He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;

The LORD shall hold them in derision.

Then He shall speak to them in them in His wrath,

And distress them in His deep displeasure:

“Yet I have set My King

On My holy hill of Zion

Psalm 2 4-6

“With tones of mocking and derision toward the weakling warriors of the earth the Supreme Potentate announces his answer to human rebellion against his rule and his law. “I have installed my King.” He has unilaterally appointed Christ to rule over the earth.  The coronation is accomplished.  “Our God is in the heaven; he does whatever pleases him” (Psalm 115.3).  He does it in defiance of the deepest wishes of men, the most insistent objections of men, the violent and noisy opposition of men.

Christ was sent into the world to be a King, God’s chosen mediatorial King.  At his trial and crucifixion Jesus’ kingship was a dominant issue.  Soldiers mimicked reverence to the Jewish King.  Pilate asked the Jews if he should crucify their King while Hebrew observers denied that he was their King.  In contempt for their nation and their religion Pilate commandedd that a sign hang over Jesus announcing him to be the King of the Jews.  At Golgotha all the world was sending a message to the Lord who sent his Son, Jesus into the world.  In the words of Luke 19.14 it was, “We don’t want this man to be our King.”

But the Maker of heaven and earth never requested human suffrage for the reign of his Son.  Man’s opinion was never asked.  A vote was never taken.  It was the Lord of Hosts who installed Jesus as King.  Never were men asked to ‘make Jesus their Lord’.  A choice was not given.  It was his prerogative as Ruler of the universe to appoint the King. ”

Walter Chantry, from ‘Praises to the King of Kings’

Days like Valentine’s Day tend to creep up on me: it’s ages away, it’s ages away, it’s TOMORROW?!  I’m not always very organised – don’t tell anyone will you?  Not working near any shops, I was suddenly forced to consider where I could quickly and easily succeed in my seasonal romantic endeavour.  Inspiration struck, and I stopped off at Clacket Lane Services on the M25.  If you’re not familiar with this beautiful part of the English countryside, it’s a motorway service station.  Bish-bosh.  The job’s a good ‘un.

My dear wife was clearly quite intrigued as to where I had managed to purchase said card, and feeling a little pleased, I let her in on my secret.  In all honesty, she looked a little crest-fallen at the revelation.  It’s not the most romantic of locations after all.

But that got me thinking (uh-oh, here we go…).  Where is it from?, or where are you from?, are interesting questions.  Is my Valentine’s Card less romantic, less meaningful, less honest, because it came from the gaudy glare and melancholic milieu of a motorway service station?  I would say not.  Where am I from?  Well, as a Christian I know that God has made me alive, and brought from the filth and rebellion of my sinful state.  I am now in His Kingdom, a new creature, a son and heir of God.  But where am I from?  It doesn’t matter.  What I was, where I was, who I was, is of no relevance to what I am, where I am and who I am now.  The grace of God, and His work in me is the only thing that matters.

…our old man was crucified with [Christ], that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.  For he who has died has been freed from sin.  Now if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more.

Romans 6.6-9

The cover is awful, really awful, and I don’t know what the Wakeman Trust have against Pink as all his books published by them get a similar treatment.  Nevertheless, you shouldn’t trust a book by its cover, so what of the content?

There isn’t a lot of good material written on Elisha, and to find something that is about this great prophet and man of God, and particularly something rich in personal application is a treat.  Pink takes each of Elisha’s miracles in turn, and walks his readers through the circumstances of each miracle.  This format is safe and profitable, but can begin to feel a little formulaic.

As a rule I found the treatment of the miracles more profitable the further I got into the book.  One or two of the earlier miracles are probably over-spiritualised, and this is one of Pink’s tendencies.  Nevertheless, if you are aware of this, and can read it intelligently, there is good to be drawn from it.  At other times the chapters felt a little unbalanced, lacking the detail on the points of most import.

