The Face of Jesus Christ – A Review by Ben Ramsbottom
Until recently the name of Archibald Brown was just a name to us. We must confess, however, how interested we have become in reading his biography1, and now with pleasure we have read his sermons (twenty-two in the book2), and commend them to our readers. It will be said, ‘There is not the depth that we find in J.C. Philpot and J.K. Popham.’ There certainly is not – either in doctrine or experience. But there is a beauty and an attraction in these sermons.
Though there is a simplicity, yet there is a faithful contending for
- The glory of the Person and finished work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And Mr. Brown speaks as one who knows and loves him personally.
- The absolute authority and infallibility of Holy Scripture – and this in the face of many attacks from ‘the new theology.’
- An abhorrence of any form of worldliness or lightness in the things of God.
It may be felt that Archibald Brown is a little flowery in some of his expressions, and, though he uses the Authorised Version, he does in places refer to the new Revised Version. But there is the gracious experience. In preaching he often refers to what he himself feels – so different from so many modern preachers. Especially (page 168), preaching in deep sorrow [probably following the death of his wife], he says:
I only wish that it [the text] might come to you with one tithe of the power it came to me. It came to me the other day, or rather, I should say, the other night, in deep depression that I cannot describe. I was sitting alone in a house that has been stripped of everything that made life bright – sitting utterly alone, in a deep depression which, as I say, I cannot describe in words. I sat in a stupor till past the midnight hour, thinking about the past, and about one o’clock in the morning, I mechanically took this Testament in my hand, and opened it without a thought. It opened on this 22nd chapter of Revelation, and my eye fell on two words: ‘I, Jesus.’ They were enough. The darkness vanished . . . Though children die, though wives be cut down, though husbands go to the grave, though fortunes break, though all depart, yet in the darkness, and through the storm, there comes a voice, and it says, ‘I, Jesus – I live still. Whatever else thou mayest have lost, I, Jesus, am with thee yet.’
We commend this book.
Notes
The Face of Jesus Christ
Sermons on the Person and Work of Our Lord
price From: £7.00Description
Until recently the name of Archibald Brown was just a name to us. We must confess, however, how interested we have become in reading his biography1, and now with pleasure we have read his sermons (twenty-two in the book2), and commend them to our readers. It will be said, ‘There is not the depth that […]
Archibald G. Brown
Spurgeon's Successor
price From: £9.00Description
Until recently the name of Archibald Brown was just a name to us. We must confess, however, how interested we have become in reading his biography1, and now with pleasure we have read his sermons (twenty-two in the book2), and commend them to our readers. It will be said, ‘There is not the depth that […]
Ben Ramsbottom is editor of the Gospel Standard magazine from the September 2012 edition of which the above is quoted with permission.
Latest Articles
Finished!: A Message for Easter 28 March 2024
Think about someone being selected and sent to do an especially difficult job. Some major crisis has arisen, or some massive problem needs to be tackled, and it requires the knowledge, the experience, the skill-set, the leadership that they so remarkably possess. It was like that with Jesus. Entrusted to him by God the Father […]
Every Christian a Publisher! 27 February 2024
The following article appeared in Issue 291 of the Banner Magazine, dated December 1987. ‘The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those that published it’ (Psalm 68.11) THE NEED FOR TRUTH I would like to speak to you today about the importance of the use of literature in the church, for evangelism, […]