Book Review – Interview with Ted Donnelly

Introduction to the New Book Recommendation Policy

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday, June 14, 1992, in the Adult Sunday School class of the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Those of you who have been attending the adult class regularly in recent weeks and for the past several months are aware that just prior to his leaving for the Philippines this Wednesday, Pastor Nichols completed the 13-week study in what your elders have designated as a pre-membership class,

0:39 material that anyone in the future applying for membership will, in one form or another, be expected to listen to and to think through seriously with respect to their desire to become a member of this assembly. And for any who were not with us last week, Pastor Nichols...

0:59 Pastor Nichols indicated that in July there will be an adult class marked out as a question-and-answer time, so if you have had concerns, matters that either were not clear to you or the biblical roots of the matters were not sufficient as to carry your conscience, whatever concerns may have grown out of those 13 weeks of very concentrated and dense materials, I don't mean dense in terms of unclear, but they came to us in the different... The difference between cologne and the real perfume that cost $60 for half an ounce, and that was by the direction of the elders that it came in that form,

1:41 and we would be very surprised if there were not questions, and if so, in reflecting upon that, take note of those questions, leave them in the church office, or pass them on to Pastor Nichols upon his return. And I have this one opportunity, and I felt it would be a...

1:59 a good time to begin to implement a policy which has been discussed by your elders in recent weeks, and I do so with their consent and their knowledge. And you say, what is that? Well, for some time, at least some of us in the eldership have been concerned to give more directed encouragement with reference to the matter of our reading, and so we've...

2:25 hopefully we'll have a policy that roughly... uh...

2:29 scheduled into the... uh...

2:30 adult class will mean that once every quarter, that is, once every three months, one of us will stand before you, take seven to ten minutes in the adult class, I'll take a little longer this morning since I have the entire class, in order to highlight one or two or three books that we believe it would be in your own best interest to seek either to obtain and read, or to borrow from the church library, for our policy will be that upon recognition, we will be recommending any book, for example, I'll be recommending three paperbacks, that a half a dozen copies of these will be placed in the church library.

3:09 So for those who either are not sure that you desire to purchase the book, or are unable to purchase it, and yet still desire to read it, there will be no reason why you should not be able to get it within a relatively short time out of the church library. Hopefully many of you will purchase the book and make it part of your own personal library, and something that when you have Christian friends over, you can use in seeking to have guided, profitable, edifying discussion. Now, in order to put this whole desire into a biblical setting, and it is right that we should do so, I would ask you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4, to the very familiar words,

Biblical Basis for Reading: Personal Edification (Ephesians 4, 2 Timothy 4)

3:53 with respect to the function of those whom Christ gives to his people. The behavior of the church with special ministerial responsibilities. Ephesians chapter 4 in verse 11, he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering or service, unto the building up of the body of Christ, till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man

4:36 unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we be no longer children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine by the slight of men in craftiness after the wiles of error but speaking truth in love may grow up in all things unto him who is the head even Christ now among the many concerns in the heart of God in giving particularly pastors and teachers as the ongoing standing ministering servants of Christ in the church we have the writings of apostles and prophets

5:20 to guide us and living pastors and teachers to guide us into those inspired documents God is concerned that He would use these for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of service unto the building up of the body of Christ unto the stabilizing of His people that they might not be vulnerable to error that they might in a positive sense be brought to increasing maturity as they embrace the truth and the fact is that Christ has been doing this work of giving pastors and teachers throughout the centuries and His giving and the gifts are not all alive

6:04 as surely as if the Lord tarries they are not all present and recognized some of him have not yet been born so likewise is we look back many of them who were given and obviously where the gifts of Christ to His church have served their own generation and left the legacy to unborn generations in their writings and therefore if Christ has given pastors and teachers our benefit, then it is our responsibility if those pastors and teachers can minister to us not only in the living pastor-flock relationship, but those who being dead yet speak through their

6:45 written works, then if we do not have an explicit obligation to read their writings, we surely have very strong implicit urging to seek further spiritual maturity and stability by use of those writings. And the Apostle Paul, who though himself became the very instrument of God to give us revelatory data, his writings in the New Testament are the very word of God, yet this man was not content to feed his own children. He was not content to feed his own children. He was not content to feed his own children. He was not content to feed his own children. He was not content to feed his own

