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Henry Mahan

A Fountain for Those Who Mourn

Zechariah 12:10
Henry Mahan • September, 4 1977 • Audio
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Message 0280b
Henry Mahan Tape Ministry
6088 Zebulon Highway
Pikeville, KY 41501

Sermon Transcript

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Now let's turn back to the text
in Zechariah 12, verse 10. Let me read it again. I will
pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and of supplication, and they shall look upon me whom
they have pierced, shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his
only son, shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn." This has to take place after
the crucifixion, because they look upon him whom they've killed,
which is Christ our Lord. In that day, there shall a fountain
be opened. The fountain was opened to Calvary
for our sins, for all my sins. I want to read a comment by Mr.
Charles Spurgeon on this text before I proceed with my message.
He says, This prophecy in Zechariah 12, verse 10, first of all, refers
to the Jewish people. And he says, I am happy that
it confirms my heart's belief in the good which the Lord shall
yet do unto Israel. I know of a surety because God
has said it, that the Jews will be restored to their own land,
and that we've already seen. This was written a hundred years
ago. And they shall inherit that country which the Lord hath given
to their fathers by covenant forever. But, better still, they
shall be converted to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
Spirit of grace will be given And they shall see in Christ
that Messiah for whom their fathers looked with joyful expectation.
And they shall see in Christ that Messiah, that Redeemer of whom the prophets
spoke, but who was despised and rejected by his own. And he said,
O hath a day, when not only the Gentiles, but the will be found
worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the promise and we expect
the fulfillment when that due season arrives, for Israel shall
own her king." Now, with that in mind, read the text again,
"...and I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the
inhabitants of the spirit of grace and of supplication, and
they shall look upon me whom they have cursed, and they shall
mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be
in bitterness for him as one is in bitterness for his firstborn."
Now, I intend to use this text not as it applies to Israel,
but as it speaks to us. And it does speak to us, it speaks
to me, and it speaks to you on a very vital issue. Now, we're
interested in repentance and faith. Paul said, When I have
declared unto you repentance toward God and faith in Jesus
Christ, I have been faithful to your souls. And we're interested
not just in repentance, but true repentance, not just in faith,
but in true faith. These are the vital issues, true
mourning overseen. There is a false mourning over
sin, there's a counterfeit mourning over sin, there's a mourning
over sin that brings not repentance, but it brings death. Paul wrote
about that to the Church of Colors. And we're going to talk this
morning about true mourning over sin, true repentance, true faith,
and the true fountain that's open. Now, first of all, there's
no doubt that a consciousness of our sins The consciousness
of our failure, the consciousness of our need, our emptiness, our
want, drives us to God's mercy in Christ. And we know that's
true, and here's some scriptural examples. There was a woman with
a need. For twelve years she'd been sick.
For twelve years she'd wasted all of her substance on many
positions and was no better, only worse. And she said, if
I can get to Christ. If I can get to Jesus of Nazareth,
I should be healed." Her need drove her to Christ. All right? There was blind Bartimaeus, who
was sitting by the roadside. He had been blind from birth. He was the son of Timaeus. And
Christ was walking by, and there was a great commotion. He said,
what's the commotion? Someone said, Jesus of Nazareth
passeth by. He began to cry out of his need. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy upon me. Jesus, have mercy!" Crying out
of need, that's what drove him to Christ, the leper. When our
Lord came down from the mountain, there was a man covered with
leprosy, hopelessly doomed, hopelessly doomed. And he came to Christ
and fell on his knees and worshiped him. He said, Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. That's what drove him to Christ.
So I know this from the Word of God. There's no doubt that
a consciousness of our unclean condition, of our wickedness,
of our sin, of our inability, drives us to God's mercy and
Christ's Jesus. Yet, and this is vital here now,
most true morning overseen. most true mourning over sin.
