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I have had the opportunity to know most of the great preachers in America and many from other lands who have lived during the past fifty years. I never marvelled at the ministerial technique or gifts of any man more than I marvelled when I heard Mel Trotter preach. The first time I ever saw him was in Northfield, Massachusetts, when I was very young. A number of greatly anointed and gifted preachers stood on the platform and played upon the heart strings of hundreds of Christians, both ministers and laymen, who had come many miles to attend that annual Bible conference.
I have forgotten what all of these men said and do not even remember the themes that these preachers discussed. But I do remember what Mel Trotter said. He said what he had to say in a way that I cannot forget. He painted on his canvas of natural eloquence the most wonderful picture of Jesus Christ as the up-to-date miracle-working Son of God that I have ever known any man to paint.
An old country preacher told me one time that he believed in election. “And here is what I mean,” he said. “If I wanted to build a house, I would go out into the forest and elect the best type of tree I could find to get as nearly as possible the sort of lumber I wanted out of which to build my house. I might not be able to get a perfect tree, but I would do the best I could. That is the way God does. He gets the best man He can find to do the job He wants done.” God knew what He was doing when the Holy Spirit pulled Mel Trotter, a drunken bum, into that Chicago mission one night and made him see a way out of his drunkenness and sin and then called him to preach to other poor, helpless sinners.
A few years after Mel Trotters conversion, nobody would have ever known that Mel had been a bum unless he told them. I have seen him in all sorts of places under all sorts of circumstances. I have sat with him at the table when there were distinguished and cultured guests present. Mel was always a gentleman. I never saw him ill at ease. At Bob Jones University he stood one day with a group of very distinguished men and I, who at that time was president of the institution, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. It was a wonderful occasion. Great men were present. But no man on that platform was more at ease or seemed to be more at home than Mel Trotter. Mel was no ordinary mam He was born into this world a sinner. He was born again and made a child of God, and God took the native ability that He had given Mel when he was born the first time and used him as few men have ever been used.
I have often thought that I would like to have been in heaven when Mel walked in. If he was anything in heaven as he was down here, I can imagine he said, “Jesus, it was wonderful of You to save me. I am sorry I wasn’t a better Christian and a better preacher, but, Jesus, I sure do love You.” I imagine he was soon greeting friends whom he had led to Jesus and some of them had been mission workers in this world and had gone to heaven ahead of Mel.
My friend, the Rev. Fred Zarfas, Mel Trotter’s successor in Grand Rapids is to be congratulated on giving us this book. The book will do a great deal of good to many people, and I am sure it will be an honor to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bob Jones Sr.
Greenville, S. C.