7:24 soul merely upon the Old Testament scriptures and upon the scripture that was given to him as an inspired apostle, but as an old man. Pastor Donnelly and I were reading together in 2 Timothy just yesterday morning, and we were struck afresh. This old man about to die, and yet he's not coasting in terms of his spiritual or intellectual development and growth. And among his closing requests given to us by the Apostle Paul, we find in chapter 4 and verse 13 these very fascinating words. The cloak that I left at Troas with

8:02 Carpus, bring when you come. Apparently he was cold. Winter was coming. We know that because he says later on to Timothy, give diligence, verse 21, to come before winter. And Timothy, when you come, I want you to come not only well-clothed yourself, but bring my cloak, that I will not be

8:25 chill to the bone in this prison if I am still alive. But he is not only concerned legitimately about a measure of physical comfort, but he says, and the books, especially, but not exclusively, the parchments. And while there is debate among commentators concerning the precise nature of the books and the parchments, there is a general consensus that the parchments most likely refer

8:55 to portions of the Old Testament scriptures, and the books may well be a reference to a broader scope of reading. But what a picture. Here's a man who could say in verse 6, I'm already being offered. The time of my departure has come. I've fought the good fight. I've finished the course. Yet he's not coasting and tapping his foot, waiting for the Lord to take him by means of execution.

9:24 He is. Still committed to growing spiritually and intellectually. Now, if that's true of an apostle, who, as we shall see more fully in the message of the subsequent hour, and as we know from our general acquaintance with Scripture, was drawn to Christ in a most unusual way, had very unique privileges, caught up into the third heaven, heard things unlawful to utter. Surely, if any man could say, well, I have enough of past experience upon which to meditate, I would say, well, I have enough of past experience upon which to meditate.

9:55 To my own spiritual and intellectual growth, the apostle Paul was such a man. But he did not take that posture. He says, bring the books, but especially the parchments. And I trust that we will have something of Paul's spirit, that to the very end of our days, as long as we have any measure of rationality, we will seek more and more to know the ways of God and the works of God, and therefore be committed to being readers.

Biblical Basis for Reading: Corporate Edification (Colossians 3)

10:25 Well, that's... Personal edification and growth that is one of the strong motivating factors in your elders deciding that once a quarter we will recommend books to you. But then there is a corporate perspective that we believe can be enhanced if throughout the congregation, perhaps several or more than several dozens of you are reading the same books at the same time.

10:52 And we believe it will help you to fulfill this clear... Clear directive of Colossians 3 and verse 16.

11:05 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God. And it's the first part of the verse in particular that I would underscore. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

11:34 And though the focus here is more limited, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, we know that the one anothering of scripture is much broader. For example, we are told to exhort, encourage one another while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We are told to confess our sins one to another.

12:00 And to pray one for another. We are told to bear one another's burdens. And the relationship between those general directives and being readers is that the more the word of Christ dwells in us richly and accurately, the more competent we will be to be ministers one to another. As we are able to say in my struggles with Thus and Thus, I found something in chapter 4 of such a book that was a tremendous help.

12:29 And it seems to me... From what you've said to me, John or Mary or Henrietta, your struggles are exactly where mine were.

12:36 I really recommend that you take account of such and such a chapter. And it will increase our ability to minister one to another in areas where perhaps we would not be competent to give the exhortation, to give the instruction. But having received it in the printed page, we can point our brothers and sisters to it. And in so doing, minister.

Recommended Book 1: Doctrinal - Horatius Bonar's 'God's Way of Holiness'

13:00 Minister to their needs. So that's at least a brief sketching in of the biblical perspectives that some of us have felt upon our own hearts in seeking to enrich and expand our ministry to you as your elders. And now this morning, I want to recommend three books. And I'm taking a luxury this first time.

13:23 Each time will not give this a bit of a rationale for what we're doing or necessarily have three books. But since I was...

13:30 Given carte blanche to use the hour as I felt would be best to your edification, I am taking more time. And there are three books that I want to recommend this morning. And I've chosen books that fall into three basic categories. These are not airtight categories.

13:47 One is doctrinal. If I were in England or Ireland, I'd say doctrinal. And then one is devotional. And by devotional, I don't mean saccharine and soupy and mushy.

13:57 I mean its aim is... Is to help us cultivate our communion with Christ, our appreciation of the work of Christ, our sensitivity to our privileges and duties as the people of Christ.

14:14 That's what I mean by devotional. And then the third is historical or biographical. Now, the doctrinal book that I want to recommend this morning is the book that is highlighted in this month's Trinity Book Service flyer. If you've seen one of those flyers...

