Heroes of the Faith: William Nicholson

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delant, Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

And I welcome you one more time to the preaching of the cross radio broadcast, and in addition to that, to another installment of our series of biographical studies, which we call the heroes of the faith.

On these particular programs, we give you a sketch, and all we have time to do is present a brief sketch in the half an hour that we have allotted to us of some man, some woman that uh didn't write a book and tell someone how to live the Christian life, someone who didn't stand in a pulpit and encourage others to live the Christian life.

But on these programs, we try and take a look at someone who actually did live the Christian life.

And these programs always turn out to be very challenging, very inspiring as we ponder the great things which God does in and through those who will surrender their all to his control.

On the program today, we want to talk about a man that uh many of you, in fact, most of you, have uh probably never heard of.

The man's name is William P.

or was William P.

Nicholson, I suppose in the courtrooms of heaven that's still uh his name, though he's probably uh either has or will receive that new name that God promised to his servants there in the book of Revelation.

But the career in Christian service of William P.

Nicholson, the Irish evangelist, can be accurately summarized in the expression From sea fever to soul winning.

Born in Downe County near Bangor in Ulster, he seemed destined to follow the sea.

His father was a sea captain in the golden age of sailing ships during the second half of the nineteenth century, and he took his boy for his first voyage when he was only six years of age.

To this to his dying day, Nicholson had a painting of his father's bark, the Muriel, fully rigged with every sail set.

And although the evangelist lived well into his eighties, to his last sea fever rose deep within him, as he would contemplate that ship.

Could it be that far distant in his background was the heritage of Vikings, those restless, fearless sea raiders who ravaged the coasts of Ireland in medieval times?

Well it could be.

School books and commonplace employment on the land had no place in young William's thinking.

So at fifteen he sailed away from home as an apprentice seaman.

In his words, quote, it was a hard and harsh training.

It either made you or broke you.

Yet I loved it, especially up aloft during the gale of wind, the wind shrieking through the rigging, and the ship rolling from side to side, the seas like miniature mountains, it intoxicated me.

Food was scarce, tough salt beef and salt pork and liverpool uh pantiles for biscuits.

The regular hours, fresh air and hard work, and instant obedience made you healthy, if mostly unhappy.

But the Irish sailor lad was taken from the sea to become a fisher of men as dramatically, if not more so, than was Peter of Bethsaida long ago.

On one voyage with a cargo of coal, the ship on which he sailed ran into a terrific northeastern on the Roaring Forties, or in the Roaring Forties, after rounding Cape Horn.

In the tempest the ship tossed and rolled as if it would go under, and the cargo began to shift.

With mast broken and sails in wreckage, there seemed to be no hope.

By morning another sailing ship came near, but the half frozen men on Nicholson's ship did not dare jump into the sea because they knew they could never reach the lifeboat.

Thereupon the ever other ship sailed away and left them to their doom.

The crew, however, was able to break into the hold and shift the cargo until the ship righted itself.

With what rigging was left they were able to turn back around Cape Horn amazingly, and reached the Falkland Islands.

The cry to God for mercy made by the crew members, including Nicholson, when in their extremity, meant nothing to them once they were again in safety.

Like the sailors in Jonah's day, who sailed into trouble, called on God, whoever he might be, and then sailed out of trouble, never to be heard from again.

Such was the case with those on board Nicholson's ship, snatched from the sea, but not saved from sin.

After completing his apprenticeship and working for some time on railroad construction in South Africa, Nicholson returned home.

It was there by the fireside on the morning of may twenty second, eighteen ninety nine, that he was snatched the second time from the sea, this time from the sea of sin.

This time he was really and truly saved.

While reading the morning paper and smoking, awaiting the breakfast being prepared by his godly mother, he heard suddenly and without warning a voice saying, Now or never you must decide to accept or to reject Christ.

In that moment, trembling with fear, he cried out aloud, Lord, I yield, I repent of all my sin, and now accept thee as my Savior.

He recalls, and these are his words, suddenly and powerfully and consciously, I was saved.

Such a peace and freedom from fear, such a sweet and sure assurance filled my soul.

I turned to my mother and said, Mother, I am saved.

She looked at me and nearly collapsed and said, When?

I said, Just now.

Where?

Here where I am sitting.

She cried with joy unspeakable.

She couldn't say a word, but just hugged me and cried.

William Nicholson had been saved, and he knew it.

He said he never had any doubts about his salvation.

He declared and again I quote from his own words The blood had been applied and the Spirit answered to the blood.

