George Douglas Watson was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and evangelist based in Los Angeles. His evangelistic campaigns took him to England, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea. he Master’s work continued to a part of his life well into his advanced years. But even then, he only refrained from the calling that had been placed upon him when his health was in question. He also wrote several books.
It was while serving in the confederate army that the Lord became a living reality to him. So heavy was the conviction of the Holy Spirit when the call was upon him for his eternal well-being that while in the midst of a game of cards, he threw down his hand stating to the others, it was his last game. And so it was! The next evening, August 11, 1863, his name became a permanent part of the registry in the book of life.
The Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings – Scottish Covenanter Alexander Peden Sermon
The Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings – Alexander Peden
Luke 24:21 New King James Version (NKJV)
21 But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.
Alexander “Sandy” Peden was born in Ayrshire, Scotland around 1626. He went to Glasgow University before becoming minister in New Luce in 1659. In 1662, Peden was one of the 300 ministers who were forced to leave their churches after the Restoration of Charles II and the beginning of the persecution. Immediately, he began preaching in the fields all over Southern and Central Scotland, and he soon became one of the best known field preachers.
The fact that Peden was so well known however made him one of the most wanted men in Scotland by the government. He started wearing a mask when he was travelling about so that the soldiers wouldn’t recognise him. Even this wasn’t going to keep him safe forever though, so in 1670 he fled to Ireland where he stayed until 1673. He spent part of the time in Armagh. Peden preached to many, many people in the fields, and condemned the rest of the Presbyterian ministers in Ireland as sinful for not doing so themselves. Around this time, those Presbyterians who still held to the Solemn League and Covenant began to hold separate society meetings for fellowship. Peden came to Ireland often and his preaching helped strengthen these Irish Covenanters.
When Peden returned to Scotland in 1673 he was arrested and spent the next four years imprisoned on the Bass Rock with forty other Covenanters. The year after he was released, he was back in Ireland for a short time, during which he again condemned the mainline Presbyterian ministers, this time because they sent letters to the government saying that they did not approve of the battle of Bothwell Bridge which the Covenanters in Scotland had just fought at.
In 1682, he returned to Ireland where he hired himself out as a farm worker to a farmer called William Steel and his wife, who lived in Glenwherry, between Ballymena and Larne. After each day’s work, Peden would sleep in the barn with the Steel’s young servant boy. After two days of this however, the servant boy complained to his mistress that this new Scottish man didn’t actually sleep, but instead spent all night praying by name for the suffering members of the Church of Scotland. At tea time that night she got her husband to ask Peden if he was a minister, and he said that he was, and that he wasn’t ashamed of it. After this they didn’t make him sleep in the barn or work in the fields again, but instead they got him to preach and minister to those in the surrounding area.
Peden stayed at Glenwherry until 1685, before going back to Scotland, where he preached his final sermon. He died in January 1686. Forty days later, in a final attack on his memory, government troops were sent to dig up his body and bury it two miles away out of disrespect.
Some Comments For Those Who Attend Idolatrous Worship – J. C. Philpot / Audio Sermon
Exodus 20:4-5 New King James Version (NKJV) 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor [a]serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[b] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me
Joseph Charles Philpot (1802 — 1869) was known as “The Seceder”. He resigned from the Church of England in 1835 and became a Strict & Particular Baptist. While with the Church of England he was a Fellow of Worchester College, Oxford. After becoming a Strict and Particular Baptist he became the Editor of the Gospel Standard magazine and served in that capacity for twenty years.
Educated at Oxford University, he was elected a fellow of Worcester College, and appeared to have a brilliant scholastic career before him. But he was brought into solemn concern spiritually and the Lord led him into the ministry. He first preached in the Established Church at Stadhampton (Oxfordshire). In 1835, however, he was constrained, for the truth’s sake, to sever his connection with the Church of England and to resign his curacy and his fellowship. The letter to the provost stating his reasons was published and went into several editions.
The same year, he was baptized by John Warburton at Allington (Wilts). The rest of his life was spent ministering among the Strict Baptists. For 26 years, he held a joint pastorate at Stamford (Lines) and Oakham (Rutland). In addition for over twenty years, he was editor of “The Gospel Standard”, where many of his sermons first appeared. “My desire is to exalt the grace of God; to proclaim salvation alone through Jesus Christ; to declare the sinfulness, helplessness and hopelessness of man in a state of nature; to describe the living experience of the children of God in their trials, temptations, sorrows, consolations and blessings.” – J.C. Philpot
We must Hew our Agags to Pieces – J. R. Miller / Christian Audio Devotional
Luke 16:10 New American Standard Bible (NASB) 10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and a very active pastor in a succession of churches.
