A Tribute To Mr. Boyd
A Christian soldier has gone home to a rich welcome in heaven. Pastor John R. Boyd has fought the good fight, he has finished the race, he has kept the faith. We are happy for him there, in the presence of the Lord, but his pacing from this world leaves a hole in the hearts and lives of a great many who are going to miss him dearly.
One Sunday in May, 1925 a boy in his mid teens was coming home from a Sunday school lesson knowing full well he must not delay to repent any longer. For eight months he had experienced convulsions of soul. He had nights of dread, fearing death and damnation. But that afternoon in May, he dropped to his knees beside a big rock to get pardon from the Lord and eternal life.
This was a man who was diligent to make his calling and election sure. According to the apostle Peter if you pursue this policy you will never stumble and an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. If you know Mr. Boyd you know that he would not have failed to take note of that promise. He taught many of us a greater appreciation for the promises of God and how to use reverence and due care in claiming them.
Mr. Boyd was the son of a praying woman. He sensed that the ministry that God gave him was an answer to her prayers. One of the precious memories of his Dad was in a meeting in Daleville Baptist Church. Having just come down from the platform after speaking his father stopped him, and with tears expressed appreciation for the greatness of the God who fully secured that salvation so dearly purchased by the blood of the Son of God. The woodchopper preacher had stressed God's preserving faithfulness and when he saw that he had gotten it across to his Dad he thought he must keep at preaching. Many years later Mr. Boyd wrote these words: "So here I am at it yet. So help me God I can do no other."
From 1930 to 1933 John Boyd was in garage work. In the summer of 1933 Dr. Olive dark came and spoke to people in that Quebec community about Toronto Baptist Seminary. That led to enrollment where the young Mr. Boyd became personally acquainted with Dr. T.T. Shields the pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist Church and the president and founder of Toronto Baptist Seminary.
In his first term at the seminary in 1933/34 Mr. Boyd roomed at the home of Albert and Harriet Grigg. This fine couple soon after moved to Sudbury and immediately saw a need for a capable man to come and do gospel work in the nickel capital. Without going into the whole story suffice it to say that a letter from Mrs. Grigg ultimately resulted in
Mr. Boyd coming to this area.
He came to Sudbury in 1936. That move was the beginning of an ever expanding evangelistic outreach--publications and radio and television ventures that eventually extended around the world; then we can think of his faithful pastoring, church planting, French work, the children's camp and an extensive ministry of correspondence. Mr. Boyd had a sharp eye for possibilities. He was always alert to opportunities to extend the gospel or represent Christ. From early years be had made it his objective to really get to know God, His word and the bountiful resources that are stored up in the divine promises. Early in his ministry he bad acquired a good sense of what God was willing to do through yielded committed servants of the Lord. So he worked with a will and he got a multitude of others working good and hard too, as many of us can attest from first hand experience.
Mr. Boyd saw the glories and the precious truths of the kingdom as riches to be dispensed and extended wherever he could find hearts to receive God's word. And he worked not only to extend the kingdom but to intensify its values and superior righteous-ness in the hearts of believers who hungered for richer fellowship with God and for greater usefulness in Christian service.
I always marvelled at how Mr. Boyd worked at such an unhurried pace. Even in his so called 'retirement' years he did prodigious amounts of work but he always had time to fit you in whether it was to deal with a question or just have a chat.
I was a student at Toronto Baptist Seminary in 1982/83 when Mr. Boyd (Dr. Boyd, as he was known there) was interim pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist Church and therefore president of the Seminary. Delivering the president's lecture to the men students one Friday afternoon <he said that because of the advanced state of telecommunications and transportation he had been able to reach more people with the gospel than the apostle, Paul. Mr. Boyd always had listeners who would have heard that as a boast but others
took it as intended which was to spur us on to make use of available facilities for Christ's sake.
I have taken the liberty of borrowing a few lines from a tribute written by Gordon Edwards, another appreciative friend of Mr. Boyd. Gordon said: "None of us will ever be aware of the massive impact t of Mr. Boyd's ministry.. .His network of contacts stretched literally around the world and he must have preached to literally millions of people. Of
course, all of this was accomplished at significant financial outlay yet we never heard him appeal for money."
