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| Dr. H. A. Ironside |
Harry was the son of John and Sophia Ironside who were godly parents. His father spent evenings at street meetings, in halls and in theaters, and on Sundays held services in the park. He was known as "The Eternity Man," because every time he met someone he asked them, "Where will you spend eternity? They were identified with the Plymouth Brethren. Before Harry was converted, he had memorized hundreds of Scripture verses and read the Bible through 14 times by his 14th birthday. At the age of ten, his widowed mother, along with an infant child, moved to Los Angels, California in 1886. The next three years of his life was spent doing Bible clubs, preaching, and winning souls, yet he himself had not yet been converted. It wasn’t until a Scottish Evangelist by the name of Donald Munro came to visit the family, that Harry was confronted for his need of a clear cut salvation experience, and so in February of 1890, at midnight, he got out of bed, got on his knees and invited Jesus Christ into his life. Harry basically grew with a holiness background, owing much to the Salvation Army.
Later he joined the Salvation Army, and advanced to being a Lieutenant. Working through sinless perfection and the “second blessing,” he came to realize that he was doing more harm than good. At the age of 19, in the year of 1896, he broke away from the Salvation Army and identified himself with the Plymouth Brethren, where he became one of its licensed preachers. While helping in an evangelistic endeavor in San Francisco, California, he met another ex-Salvation Army member, by the name of Helen Schofield, the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor in Oakland. Love blossomed and on January 5, 1898, Harry and Helen were married. He was 21 at the time.
His lack of education was never a hindrance to him.1 After he finished the 8th grade, he never went back to school. All of his biblical training came while studying the Scriptures day after day. What was so amazing is that he became the greatest Bible teacher of his day and years beyond, with no formal ministerial training. It’s also interesting to note that his greatest legacy was in authoring 80 volumes of commentaries on the Bible, along with one of his most famous books: “Holiness, the False and the True”, which came out in 1912, It was a book much maligned by the holiness crowd, but it was a book that sealed his departure from that crowd.
His preaching ministry took him far and wide, preaching to thousands, and for a while he ministered under the auspicious of the Moody Bible Institue. In 1926 he was invited to teach at the famed Dallas Theological for several months a year, but declined, because it would take him away from his preaching ministry. Perhaps the greatest thrill of his life took place on March 5, when he receive a unanimous call to be the Pastor of the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago and on March16,1930 he preached his first sermon. He continued his itinerate ministry, often leaving after church on Sunday night and not return until Saturday to preach at Moody Memorial. After his wife’s death in 1948, he retired to Winona Lake, Indiana.
His books poured forth through the years, too numerous to mention here. Over 80 volumes have come from his pen. A Dr. of Letters degree [1930] had come from Wheaton2 in June of 1930, and on June 3, 1942 Bob Jones University3 granted him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree [1942]. His writings on the entire New Testament, as well as all of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and a great many volumes on specific Bible themes and subjects came from his pen. Some of his later titles include Things Seen and Heard in Bible Lands, Lamp of Prophecy, Changed by Beholding, The Way of Peace, and The Great Parenthesis. Almost lost in the seemingly more important phases of his ministry is the fact that he is the author of the well known hymn, Overshadowed.
Harry Ironside became great, because he dedicated himself to the study of God’s Word. It was God who made him great.
Footnotes:
1) Kevin Bauder: Required Theological Pedigree to Gain a Hearing
2) HA Ironside's Legacy
“Ironside was appointed to the board at Wheaton College, and was also on the board of Bob Jones University. The present faculty of Wheaton includes names of prominent critics of …Dispensationalism. Many of the interpretations of prophecy that Ironside believed have been set aside, and abandoned at Wheaton and even at Dallas Theological Seminary. Ironically, some of Ironside’s teachings are now actively opposed by professors at the College where he was once honored….”3) Biographies of Great Men: Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.
Site Publisher Addendum:
As noted above Bob Jones University in 1952 conferred upon Harry Ironside a Doctor of Divinity degree. In 2011 the University to honor the man's legacy renamed one of its dormitories to “H. A. Ironside Residence Hall.”
Dr. Ironside wrote, “The only way really to understand our Bible and get things in their places so that we are not in confusion of mind as we read and study is by noticing the various dispensations or administrations or stewardships or other periods that run through the Scripture. But we have recently been told by some prominent writers that this is all a mistake.” (The Lamp of Prophecy or Sign of the Times: Reaffirmation of Dispensational Truth)
Dr. Ironside wrote, “The only way really to understand our Bible and get things in their places so that we are not in confusion of mind as we read and study is by noticing the various dispensations or administrations or stewardships or other periods that run through the Scripture. But we have recently been told by some prominent writers that this is all a mistake.” (The Lamp of Prophecy or Sign of the Times: Reaffirmation of Dispensational Truth)
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