Interview with Peter Jeffery by Peyton Jones

Peyton – I’m sitting here with Peter Jeffery, Peter’s been a Pastor of three congregations, he’s had a world wide preaching ministry. I first heard him in the United States and he’s been somewhat of a mentor to me and others, and I just want to thank Peter for this opportunity to sit down and pick his brain and pass on things.

Peyton – Lloyd Jones called preaching a romance and he entitled a chapter of his book The Romance of Preaching. Can you briefly summarise your romance with the pulpit over the course of your preaching.

Peter – Well yes I think it’s a very apt title. The thing about preaching is that you never know what’s going to happen when you start. I think the Doctor said once that, Doctor Lloyd Jones, you never got a clue what’s going to happen when you get up to the pulpit steps into the pulpit. Either it can go flat or God can take over and you are away.

The romance of preaching I suppose started for me just about a week after I was converted. I was converted 55 years last Saturday May 21 1955. The week after on the Friday night I gave my testimony in open air meeting in Penydre in Neath. That was the first time I had ever spoken publicly and soon after that I was asked to give a testimony in a Sunday service in the
Church and I immediately said yes because I was bubbling with enthusiasm at that time but immediately I said yes I regretted it. I thought oh blow me. Nerves kicked in. I thought speaking in the open air was one thing, speaking in a Church was another thing and I was petrified as to what to say.
And then I discovered Luke 12 v 12 where Jesus said to the Apostles “Fear not what you shall say for the Holy Spirit shall give you the words in the same hour”. Now I know now that I was taking that verse completely out of context. But at that time it was a great encouragement to me and the Holy Spirit did give me the words and I think many in the Church thought He gave me too many words perhaps because the testimony went on a bit longer than they expected.

But from that time on within about six months I was preaching, I was only 18 and the joy of preaching was there then. I didn’t know much about preaching, I didn’t know enough really to be preaching. But God was there and God was beginning to teach me.

Peyton – remember hearing stories about the time that God moved very powerfully in Rugby. When I went and visited there years ago one of the Elders told me they can remember you running into the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Can you talk about that.

Peter – Well I can’t remember that – I probably did – I don’t know – but there were some Sundays in Rugby which were quite phenomenal. There were times in Rugby we knew something of the power of the Spirit, there is no question about that. And there was some Sundays when I was preaching and I was as if I was in the congregation listening to myself preaching. I can’t explain it but I was just sitting down listening and I was still preaching. It was an amazing sort of experience. And God spoke in amazing ways in Rugby and there were some Sundays which were quite, quite unusual and God blessed and God spoke and God is always speaks through his word you see.

I remember one Sunday morning in Rugby a lady phoned me early about 8.00 am on a Sunday morning saying she had three very serious problems she needed to talk over with me. I said well see me after the service this morning and we’ll arrange a meeting. I preached and after the service she came to the door and she said there is no need for me to see you now Pastor, my three problems were answered in your sermon. Now I still don’t know what the problems were but God did, and God answered her problems through the preaching and that’s what preaching is. It isn’t just some man spouting off, its God speaking and God spoke to that woman that day and God answered her problems quite to my ignorance.

Peyton – Would you say that many people that are preaching today have lost a sense of what preachers may be 100-200 years ago, had a sense of that preaching was meant to be prophetic.

Peter – Well I think many preachers have lost a lot of things today in preaching. I’m reaching into my 70’s now and sometimes I look back and I think preaching isn’t like it used to be. I think, stop now careful boy, don’t be committing the cardinal sin of an old man comparing things now and then.

But its true I think I hear some preachers today and they give nice homilies and they give reasonable words I suppose in a sense, but there is no bite in the preaching and there is no prophetic element in a sense that God is speaking through this word, that God is coming to us . I come to the point where I think that ,where is this sense of God. I think when you come from a Church on a Sunday service the question you want to know is, have I met with God. Have I met with God, was God there, did God touch my heart ,did God speak to my soul. I think this is missing somehow. We seem to be not quite happy clappy, but silly sometimes and the whole service is too jovial sometimes and there’s no sense or little sense of God. The awesomeness of God, the wonder of God, the holiness of God, the majesty of God. When that comes, wow, things happen then.

