Aug. 7, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Mike Gaydosh on “The Life & Legacy of Edward Payson/Brother Bryan Mission”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this seventh day of August 2015 and it's my honor and privilege to welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron, my very first pastor as a born -again

Christian when I was immersed in the waters of baptism about 30 years ago.

Pastor Mike Gaydosh was the pastor who plunged me beneath those waters and who was my pastor until the late 90s approximately and he has remained a dear and close friend all the years since and it's my honor and privilege to have him back.

He is the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books and their website is solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com and Solid Ground Christian Books is one of the sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, so we urge you to please, when you're ordering books, please try to utilize

Solid Ground Christian Books as often as possible when they have what you are indeed looking for, especially if you know that we are promoting a book that has been published by Solid Ground Christian Books, then there'll be no mystery.

Just go to their website, solid -ground -books .com and order whatever it is we are discussing and it's my honor and privilege, as I said, to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Michael Gaydosh.

Well, thank you, Brother Chris. I appreciate the opportunity once again to be able to speak with you and to be able to address some very important subjects as we would consider the lives of two godly men from many years ago today.

And we are going to be discussing during these two hours, the first hour we are discussing the life and legacy of Edward Payson, who was born in 1783 and went home to be with the

Lord in 1827, and he is perhaps the greatest American minister of the first half of the 19th century, arguably, at least.

And the second hour, 5 to 6 p .m. today, we are going to be discussing the namesake of the

Brother Brian mission. And the Brother Brian mission has been in existence since 1940, serving the men of Birmingham in need of physical, spiritual, and emotional help, and it's been my guest,

Mike Gaydosh's, honor to preach at this mission each week on Friday evenings for more than 10 years, and we are going to be discussing

Brother Brian, the namesake of this mission. If you have any questions that you would like to ask, not only regarding the two great men that we are discussing, whose lives and legacies we are discussing, but anything regarding solid ground

Christian books in general, anything regarding great heroes of the faith or Christian literature, you may feel free to email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and you will also, this is some good news here for you, the first emailed question for the first hour, whoever writes that question that's good enough to be read on air, receives a free copy of A Legacy of a

Legend, Spiritual Treasures from the Heart of Edward Payson, and the first listener to send him an email with a question good enough to be read on air, the second hour receives a free copy of Religion in Shoes, The Life and Ministry of Brother Brian of Birmingham.

Say that 20 times twice, fast. And so obviously, if you are emailing us, please include your mailing address.

And as always, we really look forward to receiving questions from listeners overseas, but typically we restrict the free book giveaways to those in the

United States, so we apologize to those in Canada and those overseas.

We cannot send out free books because the costs of the shipping charges for overseas mount up pretty quickly and are pretty exorbitant, and we are quite often these days giving away free books.

So we look forward to hearing from you nonetheless at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And first of all, for those of our listeners who are listening to Iron Trepans Iron for the very first time, have not heard you yet on the program,

Mike, why don't you give our listeners a little overview of Solid Ground Christian Books? Solid Ground Christian Books began 14 years ago, and the purpose that we began was to bring back into print works that once were used of God but have fallen off the face of the earth.

In many cases, they're books that had been bestsellers and God had used mightily in the 19th century, but never saw the light of day in the 20th century, and we've been able to bring some of those books back into print again for the first time, in some cases in over a hundred years.

But in more recent years, we have started to do new books with living authors, and so we have now published about 350 different titles in the last 14 years.

And while it's a challenge to keep the ministry going, God has continued to bless us and send us new customers almost on a daily basis.

We have customers all over the world. We ship out every week books to Australia, to New Zealand, to Singapore, and in many other far parts of the earth, and we're very grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve the people of God wherever they may be found.

You know, before we go into the very specific topic that we have for the first hour on Edward Payson, praying

Payson as he is fondly known, there are people, they say this with hymnals, and they say this with books.

I've heard people even visiting the former church I was a member of on Long Island, and they say, no wonder

Calvinism isn't catching on. I mean, you people just are so dead. You're singing from these old hymnals with irrelevant lyrics, and there's nothing fresh.

There's no excitement in the Holy Ghost, and then you're pushing all these books by dead white guys from hundreds of years ago, and it's just irrelevant, and it's boring, and all that nonsense that you hear from time to time.

What do you have to say to people like that who think voices from the past are irrelevant, and keeping in mind, obviously,

Solid Ground Christian Books even publishes new books by contemporary authors, and there are some wonderful, powerful, brilliant men saying things very relevant to the burning issues of our day who are with us at this time, but tell us something about the words from the past, both in the pages of literature and in song.

Well, I think that there are some points that people make when there are some churches, some

Reformed churches, that seem to be literally stuck in the 1800s or 1700s, and really have lost the vibrancy of, for instance, some of the great new hymns that have been recently done.

I don't think that God's blessing of the Church in regards to music ended in the 1700s or 1800s.

It would be foolish to ignore those great works in the past, but in the same way,

I think it's foolish to ignore the fact that God and the Holy Spirit are at work in the

Church today, and we need discernment to make sure that the things that we're singing are those that will stand the test of time.

But there is a genuine and even legitimate criticism that some people make of Reformed churches that we do need to be willing to look carefully at ourselves and make sure that these things are not true.

The passage that your whole program is based on in Proverbs, I believe, is a passage that's perfect for both solid -ground

Christian books and even our discussions today of these two dead white men.

The concept of, you know, walking with wise men will be wise, is not only referring to our present relationships, which of course it does relate to that, but it also relates to our relationships with people from the past whom we can relate to by interacting with their words.

I mean, the Scriptures, the most recent Scripture that we have is nearly 2 ,000 years old, and yet we find no difficulty in reading and benefiting from the inspired

Scriptures. Now, we're not saying, of course, that Edward Payson's writings or the ministry of Brother Brian of Birmingham were inspired in the way that the

New Testament and Old Testament were, that's not what we're saying, but what we are saying is that we can learn from those in the past, and while it's true that modern people have much to say, so do those who have gone before us.

C .S. Lewis said he believed that it was a good practice for a person, before he reads a second new book, to go back and read an old book first.

He felt that it was always a beneficial thing to have the, as it were, the winds of time.

He said it this way, it's a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one until you have read an old one in between.

And his purpose in that was, again, to have the times passing through our spirits so that we're not just men of today, but we're also people who are aware of where we have come from.

I think, sadly, our country is adrift today in moral relativism because we've lost sight of where we came from, and so anything that's new is considered good, and of course that's a great tragedy.

And isn't it interesting, at least I find this, I don't know if you agree or not, but I find that the best things that are written today are usually refutations of popular theology today.

Yeah, that's true. That's true in many cases, and I've also found many times the men that I have most benefited from their writings are,

I will look at their bibliography and their footnotes, and I will find men who are feeding themselves on the riches of the past.

I remember the first time I read something by Jerry Bridges. I was so impressed with his consistent quotation of men like John Owen and Jonathan Edwards, and when

I first read Sinclair Ferguson, it was the same thing. And so I find that the men who speak most to the present are men who have been deeply rooted in the historic past, and of course the confessions and the creeds of the

Church in history, all of these things just deeply root the people of God onto solid foundations.

And that's one of the reasons why we have the name Solid Ground Christian Books. Our desire is that people would have confidence that when they come to us that they will be on solid ground and be able to be confident that what they're receiving is going to be good for their souls.

Well here is a word from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th century

Prince of Preachers, that seems to be, with few exceptions, greatly loved spanning the denominational spectrum.

Even people that would have a lot of differences with him in theology uphold him as a hero.

And Charles Spurgeon, this is especially for those who believe that I don't need anything but my

Bible and I'm just going to go off into the woods with my Bible, me, myself, and my Bible. And Charles Spurgeon said, give yourself unto reading.

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. And that is just one of the many gems from Charles Spurgeon in regard to that subject.

