Well, we're turning back in the word of the Lord tonight to the book of 2 Timothy. And let's just open it up. The chapter we've been reading from, well, chapters, part of chapter three, and then part of chapter four. There's one thing that I am so glad I did not bring into the pulpit tonight. This morning, on the way out, there was a whole tare of people carrying Easter eggs. And I'm thinking, did you folk double up on Easter eggs? Or do you give them out every week? Well, you know, sometimes my wife might say, you should keep your tongue in your head. She'll say it a lot more tenderly than that. But this morning, I'm glad I just let my tongue wag, because you know what I've ended up with? A whisper Easter egg. Big one. And I'm so glad I didn't bring it into the pulpit here, because without some, somebody would have had a last laugh on me on the way out. I mightn't have been eating it in such a wonderful shape. I'm not gonna tell you where it is, because I might see some of you leave after I give the GPS coordinates as to where the Wispy Egg is. I'll just gladly pick it up on the way out. And the way home will be rather pleasurable. Okay, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and the verse 15. And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which arm able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. I've been asked to give a word of testimony tonight, and we will weave application in where suitable along the way. And let's, with God's Word open, let's bow together in prayer, please. Heavenly Father, gracious Lord, again we thank thee that we're in a service where thy name is going to be uplifted and has been uplifted, where thy person and thy work has been central. We don't want and we don't need all of the gimmickry that is about and at large today. This world does not need that. It doesn't need falsehood masquerading as reality, but it does need truth. And Lord, we thank Thee, we heard a lot of talk over the past number of years about we're in a post-modern age, and we're in a post-Christian era, and nobody anywhere is interested in what the Bible has to say. But Lord, we read in scripture of Thee coming suddenly to Thy temple. We read into societies that largely had turned their back upon God and his word and were following all the ritual of the day, the explosion of thy grace. We thank thee that we see it all through history. And we can talk about dark days, but days could not be darker today than what they were prior to the Reformation under the preaching of Luther and Calvin and Farrell and Zwingli and Hoose and so many others. We think as well of a time in 18th century England. And again, under the preaching of many men in the great awakening, the times were worse, arguably worse than what they are here today. Lord, we believe thou canst do it again and move to thy glory and by the fullness of thy power, awaken the hearts of many, many men and women. And so we pray to that end, we're looking to thee to revive thy church. We pray that thou wilt stir our hearts, thou wilt inspire us to be out there and doing something more than what we are doing already for God, and may we plough a straight for home and work for the Lord Jesus unto his glory. For the night comes. The night comes when no man and no woman can work. Come, Lord, and help us to redeem the time because the days are evil. We thank you for this little child in the meeting tonight, just born, born into these kind of days. We pray that thou will preserve little Joel, put thy good hand upon him, and may he become like John the Baptist, a burning and a shining light for Christ, that will illuminate the darkness as he grows up. In our Savior's name we pray, and for all other children in our families, safeguard them, undertake for them, protect them, and encourage them, save them, and use them in thy service. For Jesus' sake we pray, amen. whenever I present an outline of the story of the grace of God in my own life. I can't really get away from 2 Timothy 3 in the verse 15, and I always feel compelled to come here and quote this text. Paul writing to Timothy, who was taking over from him in pastoral work in a certain location, he said, speaking of Timothy's background, that from a child. thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And after that, I could simply add four English words. This is my story. I was converted to Christ early in life. And that was principally through the influence of my mother. As providence would have it, she was converted to Christ one year after I was born. There was a member of the church army, he was operating at the time in Liverpool, called Captain Ken Weaver. And by a strange circumstance, it had been organized in her local country parish church, which was in Stonyford, north of Lisbon, that he would come there and he would preach a two week gospel mission, practically unheard of. And certainly in the Stonyford parish, absolutely unheard of. But that mission was running from the 8th to the 20th of May of 1966. So you mathematicians will work out instantly what age I am. I've just celebrated my 60th birthday. Let me save you the bother. But Weaver, Captain Ken Weaver preached the gospel in that church. And I have seen in my mom's own Bible, the advertising literature that