Peyton – When did you first began to notice your preaching change. In other words you felt that power come down. Well I remember a time for me where preaching began to change and ironically its probably why I’m sitting here. It was in Pacific Hills California at a Church that you were speaking at. It was a Sunday night and this sense of God came upon us on a Southern Californian congregation in a way that I had never seen before, though I had gone to this Church for years and listened to the preacher there. You finished preaching and the congregation didn’t move for almost two minutes, which for Southern Californian’s is very, very rare. But when you preached it was almost as if the Holy Spirit had dropped a bomb there and everybody was a bit shell shocked. Do you remember that night?

Peter – I don’t. And I tell you something, when I went to Rugby my preaching changed. I had been nine years preaching in Cwmbran and I was, I suppose, a good preacher – I don’t know – but nothing unusual. There were 30,40, 50 like me in South Wales. But I went to Rugby and something happened. Something happened. I remember a missionary came to visit us in Rugby, a friend of mine, and we’d had lots of converts, a lot of young boys converted off the drug scene, off the streets and she was speaking at the prayer meeting and I could see her afterwards down the front talking to a crowd of these boys. Not boys, men in their mid twenties. And she walked up to me and said Peter can I ask you a question, have you been baptised in the Holy Spirit. Me, thinking of tongues and that’s first up, oh no I said, I haven’t had that. But looking back I think I had. I never spoke in tongues and we never knew healings or anything like that, but something happened to the preaching that is only explicable in terms of God coming there. God came on the preaching. Now I didn’t know that again until I went to America. And I felt in America I was beginning to know something again of the power . I was in Rugby 14 years, and we had this mostly through the 70’s into the early 80’s, but then preaching in America, preaching at Pacific Hills, is that the Church you were talking about, in Los Angeles, we knew great services in that Church, absolutely phenomenal services. God was amazing in the power that came on the preaching.

You see any good preacher can preach a good sermon. And more often than not will preach a good sermon if he is a good preacher. But it takes the Spirit of God to come on him for it to be a mighty sermon. To make a word that rivets and captures and dominates and controls and rivets people and we knew that in Rugby. Praise God for that. And I’ve known something about that in America both on the East coast and the West coast. Knew it in the Churches in Long Island in New York and certainly in Pacific Hills and Churches there. God was good.

Peyton – I can remember sitting there that night. I had been in ministry for maybe one or two years and had preached since not long after I got converted. But I remember having the impression there that night, that whatever I had been doing before wasn’t preaching and everything for me began to change. I would say that’s the first step and that’s probably why we’re here doing this interview right now, its because we can do so much on our own but we need that extra bit and I think thats something that you’ve had an experience with. What would you say is the most important or most valuable thing for a man to remember while he’s in that pulpit.

Peter – He’s in the pulpit for the benefit of the congregation, God yes, for the praise and glory and honour of God. That goes without saying. But he’s there for the benefit of the congregation. He’s not there to demonstrate his own abilities, or show how good he is as an orator. He’s there so that these people might be edified, they might be drawn closer to God. The sermon you see confronts people with God, or it should. Confront the people with God, the living God. And he should always remember in the pulpit he’s there for their sake. They’re not there just to listen to him. He’s there for their sake. And If he remembers that, I have found over the years and particularly again in Rugby – I had a rapport with the congregation. I could speak to them as if I was speaking to you now just across the room here, and they would respond to that.

Now you don’t get that all the time and you don’t get that with some congregations certainly, but certainly I did then. And you really feel you want to help these people, you want to draw them closer to God. You want to show them God. You see you prepare a sermon and sometimes, well its OK, but then you get into the pulpit and it takes off. It just takes off. There is no question about that. And sometimes you prepare a sermon and you know your heart is warmed. You’ve been the same I’m sure Peyton. You’ve been preparing a sermon and the tears have run down your face as your writing the sermon. And you just rejoice and you just pray that you have that same blessing in the pulpit on Sunday morning and that’s what we want. We want a sense of God. We want a sense of God. The preaching does not have to be contemporary or traditional, its to please God. And if it pleases God it will please the people.

Peyton – I’ve asked you this question before and I know it’s a very difficult question, probably one that you don’t have the entire answer for otherwise you’d probably be very rich marketing it, but if we knew the answer to this question we could probably answer everything else. What would be the best advice that you could give a young man in securing the anointing of the Spirit on his preaching. Obviously that’s not for once in his life time, but it’s a daily thing and a weekly thing. Its every time he steps in the pulpit I suppose. What’s been the thing that’s been most helpful to you to help secure the anointing of the Spirit.

