Born October 20, 1880 in Edenderry, County Offaly, Ireland.

Died November 30, 1966 in Argentina.
Buried in the British Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

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Transcript of Testimony of Jack Jackson

He said that in November 1898, his brother wrote to him (that’s Will Jackson, who was also in the work, in Illinois - he’s gone now) from a neighboring town and said come over and see him. So they went over, and he said “Let’s go to a meeting. *Preachers are having a meeting in the town hall.” It was the first meeting for both of the Jackson boys. Jack went back to his own town then, and didn’t see his brother until February, when he wrote to him again. That is, Will wrote to Jack, saying “Come over and get saved.” Kind of a forthright way of talking. Anyway, the gospel meetings were over, they were just having the fellowship meeting.

Jack said that that really surprised him, to receive a letter like that, because Jack was always the boy that went to church, and the good boy; and Will was a rouster, so that wasn’t coming from the right source he thought to hear something like that, he thought it was a joke of something.

Anyway that little Sunday morning meeting was the thing that spoke to him. There were only about five or six in the meeting. Young folks, no workers, and the simplicity of it... he didn’t say all that did speak to him, I suppose; perhaps the years have effaced some of the details, but he said that in that meeting, his first fellowship meeting, his second meeting of any kind, he decided in his heart that that’s what he wanted to do. Then after the meeting he was walking down the street with his brother, and Will said “What did you think of the meeting?” There was something he said that gave Will to know that he had made his decision. He didn’t say just exactly what it was or how he said it, but Will knew. He asked Will then, he said “You’ve quit smoking?” Will said “Yes.” So Jack thought to himself, if that’s what it costs, then I’m willing for that, and he never smoked another cigarette.

Then he went back to the job where he was --- he was a bookkeeper in a hardware store at that time --- and he knew that there was going to be some persecution. A couple of days passed, and one of the boys asked him for some tobacco. So he handed him the pouch, the boy filled his pipe, and handed it back, and Jack said “Oh no, you can keep it.” And the boy said “What?” He said, “I said you can keep it.” And the other boy said “Hey, look at this boys! Hey, we have a little saint here!” He said he just cringed, but he said that after that, when everyone got used to the stand that he had taken, it was better to have it out in the open, and he said it was the best thing for him too, to have the choice out in the open, and then to have a testimony to live up to.

Then he told some experiences that he had. He said that he didn’t have any workers to go to to talk about things, but certain things were laid on his heart. He said that he got so that he couldn’t pray, he would try to pray and he wasn’t able to get near to the Lord, and he’d say “Lord, teach me what to do.” and he said the Lord was answering him right back “I’ve told you what to do and you won’t do it.” So there were three things that he was mulling over in his mind, things that he felt he should set right; and one of these was selling tobacco and pipes to customers, he didn’t feel that he should be doing that.

And another one was that he was a bookkeeper, and one of his duties was to turn in a report to the police once a month, of the ammunitions and firearms that had been sold. And there were certain people that were licensed to have ammunition, only with a license the ammunition was supposed to be sold. But often customers would come in, and it would be a customer they knew and they knew this person had a license, but there were other clerks waiting on them besides Jack, and they wouldn’t bother to write the license number down, and they wouldn’t even bother to write the person’s name down, who it was that bought the ammunition. So they just knew a certain amount of ammunition had been sold. But at the end of the month they would find that they were supposed to report to the police who had bought the ammunition. And they didn’t have records of it and he was just supposed to write down names of people that they knew had licenses so that it would look alright in the books.

But he didn’t feel right about that, just jotting names down, and also another thing was selling poison (you know, for gophers and insects and so forth) without a license; the store didn’t have a license for selling this but they sold it anyway to their clients, so these things bothered him. But he said to the boss one day “Sir, there are three things I can’t do any more. One of them is to sell tobacco and pipes, and the other is I am not going to fix up the books any more about the ammunition for the police department, and I won’t sell any more poison.” And his boss said “Oh, you fool!”

So a day or two later, a customer asked Jack, when he was waiting on him, to pour some tobacco; and Jack went over to the boss, he said “This fellow over here wants some tobacco. Would you take care of it?” The boss said “Why don’t you take care of it?” Jack said “Don’t you remember what I told you the other night?” and the boss said, “Ah, you fool!” His boss went ahead then and took care of the customer and sold him the tobacco. So then a couple of days later, it was time to send in the police report, and Jack knew it hadn’t been taken care of yet, and he waited a day or two and he went to the boss and he said “You know the police report hasn’t been sent in yet.” The boss said “Why hasn’t it?” And Jack said “Because, I fear, I told you the other day, I’m not going to do that any more.” The boss said “Ah, you fool!”, and he went and did it himself, and Jack never had to worry about that any more, the boss took care of it. And in like manner about the license when it came time to sell poison to people, Jack went and told the boss for someone else to take care of it, and there was never any more problem after that. They respected him after they understood what his stand was, and he got along very well.

