Maranatha......Next Year In Jerusalem!

                He has never used email or had a cell phone. I used to have to email his church secretary to get a message to him. I met him at a Soli Deo Gloria conference....at the book table. I can't remember....he either saw the town that I lived in on my name tag....or I saw the town that he lived in on his name tag? We are friends to this day....it's been about twenty-six years. He's about my age....and retired from pastoring about a year or so ago. Let me tell you a little bit about him....
                He always had a comb over.....craziest thing. I know he won't read this because he doesn't use a computer. He had a very slight stutter....and spoke softly....and wore a robe when he preached. Maybe fifteen years or so ago....when he moved to a church near Chicago....he gave me a few boxes of his books. I still have them all....volumes of Spurgeon sermons....(he is Presbyterian.....Spurgeon was Baptist).....and mostly Puritan books. To this day when I pick one up I am amazed. He did not highlight....probably never owned a highlighter....but he underlined. The lines were so precise that he must have used a ruler. Every page had a lot of underlining.....from every book....every Spurgeon sermon. It showed how he studied every sentence in all of those books!
                 So he writes letters since he doesn't do email....and forget texting....and he never even uses a sheet of paper.....never has that I remember! He uses the cut-out blank parts of a magazine page or from an advertisement....I don't know....there's some kind of print on the back....and he writes with tiny letters. I have heard a lot of preachers in my life....and no preacher that I have ever heard in person preaches the glory of Christ quite like this man.
                 He was our pastor for about a decade.....typical evangelical Presbyterian church of today. Probably close to half of the congregation thought he was....aah....good....and probably close to the other half of the congregation thought he could use a jazz-up or something....but that small group of us that were left had to regain our breath after a sermon before we could even get up to leave.
                  He was a Puritan born too late...and like a true Puritan....the opposite what people think today that Puritans were....he like to laugh....and he had a sense of humor....not a life-of-the-party type of sense of humor....but....well let me give you this one example. We hadn't been friends all that long.....and I knew him as serious.....always talking about his Savior and the glory of God.....and he and his wife were over our house for dinner. Now he liked good movies. In fact it was he that told me that I had to go and see the then new film....The Winslow Boy....(1999)....and I did....the next day....and to this day it is one of my all-time favorite films. So somehow we were discussing an old German film....a WW I or WW II film....and he was describing it. We were on our front patio....on a quiet evening....and he came to a part of the movie where all the soldiers stood up and sang a rowdy German....probably bar song. So that smile came on his face....and he stood up....this soft-speaking man with a slight stutter....and he belted out the entire song....in German....so loud that the neighbors could hear it! 
                    I did not sit down to post about this wonderful preacher. I sat down to plead once again that the Holy Spirit might move mightily tomorrow morning....bringing tears to the pastor and the congregant alike....this in many pulpits all over America....that tomorrow might be the day that God begins to have mercy upon us. I have prayed that prayer for years now....kind of like the Jewish saying....Next Year In Jerusalem....I would say....next Lord's Day at the foot of the cross!
                    The example of the man that I described above....his preaching and the response to his preaching....tells me that it is not just the preaching that will wake us up. Spurgeon or Martyn Lloyd-Jones could be in the pulpit and the people would still rate them as.....maybe good....or maybe they need jazzed-up. No....as it stand right now we do not have ears to hear....not the preaching of our glorious Lord and Savior.....nor of our own needs to our soul....nor of warnings of judgment that has already started. I recommend all the time preachers from the past....and preachers today that preach like preachers from the past....but not everyone has ears to even hear them. All I can do for sure is start with me. Lord open my eyes to my own failures to Thee. Do not take this unction away.....but do not let me use it for any reason but to bring glory to Thee! Bring us together Lord....and add to our number. If those invited guests are too busy to come then compel others to come Lord! And Lord....If it be your will....Maranatha....next year in Jerusalem!