If you are an avid C. J. Mahaney listener, you may well have heard of a series of talks he did many years ago on people in the Bible who God killed. In which case, I've got a real treat in store for you! But first, let me set the context.

I would like to share with you a few sermons over the coming weeks or months that have impacted me so much that I still remember them. I am convinced that the gentle "drip drip" effect of being continually exposed to good teaching over many years is as important as the moments of great impact and decision. But, by the nature of things, we don't remember those sermons!

Some messages do consciously shape us, however, creating a moment of transaction between us and God. Often we remember how we felt when we heard them as if it were yesterday, even years afterwards. This is one such talk. I would love to hear from others about sermons they remember as having transformed them in a similar way.

To set the scene, I was still a young boy. I had somehow persuaded my parents to let me go into the adults' meeting in a tent at Downs Bible Week, an early Newfrontiers conference.

Mahaney was a phenomenon even back then. He was funny, engaging, easy to understand, and truly passionate. He was speaking about the holiness of God, and by honing in on the people God killed, certainly got my attention. This was a side of God I hadn't really given much attention to.

This talk was very well received. In fact, you could have cut the air with a knife that night because of the sense of the presence of God in the room. It was one of the very few times in my life when I caught something of the smell of revival. That night I experienced for the first time a sense of the weighty presence of God in all his holiness that both attracted and terrified me. I knew then that this was what a revival would feel like. If I had known how seldom I would experience the same sensation in the ensuing years, I would not have wanted to leave that tent. Sometimes today I cry out to God that he would reveal himself in such a way again. When we pray for revival, I'm not entirely sure we know what we are praying for.

Judging by the heavy sense of conviction in the room, many of us were totally undone that night. I know that for me, I would never be able to treat God as flippantly or irreverently again. That night kindled in me a healthy respect for God which has never left me. The Bible both commands us to fear God, and then tells us not to be afraid of him. Or, as Newton puts it:

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved.
One of my most enduring memories of that evening all those years ago was speaking to a member of our church who, with eyes brimming with tears, said that they felt they had just begun their Christian life all over again—if that were possible. There were many who felt the same way, wondering if they had ever been a Christian up until that point.

The sermon seemed as though it was lost to the sands of time. But in response to my appeal for old sermons, I like to imagine that someone was rummaging through their attic and finding an old tape. As a result, here it is! I think it's a VERY important talk and am glad I have been able to (with permission) unleash it on the world once again. You can download it here or listen online using the embedded player:



Here are some extracts from the talk—the first was in the context of talking about whether God's punishment of Adam's sin was excessive.

"I don't in any way believe that that was too harsh. He was warned. God made every provision ... When you sin, you forfeit any claim you had to human existence, because the purpose of his life and Eve's life, and our lives was to represent the holiness of God. I don't believe it's unjust for God to take away the gift of life that he gave freely if it wasn't used for the purpose for which he gave it. Because when we sin, what we are saying is—we are not just making a mistake—we are saying no to God's law; we are saying your law is not good; we're saying—God, your law does not cut it, I'm not under your authority; my judgment is superior to yours; I'm defying and opposing you, who in reality I owe everything to."

"The amazing thing is not that God has judged people in the Bible; it is that God has not judged everybody."

"I have seen some people teach on holiness and they almost seemed happy some people were going to hell."

"God does not delight in sending people to hell ... His judgment is not like our temper that flares up in an instant."

"As soon as that apple hit Adam's lips and Eve's lips, they should have been wasted immediately, but God was merciful . . . justice was delayed so that grace might enter history."

"The issue is not why does God punish sin, but why does he permit the ongoing rebellion of man?"

There was also an endearing moment, when in the midst of some hilarious Mahaney jokes, he turned to my mentor, Henry Tyler, who was on the stage beside him and said, "Henry, I don't think Martyn Lloyd-Jones would have approved of this exegesis, do you?" It was a funny and intimate moment that nicely offset the conviction and passion of much of the sermon. While I am not sure that Lloyd-Jones would have approved of the humor, I like to think he would definitely have approved of the life-transforming effect on one young boy, and I suspect many others sitting in that circus top tent on a racecourse at Plumsted that evening.

Do you remember this sermon or one of Mahaney's other ones on God killing people? What impact did it have on you?

********

This talk is reproduced with the permission of Newfrontiers. Visit their website for further free downloads from a variety of Newfrontiers events.

One of the joys of being a part of this online community is that I get to celebrate holidays I would not normally celebrate. As you read this, ironically I am probably over the Atlantic on my way to the USA for a business trip to Phoenix, Arizona. Although today is a national holiday in the UK, there isn't really a reason for it. We have a number of such holidays where the idea is simply to spend time with family.