Now, this consciousness of sin and of sin's need drives us to
Christ, but most true mourning over it and grief over it arises from first seeing Christ,
from first seeing Christ in his glory, in his holiness, in his
power, in his sacrifice. I hope you understand what I'm
talking about here. I know what I'm talking about,
and I want to make it clear to you. I know that a blind man
looks to Christ because he wants to be healed, he wants to see. I know that a leper looks to
Christ because he wants to be clean. I know that a woman with
a weakening issue of blood reaches for healing to Christ because
she wants to be well. And I know a sinner reaches to
Christ because he wants to be clean. He wants to be healed,
he wants to be well. But that which causes us really
to see how unclean we are, and to grieve over that uncleanness,
and to grieve over that lethargy, and to grieve over that wretchedness,
and to grieve over that sin, is not a sight of the sin itself,
but a sight of his holiness and the sin in the light of that
holiness. and the sin and the life of that glory, and the sin
and the life of that power. His perfect love reveals my malice. His perfect submission reveals
my rebellion. You see what I'm saying? His
perfect power reveals my weakness. His perfect holiness reveals
my sin and my evil. and true realization of sin and
true mourning over sin and true grief over my rebellion only
comes after I have beheld him in his glory, in his holiness. Now, I know when something is
dingy and gray because I've seen white, but suppose I'd never
seen white before. I might think the gray is what
And I know something that is wrong and that is evil. Why?
Because I've seen the essence of holiness in the person of
Christ. And the person who is easiest
satisfied over a phony holiness, and he can rest in a phony holiness
that he's produced, is because he's never seen God's holiness.
he's never seen God's glory. The man who talks about living
above sin has never really seen him who is absolute holiness. The man who talks about he's
never seen that he is perfect in the flesh has never seen perfection. He's only seen the dirty gray. He's never seen the white. Now,
watch this. This is true in the life of Isaiah.
Isaiah said, When King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. I lifted
up, his train filled the temple, and they cried, even the cherubims
and the seraphims covered their faces and cried, Holy, holy,
holy. And then I cried, woe is me,
I'm a man of uncleanliness. He'd seen holy. He'd seen true
holy. You don't grieve. You're always
finding fault with somebody else. Like Isaiah in chapter 5, woe
is them, woe is them, woe is them, woe is them. And then he
saw the Lord and he said, woe is me. These super, hyper, critical,
holier-than-thou religious people have never seen God in His holy
image. Never have. For if they ever do, they'll
cry, woe is me. That's so. I don't care who you
are, if you're here this morning, and you never have grieved and
mourned over your sins, it's because you've never seen the
Lord in His Holy Name. Or you've seen a church standard.
You've seen regulations handed down by preachers through the
years. You've seen those things. You've got your idea of right
or wrong, but you've never seen Him. For when you see Him, you'll
cry, you'll cry with Job. Oh, I've heard about you, Lord,
with the hearing of the ear. But now, mine eye seeeth thee,
wherefore I haste not there." Once have I spoken, he said,
Yea, Christ, things too wonderful for me. I've been talking about
things I didn't know anything about, Job said. I wish some
of us would find that out. I wish some of us would sit down
and shut our mouths so God could speak. I've been talking about
things Job said I don't know anything about, things too wonderful
for my natural understanding. He said, I put my hand over my
mouth. I repent. Then he sat crossed
right there. And God lets you keep on rattling
off until you see his glory, and then you'll stop. And then
you'll stop. That's what Job did. He saw his
glory. And he hated himself. Up to that point, he was defending
his righteousness. He was defending his position.
He was defending his doctrine. He was defending his integrity.
He was defending his staunch status. And then he saw the Lord,
and he didn't have anything to defend him. God whittled him
down. God stripped him. God humiliated
him. God knocked his foundations of
flesh out from under him. God left him hanging over the
jaws of a deserving hell. And he said, Our Lord was kept into a boat.
I think it was Simon's boat. He was teaching the multitude.
And the fishermen were washing their nets. They'd failed. They'd
fished all day and caught nothing. He turned to Simon, and he said,
Simon, this is found in Luke 5.8. He said, Simon, cast off
here and drop your net on this side. He said, now, Lord, we've
called all night and caught nothing, but nevertheless, it's your word.
I'll do what you say. And he cast the net over the
side, and the net began to break. It was so filled with fish. You
know what Simon did? He fell on his face, and he said,
Lord, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. He saw the
power of the Lord. He saw the power of the Lord.