And it's the height of arrogance to think that you don't need to ever read, even though it is true, it's not essential for salvation that you read anything else but the

Bible. But the fact of the matter is when you say,

I don't need any books, you are claiming in arrogance, even if it's unconsciously, you're claiming in the height of arrogance,

I don't need a teacher. Yeah, that's exactly right. We've talked about this before, that people who would say, well,

I only need the Bible, I should only read the Bible, there shouldn't be anything else. Well, if they really believe that, well, then they shouldn't go and sit under a sermon, because unless the pastor simply gets up and reads the

Bible for 40 minutes, as soon as he makes comments, as soon as he starts to elaborate on those verses, now those are the words of man.

And the only difference between a man preaching and expounding the words, and a man putting those words into print, is that he has an opportunity to be able to actually go back over and make sure that every word he says is accurate.

Many people do not know that the Spurgeon sermons that we have, that are bound in the volumes of the

Metropolitan Tabernacle, those are not exactly verbatim the sermon that he preached.

Because what Spurgeon would do is, and because he knew that his sermons were going to be printed and they were going to be distributed throughout the world.

In fact, his sermons were found in the New York newspapers the next week after he had preached them.

And so what Spurgeon would do, he had a minuensis who would take down in shorthand his sermon verbatim.

He would then take the shorthand, and he would actually type it out, give it to Spurgeon.

Spurgeon would then go over every line, and if there was anything that he had said that he didn't feel was clear enough, he would cross it out and replace it.

And then he would go through that entire sermon, line by line, until he got it exactly right.

And so, I mean, that's how serious Spurgeon was to make sure that what was going to be put in print was something that he could stand behind, even more so than the actual preached sermon that he had given in the

Metropolitan Tabernacle just the night before, or the morning before. I've left you speechless,

Chris. I forgot that I had my mute button on, because I noticed that when my mute button is on, you sound clearer in my headphones for some reason.

But it also cuts down on the background noise in the studio here. And, of course, many of my listeners would hope that I forget to take my mute button off all the time.

In fact, perhaps some of them even want a fire to begin in the studio here. But obviously, you chose the two men that you wanted to pay tribute to today, because you believe that our listeners could gain much from hearing their stories and learning of their legacies.

And neither of these two are very well known. In fact, they're probably completely unknown to the majority of Christians.

In fact, I don't even need to put the word probably. They are completely unknown to the majority of Christians, with the exception of perhaps a minority of Reformed believers.

But having said that, you believe nonetheless that Edward Payson, who, as I said, was born in 1783 and went home to be with Christ in 1827, you believe he is perhaps the greatest

American minister of the first half of the 19th century. Well, he was quite a remarkable man.

Oddly enough, in today's day, his daughter is probably better known than he is.

And his daughter is Elizabeth Prentiss. That's one of his daughters. He had eight children. He and his wife had eight children.

And Elizabeth Prentiss is the author of the novel Stepping Heavenward. She is the author of Stepping Heavenward, as well as many hymns.

The most popular and most famous of is More Love to Thee, O Christ, More Love to Thee.

And so he is actually, it's kind of odd that he is now known as the father of Elizabeth Prentiss.

And whereas in his day, just to give an idea of how incredibly popular a man he was, especially considering he lived in Portland, Maine, his congregation was not in the thousands.

There weren't churches in America at that time that would be like that. But we are told that there were,

I thought it was hundreds, but I've been corrected. And there were apparently thousands of people who named their sons

Edward Payson, not because they were related to him, but because their desire was that their sons would grow to be a man of God, like Edward Payson was.

His nickname, as you've mentioned earlier, was Praying Payson of Portland, Maine.

And that's what he was most known for. He was a man of prayer.

And people have said that while you heard him preach, you recognized clearly he was preaching the

Word of God with power. But when he turned to prayer, there were men who were in his presence, they said that when you opened your eyes and found yourself back on the earth, you were greatly disappointed, because he had literally carried you up to the throne of heaven.

And his life was a life of prayer. It was a life of humility.

He was a gifted man. He was, as you said, he was born in 1783. His father,

Seth Payson, was a congregational pastor in Rindge, New Hampshire. And from the very earliest age,

Edward showed tremendous thirst for knowledge. It was the ruling passion of his soul. And when he was 17, his father enrolled him at Harvard as a sophomore.

He skipped his freshman year, and he graduated in 1803. His classmates used to make fun of him because of his voracious reading, and they said in jest that he had read every book in the

Harvard library. And we are told it was actually the death of his brother in 1804 that was decisive in the change and the conversion and a new relationship with Christ.

He had written to his mother, I'm so happy I cannot possibly think nor write of anything else.

He was called to be the pastor in 1807 of the Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. He remained there and served in that one congregation until his death in 1827.

He was but 44 years old when he died. Ian Murray, in his book

Revival and Revivalism, the Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750 to 1858, he actually has a large section in his book on the ministry of Edward Payson, and he speaks extremely highly of Payson.

Payson's ministry from 1807 to 1827 experienced several outpourings of the

Holy Spirit in revival. He was ordained in 1807, and in 1810 there were 42 people added to his church by conversion.

And we are told in January of 1814 he had been preaching at another church and he returned home to Portland and he wrote in a letter to his mother as follows,

I came home thoroughly drenched by the shower of divine influences which began to fall at this previous church and soon found that the cloud had followed me home and was beginning to pour itself down upon my people.

Instead of a fast, we appointed a season of thanksgiving. A blessing seemed to follow it.

I then invited the young men of the parish to come to my house on Sabbath evening for religious purposes.

The church thought none would come. I expected 20 at most.

The first evening 40 came, the second 60, and the third 70.

This was the last Sabbath. Six stopped after the rest were dismissed to converse more particularly respecting divine things.

About 30 persons are known to be seriously inquiring and there is every appearance that the work is spreading.

Meanwhile I'm so ashamed, so rejoiced, so astonished to see what

God is doing that I can scarcely get an hour's sleep. These men who live periods of revival like this experience things that we just have never experienced.

And I remember Jeff Thomas preaching a powerful sermon years ago at a Banner of Truth conference and anybody who was there at that sermon remembers the sermon

I'm talking about and it was Jeff Thomas has preached some of the most powerful sermons that I've ever heard and I recall at the end of that sermon you could hear a pin drop and no one said a word after the sermon.

Everybody, there were hundreds of ministers that were there and it was actually there not far from you in Pennsylvania and every one of us walked out of that place absolutely silenced and I remember him beginning that sermon by saying that he was at the time,

I don't remember exact age he was, but I know that he was at that time in his I think in his late 50s early 60s and he gave his age and he said

I've been pastoring for 35 years and he says I have yet to experience one day like the hundreds of days that were experienced by men like Edward Payson and Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and Charles Spurgeon and I'll tell you when you read about these men who lived through, preached through, ministered through revival, you realize how far we have fallen and it gives us a hunger and a desire to be able to experience one of those days like those men experienced in their lives.

Well you know that's amazing to have such accolades said about Edward Payson when he only lived to 44 years of age.

Correct, and he only was a pastor for 20 because he became pastor in 1807, died in 1827 and so you're right in fact the truth is many of the men whom we read to great prophet like Robert Murray McShane, like David Brainerd, are men who died at a very young age.

I think Brainerd and Robert Murray McShane both died in their 20s and yet the way they lived their lives, they lived their lives in such a way they were a burning bright light.

Our Lord of course died when he was 33. John the Baptist died when he was 32 or 33.

Many of the great men of the faith through the years have died at a young age.

Spurgeon was only in his 50s, Edwards was in his 50s and so it wasn't really that unusual that a man like Payson would have died as young as he did.

Well we have our first winner for the Legacy of a

Legend, Spiritual Treasure from the Heart of Edward Payson. I'm glad this person included their last name and address because his name is

Mike and I thought that you might be trying to prevent somebody from getting a free book. Mike from Fort Myers, Florida says,

Hello Mike, thank you for your excellent bookstore. My question to you is this, how is it that you go about your research and discovering the very fine works of so many pastors and theologians of the past?

That's an excellent question. Yeah, that's a good question. I've been asked that question many times and my simple answer is that there's no simple answer.

I have probably published, I would say books

I've probably published maybe in a dozen different, for a dozen different reasons and a dozen different ways.

One is I have books recommended to me by people that I respect that I've had. I'll ask men all the time and say, are there books that you've read, books that have ministered to your soul that are not available anymore?

