30. R. A. Torrey (1856–1928)
Young man, you had better get to work for the Lord!”
D. L. Moody, during his New Haven campaign of 1878, addressed that statement to a Yale Divinity School senior who had asked him about winning souls to Christ. That student was Reuben Archer Torrey and, to Torrey’s credit, he stayed around long enough to learn how to win the lost to Christ. Moody gave the students some verses to use in soul-winning and then said, “Now, gentlemen, go at it!”
At the meetings, Torrey saw a young lady he had met at a dance prior to his own conversion and decided to try out his evangelistic skill on her. It took two hours of answering questions and referring to Scripture, but she finally yielded to the Lord and became the first convert of the man who would eventually win thousands to Christ in his worldwide ministry.
R. A. Torrey was born the son of a well-to-do banker in Hoboken, New Jersey, on January 28, 1856. The family was associated with the Congregational Church, but only his mother was a true believer. It was her prayer that her son would become a minister of the gospel, but Reuben decided he wanted to be a lawyer. However, deep within, he had the haunting feeling that God had indeed called him to be a preacher—yet he was not even a professed Christian.
One night he had a vivid dream that his mother was dead. Suddenly, she appeared in his room in the form of an angel and begged him to give himself to the ministry. In the dream he promised her that he would do so, but in his waking hours, the prospects of going to Yale University excited him so much that the impact of the dream faded from his mind.
He entered Yale in 1871 and soon found himself caught up in what his mother would have called worldly living: gambling at cards, drinking, dancing, and smoking. Chapel was compulsory but not very exciting spiritually, and even though Reuben attended church faithfully on Sundays, read his Bible daily, and kept up the image of being a Christian, he knew he was far from the kingdom.
At the end of his sophomore year he faced the crisis. His worldly life did not satisfy him, he was not really “making it” on campus (his choice fraternity did not elect him), and he was still haunted by the feeling that God had called him to preach. One night he became so despondent and desperate that he decided to commit suicide. He reached for his razor, but God arrested him, and, instead, Torrey fell to his knees and prayed: “God, if you will take away this awful burden, I will preach!” God lifted the burden, God’s peace filled his heart, and he fell sound asleep and woke up the next morning knowing that he was in God’s hands.
What brought about the change? Torrey explained: “My mother, 427 miles away, was praying and praying that I would become a minister of the gospel. And though I had gotten over sermons and arguments and churches and everything else, I could not get over my mother’s prayers.”1 He entered Yale Divinity School in 1875. In 1877, both of his parents died within three weeks of each other. Unfortunately, the Torrey estate had all but disappeared during the panic of ’73, so Reuben was not made a wealthy man by his father’s death. “I’m glad I did not inherit a fortune,” he said later. “It would have ruined me.”
While he was at Divinity School, Torrey first met D. L. Moody and learned from him how to win souls. Torrey graduated in 1878, and on November 9 of that year became pastor of the Congregational Church in Garrettsville, Ohio, population 969. He was still rather ignorant of the Bible, but he devoted his morning hours to concentrated study. Gifted by the Lord with a brilliant mind, Torrey learned rapidly and tried to practice and share what he learned. The church prospered, and he even found himself a bride and was married on October 22, 1879.
Torrey might have remained in pastoral ministry were it not for Howard Bell, a wealthy Yale classmate, who urged him to study in Germany and even offered to pay the expenses. Torrey refused his generous gift but did accept a loan, and in the fall of 1882 he sailed for Europe with his wife and little daughter. He divided his time between the universities in Leipzig and Erlangen, studying under such famous scholars as Franz Delitzsch and Theodore Zahn. That year of concentrated study further convinced him that the “old faith” was true and that the message of the gospel was the only hope for a lost world.
When he returned to the United States, he had two invitations for ministry: a wealthy church in Brooklyn, and a small group of believers in Minneapolis who wanted to begin a new ministry. Torrey decided for Minneapolis. There he threw himself into personal evangelism, preaching, and teaching. He organized the People’s Church (Congregational) and rejoiced in the blessings God gave.
In 1906, Torrey led a sixteen-year-old lad to Christ, and that lad, Oswald J. Smith, would one day organize the People’s Church in Toronto.
During his years of ministry and study in Minneapolis, Torrey reached some definite conclusions about doctrinal matters. Trained as a lawyer, he knew that all the evidence he needed was in the Bible, and he was willing to accept all that the Bible taught. For one thing, he became a convinced premillennialist, and all his life he preached the blessed hope of the Lord’s return. He also became an immersionist, but he never made baptism a test of fellowship. His study of Scripture also convinced him of the doctrine of eternal punishment.
Two doctrinal matters that, in later years, gave him some trouble with other conservative believers were divine healing and the baptism of the Spirit. While Torrey did not believe in healers, with all of their religious promotion, he did believe in “the prayer of faith” (James 5:14–15) and personally experienced healing from God. He often prayed for others, and they were healed.