But if these are minor criticisms, then they are worth bearing, for the great skill of Pink, and the reason why I enjoy him, is that he finds and presents real nuggets of applied truth from the Word of God.  He doesn’t lose sight of the purpose of Scripture, and demonstrates his pastoral concern for his readers in bringing the Word to bear upon us.  This book served as a competent guide to the miracles and ministry of Elisha, and did my soul good.

It is a strange mode of conveyance.  You have seen a camel kneeling; it is in this condition that you mount; suddenly it rises first on its fore feet, and then on its hind feet.  It requires great skill to hold yourself on during this operation; one time I was thrown fair over its head, but quite unhurt.  When you find yourself exalted on the hunch of a camel, it is somewhat of the feeling of an aeronaut, as if you were bidding farewell to sublunary things; but when he begins to move, with solemn pace and slow, you are reminded of your terrestrial origin, and that a wrong balance or turn to the side will soon bring you down from your giddy height.

I think that is utterly delightful: the language, the tone, the mental picture: wonderful!

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5.20

As a family we have been reading through the book of 2 Kings, tracing the history of the Kings of Judah and Israel.  Some of these kings reigned a long time.  Some only reigned for a very short period.  The kings are as varied as they are numerous, and it makes for interesting reading.

There are two phrases which occur over and over again, and these are worth weighing.

Now the rest of the acts of [King X], and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah/Israel?

For the most part the Word of God gives very little space to the actions, achievements, wars, conquests, victories, battles, and life of these men.  This is left to the pages of the chronicles.  Where are these chronicles?  What we know of these kings is what God has been pleased to record in His Word: this is the lasting, abiding testimony.  And mostly this testimony is brief.  Brief, but focussed.  Focussed on the second phrase which is significant:

And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD,    or          He did evil in the sight of the LORD.

This is the sum of the life of these kings.  Whether they reigned for a matter of months, or for many long decades, what matters – what God wants us to know – and what is recorded for all time and for all peoples, is whether they did what was right, or did evil in the sight of the LORD.

But that’s the thing with stuff: it gets lost, it wears out, it fails and breaks.  Whether it’s a hat, a car, a pair of shoes or a computer: none of it is going to last.  It’s all pointing to the fact that I am only passing through this world – dust to dust – and my treasure is not here and now.

When the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.

1 Peter 5.4

How about that?!  A crown has to be better than a hat, and it will never be left on a train, or wear out, or fade away.  Why?  Because it is given by the Chief Shepherd.  Nevermind the hat, I must set my affection, my hopes, in eternity.

Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland has had his knighthood stripped away.  He was heavily criticised for his management of the bank, its collapse, and the ways in which he was apparently rewarded for doing so.  He made mistakes, made poor decisions, and did things that were foolish.  Now his title, if not his wealth and pension, has been annulled by the Queen.

Make of it what you will, but I have been given a title – as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God (John 1.12) – and I too have made mistakes, made poor decisions, and done things that are foolish.  How grateful I should be that my status is a gift, rooted in the eternal, unwarranted love of God, and not a reward.  Politicians may advise Her Majesty on the bestowal and annulling of titles and honours, but there’s nobody who can undo the love of God for me, the sacrifice made, and the gift given to me.

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!

For His mercy endures for ever.

Psalm 136.1

Can you give a summary of your new book, The Brokenhearted Evangelist?  What is it about?

The new book is really a cry of the heart to the people of God to embrace our privilege and responsibility to be witnesses to Christ in a fallen world. Taking as its starting point David’s contrite declaration in the thirteenth verse of Psalm 51 – “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you” – it is an attempt to encourage God’s people to take up that gospel duty. In five chapters, I consider the willingness, effectiveness, commitment, focus and fruitfulness of the saints in this regard.

Who do you hope will read this book, and what effect do you hope that it will have on them?

Frankly, I hope that any Christian might read this book and profit, but perhaps especially those who have a God-given desire to be useful in winning souls but who are not sure where to begin or what to do, those who think that the work of evangelism is for a privileged and/or insane few, those who feel discouraged about their capacity for such work, and those who are perhaps inclined to pour cold water on such ventures (either in principle or in practice), or who think it is just not their business.

