Christian Biographies

Christian Biography as an Encouragement to Faith

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. I think five shows a week, 52 weeks a year. What does that give us? That�s 260 shows a year times three, so 260 times three, what would that give us?

That would give us 780 shows, and now we�re moving into September, probably another 20. This is about show 800. Can you imagine 800 shows? That�s crazy. I don�t know what�s going to happen. I�ll probably have to grow my hair out like Steve Furtick or something to celebrate the thousandth show.

Maybe that would be a good stunt. Good stunt. We need stunts for this show. Let�s see. What else do I want to say? Thanks to Todd Friel, got to host Wretched Radio at the end of September. That was a lot of fun.

It�s fun to do that. I hope it�s going to be fun because right now it�s in the middle of September, and so I haven�t taped the show yet, so I�d like to know what I�m going to talk about. What will I talk about?

Thank you to Todd for the offer, though. I�m glad for that, and who else can I thank? Do not be surprised. You need to go to that website. I should look again. I think her name is Erin. You need to go to that site.

Do not be surprised. I think we�re actually no compromises on the tickler thing to the right, the scrolling down thing where every message from No Compromise pops up there as sites to be avoided. That�s not true.

So anyway, I like that ministry. Do not be surprised because I can just go there and see the weekly roundup and see the latest crazy things going on with Stephen Furtick or, I don�t know, any of the other groups, people who have groupies.

I can find out what�s going on with James McDonnell or anybody else. So today I�d like to talk about Christian biography. Christian biography. Now, sometimes we have to do the no-co show and we have to do the, you know, loco for no-co and have to go after people, and it�s not that fun, but that just goes with the show named No Compromise.

By the way, I still have to sue R .C. Sproul because he�s got the national conference this year, No Compromise, standing for truth in a biblical Bible-less age. I love to read Christian biographies, and in the past I�ve tried to encourage you to read Christian biographies as well.

And so I�m going to play off Derek Prime�s article in the Banner of Truth, July 2012. By the way, you should subscribe to Banner of Truth. It�s a small little, I think it comes out once a month or once every two months.

It�s not really that cheap. I think it�s three, four bucks, but it�s worth it. If I was S. Lewis Johnson, I would say I take that magazine, meaning I subscribe to it. But Christian biographies in general are very, very encouraging and motivational.

Let�s talk about encouraging first. By the way, you have to actually have real Christian biographies. You can�t have, you know, there are some bikers, one, two, three, four. Wow, that was fast. You have to have people who are really Christians.

So if you are reading the biography of Finney, this wouldn�t count for the encouraging or motivating. It might count for the discouraging. Biographies of any person, pretty interesting. But I�m talking specifically today, people who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, who believe in the Bible�s view of Jesus.

And so if it�s Billy Sunday or Finney or someone like that, well, I�m not really talking about that. I�m talking about real Christians of all denominations, whether you�re reading Wesley, the Methodist, or Anglicans like J .C. Ryle, or Presbyterians like John Payton, or Congregationalists like Jonathan Edwards, or Baptists like Charles Spurgeon.

The issue is how they have been used by God in spite of their weaknesses, because they were just regular people, right? They were sinners who had Adam�s sin credited to their account. They were by nature then sinful as a consequence of Adam�s sin.

And they were creatures, right, fallen, frail, sinful creatures, yet. But God being rich in mercy, as Ephesians chapter 2 would say, God used them for His glory. And it�s an amazing thing that God could use anyone in His program, anyone for His kingdom.

And if you�ve got a lady like Mary Slessor, who�s Scottish and goes into the heart of Africa and rescues, I believe if memory serves me, 51 sets of twins. And that particular place in Africa, twins were thought to be demon-possessed, so they just would go take the babies out and set them in the wild so the panthers and other things would just eat them, kill them.

If it wasn�t the panther, it would be starvation or a snake or something. And she rescued 51 sets of twins. They called her White Maw. And she would go right up to some of these chiefs and chieftains and wouldn�t take any guff from them.

I don�t know if guff is a Presbyterian Scottish word or not, but Carl Truman, he would know. By the way, you�ve got to get those tapes, cassettes, audios, 8-tracks, reel-to-reel messages when Carl was at Bethlehem Bible Church.

So Christian biographies, it doesn�t matter if they�re regarding men or women. If you would like to read The Hiding Place and Corrie Ten Boom, that would be another excellent one that is about a woman, John Payton�s wife, Margaret Payton.