But today in America is Memorial Day. I like the idea of a day to cherish the memory of those who have fought and died for our freedoms, and I understand, to also remember those loved ones who have passed away for other reasons.

So today I would like to remember some people who are no longer on earth.

• The soldiers of all nationalities who helped to ensure Europe did not come under the tyranny of fascism, and all those who have died since then fighting for freedom.
  
  
• My grandfather, Edwin Millington Warnock, whose faithful service to God in preaching the gospel inspired me, and who one day prophesied about me (although I am not sure he would have called it that) that I would also preach God's Word.
  
  
• Edwin's wife, my grandmother, who as I grew up, epitomised faithful selfless service to others as she, with great joy, would provide food for her grandchildren and cared uncomplainingly for her husband as his health declined.
  
  
• My other grandmother, mother to my Mum, who instilled virtues such as hard work and discipline into my mother, who then passed them on to me. I will also never forget the hours we spent playing Reversi/Othello.
  
  
• Henry Tyler, who has had more personal influence on me spiritually than anyone else, apart perhaps from my pastor, Tope Koleoso.
  
  
• My Uncle Stephen Hickley, whose trust-filled response to hearing he had terminal cancer was an inspiration to all who heard.
  
  
• Two of my sisters' close friends, whose sudden deaths as teenagers helped propel me towards a medical career.

I got an email today from someone who is eager to get a hold of a copy of a famous series of sermons C. J. Mahaney once preached on every person God killed in the Bible. Apparently he has been in touch with Sovereign Grace Ministries and they cannot trace this series. I got to thinking, since I have quite a few readers, surely someone out there might have this series in an old tape or CD collection. I never heard this series, but I did hear one talk taken from it on the Ark of the Covenant and what happened to Uzza in 2 Samuel 6. This sermon was preached at Downs Bible Week. It was a message that changed many lives. But I do not think it is possible to get a hold of it today.

Anyway, all this got me thinking about all those talks we had back then about preachers like Henry Tyler, who was my hero and mentor. There are messages that were key to us at the time. What a shame if they would just pass into history.

So, how about a great sermon hunt. Subject to getting the relevant copyright permissions, I would be very interested in putting some of them online here as mp3s from time to time. So what great old messages do you have buried in a cupboard somewhere?

Just before Christmas, someone I know asked me what I was going to do on my blog to “follow” my interview with Wayne Grudem. In that moment I knew exactly how I was going to follow it — with silence. Sometimes the best way to try and follow something is quite simply not to! To be honest, I felt like I needed a break anyway. The good news for me (I think!) is that not one of my readers wrote to me asking me to write something on my blog. Either that means you haven’t missed me — perhaps because you have been busy yourself — or that you simply took me at my word that I was taking a “prolonged break.” Or perhaps more likely, it shows the place of a blog in the average reader’s day — it's a piece of light entertainment that we can live with or without — read in a snatched moment in-between everything else we do that is much more important. So my little “sabbatical” hasn’t cost you guys anything — there is always another blog to read — and in any case, if for some strange reason someone was desperate for a dose of “Warnie,” then this blog has been around long enough that simply looking in the archives would uncover something you hadn’t read yet.

So putting ourselves to one side for awhile to reflect is no bad thing — indeed it has biblical precedent, as does the thought that God tends to do things in “waves” or “seasons.” I really felt it was right for me to just stop blogging for a few weeks. It also coincided with a needed pause in my preaching commitments, and although I have still been working my day job, it has felt almost like a holiday. I thought that it might be a nice idea to start the blog this year with a personal post reflecting on a period of my life when it was God who put me on the substitute bench, and for a period that lasted several years and not just a few weeks.

It has been over a year since I posted part 4 of a series I have entitled “My Story” (and before that I wrote part 1, part 2, and part 3.) At this rate it will take me a long time to arrive at the present day in this tale, as back then, in my telling of the story, I had only reached the age of 18. But here goes with the next part . . . .

At 18, I had a lot of the over-confidence of youth, but that was tinged with the realization that I had a lot to learn. As I left the safety of my parental home and launched out to London to study medicine, God had a plan to teach me one of the most important lessons of my life — one which this recent relatively quiet spell over Christmas and the New Year reminded me that I still do not fully live in the good of.