It's difficult to say which comes first, faith or repentance. Spurgeon
said one time, faith and repentance are like a piece of paper. You
can't have a piece of paper without having two sides. You can't have
faith without repentance, and you can't have repentance without
faith. they go together. But let me say this, I'm sure
that, now watch this, I'm sure that more repentance is produced
by faith than faith produced by repentance. I'm confident
of that. I'm confident that more repentance
is produced by a sight of Christ. More true morning overseeing
is produced by a sight of Christ. more true godly sorrow and a
knowledge of sin is produced by seeing Him than ever have
we seen Him as a result of seeing our sins. The more we see Him,
the more we see of ourselves. The more God enables us to behold
His glory, His sacrifice, His love, His mercy, His grace, with
holiness the more we see of ourselves. I want to give you an illustration
here. I want you to listen to this. The Lord Jesus Christ is
worthy of worship, and he's worthy of adoration of those who've
never seen him. That's right. The angels work
at him. They've never seen him. The scripture
says, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Our Lord
is worthy of the worship and adoration even of those who've
never sinned, the angels, the cherubims, the seraphim. And
when we make Him, now listen to this, when we make Him only
the Savior from sin, and only praise Him because He saves us
from sin, we neglect to properly understand His Lordship. Now
listen to me, don't get offended. He's the Lord, and he's worthy
of worship, even if he doesn't save you. That's so. That's what Scripture says. He
humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. Wherefore, the Lord, the Father, hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above every name, that it's
the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and Every tongue shall
confess that he's Lord, to the glory of God the Father, in heaven,
in earth, in the seas, and in all deep places. He's the Lord. And John 12, 41
says, When Isaiah saw his glory, when Isaiah saw his glory, he's
take of him. And this is what I'm saying,
my friend. It's not a sight of sin that produces true repentance. It's a sight of sin in the light
of the authority. It's not a sight of my weakness
that causes me to truly grieve over my sin. It's a sight of
my weakness compared to His power. Do you see what I'm saying? That
which produces, that which produces a true repentance is to behold
God in the person of Christ, reconciling the world under himself
by the sacrifice of his hand. And boy, I tell you, that'll
break you. That'll break you. That which produces true worship,
that which produces true repentance, that which produces true faith,
is a revelation of Jesus Christ. An improper view of Christ is
an improper view of sin. They shall look upon me, they
shall look upon me, and they shall mourn. And that mourning
shall be so great it shall be like the mourning of a man over
his only son who is dead. That's what it's going to be
like. Now, let's look at these four divisions quickly. Number
one, they shall look upon me. Now, this is what I'm This is
what I'm trying to get every person to whom I pray to do,
to look, to look. The Scripture says, look unto
me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. Look to me. The
Scripture says, he that seeth the sun. I suppose this puzzles
a lot of people. Somebody says, well, preacher,
if Christ Jesus the Lord appeared over there in Jerusalem, I'd
sell out. Yes, I would. I'd sell out. I'd catch a plane
and go over there. I'd go over there and I'd stay
with him as long as he stayed on this earth. I'd walk with
him, I'd talk with him, I'd touch his garment, I'd follow his feet,
I'd look into his eyes. Like Nicodemus, we're bound to
the flesh, aren't we? When I tell a man, look to Christ,
he wants to hang a picture up here so he can look at When I
say, reach out and touch the Lord, he wants to make a statue
of Mary, of Christ, so he can rub the feet. We're down to the
place, like old Nicodemus. Our Lord said, you must be born
again, and Nicodemus said, how? How can I enter my mother's womb
the second time and be born? Down to the place. Our saving connection with Christ,
our saving union with Christ, has nothing to do with these
natural eyes or these hands, but with the mind and with the
heart. When I say to you, look to Christ, this is what I'm saying. Now, Brother Fitzgerald, let's
look at this subject. Let's look at, you're a historian. Let's
look at this subject of the war between the states. Let's look
at this subject of war and peace. Let's look. What am I saying?
How are we going to look at the civil war that happened a hundred
years ago? I mean, let's consider it. That's what I'm saying. Let's
consider it. Let's set our thoughts on it.
