Pensees: Talbert, Doran, McCune

Talbert, Doran, McCune

I’ve gotta write something even though my creative juices are definitely not flowing. It has been a fantastic day. Actually, it started yesterday when Dr. Layton Talbert began his ministry in our church by giving three messages. During the Sunday School hour he delivered an excellent introduction to the Wisdom literature in the OT. During the AM service, Talbert preached an overview of Ecclesiastes entitled “A Philosophy of Life.” Sunday night he opened his series on the book of Job.

Now, I have to say that it has been a long time since I have heard something so thrilling as has been Layton Talbert’s messages from the book of Job. Layton has written some four hundred pages on the topic. He’s well prepared, to say the least. For our purposes in this series of meetings, he has condensed his research into four messages. That answer four questions. Last night, he answered the question “What is the theme?” by giving a synopsis of the entire book. Tonight he gave the best exposition of Job 1 that I have ever heard answering the question, “What’s at stake in human suffering?” I must get that message on our website as soon as possible. You have to buy his book when it comes out. The mood in our congregation was very humbled and reverent when Layton closed his message.

During the day, Mark Garard, Layton Talbert, Bob Roberts, and myself joined a good group of pastors at First Baptist Church for their one day conference. Dave Doran gave two outstanding workshops entitled “From the Text to the Pulpit.” It was a primer in the fundamentals of sermon preparation. Very helpful. I am grateful to the leadership of First Baptist for asking Dave to speak on that topic.

Dr. Rolland McCune gave a workshop on the Keswick view of sanctification. Unfortunately, we were unable to hear more because we had our own meetings to prepare for. McCune was speaking on a subject that interests me very much. This was the first time that I had ever heard Dr. McCune. I very much enjoyed him.

This was the best conference that First Baptist has done yet. Some of the others were too parochial in focus for my taste, and I think that is why a number of non-fundamentalists who originally gave the conference a chance did not return. (I speculate. But it is based upon credible hearsay!) It’s too bad, because this particular conference addressed universal themes that would have greatly benefitted any earnest preacher (pulpit preparation, pastoral duties, and sanctification) instead of being a pep rally for a narrow view of separation or highbrow culture. This was truly a good conference this time. Very beneficial. So happy it is in my home town. I hope Scott Williquitte and team keep this good trend going.

Today I got a call from someone wanting to know which evangelist we had in for the “revival” we had scheduled this week. I responded that it wasn’t a “revival” such as they understood it, and that our “evangelist” was a theologian who had written a great book on the providence of God. Anyway, tonight I thought that we had the best kind of evangelistic sermon and the most likely to bring true revival. By the time we had come to understand that Satan’s attack on Job was, in fact, an attack on the character of God and that God was displaying His glory for all the angelic beings to see (Eph. 3:10) because He delights in showing the principalities and powers His glory through the enduring faith of redeemed mortals who suffer undeserved suffering with out failing, not because of earthly remuneration, but because of who God is as their Redeemer and because of His great work within them, I thought that we had just heard an outstanding evangelistic message. I also sensed revival in our spirits. Our “invitation hymn” was “Immortal, Invisible, God Only-wise.”