The crucible of J.R. Miller’s education was his service with the United States Christian Commission, an agency set up to minister to the troops, during the civil war. When the war ended Miller completed his theological studies and was ordained and installed on September 11, 1867. On June 22, 1870, when he was thirty, he married Miss Louise E. King.
The end of life on earth came without warning on the afternoon of July 2, 1912. JR’s wife, Louise Miller, and their only daughter, Mary Wanamaker Miller (Mrs. W.B. Mount), were present, but it was impossible to summon the sons — William King Miller and Russell King Miller. One moment Dr. Miller seemed to be resting quietly; the next he was at rest.
JR Miller DD was one of the best selling Christian authors of his era. Rev. Miller’s books had a total circulation of over two million copies during his lifetime and in 1911 the Presbyterian Board of Publication, under his direction, published over 66 million copies of its periodicals.
The Christian’s Heaviness & Rejoicing – Charles Spurgeon Sermon
1 Peter 1:6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 January 31, 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times a week at different places. His sermons have been translated into many languages. Spurgeon was the pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally. He also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him after his death.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works including sermons, an autobiography, a commentary, books on prayer, a devotional, a magazine, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Arguably, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than C. H. Spurgeon.
James Smith was a predecessor of Charles Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel in London from 1841 until 1850. Early on, Smith’s readings were even more popular than Spurgeon’s!
The habit of laying up a text of Scripture in the morning, to be meditated upon while engaged in the business of this world through the day—is both profitable and delightful. It is as a refreshing draught to a weary traveler!
My Peace I Leave With You – Puritan Jonathan Edwards Audio Sermons
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
Jonathan Edwards – (1703-1758), American puritan theologian and philosopher
Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, to Timothy Edwards, pastor of East Windsor, and Esther Edwards. The only son in a family of eleven children, he entered Yale in September, 1716 when he was not yet thirteen and graduated four years later (1720) as valedictorian. He received his Masters three years later.
As a youth, Edwards was unable to accept the Calvinist sovereignty of God. He once wrote, “From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.” However, in 1721 he came to the conviction, one he called a “delightful conviction.” He was meditating on 1 Timothy 1:17, and later remarked, “As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever!” From that point on, Edwards delighted in the sovereignty of God. Edwards later recognized this as his conversion to Christ.
In 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his maternal grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He was a student minister, not a visiting pastor, his rule being thirteen hours of study a day. In the same year, he married Sarah Pierpont, then age seventeen, daughter of James Pierpont (1659-1714), a founder of Yale, originally called the Collegiate School. In total, Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children.
Solomon Stoddard died on February 11th, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony. Throughout his time in Northampton his preaching brought remarkable religious revivals. Jonathan Edwards was a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s.
Edwards then moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, then a frontier settlement, where he ministered to a small congregation and served as missionary to the Housatonic Indians. There, having more time for study and writing, he completed his celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will (1754).
Edwards was elected president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in early 1758. He was a popular choice, for he had been a friend of the College since its inception and was the most eminent American philosopher-theologian of his time. On March 22, 1758, he died of fever at the age of fifty-four following experimental inoculation for smallpox and was buried in the President’s Lot in the Princeton cemetery beside his son-in-law, Aaron Burr.
The Potter and the Clay – George Whitefield Sermon
George Whitefield – (1714-1770), Methodist evangelist George Whitefield was born on December 16, 1714, in Gloucester, England. The youngest of seven children, he was born in the Bell Inn where his father, Thomas, was a wine merchant and innkeeper. His father died when George was two and his widowed mother Elizabeth struggled to provide for her family. Because he thought he would never make much use of his education, at about age 15 George persuaded his mother to let him leave school and work in the inn. However, sitting up late at night, George became a diligent student of the Bible. A visit to his Mother by an Oxford student who worked his way through college encouraged George to pursue a university education. He returned to grammar school to finish his preparation to enter Oxford, losing only about one year of school.
