Why should I have a blog?  Why should anybody have a blog?  I raise these questions because I have learned that a blog can be…and is…used for many different purposes. My experience with some blogs is that the blogger does not understand the purpose of blogging.  I don’t see this great privilege and freedom as an opportunity to express any and every opinion I may have.  I have seen great harm come from this approach.

Why should I have a blog?  I will tell you why I want to exercise my opportunity to blog. This key board on which I now type is a doorway into the WWW…yes, the world wide web.

One of the best friends I ever had, and one of the greatest examples of life, ministry, humility, service to God and man and more was Dr. Robert G. Witty.  Dr. Witty, known as the founder of Luther Rice Seminary and the father of the doctor of ministry degree sought every opportunity to get the gospel to the world.  In seminary days, and in the years to follow, Dr. Witty admonished me to write.  Over and over again he urged me to write.  I can hear his voice now, write, write, write.

I have other friends now who urge me to write, write, write.  The written word can go further and last longer than any other part of our ministry.

Dr. Witty died at the age of 100 years and six months.  Listen to this, for years he manned two websites…one dot com and one dot org.  In the latter years of his life he sat at his computer in his assisted living apartment and wrote and wrote and wrote.  He would not have called it blogging.  He posted sermons, Bible studies, and more.  Why?  Because he had a passion to use every means and every opportunity to get the gospel to the world.  Admirable!!

Do you see on my webpage header the words Jesus Never Fails?  Well, that was Dr. Witty’s mantra.  He put on his letterhead, his business cards.  It was a trademark statement.  When I spoke at his memorial service I based some of my comments on Dr. Witty’s use of the phrase, Jesus Never Fails, and I said that I claimed that phrase as mine…and that it would be on my letterhead, cards, etc.  And it is!!

I could say many things to describe Dr. Witty…but the main one is ENCOURAGER!  He was a Barnabas …especially to young pastors…and hurting pastors.

God has blessed me to be on radio most of my ministry.  In the early years I called my radio programs Abundant Life. For the past fifteen years the program is under a different name.  The programs are now called ENCOURAGING WORD.

Now, my desire to blog is the same as my desire to minister through radio.  Both can go where I cannot go.  Both will fall upon ears of people I will never see or hear from. Both can be listened to or read again and again. I desire both ministries to be an Encouraging Word.

The Willmore blog will not be a place of argument or debate.  There are other bloggers who will cover those needs.  My desire is to post something that will lead a lost person to faith in Christ and a Christian to a deeper, more mature relationship with Christ.  My desire is to see Christians become more like Christ and to see healthier churches.

I pray that you have just read and encouraging word.

JESUS NEVER FAILS

RDW

I have just pulled from my library shelf my copy of Life on the Highest Plane, by Ruth Paxson.  The book was presented to me on August 16, 1975, by Ralph and Myra Hammond. Seeing their names inscribed on the fly leaf brings back many treasured memories. The book was presented to me several years after the truths it contained were shared with me by Ralph and Myra.  I was privileged, in the providence of God, to be a part of a small group of young Christians eager to learn the deeper things of God.  Ralph and Myra, who had discovered the deeper life teaching during a health crisis in Myra’s life, opened their home to share with others the way out of Egypt into the Promised Land of the Christian experience.

The writings of Ruth Paxson reflect the truths we were taught.  More about this in upcoming posts.

Ruth Paxson was born in Manchester, Iowa, and accepted Christ as her personal Savior when she was a child.  She graduated from the State University of Iowa, and afterward spent one year at Moody Bible Institute.  In February of 1911, Miss Paxson sailed for YMCA work in China.  Later she left that work to devote herself to evangelism and summer conference Bible teaching among missionaries in China.

Leaving China for health reasons, Miss Paxson went to Switzerland; then followed a period of Bible teaching on the European continent and at the Keswick Convention in England.

The impact of the testimony and the teaching ministry of Ruth Paxson has been felt around the world.  Life on the Highest Plane is a book that contains deep insights into the Victorious Christian life.

