The Central Character of the Centuries
When I was studying to be a minister of the Gospel, my student churches were two adjacent wooden churches in the inner slum areas of Melbourne. For seven years during the 1950’s and 1960’s the people of those inner slum areas were my parish.
I have mentioned to you before my early disastrous starts at preaching. For more than a year I had gathered suitable material, from church papers, magazines, the Readers’ Digest, and everywhere else that I thought would provide me with suitable preparation, illustration and thought starters.
Incredibly, by the time I had finished my second sermon I had used up everything of worth in the entire year long collection. I was now back on to my own resources. At this stage, having just had my eighteenth birthday and not yet even started full time at theological college, I really wondered what on earth I could preach. I had been a Sunday School teacher and a boys club leader for some years, and had led youth camps and teenage study groups, but preaching was different. It required some real understanding, not only of the Bible but of the human condition and how the Bible answers our deepest needs. I gathered together as many books of theology and homiletics as I could find. Everything was a dry as chips and difficult to present. I felt in utter despair. What on earth could I preach to these people in the little suburban churches at Ascot Vale and Newmarket who were waiting for some word from the Lord?
I wrestled with some inner agony and turned over page after page of each book hoping to find something suitable to preach. I looked at the few books of sermons that I had, mostly by great preachers of a bygone era, but there was nothing there to help me.
I wrestled with the great intellectual challenges to the Christian faith and started to prepare a sermon on God and Evolution. That was interesting to me but somehow or other it was not working as a sermon. I then decided to write on Christ and the Philosophy of The Ages but trying to compress thousands of years of history and make it relevant seemed an impossible task even for a student who had just finished his HSC.
Like most young students at university I was much taken with the various philosophies and politics of the era so I prepared a sermon on “Communism and the Bridge of Time”, but I declared it to be a failure before I could preach it. I grasped round the great intellectual issues of suffering, a modern understanding of heaven and hell, economic and political theories, but all to no avail. There was nothing there that seemed right for me to preach.
I thought back to my first sermon that gave me such delight and enthusiasm, and which had been copied very largely from the then popular Peter Marshall, Presbyterian Chaplain to the United States Senate and the man about whom the film “A Man Called Peter” had been made.
What really captured my attention with that sermon was that he somehow made the person of Jesus Christ come alive. That gave me the inspiration. Jesus was real to me and I should just tell people what I knew about Him.
As I kept asking myself what it was that I should preach, I kept coming back to the one word: Jesus. I should preach Jesus. I became quite enthused with the thought of sharing with other people my understanding about Jesus. So the third sermon that I ever prepared was entitled “The Central Character of the Centuries”. In it I retold in my own words the marvellous story of Jesus and of His significance to us. I discovered that night that people responded enthusiastically as the mystical figure of Jesus of Nazareth became alive to a few once more. That immediately led me to thinking about the strength that we gain from Jesus for the living of our lives full of burdens and difficulties. My next sermon was entitled “Our Unfailing Resources in Christ”. The next one was entitled “Enthused with Christ”, the next “The Person of Christ” and so on. Very soon the titles, as they lie before me now, read “The Most Unforgettable Person I’ve Met”, “Investigating the Christ”, “Our Unfailing Source of Personal Power”, the next “To Whom Shall We Go?” and then “The Universality of Jesus”, “A Modern Vision of Jesus”, “Why Jesus Never Wrote A Book”, “Christ Himself is Christianity”, “The Man of Many Parts”, “The Man For All Seasons”, “When Jesus Said No”, “Do You Know The Shepherd?”. And so on.
It was then I discovered the remarkable books by Leslie Weatherhead on the friendship of Jesus. So I preached a series of sermons on “The Gift of His Friendship”, “The Reality of His Friendship”, “The Cost of His Friendship”, and “The Consequences of His Friendship”.
The congregations began to grow. Every week additional people were present. That mere handful when I started rapidly increased. You may remember in my first church service there were only 14 people present and 11 of them were my relatives and friends who visited especially for the occasion! But now we were seeing larger numbers of people week after week ‑ 50 turned into 60, and 60 went to 75. I preached a new series on “Christ and Your Pleasures”, “Christ and Your Friends”, “Christ and Your Answer” and so on.
Then a series on the sayings of Jesus: “I Am The Truth”, “I Am The Light”, “I Am The Way”, “I Am The Bread of Life”, “I Am Your Master”, and then a series on the “dynamic” personality of Christ as we looked at “The Honesty of Jesus”, “The Anger of Jesus”, “The Respect of Jesus”, “The Influence of Jesus”, “The Authority of Jesus”, “The Divinity of Jesus” and “The Face of Jesus”.
I immediately followed with a series concerning “The Fullness of Christ” and included in that “The Teaching of Jesus About Himself”, “The Preparation of Jesus”, “The Baptism of Jesus”, “The Temptations of Jesus”, “The Disciples of Jesus”, “The Preaching of Jesus”, “The Teaching of Jesus”, “The Security of Jesus”, “The Healing of Jesus”, “The Recognition of Jesus”, “The Passion of Jesus”, “The Crucifixion of Jesus”, “The Resurrection of Jesus”, “The Return of Jesus”.
And this was then followed by a whole series of how Jesus helps us face life’s problems today.
In brief, I became fascinated with the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ. He really is the central character of the centuries. The more I taught about him the more people came, and then as miracles of God’s grace people’s lives were changed through the friendship of Jesus.
