Facing the Canon with Dr R T Kendall

I have the pleasure of interviewing my favorite Bible teacher dr. Artie Kendall the former minister of Westminster Chapel London for 25 years he now lives in the US where he still writes and continues to teach around the world dr. Artie Kendall I'm delighted to have this opportunity to talk with you well let's just backtrack a little bit you lived in London and you were the minister of Westminster Chapel how many years were you there for 25 years to the day Wow to the minute Wow a quarter of a century that's right well so when you went there initially did you ever think oh how long I'm going to be here well when I went initially it was just to preach on a Sunday yeah it didn't cross my mind anything would come of that lo and behold at the end of the day they asked me to stay would I stay for six months without any obligation and we were all ready to go back to America I was waiting for my viola at Oxford we'd sent back all our souvenirs clothes books my son's new bicycle yes and we were ready to go just to have my viola and it will be gone dr. Martin lloyd-jones and his wife drove to our home and said stay for six months you've got nothing to lose I said but you know what's gonna happen arrogant of me to say but I said they're gonna want me to stay I won't stay he said I told them that I said they're willing for me to come for six months no hard feelings and we go on back to America he said you just come for six months well the reason I've talked about it says all right it was the time of the year it's hard to go back it would have been shul right after Christmas better to go in June and I said okay we'll stay for six months and they put us in a lovely flat in Kensington that started to spoilers I was already thinking oh I like this and after two or three months people came along to the vestry and they said please don't leave and there were conversions they hadn't had anything like that in years and we agreed for them to vote on us to be Minister 92% pretty good vote and in the meantime Martin lloyd-jones came to hear me yeah the other thing is he had never heard me preach and it called me 11 o'clock that night after he had been in the church and heard me I wasn't supposed to know he was there but I someone told me anyway he just said his opening words you're a preacher you're a born preacher your place is not in a seminary or university it's in the pulpit yes he told that to everybody and the word went out I was the doctor's hand-picked successor that was the way it was seen yes and well we stayed 25 years to the day we started February 1st 1977 and retirement February 1st 2002 25 years but obviously you're not retired you now live in the United States and incredibly active in in preaching and teaching I will be 75 this year and I can tell you I've never been so busy in my whole life I mean this year here I am in London with you yes next week I go to Israel come back and then go to Australia after that to South Africa back home a couple places Alaska Canada then back to South Africa and I'm writing three books at the moment and I it's wonderful to be it my age and when people want me I mean I'm just thankful to God and I've never felt better and so well you look good thank you and you've all the years I've ever known you you you and both your wife Louise the she looks like she's in her 40s what your boat as she does and you're both incredibly young at heart thank you did you always know that you were a preacher I mean before dr. Jones said to you you know you're a preacher did you know that good question I think so I know one thing it's what I like to do in fact it's the only thing I can do I had a deacon at my church in Fort Lauderdale before we ever came to England he used to say take Artie's Bible from him and he can't do anything and so it's what I do and even as a boy I think I wanted to be a preacher but I was going to be a lawyer right a barrister that was the plan and then my second year in university trevecca Nazarene University where I started a Scotsman Doctor John Logan from Glasgow happen to be preaching at my old University and I said that's the greatest preacher I've ever heard of my life and I got to know him yes and he in his wisdom helped me to see for myself that I was called to preach my greatest fear was to be a preacher and not be called ya know Charles Spurgeon advice if you can do anything else do it and I was terrified that I might not be called and that's where john logan helped me he said yeah you are and he was able to get me to see it I've never doubted it but to say I did I know I was a preacher I it was dr. Lloyd Jones who in fact even as we talk I don't think I've thought out of a thought of it like that yes but he just said he said not all that are in the pulpit or preachers he said you're a preacher yes and it gave me confidence he and he as you probably suspect was my chief mentor sure absolutely I don't know what I would do without it no the so the Scriptures you've you obviously love the Scriptures the Bible you've read them and we read them and you've preached have you preached through all the books of the Bible oh no no I've preached through acts 