He started going to meetings in February 1899; in May 1900, the workers came to that town where the meetings were, which I believe was about 16 miles from where he was working. He got off work at eight o’clock at night, so he couldn’t go to the meeting. But he began to figure around some way of making an excuse of getting over there. So he told the boss he thought he ought to be able to sell a mowing machine over in that next town. So the boss said “That’ll be fine, I’ll let you off any day you want.” He said “No, I think it would be better at night.” So he went over there and before the meeting he went to see the man that he had spoken of, and sold him a mowing machine. And went to the meeting.

Then a few days later he had to deliver the mowing machine. He got another meeting. Then a few days later he spoke to the boss and thought he ought to be able to sell a bicycle to a man over there. And he went and sold a bicycle and went to another meeting. A few days later he had to deliver the bicycle, because he had just taken the order for it, you see. And when he went over there to deliver it, he told the man it was supposed to be a trade in for an old bicycle and he said “Listen,” he said, “you know, you shouldn’t get this new bicycle all dirty. You ought to keep both of them --- keep the old one for knocking about, and the new one for Sundays.” The man said “Yes, I believe you’re right.”, but Jack said “You’ll have to let me borrow the old one to get back home again, and then I’ll bring it back again some other time.” So he took the bicycle home with him and had another excuse for getting back again. Jack said “You know, it’s funny. Nowadays people will invent ways to get out of going to meeting, we tried to invent ways of going to meeting.”

Then the place they had the meetings. There was no open home, they were all young people, unmarried, so they rented a little room that was in a thick wall, as I understand it, just a little tiny cubby-hole, and they called it the hole in the wall. Every Sunday a half dozen young folks met together there; some of them don’t go on today, but two of them at least became workers.

Then Jack went out into the work in 1900, and at the end of 1904 he was in England. He got a telegram one day, on Saturday, saying “Arrive Liverpool Tuesday, sail New York Wednesday.” He had from Saturday to Tuesday to get to Liverpool. No visiting his folks or anything like that.

When he got to New York (there were 5 workers on the boat) they had learned on the passage over that they were supposed to have thirty dollars apiece, to get into the US. But the richest man among them only had seventeen dollars. The poorest had two. So they lined them up in order, from the richest to the poorest. The first one came to the immigration officer, and he said “How much money do you have?” He told him. He wrote on a card “Pass one.” So he went on outside to wait for the others. The second man, he was the fourteen dollar man, and he came up and the man said “How much money do you have?” “14.” “Why man, that won’t keep you two weeks in New York.” And he held his hands out, the worker did, and said “How long will these keep me in New York, sir?” And he wrote on another card, “Pass one.” The next man stepped up, he was the twelve dollar man. He looked at him and saw the similarity and said “Listen, are you fellows all the same back to there?” and he pointed back to the last of the workers. He said “Yes, sir, we are.” He turned around and called the other one that was just disappearing in the distance, “Come back here” he said. Jack thought “Oh oh, the jig’s up now, we’re all going back to Ireland.” But no, he took his card, changed the ‘one’ to ‘four’: “Pass four”. And he said “God be with you.” And they all went through. (end of testimony)

TTT COMMENTS:

*Wm. Irvine was having meetings in Parsontown, Ireland from Nov 5 thru 26, 1898, which is 6.75 miles from Edenderry (Jack's home), according to faith Mission records printed in Bright Words -Location of Workers, January 1899, p. 11.  

According to the Ellis Island records, departing from Liverpool, England on November, 1904, on the Ship S. S. Oceanic, and arriving in New York on December 8, 1904:   John (Jack) Jackson, age 24 yrs, Single, Irish; Residence: Waltham.  Jack was in the third group of (8) workers from Ireland and Great Britain to sail to America. (Waltham is a village and civil parish in North East Lincolnshire, England – near Grimbsy.)  Jack was preaching in England when he received the telegram to go to Liverpool to sail for America.  He was from Edenderry, Co. Offaly, Ireland.