In 1732 at age 17, George entered Pembroke College at Oxford. He was gradually drawn into a group called the “Holy Club” where he met John and Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley loaned him the book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. The reading of this book, after a long and painful struggle which even affected him physically, finally resulted in George’s conversion in 1735. He said many years later: “I know the place…. Whenever I go to Oxford, I cannot help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed himself to me and gave me the new birth.”
Forced to leave school because of poor health, George returned home for nine months of recuperation. Far from idle, his activity attracted the attention of the bishop of Gloucester, who ordained Whitefield as a deacon, and later as a priest, in the Church of England. Whitefield finished his degree at Oxford and on June 20, 1736, Bishop Benson ordained him. The Bishop, placing his hands upon George’s head, resulted in George’s later declaration that “My heart was melted down and I offered my whole spirit, soul, and body to the service of God’s sanctuary.”
Whitefield was an astounding preacher from the beginning. Though he was slender in build, he stormed in the pulpit as if he were a giant. Within a year it was said that “his voice startled England like a trumpet blast.” At a time when London had a population of less than 700,000, he could hold spellbound 20,000 people at a time at Moorfields and Kennington Common. For thirty-four years his preaching resounded throughout England and America. In his preaching ministry he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and became known as the ‘apostle of the British empire.’
He was a firm Calvinist in his theology yet unrivaled as an aggressive evangelist. Though a clergyman of the Church of England, he cooperated with and had a profound impact on people and churches of many traditions, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. Whitefield, along with the Wesleys, inspired the movement that became known as the Methodists. Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, an average of 500 a year or ten a week. Many of them were given over and over again. Fewer than 90 have survived in any form.
Jeremiah 18:1-6 1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Our God is a Consuming Fire – Puritan Robert Traill Sermon
Hebrews 12:29 King James Version (KJV) 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
Robert Traill (1642-1716) was born in Elie, May, 1642. After the usual preparatory studies, he was sent to the College of Edinburgh, where he distinguished himself in the several classes. He devoted his life to the ministry and the cause of the church of his fathers. This devotion was greatly manifested by his attendance upon Mr. James Guthrie, minister of Stirling, on the scaffold of martyrdom, 1661. In 1666, in consequence of some copies of the Apologetical Relation, a work (penned by John Brown, of Wamphray) hated by the prelates, and condemned by the Privy Council to the flames, found in his home, he was obliged with his mother and brother to go into hiding. It is reported that Robert Traill was in arms with the Covenanters when they were routed at Pentland Hills. Because of this, he found it necessary to flee to Holland, where his father was already, in 1667. Sometime around 1669, he returned to London and commenced his ministry there. In 1677, while visiting Scotland, he was apprehended and arraigned before the Privy Council. He refused to clear himself by their unlawful oath and was, upon little evidence, sentenced to imprisonment on the Bass rock. He was released after three months and returned to London where he continued to officiate as pastor of a Presbyterian congregation until his death, in May, 1716.
“But to have religion enough to be saved, and yet not go into extremes, — to be sufficiently good, and yet not be peculiar, — to have a quiet, easy-going, moderate kind of Christianity, and go comfortably to heaven after all, — this is the world’s favorite idea. There is a third class, a safe middle class, the world fancies, and in this middle class the majority of men persuade themselves they will be found.”
J.C. Ryle – (1816-1900), first Anglican bishop of Liverpool John Charles Ryle was born at Macclesfield and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was a fine athlete who rowed and played Cricket for Oxford, where he took a first class degree in Greats and was offered a college fellowship (teaching position) which he declined. The son of a wealthy banker, he was destined for a career in politics before answering a call to ordained ministry. He was spiritually awakened in 1838 while hearing Ephesians 2 read in church.
He was ordained by Bishop Sumner at Winchester in 1842. After holding a curacy at Exbury in Hampshire, he became rector of St Thomas’s, Winchester (1843), rector of Helmingham, Suffolk (1844), vicar of Stradbroke (1861), honorary canon of Norwich (1872), and dean of Salisbury (1880). In 1880, at age 64, he became the first bishop of Liverpool, at the recommendation of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. He retired in 1900 at age 83 and died later the same year.
Ryle was a strong supporter of the evangelical school and a critic of Ritualism. Among his longer works are Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century (1869), Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (7 vols, 1856-69) and Principles for Churchmen (1884).
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