14:30 You will have noticed that the whole left-hand front page is taken up with promoting this book by Horatius Bonar, a godly Scottish minister of the past century, God's Way of Holiness. And among the many things that are so helpful in this book, let me just underscore several. And I'll put my little stick and pages here so I stay with my outline. When you turn to the front...

15:00 I'm going to do this. Don't just plunge into a book. Get an idea of what the book is going to attempt to do. And often questions raised in chapter 1 or 2 are answered in chapter 7 and 8.

15:12 And that will help you to realize that if you press on and read on, your questions will eventually be addressed if not fully answered. And he starts out with the new life. Laying the foundation that there is no way to live a holy life, but to have the unique...

15:30 meekness of that life which is found in union with Jesus Christ. That we do not start out by rolling up our sleeves and with self-effort, born out of motives that are totally terminating upon ourselves, attempt to be holy men and women. And then in chapter 2, Christ for us and the Spirit in us. And he makes some very helpful distinctions that the failure to make has left many people...

16:00 vulnerable to excesses in their practice and in their theology of how to live the Christian life. And it's only earnest people that get into these excesses and errors. And Bonar obviously had observed them in his own day and as a pastor and is most helpful in making distinctions that are made in the Scripture and must be made in our understanding if we are not to be tossed to and fro. And he deals with...

16:30 the root and soil of holiness, strength against sin, the cross and its power. And then two chapters that are most needful in our day. The saint and the law. He's been establishing in all the opening chapters that until we come to grips with the truth that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus and have some measure of our assured acceptance with God and the peace and joy that flow from it, we simply...

17:00 cannot pursue holiness in any real measure. The structure of the Bible is such that it assumes the person pursuing holiness does so in the joyful knowledge that he's accepted in the Beloved. That the law which directs him no longer condemns him. And he labors to establish that point.

17:23 And on any given page there may be as many as ten, fifteen references to various scriptures or little phrases taken out of them. It is suffused with the word of God. And then so many get confused when they come to Romans 7. If God has done all that he's done for us, how can any Christian cry out, wretched man that I am?

17:47 And there have been some in our day, even responsible commentators and well-known preachers who deny that the latter part of Romans 7 is the cry of a regenerate person. Well, Bonar, clearly and unequivocally commits himself to the historic position on that passage within evangelical and reform circles that indeed the apostle is speaking of his own experience and very helpfully establishes why he takes that posture. And then the true creed and the true life with the final chapter, counsels and warnings. And that chapter in itself is worth the price of the book.

18:29 So, I urge upon all of you, the true people of God want to be holy. You know you must be holy, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. It should not surprise us that the devil will do his best to create confusion on the subject of what is the way of the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And so I do urge you, if you've not read anything substantial on a biblical and soundly theological treatment, I urge you to read the book of Ecclesiastes, the way of sanctification, the way of holiness that you consider Horatius Bonar's excellent book.

Recommended Book 2: Devotional - Octavius Winslow's 'No Condemnation in Christ'

19:06 And then for those of you who perhaps come to some fresh understanding of the glory of your acceptance in Christ and realize that with it comes an even increased motivation to holiness, to be well established and not shaken in that new found joyful confidence that you are accepted in the beloved, I highly recommend, and the reprint of Octavius Winslow's No Condemnation in Christ. This is not the bookstore's copy, so Chuck and Kathy and Helen, you need not hold your breath. This is my own personal copy that got dinged a little bit in the last airline trip when something was put in my satchel and bent the cover back.

19:51 But basically it is a treatment of each individual text in the eighth chapter of Romans. And it is most helpful in that though it shows the connection of the thought, unlike the ordinary commentary, which is concerned to take those thoughts and to simply help you grasp, help the reader grasp the substance of what the apostle is saying, these are basically sermons that he preached to his own people. And as each sermon in any consecutive series is complete in itself, that's one of the great benefits of, this treatment of Romans chapter eight. You can pick up, as I have done,

20:34 at different places where in my own devotional reading, my thoughts were turned to hope the other day. I turned to the voices on the verses on hope and read them, and I didn't feel at all that I was coming into strange territory and was lost because I had not read what had gone before. Very, very helpful. His exposition is accurate.

20:56 His, his applications are warm and pastoral. For example, let me just quote from the chapter on the verse. If children, then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, so long as faith can retain its hold upon the God of the covenant as our God, it can repose with perfect security in expectation of the full bestowment of all the rest. Here lies our vast, infinite and incomputable wealth.