I never doubted about my dear mother's word about my natural birth.

And do you think it's strange of me to take God's word without a doubt or fear?

I became a new creature and began hating sin.

I tried hard to love God, the Bible, the church, and prayer, but what a failure I made of it.

The crisis of the deeper life, with the endument of the Holy Spirit for service, came to young Nicholson a few months after his conversion.

It's best to let an Ulsterman tell his own story.

So here it is.

The peace and joy and assurance continued, but in a fluctuating way, sometimes doubting, sometimes trusting, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad.

All grosser sins dropped off me, and I had no sorrow about it, or any bother with them.

But the sins of the flesh and the spirit continued to plague me greatly, envy, jealousy, malice, hatred.

Oh I could crush them down, but they continued to rise up again more vigorous than ever.

The fear of man was a dreadful snare, and I was helplessly caught by it.

I was ashamed of Christ, and ashamed of being seen without and and without and out Christians.

I was a sneak and a coward if ever there was one.

I despised myself but was helpless about it.

I attended church twice every Sunday.

I joined the men's Bible class, I read my Bible, but I didn't get any good out of it.

I had little or no desire for it.

Prayer was a real penance and seemingly useless.

What a wretched, miserable experience I was passing through.

I lived in this distracted state for nearly seven months after my conversion.

Some have told me I wasn't converted at all, that I only thought I was, but they were wrong.

I was truly born again, and a new creature in Jesus Christ.

I had the inward witness clear and the outward evidence that I was a changed man.

I hated sin, but I was continually overcome by it.

I loved holiness, I longed to be perfectly whole, but never experienced it.

I was truly a child of God, but a slave of the devil.

My life was up and down, but more down than up.

I was committing sin and confessing it, but rarely having victory over it.

I believed there was deliverance for me, but how to obtain it I didn't know.

I knew some Christians who were living a victorious, joyous, soul winning life.

Tow I envied them.

I am sure if I had only made known to them the fluctuating, failing kind of life I was living, they would have led me into the open secret.

But I was ashamed to make my experience known.

Thank God.

The day of my deliverance was at hand.

One of the leading businessmen of the town, an out and out man for Christ and souls, arranged for a convention for the deepening of the Christian life.

My older brother James and a close friend of his in his student days, J.

Stuart Holden, were the convention leaders.

If they had called the conference holiness meetings, I would have been frightened and would never have attended.

I would have called them wildfire and fanaticism, and being a good, well behaved, blue stockinged Presbyterian, I would have shunned them.

From the very first sermon I heard, I was sure my brother had told Holden about me, for he made public my miserable condition.

It made me feel clean mad.

I determined I would not go to another service.

But I was there the next night.

I was more sure than ever that my brother had put the preacher up to preach at me.

I became more angry every night, but could not keep myself from attendance.

Stuart Holden made the secret in those meetings, the secret of the victorious Christian life so clear and plain.

After one has been born again by the Spirit of God, he can live victoriously, but only by the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit.

He preached so that men could understand that they could not attain this life by self-effort or ceremonies, for it's not by power nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.

It was not an attainment, but an obtainment.

Christ is God's unspeakable gift to the world.

The Holy Spirit is Christ's gift to his church.

You know so many people, some of you listen to my voice right now, have been trying to do what the Holy Spirit alone can do and will do for you.

You must receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith if you're going to be saved.

And you must allow the Holy Spirit to control you by faith if you're ever going to live the victorious and the sanctified Christian life.

You see, the blood that saves is also the blood that cleanses.

The victory purchased by Christ on Calvary is good for time and for eternity, but so many people, so many people trust that victory for eternity, but seemingly find themselves unable to trust that victory for time.

Well, Nicholson goes on to say, it was all so wonderful and new to me.

I had never heard such truth before.

Oh how my heart ached for just such a life.

But I was hindered by fear of the consequences.

I didn't want to be anything or do anything a Presbyterian ought not to be or do.

I tried so hard to make the Lord see and understand my fears and feelings, but he had no sympathy for my fears.

I couldn't make God a Presbyterian.

The Salvation Army had come to our town, said Nicholson.

The corps was composed of two wee girls in uniform.

They held open air meetings and made a noise with their tambourines.

Their first soldier was a man called Daft Jimmy.

He had hardly enough brains to give him a headache, but he had sense enough to get saved.

He carried the flag as they marched the streets.

On his jersey, a red one, he had the women put with white yarn these words on his back.

Saved from public opinion.

Now listen to me, listen to me.

In May of 1899, William Nicholson was saved.