My youthful enthusiasm for God was, at least in part, because in a church environment I felt I could hold my own socially much better than I could out in the world. It's funny, because like many outwardly confident gregarious people, I was far from confident on the inside. Although all my evangelistic activities at school made me feel like public enemy number one, I would console myself that surely God was pleased with me despite the views of my school colleagues. In church, I had a different role and I took a lot of solace from feeling that people there valued my contribution. As I already described, I had been given leadership and preaching experience and received a lot of encouragement. I was convinced that some sort of ministry awaited me having had a sense of “call” since early childhood. I foolishly persuaded myself that if life at school was hard, at least my work for God’s Church showed that I had something to offer. God was about to go to work to begin to destroy the pride that I didn’t even realize I had.

God has a way of taking a dream and killing it — stone dead. Sure, He will often resurrect it years later, but you don’t tend to think much about that at the time — all you can see is (to paraphrase Monty Python) your dream is “stone dead, demised, passed on, no more, has ceased to be, a stiff, bereft of life, snuffed out, up the creek and kicked the bucket, extinct in its entirety, an ex-dream.” This is what happened to me over the course of a few years, and much as you might think that it couldn’t have been of God, as I look back, I am more and more convinced it was, in fact, just that. I remember well that one time during those years, when someone suggested that I might preach, the thought that went through my mind was simply “no way!”

I am glad of two things — both of which suggest that perhaps the dream wasn’t totally dead. Firstly, although in a different kind of church, I kept my links going with newfrontiers by attending the Bible Weeks, and also through a friendship with a pastor — a dear man named Henry Tyler (who was my mentor for many years and who comes back into the story later on). Secondly, I did not lose my relationship with God, nor my love of reading theology and the biographies of preachers of the past. But I'm rushing ahead of myself — I haven’t told you how my dream came to die.

When I arrived at university I was suddenly a small fish in the big pond of London. The successful CU didn’t seem to need me to exercise the gifts of which I'd sadly become proud, nor did the charismatic church I attended in the morning or the evangelical Anglican church I attended in the evening. Suddenly I was not “doing things” for God anymore — no preaching, no leadership, not even leading Bible studies. This carried on for several years, and I didn’t press for things to happen, but instead slowly, and initially reluctantly, began to refocus my relationship with God from “doing” things to “being” His child.

Terry Virgo describes receiving a prophetic word early-on in his Christian walk that told him he was called primarily to be a worshipper of Jesus, and that anything else was a bonus. That was the lesson God was trying to engrave in me in those “fallow” years as a medical student. I only wish that I could honestly say that my teenage years were the last time I busied myself with too much activity and not enough falling in love with Jesus. The truth is, sadly, that like so many of us, there have been many times in my life where I have been so caught up with what I was doing for God that I forgot that the most important thing He wants from me is for me to simply be His son and worship Him. In fact, these last few weeks have left me wondering whether just maybe the busyness of 2006 was exactly one of those times.

How foolish we are to believe that we can give anything to God with our hard work. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7 - “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” God has given us everything we have, and even our serving Him is just another expression of our dependence on Him. He is the one who gives us every breath that we take as a gift of grace, not our right. How often do we get cross because our so-called “rights” are violated, or because we didn’t get what we wanted, or because our hard work wasn’t appreciated, or even because our “ministry” isn’t recognized by others. The true servant of God is immune to such thoughts for he realizes that even the strength he uses to serve is given him by God, and that it is God who decides what paths He wants us all to take.

I wish I could learn this once and for all, but I guess we are put on earth to struggle with this issue all our lives — there is something within us that longs for self-sufficiency, self-fulfillment, and self-worth. God instead wants us to be God-dependent, God-fulfilled, and worthy only because of what Jesus has done for us.

In this new year, I want to refocus my life once more on Jesus and knowing Him better. Everything else will flow out from that. There is a sense of dissatisfaction within me once more with filling my life with activity and not leaving enough time to reflect and grow as a worshipper of Jesus. I am brought back to the passage I preached on in November.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:7-16)

Anyway, these so-called quiet years were a time of pruning. There were, however, a couple of things going on in addition to my education. Firstly, God had arranged for a family to mentor me during those years in understanding other cultures, which would prove very helpful later on. But secondly, my reading was slowly turning me into someone who thought he understood theology, and as the years went on, sadly I became more and more focused on having theological arguments with other Christians. I am ashamed to say that it got to the point where pretty much every time I met someone, I would sniff out the areas of theology I disagreed with them on and engage them in debate. I became someone who wasn’t always very pleasant to be around. Fortunately, God had a plan to help me to learn better social skills, and also to revive my dream of serving Him in some way. But you will have to wait for the next post in this long-running series to hear about that . . . .