21:33 What constitutes the abject poverty of an ungodly man? His and his being without God in the world. He takes the phrase heirs of God, and he turns it and sets it before us. Not that we are heirs because God is the cause of giving us an inheritance, but as the heart of the covenant, prominent promise promise.

22:01 God himself is our inheritance heirs of God. And then he opens up that wonderful concept that God himself is the possession of his people. And then he goes on to amplify and apply that in a warmly pastoral way. That's just a little sampling.

22:24 I know many of you have become aware relatively early in your Christian lives that among the many, many chapters in the word of God, Romans eight is one of those watershed chapters. In fact, Winslow is bold enough to say it is not only all gospel, but this chapter may be said to contain the whole. And so I urge upon you this book as an excellent devotional book, one that you may not only use desire to use in personal devotions, but possibly even in family worship. If you have teenage, children and upward, then I want to say a word about a historical or biographical book.

Recommended Book 3: Historical/Biographical - J.C. Ryle's 'Christian Leaders of the 18th Century'

23:07 Why should we as the people of God be concerned to know anything about God's servants and God's church in previous ages? Well, we're not the first ones on the scene. The scripture tells us the works of the Lord are great. Saw out of all those that have pleasure therein.

23:25 And furthermore, the Bible has a doctrine of imitation and that that imitation, harks back to those who've gone before us, as well as those who live in the present Hebrews 13, seven, remember them that had the rule over you, men who spoke unto you the word of God and considering the end of their life, imitate their faith. In other words, it is right to look back upon those who've gone before us and have lived an exemplary life and to learn from them. And, to imitate them. And I would urge you, if you have never read, say,

24:07 the two volumes of Whitfield's biography that I'm sorry, the biography of Whitfield by Dollymore, and then the work on Whitfield put out by the banner of the two volumes of the life of Spurgeon. Those men that were greatly used of God, whose names are household words in evangelical circles. And if you've just been, one who says, I just don't have a taste for history. Well, I think you could change your spiritual intellectual tastebugs in no better way than to get J.

24:40 C. Ryle's excellent book, Christian leaders of the 18th century. And what Ryle does is to set the background of England at the time. God raised up these men.

24:53 Then in chapter two, he demonstrates that the mighty agency to change the whole landscape, of English life, both religiously, politically with such social ills as slavery and other abuses, was God's work in raising up mighty preachers of the gospel. And if you have any question about what God can do by raising up mighty preachers of the gospel, that second chapter should be enough to convince you that God does indeed use preaching as a unique instrument, in his hands. Then he goes on to give these little cameo biographies of George Whitfield, John Wesley,

25:38 William Grimshaw, sometimes called mad Grimshaw, William Romaine, Daniel Rollins, John Berridge, Henry Venn, Walker of Truro, James Harvey of Weston, Weston, what is it? It's got the old, I think it's a S there. It's the name of the place. And then Toplady, whose hymns we often sing, and then Fletcher of Madeleine.

26:06 And what is helpful is that we don't just get a little mini biography of these men, but all the while he works through their lives, Ryle is seeking to set before us, what kind of preaching did God own in these men? What were the preachers themselves like? And what was the substance of what they preached? And how did they actually preach it?

26:34 And in so doing, he has given so many helpful things. The men in the academy know that this is one of the books from which I quote most frequently, after I've articulated some aspect of preaching, I have found again and again, wonderful illustrations of it in a paragraph or a page out of J.C. Ryle. And those of you who have read him at all know that he writes in a way that Mr.

26:57 Average, Mrs. Average, Miss Average, average man on the street can follow the track of his thought without difficulty. And for those of you again, who never have dipped into the past and come to appreciate and learn the lessons from the past, I highly recommend this as a first foray into biographical and historical reading. And I believe you'll come away saying, where can I get more stuff like this?

The Importance of Reading in the Television Age and Warnings Against Carnal Reading

27:25 And hopefully in the right sense, you'll get hooked on history, hooked on biography. And one of the final things that I want to say, and I want to be very blunt about it, studies being done by educators and sociologists clearly indicate that one of the most cursed, baneful results of living in the television age is it has by and large killed any serious reading among the rank and file of the places where the television is a household item. That's just a fact. It can be established by statistics in an overwhelming way.

