.” In thirty-one years of preaching I have seen some who continued in the faith until God called them home; but, I have seen others who have lost interest in the gospel and ended up with a life of nothing but tradition, doctrine, and an old experience.
Jeremiah sounds a clear note on the believer’s hope in Lamentations 3:22-24. “It is the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith the soul, therefore will I hope in him.”
The Lord is my inheritance, my joy and my delight—not just his pardon but his presence; not just his blessings but his being; not just his heavenly place but his holy person.
A.B. Simpson caught the truth in his poem:
“Once it was the blessing; now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling; now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted; now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing; now himself alone.”
About Henry Mahan
Henry T. Mahan was born in Birmingham, Alabama in August 1926. He joined the United States Navy in 1944 and served as a signalman on an L.S.T. in the Pacific during World War II. In 1946, he married his wife Doris, and the Lord blessed them with four children.
At the age of 21, he entered the pastoral ministry and gained broad experience as a pastor, teacher, conference speaker, and evangelist. In 1950, through the preaching of evangelist Rolfe Barnard, God was pleased to establish Henry in sovereign free grace teaching. At that time, he was serving as an assistant pastor at Pollard Baptist Church (off of Blackburn ave.) in Ashland, Kentucky.
In 1955, Thirteenth Street Baptist Church was formed in Ashland, Kentucky, and Henry was called to be its pastor. He faithfully served that congregation for more than 50 years, continuing in the same message throughout his ministry. His preaching was centered on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, in full accord with the Scriptures. He consistently proclaimed God’s sovereign purpose in salvation and the glory of Christ in redeeming sinners through His blood and righteousness.
Henry T. Mahan also traveled widely, preaching in conferences and churches across the United States and beyond. His ministry was marked by a clear and unwavering emphasis on Christ, not the preacher, but the One preached. Those who heard him recognized that his sermons honored the Savior and exalted the name of the Lord Jesus Christ above all.
Henry T. Mahan served as pastor and teacher of Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky for over half a century. His life and ministry were devoted to proclaiming the sovereign grace of God and directing sinners to the finished work of Christ. He entered into the presence of the Lord in 2019, leaving behind a lasting testimony to the gospel he faithfully preached.
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