According to the Ellis Island records, departing from Liverpool, England on November, 1904, on the Ship S. S. Oceanic, and arriving in New York on December 8, 1904 were:

John Jackson, age 24 yrs, Single, Irish; Residence: Waltham (Jack)
James Jardine, age 20 yrs, Single, Scotch, Residence: Waltham
Francis Scott, age 20 yrs, Single, Irish, Residence: Waltham (Frank)
William Weir, age 22 yrs, Single, Scotch; Residence: Chippenham
David Lynes, age 26 yrs, Single, Irish, Residence: Chippenham (Dave Lyness)
Bella Cooke, age 23 yrs, Single, Irish, Residence: Norfolk
Lizzie M. Coles, age 26 yrs, Single, Irish; Residence: Norfolk (aka Lily, Elizabeth and Mary)
Emma Gill, age 33 yrs, Single, Irish, Residence: Meath 
(Source: Ellis Island Ship Oceanic Manifest)

"Again in December, 1904, a group including Jack Jackson, Willie Weir, Dave Linus (sic) and others came." (From Milltown Convention Story)

"It is a good while ago now that one morning towards the end of November, 1904, my companion and I were in the east of England and were preaching there...and a knock came on the door and a telegram came for me, "Be in Liverpool Tuesday and sail for New York Saturday. That was short notice....well we landed in New York on the 9th of December." (Jack Jackson at Freedom, NY Convention Notes November (or August?) 14, 1960)

"I crossed in the autumn of 1904 with J. Jackson, Wm. Weir, Dave Lyness, Frank Scott and Emma Gill, Lizzie Coles and another sister whose name doesn't come to me just now." (February 16, 1966 Letter by James Jardine to Dear Sister Mollie)

Jack Jackson remained in South America as Overseer until his death in Argentina in 1966. 

BRAZIL:  In 1923 Jack Jackson pioneered Brazil with John Robert “Bob” Smith: "Then on Mar, 16, 1923, Jack and I arrived in Santiago, Chile...In Aug. 1923... and in a few weeks he [Jack] and B. Smith [John Robert “Bob” Smith from Virginia, who later married Martha Hogg from Ireland]  Bob and Martha worked in many remote areas of Brazil for many years and were definitely the most successful evangelists among the workers in Brazil during those years.] went to Brazil." (Maurice Hawkins Account)

WILL JACKSON:   Jack Jackson's brother Will spent his life in the work, mostly in Illinois, where he was the Overseer for many years.  

For additional Information about Jack Jackson, go to:

First Missions in South America

First Missions in Argentina

Jack Jackson – Salvation, Service and Reward

1st Pukekohe New Zealand Conv. 1963

Perhaps you will have noticed that in that hymn we sang, the first verse says, "Nought but Thy blood could for my sins atone". The second verse says "Thou did'st in mercy shed Thy blood to save me". I don't know hardly where to begin, but I do know where to stop and when to stop; however, if I begin telling you that this morning I awoke before the day dawned, and when I awoke I felt refreshed as if I had slept. I do know ... Oh well, I did sleep, because I was in bed early, and I slept up until that time, but I felt refreshed as if I had slept longer and I said to the Lord these words. "Thanks Lord and please".

Now that would need some explanation Those are two words that I repeat over and ever again, sometimes when I have been in a car going along the road; sometimes when I am on a bus; sometimes when I am on a train; sometimes when I am on a plane and in several other circumstances. We have gone part of the way, and I say 'thanks'. There is another part of the way ahead - please. I said those two words before the day dawned today and it seemed as if the Lord said to me, "please what?" But I think he knew what was in my mind and what was in my thoughts. I thought of this meeting, and I thought it was the last time probably that I would speak to you and the thought occurred to me, if I could possibly leave with you something that might help you tomorrow, I would be satisfied. I do not mean tomorrow, I think you understand what I mean. I do not mean Monday. I mean in the tomorrow of your days, if I can leave something with you that might help you in the struggle, that might help you on the way, that might give you a lift on the onward, on the upward and on the homeward road, I would be pleased, and I told God that.

Maybe I could try and tell you what came to my mind after that. I was in bed yet and there came to my mind a passage that came to my mind one morning some while back. The first thing that came to my mind when I awoke that morning, (I am not speaking about this morning), I am talking about another morning away back. This verse came to my mind "so run that ye may obtain." Then as I thought of that, I remembered a connection that Paul connected with that. The thought occurred to me, now, if I were now somewhere where I could speak to some of my brothers, and I could ask them, "What are we running to obtain"? What would they tell me? An answer came to my mind, and I thought what some at least might tell me.

It wasn't so long afterwards, and I found myself with a few of my brethren, and I told them about the verse, and I asked them "What is it that we are running to obtain?" One said Eternal life. Another said salvation, and another said salvation, and another said something similar—other words, but meant the same thing. You may agree with them folks, but I didn't.

I am not running to obtain eternal life. I am running because I have it.

