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Telling The Old, Old Story In The Brave New World A collection of addresses delivered by several Moderators General at the Opening Session of the General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church of Australia over recent years, for the building up of the Lord’s people in their most holy faith and to assist them to have a clear vision of the Glory of God in His Being, Works and Word in this year of grace, 2020. ISBN 978-0-9871280-4-1 This book is available free of charge. The ePub will be made available on Apple Books and the Amazon Kindle Store. The PDF may be downloaded from the following website, and may be forwarded to anyone who could benefit from it: https://presbyterian.org.au/index.php/documents-download Permission is granted to print these files for your own use. Alternatively, you may contact the editor: [email protected] It would be appreciated if those who receive it would make a donation to the work of the Overseas Aid and Development Committee of the General Assembly of Australia via their website: www.presaid.org.au ii Contents Foreword And Introduction ____________________________________________________v 1. An Unchanged Gospel For A Changed Australia ____________________________1 2. No Time For Uncertainty _____________________________________________________5 3. Declaring His Glory _________________________________________________________11 4. Declare His Glory By Shining Like Stars ___________________________________19 5. What Difference Does The Gospel Make? _________________________________25 6. Paul’s Apostolic Ministry: A Pattern For His Day And For Ours _________29 7. The Sign Of Jonah: The Church’s One Essential ___________________________31 8. Revival From The Dead _____________________________________________________37 9. Epilogue ______________________________________________________________________41 iii iv Foreword And Introduction To A Collection Of Addresses By Moderators General Of The Presbyterian Church Of Australia, 1994 – 2019. I HAD spent eight years as Professor of Old Testament at the Free Church College, Edinburgh (now Edinburgh Theological Seminary), when I was asked to come and teach at the Reformed Theological College, Geelong. This was in 1974, just as the move to create the Uniting Church of Australia was coming to a conclusion. Every Presbyterian minister and congregation were given a vote on whether they approved of the formation of the Uniting Church, and secondly whether they wished to remain as a member of any continuing Presbyterian Church after union. In fact, two votes, using the same questions, were taken. The second vote took place in mid-1974 when I, with my wife Mairi and our children, were on the SS Brittanis on our way from Southampton to Melbourne. Soon after arriving and commencing teaching at the Reformed Theological College, I had a visit from two representatives of the (continuing) Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Rev Robert Swanton, formerly the minister of Hawthorn, and Mr F. Maxwell Bradshaw, the Procurator (legal adviser) of the church. Their request was, if the Board of the Reformed Theological College agreed, that I would come the following year and teach for a day a week at the re- organised Theological Hall of the PCV. It was meeting in the premises of Hawthorn Presbyterian Church, with Robert Swanton as Acting Principal, and several part-time lecturers covering the basic theological course. There was a small number of students at various stages of their preparation for ministry. A church union never produces absolutely clear-cut theological groups, and so it was with the division of the PCA on the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977. Not all leaving the Presbyterian Church to enter the Uniting Church were liberals, nor were all who stayed in the continuing Presbyterian Church Reformed Evangelicals. In fact, it has been estimated that only about 20% were committed to a Reformed Evangelical position, while another 20% held to a Conservative Evangelical position. The remainder comprised 50% Traditionalist/Liberal, with a group of hard-core Liberals comprising about 10% of the whole. As I got to know the continuing Presbyterian Church from late in 1974, this theological diversity meant that it was hard to predict the future direction of this church. In 1977, I had to make a decision as to whether I was going to accept a full-time position on the theological faculty of the PCV. I had taught part-time for three years (1975-77), and now the opportunity was there to share in the future direction of the church. I remember sitting in the General Assembly of the PCV in October 1977, observing the business, and trying to make up my mind. I realised that the tensions I could see in the business of that General Assembly were not going to disappear overnight, but on balance I believed that I could offer support for the Reformed Evangelical section as it worked to pull the church back to its orthodox theological position. When the General Assembly appointed me to the Theological Hall staff, I accepted the position. Various friends were disappointed with my decision to leave the Reformed Theological College and go to work for a denomination that at that time was not wholly v committed to the Westminster standards. I already knew of battles ahead, both with those of Evangelical persuasion but not Reformed standpoint, and those who held a much more Liberal position. The difficulties had already surfaced in the theological course, as the students, all evangelical, complained about the liberalism of one lecturer. This problem was solved by me being asked to take on more lecturing to by-pass that lecturer, though I knew that was just side-stepping the basic issues of doctrinal commitment. One friend asked me how long it was going to take before I knew that I had made the right decision, and that the Presbyterian Church of Australia was, under God’s blessing, moving more strongly to re-affirm its commitment to the Westminster Confession Of Faith. I answered that it would take at least ten years for that to become apparent. In fact, it took about 15 years before I could see the changes that had already taken place, assess further changes that were imminent, and feel confident that the desired reformation of the church was well under way. One decision of the General Assembly of Australia that assisted greatly was the production of its own hymnbook. When it appeared, Rejoice! made a significant impact on the church as a whole, as now it had a hymnbook containing at least 100 psalms and hundreds of evangelical and Reformed songs of praise. Accompanying changes in preaching, Rejoice! reinforced the new Gospel emphasis in the church, so that hymnody and preaching were in accord with one another. Within a few years those of us teaching in the Theological Hall (Robert Swanton, Robert Miller, and Douglas Milne) could see changes coming. Older men, who had stayed on in service to help after union, were retiring, and they were being replaced by men trained by ourselves. Some traditionalists, working with liberals, thought they could control the future direction of the church, but they had no successors to replace them. All the students in Victoria, apart from one, were evangelical. That one student realised, after about a term, that he was out of step with the doctrinal position of the church, as given expression in lectures, and he resigned. Younger evangelical pastors soon found that the eldership was a problem, as many elders did not hold to the doctrinal position of the church, and often seemed to lack basic Biblical knowledge. In particular, they objected to pastors who refused to baptise indiscriminately, even though the General Assembly of 1979 had reverted to a position first introduced in 1906. Once again, at least one parent had to profess saving faith in the Lord Jesus to qualify for obtaining baptism for a child, or to put it in other terms, they had to display the same faith for baptism of their children as would qualify for admission to the Lord’s Supper. I offered to conduct seminars around the Victorian church to reaffirm the church’s position, and to help take pressure off the younger men who were facing strong opposition because of their adherence to Biblical standards. By the early 1990’s I was certain that the PCA was a church undergoing reformation. Students from our three theological colleges (Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne) were making a real impression. Their preaching differed from many of the older, traditional pastors in that they were preaching for evangelical conversions and seeing a new generation of members sitting in the pews. Also, younger evangelical elders were starting to make an impression both in local congregations, in church courts, and on denominational committees. The General Assembly of Australia, which met every three years, was perhaps slower to change than state assemblies. Those holding traditional views, or Liberal ones, managed to get appointed as commissioners to it, and they stood for the theological position that had vi characterised the church prior to 1977. However, by the 1988 General Assembly in Brisbane, it was clear that, under God’s blessing, the change was gathering momentum and within a few years the Presbyterian Church of Australia would overall stand consistently for Biblical truth and confessional doctrinal standards. This became clear in the Sydney Assembly of 1991, when it was decided overwhelmingly that ordination to the ministry was for men only. Mairi and I were overseas in 1993 when I was informed that I had been elected as the Moderator General of the next General Assembly to be held the following year. My own theological position was well-known in my home state of Victoria, because of my role in theological training, my service as Victorian Moderator (1989-90), membership of state denominational committees, and my personal knowledge of practically all our congregations.

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