I have been in the Keswick circles long enough to know of the criticism that comes to the language used to describe the Christian life.  I understand it.  I think Dr. Stephen Olford had it right when he said, Call it what you will, ‘the deeper life’, ‘the higher life’, ‘the victorious life’, or ‘the abundant life’, we are talking about the normal Christian life.

I agree with Dr. Olford, forget the other descriptive titles.  What we need to understand is that the victorious Christian life should be the normal Christian life…and so on.

The following examples of Ruth Paxson’s teachings come from His Victorious Indwelling, a collection of quotes from noted Christians:

The spiritual history of every Christian could be written in two phrases, ‘Ye in me’ and ‘I in you.’

In God’s reckoning Christ and the Christian become one in such a way that Christ is both in the heavenlies and upon earth and the Christian is both on earth and in the heavenlies.  Christ in the heavenlies is the invisible part of the Christian. The Christian on earth is the visible part of Christ. This is a staggering thought. Its plain import is that you and I are to bring Christ down from heaven to earth that men may see who He is and what He can do in a human life.  It is to have Christ’s life lived out in us in such fullness that by seeing Him in us, people are drawn to Him in faith and love.

Isn’t this a great insight into the nature of the Christian Life?

I will conclude this post with one more Paxson quote.  More will come later.

God, in His infinite grace, always takes the initiative in bringing us into a fuller experience of our inheritance in Christ. So the Lord Jesus stands outside the door of every unyielded room in your life seeking entrance. If He enters, the door must be opened from the inside.

It is my prayer that these have been encouraging words to your heart and life.

RDW

Robert Murray Mcheyne; 1813-1843, was a Scottish minister who died at the age of 30, is still remembered for his Memoirs which were compiled by Andrew Bonar.

It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to the Lord Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapons in the hands of God. RMM

Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal realities.  RMM

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.  Yet distance makes no difference.  He is praying for me.  RMM

A believer is to be known not only by his peace and joy, but by his warfare and distress.  His peace is peculiar; it is deep-seated, agonizing and ceases not till death. RMM

We have no time to sport away the hours; all must be in earnest in a world like ours.        – Horatius Bonar

The Christian ought to be the most dignified person in the world.  We do not think half enough of ourselves as we are before God.  – Edward Dennett

There are no people so hard to teach as those who imagine they are more advanced than they are.     – J.B. Stoney

Before my conversion I worked toward the Cross, but since then I have worked from the Cross.  Then I worked to be saved, now I work because I am saved. – D.L. Moody

If God has accepted my service, then I am immortal until my work is done.                      – David Livingstone

Taken from His Victorious Indwelling, Zondervan

I was recently in Whiting, New Jersey at America’s Keswick where I was speaking at a New Year’s Conference.  For the past seventeen years or so I have preached at the Keswick  Summer Conferences.  I have also preached at a fall event.  However, this was my first time to be in New Jersey in the winter time.  It was chilly to say the least.  But as always, there was a spiritual warmth and a felt sense of the presence of God.

The CEO of America’s Keswick, Dr. Bill Welte, has become a dear friend and brother.  He is a man of God.  Bill walks with God.  He is a man of prayer. I often tell him he reminds me of stories I read about George Mueller.  Here is a good example.  During December Bill and his staff and friends of Keswick prayed for God to provide $250,000.00 to the ministry in order to meet the current needs and to end the year financially in the black. God did as I have often seen Him do at America’s Keswick.  He answered exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we asked or thought.  Almost $400,000.00 was received.  God is good.  He still answers prayers.

Bill gave me a copy of Jim Cymbala’s book, Storm, Hearing Jesus for The Times We Live In.  Then he organized a Sunday trip to Brooklyn and took me to Sunday worship at Brooklyn Tabernacle.  This was my second time to worship at BT.  Several years ago I attended Tuesday night prayer meeting.  I still remember talking to some friends at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan about my plans to attend the 7 pm prayer meeting  and I was told to arrive by 5 pm.  I arrived a few minutes before 5 pm and a line of people had already formed and was growing by the minute.  I waited two hours for prayer meeting…spent over two hours in a powerful prayer meeting…and I sensed the presence of God.

