These All Died in Faith: Reviewing the Life of Alan Cairns

(This sermon was preached following news of the passing of Dr. Alan Cairns on November 5, 2020. Alan Cairns was the first pastor of Faith Free Presbyterian Church, and served the church from 1980 to 2009).

I invite you to turn this morning to Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11. Do pay attention to the little insert that was in the bulletin this morning as well. In relation to Thanksgiving, don’t forget our book room and the various resources that are there, especially the free copies of the Twelve Days of Christmas. You can use it as a means of outreach, perhaps, as well. It has a church address on it, and there are plenty of copies that you can take and use to be a blessing to other Christians and perhaps some who don’t even know the Lord. That may be more open to spiritual things approaching this time of the year. Hebrews chapter 11.

I want to read just five words that you find at the beginning of verse 13. Hebrews 11 verse 13. “These all died in faith.” These all died in faith. With the Word of God open before us, let’s still our hearts again in prayer.

Lord, we thank Thee for regenerating grace that gives to so many of us here this morning the desire to praise the King of heaven and bring our tributes to Him. We give Thee all the glory for what Thou hast done in our lives. All praise goes to Jesus Christ. What are we but what grace has made us? And so we thank Thee for our own testimonies and for the working of the Spirit in our own lives. We pray, God, that Thou would help us, help us even in this hour to be better men and better women. Pour out Thy Spirit on us today. Help us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Augustine Courault is one of the lesser-known early Reformers. He was a friend to John Calvin and William Farrell and had proved himself a zealous preacher of the gospel. About three weeks after his death, Calvin wrote a letter to Farrell expressing his feelings in light of the loss of this great preacher. Calvin writes, “’The death of Courault has so overwhelmed me that I can set no bounds to my grief. None of my daily occupations can so avail to engage my mind as that they do not seem to turn upon that one thought. Distress and wretchedness during the day seem only to prepare a lodging for the more painful and excruciating thoughts of the night.” He went on to say, moreover, “It is no slight evidence of the anger of God that amid so great a scarcity of good ministers, the church should be deprived of one who stood in the foremost rank of the good. What else, therefore, dear brother, can we do than lament our calamity?”

Today I think we understand how Calvin felt, at least some of us do. We expected that we would see Dr. Cairns again, that his visits to Greenville were far from over. As much as I tried to get him to preach last time, he was reluctant to do so, but promised me he would preach again next time he’d be here. But the Lord has overruled, and we submit that He knows what’s best concerning His servants at all times.

As you’re well aware, Dr. Cairns was not into tributes and things of that nature, and I learned that long before his passing. But I also heard him commend tributes, and I think the difference is in the objective. What’s the purpose? The telling of a life can either be used to exalt the man, or it can be used to help others in their own lives. He was one who liked to use the lives of others to encourage the saints. He himself was the one who wrote a book titled A Prophet with Honor, dedicated to the memory of the life and ministry of his colleague, Reverend John Wiley. I think we do a dishonor to deprive posterity of the memories of the just, and so we remember them.

I felt compelled upon hearing of the passing of our dear brother that I should reflect upon his life and make application for it, not for the purpose of exalting him. He would make short work of me if that was my goal. But I do not think he would mind if God was pleased to use our remarks in some way to help other believers.

The Holy Spirit does that very thing here in Hebrews chapter 11. It has before us in this chapter, in its contents, the names of men, many of which we have also the details of their failings. We’re told of their sins. We’re aware of the shortcomings of Abraham. We’re aware of the shortcomings of Noah. We’re aware of the shortcomings of quite a number of those that are mentioned here, Jacob and others. The Bible does not gloss over their lives, and yet this chapter pulls together these men, not that we might glorify them, but that we might learn from them and the faith that they possessed and what prompted them, encouraged them to continue in a life of faith.

Dr. Cairns no doubt had his sins, just like Abraham, just like Noah, just like Jacob, just like the others, but he was an instrument we can learn from. And we remember him for what he taught us and how he encouraged us.

