Today we are living in post-resurrection days in the fullest sense; in days when we no longer have the presence of our Lord as to the physical fact, but when we know He is night at hand, in the midst of every assembly of His people, the close, personal companion of every pilgrim of faith, the constant comrade of every trusting soul.
. . . He was preparing men to do without His bodily presence, and we feel there is in it great value for us.
After He had vanished; they knew that although they could not see Him, He was with them. Talking over their experience they said: When He talked to us by the way the old fire burned, the old enthusiasm returned, the vision which had faded from the glowing sky was restored; "Was not our heart burning within us, while He spake to us in the way."
. . . . He was seeking love, and the bursting of it into a flame, into passion, the rekindling of it into a fire! He knew it was there, overshadowed; He knew there was faith in Him, loyalty to Him, and that is but another way of saying that love for Him still remained. They had lost their confidence in His ability. They were disappointed. They felt He had been defeated, but in their heart there was love, and He was seeking that; to bring it again from underneath the shadow, and to fan it into the flame of great devotion.
. . . He did not make Himself known in order to kindle that love. He brought them back to the things they knew full well, to the old, familiar things. . .
They listened in astonishment, and as they listened, to employ their own word, their hearts burned within them. Coolness gave way to heat, despair to hope, disappointment to certainty; and there flamed within them the fire, not merely of the old and lost enthusiasm, but of a new passion for this very Christ in Whom they believed and Whom they loved, as they learned by interpretation of their own Scriptures at the lips of the Stranger, that all the things which had filled them most with fear, were according to the predictions of those Scriptures.
Thus their burning of heart was the thrill of a new discovery of the old things. It was the shame of past failure. It was the passion of a new endeavor. . . They were so familiar with them that they had ceased to make themselves familiar with them. . . . We need exactly what happened to these men on the way to Emmaus, a new understanding of the Scriptures of truth, a new discovery of them as the Scriptures that set forth the things concerning Christ. . . .
The church supremely needs to learn the secret of listening to the voice of the Master. . . . It is not a question as to whether He will come; He does come; He is always present to teach; but we do not take time to listen. It is true of our personal life and study of the Word; it is true of the assemblies of the saints; we do not listen to Him. . . . Not by the things we say to each other about Him; nor by the words we speak to Him in praise or prayer; but by the word He speaks to us about His Word is the fire kindled.
. . . . How much time have we given, not to prayer, not to fellowship with each other, not even to technical study of the Bible; but to listening for His voice? Is it not almost a lost art of Christian experience, this ability to sit still and wait? ("The Rekindled Fire," Great Sermons of the Resurrection of Christ, compiled by Wilbur M. Smith, 98-106).
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G. Campbell Morgan (1863 - 1945)
Was a British evangelist, preacher and a leading Bible scholar. A contemporary of Rodney "Gipsy" Smith, Morgan was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London from 1904 to 1919, and from 1933 to 1943.In 1896 D. L. Moody invited him to lecture to the students at the Moody Bible Institute. This was the first of his 54 crossings of the Atlantic to preach and teach. After the death of Moody in 1899 Morgan assumed the position of director of the Northfield Bible Conference. He was ordained by the Congregationalists in London, and given a Doctor of Divinity degree by the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1902.[1] After five successful years in this capacity, he returned to England in 1904 and became pastor of Westminster Chapel in London. During two years of this ministry he was President of Cheshunt College in Cambridge.[2] His preaching and weekly Friday night Bible classes were attended by thousands. In 1910 Morgan contributed an essay entitled The Purposes of the Incarnation to the first volume of The Fundamentals, 90 essays which are widely considered to be the foundation of the modern Fundamentalist movement. Leaving Westminster Chapel in 1919, he once again returned to the United States, where he conducted an itinerant preaching/teaching ministry for 14 years. Finally, in 1933, he returned to England, where he again became pastor of Westminster Chapel and remained there until his retirement in 1943. He was instrumental in bringing Martyn Lloyd-Jones to Westminster in 1939 to share the pulpit and become his successor. Morgan was a friend of F. B. Meyer, Charles Spurgeon, and many other great preachers of his day.
George Campbell Morgan was born in Tetbury, England, the son of a Baptist minister. His home was one of such genuine piety that in later years he wrote: "While my father could not compel me to be a Christian, I had no choice because of what he did for me and what I saw in him."
When Campbell was 10 years old, D.L. Moody came to England for the first time, and the effect of his ministry, combined with the dedication of his parents, made such an impression on the life of young Morgan, that at the age of 13, he preached his first sermon. Two years later, he was preaching regularly in country chapels during his Sundays and holidays.
In 1886, at the age of 23, he left the teaching profession, for which he had been trained, and began devoting his full time to the ministry of the Word of God. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1890, having been rejected by the Wesleyan Methodists two years before. His reputation as preacher and Bible expositor soon encompassed England and spread to the United States.
After the death of Moody in 1899, Morgan assumed the position of director of the Northfield Bible Conference. After five very successful years there, he returned to England in 1904 and became pastor of Westminster Chapel of London. His preaching and his weekly Friday night Bible classes were attended by thousands. During two years of this ministry, he was president of Cheshunt College in Cambridge.
Leaving Westminster Chapel in 1919, he once again returned to the United States, where he conducted an itinerant ministry for 14 years. Many thousands of people heard him preach in nearly every state and also in Canada. Finally, in 1933, he returned to England, where he became pastor of Westminster Chapel again and remained there until his retirement in 1943.
The most outstanding preacher that this country has heard during the past thirty years"-this was Dr. James M. Gray's estimate of Dr. G. Campbell Morgan whose ministry spanned the Atlantic and reached from the days of D. L. Moody to the era of World War II.
Born on a farm in England in 1863, he was brought up in a strict Puritanical home where he amused himself by preaching to his sisters' dolls. Although his first sermon before a responsive audience was delivered in a Wesleyan schoolroom at the age of thirteen, he was engulfed in doubt and confusion concerning his faith after preparing for the ministry.
Remembering those two chaotic years, Dr. Morgan later wrote, "The only hope for me was the Bible....I stopped reading books about the Bible and began to read the Bible itself. I saw the light and was back on the path." For seven years thereafter, his reading concerning the things of God was confined to the Word of God itself.
Ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1889, the young man became the leading preacher in England, holding several pastorates. Later he became widely known in the United States and Canada as a Bible conference speaker, lecturer, pastor and teacher before returning to England in 1935 to become the pastor of Westminster Congregational Church in London.
Dr. Morgan was a prolific but profound writer of books, booklets, tracts and articles. Among his best-known books are Parables of the Kingdom; the eleven volumes of the Westminster Pulpit; The Crises of the Christ; the ten-volume work, The Analysed Bible; the Triumphs of Faith series; and An Exposition of the Whole Bible.
His earthly life of testimony and ministry came to a close in May, 1945.