And I will get recommendations that way or sometimes even without me even asking the question, people knowing that I'm a publisher will say,

Mike, have you ever considered publishing? And then they give me the so -and -so. One of the most famous books that I've published is the volume of Pastor's Sketches by Ichabod Spencer and that book came to me through the means of Steve Martin, who was pastoring at that time at Heritage Church.

He's also a wild and crazy guy, I understand. Yeah, I was introduced to Steve Martin.

I'll say though that Steve Martin I know is the funny one, and which is really true.

But anyway, Steve actually sent a photocopy of the book's Pastor's Sketches to me, but he actually was given a copy by David Vaughan, who has been a longtime missionary in France.

David is actually the one that discovered Pastor's Sketches. He sent a copy to Steve Martin, who sent a copy to me, encouraging me to publish it.

At that time I was still on Long Island, but shortly after relocated to Birmingham and began

Solid Ground, and actually the first book I published was Pastor's Sketches. And so there are really a variety of ways.

Many times what I'll do is I will get an old book, and many times you'll find in these old books, and I'm speaking old, like 1800s, you'll find an old book.

They'll have anywhere from 16 to 32 pages of advertisements at the end of those books, and they'll have this long list of titles by either the same author, by different authors.

Sometimes they'll even have commendations or recommendations of the books, descriptions even, sometimes the table of contents.

And so, you know, I may look there and I say, wow, that looks like a very interesting book, and I'll do some research and get a hold of a copy of it, and then boom,

I get it. And then if I really think that it's useful, I'll make a copy and do it.

So I'm not the great discoverer so much. I've sometimes just come across the book that blessed me many years ago, and it's been long out of print, and I'll bring it back again.

So there really are a variety of ways in which the Lord has brought these books to me. Well, we're going to go to our first station break.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, we're out of the free books for the first hour, but we would still love to hear from you.

So now our friends from overseas, feel free to write if you'd like, or from Canada, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Any question about our subject or on solid grand

Christian books, Christian publishing, author or book recommendations, anything involving

Reformed theology or Reformed Baptist distinctives, feel free to write us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And please include at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

United States. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions as we continue our discussion with Mike Gaydos of Solid Grand Christian Books right after these messages, so don't go away.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Mike Gaydosch, the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books.

Their website is solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

And today we are discussing the life and legacy of Edward Payson.

And according to our guest, Edward Payson is arguably the greatest

American minister of the first half of the 19th century. And that is no small compliment considering the giants of the faith that were alive during those days.

And our email address, if you have a question for us, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

The second hour of our broadcast, we are going to be discussing the namesake of Brother Brian's mission,

Brother Brian himself. And we are going to be letting you know exactly who he is and why he has become a legendary name in Birmingham.

And we hope that you join us for that second hour as well. And perhaps you even know someone who may be able to make use of the

Brother Brian mission who is in desperate need of that type of an organization, or perhaps you would like to help support that organization.

But we look forward to you sending in your questions for that hour as well.

And I do want to welcome again our latest sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron, who has committed to one year of sponsoring this program, and that's

Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts. Pastor Mark Lukens has been a huge encouragement to me going back to the old days of Iron Sharpens Iron.

He was a faithful listener to the program, and now his church, which is a Reformed Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts, now they are committing to one year of sponsorship of this program, and we thank them so much.

And their website is providencebaptistchurchma .org, providencebaptistchurchma, for massachusetts .org.

And for all of our advertisers that you hear, if the ad is too quick for you to write down the website or the phone number that's announced, if you go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

ironsharpensironradio .com, where you're most likely even listening to this program via live streaming, if you scroll down to the bottom, all of our sponsors have icons there that have hyperlinks to their own websites.

So all you have to do is click on those icons or those miniature display ads, and they will take you directly to each website that you're interested in.

But anyway, we're discussing, as I said, Edward Payson, Mike, and if you could continue on why and how this man has become such a monumental figure of the faith, in your opinion, and obviously in the opinions of others, and why he has made such an impact on you, your life, and your faith.

I think that one of the things that I would like to be able to point out to your listeners is that there are a few volumes that are now available.

As a matter of fact, Sprinkle Publications has had the three volumes of the life and sermons of Edward Payson for many years.

It's a three -volume set. We make it available on our website, and it's outstanding material, absolutely outstanding.

His sermons were unbelievable. In fact, I have published a volume of his sermons entitled,

Sermons for Christian Families, and that volume is just astounding.

He has sermons, some of them are very, very tough sermons. He has a sermon on Eli as a parent, the guilt and consequences of parental unfaithfulness.

He has another one on just the devastation of David's parental failure with Absalom.

He also has Exodus 34, a sermon on the iniquity of the father's visit upon their children.

The sermons that he preaches in this volume of Sermons for Christian Families is truly extraordinary.

Joel Beeky set up that. He says, Sermons for Christian Families is Edward Payson at its best, full of wisdom and practicality, majoring in the majors, warmly devotional in spirit.

With this reprint, Payson will again be recognized as being on par with William J. and J .C. Ryle as among the best of former preachers who unabashedly proclaimed the whole counsel of God to families in an eminently charitable, challenging, and convicting manner.

As parents read these sermons for their own edification, then they should read them aloud with passion to their teenagers and older children.

And we've also published the book that I've given away today, Legacy of a Legend, Spiritual Treasure of Edward Payson.

And then there's another volume entitled The Pastor's Daughter, which is quite a remarkable book.

It was actually a book written by his daughter, Louisa Payson Hopkins. And this is a book that's titled

The Pastor's Daughter, The Way of Salvation Explained to His Daughter by Reverend Edward Payson.

And it is quite a wonderful, wonderful book. The Steve Martin that we were referring to earlier actually says about it, solid ground has done it again.

They have found another jewel lying just beneath the nose of the American church. The Pastor's Daughter is just the right antidote to the unbelief and cynicism that characterizes so many people about PKs, that is, preacher's kids, or MKs, missionary kids.

As you read, may you be given a sense of the privilege of growing up in a godly home. And I hope you pray more for the legacy left by godly fathers and mothers.

The remarkable thing about this book is the way that Payson would deal with his daughter.

She was a very brilliant young girl, and he recognized that she was struggling with self -righteousness.

And he just addressed her so pointedly and always pointed her to the cross in a very powerful way.

The Pastor's Daughter is the name of that book. So we actually have the sermons in Christian families, the legacy of a legend, as well as the

Pastor's Daughter that are all about Edward Payson. And then, of course, More Love to Thee is the life and letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, his daughter, in the opening section of that book.

She has a lengthy section about her father and his influence on her life.

And Elizabeth Prentiss, the author of Stepping Heavenward, said that her greatest experience of learning prayer that lasted all her life was when she was but four or five years old, and she wandered into her father's study and found him prostrate on the floor in a pool of sweat and tears, interceding for the lost in his city of Portland, Maine.

She said she stood there and felt as if she was in the very presence of God. And she said to her dying day, she would never forget that.

And she said she learned more about prayer from those few minutes than she did from any sermon that she ever heard on the subject.

And this is the kind of influence that this man had, because he lived so close to the throne of grace, and his sermons were powerfully used of God because they came from a man who was constantly on his knees before God.

We do have an anonymous listener who writes to us that, since you have informed us that Edward Payson's nickname was

Praying Payson, I was wondering if it would be all right to ask a question on prayer.

I have been troubled by the fact that I have to constantly bring up in prayer someone who has been very damaging to my life and to the lives of my children.

And because of the harshness of this individual and the brutality of this individual, it is difficult for me to bring this person to mind even in prayer, but I feel it is my duty because the scriptures command us to pray for our enemies.

And because of the fact that this person at one time had a vital place in my family, is it a duty of mine to routinely pray for this person, or may

I dismiss this person from my mind never to recall him to memory again because of the brutal scars that I still carry with me to this day?

That's an interesting question. It is. It is indeed. And I don't know that there is an absolutely definitive answer to that question.

I do believe that I would distinguish first of all between gathered prayer with his family and private personal prayer.

It might be more appropriate for him to pray for this individual in private and maybe not in public with his family.

