All right, let's bow for prayer
before I begin this time with you. Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Holy and reverent is thy name. And we know that in thee We live
and move and have our being. And all things are of God. And this time together, this
morning, we trust we'll be blessed of thee. Help me, Lord. Lead me not unto myself, but
give me the power and presence of your Holy Spirit to be a blessing
to your people. We pray for all who meet together
in thy name this day, and ask the Lord to bless them. Give
wisdom and understanding and liberty to those who proclaim
the word. Make it effectual to every heart. Especially bless us here, for
we wait before thee, for Christ's sake. Amen. Now the pastor requested that
I talk to you this morning about the resurgence of sovereign grace. Sovereign grace has always been
the way that God saved sinners. But there are times in history
when the Lord has been pleased to especially bless His people
in this regard. Starting with author W.P. starting with Arthur W. Pink
and many men since then the Lord has been pleased to use to preach
the gospel of his sovereign redeeming grace to this generation. And my connection with this movement began with an older man, much,
much older. Brother I.C. Herringdean was
his name. He was a religious man. He was
born before the turn of the century. He was a man about my father's
age, who would be 110 now. But Brother Herringdean was a
religious man. He was not a sovereign grace
believer. He was not a man who knew the
Calvinistic system. but he was religious. And he
lived in Cleveland, Ohio in the 30s, the 20s, 15, 20s, and 30s. And he was a follower of C.I.
Scofield, Gableine, and his great interest was prophecy. He had
a book business, a publishing house, and he was an Armenian
theologian. But Arthur W. Peay left Scotland
and came to this country and pastored down in South Carolina. He pastored in Australia, from
Scotland, and he pastored in South Carolina. And he wrote
to Brother Herringdean. He knew Brother Herringdean,
not personally, but he knew of him, and he knew He published
books. And Arthur W. Pink wrote to Brother
Herringdean, this is fact, Brother Herringdean told me all of this
himself. But Arthur W. Pink wrote to Brother
Herringdean and asked him to print a book for him. He wanted
a book printed on the sovereignty of God. Now you're familiar with
that book that's gone all over this world. Brother Herringdean
wrote Pink back and asked him this question, what do you mean
by the sovereignty of God? What's this book supposed to
be about? The sovereignty of God. And Brother
Pink wrote to Herringdean and I saw this letter, Brother Herringdean
had it and showed it to me years ago. Turn with me to John chapter
6 and this is what This is what Brother Pink wrote
to Brother Herringden. In John chapter 6, he wrote Brother
Herringden and said, what I mean by the sovereignty of God will
be found in John 6, 44. John 6, 44. No man can come to me except
my Father which sent me draw him, and I raise him up at the
last day. It's written in the prophets,
they shall be taught of God, every man that hath heard and
hath learned of the Father comes unto me. And Brother Pink underlined
these words in those two verses. Verse 44, no man can come to
me except the Father which sent me draw him. That's what I mean
by the sovereignty of God. And Brother Herringdean told
me when he got that letter and read it carefully, knowing of
Pink's reputation and knowing of Pink's dedication to God,
he said it just, it was like opening a window, a curtain,
and revealed to him that salvation is of the Lord. And he began
to study. And he and Pink, edited this
book, The Sovereignty of God, and it's gone all over the world.
And Brother Herringdean and his wife moved from Cleveland, Ohio
to Swingle, Pennsylvania. And there they established the
Bible Truth Depot. Some of you may be familiar with
it. It's in other hands now, but it was taken over by a man
named Reiner. who was a brethren or something
like that. Anyway, Brother Herringdean moved to Swingville, Pennsylvania,
and Pink came with him. Pink and his wife moved in with
the Herringdeans and lived with them for a good while. And he
became Mr. Herringdean, Mr. Pink became
inseparable friends, and I call Mr. Valiant for Truth. I thank
God for them. All right, the second man that
appeared on the scene in this back, in the 20s, 30s, and 40s,
and 50s, was Ralph Barnard. And Ralph Barnard, whom I know
so very well, with whom I traveled for 20 years, and loved so deeply,
and he taught me so much. But Roth Barney, I know Roth
Barney as well as any man. I preached his funeral. His wife
and I were such friends that when Roth died, she gave me all
of his letters and his notes and his Bible and even his suit
started. You can wear these, she said.
But anyway, Brother Barney was born in Alabama. raised in Texas,
and his mother was a godly woman, Armenian, he was to a liberal
Southern Baptist. And so his mother sent him to
Hardin-Simmons University, and he wasn't a believer, he wasn't
even a Christian. In fact, Brother Barnard, when
he was in Hardin-Simmons University, was president of the Infidels
Club, president of the Infidels Club in a Baptist University.