28:05 And the scripture tells us we are not to be conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewing of our minds. And it would be a tragic thing if the erosion of being a reading congregation were brought to pass through careless and shoddy patterns of television watching. And so I would urge some of you who are deeply, committed to the molding of your children's perspectives on life to become readers yourself. They ought to grow up in a home where mom and dad with a book in hand is part of the memory that they carry into their adult life.

28:43 And as you become a reader, an enthusiastic reader, you will then be the instrument we trust under God to make your children readers, enthusiastic readers. And before long, you may find them taking a book such as this one. I would say, any of our kids who get the emphasis on reading that they do in the homeschooling and the Christian schools, some may be getting it in public schools that still have a strong emphasis on reading. Would they get up into their early teens?

29:14 There's no reason why they could not read this book with tremendous profit and with interest. Well, I hope I've convinced you that this ought to be a matter of concern to us as the people of God. And that a number of you, if you've not read, any one or all of these books, will prayerfully consider reading them. And then when you gather one with another, let's begin to provoke one another unto love and good works in this area and say to one another, what book have you been reading in the past couple of months?

29:47 Well, I didn't quite hear you. I didn't run it by again. Well, I haven't been reading anything. Oh, are you that busy that you can't read?

29:57 And you may be able to exert one another. And help some people over the hump of poor television habits that need to be broken before they become readers. Yes, I've been reading God's Way of Holiness. Well, so have I.

30:10 I found such and such a chapter very, very helpful. Well, I found this chapter. Well, what was helpful in it? And hopefully in our interaction one with another, our conversation will be more edifying, our impact upon one another more godly.

30:24 And in this way, as the word of Christ dwells more richly in us, we will then be able to minister one to another. Now, for any of you got all kinds of time to read and who would use what you read as a status symbol, let me say at the outset, the fact that you read a lot doesn't prove anything, but that you read a lot. Some of the most ignorant people I've met read a lot, but they learn nothing from what they read. So if we have anyone who has a natural tendency in that direction, let me assure you, if you can very subtly, to you subtle, that may not be subtle to a discerning ear, begin to name drop all the books you're reading,

31:08 that really will not give you any brownie points around here. So please, if you have a tendency in that direction, don't take anything I've said to encourage you in the direction of a carnal absorption with the number of pages read. You can become bookish and carnal as a goat and self-centered and proud. And that is not what we want to find.

31:29 We want to foster genuine godliness, true stability, and the ability to minister one to another. Well, I've taken a full half hour. I hope it has been unto edification. That's been my prayer that it would be.

Church Bookstore Policy and Initial Questions

31:46 And all of these books are available in our own bookstore. And I see several that I don't know if you have visited us before, unless we give any occasion of stumbling. I want to make it very clear. The bookstore is not open.

31:59 On the Lord's Day. And it is not a profit-making enterprise. It is a subsidized ministry of the church. That is, it does not float its own costs.

32:10 And our regular offerings, some of that which we give to the Lord, goes into floating the book ministry. And so we are very careful in the day of crass commercializing of the gospel to make that plain, lest you put us in the category of those who are constantly, hawking their wares in the name of doing service to others. Neither I nor any elder nor any officer nor any employee receives any personal benefit from these books. The salaries that are paid in the rest are not even fully met by the operating by the income from the books.

32:50 But there is a constant subsidy, though we keep aiming to come out zero in the providence of God. We have never been able to do it. And I trust that even if we were, we would out of principle at least make sure we came out five dollars short every month. So we can say with a good conscience, this is a subsidized ministry of the church.

33:15 Anyone have a question that you want to ask based on the things that I've said? Yes, Nate. Oh, I'm sorry. Restate the name of the second book.

33:30 No Condemnation in Christ Jesus by Octavius Winslow. This is the man who is author of the book Revival and declension of religion in the soul. And the one that's been recently reprinted on the emotional life of our Lord entitled The Sympathy of Christ. I'm working through that now.

33:49 I'm about two-thirds of the way through a marvelous book on the emotional life of our Lord Jesus. All right, any further question? All right. What we're going to do in the remaining time is to have in a moment, Pastor Donnelly, who will be ministering, the word of God this morning come and I'm going to conduct a rather informal interview with him in your presence.

Introduction to Pastor Ted Donnelly and the Universal Church

34:15 Again, for those of you who are newer among us, one of the truths we hold very dear to our hearts in this congregation is a truth that Pastor Nichols underscored a few weeks ago in the pre membership class. And that is the truth concerning the existence of the universal church. That is the church on Earth. Which is comprised of all true churches, wherever they may be found, whatever their denominational identification may be.

