Pink

Not all that long ago my husband introduced me to a small snippet from one of A.W. Pink's books. It was a book on sanctification and I must admit that what started as something I struggled to read became a book I bought because I wanted to read more of it and I much prefer a written book to an electronic one.

As I write this I am still waiting for my new book to arrive in my mailbox. I guess I should say that I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new book. The good and bad of buying online today is that we get tracking on almost everything we order so we know right when it should arrive, and we know when it doesn't arrive on time and a new arrival date is given. I am in that place today. My new book did not arrive when it was supposed to and I am now waiting to see if it will arrive at its new arrival time.

I discovered a long forgotten pamplet written by Charles Spurgeon in with some other papers today. Since I'm awaiting the arrival of the book I would like to be reading I figured I would read this little pamplet. It's titled Turn or Burn and I made it only a small way into it before setting it aside to write this.

Let me just go ahead and let out a big sigh here. I used to be able to read whole books. Big, thick ones even. Now I rarely make it very far into anything I try to read. The Lord uses something to pull me from it, either to write about it or to tend to daily life. I told my husband just the other day that the Lord does not seem to want me reading these days.

This little pamplet talks of how preachers used to preach on the wrath of God. Spurgeon put it this way, "Two hundred years ago the predominant strain of the pulpit was one of terror:...it thundered forth the dreadful wrath of God...you heard most terrible sermons, full to the brim with warnings of judgment to come." I've seen the saying, 'we need preachers that preach hell is hot', many times. I've even had a relative tell me we need more preachers that preach on hell.

I would be the first person to tell you this world could use more preaching on hell and less teaching of 'Jesus loves you'. Let's have more preaching on God hates you and less on 'come as you are'. I'd be inclined to listen to sermons on those topics whereas I avoid the sermons on 'Jesus loves you'. But as I told my relative, if God wanted us to have sermons on hell, He would have preachers preach on that subject.

Just today I was asked, in a discussion on dinosaurs, how plants could go extinct. Well, the Lord has no more purpose for them here on earth so He lets them die out. Yes, that was the very answer I gave. I'm sure there's some long scientific explanation but I don't need that. All I need to know is the world was created by God and that He does what He wants to with it. Spurgeon went on to say, "the doctrine of future punishment is rejected and laughed at." And, " Ye tell us we speak lies, when we warn you of judgment to come, but in that day when your mischief shall fall on yourselves, and when destruction shall overwhelm you, will you say we were liars then?"

I have seen the meme on social media, showing a skeleton in lava/fire with the caption, 'we tried to warn you'. It's a sad truth that must be faced by every regenerate person. My husband and I talked the other night of how much easier it is when you believe that all it takes to save someone from hell is to convince them to believe in Jesus and say a prayer. How much easier is the reality of hell to bear when you know you need only to somehow convince your loved ones, and strangers, of Jesus and get them to profess even the most basic of belief.

I think of those that I have told, 'believe in Jesus or go to hell', using that line on them because it is the most simplest form of the gospel and it gets the point across in a hurry. It also happens to be the way the gospel was given to my husband and after hearing him tell of how it worked on him, taking twenty som odd years, I figure it might just be the best way to plant seeds. Plus, the people I say that too already know of Christ so why give long speeches on something they aren't truly interested in at the moment when a quick, 'believe in Christ or go to hell' will suffice.

I will admit, again, that I rarely read much of other people's writings. I prefer to read only from Scripture because...well, because ...because...Scripture is Scripture and other people's writings often have iffy content no matter who the author is. I have also discovered that there are many reformed believers that hold to certain beliefs that I just don't share. I can't endorse someone that begs for money for their 'ministry' no matter how reformed their beliefs are. I have problems with reformed preachers that promote tithing, thereby lining their own pockets, and complain about anything that might endanger their tax exempt status.

Despite all those thoughts and feelings I have somehow taken an interest in the writings of Pink lately. I honestly did not want to be interested in what he wrote. I don't want to read the writings of men no matter how edifying they are. Not really. I don't mind an article here and there or a snippet of something from time to time but I don't really want to read books about Scripture written by fallible men when I can go straight to the source. Yet here I am, anxiously awaiting not one but two books written by Pink, one of which has six different books in it and reading Spurgeon in the process.

And while I wait for my books to arrive, I am reading, or trying to read, this little pamplet. I have also done quite a bit of research on Pink because I wanted to make sure he is someone I don't mind his writings influencing my thinking. In that research I read two different things on him, a biography, and a Puritan forum where they discussed him and his life.