Peter – Well I don’t know, there are so many things. I always had a fear of God. In the sense that I would fear to offend God by what I’m saying in the pulpit. By not just the content of the word, but my manner in the pulpit. God has got to be in the front, Gods got to be honoured, Gods got to be top. And we are only little boys trying to be for His glory. I think cultivate this fear of God. But God is real. God is real to you in the study and if he’s real to you in the study, when your alone with him, who is it said that, “ what a man is on his knees alone with God that’s what you are“, was it McCheyne said that, that’s true you see, when your on your knees alone with God that’s what you are. And you will be no more than that. You can parade in the pulpit, you can be an actor in the pulpit, and that’s no good to anybody, but you need to be alone with God, you need the power of God, so that when you come into the pulpit, God is there.
Preachers I believe are born not made. You either got the gift of preaching or you haven’t got the gift. If you’ve got the gift it can be developed, and it must be developed. Many things can go and be irrelevant, but nothing substitutes for this sense of God. That’s true in any part of the Christian life you see, whether your in the pulpit or out of the pulpit, but perhaps its something we’re lacking today.

Peyton – There was an old preacher that was asked how long did it take you to prepare that sermon, that’s the most amazing sermon I have ever heard. It might have been McCheyne again, but he said all my life. Can you talk about the preachers consistent prayer life and walk with God as preparation for service.

Peter – Well I always felt my prayer life wasn’t anything like what it ought to be and it wasn’t as consistent as it ought to be. But my days in the ministry I would spend from about 8.30 – 9.00 am until 12.00 every morning in the study, that was every morning in the study, just me and the Bible and alone with God. Afternoons I would be out visiting and evenings would be meetings. That was my pattern.

But you want to cultivate this sense of God and that’s got to be worked at, it doesn’t come easy. I wish I knew more of God – oh goodness. I’ve just been reading McCheyne again – what’s that prayer McCheyne prayed – “Lord make me as holy as its possible for a sinful man to be“. That’s a thought isn’t it. As holy as its as possible for a sinful man to be. But its crucial isn‘t it, absolutely crucial. And McCheyne, he was ordained at 22 and dead at 29, but what he accomplished in that 7 years was phenomenal. Because I am sure God answered that prayer. As God answered Solomon’s prayer for wisdom he answered that prayer for holiness for McCheyne. And many other things as well. But that’s what made him the man he was. What we are, to any degree, will be governed by that.

Peyton – I‘m amazed that your talking about holiness because that was my next question, was to discuss personal holiness in connection with the preaching ministry and the influence that it has on the effectiveness of your preaching. Any further thoughts that you have on that?

Peter – Holiness is to be set apart for God, to worship God, to want to please God. Its to cultivate the life that’s honouring to God. And as far as the preacher is concerned that comes first. I’m trying to think of the verse in Ezra 7 v 10, Ezra read the scriptures , he sought to know them and then he sought to live them. Then only then did he preach them. Those were the three things. He read the scriptures, he lived the scriptures, he preached the scriptures. We have got to know our Bible, but we have to live the Bible to. That’s what holiness is, its living the Bible. And when your living it, then the preaching comes out of that. Preaching should be an overflow, not a scraping of the bottom of the barrel. But an overflow of meeting with God. Now because of my health I have been unable to preach for the last couple of years and I miss that, but even if you can’t preach, you can still know God.

Peyton – You said you aim for their heart, you preach for their heart. How would you tell somebody this is how you preach to their heart.

Peter – Well Spurgeon said a man will never be saved until he’s moved in his heart. Until his emotions are stirred. Now its easy to preach correctly for a mans mind, but how do you preach to stir his emotions. Well its not by filling him with some silly stories about sick children and things like that and sentimental stories. That’s the work of an actor, it not the work of a preacher. Its by just preaching the scriptures, opening the scriptures, let God speak through the scriptures. I’m a great believer in expository preaching, I believe in expository preaching. You let the scriptures speak. I’ve always been a man of the text you know. My first words in the pulpit are always, my text this morning is. And I give a text out and I stick with the text and I try as far as possible to expound that text. That will touch people’s hearts if there’s real power on it. That will touch their hearts.