I never saw a dead man run. I never saw a dead man do anything. But if you give that man sufficient life and power and strength, he can get up and do it. But tell that man to run, he cannot run to get life—but give him life and he can run. Maybe I can tell you something that happened. Two or three instances that happened and that might help you to be able to understand and help me to be able to explain to you what I would like to get over to you.

Yesterday after the meeting here, I was talking to some of you right here, four or five of you, and one of them said, "I feel like getting saved again," or something similar like that; and another said something similar, and I said I feel like that myself sometimes. I expect the rest of you understand what we mean. I went away and I thought of that afterwards (that I feel like almost getting saved myself again sometimes), and I thought, that is not right, Jack. You shouldn't have said that because that is not just exactly how I feel, but I think you understand what I meant, and I think I understand what you meant.

I think probably that you understood I felt just like a worm of the earth, and I have felt like that more than once, but I am a living worm anyway. I do not want to go and start to get life again. I am a worm alive. Isaiah said, "sometimes I feel undone." "I am a man of unclean lips," but he had lips anyway. And you feel like something, something like you read about, just a kind of helpless weak thing. I cannot hardly do anything. Now I think that is what we mean.

I will tell you another instance. I went into a home once to visit a man and his wife, an elderly couple. We were taking tea, and of course the usual thing. I don't know whether it is the same in New Zealand. But the usual thing is my pains and aches, and my head. I'll tell you something a sister told me. I said, "Good afternoon," and she said, "Oh, this old liver of mine." I had listened for about 10 minutes to the story of that liver. I listened impatiently. However, after she had got through, I said "Listen. Now imagine if there was in a street 1,000 people, can you imagine 1,000,000 people. Where would they reach to?" I said, "A long way. There are not only 1,000,000 in this world, there are hundreds of millions in this world and consequently there are hundreds of millions of livers. Can you just imagine hundreds of millions of livers, and there is not one of those hundreds of millions that has done as much for you, and you are grumbling about it." And she shook her hands with me.

What I was telling you about. I went into another home, not that lady's home, another home, and we were taking tea, and I was listening to the pains and aches and so on; and he was a little older than me and she is about four months younger, I think. However, we are all, more or less, around the same age. I said, after I had listened to their story of their pains and aches, I said, "Listen, 50 years from now, you and I won't have a pain nor an ache. They will be all gone." And he said, "Well I do hope it turns out that way, Jack." And she chimed in then, and she said, "Sometimes I am not so sure". Do you know what they meant? Do you understand what they meant? You say you do. Well alright, I will tell you now, and then we will go on. I hope this will help you to understand what I tell you afterwards. I am just telling you these little happenings.

I was in another home and there were two sister workers in that home, and they were going away to a hospital to see someone I never knew. They were talking about this sister before they went, and they were telling me something about her and spoke about her faithfulness and trueness. They went to the hospital, and they came back, and the folks in the home were asking, "How is she?" They said, "She is not well, but she is worried." And I happened to say, "What is she worried about?" Because I had understood before that she was a faithful and good soul, and even though she is nearing the end of the journey, she has nothing to worry about and those sisters said to me, "She thinks she hasn't done enough." Do you understand what was worrying that poor sister? That sister that was with her said to me, "Isn't the Devil cruel, Jack?" He is cruel folks. He will try to worry you right to the very end of the journey.

We will get back to what I was going to tell you. Try to keep those little instances in your mind. They might help you to understand. I would like to try, if I can, to explain to you what I understand as the difference between life and service and reward. Can you keep those three things? They are so closely connected. They are so closely interwoven. They are so closely interwoven that perhaps it is difficult just to separate them, and you can hardly separate them; but they have a different function. They are not the same.

What I would like to say first is a little in connection with life. Life is something that you and I do not run to obtain. It is something that we don't serve to get. It is something we serve because we have it, and we run because we have it. You say to me, "How do I get it Jack, and how do we get it?"

We have just sung a hymn or at least two verses in a hymn that speak about the blood of Christ. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, it is not the only place of course in that letter, anyway, in the 1st Chapter, he said "In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins". That is a cleansing isn't it? That is what we read about or sing about in the first verse in that hymn. We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. There is another way—that is one way he puts it, I don't know whether that gives any explanation or not, but maybe I had better say that when I try sometimes to explain, I try to understand what the blood of Christ means. I can hardly understand it. Sometimes I have said to myself, now if I had no water for a week, or for two weeks, what would I look like? None to wash my hands, nothing to wash my face in, nothing to wash my clothes in. What would I look like? I suppose none of you have been in a place where water was so scarce that when you washed in the morning, you didn't throw it out, but washed afterwards in the same water, and when I washed afterwards in the same water, I didn't throw it out, and Willie came along and used the same water, and after he had washed, it is kept to throw around a little plant. To keep the life in a little plant.