Last Sunday I saw that long line again.  This time for the noon worship service.  The first worship is at 9 am, the second is at noon, and the third is at 3 pm.  Over 4000 people attend each of these three services.  During the forty-five minute wait for the service to begin we were greeted by numerous greeters, ushers, genuinely friendly servants of God moving through that vast theater auditorium shaking hands, handing out bulletins, chatting with folk and answering questions.  The anticipation level increased by the moment.  Then there was the choir…!!!

Then there was the preaching.  But first let me say…I was taken by the fact that there were people of every race, color, and culture in that building.  My heart danced.  Isn’t this the way church is supposed to look?  The family of God…a little slice of heaven.  Now back to the preaching…, no, just one more thing.  I sat there in those pre-service moments keenly, soberly aware of the Presence of God.  I found myself saying to myself that this place is a place of prayer and these people are a people of prayer.  I was enveloped in the results of praying people  Why is BT like this?  What is the source of this life, and vitality and energy?  God… in answer to prayer.  Now, back to the preaching…it was simple, conversational and personal.  IT WAS ANOINTED. It appeared to be from the overflow of Jim Cymbala’s walk with God.  God was in the House.

In Cymbala’s book I mentioned above, he wrote: “If pastors preach with the passion that comes from being with Christ, won’t an audience fall more in love the Lord?”  I say yes.

Then he wrote this:  “THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE PULPIT…One of the beautiful results of the Holy Spirit’s blessing is a changed pulpit with powerful preaching.  Today we suffer from a distinct lack of the prophetic when it comes to preaching.”  Cymbala makes an observation that should cause every preacher to examine his own heart.  He said, “I must observe that too many of us pastors are satisfied to preach and lead church services without craving the Spirit’s help and blessing.”

I say…Come Holy Spirit…come upon my life…my preaching…my ministry, for without your anointing it is all meaningless motion.

RDW

Keswick is, first of all, a geographical term; it has, however, become a theological expression– the definition of a certain attitude of the mind and heart toward God.

Keswick is a place of quiet; its ancient hills and deep waters are a barrier which keeps at a safe distance the glare and blare of the modern world.  T he tired and overwrought mind is restored and healed.

But the “Keswick” of the soul knows of a still deeper rest and truer healing.  The Keswick Convention is not simply a series of meetings–it is an exhilarating experience compounded of prayer, preaching, and people into a spiritual fellowship whose setting is of earthly beauty fair and whose centre is of heavenly glory, the Lord Himself.  Such an experience can never be forgotten; it works itself into the very soul.

And it works itself out like a mighty river spreading itself out over the barren wilderness and touching it into golden fruit.  “It is all over now,” said one, after the closing meeting of the Portstewart Convention this year, “Or just beginning,” said another and a wiser.  His was the truer vision and greater faith.  He saw the departing crowds scattering like good grain which bears the promise of a rich harvest.  May that be true of “Keswick” this year.    D.K.

Herbert Lockyer

Dr. Robert G. Witty, a pastor for many years and founder of the Luther Rice Seminary, was one of my dearest friends and mentors.  Dr. Witty was an ideas man.  He was always thinking of new and innovative ways to advance the gospel.  When he was in his 80’s and 90’s he manned two separate websites.  He was computer savvy. When he went to be the Lord at age 100 years and 6 months he was still using his computer for ministry outreach.

Any student of Dr. Witty will recall that his mantra was, “write”, “write”, “write.”   I can still hear his personal admonitions to me to write.  He told us that what we write will outlast us and what we write will go to places we could never go. He was right!

Today I am launching a new blog/website for the purpose of sharing truths from God’s word and hopefully be an encouragement to others as Dr. Witty was to me.  It is a marvelous thing that I can sit at my desk in my study…or wherever my laptop may be…and have a platform to speak to people all around the world.

Today I pause for a moment to remember a man who was a beloved friend and mentor.  Thank you Dr. Witty.

More to come….stay tuned.