So, I’m taking for my text just the beginning of verse 13, “These all died in faith.” And I have a number of remarks as I account to you something of his life as well as what we might learn from it. Noting first with me this morning, faith must have a commencement. Faith must have a commencement.

No man possesses faith by nature. No one is born naturally into a state of believing God, trusting God to the saving of the soul. This is a work of the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Romans chapter 10 verse 17 that “faith cometh not by genetics, not by the belief of our parents, but faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” In this very book, this very letter of Hebrews chapter 10, we read in verse 39, the last verse of the previous chapter, “But we are not of them who draw back onto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” That faith must work so that it actually saves, that the faith we possess is not just some thought in our minds that we believe that there is a God, like millions do across the world, but it is a belief that results in the saving of the soul.

And that faith is not something any of us are born with. It’s not something that we get by nature. It is not something that is handed down to us. It is something that is a sovereign work of God. And this was true of Dr. Cairns. There was a time in his life when he believed. He had the privilege of being born in 1940 into a godly home. Both his parents knew the Lord, living in Belfast at that time, into a working-class family. He was the fifth of six children, and although he was not saved at the very earliest point of his life, he was saved fairly early.

In fact, it was through the ministry of American evangelists coming over. They were brought over to Belfast at that time and came to the little Salvation Army congregation or group that he belonged to along with his family. It was through the ministry of these American evangelists, these youth evangelists, that he was to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And he believed that at eight years of age, he was saved.

Let me say to the children this morning, are you saved? What age are you? If you learn nothing else from the life of Dr. Cairns, you can learn that he was saved at eight years of age. And if you’re around that age, or perhaps if you’re older than that, you need to take account to yourself, am I saved? Do I know the Lord? Have I trusted Christ like he did?

When he was born, though he knew nothing of it until he was in the ministry, his mother actually prayed, not knowing even whether it was a boy or a girl at the time, his mother prayed, “Lord, if this is a boy, make him a preacher.” Thank God for godly mothers. Not just moms that want to see us saved, that’s a blessing, but mothers who want to see their children in the work of God, serving God. Parents, don’t let your burden for your children stop short of simply wanting them to be saved. Have a burden that they have a heart for the kingdom, that they will do something with their lives for the glory of Christ.

At twelve years of age, after the family relocated to a different part of Belfast, he began with his family to attend the fledgling congregation known as Mount Marian Free Presbyterian Church. The minister eventually called to that church was the Reverend Bertie Cook, and as a young I think to the surprise of some of us, he would profess himself to have been a quiet teenager. When you know the man that we know, we can hardly believe it, but I believe it, I believe it, because again, the image you see in the pulpit, perhaps even the perception you have as a minister mingles around the people. You may never think for a moment that he is quiet, but I know exactly what that’s like, how the call of God can change everything in your life.

As a teenager, he struggled with assurance, and therefore it crippled him from being a bold witness for Christ. It’s very difficult for our young people to be bold for Christ if they’re not assured in their own faith that they truly know the Lord. And they may have memories of having prayed a prayer and having sought Christ for salvation, but that isn’t necessarily, that doesn’t bring along with it necessarily a real sense of assurance. And so throughout his teen years, he struggled with assurance. You can see even the language of the writer to the Hebrews, what he instructs to do if you struggle with assurance. In Hebrews 12 verse 2, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

If you’re a child here this morning, no matter what age you are, if you’re struggling with assurance, you need to look to Christ. You need to lay hold upon Christ. And this is what Dr. Cairns did. In fact, he was sitting in a prayer meeting. A prayer meeting that was a night of prayer. Thank God for young people who want to be at prayer meetings. He was almost eighteen years of age, 1958, and he was sitting in this prayer meeting that started around nine o’clock and was to finish around three or whatever time in the morning. He was sitting in that prayer meeting struggling as everyone else prayed, as everyone else laid hold upon God through the night hours. He’s sitting there wondering, am I even saved?

At some point in that prayer meeting, the Lord brought to his mind the text of John 6, 37, “‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’” And it was right there, right there in a prayer meeting, as everyone’s crying out to God for the blessing of the work of God, that the Spirit of God was working in this young life, drawing this young man to a full sense of assurance. And he learned from that, as any of you that know him well, you know that often when he was pointing souls to Christ or ministering to those that were filled with doubts, one of the first texts he would turn you to is John 6.37.