I don't suppose any of you have possibly gone one day after another, and you have been hot and you have been perspiring, and then when you go to bed at night, you just scrape up a little bit of dust or sand to try and make the bed a little softer before you lie on it. And then when the time did come after some days when you could undress and you could have a bath and you could run all the water that you want into that bath and when you undress, you were afraid to look at yourself. You weren't sure whether you were black or white. And then all that dust that was on you that had filtered through your clothes, there were tracks where that perspiration had gone down your body like a person with a rail-road track. How often have you looked like that?

It is something like this experience that helped you to know the value of water, and what I would just look like, what I do look like without it. When I think of that, it helps me to understand a little better the value of the blood of Jesus. I just know how I looked away back when I tried and hunted for cleansing here and there. I had my name on the Church roll. I went to Sunday School. I went to Bible class; went to the prayer meetings; went to the service on Sunday and was still just as black as ever. You know what I mean. Still no forgiveness, still no cleansing.

When I look back and think of that, my heart is grateful. Grateful for what? Grateful to God the Father that he sent his Son and grateful for his Son that he came and gave his life and shed his blood that cleanses me. In the first place, that cleansed me. As John says, "Unto thee who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood". When everything else failed to do it, he came, and he gave his life and he washed us. Not only did he wash us in the start folks, but he keeps us washed as we go along.

We heard right where I am standing, that if we walked in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another. That is why I can come along to you folks that I have never met before, and we are just the same to each other as if we went to school together. Why? Because you are walking in the same light as I am walking, and I am walking in the same light as you are walking—in His light. As we walked in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. It cleansed us and forgave all in the past when they came to him, and there was a whole lot there to be forgiven.

The Lord says, 'I will clean you up,' and then if you walk with him in the light that I give you I will get you clean as you go along. Is that anything worthwhile to you. Will that help you to understand when Peter speaks about the precious blood of Jesus—will that help us to understand? Nothing more precious. Do for me. Do for you what none other in the universe can. Do for you and do for me what all the other organisations in the world cannot do. Have we any right to thank God for it? Have we any right to have gratitude in our hearts? You say we have—that is one expression.

Further on in the Epistle of Paul, Paul puts it in another way. I am trying to and maybe I am not getting there at all, but I am trying and it may help you to understand how we get that water for cleansing. That is one way we put it, and then we know of walking after we get the cleansing.

There is another way he puts it, and it may be simpler. In the next chapter of Ephesians he says, "When we were dead, he has quickened as together with Christ". The previous verse says that he is rich in mercy. Rich in mercy. That is a wonderful thing, and that God, who is rich in mercy, says He has quickened us together with Christ. What does "quickened" mean? Would I be wrong if I said "quicken" means cause you to live. Would I be wrong if I said "quicken" means give you life.

He says you were dead, and when you were dead, he gave you life. How did he give you that life? He gave you that one life. That is not something I run to get. There is a big difference. If I said to Cecil here, "Now I will give you this Bible." Now, what has he got to do? Just reach out his hand and take it and tomorrow you see him with the Bible and you say, "That is a nice little Bible. Where did you get one like that?" And he would say, "I don't know." You would say, "Where did you buy it? Didn't you buy it?" and he will say, "No." "Well, were you walking and someone gave that to you? It is a nice little Bible, you could almost put it in your hip pocket." And he would say, "Jack gave it to me and I took it." Is that not what Paul said when he says, "The gift of God is what? Eternal life." "The gift of God is eternal life." Now that helps us I think to understand.

Well, we will go back to the verse we were after. He has quickened us together with Christ. That takes us to what we were hearing yesterday or the evening before. "I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and he will sup with me and I with him". He has quickened you together with Christ. He knocks on your door, he says, "Open. I will come into your house. I will sup with you, we will eat together, we will live together, we will talk together, we still walk together, we will be together." Does he not come in with me, and is he not life? Is he not the way? Is he not the truth? Is he not the good shepherd? Is he not a friend that sticketh closer than a brother? Is he not everything that is worthwhile? Very well.

Some 83 years ago I arrived in Ireland for the first time. I will tell you what happened. I did not know a thing. I could not walk. I could not creep. I could not talk. I could do nothing. Well, maybe I could. However, I did not have any understanding of anything, but when I arrived there that day, do you know what I had? You say, "You had nothing Jack." I had life. I have it yet 19 years after that, just one block and a half from the same place, I arrived that day. I entered another family—I entered God's family.

