Home Report New Zealand Report — Frank Knox

I won't be long, because I haven't much to say. That doesn't need much of a definition. Forty years ago, the Home Report meeting was a heartache. You could get nobody up to speak. Now they're a headache, but it's who did it first.

I left somebody behind me to keep me right. I'm just out of the hospital, though I may not look like it, praying with a dear woman that won't get any better. Then I have a little bit of good news for you, that I think I ought to tell you right now, for fear I forget it, and that is, I've behaved myself much better this year than I did last year.

I was only 12 times in jail this year. Sorry for taking so long. Last year, you remember, I was in 17 times. So I'm doing remarkably well. Last time I was in, after praying, I would never come out without praying.

Gospel Ministry in Prisons

I've been in 12 times, that makes about 25 prisoners. And the wardens must stay in with me until I finish, hear what I say, and that's just what I want. Before I pray, I give them all a gospel speech.

And if any of them doesn't take it, or the warden doesn't take it, then I lose the Catholic, and when I get down to pray, I tell them quite a lot of what St. Peter says. And that's the way it is. It's a very happy job, I'm very fond of it, although you would need to skin like an elephant at times.

Hospital Visits and Prayer

And I don't think I would like to leave without getting round with a visitant, indeed, that they know living with me. I had 54 visits in a Royal Victoria Hospital, all of them, not only one, and I've contacted 650 patients.

I pray with them all, if I'm allowed. Sometimes I'm not allowed. I'm very thankful to you, as I say, and to God as well, that I can get into any of the 17 hospitals in Trafalgar, in spite of its ecclesiastical opposition.

I don't know whether you like that or not. And the prisoners, the patients, receive me well. And if I pray and I do, please brethren, don't pray standing in a hospital. If you do, the rest of the patients will think that you're just talking to them.

Get down on your knees, demand attention, and then take them to us. This is up to the seat of authority. We sometimes get these patients saved, or we sometimes contact them from various parts of the north of Ireland, sometimes the south, not often, and then we put them in contact with somebody in that country that we know.

The Big Tent and the Gospel

It's a pleasure to me to go to a meeting and sit and say nothing, for a change. And the pleasure is that I can hardly go to a meeting anywhere in the north of Ireland, but I see people there that were saved in the Big Ten.

I'm speaking carefully now. Our difficulty this year is that we can't get room for the Big Ten. The tent at my disposal, which I appreciate very much, and I would love another summer in a tent if we can get ground.

Will you please ask God for to find a piece of ground in the city the Big Ten's too big to take out of the city, the people would think it was a treasure. So please pray that we can get ground in the city for a few weeks with a glorious gospel of the blessed God, no mischief.

It's the gospel. It's the glorious gospel of the blessed God for Timothy 1 and 11. It's the power or leader of God unto salvation, but only to every one that believeth. I neither count heads nor hands.

I go on with the gospel. I don't let any after-meetings except people ask me to stay behind. Very often I visit them in their own home. But other preachers do their affair, and this is my affair. And you'll find you'll not have many professions if you go along those lines.

Concern for Sinners and the New Testament Assembly

Now I hadn't very many gospel meetings this year, and I'll tell you why. But we're very, very thankful to God if we hadn't very many meetings, which are some say. If you have no interest in sinners, you're a backslider.

If you now have interest in sinners, at any time you need to be born again. If you have a notion that you think you'll leave the brethren, then the devil's after you. Now I challenge all of you to show me anything better than what we have in a New Testament relative to God's assembly.

As much as I would do that the novel got into before it got out of it again, and that was a spell of meetings for believers, break one after another. I appreciate it very much, and the assemblies appreciated it well.

I'll tell you what was a real help to us. Someone who had never been to before, that every assembly I went to, the brethren were very kind to me. Of course they're not every place, couldn't be any else.

And they took me around every member in each assembly. I was doing a bit of thinking. If there is a man that doesn't listen, the man doesn't know what he should make. It was a great help because very often Christians are neglected.

Sometimes old and frail, and sometimes weak and not able to come. Well brethren, you won't have any of it to do in heaven. Now is the time, and this is the place. So that with a village and the people individually in a lone home, and of course praying with them, it created an interest in each one of the eight places that I was at.

I may not mention them to you. The nature is all good and soft, easy to preach, and for believers. We didn't work with any novelties or dainty, just God's good book, and that's generally appreciated in our beloved North of Ireland.

Visiting Neglected Saints

I would say, my dear brethren and sisters in Christ, in my own humble way, that visiting the people of God is neglected. Visiting saints of a preacher does not that. He shouldn't be encouraged if he's physically fit.