As for its effect, in the preface I have written that “it is my heartfelt contention that the truths we believe ought to make the people of God brokenhearted evangelists. My prayer for this book is that the Lord Christ would make its author and its readers truly understand the gospel duty that God has laid upon His church and therefore make us willing to perform the work we have been given to do.”

Why do you think that this book needed to be written? Why were you the person to write it?

I think this book needed to be written because there are too many churches and Christians whose creed is orthodox but whose practice is shabby in this regard. Perhaps that is because of ignorance or fear rather than faithlessness, but I am still concerned that too often we fail to translate our faith into life: the truth does not galvanize the people of God in the way that it should. I don’t think it is fair to say that we have been fiddling while Rome burns, as it were, but I think that many otherwise faithful churches need to recover this element of our life and witness as the people of God. If we have light, we ought to have corresponding heat.

As for my writing it, I think in some respects I would rather not have done so, because I feel myself exposed by the very things that I have written. It is a topic that I think we need to address and that has been addressed in some ways, but perhaps we are suspicious of some of the people who are addressing it or suspicious of elements introduced alongside of it (sometimes rightly). I hope that a friendly admonition and exhortation might be effective. Besides, if it is true, it might as well come from me as from anyone else.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

Several years ago I was preaching through Psalm 51 and this verse opened up in the preaching of it. I think that was a reflection of my own heart burden concerning these things, but I trust it was also the present help of the Holy Spirit. With a similar weight of compulsion, shortly after I completed that series I sat down and began to write up and flesh out the material, and found the same sense of development in the writing process. But it was a long time before I had the opportunity to give it a wider readership.

Are there other books that you can recommend which would complement The Brokenhearted Evangelist?

Spurgeon’s The Soul Winner would be high on my list (indeed, just about anything Spurgeon writes to pastors and other ‘soul-winners’ would be useful, as would his published sermons and faithful biographies of the man). Horatius Bonar’s Words to Winners of Souls is good. John Bunyan’s works contain some superb examples of the spirit I am hoping to encourage, not least his treatises Come and Welcome to Jesus and The Jerusalem Sinner Saved. I think the lives, letters, sermons and works of Particular Baptists like Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliff, Samuel Pearce, John Ryland Jr. and William Carey are extremely helpful in this regard. Good biographies of George Whitefield or other Calvinistic Methodists like Daniel Rowland, as well as their letters and sermons, would stir the soul. I should also mention a book called The Prayer of a Broken Heart by Robert Candlish. I discovered it while I was writing The Brokenhearted Evangelist and found that it substantially chimed with my approach: at less than 100 pages, it succinctly puts the verse I deal with in the context of the whole psalm more effectively than I could do in the book itself. Time to stop with the list, except to say that the way this theme is dealt with by gracious and gifted men in so many different periods and places says something of its significance.

Are there particular errors and dangers in this area that you think we need to be aware of?

One concern would be sending everyone on a false guilt trip. It is very easy to write on this topic in a way that gives the impression that anyone who does not drop everything else and head out on to the street as a frontline evangelist is somehow a second-rate Christian. That is not the case, and I hope I have made plain that the ways in which and means by which individual Christians and particular churches embrace this duty are varied, though the duty lies upon all in accordance with our calling, circumstances, gifts and graces.

Another danger lies in making evangelism the be-all-and-end-all of the church’s existence. We too easily overlook the significance of our gospel witness as a key element in the life of the church, but it is almost as easy to reduce the whole function of the church to evangelising, which is to skew the Biblical notion of “making disciples” toward the initial entry into God’s kingdom and away from increasing maturity once in the kingdom. A healthy church will seek to embrace its whole duty in Biblical balance and tension, seeking to glorify God in all things, overlooking and denying none in its proper place.

What effect has writing this book had on you? How has it affected your head, heart and hands?

It has reminded me of my responsibilities all over again. I can honestly say that I believe that I have had to answer every question and consider every exhortation and make every assessment – often to my shame – that I put to any reader. I hope that it goes on making my particular role and responsibility in this regard clear in my mind, warm in my heart, and often in my hands.