34:48 If they are not synagogues of Satan from which Christ has removed his presence, they are churches and we exist as a church, not only in fellowship with Christ the head, but in fellowship with all other true churches. And you see, you see this consciousness in the New Testament in many passages. And I want to read just one again, setting this next, this latter half or third of our time together in a biblical setting. First Corinthians chapter one, Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God,

35:32 which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ, Jesus called saints with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours. As Paul addresses the church at Corinth, he has this consciousness of the churches and the people of God in every place who hold fellowship with that specific church, in that specific place called Corinth. And while there are few who would deny the theology of the doctrine of the universal church,

36:16 and there are some, and we have had the impact of that leaven upon our own congregation in the past couple of years, with one or two who have imbibed that notion that there is no such thing as the universal church. It's one thing to hold the theology of it. It's another thing so to live as to make it manifest that you believe it. And those of you again who are new among us and wonder why do we have these letters three, four, five, six, seven, eight, every prayer meeting from the churches in various parts of the world.

36:52 Why do we in our Sunday morning intercessory prayer, pray in a cyclical manner for churches from Australia to the Philippines, across to the UK, to the various geographical areas of our country? It's because we are seeking to give tangible expression to this blessed reality that we as a church are in living fellowship with the churches of Christ existing here on the earth in our own generation. Bill, it's not completely out of the way, but it's much better. I'll do my best not to whack it again.

37:32 Bill told me today, he said you like the new setup of the mic. It's out of range. And I was not deliberately proving him false. All right.

37:43 And therefore, when God brings his servants among us, it's helpful if we can take some of that time to get to know them better. So that when we pray for the brethren in the UK and you hear the name, Pastor Donnelly and that ministry, you'll be able to associate a face and situations and circumstances. And though I know he feels a little uncomfortable doing this, he very, very graciously consented to do so. And so Pastor Donnelly, if you will please come at this time and I will throw out these questions to you.

Interview with Pastor Ted Donnelly: Personal and Family Life

38:15 This is Pastor Donnelly's third visit to our assembly. So in many ways, we feel it's just an old friend coming back home again. Good. Pastor Donnelly, I'm sure especially those who are newer among us and those who don't have perfect memories would appreciate it if you just tell us a little bit about your own personal and domestic situation, the structure of your family, their ages and their present pursuits.

38:38 All right, it's good to be with you all again. I've been looking forward to this time very much. The friendship of Pastor Martin has meant a great deal to me over the years and also the friendship of many in this congregation. And I was very touched yesterday when looking through your congregational prayer letter to see that you do pray for me on a regular basis.

39:04 And I want to thank you very much for that. It means a great deal to me. My name is Ted Donnelly. My wife's name is Lorna and we have three children.

39:16 Catherine is almost 20 and she has just completed her first year at Queen's University in Belfast. I heard yesterday that she has passed her university examinations. So we're grateful for that. She's studying applied maths and physics.

39:36 And the great benefit of that is she cannot look to me for any help, whatever, in any of her work. So I can leave it aside with a clear conscience. Our second daughter is Ruth, who is 17, has one more year at what we call grammar school, and her main interest is music. And then we have a son, John, who is 12.

Interview with Pastor Ted Donnelly: Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church, Belfast

40:07 Now moving on to the situation there at the church, some of the people know, the events of the past couple of years. I think it would be helpful if you'd just give them the proper name of the church, the denominational affiliation, a brief history of the church, and of your own associations with the church. Well, I'm the pastor of Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church. I looked at my diary this morning, and in the British diaries, the ecclesiastical year of the Anglican Church is printed in the diaries.

40:45 And today is Trinity Sunday. I don't really know what that means, but it's suitable for us. The Reformed Presbyterian Church has 37 congregations in Ireland, and we have been in Ireland for approximately 370 years. The congregation of which I am pastor, began in 1896 in central Belfast, and by the early 1970s, it had dwindled to about 10 or 12 people.

41:29 It had been ordained to the ministry of the gospel in 1968, and had served a small country church for four years, before going out to Greece and Cyprus as the pastor of a Greek-speaking church in Cyprus. And we had to be evacuated from Cyprus, in 1974. Some of the older among you will remember the Turkish invasion of the island, and the civil war. So when we returned to Ireland in the autumn of 1974, we had nowhere to live, we had no congregation, and this small group of a dozen or 15 people asked me to come and preach for them.