It was a text he turned my aunt to when she was just six years of age seeking Christ for salvation. And he turned her to John 6.37. She cast her lot there and anchored in the promise of Christ to those that come to him, they will never be cast out. Well, that made all the difference in his life.

Once he left school, shortly after that, he began to work for an insurance company. And it was then that he began to really see the work of God in his life. And that brings us in to see that faith must have a continuance. Faith must have a continuance. It’s not just about it commencing. This is where so many stop short. “I’m saved.” How many in Greenville that you talk to, I’ve been here a short time, and the number of people I’ve already just in general conversation asking them, are you a Christian? Are you saved? And their response basically summed up is that at some point they asked Jesus to save them.

But if truth be told, there is no evidence of continuity of their faith. There’s little evidence of going on with God. There’s little proof that the Lord has really laid hold upon them, and they’re shining testimonies, and they’re having their life transformed by the gospel. Reading Hebrews 11, you see that faith must have an evidence. It’s not just them believing. “By faith Abel offered. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen, moved with fear,” he responded. There’s evidence. You go down through the chapter and it’s not just about the fact they trusted God and it was something internalized. It was expressed outwardly by a walk of faith, by a continuity of trusting God and living before Him according to His Word.

And of course, as often is the case in a life that is of any length, our walk of faith and its continuity has its stages, has various points, various junctures, chapters if you like. You can see even here in relation to Abraham, the various chapters broken up. Verse 8 talks about “By faith Abraham when he was so on.” Again, verse 9, “By faith he sojourned.” Verse 17, “By faith Abraham when he was tried.” You can see these different chapters in Abraham’s life.

And I want to look at a number of the chapters that may reflect upon the life of Dr. Cairns as he lived out his faith before Christ. And I begin first with the call to the ministry, call to the ministry. As I said, he worked for an insurance company. I don’t know exactly what he did, but I know that when he went there, it was his desire to do what he did not do when he was at school. At school, he had been quiet. At school, he had not owned Christ publicly. At school, he had not been a strong witness for the Lord. And he determined when he walked into this place of employment, and I remember hearing him say this because it was encouraging for me, because I remember having done the very same thing. I wasn’t saved at eight years of age, I was saved at nineteen, so it’s quite different. But we’re around the same age, dealing with the same thing, going into places of employment and determining, the first moment I get an opportunity to own Christ, I will nail my colors to the mast.

And I say that for the benefit of young people. I account this for the benefit of young people. When you go into a place of employment, you may not have been as strong in school as you would have liked to be or as you ought to have been, but you make sure at the stages of your life you go into places, and when an opportunity arises, you own the Lord. You own Him. Don’t be ashamed of Him. Own Him. One of the fruits of his employment there was the fact that he had the privilege of seeing his typist come to faith in Christ. She was an Anglican, and whenever Dr. Cairns was opening the Bible with her, she was bringing in the prayer book, and there she was talking about the prayer book, and he was talking about the Scriptures.

But eventually, she came to sit on to the gospel, and eventually the Lord brought her to Christ, and his prayers were heard, and he always accounted that even many years later. And when I think about it now, he’s probably met her, seen her again, reunited in glory with that dear woman. He had aspirations to be a lawyer, so he says, but the Lord had other plans for his life. Again, it was at a church prayer meeting. At a church prayer meeting where God was impressing upon this young man a sense of feeling a call before God that the Lord was dealing with his heart.

And he went to the prayer meeting on this particular occasion, and he felt pressed upon his soul that if the Lord was to, through His servant, Reverend Cook, if the Lord was to, through His servant, mention the need for preachers, He would take that as God’s Word to His own heart. Well, on that occasion, Dr. Cook was preaching from Psalm 90, which if you’re familiar with that, Psalm ends with dealing with the work of God, God blessing the work of our hands and so on. And Dr. Cook preached through that text and got to the end of it and made no application at all whatsoever. And he closed his Bible, and as was his general practice, as soon as his Bible was closed, that was it. It was over.