This is the 2000th post on this blog, which means that I have been posting on average just short of two posts a day for almost three years. That�s a whole lot of words�one relatively recent reader has set out on a quest to go back and read 'em all. I am not sure that too many will want to join him!

As I drew near to this post, I wondered how best to use it. I briefly considered a review post like I did at the end of 2005 and 2004. I also thought about doing a post on what blogging has meant to me, but realised that like so many other things, David Wayne had already said it better. I could have written about my mistakes and the lessons I had learnt, but my posts here, here and here have already covered that ground.

So I decided that a tribute post was clearly the answer�returning thanks to others is always a good thing to do at moments like this�so that is what I decided to do.

There are so many people that I want to thank, but I have decided to focus in on one of them. Before I get to that, however, there are a number of people I want to thank briefly. I would like to thank:

• My God for creating me, saving me, empowering me, and sovereignly determining that he would use me the way he does and place me where he has.


• My wife for being such a gracious blog widow�I still can hardly believe that God was so gracious as to give me you who I have done nothing to deserve.


• My family for keeping me sane�you kids are the best gift God has ever given your mum and me!


• My parents for raising me as a Christian.


• My dear friend and Pastor, Tope Koleoso, who incidentally preached his heart out yesterday morning. All too often preaching just explains some facts or doctrines to us and leaves us to figure out for ourselves how to apply it. I was never very good at figuring out how to live in the good of what I had learnt�thank you Tope for preaching in such a way that we are left in no doubt about what we need to do differently on Monday morning as a result of your message. If you have not heard one of Tope's sermons yet, go listen right now to yesterdays message on "Discipline". It is the perfect introduction to his preaching.


• My previous pastors and those men of God who have discipled and mentored me�Colin Potter, Mike Hewitt, Robin Hawkins, David Nunn, Terry Brewer, Eric Hutchinson, David Coak, Henry Tyler, and others.


• My favorite living preachers who have given me so much despite in most cases never having met me.


• Those who, although they are dead, still speak and have inspired me more than they will ever know until I get to heaven and seek them out to thank them for it�these men include of course Spurgeon , Wesley, Whitfield . . .the list goes on and on . . . .


• The bloggers who have inspired me, welcomed me, interacted with me, and linked to me. There are too many to mention everyone but some that stand out in my memory are of course the Warnies, The Reformed Charismatic bloggers, and I ought to thank every blogger in the Blogdom of God as together we make up a formidable group who largely (despite our differences) interact with remarkable grace. But specific thank you�s must go to Josh Claybourn and Hugh Hewitt who were the first "big time" bloggers to link to me, correspond with me . . . so you can blame them for inflicting this blog on such a wide audience. Of course, no list of thank you�s would be complete without a mention of David Wayne who, as I say in my sidebar, taught me everything I know about gracious blogging.

But the person I want to focus on in this post is the one writer I would like you to get to know more than any other�Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones combines in one man my passionate desires for increased intimacy with God and for reformed theology. I have already claimed him as a father of the charismatic movement elsewhere. Although he would not have called himself this, he almost single-handedly inspired the breed called Reformed Charismatics. The cries of his entire ministry, and particularly his closing years echo resoundingly today.

I will share some more quotes in this post on his views on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. You will see from them why I like this man, and want to publicly confess my debt to him and his ministry. I am of course in good company in declaring such a debt. Although he is not spoken about much these days, he is in danger of becoming evangelicalism�s best kept secret�it is time 25 years after the death of the 20th century's finest English-speaking preacher to revive his memory and learn from his wisdom!

He has many books, and a number of them can be bought at Amazon. Of course, many have heard of his series on Romans, but there is much more to the Doctor than that. I recently was directed to an article at Banner of Truth which gives guidance as to where to start with his many books � I would largely concur, but would also emphasise Joy Unspeakable and Prove all Things as being books you simply cannot miss reading.

The best article on Lloyd-Jones on the web comes perhaps unsurprisingly from one of our modern heroes�John Piper. The quotes in the rest of this post all come from that article.
Piper acknowledges his own debt to Lloyd-Jones and credits reading his sermons as setting the course for his own life. Piper remarks in his post on the way that God providentially organises the smallest details of our lives. He is eager to retell the story of how Lloyd-Jones was prevented from taking a role in Wales he had set his heart on. Amazingly, it was a missed train by a supporter which set in motion the events that led to him accepting the call to Westminster:

"His main supporter on the board of the college had missed the train and couldn't support his call to the presidency. And so he accepted Westminster's call and stayed there 29 years until his retirement in 1968.