42:09 Shortly after that, they decided to move from their city center location, and they just simply walked away from the church building. It was unsaleable, although later we received something for it. And we rented a little school room for our Lord's Day meetings. That was in March 1975.

42:33 And since then, apart from a three and a half year period, when I served another congregation, I have been pastor of the Trinity congregation. The Lord has blessed us in many ways. We're still not a large church, but we would have, I suppose, about 120 members meeting with us regularly. So we're very thankful for that period of sustained, steady growth over the years.

43:04 We had basically three principles. We decided that as we were starting with a clean sheet, we would do our utmost to base our whole church life, worship, order, discipline, and everything to do with our church upon the word of God. Because we believe that the scriptures are the complete and sufficient guide, not only for doctrine, but for everything that concerns Christ's church. So that has been one of our basic guidelines.

43:37 We concentrated on the teaching and the preaching of the word of God, without any of the other gimmicks which some churches seem to feel are necessary. And thirdly, we gave attention to the holiness and the life and the love of the people in the church. And we were convinced that if we did that, God would bring people along to the church and would build his church. And I can testify that as you folk have experienced, God is faithful.

44:08 And with his word as our guide and the teaching of his word and the commitment to love and to holiness, there is really nothing else that the church of Christ needs to experience his blessing. And God has brought those people whom he wanted to be part of the church. At a recent prayer meeting, we were giving thanks for those whom God has brought. And one of my fellow elders said very perceptively, perhaps we should also give thanks for those whom he has kept away.

44:41 And I think there's an element of truth in that. Folk who wanted other things came for a short time. We weren't willing to change our principles to give them what they thought they wanted. And God has blessed us in that way.

Interview with Pastor Ted Donnelly: Prayer Requests and Northern Ireland Situation

44:55 So we're very, very thankful to him in spite of all our needs. Well, carrying on from there, Pastor Donnelly, what would you say are three or four of the most critical concerns that you would like to lay before the people as ongoing prayer requests with reference to the work? Well, I think that's very helpful. Thank you for the opportunity.

45:19 And I would please appreciate your prayer. One matter for prayer, I think, is there has been a degree of failure on the part of those of us who are elders. There are five of us who are elders in the church. And we've recently become convinced that one area of weakness in our leadership is that we haven't given enough attention to developing and using the gifts of the different members of the church.

45:50 And that's a project that we want to set ourselves to over the next six months. God has brought many talented people. And although they're serving God in their own communities and families, and we teach that that is basic, we feel that we need to give thought as to how best the different ministries and activities of the church should be developed. So please pray for that, that God will guide us as elders and then give us the hearts of the people, that we may be able to bring them on to maturity and to using their gifts, to equipping them and making them fully rounded, well-developed Christians.

46:34 That would be one area of prayer. A second area of prayer that gives us concern is that in the last two years, we have not seen as many conversions from raw paganism. As we would desire to see. While a number of people have come to the church over the last few years, they have mostly been people dissatisfied with other churches, who weren't being fed, who weren't being pastored or cared for.

47:11 And while we welcome them and we give thanks to God for them, we're glad to give them a home, obviously our great concern is to see people who are dead in sin being brought to salvation. So that is a great concern. That is the growth which we really desire. So please pray that God will bless our efforts at evangelism, that we will see people converted.

47:34 And then perhaps thirdly and lastly, there are several of our young people who are giving us cause for concern. Many of our young people are monuments to God's grace, but there are perhaps five or six who are manifesting a rebellious spirit, who are causing their parents, and all of us, anxiety. And they're just at the stage at the moment where they haven't done anything which will irretrievably smash the rest of their lives, or they haven't done anything which will really badly scar them. So we're praying at the minute that God will restrain them,

48:16 first of all, by His common grace, that He will restrain them from doing anything which will mark them for years, but then beyond that, that He'll be pleased to save them. I'd appreciate very much your prayers for those areas. Well, if we can take the last five minutes and just address in a very cursory way the situation of what it is like to live in Northern Ireland, and due to a number of factors, and this is not going out on a tape, I've already spoken to Bill about this, the impression the average American would get from our television is that somehow, sometime in the indefinite past,

49:00 a bunch of people went over from England with the approval of the English government and partitioned off a part of Ireland and holds it as an armed camp against the will of its inhabitants, and if you folk had any sense, you would just give up that horrible arrangement. And I think it would be helpful to our people to just give a brief sketch of how this situation came into being and what it is like now to live in the present tensions, so that our people can get something more than what a very slanted, deliberately skewered American media gives to us.

