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Desmond Ford

February 2, 1929 – March 11, 2019

 

Desmond Ford: Scholar, author, preacher, evangelist and founding President of Good News Unlimited has died.

 

 Since retiring to Australia from his founding and leading role at GNU twenty years ago, he continued to preach and write on his favourite theme:  Justification by Faith in Christ; the Good News of God who graciously makes people ‘right with him himself, right now.’ 

  

He often said that he would rather “burn out than rust out.” Such was his enthusiasm for the gospel. With familiar gifts of conviction and eloquence, he gave his last public address in November last year a few months short of his ninetieth birthday.

 

Men and women get ideas, and many of them help make the world better. Desmond Ford was a man with ideas that got him! Those ideas were bigger than he was. They possessed him, used him, and made him more than he really was. Des knew this, and we saw it too.   The idea of God’s goodness, the kindness and love of God. And the one thought that saturated his every public utterance: That justice and mercy are utterly compatible in God, and wholly and redemptively met in the Cross of Christ.

 

“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (2 Timothy 1:13,14).

 

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in  store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6-8).    Ed.

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