I want to tell you what happened on both those occasions. At both times, I arrived with life. In the first place, human life, in the second place divine. I don't know what you call it in this country, but anyway somebody went to the Registry Office and registered my birth and several years ago. I wrote to my brother and asked him to go to the Registry Office to get a birth certificate and send it to me, and he went there and sent it to me because I was born and because someone entered my birth there.

I have told you now that 19 years afterwards, I was born again. Well, the same thing happened, and I know God registered it too. Because we read in here about the book that He keeps, "Blot me out of the book that you keep." Who said that? The Lord writes in there. I entered His family, and He wrote my name in the Book of Life and my entrance, you know it is right, well it would not be harmful to refresh our minds of it.

Our entrance when we reach yonder depends on our name being there. The last three chapters of the Bible tell us that. None entered whose names were not written in the Lamb's Book of Life. That is what our entrance depends on. We are not running. We are not running to gain an entrance. We are not running to get eternal life. That depends on another, He gave His life for that. We open our hearts to Him, and He writes our names there, and then when the day comes, we enter because our name is written in that Lamb's Book of Life. And you say, "Is that so?" And I say, "Yes".

Can I lose that? Would there be any chance of my losing that? The only danger I know for myself is—I will put it this way—the only one I know—I only know one person that can take that life from me that God gave me. My enemy has no authority. My friends, well they wouldn't want to. The devil cannot do it. You say, "Jack who is the person that can take it from you?" Jack Jackson. That is the only one I know. God gave me life, and the only one I know that can take it from me is Jack Jackson.

And you say, "How can he do it?" He can just do suicide, and there is a little difference between spiritual suicide and human suicide. It is not done with a rope. A man goes down to the sea to a cliff. It is an instantaneous thing. In the spiritual family, it is more like a McSweeny thing. McSweeny committed suicide. Remember how he did it? Perhaps some of you Irish people will know. By just declaring a hunger strike and not eating. There is food to eat, and I wouldn't eat it. How many days did he last? 86. Right, that is a slow suicide, and that is the way I can do it too, but as long as I keep a little every day—and you know what I mean when I say a little every day—that life that God gave me is protected and I have it. Now do we understand how we got life? I hope we do.

Our life, the life we get, that depends on another. There are words we get that depends on our service, and our service is maybe what we will refer to a little now. I do not know hardly how to refer to it. We talk a lot and we sing a lot about serving, and we get up in a meeting and we give our testimony, and we say that we would like to be faithful in our service to him or our walking with God. We talk about that. I am just not quite sure when we talk like that if we just understand what there is given to us to do. I will put it this way. If you tell me, or I hear you giving your testimony that you want to be true to the Lord and you want to serve him faithfully, and I go along to you afterwards, and I ask you, "What are you going to do?" Can you tell me? And you say, "in service." And I say, "What service are you going to render?"

"l am going to the meeting, I am going to read the Bible, I am going to pray, I am going to take part in the meeting". Is that all? "I am going to pray." I am going to try and explain. Our service, the capacity in which we serve, I will put it that we that are workers. We are serving the same master, but the capacity in which we serve is different. For example, you say that the capacity in which you serve is different from the workers. And the capacity in which we workers serve is different from the saints. Do you understand what I mean now? The capacity in which you serve is different as some of you are elders in the Church. You will say, alright, you are. Your capacity is different from the others. If you read Peter, you will know that. If you read in Timothy, you will know that. If you read in other parts of the Bible, you will read and understand that.

Some of you are fathers and some mothers, and there is a good deal in this Book that tells you how to serve. Some of you are children, and there is a good deal in this Book that tells you how to serve. Some of you are masters, and some of you are servants, and there is a good deal that will tell you how to serve. Do you understand what I mean? Keeping our place and fulfilling our place. I have heard folks say that, and if I went and asked them afterwards, "What is the place, what is your place?" Do you think they could tell me?

The same thing might be true in connection with we workers as it is in connection with you saints. You who are saints, there is a capacity in which God means you should serve and that is the place you should be. We who are workers, it is the same thing. Peter speaks about himself as an elder. Peter was an elder and he may have been an elder in a little different way. He may have been an elder amongst the workers and the workers may have looked to him for guidance. I think you are understanding what I mean, and if you or if I succeed in finding out our place, the capacity in which we should serve, then we can look forward hopefully to a reward. But if we do not, we are working in a vineyard.

I have seen vineyards of hundreds of acres and the owner of this vineyard, he had certain work for certain workers, and they understood the capacity in which they were to serve in that vineyard, and it was only when they fulfilled that that they were in their place. That is what I mean when I say if we can just find out our place and then just know what we are, then God will tell you after that.

