Yearly Archives: 2000

Session 1 The Conference commenced with the 300 men singing the metrical version of Psalm 65, and with prayer. Iain Murray then explained to the Conference that the sickness of Dr Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary, California, had prevented his attendance, and that Dr Sinclair Ferguson would speak instead of him. John Marshall opened a […]

The history of God’s work in Scotland is profuse and brimming with manifestations of God’s power and grace. In my twenty-five years of ministry here it has been my privilege when time and opportunity afforded to take visiting preachers on ‘the grand tour.’ From the castle at St Andrews in the north-east to the various […]

During Easter Week Alec MacDougall of Trinity Baptist Church Gloucester took myself and my nephew David on a history tour of that city. We saw the memorial church, built on a site where George Whitefield preached in the open air. I would guess it was built as a Presbyterian chapel. It’s URC now–and devoid of […]

Modern historians who are sympathetic to Roman Catholicism such as Eamon Duffy have sought to rewrite the history of the Reformation in England. They deny that Protestantism found a welcome response in the hearts of the people. They suggest that it was merely a few eccentrics and some hopeless recusants who had become Calvinists who […]

Perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached in America was the one Jonathan Edwards delivered entitled Sinners in the hands of an Angry God. Not only has the sermon been reproduced in countless catalogues of preaching but it is included in most anthologies of early American literature. So scandalous is this vivid portrayal of unconverted […]

John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave my Pastors’ Conference message about him because of the courage he showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I dug for the reasons he was so courageous, one […]

The modern evangelical church does everything to music — even the sermon ends with soft chords and melodies from the organ. Music taps into an emotion a congregation is already feeling, and then manipulates it powerfully. City stores know the power of music to loosen the purse strings and open credit card wallets. Psychologists are […]

The Reformed churches in Liverpool have a monthly officers meeting on Fridays in the winter, and I was invited in February, at the last minute withdrawal of Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, to speak to them on the subject of worship for 35 minutes to be followed by discussion. There were about 25-30 […]

To some it might seem unnecessary and even wickedly controversial to thrust upon readers any discussion of Arminianism. This might appear to be the case for two reasons. First of all, why should we revive ancient controversies and thereby provoke animosities that have long since died the death of old age? Arminianism takes its name […]

After a decade of theological teaching with the Qua Iboe in Nigeria, Martin Bussey has gone to teach theology in Kenya alongside Keith Underhill and the Trinity Reformed Baptist Church. this is the first letter he has written about settling into East Africa. * * * That’s how long it is since we landed. And […]

Near the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo meticulously reviewed everything he had ever published. He wrote an entire catalogue of his own works, a painstakingly annotated bibliography with hundreds of revisions and amendments to correct flaws he saw in his own earlier material. The book, titled Retractationes, is powerful evidence of Augustine’s humility […]

The local pastor often wonders what is happening in the other churches of his community. David Marshall is the pastor of Hamilton Reformed Baptist Church in New Zealand. Recently he needed to take a break from the rigours of pastoral ministry and so was granted a month’s leave. It was not convenient to go away […]

This letter arrived from Paul Williams, the pastor of an Evangelical Church in Swindon, which triggered off a chain of thought. Yesterday Ruth and I had some time off and went to Bristol. We were taken by friends to the George Muller museum there, and also saw for ourselves the vast orphanages. What a joy […]

There was just one occasion on which my wife and I attended Westminster Chapel during the ministry of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was on Whit Sunday in May 1965. Thus it was with the greatest interest that we noticed that in the newly published volume of sermons on the book of Acts the very sermon […]

Two hundred years ago was the beginning of the golden age of missionary expansion from Europe and North America. At that time there were 174 million professing Christians in the world which had a population of 730 million, so Christians set up missionary societies. The first was founded in 1794, plainly called the Missionary Society. […]