The Kingdom of God was not what the liberals argued but he positioned himself much closer to where Albert Schweitzer and Rudolph Otto would be. In fact he challenged R.J. Campbell of City Temple, whose abandonment of substitution was tearing English Congregationalism apart. He was not afraid of taking up the cross of controversy where it was necessary in the interest of the faith.

R.W. Dale of Birmingham paid him tribute by saying “He recovered grace for us.” His preaching was profoundly Biblical and very theological — even Emil Brunner called him “the greatest dogmatic theologian Britain has given the church in modern times.” Always sounding the characteristically Calvinist emphasis on God’s sovereignty, he was relentlessly Trinitarian and Christo-centric, with an always recurring stress on the holy love of God.

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He brought an electrifying sermon to the World Congregational Assembly in Boston in 1907 on “The Evangelical Principle of Authority” to which the entire congregation responded by rising and spontaneously singing “In the Cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.” J.D. Jones who was there said that “He flamed, he burned.”

On this visit to America he also gave his famous Beecher Lectures at Yale entitled Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, still a classic. Moving from the premise that “with its preaching, Christianity stands or falls,” Forsyth warned against gaining an audience and losing the Gospel. He took a strong stand for Biblical exposition and lamented the growing lack of any note of authority in contemporary preaching. “We need more Scripture!” he exclaimed.

He warned against subjectivity that does not really use the Scripture. In contrast to the social do-gooders of his time he insisted that we cannot usher in the Kingdom — the King alone can make the Kingdom! It is refreshing to reread this venerable classic and underscore his thoughts on preaching as worship. The world cannot supply us with the agenda. The sermon is not sacerdotal but sacramental. We must distinguish between novelty and freshness. Our goal is not to be original in the pulpit but to bring home that Word which has been from the beginning. We are to declare the truth not to dazzle with the truth! Indeed, preaching is the chief part of the evangelical ritual. We do not step into the pulpit to say how things strike us or to update our hearers on the latest. A Christianity of short sermons is a Christianity short of fiber.

To Forsyth, in words we desperately need to hear again in our time, we are not to be wandering stars. We must not be eager to drop the language of Canaan (shall we no longer speak of the precious blood of Jesus?) — our culture asks for half a gospel but that is no gospel at all. Ours is not a gospel of give and take but the mercy of God which gives all and claims all. He saw the dominant culture as casting God and heaven and hell to the rear of their concerns. The summons is for short sermons and long socials. Rather, he advises us to take good, long passages and open them up for our people. The need is for more than petty sentiment in the pulpit — we must not succumb to triviality, uncertainty and self satisfaction. Pelagianism is the peril. Beware of theology ala mode, after the fashion. The grave danger in modernization of the message is the moralization of the message — but our message is “the eternal, supernatural Gospel!”