But you say, how can that be? Well, it was. And he told me,
he said, back in those days when I was denying God and cursing
God, he said, during the day. But at night, I'd lie awake in
bed hoping God wouldn't kill me. And God did a work in his heart. what the work was, I don't know,
but he became religious. So he started to the seminary,
Southern Baptist Seminary in Texas. And he studied under a
man you're probably familiar with, W.G.T. Scheler. And Roth learned some Calvinistic
truth. He studied. Ralph was a brilliant
man, just such a brilliant man, such a educated and brilliant man, a
student of the Word, and he studied the Word. And he studied all
the so-called theories, but he studied Calvinism, and God just
put it back in the back of his head. And so for 20 years, 25
years, he was a Southern Baptist evangelist traveling around with
Hammond Appelman, and Marvin Cole, and Jesse Hemley, and Joe
Henry Hankins, and that fellow in Texas, the famous one, I can't
call his name. But anyway, he was an evangelist. And about 1945, Dr. Charlie Stevens in Winston-Salem,
Charlie Stevens, establish a preacher school, Piedmont Bible Institute. And he brought Roth to be his
teacher. He called Roth Barnard and asked
him to come to Winston-Salem, move his wife to Winston-Salem
and teach theology in his school. So Brother Barnard began his
career as a professor of theology in Charlie Stevens Bible school
in Western Salem, North Carolina. And when Ralph began to teach
these young preachers, that preacher I mentioned to you, a Rosemount
Baptist pastor, he and his wife attended that school, and Luther
Noll and several, I can't name all of
them, but I remember a lot of preachers, Elmer Cates and all
these different fellows, they were students under Roth. And
Roth began to teach them how God saves sinners. Now, the Lord
uses men. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light that men might believe. And the
Lord is pleased in his own way and own time to reveal truth
to men. And to give them conversion experiences. And you don't learn all these
things in a day. And Blough learned them. And he began to teach these young
men. But he still had some fellowship with John R. Rice and Bill Rice
and Lee Robinson, Chattanooga and E.J. Daniels in Florida. And so they invited Roth in 1949
to Toccoa, Georgia to speak in the Toccoa Bible Conference sponsored
by John R. Rice and his associates. And
the conference in Toccoa was a whole week. I had a friend
from Mississippi that drove off from Mississippi to Toccoa to
attend that service, that conference. He was there at the time and
gave me a good report on it. But anyway, Barnard was to speak. Bill Rice
was to speak. John R. Rice was to speak. E.J. Daniels was to speak, Lee Robinson
was to speak, and Brother Barnard took as his subject in all of
the services, each man spoke three or four times, turned to
John chapter six. John chapter six. Barnard chose
as his subject the sixth chapter of John. Sovereign grace, Calvinism,
How God saves sinners. And let me read you some of this. John 6 verse 37. at the last day. This is the
will of him that sent me that everyone that seeth the Son believeth
on him may have everlasting life and I raise him up at the last
day. You see the connection Arthur Pink to Haringdee, John 6. Barnard to those preachers years
later, years, years, years later. Don't put a time clock on God.
You wait on the Lord. Years later, same chapter, same
message, same truth. And these preachers, these preachers
at that Bible conference, morning service, evening service, they
got furious. They got so angry with Brother
Barnard, he told me later, he said they wouldn't even play
tennis with him. They wouldn't have anything to
do with him. In fact, he said, while he preached, sometimes
some of them would raise up and correct him, you know. And that's
the last time he preached for any of those folks. That closed
the door. Closed the door. All right, there's
Pink and Herringdean and Barnard. Barnard became an evangelist.
Evangelist and teacher. theological professor and teacher. All right, 1946, turn the clock
back just a little bit, that's 1949, I didn't know Ralph then,
never met him, never heard of him. 1946, I got out of the Navy,
I was religious, I was raised in a Baptist church, much like
this church here, Sunday school, all the five-star Christians,
you know, My father was a deacon at that time, and my mother was,
and all of them, Darcy's mother and daddy was in the church,
and real religious, but didn't know the gospel. So when I got
out of the military, out of the Navy, Darcy and I Start courting
and marry. And that's the best thing that's
ever happened to me. I told somebody one time, I said,
well, I've made a whole lot of mistakes in this life that I
wish I could do over. But there's one thing that the
Lord led me to do that I'd never take back and never change, one
I owed. And that's when I met her and
married her, 60 years ago. And I just throw that out for
what it is. this special. But she was church
secretary and I worked in the church and I went to school at
Birmingham Southern after we got married. But I worked with
the young people. And a pastor in Ashland, Kentucky, the Pollard Baptist Church, Southern
Baptist Church, he was vice president of Southern Baptist, Kentucky
Baptist Convention, wrote me and asked me if I'd come to Ashland
and be his assistant pastor. I'd gone to Tennessee Temple
College two and a half years and gone to Temple Seminary for
a little while and pastored a little country church. Didn't know the
gospel. Didn't know the gospel. And he
didn't either, the pastor didn't. But he invited me to come be
his assistant. So Doris and I, we had a little
boy then, Robbie, and we moved to Kentucky. And I became assistant
pastor of that church. But, the providence of God. While I was getting ready to
resign the church and move to Ashland, Dr. Charlie Stevens recommended Roth
Barnard to hold a meeting in that poly-Baptist church. Two
week meeting, Every morning and every night for two solid weeks. I never met Rob. This pastor
didn't know him. But Charlie Stevens was a good
friend and he said, this man can preach. And the Southern
Baptists were having simultaneous revival crusades at that time. Every church east of the Mississippi
was supposed to have a meeting. And so Charlie recommended Barney
to come preach for us. So Barney came to town on Sunday. And I came to town on Sunday.
