Pastor Crouch - History of the Tab - September 1983

Genesis chapter 26 and verse 19. Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, the water is ours.

So he named the well Isaac, because they disputed with him. Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also. So he named it Sitna.

He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we will flourish in the land. Let me read that last verse again, or the last sentence.

He named it Rehoboth, saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we will flourish in the land. If you take a walk into East Worthing, and down the long road known as Church Walk, before you come to the home of Mrs. Gladys Heafey, you pass on your left a bungalow which has the name on it Rehoboth. I never noticed it until last week, and that by accident.

I wasn't looking for it, but it was a name that struck me as I walked by. You don't often find houses or bungalows with biblical names. And subsequently, in delving into the archives here of the tab, I came to the startling conclusion that that was the very place where Douglas Crouch, the founder and the God of the tabernacle, lived.

And the reason why I read to you from Genesis chapter 26, is because that's where you find the scriptural setting of the name that he gave his bungalow, his home. He named it Rehoboth, saying, now the Lord has given us room, and we will flourish in the land. I think it's good that this evening, as we've come into this refurbished lounge for the first time, just to pause to thank God for the memory of the founder of this fellowship.

The memory of the just is blessed, and we're not giving glory to a man. We're giving glory to the God who gave the man. And maybe it's nice and good, profitable, from time to time, just to stop for a moment and look back in history and recognize how much we owe to men and women who have gone before, and for us this evening, how much under God we owe to Douglas Crouch.

He was born in 1853 in Bromley, Kent, the fifth child of a family of seven. His parents were not evangelical Christians. They went to the established church to quote him, and again quote, there was not much beyond the form of godliness.

But Pastor Crouch was early on in his life to recognize spiritual inclinations. I imagine that if I was to test this congregation this evening as to how many people were converted in their boyhood or girlhood days, the vast majority would raise their hands, and that was the case with the young Douglas Crouch. The age of nine he was brought face to face with the truths of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He didn't fully comprehend. He went to talk to the Anglican minister, but he didn't really get much joy from him, not much understanding. And he had to wait until later on when he got to the lofty years of a 14-year-old and became an apprentice at Woolwich.

He had to wait to entering a strict Baptist family and in the providence of God going to their chapel. And he started to hear a great deal more of the word of the Lord which was like honey to his soul. Then one day when he was walking around looking in a bookshop, he came across a little volume entitled Guide to Salvation, to God and to Glory.

Guide to Salvation, to God and to Glory. And the teenage Douglas thought that's the book for me. So he bought it and he read it and he acted upon the message of the book which filled out what he'd come to understand from the strict Baptist preachers that he'd heard.

He linked up with a strict Baptist church, the place called Shooter's Hill Road, Blackheath, under the ministry of a Pastor H. Ryland Brown. Pastor H. Ryland Brown. And Pastor Brown recognized that in the teenage Douglas there was someone who had potential for ministry.

So he'd moved on a little bit in time. He was born, as I say, in 1853, but he's now in his late teens. And in the center of London there's a remarkable man by the name of Charles Spurgeon.

Not only has he under God founded the largest non-conformist church in the metropolis and indeed in the English-speaking world, he has also brought into being what is called the Pastors College, a college for the training of pastors. The strict Baptist minister thought that it would be good for Douglas Crouch to go to Spurgeon's college. And so he went there for two years and apparently did very well and made quite an impression upon C. H. Spurgeon.

When he graduated he went to Nottingham. And there in a church in what must be today the center of Nottingham, though doubtless then was quite on the outskirts, he was not only to pastor successfully, but he was to meet a lady by the name of Miss Saunders, who came from Clapham, London. He fell in love with her and she became his life's partner.

And a further indication to Douglas that the Lord was indeed going to lead him into a large place and into even larger places. During the couple of years or so that he spent in Nottingham, the work so prospered that he was able to negotiate a building fund and ultimately a building was put up. But he wasn't to stay in Nottingham very long.

He was to receive an invitation down to Shoreham. And that's where C. H. Spurgeon comes into the picture again. Those of you who think that maybe I delve too much into Spurgeon in my pulpit quotes don't realize how much this fellowship indirectly owes under God to C. H. Spurgeon.

