Nile Fisher: "Be occuppied with Christ"

E. Nile Fisher

In Memoriam
July 10, 1918-July 10, 2007

All of us who labor as undershepherds of the Great Shepherd stand on the shoulders of someone else. The biggest "someone else" in my life was Nile Fisher. And there are many, many undershepherds around the country, including his own son, David C. Fisher, who can and would say the same thing.

For more than 35 years, Nile Fisher was the senior pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio, my home church. One would never know, hearing the text clearly expounded and Christ gloriously portrayed, that as a youngster Pastor Fisher was a stutterer. Hearing Christ preached week in and week out through his pulpit, I grew up being exposed to Van Til, Gill, Spurgeon, Owen, the Puritans, and of course, the most influential giant on his ministry, The Doctor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones. By example and explanation, he instilled in me, and those who followed in his steps, a passion for expository preaching, a love for Reformed Theology, and an unswerving commitment to the centrality of the Word in the life of the church.

There is not a time when I have stepped into the pulpit where I have not had a thought, even if very briefly, that I am on his shoulders in his legacy. And there are dozens of men around the country (including my brother) and around the globe who sat under his ministry and under his tutelage who could say not only the same, but even more (I am a bit of a "late bloomer". I was not called as an undershepherd into the vineyard until a few years after he retired; many others had the joy of learning first hand, picking his brain, and gleaning his wisdom).

Nile Fisher's impact will last far beyond his pastorate in Dayton, proving the value of a ministry does not lay in flashy teeth or "40 day"-driven methods. Through his earthen vessel, he taught us to treasure Christ above all things. He was convinced that all of the scriptures were about Christ, a belief that was readily apparent in his preaching. Fisher once said his purpose in preaching was that of Spurgeon, who famously said, "I take my text and make a bee-line to the cross." The pulpit was central because Pastor Fisher was convinced that the Great God of Wonders came to meet His people through the proclamation of the Word.

Here are some of the last words he preached from Emmanuel's pulpit, a little over three years ago, preaching from John 11 (in the wake of the unexpected death of his long time assistant pastor at EBC, Lenny Miller). Pastor Fisher notes that Christ brings forward his own future resurrection into the present in dealing with Lazarus' death (it's also interesting to note that Fisher, in picking up this movement from the future to the present in John 11, also picks up on the "regeneration precedes faith" theme in the chapter):

"Jesus said unto her, 'Thy brother shall rise again'. Martha said unto him, 'I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day.' She was a good orthodox Jew. She believed in the resurrection of the last day, and it's way out there in her mind.

"Now, notice what Jesus did, in verse 25: He said unto her, 'I AM the resurrection'. He brought it from the last day, from the future, to the present. 'Right now!' he says, 'is when we're talking about the resurrection. I want to show you something right now! I AM the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die,' that is, 'he shall never come to the fatal end out there. He has escaped that.'

"And when he said, 'Right now, I AM the resurrection and the life', he's going to bring out a truth that they may not have realized, although he had taught it back in the fifth chapter (of John). There are two resurrections in the life of every believer. There is a present spiritual resurrection that when we are born again we've experienced it. And so Paul (says -- in Colossians 3:1ff), 'if ye then be risen with Christ, yes, if that's happened to you, then you have certain encouragements and certain instructions.' So when Jesus said, 'I AM the resurrection and the life, he is saying to Mary and Martha 'I AM something concerning this matter of getting new life.'

"And there's something for the future. He demonstrated (in John 11) that there's a resurrection of the body. He followed them out to the sepulchre, they rolled away the stone, and he said, 'Lazarus, Come forth'. And physically, Lazarus was revived and came forth. They learned about spiritual resurrection. And they learned about physical resurrection...

"Back in the fifth chapter, Jesus gave the first teaching that we have, so far as John records it, concerning this matter of the two resurrections, the spiritual and the physical. Jesus talked about, 'if any man honor the Father, let him honor the Son as he honors the Father.' In other words, we are to honor Jesus Christ as God, as Lord, as Supreme. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believes Him that sent me hath everlasting life.' -- By the way, that word 'hath' is used again and again as present tense that when people believe, they believe because they *have* eternal life. You see, we put these things in steps, one, two, three, four... there's repentance and faith and the whole business, but salvation is one whole work of God. And part of it is repentance, part of it is faith. And when somehow we can act in faith and it's real faith that's because the Spirit of God is bringing us eternal life.

"Then he goes on to say (in John 5:25ff), 'The hour is coming and *now is*, when they that are dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.' And that's what happened to every one of us the moment that we put our trust in Christ and our life was changed and transformed. It was the dead hearing the voice of the Son of God and living. And so Jesus taught about spiritual death. That wasn't just left for the apostles to teach about. He taught it.

"...and then he said, 'the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and shall come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.' And in the original language the definite article "the" has far more significance than it does in our language. And when he says 'they that have done good', the definite article is 'they have done "the" good', the specific good that he had in mind in the context, 'they that honor the Son as they honor the Father', 'they that hear the Word and believe'. That's the 'good', and they are resurrected unto life, and the evil are resurrected unto damnation.

"(Jesus spoke those words) in a previous visit to Jerusalem. We don't know whether Mary and Martha heard that then, but they heard it now, as it's recorded in the eleventh chapter (of John). 'I AM the resurrection and the life. I'm the secret of a transformed life. I'm the secret of the grace of God in operation. I'm the secret of a changed life. This is what you have (now). And this is what you'll get out yonder when the bodies are raised from the dead.'

"Now it seems to me that if we would get hold of this, it would help us in all the crises of our life. It would help us when we get sick, it would help us when we have loved ones taken from us... Christ is the secret of (sustaining grace). 'I'm your life. I'm the One that has changed you. I'm the resurrection.' That can sustain us with the idea that he is present like nothing else possibly can.

"...Listen friend, when we're in difficulty and we look to him, we know he'll come. We know he'll come and help us. We know he'll meet us in that need. If we're in pain we can hardly stand, we know he'll be there. If get hold of that, that will change us...

"...oh friend, get hold of this. He is the Secret. Be occupied with Him. Our greatest problem is that we're all taken up with ourselves. We're occupied with ourselves. And when anything goes wrong, we're not prepared to meet it. Be occupied with Christ. Jesus is Everything. He is our Lord, he is our Savior. He is Supreme in our life. He is the One that gives sustaining grace and he is the One that gives dying grace.

“…the way to die is…with Jesus taking (us) home to glory. Jesus said, ‘I AM the resurrection and the life. He that cometh to me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ That’s ‘spiritually dead shall come to life’. ‘And he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’ That looks to the end. The end won’t be fatal.

“…Are you one that Jesus loves? The way you become one that Jesus loves is to respond to his love to you. ‘We love Him because He first loved us’…so Paul wrote, ‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.’ If we get hold of the idea that Jesus is everything to us, that’s going to help us in our relationships with people, in our relationships to life, and our relationship to ourselves…because we've become Christ-centered instead of self-centered.” – E. Nile Fisher, 3-7-04

Great God of wonders! All Thy ways
Are matchless, God-like and divine;
But the fair glories of Thy grace
More God-like and unrivaled shine,
More God-like and unrivaled shine.

In wonder lost, with trembling joy,
We take the pardon of our God:
Pardon for crimes of deepest dye,
A pardon bought with Jesus’ blood,
A pardon bought with Jesus’ blood.

O may this strange, this matchless grace,
This God-like miracle of love,
Fill the whole earth with grateful praise,
And all the angelic choirs above,
And all the angelic choirs above.

Who is a pardoning God like Thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?
Or who has grace so rich and free?

(words by Samuel Davies; music by John Newton)