I remember the night Big Bazza came walking to the front. Big of build, wide of shoulder and unshaven in appearance with slicked long black hair, Bazza was at church because I had insisted he come. At age 14 he was bigger than any man there, and he worked in the local abattoirs. In a drunken argument he had pulled a boning knife out of his motor bike boots, plunged it into the stomach of a man and ripped it up through his rib cage just as if the man had been a bullock hanging from the chain. In one sweep of a hand he swept the man’s insides ‑ heart, lungs and intestines ‑ out of his rib cage in the same way as he did beasts’ at the abattoirs. Because of his age ‑ he was 14 at the time ‑ and because this was his first offence, this dreadful crime of murder while under the influence of alcohol was given an amazing sentence. Taking into account the time he had spent in remand, the judge released him on probation for 104 weeks. I had just been appointed a Probation Officer, the youngest in the State and the only one who worked in the inner slum areas. I was determined that Bazza should come under the influence of the friendship of Jesus and insisted as part of his probation that he meet with me three times a week, and on Sunday night as well.
One Sunday night when I gave the invitation for people to come forward to accept Christ as Lord, Big Bazza in his leather jacket and swept back black hair, came to the front and stood with bowed head, with tears streaming down his face. I asked him why he had come forward and he said “Because I want to find Jesus as my friend, too. If Jesus can be my friend, I am sure He can make me a different person. He is the sort of mate a guy ought to have.”
The miracle of the Gospel worked in the life of Big Bazza. The friendship of Jesus became real to him. He was baptised, became a member of the Church, Vice President of the Youth Fellowship, a hard working industrious person who kept out of trouble. Eventually he married a girl from the Church Youth Club, advanced in his position with the Victorian Railways and eventually became a station master. The friendship of Jesus had made a disciple from a rather unlikely person in the heart of Newmarket.
Almost at the same time Ray Dark came forward. Swarthy of countenance he was the reluctant husband of a delightful little wife whose children attended our Sunday School. Ray had said to me the first time I spoke to him in the front garden of his Housing Commission house down on the Maribyrnong River, “The only time you will get me to church is in a box.” But our friendship, and the friendship of Jesus, began to make a difference in Ray’s life. His behaviour and attitude began to change. He came to church one night and became fascinated with Jesus. Shortly after that he said to me, “You would not catch me missing church of a Sunday night for quids.” I remember the night he came forward to the front and committed his life to the friendship of Jesus and of his baptism and reception into church membership.
Jesus had said “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” Somehow we had stumbled upon one of the everlasting truths of the Gospel. If we present Jesus according to the Scriptures, and then get out of the way ourselves, His friendship can change lives today.
Men and women and young people began to crowd the church, enjoy the singing but more than that, they responded to Jesus as Friend and Lord of their lives.
My understanding was confirmed in a remarkable way not long afterwards.
To Melbourne on a visit came the great Methodist missionary and author Dr. E. Stanley Jones. He was an elderly man in his middle eighties but he still had vibrancy in his voice and an enthusiasm in his speaking. I had read one or two of his books and had been greatly impressed.
I rode my BSA 500 motor bike to the Camberwell Methodist Church one night to hear him speak and afterwards he gave opportunity for questions. I asked him a question about what a young preacher should concentrate on in preaching and he answered by telling a story of how he first started as a young preacher.
“When I first preached, I had prepared thoroughly and a large crowd was present, large for the little church. All of my relatives came and the Jones family is a large one! They were all anxious that the young man should do well. I began on a rather high key ‑ too high. I used a word I had never used before ‑ and I have never used since ‑ the word “indifferentism”. A young lady attending a college put down her head and smiled. It so unnerved me that when I came back to the thread of my discourse again, it was gone! My mind was a blank. I could not think of a thing to say. I did not know how long I stood there inwardly clutching wildly for something to say but nothing would come.
“I finally managed to blurt out ‘well friends, I am sorry to tell you, that I have forgotten my sermon.’ After about six sentences and a stumble over the word indifferentism I stumbled into complete failure.”
“So I left the pulpit and went down to my seat in shame and confusion for I felt I did not belong up there in the pulpit. I was about to take my seat in the front row when God spoke to me: ‘Haven’t I done anything for you?’ And I replied: ‘Why yes Lord, of course you have.’ ‘Then couldn’t you tell that?’ And I decided that perhaps I could.
“So instead of taking my seat I came round in front and said ‘Friends, as you see I cannot preach, but you know my life before and after conversion and while I can’t preach, I do love Jesus, and I’ll witness for Him for the balance of my days.’
“I said some more things like that to fill in the awful blank.
“But a strange thing happened. Stanley Warfield, a young man came up to me and said earnestly, ‘Stanley I want to find what you have found.’
“I have often wondered what he saw amid the wreckage of things that night that he so wanted. But evidently there was something there, so we knelt at the altar together and he was converted, soundly converted. He became a minister and his daughter became a missionary in Africa.
“As a lawyer for God, putting up His case, I was a failure. As a witness for God, telling what He had done for me. I was a success. In a flash I saw the nature of my ministry, I was to be a witness to Jesus.”
Dr. E. Stanley Jones looked at me for a long time. He did not need to say anything else. I had understood. In my own hesitant and stumbling way I had made the same discovery. I was not to argue God’s cause about creationism, or to be His lawyer on the philosophy of ages, nor match my skill in political or economic theory. My task was to lift up the friendship of Jesus and be His witness.
For the last forty years, in more than 400 country towns and cities in Australia and in a score of countries overseas I have simply been His witness, telling of the friendship of Jesus.
I did not realise how much that third sermon was going to change the direction of my life when I started to tell people about the central character of the centuries. But from their response that night I knew that if we faithfully speak about Him, He has the power still to change men’s lives for eternity as he offers to them His friendship.
That was the thought that was running in my head, as I walked out after that evening service into the heavy air blowing from the abattoirs, and started my motor bike and headed back to the College of The Bible to continue training for the ministry, thinking of my meeting with some of God’s children in the slums of Newmarket.
GORDON MOYES