But he closed his Bible and did something that he never did on other occasions. He continued to speak. He said before the congregation, “We need to pray. We have opportunities, but we have no young preachers. We need to pray.” Right then, he knew in his heart of hearts God was dealing with him. He was to doubt it. He went away believing that God was dealing with him, and yet he doubted it as so often we do. And I say this again because I think many, many, when the Lord deals with our hearts and gives us a promise or gives us a sense of His will, the first thing we tend to do after a moment of assurance is to doubt it, that we’ve gotten it wrong.

And he confided in one of the elders of the church. And this elder then spoke to Reverend Cook about the matter, and they were all in this elder’s home at the occasion, and the elder and his minister were in a room alone, and a young Mr. Cairns was going down the hallway ready to leave, but the door was ajar and he could hear what they were talking about. And the elder was saying to the minister, “Alan’s questioning whether the Lord has really called him, he’s asking the Lord to do it again.” And the Reverend Cook replied, “If he’s waiting on God to speak again, he’ll wait forever.”

And it sent a chill down his spine, and he realized he had to act in faith in how the Lord was leading his life. So he went forward. He was the only one preparing for the ministry at that time. We look at the smallness of things today, they were small then too. That brings us to another stage in his life, student minister in Dunmurray Free Presbyterian Church. These are the years 1960 through 64. Dunmurray is a part of Belfast. There’s a little congregation there, and when he applied to become a student, he was immediately or initially sent as assistant to Mr. Paisley. He spent three months as an assistant, but there was this need in the Dunmurray church, there was no minister, no preacher, and so Mr. Cairns was sent at twenty years of age to oversee the preaching ministry and whatever else needed to be done in that congregation while he was a student.

He would say that every time he preached, he preached everything that he knew, because everything he knew at that point was just what he had studied for the sermon. And so, perhaps that made him more brief than he became later on in his life, I don’t know. But he preached and saw the Lord work in that congregation. And one of the highlights of his short time in Dunmurray was the visit of Jordan Kahn. Now, I’ve made mention of this on occasion because it always sticks in my mind, him talking about this.

But Jordan Kahn was a Christian from India, and Mr. Paisley had met him at some other international meeting and had invited him to come along. And Mr. Paisley had said that Jordan Kahn was going to take the prayer meeting. It was the 31st of October, I think 1962. And Mr. Cairns was upset that Mr. Paisley would tell him who’s going to be preaching at his prayer meeting. And he had in his idea, in his mind, that this man coming from India, he’s going to have broken English, it’s going to be a disaster. What’s Paisley thinking he’s doing? Well, Jordan Cahn came that night, while Dr. Cairns was expecting a man who could hardly speak a word of English. Instead, he was treated, along with the rest of the congregation, he was treated to something of heaven on earth.

Jordan Kahn, according to Dr. Cairns, spent eight hours out of every 24 on his knees before God. And Dr. Cairns said, when you prayed with Jordan Kahn, you went places in prayer that you never even knew existed. And he would later remark that that night changed his ministry. He never left them.

That brings us into the call to Cabra Free Presbyterian Church. Near the end of his time as a student in Dunmurray, he felt the Lord burdening his heart for Cabra. The strange thing is, and I understand this, but I don’t believe many of the Lord’s people do. But the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. Nine months before he was finished, the Lord was burdening him for Cabra. And the strange thing was, Reverend John Wiley was the minister of the church at that time, with no indications that he was leaving, none. And here’s a young man, resting over the will of God, thinking to himself, having this pressure that that’s where he should be. Well, the Lord in the coming months moved John Wiley on to a nearby congregation in Coleraine.

And when the Calvary Church was vacant and eventually extended a call to Dr. Cairns, he accepted it. It was around this time also, I’m not sure whether maybe some of you know the details here, but it was around this time that he married his wife, Joan. And the two of them went together, beginning ministry together up outside, well in a little country area just outside of where I grew up. Again, I laugh when I think of how the Lord dealt with him in various prayer meetings.