would have been going out all around the neighborhood, inviting people to come, and they advertised it in the literature as a turn to Christ for life campaign. And here's what they said in that literature. We want to be allowed to speak to you about Christ, a living, ever-present, powerful, personal savior. He means everything to us, and that is why we want to share him with you. If that went out from martyrs tomorrow, I'd be more than happy because that's what we are about. At the bottom of the leaflet, Acts 11 and the verse 21 was quoted, a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. And my mother in that mission was, I don't know how many people turned to the Lord then in Stonyford, but she was one who did. As a new Christian, Mum began a practice that I fear is in danger of dying out today. She memorized scripture. She had a little technique and she would have used that little technique and brought it to bear on all the Bible passages that she felt were relevant to her, that had spoken to her as she had daily read the Word of God. And she decided, I want to learn that, and learn this, and learn the other. And she committed it all to memory. And if you can imagine it, on the long walks that I was getting, she pushed me in the old-fashioned sprung pram around the country road, not like the modern gear that you're going to have, but like a bathtub on huge wheels. She rehearsed to me everything she'd been learning. And so the scriptures were just coming and coming and coming. And I kind of was her sounding board, even though I was only crying or screaming to be fed or whatever was happening. But I was her sounding board that she was bouncing off, learning and repeating and repeating the words of scripture that she was trying to commit to memory. So my experience was that of Timothy's hearing that from a child, Thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And so I say to all parents, new ones and ones that have been on the road for a while, don't neglect teaching your children God's word. It's absolutely vital right from the very beginning. And at the age of round about three, I came to Christ due to my mom's faithful witness. Now W.P. Nicholson once said, and I know many people have repealed this and taken the free as for their own, live chickens cannot thrive under a dead hen. The two week mission came to an end. Moment back, first Sunday after the mission to her local church, Church of Ireland, she had been Church of Ireland all her life. Began in St. Luke's on the Shankill Road, and then when they moved to Stonyford, went to the Stonyford Parish, and she had sung in the choir, taught Sunday school, been confirmed everything you can be. Within the Church of Ireland system, she had ticked every box. But only during that mission did she realize, I'm a sinner bound for hell. And none of this religiosity or ritual is going to get me to heaven. But she's sitting in the first service after the mission had concluded and her own minister, he's back in the pulpit, he's preaching inverted commas. Mom cried through that service, came out of that service into the car with dad and said, and my dad wasn't converted at that time, we cannot go back there. Because what she had heard during the mission, she was not now going to hear, and she instantly realized that, I don't know why, only the grace of God allowed her to have that quality of discernment right then. She said, we cannot stay here because her parish minister was not converted to Christ. It's a long story, I'll not go into it, I don't have time. But there were some really good people in Stonyford Parish back then. And they had this idea, we can reform the church from the inside out. And when mom and dad left, the next week they left. These good folk were coming to their house, called with them and said, you're the kind of people we need because we want to turn this church around. And because you've been converted, that's another living person, living to God, living to Christ within the church. And you're a good building block here. We can really do something. And mom thought, no, you can't. And she was correct. And those experienced Christians were wrong. And maybe 20 plus years later, the very people that pleaded with her to stay in the Church of Ireland ended up in the Church of the Nazarene in Lisbon. They'd given up because they realized they couldn't change it from within. We became spiritual hybrids. I went to the Baptist Sunday School. and we went as a family to Mount Zion Free Methodist Church. That turned out to be pretty good. They were not Calvinistic, they were Arminian, and I credit them with me becoming a convinced Calvinist. And the reason was they had their special meetings where they're encouraging people to come out to the reel at the front, the altar as they called it, and they have these books that were on sale with all very distinctive Alpine covers and they were holiness books. And I, because scripture teaches it, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. I am all for that in terms of the biblical definition of what it is to be holy. and how we can be sanctified ongoing day by day, a process that doesn't end this side of eternity. But what puzzled me, two things. I'm reading the books, I'm looking for