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Galatians Philippians James one two three John Jude Jonah Malakai Joshua the life of Joseph the like of jate life of Jacob many of the songs school I cannot say right through the but significant amounts of it if I knew I'd have ten more years you know one of my ambitions is it won't be fulfilled I would love to preach through job Ryan I would love it but I remember the story of the Puritan Joseph Carroll yes we started out with a congregation of 5000 went through joke and ate with 50 oh yes you know 50 years later I mean he preached through Joe in 50 years I'd like to do it in six months that would be hard but anyway no I cannot say I preached through the whole Bible no but you which book of the Bible have you taught that something happened to you as you were teaching it hebrews y-j yes I spent 10 and a half years in Hebrews my breakthrough came which I wasn't anticipating was Hebrews chapter 6 some have said that's the most difficult passage in the Bible yes you know our minions don't like it Calvinists don't like it Calvinists don't like it because they teach you can't fall away yeah our minions don't like it because they teach you can fall away but you can get it back and shaumbra 6 as you can't and the breakthrough came when I realized he is talking about saved people yes but whose fall away had nothing to do with what we call external overt promiscuous evil sin but the inability to hear God speak right you see in Hebrews 3 you have that admonition if anyone can hear his voice and in chapter 5 the writer says you've already become dull of hearing hard of hearing you see at the natural level deafness comes in stages yes you know you first say would you say that again then you say would you repeat that then the person finally gets a hearing aid and then a stronger stronger hearing aid the worst scenario is to become what they call profoundly deaf we would say stone deaf you cannot here anything these Hebrew Christians had already become hard-of-hearing right and he warns them the worst thing that can happen is to become stone death and you never hear God again yes it's well that's why it says it cannot be renewed again again again unto repentance you see they had repented sure they were saved so it's not a question whether they were saved or lost they just couldn't hear God's voice and that opened up the whole epistle yes one other possibly my greatest insight in 25 years is James 2:14 where James says you know about faith and work so today if I'd known you were gonna ask me questions like this had my Bible open know with you this is the hardest verse in James yes what good is that my brothers if someone says he has faith but does not have works can faith save him now everyone has assumed that the writer is saying that if you don't have faith you can't be saved can faith save him yes and because of that Martin Luther sadly who's one of my heroes yeah he's got it wrong on this said that the Epistle of James is a strong epistle right he said it goes against Paul yes wrong when James says can faith save him I saw one day to him is accusative masculine singular pointing back to James to verse 6 where it says you have dishonored the poor man protocol Greek mask accusative masculine singular now the King James authorized versus you despised the poor and it sounds like poor people plural in the Greek and I happen to be just by coincidence have the ESV yes it says you have dishonored the poor man riots what people have thought is that James has changed the subject when he gets in you I will Galatians 2:14 yes the poor man he has talked about the poor man throughout this chapter and so when it comes to verse 14 it says if a man doesn't have voice can faith save the poor man yes no the answer's no cannot save the poor man because that poor man is going to say I don't want your Christianity you don't care about me and this is why James says we must have works not in order to go to heaven because we're saved by grace yes not of works lest anyone should boast the works show that faith is there and it's going to impress the non-christian the last time I had with Martin lloyd-jones yes it just happened that that Sunday I was going to preach on this yes and I gave him that his words are you've convinced me yes well that is just one of the things that happened sure in my 25 years and and those are thrilling things you don't know that you're gonna get a breakthrough like that now and it's like you know I will tell you now there are other verses I'd like to break through yes so I don't understand at all no but that was those are the two things Hebrews six and James 2:14 yes when it comes to your personal devotions with prayer in the Bible what is your daily discipline well I once answered that to somebody on the condition that he wouldn't tell anybody right and he promised and he broke it yes he wrote it I won't tell you who it was okay I spent 2 hours a day I would say hour and a half of that is just praying 1/2 hour reading my Bible yes I have a Bible reading plan yes I you know read the Bible probably 30 35 times I didn't know I was gonna need this yes today my Bible reading is Genesis 24 and 25 26 Matthew 8 Psalm 10 proverbs 3 I go through the