There happened to be a pastor at the Shoreham Baptist Church by the name of Joseph Harold. Spurgeon was producing sermons, written sermons, at the rate of one a week. The publications went into millions of copies and obviously he needed secretarial help.

Pastor Harold left his church at Shoreham to become Spurgeon's personal assistant. That meant that there was a vacancy at Shoreham. And you guess what happened? They made overtures to Douglas Crouch in Nottingham and he came down to Shoreham where again under God he was to be exceedingly blessed.

Rear both once more. The large place becoming even that much more large. A new chapel and schools were built by schools.

I mean Sunday school rooms at Shoreham. And Douglas Crouch was settled for what seemed to be a very prosperous ministry. It looked as though he might spend his full life's ministry there.

But then there's a little place by the name of Worthing, not so far from Shoreham. And there's been a man ministering by the name of Pastor Stead. He has decided that he needs to leave Worthing and as a result Worthing Baptist Church, a very small concern on Christchurch Road, is pastorless.

They contact this gifted man Douglas Crouch and invite him to come along. He's not too sure. Should he go or shouldn't he? After all the work at Shoreham has prospered very well.

There's a new building, there's a school and it's rather a titchy little church there at Worthing. Should he, that's a Yorkshire expression for small, just for the uninitiated, should he not stay in Shoreham? But he's got the urge to go. Well what do you do in the 1860s or so or rather the 1870s when you're not too sure of God's leading? You write a letter.

To whom do you write it? You write it to C.H. Spurgeon. And what does Mr. Spurgeon have to say? Dear Mr. Crouch, if you feel that you ought to go on to Worthing, go and the Lord be with you. But I do not think it is a wise resolve on your part.

For your own sake it is assuredly a bad move which will involve you in labor and loss. For Shoreham it will, I fear, be injurious. The work at Worthing will be heavy toil with debt and then a chapel to build.

I feel I could not urge you to go to such a severe struggle. My prudence bids me say, do not go. Still I know of no one more likely to succeed.

Indeed I know of no one so likely. I admire your faith and self-sacrifice and I would be far from wishing to damp them. I could not push another into the lifeboat in a storm, but I can admire him if he ventures on his own account.

I do not know how to express myself. It is a poor guide to you, but it is all I can say. Yours heartily, C.H. Spurgeon." Well, Crouch wasn't really helped too much by this particular letter.

So he asked the Lord for a fleece. If he was going to come to Worthing and they'd only got the school hall there, they hadn't really got a proper chapel, let there be some money made available for the building of a real chapel, a large chapel. And a hundred pound came his way that was designated for this cause.

So he took it as his fleece. And when he came to Worthing, after he had ministered for just a year and a half or so, he had seen monies come in to pay for the whole of that large church that now exists adjacent to, literally adjacent to the school hall which is Worthing Baptist Church. He was there for 13 years and he had a very, very happy ministry indeed.

And one might wonder why on earth Douglas Crouch ever thought it right to leave the church. If you were to read his letter of resignation, a facsimile, a photocopy of which I put up on our little display of tabernacle icons and interesting photographs, you will see that it oozes love. This wasn't a work that was run down at all.

To the contrary, it was as far as I can ascertain, maximum in the congregation that was coming along Sunday by Sunday. But Mr. Crouch, somewhat different from his early views in ministry when he had been very much a devout Baptist and had indeed taken on the local Anglican clergy over the issue of believers' baptism, had come to an understanding of a truth which to him seemed extremely precious. Perhaps it doesn't hit us with the full force that it was hitting people at the turn of the century and maybe that is to our loss.

The truth was this, it was sufficient just enough to be a Christian. Not necessarily to be a Plymouth brother with great respect to the brethren, nor an Anglican, nor a Presbyterian, nor a Baptist. Simply sufficient to be part of a Bible-believing community and have fellowship with anyone who trusts the Lord Jesus as Saviour.

And so Pastor Crouch begins to take his leave of the church that he has been pastor of for some 13 years and he writes this in his manual, I quote, I owe it to the tender grace of the Great Shepherd by whose help I have continued and by whose supplies I have been enabled to feed the flock of God. I rejoice to know that the new cause has not been built up upon the ruins of the old, but that the church in Christ Church Road has continued in a flourishing condition whilst that assembling in the tabernacle has proved a distinct addition to Christian strength in the town. I'm anticipating him a little.

