World Cup Blogs 2: Australia

Continuing Christian reflection on the 32 nations in the World Cup 2018:

I have as many family members in Australia as in the UK but I have never been there.  Today the evangelical world feeds from the recording label-cum-church network called Hillsongs but for many of us in ministry, a number now growing once more through the internet, the debt we owe Australia lies firstly elsewhere: the writings of Frank W. Boreham.

Boreham grew up in Kent.  He was the last student to be accepted at Spurgeon's College (for training Baptist pastors) by C H Spurgeon himself a couple of days before Spurgeon died.  In ministry he worked in New Zealand, then in Australia (Tasmania and Melbourne) though that doesn't tell the half.

It was as a student at Spurgeon's that, in a plethora of recommendations for reading, a lecturer who I did not overly admire threw in Boreham's name - "you will still find useful things there."  Somewhere or another I picked up an ancient looking book with Boreham's name on as a shelf filler.  And on some other day with little to do I actually opened it and started reading.  And like many before and after me, that was the moment when Hillsongs, for all its future glory, was doomed forever to remain in second place when I thought of Christianity and Australia.

Before the war Boreham was invited to speak back in Britain at the Church of Scotland Assembly and was introduced as “the man whose name is on all our lips, whose books are on all our shelves, and whose illustrations are in all our sermons.”

Billy Graham's wife Ruth was greatly influenced by Boreham as is popular 21st century apologist Ravi Zacharias.  But let Boreham speak, or rather write, for himself:

“God stands in relation to His world as the Author stands in relation to his manuscript. He may need to introduce a villain, but He Himself is not on the side of the villain. The world is not out of control. Everything in it – material and spiritual – is, like the unfinished story on Stevenson’s desk, at the command of its divine Author. And the Author is on the side of the good!”

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For the last time I reached for her Bible. I knew what to read. If for her great countryman there was ‘only one Book’ at such a time, for Granny there was only one chapter. ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Even as I gave utterance to the beautiful and rhythmic cadences, the rain ceased to beat upon the little window-pane, and I read on amidst a silence that was like the threshold of another world. It was like the hush of the Presence-chamber, the anteroom of the Eternal. I could see that Granny drank in every syllable, and it was as the wine of the kingdom of heaven to her taste. And then I prayed—or tried to—for the last time! When I rose from my knees by her bedside, the setting sun had struggled through the rain-clouds. It streamed gloriously through her little western window. It transfigured her wan face and wandering hair as it fell upon her snowy pillow. I quietly rose to leave. I was about to take her hand in mine when a thing happened that I think I shall remember when all things else have been forgotten.

To my amazement, Granny rose, and sat bolt upright! In the glory of the setting sun, she seemed almost more than human. ‘Doon!’ she exclaimed, ‘doon!’ and motioned me to kneel once more by her bedside. I obeyed her. And, as I knelt, I felt her thin, worn hands on my head, and I heard her clear Scotch accent once more. ‘The Lord bless ye,’ she said in slow and solemn tones; ‘the Lord bless ye and keep ye! The Lord bless ye in your youth and in your auld age! The Lord bless ye in your basket and in your store! The Lord bless ye in your kirk and in your hame! The Lord bless ye in your guid wife and in your wee bairns! The Lord bless ye in your gaeings out and in your comings in frae this time forth and even for evermair!’ I have bowed my head to many benedictions, but I have never known another like that. The frail form was completely exhausted, and poor Granny sank back heavily upon her pillow. In a very little while she had passed beyond the reach of my poor ministries. But I often feel her thin fingers in my hair; and that last benediction will abide, like the breath of heaven, upon my spirit till I shall see her radiant face once more.