Bible in a year yes and I've used a plan you know I used two years ago I would say Lord what shall I read today okay Jeremiah 51 that's not good no it was Martyn lloyd-jones who taught me you need a plan right that will keep you in the word and I used Robert Mary McShane yes plan and it's pretty tough and I tried to get the chapel people to do it and a lot of them did yes it's it's tough to keep it up but that's what I did yeah and I still use a plan and I have a prayer list yes you're on it thank you I had you I think it's all right for me to say this you have been not only an extremely close friend you took on your heart our daughter Melissa yes when she was going through a difficult time and you said that you and Kelly wouldn't pray for her every night you cannot know what that meant to me and today she's serving the Lord she came back to the Lord before we left Westminster I was dying for you all to meet each other you are her hero and so I know - and can I say this you told me about that time you met sister Teresa not Mother Jones that's right this is Rita Risa yes in India yes and she said to you and I quote this all over the world God likes your company yes he wants two hours of your day every day and you started then and it changed your life yeah you see listen to this quote from Martin Luther's Journal quote I have a very busy day today must not spend in two hours but three in prayer now most would say well I'm so busy and God will understand Oh cut it down Luther said no need to pray more because the more time you give to God the more you get done you know John Wesley would not think he wouldn't think of going out into his day without two hours on his knees that's John Wesley but J John where are the Luther's today you know where the John Wesley's the average church leader in Britain and America and they they know this from a poll where thousands answered anonymously a lot of questions and one of them was your quiet time the average church leader four minutes a day you wonder why the church is powerless and so I got that from my dad I don't say I I didn't even know it was anything unusual my dad was a layman he wasn't preacher he spent thirty minutes on his knees every day before he go to work my earliest memory of my father is seeing him on his knees yes praying and then he turn on the radio and listen to this radio broadcast where a lady came every morning singing this song 'are you left your room this morning did you think to pray you know and i grew up with that and so i waited a long time to write a book on prayer it's my 50th i dedicated to the louise yeah you're about 50th anniversary and it's called did you think to pray and i stress praying i think every minister should pray an hour a day you know minimum and anyway you asked know what i really kept that secret for a long time but then it went out and i and i just don't want anybody to think I asked you specifically god I think so often people these days you know like the word discipleship isn't really in our vocabulary and I think we've lost the disciplines of prayer and Bible reading and and it's good that you've given us an exam there'll be no praying in heaven when we stand before God at the judgment seat of Christ and we will we may have many regrets the time we spent we will not regret any time we spend on the Lord and that phrase God likes your company that I know you know j-john you've had powerful influence on me I thank God well it's mutual Yahtzee Artie you've written lots of books did you have you written fifty or about to write your 50th I think probably I haven't counted I hasn't Shawn start once yeah how many books have you yeah Brett and he says that's the sin of David numbering the people all right we all know we all know how I suppose 55 yeah six okay amongst all the books that you've written okay if you had to say narrow down two or three that you feel were of major significance because of the message that was being conveyed which books with those be that's like asking which of your children do you prefer that probably total forgiveness yes that's my bestseller I didn't know it would be but it's in many languages and it's being read all the time there's hardly a day goes by that I don't get a an unsolicited email yeah where they say thank you for that book you know since I've been here in this conference person came up to me last night said you have no idea what your book total forgiveness yes it for me he said I'm still in the ministry because of it yeah and I suppose that I enjoyed reading did you think to pray you know my book the anointing yes is a very very important book Joyce Meyer asked me to give her yes Chiqui requested one of all my books yes I did yes only one that she asked me to sign and that sensitivity of the Spirit yes that is possibly my most important book so it's it's a hard question but if if pushed total forgiveness time again and then there's a sequel to that is totally forgiving ourselves yes so the the essence of the message of total forgiveness is well it was born in our darkest hour the twenty-five years in London wasn't peaches and cream yeah I'm telling you it wasn't easy and we had a difficult time at one stage it was so serious I can't