At the same time, I can see value in bringing this person up in prayer before the family as a constant reminder of the responsibility that we have even as our

Lord has taught us to pray for those who despitefully use us.

And of course, there are those prayers of imprecation that are found not just in the

Old Testament, but are also found in the New Testament. I don't know that I have an absolute answer for this man and the concern that he has.

It's a tragedy that this person has had such an influence in the family and has hurt them so deeply.

I do believe, though, that praying for someone does help a lot in calming our spirit towards them.

I just remember an experience when I was a very young Christian and I was in seminary in Portland, Oregon, and I had a young man that I don't know why, but for some reason he just picked me out in the school and was trying to make my life miserable.

I found it very, very difficult to pray without this person coming before me and almost disrupting my prayers.

I don't know if I came across that passage at the time, but I do recall that I began to pray for this young man fervently every day for some time, and pretty soon, without me saying anything to him, his attitude towards me seemed to change.

And then all of a sudden when I went to prayer, I didn't have him dominating my mind anymore. It almost seemed as if what

Satan was doing is Satan would keep bringing this person up into my mind to distract and discourage me, and then once I did the right thing and he realized that every time he did that, all it did was drive me back to prayer, all of a sudden

I found both his attitude towards me changed, and then also I no longer seemed to have the problem when

I went to prayer of him troubling me any longer. Now that's just an anecdote from my own life.

It's not certainly the definitive answer, but I would just say that he needs to seek, this man needs to just continually seek the

Scriptures for his own spirit, for his own heart. There are so many different things that need to be done in terms of church discipline and proper approach, and I'm sure that he's done all of those things already, but I'm sorry

I can't give a more definitive answer than that, but I would just say continue to seek the face of God daily, and you continue to rest in him, and meditate on passages that really help your soul, like I think of Psalm 73, whom have

I in heaven but thee, and besides thee I desire nothing on the earth. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and he is my portion forever, and then the psalmist concludes

Psalm 73 by saying it is good for me to draw near to God. And I think that will always be the case.

Yeah, I don't have the quote in front of me, but I remember, and perhaps you can confirm whether this is apocryphal or not,

I have heard years ago that John Wesley had a very difficult marriage, and someone at a minister's gathering made a joke about Wesley's wife in his presence, and he said something to the effect of, you know, dear sir,

I believe that my wife has probably been a more beneficial spouse than anyone's here, because my wife keeps me on my knees in prayer more than anything else in my life.

Something like that. Yeah, I think that I've heard that same one. I didn't recall it being

Wesley, I thought it was somebody else, but you may be right about that, but yeah, the gift that God gives even a wife sometimes would, you know, it can work the opposite way, that it drives you further to your knees, more to humility, and perhaps

God can use that for this family and for this man as well, to keep them always laying hold of Christ and really trusting in Him and in Him alone and walking by faith and not by sight.

We do have a listener in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who wants to know if you actually have a retail outlet that can be visited, or is this strictly mail order?

Well, we're primarily mail order, but we do have people that stop in and visit us. We have a little kind of a walk -in store.

It's in my home, and all that information is on our website, the directions and everything, and generally we encourage people to give us a call if they're come over because sometimes

I have to be out and about. We don't always have somebody in the shop here, but we do have a walk -in, yes, we do have a walk -in store, but it is in a residential area.

It's right off of Highway 65 and north of 119, so our backyard is actually

Highway 65, so people don't realize that they're looking right at Solid Ground Christian Books.

They drive by and see the flag flying out on Highway 65, heading north of 119.

Going back to Edward Payson, since you and I have done a few shows on God's providence, providence very often, if not most often, shapes a man and has profound impact on his life.

It is used as an instrument by God to bring sinners to repentance and faith in Christ, and it's used to strengthen the faith of those who are already believers and to teach us vital lessons.

What are some more of the profound occurrences in the life of Edward Payson that shaped him to be the man that you would call one of the greatest, if not the greatest, minister in America in the earlier part of the 19th century?

Well, I would say that really what God used most in his life was the period of revival that he ministered in from basically from the time he started in 1807 until he died in 1827.

There were conversions taking place every year, sometimes as many as 40, 50, 60 conversions, and there is no way that a minister who is having...

And of course, those numbers, you have to keep those numbers in mind, because in the day and age in which we live, there are churches that are claiming to have that many people saved in a weekend, and we're talking about genuine conversions, not just decisions.

There are some people that are recorded as having decided for Christ, and unfortunately they may be...

A church may record a hundred conversions over a five -year period, but some of those people were decisioned five or six times in that period of time, so it's not really accurate.

And a lot of times, if you ask people, well, where are these hundred people? They might say, well, there's one over there, and yeah, he's one over there, and the other 98, they have no idea where they are.

And sadly, that's the case in many churches, whereas when these men described conversions and recorded a conversion, they were genuine.

They were people who had truly come to faith in Jesus Christ and placed their hope in him, and I think that there is nothing...

And I don't know this by experience, because while God did bless our ministry on Long Island, and we did have some seasons of a reviving work, even as God worked in some unusual ways in the years that I was there on Long Island, there was still nothing compared to what these men went through.

And I really think in the providence of God, it was the fact that he would have, you know, as he said, 50, 60, 70 young men that stayed after to spend an hour with him, as he would wrestle with them regarding the scriptures and regarding their own condition before him.

The biography of Asa Cummings was considered to be the most powerful biography, ministerial biography, in the first half of the 19th century, according to Ian Murray, who was most widely read and most useful in the encouragement of people to follow

Christ. And the thing that he is most known for, actually, is the experience at his deathbed.

He had quite an amazing experience as he was dying, and in fact,

I just wanted to conclude this first time by reading a letter that he wrote to his sister just a couple weeks before he died.

And this is what he said. Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which

I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view.

Its glories beam upon me. Its breezes fan me. Its odors are wafted to me.

Its sounds strike upon my ear, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant riddle that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission.

The sun of righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory in which

I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting yet almost trembling while I gaze on this excess of brightness and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why

God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm like me. A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants.

I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion.

But why do I speak thus of myself and my feelings? Why not speak only of our

God and Redeemer? It is because I know not what to say. When I would speak of them, my words are all swallowed up.

I can only tell you what effects their presence produces, and even of these I can tell you but very little.

O my sister, my sister, could you but know what awaits the Christian.

Could you know only so much as I know? You could not refrain from rejoicing and even leaping for joy.

Labors, trials, troubles would be nothing. You would rejoice in afflictions and glory in tribulations, and like Paul and Silas, sing

God's praises in the darkest night and in the deepest dungeon. You have known a little of my trials and conflicts, and know that they have been neither few nor small.

And I hope this glorious termination of them will serve to strengthen your faith and elevate your hope.

And now, my dear, dear sister, farewell. Hold on your Christian course but a few days longer, and you will meet in heaven your happy and affectionate brother,

Edward Payson. Wow, that's some powerful stuff. Well, he was a man who walked with Christ.

He lived close to Christ, and as he was drawing close to glory, he experienced things that most never have experienced on this earth.

Well, we are going to be going into our second hour and switching subjects to the namesake of Brother Brian's mission in Birmingham, Alabama.

And if you would like to email us a question, you could be eligible to win a free copy of Religion and Shoes, the

Life and Ministry of Brother Brian of Birmingham. And that is for the first listener who sends us a question that we read on air.

It has to be good enough to be read on the air. And Mike of Fort Myers, Florida, you are not eligible since you already won a book.

So anybody else other than Mike of Fort Myers, Florida, can win this book. And please obviously give us your mailing address.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com is our address.

And please, we would love to hear from our Canadian and overseas listeners. And we cannot send you a free book, but we just ask that you still write us if you have a question.

We love to hear a report from all over the globe from people who listen to and are blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron.

And we thank all of you who have written us from places such as South Africa, and the

Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, England, Estonia, and the list goes on.

Sweden, Poland, I don't know if I mentioned Poland already, but all over the globe and probably close to 25

United States. And we always enjoy hearing from you.

And we would love to hear from you today. chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com

is our email address. So don't go away. We're going to be right back with Mike Gaydosh and our discussion on Brother Brian of Birmingham.