the kind of blessing being described within the books, and no matter what I did, I couldn't reach it, and I was frustrated. But this is, you know, a Christian at the Paragon, at the peak, and I can't get up to those high alpine mountains in my relationship with God. I'm not there, I'm still riddled with sin. And then I saw at those special meetings, at the altar call, the same people coming out every single night. And as a young lad, maybe 10, 11, I'm puzzled and I'm thinking, well, obviously they're not getting it either. Because if it is a second blessing, why are they out night after night after night during that special weekend? Because surely they should be able to get it. Maybe they're as frustrated as I am. And that caused me to study the scripture myself and become a convinced Calvinist that I am today. In 1977, we started to go to Lisburn Free Presbyterian Church. There were issues in America. The church that we were going to, the Free Methodist, was an American-based organization. There were problems there. They weren't being sorted out. And would you believe it, my dad, still unsaved, he said, we need to get out of here. He said, tell you where we'll go, we'll go to the Free Presbyterian Church because he worked with men in Shell BP, all tanker drivers, and some of those men were elders in our congregations around Belfast, and they were a huge influence on his life, constantly witnessing, singing the Lord's praises, he knew there was a difference, and he said, we'll go to the Free P's because they preach the gospel. And looking back, coming from an unseated man at the time, That was quite incredible. And that's how I came into the Free Presbyterian Church. I became involved, coming up through my teenage years and all kinds of church activities. Interfellowship quiz would have been a big thing back then, has now come back onto the roster. I'm delighted to see that. More of that in a moment or two. I had a teacher of RE in school, which was Friends School in Lisburn. Mr. Irwin, he was an elder in a Presbyterian church within the town, Sloane Street Presbyterian Church, and what he did was he knew who I was, he knew what made me tick and all the rest of it, and he kind of set me up in the RE class. He loved debates. And so let's have a look at abortion today, and he got Brown to talk to the subject. And then we'll do homosexuality. And then we'll have murder and terrorism. And what does the Bible say on these topics? And he himself was right down the line. Maybe he couldn't say exactly what he wanted to say on every topic, but he knew I would. And so we were in the hottest debates. And friends at that time, consider we're coming to the, and during the hunger strikes of 1981, And we have a number of Republicans coming into the school at that time. And they're putting up posters all around, celebrating those hunger strikers. And we are turning them down and all sorts of things that went a lot further than that. We'll maybe not go into that. And Mr. Urban in the RE class, one day he said, Ian Brown, mark my words, he's gonna become a free Presbyterian minister. That's the first time anybody ever said that. But wait, within seconds, the door of our mobile classroom knocked. A person came in carrying a note. The message in the note said, Ian Brown is required to go immediately to the office of the vice principal. and he didn't want to see me because he thought I was going to be a free Presbyterian minister coming into the future. The reason was Ian Brown, whoever he was, had been involved in yet another fight. I'm blaming it on being part of a group of extreme Protestants in the school. The next time the same thing happened, It wasn't just me summoned to the office of the vice-principal, but my father. And he was told in no uncertain terms, the next time your son gets involved in a fight, we're showing him the door. He will be expelled. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I was not the worst pupil in my year. My best friend was. Everybody in France who got into Upper Sixth were all given a red badge to wear under the pale Prefect. It meant you could boss everybody else about. It hadn't happened in the history of the school, and I checked recently, it has not happened since. Whenever I got into Upper Sixth, they did not give me a Prefect badge. And they didn't give my group of friends a Prefect badge. It didn't really matter because we took control of one section of the school anyway. And the least we say about that, the better. Looking back, my testimony was inconsistent. I'd have been studying for the quiz and then going in and doing other things in school that were not consistent with my testimony elsewhere. It was checkered. I'd like to rewrite it, but you don't get an opportunity to go back and reclaim those years and live them in a different way. And so I'd say to any young people, do live for Christ in school. Have a consistent testimony. It's very important. Coming towards the end of school, 1983 was my shake-up year, and I'm coming into the final year of school. I had my plans. I'd applied at that time to Queen's University. My passion of heart was, I want to study architecture. And depending on exam results in A-levels, I'd been accepted for Queen's. It was going to be a