Let's set our minds upon it. I'm not saying anything about
the... Let's consider the subject of
mathematics together. Let's look at this subject. That's
what I'm saying. Let's consider it. You're not
saying anything about your eyes. I'm asking you to give that subject
your undivided attention. Put everything out and just look
to it. And that's what we're saying.
Look to me, Christ, and put everything else out of your mind. Turn your
thoughts from your works and your churches and your laws and
your denominations and your catechisms and your creeds and your reformation
and your ritualism and all of these things, and consider Christ! Look to me. I'm looking simple. You don't need a college degree
to look. You may not even be able to read, but you can look.
You may be destitute of virtue, but you can still look. It requires
no merit. Somebody said one time, a cat
can look at a king. A little old peanut cat can look
at a king. And that's what I'm saying. A
thief, a crook, a garbage man. A doctor, a lawyer, a harlot
can look the past. It requires no merit to look.
But looking requires something. What does it require? It requires
your personal attention. Now you, Don can do a lot of
things for me, but he can't look for me. The only thing that will come
into here is what comes out through here. I have to look for myself. He can read for me, he can walk
for me, he can talk for me, but he can't look for me. Another
can pray for me, but he can't look for me. What goes into my
heart in regard to Jesus Christ must be considered by me. Touch
me. You look for me, you say. He
that seeth the sun, not the nations that see the sun, or the churches
that see the sun, or the denominations, but He! You look to Him. All right? They shall look upon
me, whom they have killed. Look not upon His priesthood,
not upon His church, not even upon His ministers. Oh, I'm going
to look to the Word of God. You'll go to hell with it. Don't misunderstand me. Don't misunderstand me. But you
can perish resting in a doctrine. But you can't perish resting
in the Savior. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. When I look back beyond the preacher
at my experience, I know what I did. Yes, you know what you
did. But you better quit looking back to that experience. And
you better start looking to Christ. Salvation's not in an experience,
it's in a person. That experience didn't die for
you, Christ died for you. That experience doesn't intercede
for you, Christ intercedes for you. That experience does not
put the blood on the mercy seat, covering the broken law, Christ
did that! You'd better look to Him. They
shall look upon me. You know, in Matthew 22, these
Pharisees came to Christ, they wanted to consider the politics
of the kingdom. Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?" Then
the Sadducees came to him, and they wanted to consider the resurrection
from the dead. They wanted to talk about prophecy.
They wanted to talk about what was going to happen later. And
then the lawyers came to him, and they wanted to discuss which
is the greatest law. Is it wrong to do this? Is it
wrong to do that? Is it wrong to do the other?
Is it right to do this? I find that so today. I find
people asking foolish questions because they've got foolish thoughts.
I find them minoring on majors and majoring on minors. I find
them dwelling on these things, things, things. And when Christ
got through answering all these foolish questions, he stopped
them and he said, What think ye of Christ? Who saw him see? And that's what I'm saying. Consider,
consider Jesus Christ. Consider Jesus Christ. Look to
him. Look to him. They shall look
upon me. They shall look upon me." Turn
your eyes on Christ. Turn your eyes off preachers
and churches and doctrines and denominations and turn them on
Christ. Consider Christ. They shall look upon me. And
with all my heart, this is what I'm trying to do in this ministry,
is turn your eyes and your thoughts and your minds and your hearts
and your faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the next line
there? They shall look upon me whom
they have kissed. We look at a crucified Christ. We don't look at a babe in a
manger. The babe in the manger can't He had to be incarnate
to die on a cross, that's right. He had to have a body to die
on a cross. He had to be born of woman to be identified with
us. He had to be numbered with the transgressors, that's true.
He had to have a human body and a human mind and a human heart
and human needs and human passion in order to face the law and
obey it and impute to us a perfect righteousness to do for us what
we couldn't do for ourselves. But it's not the Christ of the
cradle that saves. It's not the sweet little Jesus
boy that Mary holds in her arms that saves. That's not the object
of faith. It's not even the Christ of the healing ministry. I worship
a Christ who heals. I don't. I worship one who dies
for my sins. The Christ who healed the body
is not the Savior. That's not how he saves. Because
all whom he healed later died. Right, son? Every one of them
died. Every one of them died. But those
whom he saved, those whom he died to save, they're all still
living. You see what I'm saying? They're all still living. It's
not the Christ of the manger. It's not the Christ of the healing
ministry. It's the Christ of the cross.