He has now moved out of the church and he's established another, but I'm using this quotation from his manual because it indicates his conviction that he had a new work to do for God in this city, or rather in this town, and the new work would not be as a result of robbing the congregation that existed in the Baptist church. He goes on to say that in the new work to which he believes God has called him, it will be his intention to disavow all party names that we might be named after him whom God hath highly exalted. We follow no teaching but that of the written word of God, the Bible.

Whatever we find there, we esteem as binding upon our conscience. What is not there is not binding upon us, no matter by what councils, by what order of any branch of the church, it may come down to us if it is not sustained by the scriptures of truth. We value it only as the opinion of men and treat it accordingly.

So Crouch leaves the Baptist church, and as was indicated in a couple of sentences that I didn't really mean to read at this point, he founds another community, another Christian group. But what at this stage did the townspeople think of Douglas Crouch? Let me read to you from the Worthing Gazette of the 5th of February, part of their editorial. In detaching himself from denominationalism, the Reverend Charles Douglas Crouch embarked upon a course in which the highest moral courage was needed to sustain him.

We have always recognized in him a man among whose traits were to be numbered great force of character, marked capacity for the direction of affairs and unwearied activity in the prosecution of his plans. The church which by years of effort he succeeded in building up in Worthing is an abiding monument of his sincerity and zeal, and none save he can know the tremendous effort involved in the severance of a connection which had been of so close and harmonious a character. A desire to free himself from the trammels of denominationalism was the reason publicly urged when the announcement of the pastor's resignation was unexpectedly communicated to his congregation.

And a calm consideration of the circumstances should certainly have sufficed to show that no merely material considerations could have dictated so grave a step, for the advantages gained by twelve years' active labours are not to be lightly set aside and a new and experimental work embarked upon with the most ill-defined ideas as to what the future may bring forth. In the matter now under discussion, the Gazette in no sense assumes a partisan attitude, but it shares with the town generally in its admiration of Mr. Crouch's past services, and it hopes that his future may be correspondingly successful. And that editorial goes on to include an interview between Douglas Crouch and a luckless reporter who succeeded in putting the most naive questions to Mr. Crouch, who like a lion devoured them and used them very much for his own advantage.

Now, it so happened that when he left the Baptist Church, there was on Montague Street an empty church building. It had been occupied by a congregation known as the Free Church, but the congregation had dwindled. They had in turn, or they had previously taken it over from the congregationals who had moved further out on Shelley Road.

Prior to that, it had been a music hall. And prior to that, and this is an interesting piece in my researches, it had been a church known as, in the 1830s, the Worthing Tabernacle. And that's where you get the origin of the name, besides, of course, the biblical origin in the Old Testament.

So, it was rather an interesting change in fortune and providence that causes Douglas Crouch to suddenly discover, to suddenly be offered by the Free Church the use of a building that was at one stage in Worthing called the Tabernacle. And so now we move to the Worthing Gazette, February the 19th, the last one I, 1896, the last edition I read to you from, you recall, was February the 5th of the same year. And this report refers to the inaugural service.

The inaugural service and public meeting at the Worthing Tabernacle last week furnished abundant proof that the Reverend C.D. Crouch has the sympathy and good wishes of a considerable number of people in the town. It would indeed have been surprising if there had been an absence of kindly feeling and encouragement on an occasion when both were so much needed. And then it goes on.

Having cast off the fetters of denominationalism, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that Mr. Crouch found himself on Wednesday evening unsupported by other ministers of the town. But if the opening meeting in the Tabernacle was dispiriting to him on this account, he must have been cheered by the large audience which faced him, covering the floor of the building and filling the galleries. Some people probably attended out of curiosity, but there was such a hearty ring about the singing that one could not avoid the thought that the movement was making an exceeding good start.