I can't help but pause and give thanks for the disappointments and reversals and setbacks in our lives that God uses to put us just where he wants us. How different modern Evangelicalism in Britain would have been had Martyn Lloyd-Jones not preached in London for 30 years. How different my own life may have been had I not read his sermons in the summer of 1968! Praise God for missed trains and other so-called accidents!"

Piper goes on to explain what it was about Lloyd-Jones that is so unique and what has clearly inspired him and so many of us so much:

"From the beginning to the end the life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a cry for depth in two areas�depth in Biblical doctrine and depth in vital spiritual experience. Light and heat. Logic and fire. Word and Spirit. Again and again he would be fighting on two fronts: on the one hand against dead, formal, institutional intellectualism, and on the other hand against superficial, glib, entertainment-oriented, man-centered emotionalism. He saw the world in a desperate condition without Christ and without hope; and a church with no power to change it. One wing of the church was straining out intellectual gnats and the other was swallowing the camels of evangelical compromise or careless charismatic teaching. For Lloyd-Jones the only hope was historic, God-centered revival . . . .

Lloyd-Jones has done more than any other man in this century, I think, to restore the historic meaning of the word revival.

[Lloyd-Jones said] �A revival is a miracle ... something that can only be explained as the direct ... intervention of God ... Men can produce evangelistic campaigns, but they cannot and never have produced a revival� (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1987, pp. 111-112.)

But for Lloyd-Jones it was a great tragedy that the whole deeper understanding of revival, as a sovereign outpouring of the Holy Spirit, had been lost by the time he took up the subject in 1959 at the 100th anniversary of the Welsh Revival. "During the last seventy, to eighty years," he said, "this whole notion of a visitation, a baptism of God's Spirit upon the Church, has gone." (Iain H. Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981, p. 385).

The Doctor clearly linked historical revivalism with the baptism with the Holy Spirit as the following quotes demonstrate:

"The difference between the baptism of the Holy Spirit and a revival is simply one of the number of people affected. I would define a revival as a large number, a group of people, being baptized by the Holy Spirit at the same time; or the Holy Spirit falling upon, coming upon a number of people assembled together. It can happen in a district, it can happen in a country." (Joy Unspeakable, Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, 1984, p. 51.)

"What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty, that will compel people to pay attention, and to look, and to listen. And the history of all the revivals of the past indicates so clearly that that is invariably the effect of revival, without any exception at all. That is why I am calling attention to revival. That is why I am urging you to pray for this. When God acts, he can do more in a minute that man with his organizing can do in fifty years " (Revival, pp. 121-122.)

"The purpose, the main function of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, is ... to enable God's people to witness in such a manner that it becomes a phenomenon and people are arrested and are attracted.� (Joy Unspeakable, p. 84.)

Lloyd-Jones was remarkably dismissive of cessationism:

"[Before Pentecost the apostles] were not yet fit to be witnesses ... [They] had been with the Lord during the three years of his ministry. They had heard his sermons, they had seen his miracles, they had seen him crucified on the cross, they had seen him dead and buried, and they had seen him after he had risen literally in the body from the grave. These were men who had been with him in the upper room at Jerusalem after his resurrection and to whom he had expounded the Scriptures, and yet it is to these men he says that they must tarry at Jerusalem until they are endued with power from on high. The special purpose, the specific purpose of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is to enable us to witness, to bear testimony, and one of the ways in which that happens is through the giving of spiritual gifts." (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sovereign Spirit, Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, 1985, p. 120.)

"If the apostles were incapable of being true witnesses without unusual power, who are we to claim that we can be witnesses without such power?" (The Sovereign Spirit, p. 46.)

"I think it is quite without scriptural warrant to say that all these gifts ended with the apostles or the Apostolic Era. I believe there have been undoubted miracles since then" (Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981, p. 786.)

"The Scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary�never! There is no such statement anywhere." (The Sovereign Spirit, p. 31-32.)

"There is no question but that God's people can look for and expect "leadings", "guidance", indications of what they are meant to do ... Men have been told by the Holy Spirit to do something; they knew it was the Holy Spirit speaking to them; and it transpired that it obviously was his leading. It seems clear to me that if we deny such a possibility we are again guilty of quenching the Spirit.� (The Sovereign Spirit, pp. 89-90.)