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It's about God and His glory and the gospel is about man and his sin. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest for the last hour has been

Mike Gaydosch of Solid Ground Christian Books in Birmingham, Alabama.

Their website is Solid -Ground -Books .com.

Solid -Ground -Books .com. And we were discussing the life and legacy of Edward Payson during the first hour who

Mike believes, and obviously many people who he respects also believe, was the greatest

American minister in the earlier half of the 19th century. And we are now switching over to the life and legacy of James Alexander Bryan, known as Brother Bryan, who is the namesake for Brother Bryan Missions in Birmingham, Alabama.

And before we even go into the life of James Alexander Bryan, which is the primary topic for our discussion today, why don't you tell us something about the

Brother Bryan Mission, where I know that you have been preaching every week on Friday nights for the last decade, for more than a decade.

Yeah, the Brother Bryan Mission is in downtown Birmingham. It's been there since the early 1940s.

And it was founded in honor of Brother Bryan, because Brother Bryan's heart was for the poor.

And his desire was not just to feed the poor with food. His desire was to bring the men of Birmingham to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And Brother Bryan Mission, one of the unique things about Brother Bryan Mission that's different from some of the other missions downtown is that they have the men live there.

They don't have to fight for bed every night. They have upwards of about 70 to 75 men that are there.

And they have to pay a certain amount each week. I believe it's something like $60 a week for their room and board.

And they also have chapel that they must attend. And we have actually, our church now has been for several years now has every

Tuesday night and every Friday night, we've been doing chapel for them. And I do the

Friday nights. Our pastor now is doing the Tuesday nights. And then twice a month on Sunday evening, we serve a meal to the men.

And then I preach on a Sunday evening. So actually, we used to do only for,

I guess, for the first 10 years, we were doing just once a month on Saturday, on Sunday night. And recently, we've just adopted a second week as other churches dropped out.

They had a need and our church desire to be able to help. So we're actually now, I guess, about eight to nine times a month.

No more than that, actually. It's 10 to 11 times a month now we are actually there ministering to the men.

And we've seen many men grow in their faith and some come to Christ, the ministry.

Many have come to Christ, the ministry of Brother Brian Mission. And it is quite a remarkable mission. And it's moving in the right direction.

I served on the board for a while. And I just got to see the heart of the men on the board.

And I'm very, very impressed. They have a vision for Brother Brian Mission.

It's expanding. We have several programs that are going on there, vocational training programs for the men.

Many of these men are men that have come out of alcohol and drug addiction. Many have lost their families as a result.

Some have come from jail. And they have a variety of stories to tell about God's grace in their lives.

And it's been a tremendous privilege for me to be able to minister to the men there.

And I've learned as much from them as they have from me. Yeah, when I was, they called them students, or if you want to call a resident of an alcohol and drug recovery ministry in Boone, North Carolina, Hebron Colony Ministries, where I went due to my own addiction to alcohol.

And sometimes I hate to use the word addiction because it almost sounds clinical, like it's softening the fact that it was a wicked sin.

But I was guilty of the sin of drunkenness, perpetual unrepentant drunkenness, until I entered through the doors of that wonderful ministry.

There were people from all walks of life there. There was a veteran of the

New York Jets football team from, I believe, the 80s, perhaps part of the 90s who was there.

There were people who were seasoned military officers.

There were hillbillies. There were just all types of people, professional people down to your deep woods, moonshine making, toothless hillbilly.

You know, there are all kinds of folks at that place. Would the Brother Brian mission be a temporary home for a wide spectrum of people like that?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's all different races are there. And the educational background, some of these men are brilliant men there.

Some of them have owned businesses. Many of them have owned businesses, lost them, have had beautiful families, have lost their families because of alcoholism or the drug addiction.

It's very tragic on the one hand, but at the same time, it's still encouraging to see how

God is beginning to put men's lives back together. We've been able to see men be able to be reunited with their families after some time.

Of course, it's hard because the wives are slow to trust because they've been hurt so many times in the past.

And so, yeah, there's a great variety, a great variety of men that are there.

It isn't a ministry just to men. There is a sister ministry in Birmingham that ministers to the ladies, but they're not connected at all to Brother Brian.

And so, let's get into the life and legacy of James Alexander Brian before you get too much into his early history and so on.

Did he start the Brother Brian mission or was it just named after him? No, no, no. The mission actually started right around the time he was dying, and it really did start.

It was influenced by him, and he is, of course, as it were, the patron saint there, and it is named after him, of course,

Brother Brian Mission. I've actually been asked and I've had opportunity to travel all over the city of Birmingham and even to other states to speak about Brother Brian.

I've become sort of a living historian of Brother Brian's life, and I've been asked by Brother Brian Mission, since I've been ministering there for so long, to go to other churches and to tell his story and to tell the story of Brother Brian Mission, to encourage churches to support them.

And so, that's why I'm excited about the opportunity of being able to share his life.

I was absolutely astounded when I found out his name. His name is Brother Brian, and that's all people knew him as, and I found out his name is

James Alexander Brian, and I found out that he was named after one of the great

Alexanders from Princeton. Archibald Alexander was the founding president of Princeton in 1812, and then his sons,

J .W. and James Alexander and Joseph Alexander are the two sons,

J .W. and J .A. Alexander, and Brian was named after one of those

Alexanders. And then I found out, of course, as I started to study his life,

I found out that not only was he named after James Alexander, but he was also a graduate of Princeton.

He was given an opportunity to go to Princeton. He graduated from the

University of North Carolina, and he went to Princeton Theological Seminary and graduated from there in 1889.

He sat under men like Benjamin Warfield, and he was actually nicknamed the

Saint as he was at Princeton, and it was not a joke. I mean, people actually called him the

Saint because he had such a unique relationship with Jesus Christ. He had a seminary friend who said,

I always felt that he was a modern St. Francis of Assisi. His Christlike spirit, his untiring devotion to his master and the service of his children have been an inspiration to me always.

And Brother Brian was given, upon graduation, he had two callings. He was called to a large church in Philadelphia where he would have been in a very plush position.

I think he would have been the assistant pastor. And the other call was to a small little church called the

Third Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. And Birmingham, Alabama at the time was a very small little town.

It wasn't the thriving city that it became. Actually, the city of Birmingham grew up under Brother Brian as he was there.

And Brother Brian served, he chose, he believed that God was calling him to go to Birmingham.

And when he got off the train, the summer of 1889, he got off the train, no one greeted him, no one knew him, no one knew who he was.

But 50 years later when he died, he probably had the largest funeral that Birmingham has ever seen.

He became the pastor of the city, even though the church itself, it grew, but not to be a huge church because his ministry was out in the streets.

He went out and he ministered to the people in the streets. He married, after 33 years of ministry, he had only been there about 37 years of ministry.

He had married over 4 ,500 couples. He had officiated at nearly 8 ,000 funerals, and he had preached nearly 50 ,000 sermons, 50 ,000 sermons.

His method of preparing to preach on Sunday was to find the text that the

Lord put upon his heart. And Monday morning he would start to go around Birmingham and he would take that text and he would preach it everywhere.

He would go to the jails, he would preach to the male white prisoners, the white female prisoners, the black male prisoners, the black female prisoners.

Then he would go preach to the firemen, then he would go preach to the jailers, to the actual policemen, and then he would go down to the steel mines and steel mills.

He had a routine that he would go through where he would preach sometimes up to 30 to 35 times a week in preparation.

Then he said, well, after I preach 30 times, I feel like I'm actually ready to preach to my people.

And that was his preparation for preaching was to preach. And unique, to say the least, but a man that had a tremendous burden for the lost.

There are some just wonderful stories about the burden that he had for the lost. He ministered to all classes of people.

We're told when he first came to the city of Birmingham that there was a police officer who called out to him at night, woke him up in the middle of the night and asked if he could come.

He said his son was dying. And he went and spoke to this young man and we're told that the young man's life was spared for about three months.

And brother Brian went to that young man and met with him every single day. Every single day he went and ministered to him for three months.

He finally came to Christ. And we are told that as he was dying, he called his mother and father who were estranged from one another.

They had not been together for quite some time. And we're told that he was literally dying.