If he's not physically fit, I'm from Manhattan. Some of them are anyway. But visiting old saints, that's bedridden, not for the man of North of Ireland, especially with our priests, in God's name, brethren, will you go and visit them and pray with them.

You young believers, when you get down to things for eternity, and now pray your lone and strong, mind your company, house party, in Godly company, pray with them, and let them pray with you, and grow in faith, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Encouraging Young Believers to Preach

Young people, when you're asked to open a meeting, I remember the first time I was asked, matter of fact, I'll never forget it, I made that many mistakes, but no matter. You don't need to get up on the platform and say, well now, dear friends, you know I'm not a preacher.

You needn't tell them that, you don't belong on it, they know that. How long have you got to say it? How long have you got to be a preacher? And sit down! And ask God to help you every time you get up on the platform.

It's a very, very responsible place to be. Now, I'm finished almost. I greatly appreciate the kindness of my brethren, every place I go. Indeed, I think they'll soon be quarrelling about who's going to take me out when my car's not ready yet, as you know.

But I'd be very ungrateful if I didn't appreciate it, and God knows I do. You'd be surprised when I tell you that all the reports you've listened to this afternoon, I was interested in every one of them.

How do you mind that? I prayed for them. If you can't pray for preachers, there's a kink in you someplace. Somebody decided to attach the Scripture in the Orange Hall. That's a good place, huh? I don't know what they think it was.

But what shall they say when they come to the Gospel Hall and there's no Scriptures in them? They'll say, what is that? And I would certainly say there's something radically wrong in that assembly without any teaching or anything.

A Testimony About the Power of Scripture

It reminds me of an old woman, and she came to me every night. She was what you'd call in Ireland a rough and ready woman. And every night she came, every night she sat at the front, and every night she stayed behind.

You know, you get tired of that, especially when they come to 12 o 'clock. All I said to her every night, Well Mary, you haven't got it yet, no. Good night. Make it only till then. So, good night, Mary.

So I said, good night, Mary. Haven't you got it yet? You know the way Irish people talk, don't you? The English people can't touch it. I said, good night. She said, aye, good night. I said, good night, she said.

Truly, Mary, you'd stay behind and take five minutes to tell me how it happened? Aye. And now people had all gone up, and just for that moment, telling me what did I say impressed a mighty old woman enough to pray to her to me completely.

She would like to know what your master meant. Did she? Didn't hear a word you said, just so I gave him a text on the wall. Now, that was very encouraging of me. Sure, it did ruin my face, but it shouldn't have had any price.

Now, in all those eight assemblies that I visited God's people, I say, most of them here tonight, without the slightest hesitation, God gave blessing to His own real people. For this, I am very, very grateful, and by the various things before my mind, and various pleasures for future service, please, brethren and sisters, pray sprightly about the big plan for Jesus.

Our brother, Mr. Davies, has asked me to mention that there are still some books left, and anyone who desires to have one can get them at the back of the hall from one of the church. Our brother, Mr. Martin, I want you to read, please, Romans, chapter 1.

The Gospel Requires No Performance

For various reasons. One reason is, I'm certainly not going to belong. The next reason is because so many have asked me to say something, and I won't disappoint them. At least, I won't disappoint them by trying to say something, and I hope I won't disappoint them by saying something.

I'm only going to take a few minutes to tell you a little about New Zealand. I won't go any further for various reasons. There's a number of my brethren behind me, and I can heartily say, God bless them, everyone.

They have good news to give, and if they don't give it, then they're not doing their duty to this audience, because they are supposed to buy the money from the people here to a large degree. Therefore, I hope they won't go backward and take at least ten minutes each until the goodness of God in saving poor sinners from going down to hell fire.

I'm very, very grateful to God that the traditions of the big tent are being sustained and brutally healed when I was a New Zealander. I'm very, very grateful to God whether he's here or not, who certainly proves to every honest thinking man and woman that the glorious gospel of the blessed God first Timothy 1 again, which is a leader of God and a salvation, Romans 1 16, needs neither music nor choirs nor solos nor quartets, but a faithful declaration with the help of the Holy Spirit regarding sin and salvation, Christ of the world, heaven or hell, shall gather the crowd and shall hold the crowd as well.

That's my preliminary remarks there. I have been exercised by you, brethren, about you dealing for whole years, and I know perfectly well that I have your interest at your heart, and I appreciate that very much.