And Mr. Crouch gets enclosed in the Worthing Gazette, part of his first sermon in the Tabernacle. And he goes on in this address to illustrate the origin of the building and how that back in 1839 it was used as a place of worship under the name the Tabernacle. So God blessed Mr. Crouch as he ministered there on Montague Street.

But the building had one main drawback, not so much the auditorium, but apparently was very good and it had excellent acoustics. He had had built in a couple of balconies so that more people could be accommodated, but there was no room for expansion at the side or at the back. And as a result, it was a bit of a barn of a place for youth work.

And so they started after a few years to look elsewhere and to find if it were possible, in God's grace, for some other more convenient place to be acquired and a new building put up. But I'm anticipating myself just for a moment. Let me give you a snippet of that interview of that luckless reporter as he puts one or two questions to Mr. Crouch before the inaugural service of the original Tabernacle, at least as far as Crouch's ministry was concerned.

Do you consider your prospects good? The interviewer inquired next to Mr. Crouch. I am not a prophet, said Mr. Crouch, neither the son of a prophet. I cannot lift the veil that hides the future.

This, however, is clear, that the gospel is the one message of God for the people during this day of salvation. People need the gospel and the Lord ever blesses its proclamation. And he goes on to say, and whenever I've preached in England, I have never yet been without an audience.

And I don't believe that I will start at such a condition as to be without people coming to hear what I have to say. And the reporter went on to ask him, what style of service will you have in the Tabernacle on Montague Street? And he says, well, the Sunday services will be similar to those which I've been previously conducting, only the morning service will be, you may mention, of but one hour, namely from 11 to 12. And that will be followed by the breaking of bread, which in New Testament times was observed on every first day of the week.

The evening service will be specially for gospel work. I shall hope to have conversational Bible readings for children, young men, young women, and others. Well, as I say, that ministry down there at Montague Street was blessed, but it had this handicap of the building not having the facilities for youth work.

So, they looked for some place where they could put up a purpose-built edifice that would cope with all their requirements. Now, on the main road between the station and the main town centre, moving out somewhat to the outskirts of Worthing in Chapel Road, there was a plot of land opposite some gardens, and as a result of certain negotiations, it was possible to purchase this land for the sum of £1,500. In those days, in the tabernacle, as today, I hasten to add, they had some very, very gifted elders.

And one of those elders, who was very well-talented in making money, bought the old tabernacle from Douglas Crouch. He only owned it for a little while, and then he resold it, and he made £150 on the deal. His name was J.R.C. Palmer, and I have here a little book giving the photographs of all the original elders.

And they do look somewhat dissimilar to the bunch that we have today, if the latter brothers don't mind me making that observation, but then you can contrast me with Mr. Crouch and be equally rude. But Mr. Palmer's testimony is set down here, and he obviously was a man of God and a shrewd businessman indeed. They contacted a Mr. Childs, or rather they didn't have to contact him because he had been used in the building of the Baptist church, and this brother was asked to negotiate under the architect Mr. Lund.

Nearly Land, but not quite. Mr. Lund. He was asked to help erect, with an army of men, the tabernacle, and thus supplying labour to some degree themselves, reducing the cost.

It was about this time that the story that I mentioned the other Thursday, last Thursday, came about. Mr. Crouch is walking past this plot of land that he secured along with one or two other elders, and the little boy is going by and sees the sign indicating that the tabernacle is to be built there, and he asks his mother if Solomon is coming to Worthing. Well, this building went up in the compass of 12 months.

It just took them 12 months to build it, and they reckon that in supplying a lot of the labour, obviously they must have had some specialised men as well, but having supplied a lot of the ordinary labour, they conserved some 1,500 pounds. At the stone laying ceremony, just to go back on Mr. Palmer and redeem him, Mr. Crouch was looking for more money. Now, whether he directed his gaze to Mr. Palmer or not, realising that he'd made 150 pounds on the deal in Montague Street, one doesn't know.

I think that probably one assumes that this dear brother, moved by the Lord, comes along with his checkbook, and he puts 150-odd pounds in Mr. Crouch's hand, along with a great amount of other monies which are collected, and ultimately the tabernacle is built, is completed. According to the architect, able to seat 750 persons, or at a crush, 850 persons, and all we can say is it must have been a very, very big crush to have got 850 in. The new tabernacle, going back to my friends, the Worthing Gazette, who really ought to be paying me for this lecture the number of times I'm quoting them, the new tabernacle is a building of very attractive design and reflects credit upon the architect, Mr. J. E. Lund of Worthing.