Let me start with the forum. I didn't realize when I started reading it that most Puritans are opposed to Pink. In this forum they talked against him because he moved off away from people. They complained that that was against the great commission among other things. In the biography it said he and his wife had moved from place to place, going from 'church' to 'church' teaching, preaching, and trying to be hired on. He eventually settled down in one place only to have it be in the midst of bombings as war went on around him. He moved his wife to a remote area, a place where mostly reformed people, unwelcoming reformed people, lived.

I don't know anything of his life beyond that and I don't know how accurate that biography was. It was on a site I trust so it likely was pretty accurate and I'm willing to take it at it's word. I told my husband I can understand why Pink would move off like he did. He had tried, time and again, to gain a preaching position but the 'churches' were opposed to his 'Calvinist' views. Honestly, he put way more effort into it than I would have. And when bombings came near to my home, I would move too. Remote life looks real good when war comes knocking on your front door. Or any day for that matter.

But as I sit here reading this pamplet, I came across something else. Spurgeon wrote, "I  have often trembled at the thought that, here I am standing before you, and constantly engaged in the work of ministry, and what if, when I die, I should be found unfaithful to your souls".

That is Spurgeon, not Pink, but having read what little of Pink's writings that I have read, I can almost see him saying pretty much the same thing. A man can't write so much about the Lord, about His soveriegnity, about election and sanctification, without feeling deeply for the subjects he is writing about.

I write of Scripture and of life. Generally I write of how my life is because of the Lord and Scripture. I do it to share my thoughts with my husband, who, by the way, is my greatest cheerleader in my writings, and because I often work out my own thoughts as I write them.

I used to write 'Christian' romance. I was pretty deep into the writing world at one point, on the verge of publication, and I learned a lot about writing while dabbling in that world. One thing I learned is that there are two kinds of writers, some are what they call 'fly by the seat of your pants' writers, meaning they just make it up as they go along, and some are planners, meaning they must plan out what they will write before they write their first word. I am a fly by the seat of your pants writer. Planning does not work for me. I must put my fingers to the keys and let my mind work through them. I never really know what I will write before I write it, I just write what is on my heart and mind.

Even still, I am deeply involved in most of what I write about. It is the thoughts of my mind and the feelings of my heart that come out through the keys of my computer with the tapping of my fingers.

Pink had to have felt deeply for the subjects he wrote on. I read somewhere that most of his books did not start out as books. They began as writings for his publication and were pulled together to make books on certain subjects after his death.

If he did not set out to write a book on, say, sanctification, how many times did he write on that subject to have so much material on it that it was turned into a book? How deeply did he feel that subject matter?

And why did he feel the need to get it into the hands of others?

He could have simply done his own studies, even devoted his life to studying Scripture, without sharing any of it. But he didn't. Why not? Something must have weighed heavily on his heart for him to strive so hard to share his writings. It was Spurgeon that I quoted earlier but I can easily imagine Pink may have said something very similar. Not because I am trying to put words into his mouth but because a man does not write so fervently as Pink did without feeling deeply the subject matter.

Somewhere in my reading on Pink I read that he worked something like 15 hours a day writing out sermons, articles and such. He stopped only to sleep, eat, work a bit in the garden and eventually his wife convinced him to take up stamp collecting to give him a hobby. In other words he dedicated his life to his writings.

In this pamplet I am trying to read it says, "So far as I know God's truth I will endeavour to speak it..." Again, that was Spurgeon and I'm sort of running the two together here, not because I have them confused in my mind, but because they both seemed to have a deep hurt for the salvation of others and because they are of the same faith and it seems to me, of similar thought processes. Spurgeon writes more like a preacher than Pink does. Meaning the one sermon I have read of Spurgeons read like I was reading, well, a sermon. He sounds like a preacher. Pink does not. I can almost identify with the way Pink writes. It has a feel like he is working out his thoughts as he wrote. And what deep and weighty thoughts they were no matter how he got them onto paper.

But, in that quote of Spurgeon's, it sounds to me like he not only studied Scripture and wrote out lessons, sermons and such, but he strived to share what he learned from Scripture. He somehow felt responsible for those he was leading and did not want to fail in his task.

I don't know if Pink felt the same way or not. I don't know what prompted him, other than the Lord, which was really the only Thing prompting him, to do what he did. But he did write so well and he left a legacy for believers that would come behind him.  Apparently he had a photographic memory and could quote hundreds and thousands of verses. He also, apparently lived in a time when the reformed faith was little known and all but nonexistant, although I have no doubt that there were plenty of regenerate believers scattered throughout the world, they just might have been hard to find.