I have often said in public and to the Lord in private that I really would be afraid to die if all God's people stopped praying for me, but I don't think they will. Now then, after I was speaking about New Zealand for whole years, when I got the first invitation, I didn't feel trying to go, nor fear, and consequently, I did for the time being.

Deciding to Accept the New Zealand Invitation

Then a man came to the door and his wife, and he said, we are returning to New Zealand on Saturday and due up to come with a little bit of matica. So I said, well, I have been praying, and if I continue to do so, I'll let you know in the short time eventually when.

We left London on the 28th of November, half past five, and we got up into the air, 36 ,000 feet, we're getting up now, and then we started to go at 640 mile an hour, we're getting on now, and the captain speaks through the amplifier about every 15 minutes, and the next thing he said, we are reducing speed and beginning to descend at Cairo.

That happened at five different places, and I'm not going to repeat that. When I landed in Sydney, I had no voice at all. There was nothing wrong with my throat, and there's nothing wrong with my throat now.

I'm telling you that for to ease your mind. Does it sound good? No. How could it sound good when you lost your voice? Well, when your voice is gone, you can do nothing with it, and there was no medicine or anything to help it if perhaps I had a chest sore.

So I had to get up and came back, and when I started to preach in Sydney, the following day after I landed, I could only whisper. You can imagine the Austrians how they listened to the vultures' ears to hear a poor Irish man trying to preach with no voice.

Well, we stayed there a week, then we went on to New Zealand. Well, I spent five months in New Zealand, and I certainly got my eyes open to the fact that there's a famine for preachers in New Zealand, a certain kind of preachers.

A Famine of Preachers in New Zealand

I landed in, well, the first meeting I had was in Hastings, and I stayed there three weeks to help the little family with about 18 of them. Then we got invitations for conferences across into South Island, and you have to go over a river to get there, which is about the same width as it is from here to Liverpool.

You take that by the time it takes the boat. I went there by plane, but I couldn't come back by plane, because the motor that was going to take me to my destination on my way home was on that boat. I was at each conference in the South Island, New Zealand, split in two by the Coote Strait from north to south.

It's a very big country, the same size as England, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man leaving out Ireland. Terrible pity to leave out Ireland. And only the only population is two and a half million, about the same size as the South of Ireland.

There are thousands of miles of land never cultivated yet, and there are hundreds of miles of beautiful mountains. Everything's all right, the weather's good, and everything else is good, but there's a famine for the power of the Holy Ghost.

There are lots of big meetings that I could not and did not go to. I'm giving you a minute to think. There were lots of big meetings in New Zealand that I did not and could not go to any more than I can in the North of Ireland.

Either I crossed the river, the sea, in a plane, or in a boat, I never changed my course. What's right in one country is right in another, and what's wrong in one country is wrong in another. And this is not the time for spineless compromise, and I can have absolutely nothing to do with that.

Preaching in Neglected Regions

After each conference was over in the South of Ireland, five of them, most of them, there wasn't a preacher there, only myself, so you can be sure they were good. That's very sad, my brother. After the war, I went down to the extreme South.

I couldn't go any further onto the border of the Pacific Ocean. If you look at the map, you'll see a place called Invercargill right on the very coast of the Pacific Ocean in the extreme South of the sunshine of New Zealand.

There are three little nations there. I made up my mind, with God's help, I'd give them all a little talk. They are very badly neglected. Quite a lot of vigilant preachers in New Zealand that are certainly not liberals, nor are they concerned about the right line of things.

I know all right when I'm speaking. There's men in the making that know what I'm saying, both in front of me and behind me, and I want them all to hear what I'm saying. The first meeting I started, there was it breaking breath.

I spent a week there and had some, and got up to the text of God's Holy Word. Lest I forget right here and now, I want to say we got about 30 texts of 30 scriptures outside the Gospel Halls in New Zealand, in the distance of a hopeless ancestor mine from Invercargill off to Dunedin.

I want to say definitely here and now, absolutely regardless of whatever you may think about it, that the man out of any objection to a Gospel text outside a Gospel Hall is certainly not a spiritual man.

That doesn't need any explanation. He may pretend to be, he may to be sure, but the people that pretend to be are usually not the spiritual men. And if I object to the Gospel outside, then there's something wrong with my Christianity and spirituality, I say that without a doubt.

And I hope that none of you in the hall so childish, so careless about the proof unbroadly as to object to my Gospel may be outshining the Gospel Hall. So foolish people object to us calling them a Gospel Hall.