Peyton – So its really just allowing the word of God to speak and would you say there is great stock in before having the heart moved of someone else, as a preacher your own heart has to be moved.

Peter – Well your not going to move anyone else’s heart until your own heart is moved. This is why that time alone with God in preparation is so, so important. I believe in the sovereignty of God in all things, but God gives a responsibility to the preacher to be alone with him and to work at it. I’m quoting Lloyd Jones again – he said to us at one time, “you men think my sermons come down from heaven on a silver plate on a Saturday night brought by an angel for me to preach, they don’t, I’ve got to work, I’ve got to work”. And he did work and we’ve got to work. You’ve got to study. Now study – I mean – I’ve never been one to be able to get stuck in to the puritans for instance – I found them a bit heavy going – but there are some people who help you and some people who move you. Tozer always moved me and people like that who move your own heart, and if your own heart is moved you have got a chance of reaching the hearts of the congregation.

Peyton – did you have a method in your preparation. Did you, some preachers say that they read the text x amount of times or memorise it, others say that they go for a walk around the block and meditate on it. Did you have a method, or you would consult this work first or you would meditate first or your would meditate after. Was there any way that you found was the most effective way to crack open what the word of God was saying for your (? Word) and application. What was your way that you used.

Peter – Well when I started off first, I had two sermons in about say about a week and I had six mornings. And I’d split it up into first morning reading around the text, thinking around the text, pondering around the text. Second morning writing the sermon out. Third morning, start again on the next sermon, then third and fourth and fifth and six on the other one. But I would read around the text, think about the text and then get on with it.

Now as I was preaching through a series of sermons, I might have five or six books on the go, on Galatians or Romans or something like that and I would spend the first day reading around these things and thinking around these things. I know some preachers who don’t start doing sermon preparation until the Saturday. Now that would give me ulcers I think. I like to be finished by Saturday, so that I am ready in that sense anyway. I like to start preparing a sermon on Monday or even on Sunday night your thinking about it. And you live with the sermon for a week and then when you preach, out it comes. But the people in the congregation have got to see that you’ve come from the presence of God, that your not just there spouting it out, but you’ve come from the presence of God. And when God is there – I go back to Rugby again – I was honestly amazed where the people were coming from. People were travelling in 20-30 miles on Sunday mornings to the services and I thought what are they coming for. Then they’d bring somebody else the next week. But if they feel you’ve got something from God, or a man from God, then that happens.

There is a phrase in Haggai again, the people had respect for Haggai as the Lord had sent him. They saw Haggai as sent by God. And if the congregation can see you as sent by God, then they’ll listen to you and they will benefit from your ministry. And they’ll pray for you and that makes a vast difference, when the congregation is praying for you.

Peyton – you mentioned Tozer and you’ve mentioned McCheyne and Lloyd Jones, I just want to ask, what did you learn from the ministry of Lloyd Jones in particular.
Peter – Lloyd Jones was staggering really. When I started College in 1960, we had no biblical theology taught us and most of my theology came from Lloyd George, he was just starting publishing books then. Two volumes on the sermon on the mount came out when I was in College. Other things like that and I used to devour these books as they came out.

But he gave you a sense of God, when you listened to him preach, he gave you a sense of God. You felt you were in the presence of God. Someone said he took about two or three journeys up and down the runway before he took off, but when he took off, wow he was soaring. And that was the case. I think what I learned again was, he was an exceptional man, he had a brain, he could recall things, oh goodness me. He could recall things in detail and he read so widely and devouring these things. But when he came to the pulpit, children could understand what he was saying. Remember the famous story, letters he had when he was ill he said, the one he prized most was from a 12 year old girl. She was saying Doctor when are you able to come back because I can’t understand them, but I can understand you. That’s a tremendous compliment. Tremendous compliment.

I think we could understand him. Nehemiah talked about it again. Nehemiah, they gave the sense of the passage, they read the scriptures and they gave the sense of the passage to the people and that’s of prime importance.

Peyton – That was one of the things I noticed about your preaching when I first started listening to you. There was a simplicity, it wasn’t complex, you weren’t trying to wow people, like although you had taken truths that could be made complex and made them simple, yet they were on fire. There was a fire in it, there was a passion in it, that was probably more powerful than someone trying to make it complex.