go into the details except that an old friend from Romania yes Joseph son happened to be in London I decided I would tell Joseph what they did to me and if I'm honest the only reason I told him is that he would put his arm around the arty you ought to be angry get it out of your system yes he just looked at me and says is there anything more that's it I wasn't prepared for what came j-john if I could narrow 25 years in London down to 15 minutes it would be my finest hour Joseph's son said arty you must totally forgive them for until you totally forgive them you will be in Chains yes release them and you will be released change my life change my life never to be the same again never thought I'd read a book on it and the book didn't come for 15 years yeah but then the day came I wrote that book and it means totally forgiving them you don't tell anybody what they did to you yes you don't let anybody be afraid of you you don't want them to be a little bit intimidated when they see you you put them at ease you don't wait for them to be sorry you don't let them feel guilty you let them save face you can check them from their darkest secret yes you pray for them you that's the hardest yes you don't just say Lord I commit him to you you know you ask God to bless them yes I remember praying like that one day a tank god like said to me RT and what if I really do bless them I said Lord you wouldn't do that would you is it it's the point yeah you have to pray that God will bless them and then it's a life sentence you keep doing it you don't just do it once and say oh I pray for them and you get on with it no you have to do it today you have to do it again tomorrow six months from now it's a life sentence you keep prank-call then you keep blessing them and I would say it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me is when Joseph's own said that to me at that I was never to be the same again and now preach it wherever I go would it be true the unforgiveness is is a major problem in my opinion yes greatest problem in the church today is the greatest single problem in the church today rival spirit jealousy unforgiveness heart bitterness anger and you see the chief thing that militates against the anointing of the Spirit is bitterness yes and when we cannot forgive we cut off the anointing of the Spirit when the Dove comes down you know is it is said of Jesus the Dove came down and remained yes see with most of us the Dove comes down he flies away you know you see the dub which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit was a very shy sensitive bird the day was you could go to Trafalgar Square and feed the pigeons yes you'd never get a dove No - Trafalgar Square doves and pigeons are in the same family but they're different yeah doves are a wild bird pigeons are domesticated you can train a pigeon you can't train a dove yeah pigeons are boisterous doves are gentle and so when the Dove came down and remained on Jesus he tells you a lot about Jesus yes I wanted to come down and stay on me I don't want to grieve him by anger and bitterness and then if I stand up to preach I'll tell you a secret without the anointing of the Spirit j-john Undead I'm not that good at what I do there are some people so gifted that I think they could make it without the anointing I can't do it so God has just kept from me being bright enough or intelligent enough that I could make it without the anointing I can't do it you can't do it so it's as though God has boxed me into a corner and I have to get on with my wife sure get on with you love everybody forgive everybody no bitterness or I can't preach I'd say have you ever thought what would you like written on your tombstone I used to say when I was out there man of truth I don't I think I would I would want it to be a man of truth and love yes you know you could just have all truths and being absolutely bitter and hateful you know and yet you'd be all loving and be woolly in your theology yeah truth and love together but who am i I once said to our son TR I said TR you decide I have no idea what he'll say yes on my dad's tombstone man of Prayer I could sell for that sure that's that's very good and I like the combination of truth and love your books and resources I mean you can buy those from book shops but also your website RT www.arabinstruments.com you're a friend but you're someone that inspired me you've encouraged me you stimulated my mind and warmed my heart and it's it's just wonderful to see you doing what you were doing with your wife Louise and our prayer is that the Lord will continue to bless you as jay-bez prayed you know bless us indeed widen our boundary and territory and may your hand be with us and protect us from evil and we pray that for you thank you very much you I love you very much love you too you

Channel: Facing the Canon

Views: 7,274

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: facing the canon, facing, the, canon, bible teacher, rt kendall, r.t. kendall, dr rt kendall, westminister chapel, london, J.John, JJohn, J John, Philo, Philo Trust, Trust, Christian, Christianity, Jesus, God, Lord, Church, Interview

Id: T9Qz_yhuhWY

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2013