Though the interior is not yet quite completed, visitors at the opening services this week were able to form a good idea of its proportions and its general appointments, and it goes on to say the floor slopes downwards to the baptistery, the pews are of pitch pine and form a complete semicircle. The rostrum is also semicircle with an organ loft at the rear. The gallery runs on three sides of the building and so forth.

Quite eloquent, but perhaps not quite as eloquent as the language in another paper describing the tabernacle. Built according to the designs and under the personal supervision of a local architect, Mr. James E. Lund of Christchurch Road, the structure may be described as a transition between the Norman and early English periods, and with its facings of Kentish ragstone relieved with heart and bathstone dressings, it presents an imposing frontage to Chapel Road. The handsome rose window with mullions being a decided acquisition to the architectural features of this, the main thoroughfare into the town.

And so it goes on and on vying with words to heap up its compliments of this graceful building, which they believe is a credit, and rightly so, a credit to Worthing Town. So Mr. Crouch had the great privilege under God of seeing a building at Nottingham, a building at Shoreham, a building by Christchurch Baptist School Hall, and now this building put up. There was debt.

They didn't pay for it immediately, though a great amount of money was accumulated, and the debts were paid off bit by bit. But when Mr. Crouch is now installed at the tabernacle here, as opposed to Montague Street, and I'm risking divulging this information, he refuses to take a salary. Let me rephrase that.

He did take a salary over the first three years, but he repaid it. Fifty pounds, one hundred pounds, and one hundred and fifty pounds. By this time he's in the bungalow by Church Walk, and at the back of that bungalow were open lands, which he has bought up and he's started as a nurseryman.

He has come across a scripture in Paul's epistles which talks about preaching the gospel freely. He takes this literally, and that's the reason why he won't accept a stipend. The furor that this caused in ecclesiastical circles was interesting.

I've been going through some of the press releases earlier today, and the London newspapers just couldn't believe it. They were all applauding it. The secular papers, that is.

But listen to this for a little bit of criticism. As a rule, the clergy are as well pleased to receive their salaries as any other hard-working section of the community. But the Reverend C.D. Crouch, the pastor of the Worthing Tabernacle, has for years been troubled with conscience scruples on this score.

Accordingly, he has been devoting himself in increasing measure to a business pursuit, which he hopes to render so remunerative as to make him independent of the support of his congregation. The occupation which he has chosen is that of fruit growing, and his profits in the first year of the experiment were £50, in the second £100, and in the third £150, by which amount he has, we assume, voluntarily reduced his salary. One may honour Mr. Crouch's sacrifices in pursuit of an ideal without, however, accepting his view of the question at issue, which is, on the face of it, too eccentric to be right.

There is perhaps a certain superficial incongruity, which means it's rather difficult to believe, in receiving pay for philanthropic work. But this difficulty disappears when it is remembered that the duties of an efficient minister of religion cannot be discharged simply by kindness of heart. Considerable intellectual labour is required, which ought to be rewarded, as in the medical and other philanthropic professions, according to its quality and success.

The majority of clergymen and ministers would probably testify that if they attempt to keep pace with the spiritual and intellectual needs of their congregations, they need their whole time for the purpose. If Mr. Crouch finds that he can satisfy the demands of his church, while he is earning £150 by horticulture, either he is a very clever man, or his congregation is not very exacting. Well, the punch is in the last line there.

Let's start to reflect back. Here is Mr. Crouch in harness, the church well filled, and he's now an interdenominationalist. He will recognise no Christian group apart from those who trust Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

But he'll still bring Anglicans to the pulpit, he'll still bring Brethren to the pulpit, but for him the denominational label is not important. His creed was Jesus only, and his utter belief was in the infallibility of the word of God. Why then did he leave the Baptist church? Well, not because he had any grievance with his people, quite the contrary, they had tremendous relationship.