He asked his parents to stand on either side of his bed and to embrace one another over his dying body.

And he said, I die that you might be united together again. And he died and they forgave one another.

They both came to Christ and they both lived for Christ. That's the way he began his ministry there.

Another time we were told that he was asked to go and visit. There were two prostitutes that had tried to take their lives.

One was successful and one was not. And the one who was not successful was near death.

But he went in and he prayed over her and he kissed her on the forehead. And he said to her, sister, go and sin no more.

And years later, there was a letter written to the newspaper anonymously.

And it was written by that woman. She said the first time in her life she had been given hope.

And she said, Brother Brian's prayer over her and his kiss and his words were used of God to bring her to salvation.

And she was now married, had children, and she was living in a godly home. And she thanked

God that Brother Brian had come to minister to her. We're also told that he had a ministry to the wealthy debutantes that lived up on the hill.

And nobody could reach them. Nobody could reach them with the gospel. They had everything that they wanted.

They were the prima donnas of Birmingham society. But then Brother Brian started to go and minister to these girls.

And they began to love him and began to realize that he loved them with the gospel.

And we were told one day as he was getting older that they had an ice storm there in Birmingham.

And I've lived through a couple of ice storms here since I've been here for 15 years. And it's no joke.

Birmingham is a city of hills. And it's very dangerous when it gets icy here. And the headmaster of the home called

Brother Brian and said, Please don't come today. It's too dangerous. And we are told that the girls were found with their faces against the windows as they saw this elderly man on his hands and knees crawling up the steps of ice to be able to get to them with the gospel.

And they said that many of them had come to Christ because they saw a man who loved them and was willing to risk his own life to bring them the gospel.

He ministered to the rich and to the poor. We're told that Brother Brian, somebody came up with the idea in the early 1920s to give a loving cup to the person who had showed the most love in Birmingham.

And Brother Brian was the unanimous winner the first year. And in fact, they decided that Brother Brian, because he was such an incredible man that they had to come up with a rule that you could only win once because they knew that no one could ever beat

Brother Brian. And so he won the first year. And then after that, the next year, he was requested to pray and to bring the invocation at the next...

Now, and understand that this gathering was one of the largest gatherings at that time in Birmingham's history.

There were about 4 ,000 people that gathered into the largest assembly hall in Birmingham to honor

Brother Brian. Well, the next year when this loving cup was now going to be given to another person, he was asked to come and bring the invocation.

He said I can't. I have a very important funeral that I have promised

I would do. And so Brother Brian was not found at the beginning of the service, and people did not know where he was.

But the important funeral that he was doing was actually the funeral of a prostitute who had come to Christ and under his ministry.

But because of her lifestyle, she died at a very young age, and he promised that he would do her funeral for her.

And the only people that were at the funeral were the funeral director, the man that drove

Brother Brian's car, and Brother Brian, along with a few of her former customers.

Well, we are told by the man who drove the car that when Brother Brian did the prayer over her body before they put her into the ground, this man had heard

Brother Brian pray for years, and he said he had never heard him pray the way that he prayed that day for this harlot who had come to Christ.

And then what happened after was a testament to the kind of man that he was.

What happened afterwards is when he completed the prayer, and they were now to take the casket and move it and get it into the ground, the men came forward who had been her customers.

Brother Brian put out his hand and sternly said to them, No, you can't touch her now.

You, I know who you are. I know what you've done. May God have mercy on your souls, but you cannot touch her.

And so they stood back as he struggled with his driver and the funeral director to carry the body and to lay it to rest in that tomb.

And we are told at the end of the loving cup ceremony, the elderly

Brother Brian walked up on the stage. People had no idea where he had been, and he brought a benediction that brought the house down.

And he was a man who was incredibly loved and respected in Birmingham.

Everybody knew who he was, and he was a man who he loved the black man in Birmingham.

In fact, we've been trying to get a section of the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum should be dedicated to him because he was the first white man who had a ministry that reached out to the blacks and an incredible ministry.

And the reason he tells, the reason why he had a love for the black is he wrote in a newspaper some years after he had been in Birmingham.

We were told this is what he wrote. I remember a colored man named Harry, who was my father's body servant in the

Confederate Army. And after Appomattox, when my father lay on the ground suffering from a dreadful camp disease, he said,

Harry, you better stay here near Richmond or Washington where you can get a job. For I can't do anything for you like I have.

Harry looked at my father and said, Master John, do you think I would leave you here? I'm going to get you on the train going south and take you off at the depot and take you to Miss Mary.

When the first train came along, the soldiers were on the cow catcher of the engine and the box cars and the freight cars of all kinds and hanging on the steps.

This man took my father and by the aid of someone put him on the top of a freight car.

And my father lay with his head on this man's lap as the train swept through Richmond, Weldon, Wilmington, Florence, and then stopped at a little country depot where this faithful man took him off the freight car, carried him on his back three miles into the country to lay him at my mother's feet.

Do you think I could ever forget a people like this? And Brother Brian's legacy in Birmingham was his ministry to the black, to the poor, to the down and out.

He was a man who gave up everything for Christ. People would give him a coat.

By the end of the day, he wouldn't have it anymore because he gave it to somebody else. And one time we're told that a little girl answered the door.

He had went knocking on the door to visit a family. And the mother asked,

Who is there? And the girl's response was, Religion. That's called knocking. He was religion in shoes.

That's the reason why the name of the book that we're giving away is

Religion in Shoes, the Christlike Life and Ministry of Brother Brian of Birmingham.

Wow, that's some powerful stuff. I had no idea before this interview that I'd be hearing what should be the written screenplay for a movie.

I was thinking the very same thing today. I was thinking what a powerful movie it would make to tell the story of this man, the kind of life that he lived.

And I was thinking that that very scene would be the opening scene.

You could have the dialogue between the servant and Brother Brian's father and then have him putting him up on the train and taking him back home and depositing him back with Miss Mary.

And then fast forwarding on to the life of this man who was, and I believe when that happened,

Brother Brian was between two and three years old. So he was there when the servant brought his father back home.

Wow, this is all powerful stuff. What theological perspective did

Brother Brian come from? Well, he was a Presbyterian trained under the men at Princeton Theological School.

He believed in the sovereignty of God. He believed in the doctrines of grace. He was a man who was committed to the

Westminster Confession of Faith. But he was a man very different from his contemporaries. He was truly an evangelist and he was a man who was not as concerned with growing his church as he was with growing the kingdom.

In fact, it's an interesting phenomenon that that church, Third Presbyterian Church, now it's the year 2015, he first came to Birmingham to pastor there in 1889.

So we're talking 120 some years, right? They've only had three pastors in 120 some years.

Wow. Yeah, it's amazing. He was there 50 years and then his assistant was another 45 years, and then the man who's there now, and they each knew each other.

The assistant that was the assistant under Brother Brian became the pastor, and then the man who is pastor now was,

I don't know if he was the actual assistant of the man who was the assistant of Brother Brian or not, but that's pretty amazing.

You think you can go back, but there are a lot of Southern churches here that have had three pastors in 10 years or four pastors in 10 years.

That church has had three pastors in 120 years. Wow. One of the reasons

I asked you what his theological background was, even though I'm pretty familiar with the fact that Solid Ground Christian Books pretty much exclusively deals with the writings of those who believe in the doctrines of grace, but because of the fact that I think there's a lesson here, a very valuable and powerful lesson to reformed folk who very often confine the proclamation of their faith to the cigar smoke -filled parlors of sophisticated little discussions on theology over snifters of brandy and so on.

It seems to me, and I don't want to insult any of my fellow Calvinists and reformed brethren who do really get down to the nitty -gritty and dirt and sweat of going out into the inner cities, reaching out to those who are viewed as the scum of society, if you will.

I'm not calling them that. I'm just saying that that's the way they're viewed. People like prostitutes and drug addicts and alcoholics.

And from my own experience, now once again, I apologize to those who are reformed who are doing ministry in these arenas, but in my experience, the vast majority of it seems to be done by charismatics and Pentecostals.

Well, I think that it's sad that you're probably right about that. I know that a dear friend of mine,

Shane Jackson, who you know is blind, has said that there are very few reformed people at all that reach out to the blind community.

