I have known four recent pastors of East London Tabernacle in Mile End, London.
The church began with the ministry of the first student at Spurgeon’s College, Archibald Brown. His son was the preacher Douglas Brown, who was used by God in the East Anglian Revival in my hometown in 1921. Douglas Brown’s sermons were simple, vivid and direct, and they had an astonishing impact on those who heard them in Lowestoft just over a century ago. Therefore, I was interested to see that the Banner of Truth have published a volume of Archibald Brown’s sermons. The slim volume is entitled: The Face of Jesus Christ: Sermons on the person and work of our Lord.
It is easy to see where Douglas Brown learned how to preach. His father was obviously a brilliant role model. The following features of these sermons are striking.
1 Jesus-Centred. Here is a man who is obviously in love with Christ. He communicates the good news of Jesus attractively.
“I am certain that the face of him whose lips were never compressed in unholy anger, whose brow was never knit by hateful temper, and whose holy soul was never ruffled by a sinful thought, must have been one that had a loveliness of its own.”
2 Simple. These sermons are simple and relatively brief but not simplistic. They combine simplicity with a profound grasp of the heart of the gospel message.
Talking about believers sharing in the joy of Jesus he says,
“It is a wonderful thought that Jesus’s joy and ours are of the same nature … the same joy that brightened up that holy face can be mine.”
3 Imaginative. In one sermon on Jesus sending two of his disciples to find the room for the Last Supper, Brown takes his hearers through the remarkable steps that the disciples had to take to find what Jesus had provided. It causes hearers to wonder at the foresight of Jesus but also helps the listener feel that their own circumstances were under the Lord’s control.
“Christ’s strange method of finding the guest chamber was not only a wondrous test of faith, but a marvellous exhibition of his own foreknowledge and ability to control circumstances.”
4 Stimulating confidence in Christ.
“There is no need for frantic trying to climb up to something. All that you must do is to live in my love, and, as surely as you live in my love, you will have the same joy as I have by living in my father’s love.”
Some preaching complicates Christianity so that experiencing its blessing can seem like a laborious climb up a very long steep ladder. Brown’s preaching shows us how Christ has descended the ladder to share his blessing with us.
5 Fresh and contemporary. Brown is speaking to his time (the latter part of the 19th Century) but doing so with an eye to the personal circumstances of his hearers. I was also interested that he engaged with the recently published Revised Version of the Bible and Weymouth’s New Testament.
Brown preached in such a way as to communicate clearly and effectively to his congregation. I am glad someone lent me this book of sermons.
Opmerkingen