Indeed, when he left the church, he had volunteered a certain period of time not to minister again in the town, so that in no way would he act detrimentally towards the existing congregation. The elders there wrote back to Mr. Crouch and said that that was utterly not necessary. He was quite free to preach whenever and as soon as ever he wanted.

Well, why was it, I put the question again, he left? It had a great deal to do with Charles Spurgeon, and it had a great deal to do with something that the majority here have never heard of. Namely, a movement last century called the downgrade controversy. The word downgrade was referred to scripture, so apply it and you'll understand what it means.

The downgrading of scripture. There were many in Baptist circles, not worthy Baptist church, many in Baptist circles who were influenced by the modernism on the continent, who were compromising on the gospel. As a result of that, Charles Spurgeon wanted the Baptist union to have a creedal statement which included the infallibility and the all-sufficiency of scripture.

That union refused to do so, and as a result Spurgeon left the union. So also did Douglas Crouch. He left the union, but not the church.

He knew that Spurgeon was going through bad times, and so he wrote him a letter commiserating with him and saying that he was holding true to the position that Spurgeon had taken and that he believed to be the biblical one. To which Spurgeon replies, I quote, Your much-suffering friend, Charles Spurgeon. Well, that happened some years before Mr. Crouch felt himself obliged to leave the Baptist denomination.

But in the local area, he did not bring controversy into the issue at all. He just went to pastor a church, untrammeled, to use his almost favorite word by denominational allegiances. And as such, he was blessed.

That home of his called Rehoboth, it seems to me, gives some indication as to the nature of his ministry. The Lord led him into a large place. And as he continued here, so his work was blessed by God.

There are some very interesting things in the archives, in the minute books, as you work your way through them. For example, in 1923, they increased the insurance of the chapel to 7,000 pounds. Mr. H. Saunders, we're told in 1923, also repaired the side paths of the church.

In 1925, they gave five pounds to the parish tabernacle to help them. And the following year, they gave two pounds to the pastor of the parish tabernacle who came and preached here. 1926 was precarious.

They had a deficit of three shillings. And so the ministry continued. Not that Mr. Crouch was without his difficulties.

You never have a period in church history which is without difficulty. At one stage, there was controversy between him and Mr. Henman, an associate that he'd invited to the ministry, and was here for some time, a good and a godly man. At one stage, it's upsetting to read how 100 people felt that they must leave the tabernacle, and that was the reason how the High Street Church was formed.

But Mr. Crouch continued here, and both churches were to prosper under the Lord. But it must have been a very harrowing experience, and I don't cover it up. I don't see why these things need to be.

We have to confess that our forefathers sometimes had difficulty, and that's an encouragement for us today when we have difficulty also. Mr. Crouch, as I say, was blessed overall in his ministries in the church, and he was always very much a committed man to our fellowship. He resigned as the pastor as a result of advancing years, and when he does resign, he writes a very lovely letter to the people in 1918, inviting them to come along to a special meeting of the assembly, feeling sure that the time has come for me to give place to a younger pastor.

I'm asking the great head of the church to guide you, and to our fellow members in detecting one whom he has chosen for the church. But Douglas Crouch wasn't to leave. Uniquely, he became the treasurer of the church, and that was probably a good thing because he obviously knew how to make money.

And in 1920, the very founder of the church cleared the debt himself of 650 pounds. Later on, you discover him in 1928 equipping a gospel caravan for the advance of the work of the Lord around this area. In 1934, Douglas Crouch has to resign as treasurer because of his advancing years.

The minute reads, Pastor C. Douglas Crouch reluctantly resigns the treasurership because of advancing years. Great appreciation was expressed of his and Miss Saunders' work, and it was decided to present her with a case as a small token of our appreciation. This was obviously a lady who'd been working alongside him at that stage.

It was then agreed that they would recognize Mr. Crouch accordingly for all his kindnesses to the church, and thus the minute book reads in his credit. And then later on, when you come to the year 1938, you discover the record of the death of Mr. Crouch, and a minute passed, thanking Almighty God for the gift of this brother. Pastor C. Douglas Crouch, the founder of the church, was called home on Sunday, July the 17th, 1938.