We knew Mr. Boyd to have many sides to his personality. He was many things to many people. I phoned him from the hospital one day that he might come to the bedside of a man who seemed close to death. A nurse met him at the entrance to intensive care. To make sure he could get in he' announced himself as a pastor, a friend of the man and a
fellow farmer. He didn't need to, the nurse recognized him, smiled, took his arm and ushered him in in regal fashion.
No tribute to Mr. Boyd would be complete without at least one cattle story. Again we will lean on Gordon Edwards for some help here:
"I will always recall a conversation at the supper table, after a long, hot and often frustrating day of herding and sorting cattle. One of my helpers, who didn't know Mr. Boyd, said, "So you 'are a preacher, eh?" To which Mr. Boyd replied, "Yes, and I always try to remember that when I'm working with stubborn cattle" His cattle business was a massive enterprise. I often thought about him while singing that chorus about "...the cattle on a thousand hills." Starting with one cow as a boy in eastern Quebec, his herd expanded to the point that even he did not know the actual number...I will always recall one of his pets named Priscilla, who in spite of only seeing him about three times per year, would always respond to his summons by bawling and coming at a trot to have her head scratched. "
We hear of his expanding herd of cattle and see expansion parallels in everything he did. This tribute could easily turn, into a statistical survey, but let us allow a few: I think there were over 4,000 people on .his mailing list. Mr. Boyd sent tapes for radio broad-
casts to over 70 different stations throughout the world. His telecasts went far and wide and I understand that no one else in Canada had a longer running television program. The growth of the work of the Bible Lovers' Fellowship is reflected in its outlay of over a quarter of a million dollars per year. /
The few minutes we have cannot very well survey the life and ministry of Rev. J. R. Boyd. But we cannot bypass 'camp'. Scores of you have many, many delightful memories of the Berean Children's Camp and for some those memories date back several decades. Every Berean camper or worker I have ever known or met speaks in glowing terms of the joys and blessings God poured out on them at camp. Let me share a couple of camp memories. Mid point had arrived one camping season when the boys leave and the girls come. Boys' camp could really keep you hopping trying to stay on top of everything they might be up to. I was talking with a parent bringing some girls about how the week had gone. I told him I was looking forward to the change of pace that-," comes with girls' camp. "You find the girls are better, do you?", he said. "Yes the girls are better", I replied. Then a deep voice from behind me: "No they're not, they're just different." (Time, experience and careful Bible study will prove to you that Dr. Boyd had a sound and thorough grasp of the doctrine of man!) Mr. Boyd experienced considerable reward just in the joy and memories generated from his time with children. I think of a couple of little girls insisting on a hug before they left camp. How many, people look upon him as 'Grandpa'. Mr. Boyd's reward here or in heaven is bestowed not because he deserves it, but because of the grace of God who worked mightily within Him and through him.
Mr. Boyd had many critics, as all great men do, but he did not have many enemies simply because of a great Biblical fact. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7).
One time when Mr. Boyd was preaching from the book; of Job he referred to Satan as focussing his attention on great men like Job and that Satan doesn't bother with "little fellas like you and me". Satan was plenty bothered by the life and ministry of J.R. Boyd hut if he didn't get at the man it was because of the grace of God to be found in the gospel armour that John Robert Boyd had been careful 'to put on in order to serve the Lord to the maximum, because for Mr. Boyd to love the Lord was to serve Him and lo serve Him was dearer than life.
Pastor Ralph Willan
March 29, 1994
Our beloved Dr. J.R. Boyd has joined the heroes of the faith of Hebrews 11. May grace to us be given to follow in his train.
Sincere Christian sympathy to Mrs. Boyd and family and to all in the family of God, who keenly feel the loss and have cause to give thanks to God that this servant was used of God to bring glory and blessings to their lives. What area of Christian service did he not engage in? What shall I more say? He gave himself for the furtherance of the Gospel and the extension of Christ's Kingdom. To God' be the glory!
W.P. Bauman (while in the Philippines)