I was sitting in a prayer meeting hearing Mrs. Cairns pray one night, and I thought to myself, that’s the woman for me. You see, prayer meetings are more than just seeking the face of God. The place of prayer is where God deals with us. The place of prayer is where God directs us. The Cabra congregation is one of the oldest in the Free Presbyterian Church. The denomination started on March 17th, 1951, and the Cabra congregation was founded June 23rd that same year.

Most of the Christians in that area, as often was the case throughout various parts of Northern Ireland, were converted through the efforts that were outside of their own congregation. Not other churches, they were faith mission pilgrims and other evangelists that would come to the area and have a mission for a period of time, souls would be saved, and then they would go back to the Church of Ireland, back to the Irish Presbyterian Church, back to the Methodist Church under dead, dull preaching.

Some of them, therefore, were involved with the prayer unions that were set up by the evangelist W.P. Nicholson. Prior to this time, Nicholson had seen a mighty work of God in the 1920s, and under that he didn’t start a new denomination, he didn’t have any great church established, but he established prayer unions. And these prayer unions, some of them still exist to this day, were these Christians who were part of the Presbyterian church, part of the Methodist church, part of the Anglican church, but they knew God. They were saved. They would meet together on Friday nights. They would seek the Lord. They would do their own work. They were part of these apostate churches, many of them, but they would do the work that they could in these prayer unions, collective with like-minded believers.

Well, that was the case in this area. Many of the churches were dead. The people who were saved were saved by other efforts around the area. There was no evangelical preaching in the churches at all. And just to give you an idea of how Cabra started, because I think, well, it’s obviously close to my heart. It’s a congregation that the Lord dealt with me in. But just to give you an idea of what was going on, there were allegations in the local Presbyterian church about the minister and certain immoral behavior.

And one or two of the members were aware of this, and they went to one of the elders of the church, a man by the name of Sandy McCauley. And he went to Sandy, he was the clerk of session, he went to Sandy and said to him, “Sandy, we’re concerned,” and they put before him these allegations. And they left it with him, and Sandy did the right thing. He went to the minister and he said, “Look, there are these allegations going around. I’m letting you know that some people have come to me and have said these things.” He made no accusation, as far as I’m aware. He just put before the minister what had come to his ears, and the minister launched on him. Launched out at him as if he was bringing accusation, accusing him of something wrong.

Shortly afterward, as Sandy was standing in his farm, minding his own business, the minister walked up the lane of the farm with two of the other elders and beat him up. And beat him up so badly that to this day, if you talk to Sadie, she said, “I could hardly recognize my dad, his face was so swollen.” And it was that moment, hearing the news of what was happening in Crossgar, the church that was established down there as a result of the apostasy of the Presbyterian church, it was at that point Sandy and others were realizing we need to do something.

They invited Mr. Paisley up to do a mission. He stayed there for six weeks. A hundred people professed faith in Christ and the conviction was, what do we do with these souls? And they had a night of prayer, another night of prayer. It was there the Lord gave Sandy a promise, “Though thy beginnings are small, yet shall thy latter end greatly increase.” Sandy says, “We can’t send them back.” And they started a church there. That was 1951.

Dr. Cairns went there in the middle of the 60s and ministered among some of the finest people you’re ever likely to meet, many of them in glory now, but they are some of the salt of the earth. Dr. Cairns’ ministry there was owned of God. The Lord used him. He knit his heart to that people. He would form lifelong friendships with many of them, including my own grandparents, this young couple coming from Belfast.

And, you know, you have to realize for Belfast people, some of you have been to Belfast. If you haven’t been to Belfast, you’ve heard of the Titanic, and you know the Titanic was built at Belfast, and you know that there are huge big cranes, they call them Samson and Goliath. And to a Belfast person, the joke is this, if you can’t see Samson and Goliath, you’re in the countryside. And basically you’re a country bumpkin or whatever, what kind of derogatory terms they call country people. So if you can’t see Samson and Goliath, you’re evidently not in Belfast and you’re out in the country somewhere and you’re just a country person.