seven-year course. But that year, coming into that year, I began to get a feeling, you know the way you can at times, a feeling that snakes down your spine, fills your mind, that things are not going to be as cut and dried as you have hoped or planned. And I even began to think, do you know something? The Lord might just step into my life and change my plans around. One night in 1983, March of that year, he did speak. Now this is a mercy. Given the past number of years I had lived, it's a mercy God was still speaking to me. But he had been dealing with me greatly on the way up to this. Brian Ferguson, who needs no introduction to you, was my youth fellowship leader, became an elder in Lisburn congregation, I know came here, was an elder here, I have huge respect for Brian Ferguson. He was a major formative influence on my later teenage years. Sat with him on the Truth for Youth Interfellowship quiz and had a lot of interaction and we were, despite the age difference, very firm friends. He was a mentor to me. That night, March 1983, we had the prayer meeting for the workers of the children's meeting, and Brian opened the word of God, and he said, I'm turning to 1 Samuel 3, the verse nine, the verse 10. It was the call of Samuel, and he expounded on that theme. That very week, we're coming to the Easter convention, just passed last week. So we're on the 1st of April, note the date, 1983. And I thought I was being cute, because here's what my plan was. In the Easter convention, I've been going to it for years, I knew the format. There was always a big appeal for people, young people, to surrender their lives to Christ, volunteer, that if the Lord calls them, you'll be willing to go and serve him, be a missionary, be a minister, whatever, full-time service. And that appeal, I knew, always came strongly on the Saturday night, and that was Dr. Paisley giving that appeal. So I thought, this year, I'm going to the youth rally on the Friday night. I'm not going on Saturday night. Gonna avoid that one. But given the date, I was the fool. I turned up on the Friday night. Dr. Myron Giler from Ohio in America opened the Word of God that night, and when he got his opportunity to do so, he said, I want you to turn with me in God's Word to 1 Samuel 3 9-10. That's what I'm preaching from tonight. And I'm thinking, here we go. Second time in a week. There was an appeal that night, on the Friday night, and I did feel the compulsion to at least indicate my willingness to serve the Lord. But having gone out up the aisle as the young people did, I came home that night and I consoled myself. You know, Bible college, that's a long way off. Seven years in university studying architecture, that'll be coming first and then who knows what'll happen at the end of that. But I went home and mum and I read the word of God as we always did together at night. Bible reading that night, or maybe it was the early morning of the next day, the Lord shocked me with the words in the Bible reading, Mark 10 49, and Jesus stood still, commanded him to be called, and they called the blind man, saying unto him, be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. And I interpreted that word rise to be a word that needed immediate action. Not seven years down the line, not when it suits you, but now. And I applied to college, went into college that year, exited in 1987, took up the ministry when a door opened in the city of Londonderry. I know you have a little tenuous connection, at least here in Oma, with Liverpool through Alex Moffat. One year into college training, Reverend Hillis Fleming got on the phone to John Douglas, have you a student that isn't doing very much over the summer could come to Liverpool for three months, I'll teach him the ropes. He did that. It was an interesting three months. Can't go into that because that's not my subject tonight, but the first week, I'm there in July and a lady had died. He did not know her from Eve. Sarah Jane Snape, I will never forget her name. 84, lived in the flats along Netherfield Road where the church was in Liverpool at that time. Reverend Fleming said, I have a meeting of the TBS in London on Friday, the day of the funeral. You're doing the funeral. And I'm thinking, I haven't even prayed at a funeral. You're doing the funeral. prepare the message, do it all. I went along to the house in preparation to visit the family and maybe get some hymns and that kind of thing. I come there and he had insisted that I should wear a ministerial collar, so I'm there, young fella. I was young once. And back then, I would have been 19. And a girl opens the door about my age, doesn't bring me in, just starts screaming as she runs back into the house, the vicar, the vicar is here. Another order people come out and they brought me in. First question, do you want a drink? I knew that was not Fanta being offered and I declined. Second question, do you want a fag? And I knew full well what that was, so I declined again. We started to talk about hymns going to be sung at the funeral. They did not know a single hymn. And I'm thinking, the Lord's my shepherd, everybody knows that. They didn't. But that's what we decided we would sing. And then, eventually, they came across, and before I left, they said, could we sing