The cults will reach out to the blind community, but he said that it's very rare to have reformed ministry to the blind.

And it's very sad. It really is. I mean, one of the things that I've really appreciated about Brother Brian is his concern for the lost.

He had a burden for the lost, and nothing would stop him from seeking to get to people with the gospel.

Is the first half hour about up now? This would be a good time for us to take a break.

Just remember exactly where you left off, and we will pick up where you left off right after these messages.

I just want to remind our listeners that you can email us a question to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And we have one more book to give away, and we look forward to hearing from you with your question that only is eligible to our

American listeners, not our North American listeners, because we're not sending any books to Canada.

So because of the prices that have accumulated for all of the book winners and some of them who are overseas and in Canada, it really can accumulate very quickly.

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Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is

Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned into our show today, we have been addressing the lives of two heroes of the

Christian faith that are held as heroes by my guest, Mike Gaydosh, and he is the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books in Birmingham, Alabama.

The website for that book publisher and distributor is solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com. And the first hour of our program, we were discussing

Edward Payson, who lived from 1783 to 1827, and according to our guest, he is arguably the greatest

American minister of the first half of the 19th century. And then we have been discussing for the last half hour, for the second hour of our program, the life and legacy of James Alexander Bryan, for whom

Brother Bryan Missions in Birmingham has been named. And we have been having a phenomenal discussion on James Alexander Bryan, for those of you who tuned in late, and this story should certainly be written up as a screenplay for the production of a movie because it is just absolutely remarkable.

We do have our second winner for the day, Mike, for your book

Religion in Shoes, the book about James Alexander Bryan, Brother Bryan of Birmingham.

Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania, she says, I'm sorry if you already covered this because I'm tuning in late, but my question is, do you think that Brother Bryan of Birmingham would have approved of what is known today as tough love when it comes to addicted loved ones who sometimes have to be even shunned in order not to accommodate their addictive and deadly lifestyles?

If you could comment on that. Yes, he would completely agree with that. Brother Bryan was a man who held people accountable for their actions, and Brother Bryan Mission in downtown

Birmingham, that has been ministering in his name for the last 75 years, does the same thing.

They have a very tough policy. They realize that if you're too soft, men will fall back, and they will easily fall back, and they have a very difficult policy, a very tough policy, and I know

Brother Bryan would clearly have affirmed that as well. Of course, he was also a great man of love and compassion, and would demonstrate that, but at the same time, he would be very, very firm with people.

I have some examples that I have in the back of my mind, but I think I'll suffice it with that answer to that question.

It's a very good question. I'm glad it was asked. I wanted to read something that Timothy George, recently,

Timothy George is the president of Beeson Divinity School right here in Birmingham.

He recently wrote an article entitled, God of Fire, Man of Prayer, and it was about Brother Bryan, and this is how it goes.

It's very brief, but I think it's very helpful, especially for those who maybe are just tuning in now. In the early 20th century, the leaders of Birmingham, Alabama commissioned a statue of Vulcan, the

Roman god of fire and the forge, to represent the city at the 1904

World's Fair in St. Louis. Today, Vulcan stands 56 feet tall, high atop

Red Mountain, overlooking the city, a symbol of Birmingham's history. Colossus -like,

Vulcan is the largest cast -iron statue in the world, welcoming thousands of visitors every day from near and far.

But Birmingham is also known for another statue, one less prominent and auspicious.

It is not the image of a Roman deity standing tall and proud, looking upward at the sky with a spear in his hand.

No, this statue depicts an older man, shoulders slumping, hat in hand, kneeling in prayer.

That man is James Alexander Bryan, who is affectionately known as Brother Bryan.

For more than 50 years, he served as pastor of Birmingham's Third Presbyterian Church.

Catherine Marshall once referred to him as the patron saint of Birmingham. If anyone ever deserved that title, it was surely he.

Today, in the valley, far below the feet of the great Vulcan, kneels that humble pastor.

His life's work is inscribed at the statue's base in bronze and stone. Fervent in prayer, consecrated in life, sympathetic in counsel, friend of the friendless, the sorrowing, the poor, and the rich, he went about doing good for his master.

Wow. Brother Bryan of Birmingham. That's some tribute. Do you know of folks who have gone on to be ministers themselves as a result of the evangelism of Brother Bryan?

Oh yeah, there have been dozens and dozens and dozens of them. Some of them I've gotten to meet.

I've had people that have come up to me. I was actually asked to bring the message.

About a year ago, a church in Mississippi was celebrating their 100th anniversary, and the church began the weekend

Brother Bryan went and spent a week ministering the gospel in that community, and the church was founded as a result of Brother Bryan being there.

And so I was asked to come and bring a story or bring the history of Brother Bryan, and we were able to hear the stories of many of the people from that particular church who knew people who had come to faith in Christ under Brother Bryan and went on to the ministry.

But oh yeah, absolutely, there have been dozens and dozens of people who went into the ministry. I know some of his own relatives.

This is one of his sons, and I've gotten to know his great -great -grandson. He's a godly young man.

He's very much involved in Brother Bryan Mission now, and actually he went with me and my wife and his wife.

We all went together to that church in Mississippi and just had a wonderful experience with those people on a

Saturday night and then on Sunday celebrating their 100th anniversary and tracing it back to Brother Bryan and his mission there.

Interestingly enough, Brother Bryan, like Edward Payson, was a man of prayer. In fact, they said his most three famous words were, let us pray.

And he would go up to people in the street and he would pray with them. He would go to policemen and pray with them.

He would ask them if they had given their hearts to Christ, if they knew the Lord. And he never tired of urging people to put their faith and trust in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And there's one kind of humorous incident. We're told that one night he was walking home from church and a man suddenly slipped from between the house and stuck a gun in his face saying, hands up.

He took Brother Bryan's watch and the little money that he had and was astonished to hear the victim say, let us pray.

Slowly the gun lowered and as the prayer ended, the thief put the watch and the money in his hands and told him to go home.

And that was just him. I mean, he just, nothing would hinder him.

Nothing would stop him from praying. You know, even with a gun in his head, he's praying for the man who was taking his money and his watch.

And he would have gladly given it. The guy had just asked him for the watch and he would have given it to him. I mean, he, in fact, this one watch, we are told he had gone to the pawn shop and got $5 for it.

And he took the $5 and gave it to a lady who had no milk and potatoes and nothing left.

And she gave him the money so she could buy him food. And it was said that that watch, he said he was a little disappointed.

He only got $5 that time. He says, I've gotten more in the past. He says, I've pawned that watch about 20 times.

He would get the watch back. And then somebody would buy, you know, they would see it in there and they'd know it was his watch and they'd buy it back and give it back to him.

And then, you know, this just kept going on and on, you know, and he was in fact, when he, the loving cup, they made him swear that he wouldn't sell it because they were afraid that the loving cup that he had won was going to end up in the pawn shop.

So they went to all the pawn shops and said, you can't accept the loving cup. He has got to keep that.

And, you know, things like that just happened all the time with him. There's a story told about a time he was at a meeting in Birmingham and it was a, it was what's called an efficiency conference.

And it was a conference that they gathered and they were talking about how to be efficient in giving the gospel to the lost.

And we're told that the widow of George Stewart, the famous Southern evangelist told him that brother

Brian couldn't stand the conference. He sat there through the morning session, hearing speeches, reports, surveys without end.

And then we're told he slipped out while the rest of the conference was eating lunch. And as he told it to Dr. Stewart, it went in this manner,

George, I couldn't take it any longer. That conference on efficiency, it's too monotonous for me.

So I slipped out and ate lunch with a working man I know in the mills. We sat at the curbstone and ate from his lunch pail.

And I prayed with him and he gave his heart to the Lord. I had been laying for that rascal for months.

Now, and then he drops into church all morning in that slow conference. I kept thinking of him.

They were talking about saving men in mass movements, George, and that's all right.

But I kept thinking about Jim Ruggles. I couldn't get him out of my mind. I knew where he sat to eat his lunch.

So I slipped out and found him for the Lord. Now I think I can stand to sit through another afternoon of that efficiency conference with God's help.

