Emphasis Preaching Journal

Earnest Presswood was born in 1908 and grew up on the prairies of Canada. This message of the resurrection and the empty tomb first took hold of Earnest in a Sunday school class when he was eleven years old. Some years later, Earnest attended a revival and as the preacher who was a traveling evangelist from England, proclaimed this message about Jesus, Earnest committed himself to serve the Lord and soon after, he moved to New York and enrolled in a training center for missionaries. In 1930, at the age of 22, he boarded a ship for the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Soon after he arrived, Earnest began traveling the island and sharing this same message of the evangelist who called him into missionary work. The word spread across the island about a young white man whose message could turn evil men into good men, drunken men into sober ones and violent men into men of God. The islanders even gave Earnest a new name: they called him "Tuan Change," because his message changed lives. Young Ernie crisscrossed the island of Borneo (which is the third-largest island in the world) and he took his message from village to village. His feet became ulcerated from leech bites, but his passion could not be quenched because his path was illuminated by the light of the message he delivered. Describing one of his tours, Earnest wrote, "What a time I have had. Physically, it has been hard, but the results have been glorious. Around 600 were reached with the message."

Application: We are to share the message of the resurrection, trusting in our faith that the message will fall on fertile ground.