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SUBJECT: Life and Ministry of Christmas Evans

This afternoon, with the Lord’s help, I hope to give a lecture on the Life and Ministry of Christmas Evans. Very few people today know that name, but 200 years ago, he was one of the most famous preachers in the world. One man said he was "the mightiest preacher of the age"; another called him "The Apostle of Wales". A third compared him to "John Bunyan, George Whitefield, and even "The Apostle Paul". Martyn Lloyd-Jones said he might have been "The greatest preacher that the Baptists have ever had in Great Britain".

Christmas Evans is a man worth knowing. I hope to introduce you to him today. If you like what you hear, I recommend you read a couple of books on his life. One is by B.A. Ramsbottom; the older one (which includes sermon samples) is by Joseph Cross. Both are fairly short, easy to read, and encouraging.

Christmas Evans had the misfortune of being born in Wales on December 25, 1766 (that’s how he got the name). His parents were not saved people, it seems, and the boy grew up without God and without hope in the world.

His father died when Christmas was only nine years old. His mother then sent him to live with her brother who was famously wicked. Years later, Evans said,

Uncle James was a mean and selfish drunk! He nearly worked the boy to death, gave him just enough food to stay alive, and cruelly punished every little wrong. He took no interest in the boy’s soul, of course--or even his mind. At 17, Christmas Evans couldn’t read a word!

About this time, a wonderful thing occurred in his village—a revival broke out in the Presbyterian Church. We always say revival is a sovereign work of God, but never was its more evident than here. The pastor was named David Davies. He was a fine man, highly educated and something of a poet. Yet, he also denied the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him, the Lord was a great man and teacher—and nothing more.

Yet, somehow or other, God used this man’s preaching to revive His people and convert Christmas Evans.

With his salvation, the Lord gave Christmas Evans three gifts: a spirit of prayer, a love for God’s Word, and a desire to preach.

Before this time, Evans had never really prayed. But now he did—and with great fervor,

He also fell in love with the Bible. Evans had never been to school a day in his life. Yet, when he was saved, he and the other illiterate young men got together, and more or less taught each other to read!

Without a human teacher, the poor boy learned to read the Bible…in one month!

Evans was a genius, of course, but his friends weren’t. Yet, in short order, they also learned to read God’s Word. Peter explains how they did it,

He also wanted to preach. His first sermon was preached in a cottage and he amazed the people with a sermon of great power and eloquence. Everyone was impressed, except for one old deacon. There was something fishy about the young man’s sermon. He went home and looked through his books, and found it in the Works of Bishop Beveridge!

Christmas Evans first sermon was stolen. The deacon called him on it, but still had hope for the young man because his closing prayer was so good. But, if he’d had the Works of Griffith Jones, he’d have known that the prayer was also someone else’s!

The deacon—I think—was too hard on the boy. Charles Spurgeon was one of the most creative preachers who ever lived. Yet he was not averse to borrowing from other men. He once said,

I wouldn’t recommend preaching other men’s sermons as your own, but under the circumstances, I don’t think you can blame the man too much.

But from this embarrassing start, Evans went on to become his own man—and preacher!

But not yet. After the sermon, he went to England to find work. There, he found a job, but that’s not all: he also found some bad friends. It wasn’t long before he was slipping away from the Lord. As far as we know, he didn’t fall into gross sin it seems, but he quit praying and reading the Bible. In short, he became worldly.

But God got his attention! On his way home from work one day, Evans was jumped by a bunch of young men, who tore off his clothes, beat him up, and poked out his left eye with a stick!

That night, probably induced by the beating, he had a terrifying dream of the Lord coming in Judgment. The whole world was on fire and the Lord told him,

At this, Evans woke up, and he said,

Evans took the word seriously. Never again was he tempted to give up Christ for the world.

After a short stint in England, he came back to Wales with the hope of becoming a pastor. Because he had no schooling, he couldn’t become a Presbyterian minister, and so he turned to the Calvinistic Methodists.