Well, of course, Dr. Cairns was a city person, Mrs. Cairns was too, and going to the countryside seemed like a daunting thing, but the Lord used them. And even to this day when you talk about the people there that were saved under His ministry, the people there that were built up, the church was strengthened. He oversaw the strategic move from the countryside into the town of Ballymoney in 1972, at which point it was renamed Ballymoney Free Presbyterian Church.

And the following year, with the building that they had left, it was his vision that they would start a radio ministry. And from that little place, Dr. Cairns began to record radio messages, radio messages which again a vision that the Lord would, that did something with that none of us would ever have expected. To let the Bible speak today goes across not only the UK, not only Ireland, not only North America, it goes across India, Africa, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, and souls have been saved.

In fact, it’s remarkable to see how the Lord has used the radio ministry in the Nepalese church and all the congregations that have been established because of Paul Thapa teaching through the radio and the letters that come in and him going out to find these people ministering to them, preaching Christ to them, seeing them saved and establishing these congregations. Praise the Lord for what He has done.

Around the mid-seventies, Dr. Cairns would write a little booklet called Christ is the Answer. It’s now called A New Beginning. It looks a lot different than it did back in those days. But whenever he wrote it, the purpose was that people would use this to evangelize and sit down with people and read it and it had all the verses and so on and so forth. But Dr. Cairns thought this was great. In fact, he said to Mr. Cairns, he said, “Cairns, that’s the best thing you’ve ever done, and it’s the best thing you’ll ever do.” And that was it, left it with him. And Dr. Cairns could rest. At least he had done one thing good that got the approval of the doc, as it were.

Well, Dr. Paisley was really taken by it. In fact, he got hundreds of them, and he would give them to his congregation and say, “Go, give them out to people. And you encourage them, tell them to read it and then meet with them after and talk about the contents.” The Lord used that again to the salvation of many souls.

Well, that brings us into the call to Greenville. In 1977, when Dr. Paisley came to Bob Jones to preach at their Bible conference, the story is told that the church elders of Faith Presbyterian Church requested a special meeting with him. At which the elders unanimously petitioned Dr. Paisley, asking that their congregation become part of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. That request, of course, was accepted, but it didn’t come with the certainty of a preacher.

And for some of you who remember those days, a few of you at least, for two years you had different preachers coming, preaching for six weeks, eight weeks, whatever they could afford to be here, bringing the Word of God. And wondering what man, which man would the Lord bring to these shores? And long story short, a call was issued to Mr. Cairns, and he accepted and became the minister in 1980, forty years ago.

Again, it was not an easy move for him. In fact, he was petrified, and I don’t know, I haven’t had this verified, but if my memory serves me right, someone in the congregation in Ballymoney told me, and Mrs. Cairns would know this better, I maybe should have checked with her, but someone told me that he was so afraid to face the congregation and tell them the news, that he actually recorded it on a tape and had it played at the prayer meeting in his absence, telling the news.

One of the ladies of the congregation said that his news, his decision to leave to go to Greenville was more difficult for her to deal with than the passing of her mother, which gives you some indication of the esteem they held him in and the love that they had for him. He came here, and that’s a story that many of you can best tell, but the testimony still lives on in this congregation and right across right across the nation. The souls that have been liberated, the lives that have been changed, the people saved, came to a city amidst its shallow preaching.

Oh, fundamentalists, sure. Christ put before men, absolutely, but souls were still in bondage. They had no sense of assurance, and here men and women learned to trust Christ rather than their own response to the gospel. They learned that their confidence in prayer is not dictated by how they’ve lived in the past week, but by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And they were encouraged to continue to look to Christ at all occasions, all times, all events.

What could be said about what he did here. Again, the radio ministry, which he oversaw for years before Charlie took it over. The training of young men. He was so tired at times he would fall asleep while he was recording the radio, working 18-hour days, day in, day out, to try and see something done here. You think of all the effort that was put in in those early days, especially. You think of the hours.

And if you were to ask him now, was it worth it? What do you think his response would be?