There�s an excellent Banner of Truth book about Margaret Payton and how she was used of the Lord alongside of her husband John. I think husband John. For some reason, I want to say she�s the daughter, but nonetheless, I�m looking at it right now.

It�s over there. So we�re going to talk about encouragement that comes from Christian biographies. We are also going to talk about motivation that comes from Christian biographies as well. Even though we should be encouraged that God uses weak people and frail people from James Pettigrew Boyce to William Tyndale to Augustine of Hippo or Martin Lloyd-Jones or Martin Luther, they are frail, they were frail, and we should be motivated to do for the kingdom in light of our great salvation.

Of course, we�re very good at doing things. We�re really good at law. It�s the gospel that strikes us as strange. We are perfect when it comes to being little Martha Stewart�s doing things and crafting things.

Of course, we need primarily the gospel, tells us what God has done. It�s pretty amazing to think that after sin, there was good news, Genesis 3 .15, in the pre-gospel gospel, the first gospel we like to call it, the proto-evangelical.

I�m not trying to say in any way, shape, or form that when you study biographies, it�s going to help you with your moralistic impetus. No, it will help you responding with gratitude for the grace that has been given to you by God the Father in the person of Jesus Christ.

So of course, we want to make that distinction. You don�t read biographies to then say, �I�ve got to do, do, do, do. Well, you read the biographies, and if they�re written well, and some are autobiographies, and if they�re written well, and written from a biblical, theological, Christological perspective, then there�ll be gospel in those biographies.

So when you read a new biography, Jonathan Edwards by Ian Murray, Banner of Truth, there will be plenty of gospel indicatives. There will be plenty of declarations of the good news and what Jesus did on Calvary with his work of reconciliation, with his work of redemption, as he was the ransom, as he propitiated the Father�s wrath, as he was raised from the dead, as he lived a perfect life, being born under the law.

There will be a lot of that. But the response to the gospel, living in light of the gospel, if you think of Heidelberg Catechism, you have guilt, grace, and gratitude. So if you�ve got great guilt and greater grace, then the response should be one of gratefulness, thankfulness.

And these biographies, when you read the William Carey biography by S. Pearson Carey, you�re going to be motivated not to please God to keep your salvation, not to please God to earn your salvation, but to live in light of your great Savior and please Him by being grateful and thankful and telling others about Christ Jesus.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, I�m trying to motivate you to read some Christian biographies. Now, there are other books to read. Maybe you need to read some systematic theology books. We talked about B .B. Warfield a short time ago.

That is true, and you need to be well-rounded theologically. But these biographies are good supplements. If you had to pick theology books or biographies, you probably should read theology books first.

But sprinkle in some biographies. Sometimes I read biographies because they require less thinking than theological books. I�ve been reading a lot of old life Presbyterian books, and it requires some thinking.

Some Westminster Seminary books from Escondido and Scott Clark�s books, they require thinking. And sometimes I�m just tired, and I can tell at 52 years of age, I�m more tired than I�m not. I�m more tired than I�m less tired.

So these are good. I think it was on Sunday nights. It was either Lloyd-Jones or it was Spurgeon. Maybe it was both. They would come home after preaching Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then their wives, either Mrs. Spurgeon or Mrs. Lloyd-Jones, would read biographies to their respective husbands.

So there are times that it�s really good to read some of these biographies, especially when you just can�t process all this other stuff. Now maybe one of my favorite books of all time, and it�s a two-volume so I�d have to say books, is George Whitefield, that�s what it�s called, published by Banner of Truth, Arnold Dalimore.

Two volumes, pretty pricey. I want to say it�s going to cost you $60, $80, $100. They�re bound well and they will last and they are brilliant books. You understand history better, theology better, Whitefield better, what was going on in America better.

Those are two books that you have to read sometime. George Whitefield by Arnold Dalimore. Those would be up in my top 10 books of all time. I should probably pull those out and do a show on them. I don�t think I finished my top 10 books yet here on No Compromise Radio.

I think I just kind of ran out of gas. So today we�re talking about reading Christian biographies. And so let me refer to you, refer you to, rather, Derek Prime�s article, Christian Biography, A Neglected Christian Resource.