From these good brethren, he learned the doctrines of grace. From the day he was saved, he felt the truth of man’s deep guilt, God’s unquenchable wrath, the impossibility of saving yourself, and Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer. But he didn’t understand them. But by talking with the Methodists, listening to their sermons, reading their books, and so on, he became a convinced and clear-headed Calvinist.

But then, an old friend named Amos challenged him about his belief in Infant Baptism. This made Evans mad and he went home to find the verses in the Bible that taught it. He says,

He submitted to God’s Word, received baptism by immersion, and soon after, became the leading Baptist preacher in Wales.

At 24, Evans was called to be a missionary in Northern Wales. In his first year, he had great success with many converted to Christ.

But something wasn’t right. Most of the people who were converted under his preaching became Calvinistic Methodists instead of Baptists. It’s not hard to find out why: at that time and place, the Methodists were godly and the Baptists weren’t!

The Baptists were more Baptist than they were Christian. They preferred winning the saved to immersion than winning the lost to Christ. They were also super-dogmatic, narrow-minded, and angry. Evans tried hard, but could do nothing with them. After two years, he moved on.

The Baptists in Anglesey called him to be their pastor. Things were no better there than in the north, but Evans still came.

The first thing he did was call for a day of fasting and prayer. Then, he wrote in his diary,

What a blessing it was! Evans pastored ten churches at the same time! Within 2 years, 600 sinners had been won to Christ and added to the Baptists.

Here, Evans became of a celebrity. As many as 15,000 came to hear him preach in the open air. Many who didn’t become Baptists were brought to faith in Christ. All the churches benefited from the man’s ministry.

But this brings us to a paradox. Although he was idolized by the people, they didn’t support him! They loved him with all their hearts, but with none of their wallets!

He lived in great poverty, in a small cottage, wearing old clothes and eating porridge every day—and not much of it. Yet he and his wife were not resentful!

Only once did he snap at the people for their stinginess. And, it wasn’t their stinginess that made him so mad as their sanctimony! After riding his horse for miles over a steep terrain, the deacon thanked him for preaching, and said,

But Evans replied,

Only once did he get a fair return on his preaching. In a village notorious for sheep rustling, he told the people to give him no money that was gotten from stealing livestock. Every man there put a coin in his hat that day!

With all the work, poverty, and popularity, Evans never forgot his studies. In his thirties, he mastered English and began preaching in it. At forty—and without anyone to tutor him—he learned Hebrew and became something of an expert in Greek.

The man was obviously gifted, but it wasn’t just gifts that made the unschooled boy into a fine scholar. It was also hard work and lots of it!

After several years in Anglesey, he moved on to three other places where he preached with the same power and love, albeit with mixed results.

The last years of his life were full of work. In his final three months, the old man preached almost every day—and sometimes more than once a day. Remember, he didn’t drive to the churches in a car, but rode a horse, often in pouring rain and freezing cold.

On Monday night, July 14, 1838, he preached a powerful sermon on the love of Christ for the men who crucified him. As he stepped down from the pulpit, he said,

It was. Four days later, Christmas Evans died. Pastors came to his bedside and he charged them,

His last words were full of faith. Speaking to the Fiery Chariot that came for him, he said,

So far, everything I’ve said about Evans the preacher is good. But there was one period in his ministry that wasn’t so good. It occurred when he was about thirty years old and at the height of his power and popularity.

What got him wasn’t a wandering eye or the love of money, but bad doctrine. At that time, among the Baptists in Wales and Scotland, there was a doctrine called Sandemanianism.

It was first preached by John Glas. It was named after his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman. On most points, the Sandemanians were right—they firmly believed in the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Authority of the Bible, Salvation by Grace Alone, and so on.

But on one point they were wrong: the nature of faith. They said that saving faith was assenting to the Gospel. That’s true, of course, but that’s not all it is: Faith is also trusting Christ. The Sandemanians denied that part of faith.