Peter – I haven’t got the brain to make things complex. I am not complex, I preach it as I see it. I see it simply really I suppose. I don’t like complex sermons and people shouldn’t have to take a dictionary to Church should they. The scriptures should speak clearly and the language should be such that they can understand what is being said. The illustrations should be relevant to where they are now, not where the Victorians were a 100 years ago.

Peyton – how does a man know that’s he called to preach. That he’s not being presumptuous or its not his own ambition?

Peter – Well all I can do is go on experience of this I suppose . I was preaching at 18 as I said. I think it was ridiculous I didn’t know enough at 18 to preach. I didn’t know enough scripture to preach. But I was preaching and people in the Church saw young Peter had the gift of the gab and they stuck me in the pulpit and I suppose the training was invaluable.

But I think as I look back to that, I’d have been quite happy to just go on lay preaching Sunday by Sunday, until God called me into the ministry. But I knew I was called to preach because I could preach. Now its different with a school teacher whose lecturing on geography, maths or history, teaching/ lecturing is not preaching. And I had this ability to do that I suppose, God given, had to be – has to be – and I thank God for that. And when young boys come to me today, we had many in Rugby, I lost count of the number of people who wanted to preach, I would never poo poo them. I would say right, go away now and write a sermon and bring it back and we’d go through it and I’d say OK now when your ready preach this at a Thursday night week night service and sometimes it would be disastrous but other times it would be tremendous. But you’ve got to give people a chance you see and in the end if a man is called to preach, he’s got to let the Church test that call, but whether he can preach, weather they feel he’s strong enough to God or not. But if a man can preach you recognise it soon when he preaches. There is a lot to be developed, there’s a lot to be worked at, but if he’s got the gift of preaching you can recognise that I think and you work at that, and I worked at it for a long time and I still do in a sense I suppose.

Peyton – when I first got here I was asked to speak at a luncheon. It was evangelistic, it started up during your ministry. I was told to speak for 10 minutes. Now as a Californian preacher that was at least an hour shorter than what I was used to. 10 Minutes. I was told at that time, Peter was the master of the 10 minute sermon, emphasising this that it doesn’t have to be long to be powerful, doesn’t have to be over an hour to be used by God. I remember asking you at that time, Peter how did you do it and I remember your reply, I‘ll never forget, it was in this room, you said just stop man, just stop, stop in 10 minutes.

I wanted to ask you, your sermons typically, almost right to the minute, go to 30 minutes and I would imagine that at some stage you had kind of hit almost like a cadence or rhythm. How would you advise a preacher whose trying to develop his preparation, so that he’s not losing people after 30 minutes. Obviously there are times where you can hold people longer, but if we’re honest, a lot of us could trim some fat. How did you get into the stride that you have, because I confess, when I listen to your sermons, I feel often there is not a wasted word. How did you develop in that way.

Peter – Well I got to a point one time, where I thought I was preaching too long. Now in those days my notes would be four sides of a sort of post card – A3 paper – so how do I get that shorter – I worked it out. I cut my sermon notes down from four pages to three pages, that was a simple thing. So instead of preparing to fill four pages I prepared to fill three pages and that worked to a great degree. Because you can be too long, I don’t think you can be too short. I know this is controversial, especially in some circles, but I think preachers preach too long you see. 10 Minutes in certain circumstances, in some 5 minutes, is long enough really and if you go to an old peoples home at the end of a day, and your preaching in a warm stuffy lounge and these old dears are nodding off and snoring away, then 10 minutes is very, very long and you don’t want any more than that.

But I usually work to preach between 30-40 minutes, mostly 30 ish and I would govern it by the notes. I was tied to my notes. I could preach the same sermon 20 times, but I would still have to have my notes on the 20th time, I probably wouldn’t look at them, but I would have to have them there for comfort I suppose.

Peyton – you mentioned preparation and in any job, including ours, the tools are very important, the tools of the trade, the things we use. Obviously you’ve mentioned already our walk with God as an indispensable tool, prayer, the prayer of the congregation, the Ministers personal prayer, his holiness, but on a very practical level, if we were to open up the preachers kit bag, obliviously we’d pull the Bible out, that would be one of the most essential power tools. What have been other essential tools, that over the years , that you thought, man if I’d found this sooner – this particular book or this particular way of doing things, it would have helped me immensely, I wish I’d found this sooner.
Are there any tools that you can pull out of the kit bag and recommend to other people. Books maybe – sermons, preachers.