And he gave this message at the Banner of Truth Trust Christian Resources Exhibition in Ingleston, Edinburgh. And so he was telling a little bit about why he reads Christian biography. And let me just go through these that he said and I�ll give my own Abendrothian perspective.

The Benefits of Christian Biographies

First, these are benefits to Christian biographies. First, they often prove to be the most helpful books. Helpful books. In them you see orthodox principles, Christian tempers, and holy duties in lovely union and vigorous operation.

He there is quoting Benjamin Brook in the book called The Lives of Puritans. And so these are helpful books. It�d kind of be bad if you were reading damaging books. And there are many damaging books out these days and books I don�t even want to plug that are bestsellers that are basically pornography and other things.

These are helpful books. Secondly, Prime said, biographies provide easy and pleasant reading. See, I was saying that before. I could have written this article. Well, maybe not. You read about real people, real lives, living in light of the real resurrected Savior.

And it is easy reading, pleasant reading, because as you watch the lives of people, you see providence working. And so people today want to say, God tell me something to do right now. And they don�t understand depravity.

They don�t understand anthropology. They don�t understand pneumatology. There�s lots of things they don�t understand. Bibliology. But looking backward, you can see, as it�s been quoted oftentimes, that history is in fact God�s story or his story.

And so when you watch a life or you look at a life from the perspective of a biography, you can see God�s hand was working all the time. It didn�t seem like God�s purposes were coming about when Joseph in the Bible in Genesis chapter 37 and 50 was in jail or in the pit where his brothers put him.

But God perfectly, providentially, sovereignly was working as he determined exactly where Joseph should be, where he should be, when he should be, how he should be in that particular position. And then it worked out perfectly as Joseph was able to provide for his family in the midst of the famine.

And he says in Genesis chapter 50, you guys had evil intentions, you guys meaning my brothers, but what you meant for evil, God meant for what? Good. And you can see some of these great saints, men and women, how they have even made mistakes, and yet God has turned it into something good.

Oh, they were responsible for what they did. But the theme that you see in Scripture is found, actualized in the lives of people. So when you read a William Tyndale book or a Thomas Cramner book, I'm just looking over at some of my books over here, you'll say to yourself, I see God working.

And actually it motivates me as well because sometimes people are paralyzed and they cannot make a decision. And so they don't make a decision. Well, don't act presumptuously. I'm not after that. But sometimes you just need to make a decision and you should say to yourself, and my heavenly Father will clean it up if I make the wrong decision.

It seems like it's the right decision. And so I need to just act. And so when you read a John Bunyan biography or a John Newton biography, through many dangers, you've got to read that book. I cannot believe how often God kept John Newton, the unregenerate slave trader alive so that he would believe.

God keeps the unregenerate elect alive long enough for them to believe because every elect person, every person whom the Father has chosen will come to belief because Jesus has died for their sins and the Spirit will do what the Father and the Son have determined because there is one God, one purpose.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about reading biographies, Christian biographies in particular. Number three, Derek Prime said, biographies can provide spiritual stimulus. That's exactly what we've been talking about.

When you read David Brainerd's biography, that's going to motivate you. Sometimes it's going to depress you. I wouldn't suggest reading that if you're a brand new Christian. But when you read someone, discuss another person, again, they aren't the heroes.

Their Savior is the hero. If you read Fox's Book of Martyrs, you are motivated. You are thinking God is faithful to the end. Eternal things seem more real to you, or they should. You should have, as Prime said, a greater singleness of eye to God's glory.

And so they are very stimulating. They're thought-provoking how God could do what he did in these people's lives. And similarly to Joseph, why do you think in Genesis chapter 37 to 50, the theme of the providence of God, which is the theme of those chapters, is so obvious?

Well, it's obvious to us the reader. It might not have been obvious to Joseph at the time, but it's obvious to us because sometimes in our very lives, like Joseph, from our perspective, it doesn't seem like God is sovereignly ruling and reigning through sin, through trouble, through trial, through suffering, through anything else.

God causing everything to work together for good to those who love him and those who are called according to his purposes. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. I'm working on our S. Lewis Johnson commentary on editing and adapting his material in Romans 8 at the moment, and Romans 8 .28 is fascinating.

How do you encourage suffering people? Well, you talk about the sovereign decree of God. And so it's obvious when you read a biography about Luther and how God kept him alive when at any moment, if he would have been taken captive by the Roman Catholic Church, they would have killed him.