What is the relationship between your work as an author, and your role as a pastor?

My work as an author (though I am afraid that this seems to dignify my efforts too much!) is the overflow of the work of the ministry and my role as a pastor particularly. The pastoral sphere is my priority: God has called me to shepherd his flock in a particular place, and any writing I do must be a servant to that end, and must not compromise it: when there is not enough time, the writing must be one of the first things to give way. While I accept that Christ will hold me to account for the employment of any gifts he has given me, my primary responsibility is, under God, for the souls of those in my charge (Heb 13.17).

Sometimes the writing is a help to my own soul, a way of clarifying my understanding, deepening my appreciation, or developing a theme: as such, it helps me to be a more effective gospel minister. Some of it is the outworking of particular sermons or series that I hope were of particular profit to the local church, and which may be a means of doing good to the wider church. I think that this is part of my responsibility as a pastor, and a way of investing the blessings that I and the local church receive. Not least, I hope that the people I love and serve will read and head the message of the books and other things that I write.

What-if thoughts and imaginations can be fascinating, but also unhelpful.  As the time extends, the imagining gets harder.  I do want my children to grow up with some knowledge of the grandfather (and grandmother) they never knew, and as much connection with them as possible.  But it is important too that our minds, hearts and thoughts are clear and focussed.

Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovel, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.

Philippians 4.8

One thought in closing, and this is really the aim of the post.  I want to pay tribute to the great and lovely man who raised my wife.  She is a queen among women, and a towering tribute to him.  I know that she was child who required much loving, nurturing and training.  The woman that she has become bears witness to the loving investment he made in her.  I am immensely grateful.

“Tell me, dear G., would you work less pleasantly through the day – would you walk the streets with a more doleful step – would you eat your meat with less gladness of heart – would you sleep less tranquilly at night, if you had the forgiveness of sins – that is, if all your wicked thoughts and deeds – lies, thefts and Sabbath-breakings – were all blotted out of God’s book of remembrance?  Would this make you less happy do you think?  You dare not say it would.  But would the forgiveness of sins not make you more happy than you are?  Perhaps you will tell me that you are very happy as you are.  I quite believe you.  I know that I was very happy when I was unforgiven.  I know that I had great pleasure in many sins – in Sabbath-breaking for instance.  Many a delightful walk I have had – speaking my own words, thinking my own thoughts, and seeking my own pleasure on God’s holy day.  I fancy few boys were ever happier in an unconverted state as I was.  No sorrow clouded my brow – no tears filled my eyes, unless some nice story-book; so that I know that you say quite true, when you say that you are happy as you are.  But ah! is not this just the saddest thing of all, that you should be happy whilst you are a child of wrath – that you should smile, and eat, and drink, and be merry, and sleep sound, when this very night you may be in hell! Happy while unforgiven! – a terrible happiness.  It is like the Hindoo widow who sits upon the funeral pile with her dead husband, and sings songs of joy when thay are setting fire to the wood with which she is to be burned.  Yes, you may be quite happy in this way, till you die, my boy; but when you look back from hell, you will say, it was a miserable kind of happiness.  Now, do you think it would not give you more happiness to be forgiven – to be able to put on Jesus, and say, “God’s anger is tured away”?  Would not you be happier at work, and happier in the house, and happier in your bed?  I can assure you, from all that ever I have felt of it, the pleasures of being forgiven are as superior to the pleasures of an unforgiven man, as heaven is higher than hell.  The peace of being forgiven reminds me of the calm blue sky, which no earthly clamours can disturb.  It lightens all labour, sweetens every morsel of bread, and makes a sick bed all soft and downy – yea, it takes away the scowl of death. Now forgiveness may be yours now.  It is not given to those who are good.  It is not given to any becaues they are less wicked than others..  It is only given to those who, feeling that their sins have brought a curse on the which they cannot lift off, ‘look unto Jesus’ as bearing all away.”