Peter – There are books which personally I would use, every Lloyd Jones book that came out I got, and it was rich to read for yourself and to preach. I often said when I was preaching, if I was preaching from Romans, that’s all I was doing was regurgitating Lloyd Jones. What stuff to pull out isn’t it. There are other books that lend themselves like that you see, Wiersby you mentioned. I find his books want to be something, be this, be that, very good stuff for preaching and helping you to prepare a sermon. I use them a lot. I don’t know those are the main ones, Lloyd Jones mostly I suppose and then there were other things Moyea was good, I like Motea and Packer and they were books that fed my own soul, and if they fed my own soul then they would feed the congregations soul. But books are the tools of the trade. I would buy books galore, I must have had a couple of thousand at one time. I have given just about all my best books away now.

Peyton – You mentioned Tozer earlier and you said that he was more like a country preacher. He has been called the last of the Christian mystics and I think he was a guy that was, as controversial as that term is, may be people didn’t understand it and they used it for him, but Tozer was a guy where he seemed as if everything that he preached, as if he had been up on the mountain with God. What did you personally gain from Tozer’s ministry. These were all different guys, and what I’m getting at is by asking these questions, is they were such different men and such different preachers, that surely they chiselled off bits of you or helped you develop in some ways. What did Tozer give to you.

Peter – Well Tozer helped me I think to speak to the congregation. He had a conversation with them in many ways. I never saw Tozer as a powerful preacher. I never heard to many Tozer sermons mind you. The quality wasn’t all that good in some of them and the recordings, but he could put his finger on the point in your life which needed pressing. Look after this boy, look after this, and he could put his finger on the pulse of the Church. He was doing that way before you had this thought about contemporary and traditional. He was traditional in many ways. Tozer wouldn’t be contemporary I think in terms of music or things like that. But he could put his finger on these preachers who went around in big cars and big hotels and things like that. He was a man who wanted to bring people to God and again, again I keep coming back to that, that’s what he wanted to do didn‘t he. And he knew what was right and what was wrong you see. He would talk about people really being convicted of sin. He had no time for these glib decisions you know people put their hands up and five minutes later they were back in the pub or whatever it was. He wanted people converted. Changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit. He saw that.

Peyton – that raises an interesting point, you mentioned about people raising their hands and he didn’t want that, and you also mentioned about you wanted to reach peoples hearts. You were a gifted evangelist, many people came to faith through your ministry what would you say is the best advice you could give someone who, as Spurgeon called them, wants to be a soul winner.

Obviously every preacher is called to do the work of an evangelist but what would you say as far as avoiding maybe doing alter calls. I know these are all just methods, different things, but I know you personally didn’t really do the alter calls. But did you find at a certain point in your preaching that there was something that was helpful, that maybe you weren’t giving folks the opportunity to believe, or they didn’t know what to do. Was there a certain point at which you thought I need to tell them what to do. Tell them how to come to Christ.

Peter – Well the preaching should do that you see, the sermon should do that. But I know what your talking about. I used to go into the vestry after the evening service — after a gospel service, I always preached to saints in the morning and sinners in the night. It was a teaching ministry in the morning and an evangelistic ministry every Sunday night. And after the evening service I would go in the vestry and invite people to come and see me. And people did. I would tell people not to come just say hello or talk about yesterdays football match or anything. But people who were anxious about their souls. That happened. And they came, or they would come to the house to see me. I found I led very few people to the Lord. In that sense you know. They were converted with the preaching.

We had one lady in Rugby, and she came to me to be baptised and her husband and her had come to the Church for some months and I assumed she was a Christian. Her Husband certainly was a Christian. And I said its a long time your getting baptised. Oh no she said I’ve only been converted three weeks. I said three weeks. Well I didn’t know. But she had been converted three weeks ago you see, and I didn’t give her four things God wants you to know, or lead her to the Lord, but God saved her and she’s been going on with the Lord 20 – 30 years later. And I would prefer that. There were times when I did sit down with people and pray with people, we talked things through and we sought God together. And I‘ve had people in this room for weeks on end breaking their hearts and wanting to be saved. But in the end they need to get alone with God. And when their alone with God, well you never know what’s happened. But I still believe the Holy Spirit is the best Counsellor. And He will bring them along.