They would have just taken him down to Rome, put him in that prison down on the, is it the Tigris? I don't know what it is. I've been there, but I can't remember the name. And he would have just, he would have been rotting to death, and that would have been the end of Luther.

But God providentially keeps him alive. And then you read and you think to yourself, yes, and I serve the same God, the same God that made Luther born again, gave him new life, gave me new life. And he loves me like he loves Luther, because he loves me as much as he loves his son.

And I'm in Christ and there's union with Christ. So today on No Compromise Radio, Christian biographies. By the way, if you're close to the church here, you can come over and go to our biography sections and just check those books out and read them for free.

You can also, if you're a Massachusetts resident, sign up at your local library for books and search on CW Mars, find the books, say send to this library, have them call me and go there and read the book for free.

Warnings, Balance, and Spiritual Success

Fourthly, the fourth benefit of reading Christian biography. Biographies may prove us with necessary and timely spiritual warnings. That is very true. These warn us, he says here. Similarly, having a high regard for the Navigators and their founder, Dawson Trotman, I read with interest his biography.

But the lesson I remember most was his mistake when it came to leadership. He had difficulty delegating responsibility. He taught never do anything someone else can or will do when there is so much others, when there is so much others cannot or will not do.

However, in practice, he insisted on making all the decisions personally down to the color of paint for storage shelves and the choice of choice in paper and ink for every printing job. The Navigator staff loved him even enough to cope with such idiosyncratic behaviors, but he made it difficult for his colleagues.

So there are good warnings when we think of this. Fifthly, according to Derek Prime, biographies provide a spiritual balance in our reading of theology. I think that's excellent. Spiritual balance. And so when you, let's see what he says, I had never heard of him before, but I began to read him and I soon discovered you cannot read a page of Jonathan Edwards without feeling very small indeed.

The best antidote to the poison of false knowledge is to read a biography like that of Edwards or Whitfield or Fletchler or Madly, balancing our theological reading. Sixth, biographies help us to realize the reality and benefits of Christian experience.

Okay, seven. I'm going fast now because, hey, this is a 24-minute show and we've got to move. Seventh, biographies may reveal and underline the source of spiritual success. Did I say spiritual? Spiritual, spiritual, the pure milk of the word.

Leslie Lyle, the biographer of the Chinese man named Dr. Sung, explained how, quote, he turned to Christian biography to investigate the secret of success of great Christians in the past. He determined to share their secrets and began to give himself increasingly to prayer in his search for God.

Okay, going back to who Christ is, success is not by how hard we work or how much we have the sola bootstraps mentality, but back to our abiding in who Jesus is. And eighth, finally, biographies can inspire us, and that is true whether we are old or young.

You can read some of the younger folks. I stood by David Brainerd's grave the other day with Carl Truman and Luke and Bob Andrzejczyk, and you think to yourself, at 29 years old, Robert Murray McShane, 29 years old when he died.

Henry Martin, a missionary to India, wrote in his diary, awful struggle in my soul. In reading, this is Bonar, what he wrote about Henry Martin, in reading Henry Martin saw that I must give up all earthly friends, the most loved even, if I should be called by God to such work as he and other lands.

Spurgeon testified to the inspiration he received from reading about Whitefield. Spurgeon said there is no end to the interest which attaches to such a man as George Whitefield. Often, as I have read his life, I am conscious of the distinct quickening whenever I turn to it.

He lived, all caps. Other men seem to be only half alive, but Whitefield was all life, fire, wind, force. My own model, if I may have such a thing and do subordination to my Lord, is George Whitefield.

But with unequal steps must I follow in his glorious tract. So today on No Compromise Radio, super simple Christian biographies, neglected Christian resources by Derek Prime in the Banner of Truth book motivated me to say we should do a positive, encouraging, K-love kind of show to say you should read Christian biographies.

And short of me saying something about Finney and Billy Sunday, see I didn't even say anything negative. There's nothing negative. Everything was just copacetic, nice, straight ahead. You want to get some Christian biographies.

Maybe you start with Fox's Book of Martyrs. That would be very, very helpful. Maybe you start with William Carey, S. Perry Carey's book. Maybe you start with Tyndale's account, the newest Tyndale book written by Daniels, I believe.

Maybe you start with—let's see, where is that Tyndale one? McNeil, Daniel, I think it's Daniel. Anyway, this is Mike Avendroth, NoCompromiseRadio .com.