I felt compelled this morning, dealing with the college and career class, just to talk to them about the whole concept of legacy. Every one of us is leaving a legacy. The legacy of those here in Hebrews chapter 11 is well known. You see it. This portion of Scripture doesn’t highlight all their sins. It focuses upon how they lived, how faith worked in their lives, how they looked to God, how they trusted God. Again Abraham, verse 17, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. Trusting God even when it doesn’t make sense.

Laboring for God, living a life of faith for God, day by day, moment by moment. And for those who live such lives, those who give themselves entirely to Christ, not a second-rate offering, not as little to Christ as possibly can be given, but the life on the altar, everything for Christ, living with a clear vision of the glory and splendor of the crucified and risen Lamb. None that live in this wholehearted endeavor for the Lord regret a thing of what may be termed their sacrifice. It is not a sacrifice. It is the greatest privilege of the creatures of the dust to serve their Creator and give back to Him their lives.

What is your legacy? What are you leaving behind? I watched the video that was produced at the time of his retirement in 2007 and I was encouraged to see how much he was appreciated. He was not a perfect man. But none of us are. We’re all stumbling at times. But if not, remember what Rutherford said, if one soul from Anwoth meet me at God’s right hand, my heaven will be two heavens in Emmanuel’s land.

If one soul, and for Dr. Cairns, there’s hundreds and hundreds. I don’t know how many. That’s for the Lord to determine. Valuing a life well lived. But faith must have a conclusion. These all died in faith. They died. Our brother Charlie rightly expressed in his note of sympathy on behalf of the church, “For him, faith has become sight, for His eyes now behold the King in His beauty.”

Christ has taken Him to be with Himself. Christ ever jealous of all of His sheep. In John 17, 24, prays, “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am. That they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me.” And I think of that text every time a saint of God goes to glory. I think the prayer of Christ is answered once again, that they be with me where I am.

Let me ask you, when you die, will you be with Christ? Will you? Are you absolutely certain? Are you sure? You may not get to 80 years of age, but I trust that as it is for Dr. Cairns, it will for you be absent from the body, present with the Lord. We mourn his loss, but we acknowledge what Dr. Cairns said at the funeral of his dear friend and brother, Johnny Gresham. He said on that occasion, “There are no accidents in the death of a Christian. There are no tragedies in the death of a Christian. There is no eternal loss in the death of a Christian.”

God’s eye is upon His people. And so it is. Rutherford also said, “He is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star which going out of your sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. You see him not, yet he doth shine in another country.”

The question is, what are we to do? I’ve been thinking about this much. Again, Dr. Cairns said, “A heritage is something you’ve got to recognize. Don’t take it for granted. It is something to be treasured. It is something to be maintained.” And he loved this heritage. He loved it.

He loved giving the accounts of the various public debates in which the likes of Dr. Paisley and the Reverend John Wiley would expose the Christ-denying apostates of the day. He loved it. He loved to rehearse the highlights of protests conducted in Northern Ireland and Scotland and England, Geneva and Rome. Protests against the Pope and the Protestant churches and all their compromising with Rome.

They would be accused of being anti-Catholic. They’d be told that they hate Catholics, and yet it was through their ministry, perhaps more than any other denomination in the country, that was seeing more Roman Catholics won for Christ, truly brought to a knowledge of the gospel. Because they didn’t hate Roman Catholics, but they hated the Pope and everything he represented.

And he loved to tell the stories. He loved to speak of what God was doing when three of our ministers were imprisoned. He loved to share about how the Lord saved this soul and that soul and scores of souls at the various missions that were conducted. He loved theology, loved discussing theology, talking theology. He appreciated sound preaching, but when I think of him, when I think of what he valued more than anything else in terms of the life of the church, you know what he valued more than anything else? He valued the place of prayer. He valued the prayer meeting.

Spurgeon said, “Prayer in the church is the steam engine which makes the wheels revolve.” And so Dr. Cairns would talk about the 36-hour prayer meeting and tell us how Dr. Paisley had taught his men that it’s only after the praying is done that the real prayer begins. See, that doesn’t make any sense to the vast majority today. They don’t understand what it means to pray through like these men knew. And when you have your seasons of prayer, it’s when you get to the point where you have nothing else to say to God, that’s when the prayer meeting starts.

