This Day in Presbyterian History

While this blog is sponsored by the PCA Historical Center, we’ve noted before that we take a wider, more ecumenical approach in the coverage of our posts. Today’s post is one such example, recounting the life and ministry of the Rev. Lawrence R. Eyres, a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church:

A Faithful Pastor, Serving the Lord in all humility.

Just ten years ago now, the Rev. Lawrence R. Eyres entered his eternal rest on this day, January 23, 2003, at the age of 91. Lawrence was born on an Iowa farm on November 14, 1911, raised by godly parents during the Depression, was educated at Wheaton College (1934) and prepared for the ministry at Westminster Theological Seminary (1937).

In 1936 he had become one of the founding members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and following his graduation from Westminster, was ordained in 1938 and installed as pastor the OPC church in Deerfield, New Hampshire. Moving to the other side of the nation, his next pastorate was in Portland, Oregon, and then in 1958 Rev. Eyres became the pastor of what is now Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Long Beach, California, a church founded in April of 1941. The Rev. Lawrence Eyres was the third pastor of this congregation, and the church grew greatly, numbering some 500 members growing in grace under his ministry. In 1970, Rev. Eyres left Faith OPC and worked to plant churches in Ohio, South Dakota, Alaska and Wisconsin before retiring in 1993.

Among the honors accorded Rev. Eyres during his long ministry, he served as Moderator of the OPC General Assembly in 1950, and he is perhaps most remembered for The Elders of the Church, a work which has proven to be of great use. To read a review of this book, click here.

Of Rev. Eyres, one obituary noted that “Lawrence was a gentle, gracious man, who loved His Lord and loved people, whose life’s work is summed-up by the word “pastor” – stalwart for the truth of the Bible as God’s Word, vigorous in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, committed to the truths of the Reformed faith, and sacrificial in giving his life to Christ’s Church.

Words to Live By: Alongside humility, love and a heart for the truth of God’s Word, self-sacrifice is a quality essential in the life of anyone who would seek to live out their Christian life in way that would matter. Give me a pastor who will expend himself on behalf of his flock. Give me Christians who will live sacrificially, giving freely of themselves to others, not holding back when they see a need that must be filled.

For Further Study:
Click here to read an article by Rev. Eyres, “Live in the Fear of God.”

Sources:
http://eyres.home.texas.net/bios/scrapbook/LawrenceREyres.htm
http://eyres.home.texas.net/bios/LawrenceEyres.htm
http://www.faithopc.org/our-history/

Making some bibliographical entries from the Westminster Theological Journal, I came across this tucked in the very back of one issue. Many might have missed it, hidden as it was behind the “reviews of books”:

COMMUNICATION

[Editor’s Note: Vol. 53, no. 2 (Fall 1992) carried an article on J. Gresham Machen that included the following statement regarding the early faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary:

“Allan A. MacRae, professor of Old Testament, was a dispensationalist, while Paul Woolley, professor of church history, was a ‘historic premillennialist’ ” (p. 213, n. 9).

What follows is part of a communication from Dr. MacRae, dated January 21, 1992.]

This misrepresentation shocked me greatly. I am certain that it would not have been made by any of my colleagues of those days, all of whom, to my great sorrow, have already passed on. I was a member of the Westminster faculty for eight years but until I read this article I never heard anyone say, or even suggest, that there was any difference between Mr. Woolley’s beliefs and my own, either during that time or later . . .

Like Paul Woolley, I agree entirely with the teachings of the Westminster standards. One of those attending the Westminster Assembly said that many of its members, including some of the most honored, were “expressed chiliasts”. . .

I cannot think of any valid ground for anyone to call me a “dispensationalist.” It is disturbing to have an imaginary difference between Paul Woolley and me stated as if it were a fact. I knew Dr. Machen very intimately, and served as a colleague with him and with Paul Woolley for eight years, without ever having the feeling that there was any important difference between them and me. Paul and I were known to be premillennialists, but I never heard that either of us was criticized on that account. We worked together in great harmony. It was only after Dr. Machen’s death that circumstances developed which made me decide to resign from the Westminster faculty.

[excerpted from The Westminster Theological Journal, 54.2 (Fall 1992): 404.]