They were telling him how to be an evangelist. And meanwhile, he goes out at lunchtime and wins a man for Christ.

Now I think I can go back and listen to them another afternoon telling me how to win people for Christ.

Amen. Well, this powerful testimony of Brother Brian is also another reminder of the old saying, you can't judge a book by its cover, because who would think that a white southerner from Alabama, no less, in that era from the late 18th century to the first part of the 19th century, who would have such a compassion and ambitious zeal to reach the black community.

And it also is a reminder to all of us about the sin of racism that we must overcome.

I am continually startled by conversations that I have from Christians, very intelligent

Christians, Christians who are very well read in the scriptures, some of whom perhaps are even in ministry.

And you can see, even if it's subtly said, you can see that there is really a racism there that is unwilling to be recognized as such, just because the person is not burning crosses or using the most extreme of slang terms or something.

You can really recognize this person as a racist. There's no question about it. And of course, that exists as our mutual friend who is now in heaven,

Dr. Robert J. Cameron, used to say that racism is a sin problem, not a skin problem.

And he knew that there were many, many, many black professed

Christians who were equally as racist against whites. But what a remarkable story, especially because it's a man of his era.

Yes. Well, I think because of the fact that he, oh, and another thing about him, he went back to Princeton for an anniversary.

I don't remember what year it was, but it was 30th anniversary, 40th anniversary. When he went back there, instead of worshiping in the large church there in Princeton, he went off to this small black congregation that he had ministered to when he was in seminary, and those people never forgot him.

And he ministered, you know, he preached to them, prayed with them, and that was his whole life.

And as a matter of fact, I was told that it was brother Brian's, I believe brother

Brian's son, who ministered in Birmingham when

Martin Luther King came and all the problems were going on in the early sixties.

They said the one man that the blacks would trust was brother Brian's son.

And so the legacy of brother Brian's love for the black people even went on to his family as well.

And the black community recognized that they could trust the Brian because of the fact that he ministered across all racial divides.

Now he was, what's interesting about brother Brian is he was a man who was old fashioned.

He grew up in the time when there were no cars. He hated the idea of a telephone.

When he first heard about it, he wanted nothing to do with it. But after a while, he began to realize that he could touch a lot of people with the telephone that he might not be able to get to.

And so he started to call people and take advantage of the telephone, and he would call dozens of people every day just to pray with them.

And that telephone became used of God in a remarkable way in touching the lives of hundreds of people.

Then the radio came along and he hated it. He wanted nothing to do with it. But then he began to realize as he was getting older and he was finding it more difficult to get around, he was finally persuaded that, you know what?

I can reach a lot of people with the radio. And we are told for the last several years of his life, he spoke an average of 14 times a week on the radio.

And then in his closing years, he started to write a message that would appear in the

Birmingham Post every Saturday. And we are told that on January 21st, 1941, one week before he died, he wrote his last message and it was on love, the

God of love. And this is what he said. The subject was God's love. And he wrote,

God's love has a depth without a bottom. I do not always do things because they are pleasant, but because this great love of Christ, my

Savior constrained me to do these things for him. To follow Christ, I must first rid myself of selfishness.

I must rid myself of false pride. I must rid myself of egotism. I must take up the cross of Christ.

Surely the love of God constraineth us to do his work. Oh, love that will not let me go.

I rest my weary soul in thee. He was a man who had spent his life ministering to the people of Birmingham and he demonstrated the love of Christ to the people that were there in Birmingham.

He was, I'm trying to think, he was a man who had been given a gift to be able to go to the

Promised Land and he went. He was able to spend time in the Garden of Gethsemane and he found that experience that he had right toward the end of his life to be one of his most precious times.

And that time that he spent in the Garden of Gethsemane and just on his knees in prayer was a very precious time for him personally.

Brother Brian was a man who had a passion for doing things by faith.

I'd say the book next to the Bible that had the greatest influence on him was The Life of George Mueller.

He read about George Mueller and how George Mueller would not ask people for things, but God would provide.

And Brother Brian's whole life and ministry was built upon the principles of George Mueller.

And the church building that they had was built without borrowing any money.

And they were able, because the first church that they had had burned down to the ground along with his parsonage with everything in it.

And when somebody came, stood beside him as he looked at the burned ruins of the church and the parsonage, his simple response was, it's all right.

God is good. And he lived that way. He lived by faith.

And they built that church building. The only thing that was not finished was there was a walkway, steps that were going up to his study that were not completed.

And a man came by and said, I noticed you don't have any steps on the side of the building. And he said, no, we don't. And the man said, well, he said,

I want you to tell your church to go ahead and you build brick steps up to that.

And I will pay for the entire thing. And the man did. And we are told that the story of the thousands of people who walked up and down those steps to go into Brother Brian's ministry where he would pray for them or he would weep with them.

They said a book could be written about the stories of people who went in there and came out with the burden lifted because of his pastor's heart that he had for them.

I think that the final thing that happened in his life, he came to the very end of his life and he was dying.

His family had come into the room and he said, so many people his son leaned over to him and said, pop,

I'm going to ask the people to leave because the room was pretty well filled. And his dying words, the last words he uttered were so many people without Christ.

The one burden that he had upon his heart was the loss. He had spent 50 years bringing people, thousands of people came to Christ through his ministry and yet as he died, the one burden that he still had on his heart, so many people without Christ.

Wow. That is some moving testimony and I am certainly going to get this book and if anybody else who is listening want to get it, those of you who did not win a book today, go to solid -ground -books .com

and order your book. Solid -ground -books .com. And even the two of you who have won books, go there and order different books or order more copies of those two books.

But I think I would like to have you come back on as often as possible for perhaps we could have a regular feature on Iron Sharpens Iron titled something like Unsung Heroes of the

Faith or something like that where we could talk about men of God, like Ichabod Spencer for instance.

Yeah, he would be the next one I would want to do for sure. And we could have that regularly because there are so many men of God that have been used so mightily that are unknown by virtually, you know, 99 .99

% of Christendom today. And that's one of the wonderful things and one of the blessings about Solid Ground Christian Books is that you're not ear -tickling, you are unearthing things that really need to be read by the church at large and by the lost, by men who really had the gift and the wisdom to put these things to paper.

Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think that I'd be happy to do that. And, you know, in any time you can use me, any way you can use me, obviously

I'm available. And I really appreciate, Chris, your heart and your desire to be able to reach people with the truth.

And the effort that you make, I know that at times you get criticized because of some of the gifts you have.

But sometimes you need to have people on that are going to maybe take positions a little different that you can then be able to address and correct.

And, you know, I just wanted to encourage you in that. I just encourage you to continue to press on in what you're doing.

God has given you a gift, and you just need to continue to use it to His glory and honor.

And that's the key, is humility. As Brother Brian said, you know, there's no place for pride.

Just continue to cast your care or continue to give Him all the glory, and God's going to use you.

Well, I really appreciate those words. And I do definitely appreciate your kindness and encouragement more than you will ever know on this earth.

And your contributions to my life personally and my faith over the last 30 years are indelibly etched in my heart and mind.

And I will be forever indebted to you until I'm in glory,

Brother. And once again, I want our listeners to know the website is solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com. If you can, in one minute, perhaps highlight some other books that you have to offer, and we have to go in about a minute.

Yeah, I have a book that I just finished, titled The Home Beautiful by J .R.

Miller. And it is just a glorious book that deals with the husband's part, the wife's part, the parents' part, the children's part, and having the

Christ -centered and the secret of a happy home, it says, is Christ.

And it is an absolutely wonderful book. J .R. Miller, Bill Shishko, a dear friend of both of ours,

Pastor in Franklin Square, has said, of all the 19th -century writers, none deserves to be reprinted more than J .R.

Miller. And this book was published, actually, approximately. A dear friend,

John Ferris, knew that he was working on this before he died, and he was able to pick up and took basically four different volumes and put sections together to complete this book, entitled

The Home Beautiful. And we just got copies in last week, so that's fresh, well -compressed.

Great. Well, we're out of time, Mike, and that's solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in. I want you all to always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Hope you tune in tomorrow to Iron Sharpens Iron, or next Monday, I should say.