The following year, the following year, just he said just some months later, the following year, that would be 1900, in the streets of Ulster.

In the streets of Ulster, two young ladies from the Salvation Army, and one young fellow called Daft Jimmy, marched up and down through the streets.

Jimmy having embroidered on the back of his shirt with white yarn, saved from public opinion.

Now now that bless your heart, some of you that think that uh that just here in the last couple of years people came up with the idea of marching in the streets and carrying you know what Jimmy did?

He carried a flag, a Christian banner, if you will, as he marched through the streets, with his testimony embroidered on his shirt.

Nicholson said I was told by Satan that I would have to go to the open air meeting and march down the street with two wee girls and a fool.

Maybe that didn't fill me with horrible dread.

I would be laughed at by all my friends.

I would lose my reputation.

I said, Lord, I'll be willing to go to Timbuktu.

I'd be willing to go to Hong Kong.

I'd be willing to die decently as a martyr.

But don't make me walk down the street with those two girls and that crazy boy.

Not where people know me.

But I couldn't get out of it.

I became more and more miserable, and oh so hungry for freedom and victory.

At last I became desperate.

The last night of the convention I saw it was clean cut, unconditional surrender, or continued wandering in failure, defeat, and dissatisfaction.

I left the meeting, I went down to the shore, and there under a clear sky and shining stars I made the complete unconditional surrender.

I cried out, Come in, come in, fill me, Holy Spirit.

Thy work of great blessing begin.

By faith I lay hold of the promise and claim complete victory over sin.

Now you say that that doesn't entirely line up with my doctrine, my theology, my understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Well, I'm sure it doesn't.

But here's a young here's a young man in his late uh in his late teens who hasn't been saved a year, and is begging God to take full and complete control of his life.

I'd say I'd say he's on pretty safe ground.

Hallelujah, Mickelson says.

What a thrill, what a peace, what a joy.

Although an old-fashioned Presbyterian, I began to weep and sing and rejoice like an old time free Methodist.

When I came home, I told my mother, the surrender has been made, I am free and so happy, and she was delighted.

She told me she wondered whether I was really saved or not.

She knew the blessing, for she had received it under the influence of Andrew Murray's preaching when he held a convention in Belfast.

The wonder to me was that all the fear of what men might say or do had vanished, and now I was willing to do anything or go anywhere.

The very thing I dreaded most before receiving the blessing, that about the Salvation Army meeting, was faced.

I couldn't say I was very happy about it, but I told the Lord I would do what he wanted, cost what it may, and so the very next Saturday night I went to the open air meeting.

As I walked down the street that Saturday, it seemed as if every friend and relative I ever had were out and about.

When I came to the open air meeting, I saw the two Wee Salvation Army girls singing and rattling their tambourines, and poor Daft Jimmy holding his banner.

I nearly turned back.

Talk about dying.

I was dying hard that night.

I stepped off the footpath, I stood in the ring, the soldier looked at me, then to my horror one of them said, The people don't stop and listen.

Let us get down on our knees and pray.

What could I do?

I couldn't run away.

So there we were, the two girls, Daft Jimmy and me down on our knees in that street.

The crowd gathered around.

I could hear their laughter and jeers.

The officer prayed a telegram prayer, the Salvation Army officer, shortened to the point.

I could have wished the prayer had been as long as the hundred and nineteenth Psalm.

I stood up blushing and nervous.

They got the collection while the crowd was there, that's what they did in those days.

And then to my horror she said, she said Now the Salvation Army soldier he's talking about is one of the two girls, that's the whole army.

Brother, take this tambourine and lead the march down the street to the barracks.

I couldn't let a girl beat me, so I took it.

That did it.

My shackles fell off, I was free, my fears all gone.

I started down the street, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell.

I lost my reputation, I lost the fear of man.

Joy and peace and glory filled me.

I can see now and understand why the Lord dealt with me so drastically.

I would never, I would never have come right through and out and out for Christ in any other way.

You see, I was naturally timid and shy.

I lost something that night I never want to fight again.

I found something I never want to lose again.

That is, I lost my reputation in fear of man, and found the joy and peace of the overflowing fullness of the Holy Spirit.

On street corners, in cottages, in the city, in the villages, in his place of employment on the railroad and in the churches, Nicholson became a fearless and flaming winner of souls.

Because of his enthusiasm and effectiveness, he was advised by earnest friends to prepare for Christian work.

His new friend Stuart Holden advised him not to be in a hurry, rather to wait on God until a door for Bible preparation would be opened.