the old rugged cross? Is that a hymn? And I thought, yes, one that you know. We'll definitely sing that. Mr. Fleming had been telling me, it's not an Orange Order funeral. They've nothing to do with the Orange Order. There will be 10 people at the funeral. You go ahead, you do it, no problem. Anfield Cemetery on the Friday, in we go. And then the people come. And it seemed to me they didn't stop coming. And there were 85 in the building. And it was full to the brim. Now the old rugged cross was not in the church hymn book. So we brought chorus books as well as the church hymn book and we put them, I don't know why we put them in every seat when we thought there was only going to be 10 people there, but we did. And they all lifted them. And I'm standing at the front and announcing, Sam 23, the Lord's my shepherd. And I'm standing there. And when the hymn starts, or the psalm starts, I'm still standing there, and they're still sitting down there. And I sing, and they don't sing. And James Fleming, the son of Reverend Fleming, now in Keshe, was sitting right down the center of the aisle, at the back, to double, listening to me sing. And I sang a solo. The whole psalm. Nobody joined in. Just me. And that was bad. I'm thinking on my feet. See the last hymn or the second hymn? I'm going to not make the same mistake again. I'm going to say, you need all to stand and you need all to sing along with me. And I look down. And I had no yellow sheet. So the three verses of the old rugged cross, I'm thinking, no, I'm not confident that I'll remember all those words. I'm not gonna make an absolute disaster of this. And I said, we'll all stand and we'll sing the first verse. And right enough, they muttered and they mumbled a bit. And it was obvious they'd heard it sometime. That was my start in official practical training through the Whitefield College of the Bible, courtesy of our liberal congregation and Reverend Hillis Fleming, who I did learn much from. in that summertime. I went to Londonderry after college. Londonderry means a lot, still does, to myself and to my family, maybe more than words can tell. My wife was born in that city and lived there all her life until I brought her down to Belfast. My children, all of them, three of them, were born, raised there. And so, inevitably, we have a bit of loyalty, a strong attachment to it, in fact. Though I'd never been to Londonderry in my life, never burned Lundy to my shame, never marched, I did preach there on two occasions in 1987, my final months in college, first in January, then again in May. I'd been told all along that they had their eyes on a certain minister, that he was gonna come to their pulpit. I'd never entertained the remotest possibility I would ever end up in Londonderry. I always thought it'd be good for that minister to go there. He'll really enjoy that congregation. He'll have a wonderful time, a blessing there, but out of the blue, I received a call there when it seemed that I was destined for one of two other places. I spent 26 very happy years just up the road. And when I left, I noted that those kinds of ministry for that length of time, it does result in a special relationship. And the pain of parting is severe when you close the door and move. I would have been more than happy to stay. In fact, I said one time to Reverend Ken Elliott, we were on a trip to America together, I'm gonna be buried in Londonderry. And he's saying, why do you think that? Well, I'm never gonna go anywhere else. I'm happy where I am, I'll be buried there. But you know, God's way must prevail or you become a burden rather than a blessing. That's why, because of the attachment, I needed the kind of clear direction that I did receive. And I prayed to the Lord, Lord, with this interest in martyrs and a call coming through, you need to make clear to me that my work in London Derry is over. That came with the force of a hammer blow. I was praying, but maybe didn't really want that prayer to be answered. And I turn in my regular Bible reading to Romans 15, verse 23, 29, the verse 32 as well. And it says, now having no more place in these parts. I am sure when I come unto you I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ that I may come unto you with joy in the will of God and may with you be refreshed. Confirmation was given to my wife as well." Imagine the force of another scripture. that came hot on the heels of that first one, Acts 18, verse 20 and 21. When they desired him to tarry longer time with them, he consented not, but bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means be in Jerusalem. And if I needed further confirmation, 1 Peter 1, 13, 16, he which hath called you is holy, Matthew 4, 12 to 25, he departed into Galilee, leaving Nazareth, came and dwelt in Capernaum, and immediately they left the ship under Fathom and followed him. And then the second time, this hammer blow of a scripture came. Romans 15, verse 22 to 33, but now having no more place in these parts. There were times of blessing in Londonderry. One key time will always live on in my memory. There was a week when I was out in visitation, and it seemed every house that we went to with an unsaved person in it, sought Christ. All through different circumstances, but five people in