His Tears, His Cries, Best Tell what Hell Means - Archibald Brown / Christian Devotional 2 Peter 2:4 4 For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. In his biography of Archibald G. Brown, Iain Murray writes that instead of following his father to wealth in commerce and banking, Archibald Brown built a church to hold 3,000 in the East End of London while still in his twenties. Five thousand eight hundred were to join in 30 years. Almost simultaneously he led mission work among the poor, being described by the Daily Telegraph newspaper as possessing ‘a larger practical acquaintance with the homes, and the social horrors of the foulest corners of the East of London than anyone who could well be cited.’ When his health demanded a change, AGB (as he was popularly known) served other churches, including the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, before a last decade of extensive travel with a temporary home in South Africa. After Spurgeon died (1892), Brown was a foremost leader among those for whom Christian preaching still meant ‘love, blood, and power’. It was written of him in 1913 ‘No man of modern times, of his school of thought, can command larger audiences.’ Few spoke with more sympathy and tenderness, characteristics deepened by bereavements and the heart-felt realization that, ‘We have to perform our service in the same Spirit in which our Lord worked, and our measure of power will be according to the measure of Christ’s Spirit which we possess.’ After days of revival, AGB lived to see adverse changes in the churches. What a majority accepted as progress, he saw as apostasy, and as the Christian faith waned in Britain, his life came to be remembered by few. But truth that comes from Scripture cannot die. Those who read him today will find him alive, and his life opens a window on New Testament Christianity.