They shall look upon me whom they pierced. whom they nailed
to a tree. They kissed my hands and my feet,
he said. That's the reason Paul said,
I'm determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and
him crucified. And they shall mourn. My sins,
my hateful, cruel sins, his chief tormentors were, each of my crimes
became a nail, my unbelief a spear. It was you that pulled the wrath
down upon his guiltless head. Break, break, my heart, and weep
my eyes, and let my sorrow bleed." If you've been worried about
that watermelon you stole, you'd better worry about that man you
crucified. That's right, you're an agent
almighty. If you've been worried about
that lie you told, you'd better be concerned about that man that
you crucified as God's Son, as God's Son. Most people never
thought about that. A young man ran away from home,
he's an only child He ran away from his parents, and he lived
a life of crime. He was thrown in prison. He spent
many years in prison. He lived a life of drunkenness
and shame. After many years, he came back
home. He came back to that little farmhouse, and he walked up the
path. There was a light in the window,
and he knocked on the door. And he stood outside the door
waiting. Finally the door opened and a stranger appeared in the
doorway and said, What name did you say? What name did you say? Oh yes, yes, they both died years
ago. Yeah, they died years ago. People
say they just had one son and he left home and they never heard
from him again. And they both sickened and died.
You will find their graves, sir, right over there by that old
church they buried over there in that cemetery, if that's where
they are. Well, might that young man turn
away from the door weeping and say in his heart, I killed my
parents by my sins. My sins killed my parents. And I'm telling you this, you
ain't commenced to begin to get started to weep, to mourn over
sin until you see him whom you're seeing there to the cross. Now,
you take that for what it's worth. Was it for crimes that I had
done? He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! Grace unknown and
love beyond the grave. He was made sin for us who knew
no sin. He knew no sin, not merely he
had no sin, he knew no sin. He knew sorrow, but he knew no
sin. He was acquainted with grief,
but he knew no sin. He knew tears, but he didn't
know sin. He knew pain, but he didn't know
sin. God Almighty made him to be sinned. That's the awfulness of this
thing. God made him. Who knew no sin, God made him
to be sinned! Not forced him, God made him
to be sinned. He was treated by the Fathers
as if he were sin itself. Take him outside the temple,
take him outside the holy city, named a cross. Sin must be punished. God spared not his own son. God
had no pity on him. He prayed, but heaven was shut.
He cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But he
was not heard, because he was made sin. When you get back there, You
begin to talk about sin. I don't blame people for not
going to church. I suspect if I had to listen to what they
listened to, I wouldn't go either. I turned the television on. I
listened to one this morning. Oh, when we get a sight of Calvary,
when somebody gets up and preaches and takes us to Calvary, It gets
us out of this little old insignificant, ritualistic, ceremonial, legalistic,
you do this and I do that, you kneel and I stand, and you sing
with the instrument and I don't sing with the instrument, and
you have a pastor and I have a priest, and you dress in black
and I dress in white, and you go on Sunday and I go on Saturday,
and you're all going to hell. That's right. with all the religious
Pharisees that ever lived, that hated God and hated his Son and
hated his gospel. They shall look upon me in that
day, in the day of grace, in the day of God's mercy. They're
going to get their eyes off of the idols, and they're going
to look on me, whom they pierce, whom they nail to a cross. around
whose cross they walked, and shot out their lips, and laughed,
and mocked, and said, He claimed to be Christ. Let's see him come
down from that cross, and we'll believe him. He called on God,
let's see if God will have him. That was your voice I hear, and
my voice. No, don't be surprised. If you'd
have been there, you'd have been his chief tormentor. That's right. You'd have been up there in the
temple with that bunch of religious Pharisees, bargaining for his
blood, dying Jesus off. They shall look upon him whom
they pierced. It was my sins that nailed him
to the cross. My sins. And they shall mourn. Now, you get this if you don't
get anything else. True mourning over sin has a distinct and constant
reference to Jesus Christ and to his death. Now listen to me,
hold it right there. If I hate sin because I am caught,
I have not repented, I only regret that God's omnipresent. That's
all. I just regret that God is omniscient,
that he knows and sees all things. If I hate sin because of judgment
and because of hell and because I'll have to pay for it, I have
not repented. I only regret that God is just."
