Message: He Meant What He Said

HE MEANT WHAT HE SAID

TEXTS:

"The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits" (2 Timothy 2:6).

"For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: BUT AS OF SINCERITY . . . SPEAK WE IN CHRIST." (2 Corinthians 2:17).

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THE MESSAGE

It was Friday, or Saturday evening, June 2, or June 3, 1972 when I reached the home Guy and Jennie Forrester in Gresham, Oregon, a northern suburb of Portland, Oregon.  The dear old retired holiness preacher and his wife were hosting me for supper.  They were the first members of my "new" pastorate in Portland, Oregon that I met, and during their kind and gracious hospitality, I quickly realized that they were two of God's precious, sanctified saints.

As I recall, they allowed me to spend a night or two at their place, and then on Sunday morning, June 4, 1972, which was my 35th birthday, I preached my first message to the members and visitors of the Portland, Oregon, Bible Missionary Church, located at 5309 S. E. 115th Avenue.  As a single pastor, soon the church supplied me with a nice apartment on S. E. 122nd Ave., just a few blocks away from the church building -- the place which became my home for the more than five years of my pastorate in that city.

Dear Sis. Jennie Forrester was there during all of the time I pastored there, but Bro. Forrester went home to be with Jesus, two years or so later, perhaps in about 1974.  A neighbor who lived directly across the street from the church was a professional builder, and we hired him to build, in memory of Rev. Guy Forrester, the altar, part of which you can see pictured above in front of the pulpit, behind which you see me standing.

Never once during the time in which I pastored Bro. Guy, and Sis. Jennie Forrester, did either one of them ever fail to graciously receive the truths God gave me to preach.  They had been gracious in RECEIVING ME when I arrived, and they continually RECEIVED God's Truth as well!

Dear Bro. Forrester had been a Holiness Evangelist for years before he retired, and one day, not all that long before God called him Home, I asked him what it was to which he attributed his success as an evangelist.  His reply was brief, but poignant, and I have not forgotten it to this very day!  He said,

"I didn't have much to say, but I meant it." I don't recall him raising his voice when he spoke the last three words of his reply, but THEIR GREAT IMPORTANCE lodged unforgettably in my mind, and I recall them as clearly today as I did shortly after he spoke them, many years ago: -- "I MEANT IT"!

In relationship to what Bro. Forrester said that day, I shall expound very briefly on my two texts above:

01 -- "The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits" (2 Timothy 2:6).  In his reply, I believe that Guy Forrester was telling me, I HAD WHAT I PREACHED! -- and brethren, this is another ABSOLUTE IMPERATIVE!  One may be a gifted orator and have a theological DD., but he will not be truly effective as a preacher unless HE HAS WHAT HE PREACHES!  For this reason, in order to be fruitful preachers we must have received true Salvation, both works of grace, and STILL HAVE THAT GRACE!

02 -- "For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: BUT AS OF SINCERITY . . . SPEAK WE IN CHRIST." (2 Corinthians 2:17).  In his reply, I also believe that dear old Bro. Guy Forrester was telling me, "I WAS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE PEOPLE COULD TELL THAT I SINCERELY MEANT WHAT SAID!"

No matter how well-arranged a preacher's messages may be, nor how loud his warnings, or how lovely his wooings, people will not be deeply moved by the Holy Ghost, unless they sense that the preachers SINCERELY MEANS WHAT HE SAYS!

My brothers, when we pass on, may God help every one of us as preachers to have had the same true success as that dear old Holiness Evangelist!  NO GODLY MINISTER OF CHRIST COULD HAVE A BETTER EPITAPH on his tombstone, if it could be truly engraved there: -- "I didn't have much to say, but I MEANT IT!"