We heard yesterday about reading to hear and hearing to keep. That took my mind back a long time, a great many years ago when I did not know there was such a verse in the Bible, and I read that verse one day there and it hasn't left my mind since. "Blessed is he that readeth the words of this prophecy and hears." He reads to hear and he reads to keep. If we know the capacity in which we are to serve and then we read, and from reading the part that is applicable to us and then we would know what we should do and that would be good.

"Open confession is good for the soul". Do you understand that? Well, I am going to confess something. I have read this book many times. Do you know what for? To get a bait to put on a hook when I was going to fish. I have read this book many times for to get food to put in the trough when I was going to feed. Do you understand what I mean? The sheep of God, and I have read it oftener with these two purposes than I have read it. Shame on me, I am confessing it.

Then I have read it to know how I should have my walk and my life as a servant of God, and I am glad that God called me apart yesterday, and I do mean only since then, since He did draw me even today, that I have not been hunting up the parts in this book to tell me how I should live as a Servant of God and to tell you how you should live as a saint of God. I am just confessing what I have done and maybe that would help me to read some passages there are in the Old Testament that teaches the Servant of God in what he should preach, how he should live, what he should give others and opportunity of seeing.

Now we are talking about our service. Do you understand? I wonder if you know now what I mean? We are not doing that in order to get an entrance to heaven getting life, that is a free gift, because it gives us an entrance in God's Lamb's Book of Life. Our name is written there. We serve in order that we may have a little to our credit. That brings us to the other matter. I said life and service and what else? and reward.

Just a little in connection with reward. There was a time if you talked to me about reward for serving God, I always looked to Heaven, and I was going to get there. I do not look that way now because I am taught that a certain reward is here, it is present and a certain reward is future. You have read a verse many times I am sure where Jesus said, "When thou prayest" That was a service, "Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Shall reward thee openly. When? When we get to Heaven? No Sir, right here and now, and all you have to do is to read. What is before this? Just before this Jesus was talking to them about the Pharisees and the Scribes because He says they loved to pray in the marketplace, in the corner of the street, and they do it to be seen of men, and what is it they do it for? And they have their reward. They have it right now. And they are doing it so that others might see it. You just pray that others might see you and talk about it. Alright, others hear you and see you and that is the reward they have, they are done.

And then He comes on and tells His Disciples, and He says, "Don't be like them, when you pray to Thy Father, Thy Father shall see thee in secret and reward thee openly". Have you never tasted a little of that reward in your life? You will say, "I have, yes". And that little you have tasted, when you have got that reward, would it not encourage us to go on doing a little more? Alright it does. That is a present reward.

There is another reward that is present and you have read it. You remember there is that time when Jesus was talking to His Disciples and Peter said to Him, "Lord we have left all and followed Thee. What shall we have?" Was he asking of their reward? What will our reward be? We have left everything. We have followed you. Would you mind telling us what will we get for that? Jesus answered and said, "Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house and brethren or sister or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My sake and the Gospels, he shall receive an hundred fold". Listen to the next four words. "Now in this time" Isn't that a present reward? He shall receive an hundred fold now in this time.

I can remember what I thought on going into the work. And there were different thoughts came to my mind, a great many thoughts, and of course. I thought, well, I cannot preach, and I have thought that many a time yet, but anyway I can fill the time. I wasn't the only one that thought that. At that time nearly everyone that wasn't married was encouraged into the work; but they never encouraged me much. I don't think they thought I would be much good. But it was in my mind anyway. But there were a lot of other things came into my mind. I thought I could stay here, maybe someday I could have a home, maybe some day I could have a Church in the home, and of course, there would be someone else to go with the home—wouldn't there be a Mrs. Jackson? She would go with the home wouldn't she? Very well, all those thoughts came into my mind. Well anyway folks, even though those thoughts were there, I am grateful to God today that I find myself where I am, and that I have found myself where I am a greater part of my life.

I will tell you something, I have found the truth of those words. They could not be more true. I could have stayed where I was, and I could have one day perhaps had a home. I could have had lands. I could have had the things that were mentioned there by Jesus, How many homes? Just one maybe two you say. Alright, two if you wish, one for the summer and another for the winter, like some of those rich folk do have. However, I could have had all that—but listen. I have hundreds of homes today. I have hundreds of mothers, true mothers. I have hundreds of fathers, true fathers, those I can depend upon and I could stake my life on it. Is that a reward? Is that a present reward? Is that telling me or proving to me the truth of what Jesus said when  He said, "You will have that now in this time". Now in this time you will have it. Right here and present and then he goes on and He says "and in the world to come." That is the future. He talks to them about a present and He talks to them about a future. Now that is sufficient in connection with the present.