Would you in God's name tell us what we're going to call them? Special name on the shuffle. And if you do, God's willing, I won't be there. That's plain enough. I didn't go to any of them, neither in America nor Australia, nor New Zealand.

And I'm thankful to God there's none of them here. We haven't departed that far from the Living God yet in the north of Ireland. The next little assembly I went to in this house was, it was seven brick and bread.

It was poor in every sense of the word. I spent a week there, and I had the little assembly as best we could. There was very little for the house, but God saved a Roman Catholic. Then there was a Roman Catholic man who was a servant to one of our brethren.

Then we came to Invercargill, and there are four meetings in Invercargill, but only one assembly. And I went there, and it was a real good assembly. And I'm thankful to God that I did go. I enjoyed the meetings very much, and so did they.

They wanted me to stay, which of course was an impossibility. If you stayed everywhere, you were invited to stay when I'd never be home again. And if I wasn't home again, it wouldn't be long till my family would be out looking for me, and maybe some other people as well.

The Need for Laborers and Faithful Assemblies

Well now, we'd walked our way up from Invercargill to Dunedin, a distance of about 160 miles. In between, there are 14 assemblies, all small in comparison with what we are here in the north of Ireland.

Some of them very small, and certainly we had lessons to learn that a famine for labourers in the New Zealand, and there's lots of room for men that's willing to work. And if you're not willing to work, well, don't go.

There were enough gentlemen there already. Then, when we got up to New Zealand, we had a good big conference in Dunedin, I should say. Again, there's four meetings, and only one assembly in my reckoning.

And that assembly is a good, sound, solid, strict assembly that allowed absolutely nothing, only what we're going for in the north of Ireland. There's about 100 British in bed. They're so really talented.

They would need to be seeing that there's no preachers, and they're arranging conferences all year round without a preacher in the country. I thought they had a great deal of faith, or something else.

But they really had a lot of good local talent, and men that can handle the Holy Scriptures, and handle them well, I was surprised. There was only one conference I went to where there was another preacher, and he was a scholar, and a gentleman, and a good man, for every time he got up, he took an hour, or an hour and ten minutes.

Well, I would object to that over here in the north of Ireland, but I was kind of glad to see it over there, seeing there was nobody else for it to go on. Now then, after we spent about three months down that corner, we moved on up about 500 miles to a place called Timaru.

Reconciliation Among Believers

We were having a little trouble there, some needed to be left inside. After the conference, I stayed for the week, as I did in most places. And there, God sent us help night after night, it was easy to pray during the day, it was easy to preach at night.

We could see that there was something wrong, and soon I heard about it. We went over to the preacher, and God began to bless his Holy Word, and reconciled some believers. It was an awful world for God's people.

Such a thing never should be needed. And if they're sending you in a meeting tonight, and you need to be reconciled, will you in God's name get the thing attended to before the Lord comes on your list?

And that must be settled at the judgment seat of Christ. Must not religiously. It's no pleasure to any child of God to require to be reconciled. If I knew anybody I needed to be reconciled to in the north of Ireland, any part of it, certainly I don't agree with them all.

Not even all the preachers in such a thing. But if I thought I needed to be reconciled to anybody, I would attend to that in some degree before I went to sleep tonight. Now then, I tell you, I stayed for a week.

God helped and blessed these people, but you never get strangers in to a gospel hall in any of those countries. Then the last night I was there, God saved a young woman. There were a few answers, but God saved this young woman, and we were glad to see it because she was the daughter of some of the believers.

Standing Firm Against Compromise

There were a few Irishmen there, and you must have tried when I came, that I didn't go to a single solitary meeting, either in New Zealand, Australia, Canada or America, but I found Irishmen. And I put along with them, there's just about the best Christians there, that is the men to stand on their feet and stand for the right thing and say no to what's wrong, that'll not be here.

For such men I'm thankful to God. After we went from Timberwood, we went on up to North Vancouver, north of Palmerston North, and I was quite happy about going to one, and there was a little difficulty about the offer.

There was a man there, a good man, preacher of the day, and a good man. And he said, we expect you from us for the week when you've done where you are. I said, there's a little difficulty about your assembly, my dear Lord.

He said, what is it? And I'll remove it for you. I said, if you can, I'll certainly come. What do you think? He said, no, I hope you're all listening. And I hope you all understand that I mean what I say.

And I hope you all believe that when you get that far away from God you have left the Scriptures. And the gospel of the grace of God and a scripturally gathered assembly doesn't need that change of faith.

