The Preacher Nobody Remembers

The crowd came for the famous preacher. He never showed up.

One Sunday around 1642, a young Oxford scholar named John Owen slipped into a London church hoping Edmund Calamy would say something to ease his troubled heart. Owen had lived under a heavy cloud of guilt for years. When a country minister stepped into the pulpit instead, people began to leave. Owen was too worn out to follow them.

When the Famous Man Doesn’t Show

The substitute read Matthew 8:26. “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” His sermon was simple. Owen heard Jesus speaking straight to him, and the fear that had chained him for years let go. Sometimes God skips the spotlight and speaks through a stranger in a borrowed pulpit. “God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

There Is Forgiveness With Him: John Owen and Psalm 130

Owen never forgot that morning. In 1668 he published more than three hundred pages on Psalm 130, and most of them explore a single verse. “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Psalm 130:4). Maybe you know the depths he knew. Notice that little word “with.” Forgiveness lives in the heart of God. You don’t have to pry it loose. Jesus already paid for it (Ephesians 1:7).

Your Plain Faithfulness Matters

Nobody wrote down the substitute preacher’s name. He probably went home thinking his sermon fell flat. Yet his plain words helped shape one of the great Christian minds in history. Your Sunday school lesson or your note to a hurting friend may land in ways you never see. “Your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). So show up and speak the Word. God handles the rest.

Pastor Rodney

Keep Reading

For another young scholar set free by one verse, read Martin Luther: The Fear of God and the Verse That Set Him Free. To go deeper on God’s mercy, see What Does the Bible Say About Forgiveness? You can hear more stories like this one on the Lift Up Your Day podcast, or browse my books for longer meditations, including Who Is Jesus, Really?