Piper explains�He deals with the cessationist arguments and concludes that they are based on conjectures and arguments from silence in order to justify a particular prejudice "To hold such a view," he says, "is simply to quench the Spirit.�

Lloyd-Jones admitted that he did not feel he completely lived in the good of his understanding of the Spirit, but there was no doubt that some remarkable experiences surrounded him as one observer, Stacy Woods, puts it:

"In an extraordinary way, the presence of God was in that Church. I personally felt as if a hand were pushing me through the pew. At the end of the sermon for some reason or the other the organ did not play, the Doctor went off into the vestry and everyone sat completely still without moving. It must have been almost ten minutes before people seemed to find the strength to get up and, without speaking to one another, quietly leave the Church. Never have I witnessed or experienced such preaching with such fantastic reaction on the part of the congregation"

I will leave this 2000th post with some fantastic words from the Doctor himself, which I couldn�t have said better myself:

"Those people who say that [baptism with the Holy Spirit] happens to everybody at regeneration seem to me not only to be denying the New Testament but to be definitely quenching the Spirit" (Joy Unspeakable, p. 141.)

"It is not that God withdrew, it is that the church in her "wisdom" and cleverness became institutionalized, quenched the Spirit, and made the manifestations of the power of the Spirit well-nigh impossible" (The Sovereign Spirit, p. 50.)

There is more information and links on The Doctor at www.misterrichardson.com/mlj.html and his audio sermons can be downloaded at mlj.org.uk

UPDATE
In January 2008, the following post was identified as the 8th all-time most popular post with readers of this blog. The 9th most-read post was "A Thanksgiving Sermon—The Importance of Gratitude."

C. J. Mahaney has, in recent years, been introduced to a new audience due to his friendship with Mark Dever and Company. I have known of him since the 1980's, and loved to listen to him live at early Newfrontiers Bible Weeks.

In January of 2008, C. J. started blogging at the Sovereign Grace Blog—C. J. Mahaney's View From the Cheap Seats and Other Stuff. The headlines from this blog will be appearing in my Warnie Winner's Box from now on.

It was a real honor for me to be able to ask C. J. some questions via e-mail.

***************

Adrian
It is my great pleasure to welcome to the blog one of my greatest heroes in the faith, C. J. Mahaney. C. J. is well-known as a preacher and the leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries. More recently he has been gaining fame in the world of blogs as the husband and father of the writers of GirlTalk. He is also the mentor of another well-known blogger and author, Josh Harris, who I have also interviewed.

Welcome to the world of the blogosphere, C. J. It was great of you to join us for this interview. I would like to talk to you today about your new book, Humility—True Greatness. First of all, what prompted such a book? Whose idea was it, and how was it born?

C. J.
Adrian, I'm honored to be interviewed! I can assure you the idea for this book was not mine! I didn't volunteer to write this book, and there were countless times while writing it that I had the following thought: "You idiot! Why did you agree to write this book?" I was approached by my publisher to write the book, and I was encouraged by my wife and friends. After some initial reluctance, I agreed to do it. I can assure you that writing about humility is a humbling experience.

Adrian
It seems from what you are saying and from my reading of the book that humility is actually something of a lifetime message for you. Am I right in that assessment? Do you believe that one of the biggest needs of the Church today is for leaders to emerge who have the authority to lead, but the humility to do so graciously? If so, how will this book and other resources help in producing such leaders?

C. J.
Adrian, you ask good questions and you ask a lot of questions! It is true that I have been studying both humility and pride for many years for the purpose of weakening pride in my own life and cultivating humility by the grace of God. And I think Scripture is clear about the priority of humility, not just for leaders, but for everyone who professes to love and serve the Savior. In Isaiah 66:2 we read the following astonishing statement:

This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word."

Although God is aware of all things, he is searching for something in particular, something that acts like a magnet to capture his attention and invite his active involvement. And that something is humility. God is decisively drawn to the humble. It is my hope that this book will remind the reader of the priority of humility in the divine economy and the gracious promise of God "to give grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

Adrian
There seems to be at least one controversy about the book already. You claim in the book not to be humble yourself, but everyone who knows you—including some of the people who have provided endorsement quotes—seem to disagree! I guess such disagreements are inevitable, and it would seem wrong for anyone to say, "I used to be proud, but now I am humble." Nevertheless, I know you have made it a life's goal to apply humility to your own life. And others certainly believe they can see the fruit of that.

Indeed, the one thing I remember more than anything else from the time I had the pleasure many years ago of having breakfast with you was your humility. I will never forget you thinking us, a group of young men Henry Tyler had gathered together in order to spend some time with you. I have to say that I looked at you then, and in all your messages, and thought, "I want to be like C. J."

I would guess that hearing those kind of comments so often makes the struggle we all share with pride all the more difficult. How do you cope with the attention and multiple expressions of gratitude you undoubtedly receive? How does a successful church leader like yourself ensure he doesn't succumb to pride?