Peyton – When your in the pulpit, did you find that your illustrations came to you or did you spend a lot of time preparing them or was it a combination of both.

Peter – no they were all prepared. I may have an odd illustration in the pulpit as I was preaching perhaps, but my illustrations came out of life really they were my illustrations in the sense they were fresh, part of my experience of life and of God. Sometimes I’d wake up at 3.00 o clock in the morning with this illustration in my mind you know.

Peyton – I know your book Windows on Truth is exactly like that. I remember the illustration about the passport, not being able to travel because you didn’t have the passport and used that as an illustration for Christ.

I notice that you did that a lot and I found that really refreshing, that a reformed evangelical was using every day things like you said. It wasn’t stuck back in say, just stealing the illustrations of the Puritans, the Puritans dug for their own gold.

Peter – Everybody’s got to do it in their own way. Your whole life is full of illustrations. When I missed the plane from Los Angeles home because I got the time of the plane taking off wrong, you know, and we got to the airport three hours after the plane had gone. That was one of the best sermon illustrations I’ve ever had. Take care of the details. You’ve got a journey coming up and you take care of the details. Check the details. It was a simple thing. Illustrations are important I think, they’re windows of truth, like the title of that book, Windows of Truth. Their meant to point people to the full truth of the gospel.

Peyton – What about application. I think the hardest thing for most young pastors to grab hold of is the fact that this truth needs to be applied. Obviously the spirit will do His work in people’s hearts, as well and personalise much of the truths that your preaching. Your sermons are also very practical and I would imagine that takes work, and is probably something you had to work hard at.

Peter – I think that’s the way I am. I think you’ve got to preach the sermon and apply it all the way through. Like the appeal for instance. The appeal starts the moment you give your text out. Its not something tagged on at the end of the sermon . You give your text our and your calling people to come to Christ and you show them how to come. Why and what will happen if they don’t come, its all part of it isn‘t it. So to is the application in terms of holiness and things like that. On obedience and fellowship and things like that. You got to think these things through. Your back to preparation you see. I used to tell my people in Rugby particularly, don’t phone me between 9 and 12 any morning. I am in the study between 9 and 12 and I don’t want phone calls. Unless it is absolutely urgent you know.

Peyton – its interesting because if I look at your sermons there is somewhat of a pattern. I don’t know if you prepared in this way, you had a structure or an outline for your sermon. Without over analysing, because it probably is just the way you present truth, there would be truth, illustration and application and that seems to come in your preaching in waves. |You don’t seem to leave people point by point without understanding it through a window on the truth and then applying it, driving it home. Was that intentional or was it just the way you developed.

Peter – I don’t know to be honest.

Peyton – “I didn’t know I was like that.”

Peter – I just, you know, people seem to find my preaching understandable. They could relate to it and that staggered me to I suppose. The same with the books you see. I mean several people have told me I’m the only writer they know who writes the same way as he preaches. It’s the only way I know. It seems to be the obvious way. You apply the truth to the lives of people where they are, whether their in the steel works, in a school , in an office, in a shop, you apply the truth so that it comes home to them. And then they got to think it through themselves then, and take it up with God.

Peyton – I think that’s one of the big pitfalls as a preacher is because we are swimming in these truths and reading these books, we often don’t realise that the people that are listening to us, their not, and they can’t handle that. It is much, much harder to write like you write, where your writing with the crystal clarity and the simplicity for the housewife to understand and grow in a knowledge of Christ. For her life to actually change, unless we understand, we don’t change and I would say that in your preaching there’s that real clarity, there is a focus, there is a clarity.

Peter – Do you know why that is – God didn’t give me too many brains you see and I churn it out as I see it you know. And I see it simply and I churn it out like that. I couldn’t write a profound book to save my life.

Peyton -What advice would you give to a young guy just starting out, what kind of indispensable counsel would you give to anyone starting.

Peter – Don’t bother, I would hate to be starting today. I think its much harder. I was ordained in 1963 and its much harder today for young men. My Grandson is being ordained now in a couple of months and it will be much harder for him than it was for me. Although he’s had better preparation for the ministry than I ever had. So that’s good. And he’s gifted, that’s good. But there is no respect for the pulpit today as there was 50 years ago. But for the young man, just get right with God. Get right with God. I think the ambition any young man should have is to be useable. No matter, he might be an ordinary preacher or a great preacher, but he needs to be a useable preacher, so that God can take him up and use him.