That’s when God starts to take a dealing with you, when you’re staying in His presence and you’ve said everything that you’re going to say, and you just stay there waiting on God. It’s at those moments where the Spirit of God comes down. It’s at those times when God deals with our hearts, when we’re sitting there quietly, having nothing to say before God, having offered our prayers but still waiting in His presence, looking for His power, looking for His help and unction.

And everything I talked to you about, I learned from him. He was so burdened about the direction of the midweek prayer meeting around our churches, so burdened. What would you say to a young man who’s about to start his ministry? What would be the one thing that you feel going away after the discussion that he felt he had to tell me that?

When I went to see him before I left for North America, it was very clear in my mind the one thing he wanted me to understand. “When you, in your prayer meetings, do not make it a Bible study. It is a prayer meeting, and treat it as such.” Speak devotionally. Don’t be speaking, going through expositionally some epistle of the New Testament or whatever. I’m filling in the gaps for you of the conversation.

I don’t think I always took heed to what he said, but I feel it. I do feel it more and more as time goes on. He didn’t want another Bible study. The people needed to pray. The church needed to learn to pray. And he was so burdened about this.

Let me leave you with something he said in a message just a few years ago. Here he is speaking to us this morning. “Yes, there is a deadness in our prayer meetings. It used to be there was a pleading with God in prayer, a passionate pleading with God, a holding up of the promises of God, where the prayer meeting wasn’t all taken up with health and wealth. I believe in praying for the sick. I believe in being compassionate to the needy. But men and women, there’s a greater burden. Our land is going to hell. Our nation is under judgment. Our churches are facing the greatest challenge they’ve ever faced since the days of the Reformation, and we are at our weakest point. We need to get through to God. There has to be a pleading, a yearning, a burning out in prayer, the burden that Knox had when he looked at Scotland and he cried, ‘God, give me Scotland, or I die.’”

I look at our young people. I looked at the college and the career class this morning and asked them simply, have you ever been part of a night of prayer? And none of them have. They don’t know what it’s like to spend a night in prayer. And I tell you, beloved, that is where we are feeling more than anywhere else. Sermon audio and technology leaves with us the legacy of the preaching of the mighty preachers of the past, of recent eras. But we have no record of the prayer meetings.

What would it be to have a record of the prayer meetings that started at 9 p.m. and went on to 4 a.m.? So I come this morning and I think, how am I to teach the coming generation what really made men like Dr. Paisley and Reverend Wiley and Dr. Cairns and others? How do I teach them that? How do I teach them what it is to wait on God?

Calvin wasn’t all lamentation in his letter to Farrell. He would go on to say, nevertheless, “We are not lacking in solid consolation. This of itself is a great comfort when all do thus testify by affectionate sorrow for their own loss, the highest seam in which they held him for courage and uprightness. We, the survivors whom the Lord has left behind for a while, let us persevere in the same path wherein our deceased brother walked, until we have finished our course.”

May the Lord help us. Let’s bow together in prayer.

Can you hear him appealing to us to seek God? Can you hear him in his encouragement to keep living for Christ, to give of your best for Christ? Can you hear him say, even concerning this congregation and the work of the free church insofar as it stays faithful to Christ, that the end is not yet and the best is yet to be?

Lord, we thank thee for men who have lived lives for Thy glory. And we take to heart the exhortations that we received from the hand of Thy servant, who only wanted that every one of us live on to Christ. We remember Him, and we see the grace of God in Him, and we give all glory to King Jesus. For while others are spending time lamenting that there are few like Him living today, there are yet others optimistic that God will yet raise up men anointed and filled with the Holy Ghost.

So, Lord, we this day, in all our mourning, we direct it in prayer unto Thee. And we ask that Thou wilt give to Thy church again an army of mighty men and mighty women. Add steel to us, O God, and teach us, more than anything else, the power of prayer. And by the grace of our Lord Jesus, love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit, be with all Thy people now and evermore. Amen.