PASTORAL
MINISTRY: NEED FOR SPIRITUAL REALITY; HUMILITY

One of the greatest of the pre-reformation preachers in Germany was Johannes Tollar, certainly an evangelical before Luther’s time. The story has been told that a devout layman, a farmer whose name was Nicholas, came down from the countryside, and implored Dr. Tollar to preach a sermon in the great church, dealing with the deeper Christian life based on spiritual union with Jesus Christ.

The following Sunday Dr. Tollar preached that sermon. It had 26 points, telling the people how to put away their sins and their selfishness in order to glorify Jesus Christ in their daily lives. It was a good sermon—actually, I have read it and I can underscore every line of it.

When the service was over and the crowd had dispersed, Nicholas came slowly down the aisle.

He said, “Pastor Tollar, that was a great sermon and I want to thank you for the truth which you presented. But I am troubled and I would like to make a comment, with your permission.”

“Of course, and I would like to have your comment,” the preacher said.

“Pastor, that was great spiritual truth that you brought to the people today, but I discern that you were preaching it to others as truth without having experienced the implications of deep spiritual principles in your own daily life,” Nicholas told him. “You are not living in full identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I could tell by the way you preached—I could tell!”

The learned and scholarly Dr. Tollar did not reply. But he was soon on his knees, seeking God in repentance and humiliation.…

After the long period of the dark sufferings in his soul, the day came when … he returned to his parish and to his pulpit to become one of the greatest and most fervent preachers of his generation … but Tollar first had to die.

Galatians 2:20; Philippians 3:10

Who Put Jesus on the Cross?, 153, 154.