That's right. If I avoid sin, if I hate sin,
if I'm more over sin, only because sin will be punished, you haven't
repented. The only thing true is this,
you just wish God wasn't so righteous and wasn't so just. That's all. But when I see sin, when I comprehend
my redeeming, when I see my evil, when I see my nature, my offense,
when I see it as an offense not against people but against my
Lord, an offense against his love, against his grace. When I see my sin crucifying
him on that cross and I cry with David, O my sin! For ever before
me, against thee have I sinned and done this evil. That's when
I start mourning. You know what it will be like?
Turn to 2 Samuel 18. I don't know any scripture in
the Bible that grips my heart any more than this. In 2 Samuel
18, They tried to take David's throne. Absalom was his son. Pride and joy of his heart, along
with his other sons. Absalom tried to take the kingdom
away from his daddy, and they killed Absalom. And it came and
told David that Absalom was dead. In verse 33 of 2 Samuel 18, and
the king was much moved, and he went up to the chamber over
the gate and he wept. And as he went, thus he said,
O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had
died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son." Have you ever grieved
over sin like that? That's what he said in Zechariah.
He said that's what their grief will be like. It will be like
one morning for his only son. Oh, my sin, oh, my sin, my cruel
sin, nailed him to the cross, my sin. True mourning is continual. Lord,
listen, let me weep for nothing but sin, and after no one but
thee. And then I would, oh that I might,
a constant mourner be. It won't stop. I'm fearful if
it stops. I would be concerned if it didn't
intensify. I'm always afraid of people who
get better as they get older. Oh, I know we love God's Word
more, we know more about God's Word and those things, but the
more you see of Christ, the more you see of your family. And there's
no way you can ever be satisfied till you're awake with his likeness. And I will say this, you say
there's no relief from this morning, not till he calls you home. There's
no relief from this weeping over sin, not till he makes you just
like Christ. Your goal is to be like him.
You'll never be satisfied until you reach that goal. And the
more you grow in grace, the more you grow in the knowledge of
Christ, and the more you grow in the knowledge of Christ, the
more you grow in the knowledge of your sin. And things that
at one time weren't even wrong to you now take on a great wrongness. We start out this journey talking
about things, and as we grow older we begin to be concerned
about principles, and attitudes, and motives, and love, and grace,
and prayer, intercession. Most folks are still talking
about things. They're still back yonder in kindergarten talking
about things. how long you have ought to be
instead of how long an arm of love should be to reach out to
somebody to listen. In that day, verse 1 of chapter
13 of Zechariah, it says, But in that day, in that day of mourning,
when they see me whom they pick, and when they mourn, like David
mourned for Esther, in that day there's going to be a fountain
Our Lord, in that day, when that day of mourning comes, when that
day of a sight of sin is fully revealed because we've seen the
Lord, in that day there's going to be something else opening,
and that's that fountain. Old Hagar sat lay there by the
bush waiting for death. She turned her back on her son
Ishmael because she knew he was going to die of thirst. She said, Lord, thou seest me.
He said, There's water. And she turned, and there was
a refreshing fountain. He committed the Son to death.
He'd given up all hope. He knew it wasn't going to use
it. No human help. No human hope. And that's when
the Lord said, look, there's a fountain. There's a fountain. Filled with blood. And when you
reach that place, when you lose all hope, when you can't wiggle
your little fingers and get the end of your rope, without hope,
without help, without God, if you're with Him, that's when
you'll see the fountain. Then all you'll see is church
membership, you'll see an experience, you'll see a preacher's hand,
you'll see an altar, you'll see rededication, you'll see all
these things of the flesh. You're still trying, you're still
trying to make yourself right with God. You're still trying
to find God's approval. You're still trying, but when
you quit trying, he'll show you a fountain.
Henry Mahan
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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