Words To Live By:
While difficult to do at times, always strive to represent others accurately in any discussion. If you differ with someone, do the hard work of knowing exactly where you disagree, and be fair in giving an accurate portrayal of their position. Doing so demonstrates respect, works to establish an atmosphere in which discussion can continue and be fruitful, and it also lends credence to the position you are trying to establish.

In His Time, the Lord Will Raise Up a Man.

There is so much that could be told here about our subject today. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle was born in Pennsylvania, near what is now the city of Harrisburg, in 1746. His parents were godly Scots-Irish settlers who raised their children in the fear of the Lord. When Samuel was just nine, his parents moved the family to North Carolina where they settled a 300 tract of forested land and with great labor, turned it into a farm. The family also became members of the historic congregation that would later be known as the Thyatira Church, not far from Salisbury, NC.

Samuel excelled at learning and even taught his brothers and sisters before going off to the College of New Jersey, where he studied under Dr. John Witherspoon. Upon graduation, he studied theology with his uncle in New Jersey, and then began to seek ordination and a pastoral call to serve a church. In God’s providence, he returned to the Thyatira Church to serve there as pastor from 1777 until his death on January 21, 1811.

But what particularly caught my eye as I read through one account of his life was the following paragraph, which brought back a professor’s lesson in seminary. Teaching a course on “The Introduction to Theology” at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia in the late 1970’s, Professor John Frame noted how often the Lord raises up one man to stand against the tide of unbelief and opposition. Besides some of the obvious Biblical examples of Moses and Daniel, he cited Athenasius and Martin Luther, among others. It is in that same vein that this following account seems so important. Here we have a picture of early America that we may not have seen before, but it is also a picture in many respects much like today:

During the Revolutionary war, and especially from the summer of 1780, when the South became the theatre of conflict, the country was in a state of utter confusion, and vice of almost every kind prevailed to an alarming extent. The civil character of the war, too, gave it a peculiar ferocity, and produced a licentiousness of morals, of which there is scarcely a parallel at the present day. The municipal laws of the country could not be enforced, civil government was prostrated for a time, and society was virtually resolved into its original elements. Mr. McCorkle came out in reference to this state of things in his utmost strength. He preached, prayed, reasoned, and remonstrated–nor were his labours in vain. From the close of the Revolutionary war, and especially from the breaking out of the Revolution in France,—North Carolina, in common with other parts of the country, was overrun with French infidelity. Here again, he stood forth the indomitable champion of Christianity : he not only preached but published in defence of Divine Revelation; and infidelity quailed before him. It has been confidently asserted that more was done, in that part of the country, by his efforts, to arrest this tide of evil, which threatened at one time to sweep every thing before it, than by any or all other opposing influences.

Words to Live By:
Surely our times today are no worse than what you read pictured in the quote above. Then should we think that the Lord’s arm is now too short to save? (Num. 11:23; Isa. 59:1). Surely not! God can still work a mighty work, as great or greater than He did in McCorkle’s day. The only question is, are we waiting on Him in expectant prayer?
“Let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace, to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16)

For Further Study:
A biography of Rev. McCorkle, titled The Prophet of Zion-Parnassus, was written by James F. Hurley and Julia Goode Eagan, and can now be read on the Web, here.

Rising out of a Sunday School class here in St. Louis, with reflection upon the life and ministry of Francis A. Schaeffer, our post today departs from our normally calendar-tied postings. Schaeffer was clearly a man who understood the times, and that recognition easily paired up with some recent reading in J.C. Ryle’s book, HOLINESS. 

I pray you will find this profitable in a day when the Church is often sorely tried and test.

Executive Summary — Chapter 19

THE WANTS OF THE TIMES
[excerpted from Holiness, by J.C. Ryle. Banner of Truth, reprinted 2016, pp. 391-413.

Men that had understanding of the times. — I Chron. 12:32.

“These words were written about the tribe of Issachar, in the days when David first began to reign over Israel. It seems that after Saul’s unhappy death, some of the tribes of Israel were undecided what to do. ‘Under which king?’ was the question of the day in Palestine. Men doubted whether they should cling to the family of Saul, or accept David as their king. Some hung back, and would not commit themselves; others came forward boldly, and declared for David. Among these last were many of the children of Issachar; and the Holy Ghost gives them a special word of praise. He says, ‘They were men that had understanding of the times.’