that one week came to the Lord. I will mention before I close about my dad's conversion, otherwise I don't complete my own story. He supported me every step of the way, sacrificially, through Bible college even though he was still unconverted. Have you a loved one in the family you've been praying for for a long time and you feel nothing has changed, nothing ever changes? They're unmoved, they're still the same. They can attend the house of God, they can be respectful towards the word of God, but not converted. Let me encourage you to pray on and let me tell you why. My mom prayed for my dad for 28 years after her conversion. Dad was always keen to go to church. And I'll say to the Lord, I'm up in Londonderry and parents are living still in Lisburn. Lord, whenever you give me the opportunity to be alone with my dad and this feeling, this burden came and it became heavier on me, I'll take that opportunity, just me and him, and we'll speak very frankly and tenderly one to the other. So I went to Lisburn one day to visit mom and dad, leaving after tea. Mom says, you're heading up the road here. We have a children's workers' prayer meeting, one of those again, in Lisburn, where God really began to speak to me at. If you drop me offshore, it's on route, it's on your way home. So dropped her off, driving up the road towards Dundrod, and the Lord just reminded me, what did you say? If there was a good opportunity, not that my mom would have interfered, she would not have done, but you said if there was a good opportunity where you'd be at one-to-one with your dad, you'd take it. Is this not the opportunity? And so I turned the car, went back home. Dad's there, told him very plainly why I had come back, and I discovered. He had been reading the Bible seriously for two weeks before this. Burdened himself, inquiring, brought up now in the gospel, love for the gospel, but hadn't yet sought Christ. And we cried our eyes out that night, the two of us, as I had that great privilege of leading him to Christ. Keep praying. Keep pleading with God. Don't give up. The Lord is no man's debtor. Those who know me well will realize I have a fondness for the ministry of the Scottish covenanting preacher, Reverend Samuel Rutherford. And if you're ever on that torturous road from Cairnryan to Carlisle It'll be leaves I'll be going to, but that's by the way. You'll see on the Scottish part of the road, a wee turn, semi-circle on the sign. Ann Wath. Take it. Just go there. Pass an old Church of Scotland church, and then get to a lovely set of ruins. And it's where Samuel Rutherford used to preach. You'll be amazed how small The building would have been, some of the walls are still intact. And I've taken on occasion, the words of that hymn, the sands of time are sinking, the dawn of heaven wakes. Based on his life and ministry written by Ann Cousins. And I've sung it just standing there in that church and tried to think of what it would have been to sit under that loving preacher's ministry. One of the verses that was written in that hymn goes like this, and if one soul from Anwarth, that tiny little place, meets me at God's right hand, my heaven will be two heavens in Emmanuel's land. A challenge to be a soul winner Each one who knows Christ should be praying, Lord, make me a soul winner. Put stars in my crown. Daniel 12, verse one to three. Well, that hymn contains this verse. With mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove, and I, the Jews of sorrow, were lustered with his love. I'll bless the hand that guided. I'll bless the heart that planned, when throned where glory dwelleth, in Emmanuel's land. If I can just, in the closing minute, direct you to that passage we read in 2 Timothy 3, verse 15, all about conversion, that from a child. Thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." That's what happened in my life. The Scriptures brought to me by my mother in the main. It's what happened in my dad's life. He again was reading the Bible in a serious determined effort to get to know Christ. That's the instrumentality God uses, the Word, for conversion. But then look as well at verse 16, because we've got conduct or continuance in here, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. I didn't, as I've said, in secondary school, always let the word of God govern me. But when you do, you'll find this book is profitable, wonderful in its doctrine, exercising reproof and correction, instructing in righteousness. And look at the final picture in 17, completion there that the man of God may be perfect, throughly or thoroughly furnished unto all good works. That's what Christ wants for us. To mature, to develop, to learn more about him, love him therefore even more, serve him with a more ready hand and heart. Love the word. Love the Christ who's revealed in the word. and love the souls of those for whom the Christ off the word shed his blood. And if he counted it necessary to leave the splendor of heaven to die for us sinners, can we not count it necessary to speak just a word for Jesus? Tell how he died for you. We'll turn to our closing hymn tonight, which is 335. Hymn number 335, Jesus keep me near the cross, they're a precious fountain, free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calvary's