young assistant pastor, didn't know the gospel from a hole in
the ground. And I took my seat on the front
row, that first morning service, Monday morning service. And Barnard
got up to preach. Just met him, I was staying with
the pastor because Doris hadn't moved up yet. And I stayed at
the pastor's home and Barnard, I met him and I liked him, but
he got up to preach that morning. And he looked down at me. And
we were having services every morning and every night, and
this was Tuesday morning. I was there Monday and then Tuesday
morning. He looked down at me and he said,
young fella, he said, quote Romans 8.28. And I got up, people all sitting
there, you know, it looks like he was just picking on me, you
know, and he could do that too. And I got up and I said, and
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God. And I sat down. And he stood there, it sounded
like, it felt like two or three minutes, just staring at me.
He said, what's the rest of it? You know the rest of it? Well,
I said, I think I do. Well, he said, quote it, all
of it then. So I got up and I said, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are called
according to his purpose. And he screamed, I think you
could have heard him down the street. Purpose! Everything God does, he does
on Purpose! And if you ever learn that, it'll
open that book for you, and God will teach you the gospel. But you know the strange thing,
Doris and I, when we got married, we read the Bible together, and
I came to the book of Romans, and I told her, I said, let's
just skip this book. I said, I can't, I don't know
much about What's going on here? The providence of God, the providence
of God. And I went home to the pastor's
house. I walked out of that service.
I went over to his house. And I opened this book in Romans,
started reading. And the pastor and John R. Gilpin
and Barnard and a bunch of fellows were going to have dinner, and
they came to get me. And they said, go with us to
dinner. And I said, no, I'm going to
find out if that man told me the truth, if he could open this
book for me. I sure would like to have it
open. And I got a hold of Bettner's Reform Doctrine. I got a hold
of Zanke's. absolute predestination. The
pastor had these things in his study. I got Thomas Watson and
Bostrom's fourfold state. Man, until Doris moved up to
Ashton, I stayed in that study and looked at the, and the Lord
just turned my head, my heart, everything about. I learned the
gospel for the first time in my life. I learned the gospel. You know, amazing thing is that
pastor, one year later resigned, left the church, went into some
kind of tongues and things like that, left his wife and children,
and I've never seen him since then, have I? I haven't seen
him since. That's been 55 years ago. And he was a few years younger
than I. Went to school with Doris and
Bob Jones back in the, back in the, how many years? Back yonder,
you know. But God's, he used Pink and he used Harrington,
he used Rob, and then he turned his attention on me. And this
pastor, he passed him by. And he's the man that brought
me, he's the one that brought Ralph there, he's the one that brought
me there. But I'm telling you this, God'll be merciful to whom
he will, he'll show gracious grace to whom he will. And so
they called me as pastor of that Southern Baptist Church. 18 months later, in 1951, I was
25 years old. That's too young, isn't it? The
Lord will use whom he will. Foolish and trying to learn the
gospel, but I preached to him. And now here's the fourth chapter
in this little story. 1951 I became pastor, 52, 53,
and preached the gospel of grace and we had a lot of problems.
to vacate the pulpit one time, and they got 54 votes, and I
got the other 300 and so on, but a lot of people, 500 in Sunday
school about that, but they kept me. And in 1954, I got hold of
a book by Spurgeon. It was his 1861 New Park Street
Tabernacle Pulpit, and they just began to open the Spurgeon Tabernacle
in London in 1861 and I read that book and they had a Bible
conference. In Spurgeon Church in 1861 they
had a Bible conference, a sovereign grace Bible conference, five
nights, five speakers preaching on the five points of Calvinism.
Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, call of the spirit, and perseverance. And I read that. And I called
Brother Harrington. By that time, we'd been good
friends. He'd been to Ashland, and I'd been at his house. And
we'd been real close friends. And he printed some tracks that
I edited. And I called him. I said, Brother
Harrington. I want to read you something."
I told him about that conference. I said, could we do that here?
Could we do that in America? Could we have a Sovereign Grace
Bible Conference dedicated totally, completely to the five points
of Calvinism and preach them? He said, I'd be for it 100%.