C. J.
I'm very grateful for the kind endorsements of friends and your kind words. The presence of any humility in my life is purely and completely an evidence of God's grace. From my perspective, I am not a humble man. I am a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God. But I am encouraged to know that others discern the presence of humility in my life, and it is my hope that these rumors will spread far and wide!

When I'm the recipient of encouragement (for which I am very grateful) I will assign all glory to God in prayer for I know it is all of grace. During the day, and at the end of each day, I follow the counsel of Thomas Watson who wrote, "When we have done anything praiseworthy, we must hide ourselves under the veil of humility, and transfer the glory of all we have done to God." This practice is an effective means of weakening pride and cultivating humility.

As for how to avoid the temptation and tendency to pride, the book describes different biblical practices I have employed in this life-long struggle. I hope the reader finds them helpful in their struggle with pride and attempts to walk humbly before God.

Adrian
One of the things you did in recent years which many people felt was a humble thing was to pass on the leadership of the local church you had pastored for many years. As a young and reportedly still athletic man yourself, would you talk to us a little bit about your thinking concerning that decision. Were there indeed biblical principles of humility involved?

C. J.
One of the great joys for me has been the faithfulness of God to answer a prayer I began praying in my early 20's for the one who would replace me. Over the years I have studied church history, as well as the contemporary church, and I noticed how rare it is for a God-glorifying transition of leadership to take place in a local church. Churches have been adversely affected simply because no thought had been given, no leadership taken by the pastor, for this important decision and transition. I didn't want that to be the experience of Covenant Life Church.

Last September I transferred the role of Senior Pastor to Joshua Harris. The entire weekend was on the short list of the most meaningful and memorable ministry experiences in my life. I have had the privilege to serve Covenant Life Church for 27 years. Outside of my family, the folks of Covenant Life are the dearest people on earth to me, and they have made me the happiest pastor on earth. One of the most effective ways I could serve them was to identify my replacement, train him, transfer the church to him, and then continue to serve him. In his kindness, God has allowed me to live to see this all take place.

I simply can't describe the joy I have experienced as Josh has been leading the church. Joshua Harris is an impressively humble young man and an unusually gifted young man. I believe his gifting easily exceeds mine, and it is a pure joy to know that the church I love the most is being led by someone as humble and gifted as Josh. Lord willing, I hope to serve him in his new position for the rest of my life.

Adrian
What do you do with your time now that you have handed over the church? Is it still your goal to develop other leaders? How do you practically do that? What advice would you have to those with emerging roles in local churches about how to exercise leadership while being committed to humility?

C. J.
For years I was attempting to lead both Covenant Life Church and Sovereign Grace Ministries. So now I have the joy of serving Sovereign Grace exclusively. We have a passion to advance the gospel through church planting. We train leaders each year in and through our Pastor's College.

As for advice to those with emerging roles in local churches, I wouldn't know how to answer such a good and important question briefly or concisely. Although this book wasn't written exclusively for those in leadership, I think the content of the book is applicable to leaders and will serve them as they lead and exercise authority. Pastors are called to lead, but for their leadership to be truly biblical it must be humble.

Adrian
Thanks for joining us C. J. Before you go, would you perhaps summarize for us in a few words the message of your latest book, and how you hope it will help its readers?

C. J.
John Stott has written, "At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend." I hope this book will assist the reader in opposing pride, our greatest enemy, and cultivating humility, our greatest friend. And I hope the book effectively reminds the reader that we do this recognizing that only one has been truly and fully humble before God—only our Savior, Jesus Christ. Only One in all of history has ever completely and perfectly obeyed Isaiah 66:2. Only One! Only Jesus! And he did this on our behalf, as our representative, and ultimately as our substitute, dying on the cross for sinners like you and me.

***************

NOTE
Justin Taylor has also recently interviewed C. J. on his blog. Along with others, I will be reviewing this book shortly as part of the Diet of Bookworms project.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit and New Park St Pulpit include 3200 sermons by Spurgeon and are one of the marvels of English language publishing.

Widely believed to be the greatest English-speaking preacher ever known Spurgeon
expected to win souls with every message. His preaching created a stir in Victorian England and beyond. He was every bit as well-known as any televangelist of today.

These two series of sermons together are encyclopedic in their extent. I will never forget first seeing them stretching out on the bookshelf of my mentor Henry Tyler. He admitted to me that he had rarely if ever preached without reading any sermons spurgeon had preached on the passage. Many a preacher has the same "guilty" secret.