And so here was this man, traveling throughout at least three different countries. Preaching. Teaching. And when that failed he eventually resorted to putting out his own little magazine with his writings in it. I personally wouldn't say he failed to follow the great commission. He appears to have given the gospel many times over.

I am not defending him, nor am I promoting him. I know little about him beyond having read some of his shorter writings in the past and what I have recently learned. What I am doing is thinking hard on how a person might easily reach the place in life that Pink did. He tried, time and again, to find a preachers postition. He was rejected by Armenien 'churches' and kicked out of calvinist ones. I can't see that he had many options, except going it alone. He moved to a safe place due to war, where he was apparently surrounded by reformed believers but they did not welcome him into their midst.

I actually see a bit of the Lord's hand at work in his life here. Pink grew up 'christian' then in his young adult years he got into the occult. He was brilliant and was close to leading them when he was converted overnight. He gave the gospel to his occult group and moved on from there. He tried to go to seminary school only to discover he either did not share their beliefs or that they were teaching watered down bits of Scripture and he was far beyond them already. He moved on. Going from 'church' to 'church', country to country. Seeking a place to teach but rarely finding one for any length of time. Through an act of war the Lord moved him to a remote area, getting him away from 'churches' and preaching postitions and leaving him with unfriendly reformed people and his long distance followers.

He lived and died a fairly quiet life, known by few until after his death. Yet...can't you see the Lord's hand at work in his life?

It seems to me that he tried his hardest to share what he knew but the Lord kept that sharing restrained, rarely letting him into 'free will' circles and even keeping him out of the 'calvinist' or 'reformed' circles. He was able to understand and grasp great depths of Scripture. His photographic memory allowing him to make connections all across Scripture at once. He could site verse after verse to back up what he was saying.

He was so intent on sharing all these Truths that he did not give up. He kept on keeping on, as the old saying goes. He struggled. He plugged away at it. He searched and searched for a following to teach and when that failed in the 'church' circles, he wrote articles for his own publication, sending them out to an average of 500 people per month.

In the midst of all that he suffered a nervous breakdown. Why? Because of his great understanding of Scripture? Because he longed to save those that he could not get through to? Because...???  I don't know why. I can only speculate. But I do know that this pamplet  written by Spurgeon says, , "I have often trembled at the thought that...I should be found unfaithful to your souls." Pink did not say that but the zeal with which Pink wrote almost makes me wonder if he did not feel the same way. He wrote so much, 12, 14, 16 hours a day, day in and day out, for so many years of his life, striving before that to find a place where he could give the gospel to others, that I imagine he probably felt similar to Spurgeon.

He shared with great zeal because he felt with great zeal.

He wrote from seclusion because the world rejected him and what he was trying to teach them. And still he felt some, possibly a huge, responsibility for their souls.

What a great and mighty incentive to keep going.

I was once in a grocery store that had a little eating area at the front of it. As I sat there with my family, enjoying a picnic of sorts, I noticed a man at the table just across the aisle from us. This man had a Bible in front of him and stacks of index cards. My attention now firmly drawn to this man, I watched him. He diligently wrote down verse after verse. Seeming to write each verse on a different index card. Eventually this man looked up and told my mother, who was walking past his table, "He is coming." I don't remember what all he said to her but I recall him speaking of how Jesus is coming. By that point it was apparent that he was mentally handicapped. But he had a grasp on the most important thing in this world...Jesus.

I will not speculate on that man's salvation or what kind of faith he held. All I know is on that day he believed in Jesus and he was working as hard as he possibly could to preserve the Lord's word...or whatever he was doing with those index cards filled with Scripture.

I picture Pink doing much the same thing. Bent over his table as that man was. Writing with fervor whatever the Lord put on his heart to write. I picture him doing his best to tell whoever will listen, even if it was an unseen audience, that 'Jesus is coming' although maybe that wasn't the message he gave.

I can all but hear him, all but see him in my mind. I can nearly feel his desperation. I can also understand why he was kicked out of 'churches' and why most people did not want to listen to him. He had a grasp of Scripture that, if the biography I read is correct, put him leagues above most everyone else of his time. He was preaching Truth when most were nibbling on little tidbits of feel good Scripture. There was no internet, barely any television. He probably wasn't put on the radio. It's a wonder he had 500 followers. And yet...

The Lord gave him 500 followers. Enough to let him know he was making a difference. Enough to keep him studying and writing. Enough to ensure he wrote massive amounts of work so that they would someday be preserved for people that came after him.

I do not generally read the writings of men, at least not more than an article here or there, but I am looking forward to receiving my new books by Pink. Hopefully the Lord will allow me to read them all the way through but if not I am sure what I do read of them will be edifying.