An assembly gated by the Holy Scriptures won't happen. He said, yes, we have, but we haven't the time. I said, where is it? Is it in the back room? Because I hide it out there some places. And he said, no, it's not in the back room.

And I said, what is it? When did he bother not? I want to make the truth clear for you. He said, the foreman brought the music, brought the organ up the assembly. That was a good move. And then when we brought it, we could do what we liked with it, and we did it.

And what did we do? Well, we not only put it out of the hall, and out of the anteroom, but we put it out into the backyard. So it's out of tune, out of place, and out of order, and that I, God, keep it out.

We had a real good group meeting there because that brethren would not go there under those circumstances. I went to the other meeting in the same place. I had good meetings there. Also, in the world, I want to say God was good to us in every place.

Blessing at Hastings

Then we had a cross to the north and again a cross to the north. And then we came down to where I started in Hastings Square. There was a little assembly of about 18, a good assembly. And there was 11 other to it, not when I was their brethren.

I didn't want the glory attached to some other man. But we got the things started, glory to God, and I couldn't stay there for the simple reason I had to move on. But we got the things started. The meetings were for believers.

We had good prayer meetings. The little assembly attended well. Then some attended from the other meetings. And God, in His mercy, gathered on some of them out into the right assembly in Berlin. Again, I'm speaking as plainly as an Irishman can do it and as you expect me for to do it.

After I left, blessing continued. And I got three letters from three different places saying that the meetings never really began until I left. I wrote back and I said, quite possible, the praise of the preacher wouldn't allow God to work.

So when I trailed out then, there were blessings assaulted and they said they didn't know the value of the meetings while they were going on. Now then, I'm going to stop in a few minutes. I'm not going to go out to a huge vigil just now, but I'm going to go up to an extreme north to a place called Rotterdam.

Ministry Among the Maori

That is where the Maori, the Maori, that's a big word. I don't think I'm pronouncing it right, but you don't know whether I am or not. They are the descendants of the aboriginals of New Zealand. Or in another word, their ancestors were the original owners of New Zealand and they were suffragettes to a big division.

Some of them are not yet. Quite a lot of them are civilized. Quite a lot of them are educated. And what I want to tell you, there's two brethren walking up there, one an Englishman, God bless him. And his name is, his name is Thompson and he comes from Clonkeen Assembly in County Huntsville.

I say again, you meet brethren from the north of Ireland every place you go and I will tell you at the Sunday School conference that you will never know the value of Sunday School work in the north of Ireland.

Never. So we went up amongst the Maori. They had built a little new hall, beautiful halls, in all those places that I refer. Beautiful halls. And they had built a beautiful hall and all those poor Maori are only working people except two Englishmen, their farmers, and they opened the new hall all three of them.

That was a good thing to me. They were talking about opening a new hall and opening a new hall and opening a new hall. So I said one Sunday morning, I was there half an hour before baking of bread. I said, come on brethren, we'll open the new hall.

There was only half a roof on it so we got in and we had a good little tram with them and that was another hall that we opened before it was built. We did the same elsewhere. Now then, we had a real good morning meeting there.

We had six meetings in four different places and while there were four believers at the same time, God gave us help in the gospel. They are good figures, they listen well. They have a lot of old silly idols and things like that which nearly stick in me to look at them but we didn't look at them.

And then the last meeting we had was in a wool shed. That's where they dry the wool. New Zealand is covered with sheep from one end to another. Coming down in a plane in one place in New Zealand, I looked out of the window and I said, full of field, full of mushrooms.

But when I got down low enough, I found it was full of sheep. Now in this hall, it was where they dry the wool for the sheep. And like they had bulls of hay for sheep. They told me they were very comfortable.

I preached the gospel to them just the same as I do here. They sang a hymn for me. I didn't know a word they were saying. They understand English as well as their own language. I don't know what you would call their own language.

Prayer for Continued Gospel Work

In that place, I opened up through there, those brethren, that man and his son-in-law in New Zealand, they're going on well for God and on good lives. And in visiting from house to house, I'm finished now.

Please remember those two dear brethren at the extreme north of New Zealand, living away and visiting the home and at a good assembly and it's prospering as well. Please remember them as you pray. Just say the two men that Brother Knox referred to and I can assure you they'll appreciate it.

So, the five months I spent in New Zealand on account of the deep need there, much longer than I spent in other places where there was not so much need. I'm very thankful to God that I went to New Zealand.

I'm thankful to God I went to the other places and candidly I'm thankful to God to get home again to the good old north of Ireland. God bless you all.