‘This God Our God’ – A Review by Wilfred Weale

This companion volume¹ to The Face of Jesus Christ,² contains 20 sermons, in which Archibald G. Brown concentrates on the Bible’s teaching on God as Creator, Judge and Saviour. Mr Brown clearly had a most fertile imagination as the titles of some of those sermons suggest, such as: ‘Noah’s Telescope’, ‘A Rough Night at Sandown’, ‘A Voice from Pompeii’. This also comes out in his many vivid illustrations, which no doubt added to his appeal as one of the most popular preachers of his day.

Mr Brown also had a clear grasp of the truth, which he presents in a most helpful manner. On the sermon from which the book takes its title, ‘This God Our God’, he distinguishes between the hypocrite and the true believer, and says,

It is possible to mix with God’s children until you pick up a sort of Christian dialect, and talk of others’ experiences as though they were your own. Just as a man sojourning in a foreign country will learn a good deal of the language of its inhabitants by simply hearing it talked, so it is possible to dwell among Christians until their language is in great measure acquired. Talking a language does not constitute a nationality.

But there is one thing that cannot be picked up or counterfeited, and that is a desire. Let me know my desire, then do I know myself; for I can no more counterfeit a desire than I can counterfeit fire. I think it is the old Puritan [Sibbes] who says, ‘Dost thou want to know what thou art? Go ask thy desires and they will tell thee. Dost thou wish to know where thou art? See whither thy desires tend.’ A good action may be done without any love to that action; and, on the other hand, an evil may be avoided – not from any hatred to that evil. The good action may be done from an impure motive; the evil may be avoided simply from a selfish motive; but the desire of the soul – that is the immediate issue of the heart, and let me find my desire, then do I find myself (pp. 226-7).

The reviewer warmly recommends the reading of these most helpful sermons. He would however point out two matters. One is the erroneous claim that angels, ‘were in existence millions of years before man was made’ (p. 19). This is contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture that all of creation took place within the six days. The second matter is the implied preference for the Revised Version of Scripture over the Authorised Version, as seen on pages 209 and 215, although Brown takes his texts from the AV.