You will remember that Paul in writing to the Corinthians in the 3rd Chap. of 1st. Cor, He speaks about I did the planting and another watered, but God given the increase. And then went on to say, "However man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. Is that a present or future reward? I think he is referring to a future, and then you remember that he mentioned that another time when he was writing to Timothy, he said "I have fought a good fight, the time of my departure is at hand. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." We passed without referring to it another crown, the crown of life. Have you read about the crown of life?

Can you remember what we read the crown of life? "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give you the crown." The crown of life. In other words, stick it out till death comes, and when death comes for me, you know what I figure. I figure that life that God has given me is then crowned. And you say why? Because I am out of reach of the devil, it is crowned. I am out of reach of Jack, and you want to put it that way too, that is some day. Be thou faithful to death and I will give it to you. This is another crown that Paul is talking about, and it is not the crown that he gets at death. I have fought a good fight. I have etc —not the crown of life, the crown of righteousness. The crown of life is one thing, The crown of righteousness, what is that? The crown of right living. Acting as God desires you should act and do. And he says, "I will tell you about that Timothy". He says, the Lord will give it to me, Not, now, but on that day.

I sometimes see in a letter, "he has gone to his reward." He hasn't gone to his reward at all. He has gone to rest and his influence is still living. Is not he talking to you? Will he get nothing for that? I am not going to tell you he will, but IF I had anything to do with it, I would give him a little for the help he has meant to me. Paul has gone, he has gone to rest and his works are still following him and he has helped me many a time. Will he get anything for that? Do you understand what I mean? It says "I have got the crown of righteousness. The Lord will give it to me on that day. Not unto me only, but unto everyone else too that loves His appearing."

I would like to say one thing more about this reward. You understand now don't you, that there is a present reward and it is a good one, and there is a future reward, and it is a better one, and we are not serving in vain. And we are not serving for nothing. Now what I would like to say is this. The length of time I may be serving has nothing to do with my reward. What verse will I quote that tells me that? That man shall be rewarded according to the number of years he has served? No sir, "Every man shall be rewarded according to his own labour." Put it in other words if you wish. Every man shall be rewarded according to what he has done. We are not time servers. We are not serving by the month or serving by the day. I don't know how you put it in this country, but they talk about working by the day or working by the job. Do you understand? We are not working by the day, we are working by the job.

I worked in Canada many years ago, I preached the Gospel there, and I was in wooded country, there was a good deal in those years, it was just being settled there, However, they went in and the Government gave them so many acres of land and they had to clear so much. They told about this man who was going along the path one day in the woods, and he heard somebody talking, and he stopped and listened, and then he heard the cross cut saw and the cross saw was going, He listened to the cross cut - by the day - by the day - by the day (slowly). Alright, he went on further up the path and he hears more work and another cross cut saw going by the job - by the job - by the job (quickly).

Do you understand? You do. Alright, let me tell you. You and I are working by the job. Not by the day. Our reward is not going to be according to the number of days or month or years that we have been serving. Every man shall be rewarded according to what he has done. Is it worthwhile going by the job? You will say it is—it is folks. There is a reward here and there is a reward also yonder. If anything should happen that you are finishing your days and like that sister that I told you about in the hospital, and she was not sure whether she has done enough, and if the devil says that, remember what that worker said, "Isn't he cruel, Jack, worrying a poor soul at the end of her days".

He is cruel and he may be just as cruel in your case and in my case to tell you, you haven't done enough. If anything like that ever happens and the Devil tells you, you haven't done enough you can say, "Listen Mr. Devil, I heard you are a liar, but you are telling the truth this time". Don't stop there. Ask him a question. Did Jesus do enough? That one that God sent to die for you, did he do enough? And you will have him bluffed.

I would like to think that what I have tried to talk about that it might help somebody tomorrow or the next day when the end might be nearing, that it would save us from this day. I am not so sure. If I don't commit suicide—I am sure. If I don't declare a hunger strike—I am sure. But as to my reward, that depends on how I live. That depends on how I serve, that depends on how I fight, but as far as life and an entrance is concerned, that depends on another. That depends on another. There is a little difference between life and service, and I think we have had so much to encourage us and to show us or help us to understand the worthwhileness of doing what? Of doing what we can while we can.

By Jack Jackson: Born 1880, from Edenderry, Ire, Ireland, entered the work in 1901; pioneered South America in 1923; Overseer there til death in 1966; buried in Argentina.