I cannot doubt that this sentence, like every sentence in Scripture, was written for our learning. These men of Issachar are set before us as a pattern to be imitated and an example to be followed: for it is a most important thing to understand the times in which we live, and to know what those times require. The wise men in the court of Ahasuerus ‘knew the times’ (Esther 1:13). Our Lord Jesus Christ blames the Jews because they ‘knew not the time of their visitation’, and did not ‘discern the signs of the times’ (Matt. 16:3; Luke 19:44). Let us take heed lest we fall into the same sin. The man who is content to sit ignorantly by his own fireside, wrapped up in his own private affairs, and has no public eye for what is going on in the Church and the world, is a miserable patriot, and a poor style of Christian. Next to our Bibles and our own hearts, our Lord would have us study our own times.

Consider what our own times require at our hands:

I. First, and foremost, the times require of us a bold and unflinching maintenance of the entire truth of Christianity, and the Divine authority of the Bible.

II. In the second place, the times require at our hands distinct and decided views of Christian doctrine.

III. In the third place, the times require of us an awakened and livlier sense of the unscriptural and soul-ruining character of Romanism.

Here Ryle can easily be seen speaking to a major concern of his day, and for this third point we might easily reduce his point to the soul-ruining character of unbelief in all its many forms.

IV. In the fourth place, the times require of us a higher standard of personal holiness, and an increased attention to practical religion in daily life.

V. In the fifth and last place, the times require of us more regular and steady perseverance in the old ways of getting good for our souls.

a. Let us pray more heartily in private.

b. Let us read our Bibles in private more.

c. Let us cultivate the habit of keeping up more private meditation and communion with Christ.

Practical application:

(1) Would you understand what the times require of you in reference to your own soul?

(2) Would you understand what the times require of all Christians in reference to the souls of others?

(3) Would you understand what the times require of you in reference to the Church?

No doubt you live in days when our time-honored Church is in a very perilous, distressing, and critical position. Her rowers have brought her into troubled waters. Her very existence is endangered without by all manner of unbelief. Her life-blood is drained away by the behavior of traitors, false friends, and timid officers within.. Nevertheless, so long as the Church sticks firmly to the Bible, the Standards, and the principles of the Protestant Reformation, so long I advise you strongly to stick to the Church. When the Standards are thrown overboard and the old flag is hauled down, then, and not till then, it will be time for you and me to launch the boats and quit the wreck. At present, let us stick to the old ship.

Why should we leave her now, like cowards, because she is in difficulties and the truth cannot be maintained within her pale without trouble? How can we better ourselves? To whom can we go? Where shall we find better prayers? In what communion shall we find so much good being done, in spite of the existence of much evil? No doubt there is much to sadden us; but there is not a single visible Church on earth at this day doing better. There is not a single communion where there are no clouds, and all is serene. ‘The evils everywhere are mingled with the good’; the wheat never grows without tares. But for all that, there is much to gladden us, more Evangelical preaching than there ever was before in the land, more work done both at home and abroad.

If old William Romaine, of St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, who stood alone with some half-a-dozen others in London last century, had lived to see what our eyes see, he would have sharply rebuked our faintheartedness and unthankfulness. No! the battle of the Reformed Church is not yet lost, in spite of unbelief, semi-idolatry and scepticism, whatever jealous onlookers without and melancholy grumblers within may please to say. As Napoleon said at four o’clock on the battlefield of Marengo, ‘There is yet time to win a victory.’ If the really loyal members of the Church will only stand by her boldly, and not look coolly at one another, and refuse to work kthe same fire-engine, or man the same lifeboat–if they will not squabble and quarrel and ‘fall out by the way,’ the Church will live and not die, and be a blessing to our children’s children.

Then let us set our feet down firmly and stand fast in our position. Let us not be in a hurry to quit the ship because of a few leaks; let us rather man the pumps, and try to keep the good ship afloat. Let us work on, and fight on, and pray on, and stick to the Church. The Churchman who walks in these lines, I believe, is the Churchman who ‘understands the times.’