Which means…what? It means all they cared about was right doctrine. And what does that do to someone? It goes to his head! He becomes proud of himself and looks down on everyone who doesn’t know as much as he does.

This leads to a bitter and critical spirit. And that’s exactly what the Sandemanians had! They read their Bibles and found things that the churches weren’t doing, such as: (1) greeting one another with a holy kiss, (2) washing feet, (3) Having the Lord’s Supper every week, (4) having the love feast.

Instead of gently urging the Church to return to the old practices, they made them conditions of salvation. In other words, if you didn’t greet the brethren with a holy kiss, you were going to hell! They quit preaching Christ and began preaching Secondary Issues! The churches that did not comply were called Babylon! Faithful pastors were called heretics and butchers! No name was too hateful for these men to shout from the pulpit.

For two years, Christmas Evans was caught up in it. Guess what it did to his church?

What nearly killed the church, had the same effect on Christmas Evans,

What did he do about it? Two things:

First of all, he prayed. He went up a high and rugged mountain. All alone up there, he wrestled with God for three hours. He said,

The second thing he did is return to Christ. After coming down from the mountain, he made a Covenant with God. He promised to do 13 things for Him. In each one of them, he names Christ! Here’s the first,

From this day on, Christmas Evans replaced his issue-oriented preaching with something far better: Christ-centered preaching!

I’ve never met a Sandemanian, but the spirit is as alive and hurtful today as it ever was. Satan tempts most Christians to not care about true doctrine or right practice. This makes them liable to all kinds of heresy and foolishness.

But some of us know better! We know our doctrine and care about it. And that’s good. But it, too, exposes us to temptation. Satan will tempt us to pride—after all we’re in the know. He’ll tempt us to look down on other Christians—because they don’t know. He’ll replace the Primary Thing with secondary things, whether it’s Calvinism or Amillennialism or Baptist Church Order (all of which I believe in). But in emphasizing these things, we forget "the one thing needful". He’ll tempt us to quit evangelizing the lost and start proselytizing the saved.

What do we do about it?

First of all, we have to recognize it for what it is.

Pride is pride—whether it’s pride in your good looks, your fat bank account or your right doctrine!

Secondly, we have to remember that "being right" does not exempt us from the Law of God.

The laws about humility, brotherly love, and patience apply even to people who are right! In fact, they’re more responsible to be humble, loving, and patient that those who are wrong,

People who believe in the doctrines of grace are often charged with being proud, bigoted, and argumentative. There is some truth in this—more than I care to admit. But God nowhere says, "Be kind one to another, tender hearted"—unless you know the difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism!

The Law of Christ applies to all of His people, but especially to those who have more light.

Both the deity of Christ and footwashing are in the Bible. But the former is primary while the latter is secondary. Do you know why? Not because I say so, but because one is necessary for salvation while the other isn’t! You can go to heaven without washing feet, but you can’t without believing that Jesus Christ is God.

The Sandemanians couldn’t see this. Thus they denounced—not only heretics—but good men who missed the mark on some minor point.

Finally, we have to emphasize Jesus Christ.

The Sandemanians believed in Christ as firmly as anyone else. But they forgot He’s Number One! We’re prone to do the same thing. In the heat of controversy, we think the Sabbath is the thing—or maybe the millennium or baptism by immersion or something else.

But I’m with Spurgeon. At 19, he became pastor of the most important Baptist Church in England. His predecessors had been famous and learned men. He said of one of them,

Gill was a holy man and a great scholar. But he spent his whole life in controversy—mostly over the fine points of Calvinism. Spurgeon was equally committed to the Reformed Faith, but he spent his time preaching Christ!

After suffering two years in the bondage of Sandemanianism, Christmas Evans went back to the cross. And found his life and ministry in it.

Israel got out of the Wilderness only by following the Cloud. The Church gets out of its wilderness only by following Christ.