49:42 Well, it's a very, very pleasant and generally peaceful place to live. Please don't believe the reports you see. In the media, the impression is sometimes given that the whole country is in flames. There are tragedies.

50:02 There are deaths. If you were to visit the north of Ireland, I would say my children perhaps might see a soldier once a year. It's that level. The place where you would be, it doesn't impinge at all.

50:16 Very briefly, in the late 1500s and early 1600s, a number of poor Scots, Irish, peasant farmers emigrated from the south of Scotland to the northeast of Ireland. They cleared the country. They settled it and farmed it. And they have been there ever since.

50:37 In the main, they were Protestant and Presbyterian. The rest of Ireland was Roman Catholic. And for hundreds of years, as you know, Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. It was a united kingdom.

51:00 In the early years of this century, there was a civil war in Ireland. And in the 1920s, the whole of Ireland agreed that the country should be divided. There are 32 counties. 26 of them became an independent country.

51:16 Eire, the Republic of Ireland. The remaining 6 were allowed to stay as part of the United Kingdom. With England, Scotland and Wales under the British Crown. That was by the desire of the people who lived there.

51:34 And that was a reasonable compromise. And it was only in the late 1960s, and you then, I was studying here in America in 1967-68, there was civil unrest in America, there was civil unrest in Germany, all over Europe, and there was civil unrest in Ireland. And the Marxist-Leninist terrorist group took advantage of some resentments and unfairnesses which there were in the country to stir up a campaign of terrorism. And that campaign has carried on ever since.

52:12 Its main support, financially and in terms of weapons, has come from three sources. From Russia, that has now diminished. From Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, he has provided their arms. That has now diminished.

52:31 And I'm sorry to say that the third major source has been from America. From the Irish-Americans in New York and Boston. And that has not diminished. And they are still providing considerable support to this group.

52:47 And really it is simply a problem of urban terrorism. There is absolutely nothing reprehensible or unbiblical in Irish people wanting independence from Britain. That would not personally be my wish or my choice, but there is nothing wrong with that aspiration. There is nothing wrong with the aspiration of wanting to remain united with Britain.

53:10 What is important is that those aspirations should be pursued in a peaceful, honourable and democratic way as civilised human beings. So that we can come to some agreement that will satisfy the aspirations of the people. And the problem is these terrorists using, as it were, the flag of history, of English oppression, a lot of emotive words to stir up the feeling of people. And it is a grievous situation.

53:46 Let me just put this to you as I close. Sometimes people have said how astonishing it is that in a country where there are so many Christians, and there are very many converted people in the north of Ireland, how astonishing it is that in that place there should be trouble. Is that astonishing? Where do you think the devil would want to cause trouble in the world?

54:17 What countries would he want to stir civil unrest? What countries would he want to blacken in the eyes of the world so that they have a bad reputation? Surely they would be the very countries where the gospel is strong, where it is preached, and where the people of God are alive and active. And I could give you a list of countries that I think are unfairly treated in the world media.

54:45 And generally speaking, you'll find there's a high proportion of the Lord's people in those countries. It's not surprising. It's absolutely predictable. I'm sure we all express thanks to our brother for this very helpful overview of these matters.

55:03 And now let's commit them to God in prayer, and then we'll be dismissed. Our Father, we do thank you for your presence with us in the matters that have come before us this morning. Especially we thank you for the presence of your servant among us again. We thank you for every memory of his past ministry among us, and of your grace and will to use him to our profit.

55:36 And we pray that as we have come to a fuller and more accurate awareness of the circumstances in which he labors, that our hearts will be stirred up to more fervent and earnest prayer for him, for his family, and for the flock of God in which you have placed him. And then our Father, for that very delicate situation in the life of Northern Ireland, we pray, O God, that you will restrain the intentions of evil men stirred up by the evil one himself, and bring to pass a just and equitable doing away with those present tensions and the terrorism and the fear.

56:20 O our God, we pray, as Lord of the nations, you will stretch forth your scepter so that as your people live a tranquil and quiet life in godliness and gravity, the word of God may go forth with power. We thank you for the things we have heard and we ask that we may be good stewards of that expanded understanding. Hear us and receive our thanks for your presence with us. In Jesus' name, amen.