I said, well, how are we going to get the word out? He said,
I'll get the word out. He said, I've got the name and
address of everybody in the United States that has pink sovereignty
of God. And he said, I'll send you the
mailing list, and you invite them, and we'll have a conference.
I'll come down, run the book business, and you get the preachers. And I said, you got anybody to
suggest? He said, George Fletcher, professor
at Toronto Baptist Seminary and pastor in Virginia, is a great
sovereign grace believer. He'll preach for you. So I invited
George Fletcher. A.D. Muse, Ralph Barnard, and
Clarence Walker to preach for us. And I preached for five of
us. And we invited those people. Our auditorium seated 700 people
downstairs, a thousand balcony and downstairs. this Southern
Baptist Church. And I had some real problems
there, which y'all did here, but God kept me there. And we
had that conference, and we had 17 states represented. People came from 17 states. Mr. Bierbauer, Mr. Stark, Mr. Flaming drove from California.
Three men nonstop to be in that conference. And I'm telling you,
I remember every sermon like it was yesterday. I could remember
every outline, A.D. Mewes, Rob Barnard, Clarence
Walker, and George Fletcher, and I preached too. And it was
full house. Preachers came. That was May
1954. June, that's when they called
on to vacate the pulpit. This man's got to go. So we had
a big meeting on Sunday and had the the people presiding, the
moderator, and all this, and he's taking us out of Southern
Baptist, and he won't have anybody preach, but these grace preachers,
and things like that. So they took a vote, and they
had them stand first that wanted me out, and 54 of them stood. And I knew I was going to stay
there then, you know, they're just a hand, a small group, And
then he said, everybody wants him to stay. I think they really wanted me
to leave, but they wouldn't fire a preacher. Folks are afraid
to fire a preacher unless he gets in real trouble. So I went
on. I went on another year and had
another conference. That's when Farrell Griswold
came. That's when E.W. Johnson came. That's when N.J.B.
Magruder came. That's when Luther Hooks came.
That's when these fellas began to come from other places to
attend these conferences. So that's 1955 in May, the conference,
and in September we had to elect new officers, and I went before
the men. I said, I've had all I can take.
I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of fighting. I want
to go somewhere and preach the gospel, worship God in peace."
And they said, we've been wanting to hear you say that for a long
time. Let's leave here. I said, okay. He said, one of them said, how
many men can you count on? I said, well, I don't know, but
I'll find out. So I went through my rolls and
I picked out 40 men. And I wrote them, told them,
meet me at the church on Saturday. And 38 of them came. Two had
to work. And every one of them said, I'm
with you. So Sunday morning, I got up and
I said, I'm resigning. And these men and women are resigning
with me. And I said, here's the list.
I gave them the list. I said, by the way, is anybody
else want to go with us? They began standing. I didn't
know, thought I knew them, but 46 men, 54 women, and 26 young
people. And we went out, had a strong,
strong group. And the next year, we'd built
our building, had another Sovereign Grace Bible Conference. That's
when Sir Bradley came along. He was in that 56th conference.
He was in that 54th conference. He was a 19-year-old boy learning
the gospel of grace and pastor of a church in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and he came to our conference, 54, 55, 56. And, oh, I could
go through so many names and met different men and God's men,
God's men, grace men. And thank God for him. I'm going
to read something. and quit. The Lord's servants
are but men. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John, but he's still a man. And they're men
with emotions, with feelings, with desires, with compassion,
but they're men who love Christ and love people. And the Apostle Paul stands out
among all of them. And Paul's fear of God kept him
from fearing men. And Paul's love for Christ was
greater than his love for himself, his family, or his friends. And
Paul's confidence and conviction in the gospel, the truth of the
gospel of grace, delivered him from any thought or form of compromise. wouldn't do it. And Paul's only
ambition and goal was to win Christ and be found in Him and
to see others win Christ and be found in Him. And Paul could
say, I kept back nothing profitable unto you but my message has been
repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And
old Philip Henry, with whom you've read after, that's Matthew Henry's
daddy was, Philip Henry. He called a pastor friend of
his, Mr. Dodd. He called him old Mr. Repentance and Faith. Old Mr. Repentance and Faith. That was
his pet that Paul set up. I've not shunned to declare to
you repentance toward God and faith in Christ." And Mr. Henry
called Mr. Dodd, old Mr. Repentance and
Faith, to which Dodd replied, that's all right. If I die in
the pulpit, I'll die preaching repentance toward God and faith
in Christ. And Mr. Henry, if I die out of
the pulpit, I'll die practicing repentance toward God and faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's just a thumbnail
sketch, but the Lord's been good, been gracious, and I'm grateful. And I'm grateful for the day
he led me to meet your pastor, establish a love and a friendship
that we'll carry with us through eternity. Thank you sir.