Spurgeon's sermon structures alone are worthy of study- he surely new how to rightly divide the word of truth. The simplicity yet profundity of his language still potently resonates through the years. His reformed doctrine, far from discouraging evangelistic fervor gave him the confidence to appeal to souls to flee to Christ.

There is no preacher who would not benefit from a study of Sprurgeon. The best thing is that whilst these books can be purchased by those with shelf space, the CD version is available from Ages for a ridiculously low price, and to sample a few sermons online for free visit www.spurgeon.org

Do your favorite preacher a favour, buy him a copy if he doesn't already have one. Evern if you are not a preacher, you can do a lot worse than studying preaching as it is meant to be. You can buy books by Spurgeon at Amazon, but sadly, most of the modern sermon collections are just overpriced collections of just a handful of sermons which you can get for less via the Ages CD.

Other Books every Christian should read

Following on frompart 1 and part 2 I suddenly realised it was over a month on and I hadnt posted part three yet. Anyway, we left me receiving the holy spirit as a young child. My parents then allowed me to be baptised quoting the words Peter used about Cornellius as jusfication.

Acts 10:47 "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?�

After receiving the Sprit and being baptised, very quickly I began to prophecy regularly in church. At the time we also did open airs in the park. My sense of a need to preach the gospel which began the moment I became a christian just grew. I would ask to be allowed to tell my story at the open airs at the park. More than once my parents would discover I had disappeared. I would be found with leaflets I had snuck away with explaining the gospel to someone. I would always choose older people as I figured they had less time left. My parents would urge me to only do this with an adult. I retorted, "but then they don't let me speak."

At around this time I had an encounter with my grandad, a tent evangelist, which I recall well. My uncle was home from New Zealand and we were all visiting my aged grandfather. Suddenly as we were walking my grandfather became lucid. He turned to me and said �This will be the last time I see my son�. He then passed on a baton to me and said when I was older I must
preach the word faithfully.

All was going well for me, and I had a growing sense of God's hand on me for service as the years progressed. I was happy to be in church and looked forward to the Downs Bible Week.

At the last Downs I was impressed by a preacher called Henry Tyler, who did a seminar on missions. I sat thru it eagerly taking notes, and at the end Henry told me how encouraging it was having me there. He confirmed a sense that God was at work in me for some service to him in the future. He told me to keep in touch which I did until his death many years later.

Then I was surprised to hear that my world was about to be turned upside down- we were to move to another part of the country where there was no new frontiers church. I sensed God say �maintain your links with new frontiers� which I did over about the next 10 years when I was not in a newfrontiers church. I found conferences like Stoneligh and Clear Vision to be
invaluable and even attended a week of outreach led by Lex Loisedes which inspired me no end.

But I am rushing ahead and should probably leave it there for now.......

The story continues at Part Four

I had a a great day today, which was worthwhile even if to just be reminded of some great quotes, like "'To me, the work of preaching is the highest and most glorious calling to which anyone can be called.' Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones"

AND preaching is 'Logic on Fire' (Again from The Doctor)

One of my great priviledges in life was to know a man called Henry Tyler who was one of the founding fathers of the newfrontiers group of churches of which I am a part. He would have been delighted by today.

Years ago he stated to me when he was dying that Greg Haslam stood out in his preaching ability beyond anyone else in our family of churches. Martin Lloyd-Jones being a hero of Henry's he would have been delighted to see Greg Haslam take up the Westminster chapel pulpit kept warm for him so ably by R T Kendall.

Anyway, todays preach the word event at Westminster Chapel was envigorating and inspiring.

Being a man of limited faith in the current state of the British church I excepted only a handful of attendees at a saturday conference on preaching. As it turned out 600 attended. There is hope for the church in the UK!

Greg so eloquently stressed the importance of preaching- 'God only had one son and he made him a preacher!'

My own preaching style is perhaps vindicated by this description Greg quoted of Finney- 'When he opened his mouth it was like aiming a gun, when he began to speak the bombardment began!'

John Stott who believe it or not I had never heard in the flesh until today, spoke on 'The paradoxes of preaching' having made the point that it was paradoxical that a preacher should preach to preachers about preaching! I especially loved his point that preaching is about building a bridge between the bible and its culture and our own. That is kind of why I blog.

He also quoted Chad Walsh who tells us to 'Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed'

Mark Stibbes diffined the annointing as being when its easy (quoting R.T.Kendall) . Liam Goligher brought up the rear and they all stressed that the old denominational labels mean almost nothing today.

It was a great conference, if you can get to London next month and are a preacher come, if you can't for goodness sake get the tapes- contact the chapel direct.