In all his ministry, Torrey emphasized the importance of the power of the Holy Spirit. At one point he determined not to preach again until he had been “endued with power from on high” (see Luke 24:49), so he shut himself up for a week and prayed. God answered his prayer, and others could tell that God’s hand was powerfully upon him. Like Moody, Torrey did not quibble over terminology, something that he probably would change if he were on the scene today. He seemed to equate “the baptism of the Spirit” with “the fullness of the Spirit.”
When a friend told D. L. Moody about Torrey’s ministry in Minneapolis, the evangelist said, “You make my mouth water for him!” Moody usually got what he wanted; so on September 26, 1889, R. A. Torrey began his ministry as superintendent of the Chicago Evangelization Society, later to be known as the Moody Bible Institute. Torrey developed the curriculum and made sure it emphasized consecration, zeal for souls, a knowledge of the Bible, and a willingness to sacrifice. In a very real sense, Torrey was the architect who made the design for every Bible institute that has been founded since his time.
From 1894 to 1906, Torrey also served as pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, which later became the Moody Memorial Church. The building seated 2,200 people, and it was usually packed at each service, with people having to sit in overflow rooms. More than two thousand members were received into the church during Torrey’s ministry, and multitudes were converted. So effective was his ministry that invitations came to him from across the nation and even from other countries.
During a revival prayer meeting at the church, Torrey was strangely led to pray that God would send him around the world and give him thousands of souls in response to the preaching of the gospel. Shortly after this, two Christians from Australia invited him to hold a campaign in Melbourne. As God provided adequate leadership for both the church and the school, Torrey felt led to accept the invitation.
On December 23, 1901, he left on the world tour, ministering in Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Great Britain. The well-known evangelistic singer Charles Alexander joined him in Australia, and Torrey and Alexander were to become as famous a team as Moody and Sankey. The records indicate that more than one hundred thousand persons made decisions for Christ during this worldwide campaign, from 1902 to 1905. R. A. Torrey, like D. L. Moody before him, returned to the United States to find himself a famous man.
In 1906, Torrey resigned the pastorate of the church, and two years later resigned from the school. On February 8, 1908, he helped found the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA) and served as its dean from 1912 to 1924. On September 3, 1915, he became founding pastor of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, starting with eighty-six charter members. He also assisted in establishing the Testimony Publishing Company, funded by the Stewart brothers of Union Oil fame. This new company published The Fundamentals, a series of inexpensive books that defended the faith.
Those were busy years for Torrey as he was writing, preaching, directing a school, and pastoring a church, while preaching at key conferences across the nation. In 1908 he organized the Montrose Bible Conference in Montrose, Pennsylvania, and this soon became a meeting place for hungry Christians eager to study the Bible. By 1924 he felt that he needed to slow down, so he resigned from all his ministries and “retired” to Asheville, North Carolina. He then teamed up with Homer Hammontree and went out on the evangelistic circuit again.
He held his last campaign at the First Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida, from November 28 to December 11, 1927. He began to experience throat trouble and had to cancel all his meetings. He spent the summer at his beloved Montrose, unable to participate in any personal ministry. At the close of the season, he returned to Asheville, and there he died on October 26, 1928. The funeral was at Montrose, and he was buried on beautiful Sunset Knoll.
Some years ago I heard an eloquent preacher tell several thousand Christians that they had to make the choice between serving God as “deep Bible teachers” or as soul-winners. If Reuben Archer Torrey had been in that meeting, he would have protested. He himself was a man with a keen mind, a profound ability to teach the Word, and a sincere burden for the lost. His studies in Germany gave him the weapons to fight German higher criticism and theological liberalism. He had wrestled with theological problems and found the answers in the infallible Word of God.
Torrey was a balanced man; in fact, he was a man who seemed to have everything. He was a powerful evangelist and also a concerned pastor. He was an educator and yet a stirring teacher. His books are still being published and are exerting a lasting influence in the lives of new generations of Christians. His most recent biographer, Roger Martin, calls R. A. Torrey “the apostle of certainty.” He stood like a giant at the time when winds of doctrine were blowing against the church and causing people to stumble and fall. In Reuben Archer Torrey, God proved once again that education and evangelism, depth and soul-winning, need not destroy one another. If a man submits to the Word and is filled with the Spirit, he can have an enlightened mind and a burning heart—and he can reach people for Christ.
How to Work for Christ and What the Bible Teaches are perhaps Torrey’s most treasured books, and they are still available. You will also want to read his books on prayer and the Holy Spirit. How To Succeed in the Christian Life is excellent for new believers. R. A. Torrey: Apostle of Certainty, by Roger Martin, is published by Sword of the Lord Publishers and is worth reading.
During his British campaign, Torrey said to a vast audience:
I would rather win souls than be the greatest king or emperor on earth; I would rather win souls than be the greatest general that ever commanded an army. . . . My one ambition in life is to win as many as possible. Oh, it is the only thing worth doing, to save souls; and men and women, we can all do it.2
D. L. Moody started it all when he said, “Young man, you had better get to work for the Lord!”
Perhaps the Lord is saying the same thing to you.