Cast a Bigger Shadow — E.A. Johnston

I want you to know, friends, that I come from the South. I lived most of my life smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. Matter of fact, the city I spent over forty years in was the buckle of the Bible Belt.

There was a church on every corner, and when you went to eat at a local restaurant it was not uncommon to see half the people in there bowing their heads over their meals as they said grace and thanked God without any embarrassment or fear of man.

Living Holily in a Godless City

It's just what folks did in that Southern town. Then I moved out of the Bible Belt down to a section of Florida that would make Sodom and Gomorrah blush. I've never been in a more godless place or a more wicked city, and I say that having lived in both Los Angeles and Chicago, you'd have better luck bumping into Bigfoot down here than into a genuine believer.

They're so scarce. The people in this area drink enough booze to drown the entire nation. They take God's name in vain every time they open their mouths. They fornicate with one another like animals, and most of them are as mean as snakes.

Now, what's a Baptist preacher like me doing in such a God-forsaken area of the country? And how can you live in Sodom and still be a chaste man like Lot? God can give you the grace to live above the world without not living in the world like hiding in a cave on a remote mountain like some Greek monks I know.

Biblical Examples of Holiness Amid Temptation

All you have to do, friends, is read your Bible to see real men with flesh and bones and faced with temptation, and exhibiting the grace of God in them as Daniel was holy in Babylon, as Joseph was pure in Potiphar's house, as Abraham was righteous in Chaldea, and Noah godly amidst a godless society.

Falling, Rising, and Living Dead to Sin

I've had my stumbles, and my feet are stained by the mud puddles I've stepped in as I've tried to live for God in this world. But you live and learn, you fall and rise, and although my tracks aren't perfect, I serve a perfect Savior who is willing to give you His supernatural power to live a life dead to sin.

Spiritual Giants Who Cast a Bigger Shadow

I've known some men who was not worried to carry their shoes, real men of God like Adrian Rogers and Stephen Olford, men whom Christ was prominent in, and the presence of God in their lives made them eminent men.

It seems ministers today are cut out of an inferior cloth to men like that. We don't have that same mantle of authority like those men had. They cast a bigger shadow than the rest of us all put together.

It was said of D .L. Moody, by a British minister, that Moody did more for God than all of us put together. Some men that are called of God are more full of God than others. Every time I was with Adrian Rogers, I felt like I was in the presence of Jesus.

Adrian Rogers’s Surrender to God

That's no joke, friends. I'll never forget a thunderstorm that came through Memphis while I was on my way to a local restaurant with my family. I dropped my wife and little girl off at the door while I went to park the car.

I hurried through that dark parking lot, beneath my umbrella, right up into the lobby of that restaurant, and as soon as I got in there, I saw the figure of a man with his arms outstretched and he gave me a bear hug and greeted me with his moniker for me, Ernesto.

It was Adrian Rogers, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this, friends. I'm giving you the oil straight from the can, as we say in the South, the moment I came inside from being in that thunderstorm, into the arms of Adrian Rogers.

I felt I had left this earth and went up to heaven, and Jesus himself was greeting me. Adrian cast a bigger shadow than the rest of us preacher boys, not because he had an international television show, not because he was all over the radio, not because he was the pastor of the biggest church within his denomination, but because when he was a young man, first called of God to preach, he was out crossing a field one day on the way home, and he got down on his knees to pray, and as he was giving all of himself to God that day, as he kneeled in that field, he said, this isn't low enough.

Then he lay flat out on his stomach, getting his white shirt dirty in the process, and he said, Lord Jesus, this still isn't low enough. So he took his finger and he dug a hole in the ground, getting dirt all under his fingernail until he could stick his nose in that hole in the dirt, which he then did and mumbled, Lord, this is as low as I can go.

Stephen Olford’s Consecrated Influence

And I believe, friends, that God honored Adrian Rogers with a big platform ministry, because he was willing to be reduced to nothing for Jesus, and because of that, he cast a bigger shadow. Stephen Olford was a man, small in stature, much like Zacchaeus, but when he entered the pulpit, he was a giant before men.

You could not sit under the preaching of Stephen Olford without being challenged in your Christian walk and convicted by the Holy Ghost. He was a man full of God, and although he was small in stature, he cast a bigger shadow than the rest of us preachers altogether.

Was it because he had been the pastor of a big church in Manhattan? Was it because he was on Christian radio all across the land? Was it because he was a well-known Christian author? Was it because Billy Graham said that Stephen Olford influenced him more than any other man?

No, friends, I believe it was because he got to the place in his life as a Christian where he lived the poem he so often quoted, only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.

The Lordship of Christ and a Life Fully Surrendered

Stephen Olford was utterly surrendered to the Lordship of Christ to such a rare and consecrated degree that he cast a bigger shadow than the rest of us. I'll end this message, friends, by reading Dr. Olford's life verse, Galatians 2 .20, and I will preface the reading of God's word with the promise to you, friend, that if you did desire to do great things for God and you were willing to nail everything you are and everything you have to the cross, then Christ will manifest himself through your life in such a remarkable way that you, too, will begin to cast a bigger shadow as the shadow of a king on a throne shines through you.

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Let us pray.