He said every Sunday held a meeting in the Wee Orange Hall in a village a few miles from Bangor.

He visited homes on Sunday before the service, inviting people to come to the meeting.

He prayed with everyone who would allow him.

He left a Spurgeon sermon in their hands.

One dear old lady sitting at the door of her Thatch Cottage, when asked to come to the service, said, God love you, Mr.

Nicholson.

I don't need to go because you speak so loud the whole village can hear you.

My seafaring life, he said, gave me a good voice.

So when I got warmed up preaching, you could hear me a mile away or more.

Well God used him.

God used him.

He started carrying on tent meetings, hammering the pegs himself, traveling about through the north of Ireland.

He uh well, he just did amazing things.

I don't have time to tell you about all of them, the prayer meetings and the evangelism and how he stood for God uh the round about that countryside all through those great days, ran into the devil, had fights with unclean spirits.

Those were great days, great victories were won.

Seemed like they always managed to have a riot or revival.

Sometimes a riot with no revival, but never a revival without a riot, is what Nicholson said.

After those training and testing days were over, God's servant was called to assist the late Wilbur Chapman and Charles Alexander in their evangelistic campaign the world over.

The all

Sailed for Melbourne, Australia, March 1909 for the campaign down under.

Glorious days of revival there were but the beginning for him, and over the decades since then, or after that time, he journeyed around the world more than ten times.

He witnessed for the Savior in nearly every land on the face of the earth.

Tens of thousands came to the Savior in his evangelistic preaching.

Countless of Christians have come to know for themselves the Spirit filled life through his ministry.

The extent of such service will be made known only in eternity.

Who can judge the impact of the lives whom God's servant has led to the Savior?

Let me give you one example.

On a Sunday morning, september twenty third, nineteen twenty three, a young a young upstart, unsaved, sophisticated, self confident, came to the Savior.

He was a stranger to any church in Los Angeles, but in his brief stay there had attended a dance every night.

One Sunday he thought it would be nice to go to church to keep up, you know, the spiritual side of his life as well as the social.

It was a large church, seating over four thousand.

He said he knew when he went in nobody would know him.

He sat very near the door just in case he didn't like the preacher.

The service started, and man did that fellow preach.

The young dancer had never heard anything like it in all his life.

He was accustomed to a nice, sweet, soothing voice, poetry, book reviews.

He could sleep well under those conditions, but there was no sleep for him that morning.

William P.

Nicholson was the speaker.

He preached on hell, he preached on heaven, he preached on sin.

He told that congregation that Jesus Christ was the one they needed.

And this young man said it seemed that he was picked out of that huge congregation, that Nicholson was speaking directly to him.

And that Sunday morning, Percy B.

Crawford accepted the Savior.

And went on, following study at Biola at Wheaton College.

He went on to become the radio and television minister to youth, the president of King's College in New York State, and he was just one, just one of the thousands led to Jesus Christ by William P.

Nicholson.

From sea fever to soul winning.

This is the summary of this Ulsterman's life.

Saved from the raging of the sea by the mercy of God, later saved from sea fever by God's salvation, received one morning by the fireside in his own home, and then challenged by two young ladies singing on the street for Jesus, and one young boy with a testimony embroidered on his shirt, a young boy called Crazy Daft, Light Between the Ears.

But those three young people and their boldness for Jesus worked together with the preaching on the deeper life of some experienced veterans of the pulpit, and brought William P.

Nicholson to full surrender and a life of remarkable and incredible service.

You say, Brother James, it seems to me, a man that traveled around the world ten times and preached the gospel in nearly every nation under heaven, that in his biographical sketch you would have dwelt upon his missionary labors and his evangelistic campaigns, why so much time?

Why so much time on those three young people standing in the street for Jesus?

Because my friend William P.

Nicholson will tell you if you read his story, had he not joined those three young people on that street in that city in the north of Ireland, God would never have entrusted him with carrying the gospel around the world.

Quite a story.

And it's true.

How about you, my friend?

Are you saved?

If you're saved, are you surrendered?

Are you are you dead to public opinion?

Will you go will you join that daft young man?

Will you join those two wee girls?

You know there's many of you listening to my voice right now.

You'd travel the world and preach the gospel to the congregations of 4,000, but you wouldn't walk down the main street of your town with three young people.

God, God's God's not looking for people that'll speak to the crowds in the comfort.

God's looking for the people that will surrender control of their lives to His Holy Spirit.

William Nicholson was one such man.

Thanks for tuning in today.

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Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.