A deep sense of appreciation of his faithfulness to the evangelical ministry was expressed, and it was decided to erect a tablet to his honored memory similar to that of another lady in the church, and that tablet you discover on the right-hand side of the church as you are facing the pulpit. Well, so was the span of Douglas Crouch's ministry, a life lasting 84 years, and we today perhaps ought to ask ourselves, how would he feel now? And perhaps I'm not the best person to attempt any exact answer. But one thing that we can say unblushingly is that the same gospel principles for which he stood, we still stand.

His eloquence perhaps is not with us, many of his talents, alas, not possessed by the likes of me. But I believe that at least, as you trace the history of the tabernacle down through Mr. Crouch's years to Mr. Atwood's years, his successor, to Mr. Lamb's years, and on to my own, there's not been one man who has blushed to declare the gospel of Jesus only, and who has in any sense compromised on the fact that we can have fellowship with any believer who trusts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. What would Douglas Crouch think of what we've done to the church at the back here? Well, bearing in mind that he had a vast auditorium on Montague Street, but was prepared to shift for a building that would be more congenial for the holding of youth meetings and so forth, I cannot help thinking that he would be rather pleased.

And if he were to survey the fact that God has added to that piece of land that he bought for 1,500 pounds another almost equally sized piece of land at the side of the tabernacle, then surely also he would be giving thanks to the Lord. Douglas Crouch was a great man, and we do not honor him, we honor rather the God who gave him. The Lord led him into a large place, and his legacy has remained.

What do you know of the future, Mr. Crouch? said the Luckless Gazette reporter. I don't know. I'm not a prophet.

I'm not a son of a prophet. But I have discovered in my life, wherever the gospel has been preached, there's always been an audience. And there's always been an audience at the tab.

The church has never been shut. The gospel has always been preached. Uphill, down there, in the summer, in the winter, through two world wars, through all the difficulties that that brought, through all the problems of financial restrictions, the gospel was preached, and God was faithful.

And today it's the same, and we want to praise God. Praise God for this lounge, praise God for the hall upstairs. Thank God that there's no debt whatsoever that attaches to this church, and that in God's grace we're able to send off monies to the mission field, and send off, even more importantly, personnel.

My brothers and sisters, we have a great heritage. Let's never, never, never betray that heritage. Certain things might change.

We may have a different hymn book. But incidentally, that wasn't a precedent. Mr. Crouch had his own hymn book.

So if anyone offers any remote tinge of criticism on our supplement, I have it in good evidence that Mr. Crouch had done the same. His choice may have been a little different. But nonetheless, he would have sung the good old gospel hymns.

I cannot think in principle any change whatsoever in the doctrine that we preach. Anchored to the rock, geared to the times, and so we go on. Honoring the memory of men who serve the Lord here, and believing that the God of the past is the God of the present, and the God of the future, who will lead the brothers and sisters here into an even larger place, if they hold true, as Douglas Crouch did, to the inerrancy of scripture, and the fact of Jesus Christ, and him only.

Amen. Let's just pray. Father, we honor what you have done down the years.

We praise you for the grit and determination of a man who would not give up. And we just ask that something of what you achieved in his life, you might achieve in all our lives. And he was only one of many who stood by him.

And he belonged to others. So we believe there's a reproduction here. Just one speaking at the moment, but representative of so many, many more.

The concept of the priesthood of all believers retained. We thank you for this. We praise you then for the gift of Douglas Crouch.

For the gift of Pastor Atwood. For the gift of Reverend Eric Land. We praise you for what you have done.

God of our forefathers, be our God too. And in these days, we vow as a community of your people, to hold fast to the faith once delivered to us, and to promote it in every means possible, so that others may come to an understanding of Jesus Christ and his love. Amen.

Well, my friends, I hope I didn't wear you by giving you that information. And that it will enliven our hearts and enlarge our appreciation of what God has done amongst us down the years. I think what we'll do at this stage is to sing a hymn.

Then I'll pronounce a little prayer of benediction. And then feel quite free to go. Those of you who would like to and need to move off at this stage, you go.

We'll take a five or ten minute break. And then we'll come back in here, those who can stay. And we'll have a time of prayer which won't go on beyond 9.30. Let's join in the grace.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.