You know you got Dafydd |Morgan in the 1859 revival in Wales. An ordinary little preacher, Presbyterian minister, went to bed like a lamb and woke up like a lion. And the spirit came on him. For a couple of years in the revival in 1859, mightily used. You’ve got to be useable. If we are not useable, we can be the best preachers in the world, and all that happens is that any gifts get in the way of the spirit. Get in the way of God coming and speaking through us.

Peyton – What would you say is the thing that makes a man the most useable. Is there any one quality.

Peter – I think your back to that prayer of McCheyne you see – “make me as holy as its possible for a sinful man to be“. That’s what makes us useable. You see how holy is holy and there’s no limit to it. Make me to walk with God, that doesn’t mean prefect. There is no such thing as perfection in that sense. It means I am willing to be used by God, I’m willing to be taken up by God. To be a fool for Christ’s sake, says Paul, isn’t it. I am willing for all these things.

 

Peyton – and as he said – “not that I‘ve attained brethren or am perfected“. Its amazing because we do walk around with this idea that men that are used powerfully of God are perfect. And I love that scripture where Peter, at the temple gate called Beautiful, says, “men of Israel, why do you look at us as though we, by our own power or Godliness, made this man walk. I think sometimes, would you say its an encouragement for people to see God using us so powerfully, and yet at the same time seeing how human we are.

Peter – Yes, well Peter went on in that same passage in Acts to say, “such as I have I give to you”, and that’s the way we’ve got to do it. I have to give what I’ve got and you have to give what you‘ve got.

All I’ve got depends on my relationship with God. And my capacity to take in what God wants. Gods got infinite resources to pour into my life and the more I take in the more I can give out. Peter gave what he could and that fellow got up and walked. I think in the end it all comes back to this business of your own personal walk with God.

Peyton – really quickly, because you’ve helped me loads, in fact our relationship really started after I heard you preach back in the States where I needed advice from a Pastor and couldn’t talk to anyone in my circle, so I remember first off being surprised that you wrote me back because that would never have happened in California. A Pastor wouldn’t take the time of day to write a Minister he didn’t know.

The first thing that shocked me was you actually responding me. But talking about when we step out of the pulpit. Now we’re in the congregation, your obviously a veteran, you’ve pastured three Churches, in some cases you’ve gone into Churches that are legendary for difficulty, and you’ve held it well.

What would be your advice in dealing, or with your thoughts in general, about opposition in the Ministry and the best way to deal with those.

Peter – Well you start off by accepting the fact that your always going to get opposition, always. My Grandson was voted on to be Assistant Pastor recently and he didn’t get 100% vote. And I said to him, listen boy I said , if they were calling the Apostle Paul, he wouldn’t get 100% vote. Any Church – nobody is satisfied with everything. And some of the criticism is just negative. It comes from people who are small people and they can’t think biblically. And you’ve got to try and take it as it comes. Other of the criticism comes from people who really know what their talking about and you can learn from them. I’ve often said some criticism I would take off some, I wouldn’t take off others. But difficulties are part and parcel of the work. Paul had enough difficulties didn’t he. Christ certainly had difficulties, but Paul dealing with the Church had enough difficulties. Look at the difficulties he had with the Corinthian Church. And we are going to have difficulties and its no point in thinking everything is going to be great.

I remember I used to go to Ministers fellowship when I was in my first Church and some of the men would start talking about the problems they were having, and I used to think to myself, well I don’t have any of those problems. I didn’t have any of these problems. And I thought what’s wrong with me, I’m not having any problems. And there out of the blue I had an enormous problem which meant I had to leave the Church because of it. It all comes sooner or later and when it comes your back again with God. Back again, relying on the Lord and the Lord opening the doors for some other pasture. Don’t worry about problems – Paul had them in the Churches in Corinth. We do not lose heart he said.

Peyton – Well Peter, thank you very much for this time, appreciate it. Its been some years in the thinking, although its only taken us an hour and a half to nail it down. But want to thank you for the privilege of being able to do this, and for you taking the time and kicking this down, that’s been something you’ve done over the years with not just myself, but other young men, investing in others, passing on the baton like Paul to Timothy and others, and so on behalf of them and myself I want to thank you.

Peter – Thank you

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