Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Fairmont, West Virginia. This past weekend was a very busy weekend for my family and I.

For those of you that don’t know, I grew up in Mapleshade, New Jersey, and I grew up attending a small little church called Faith Independent Bible Church under the preaching and teaching of Pastor Russ G. Young. Pastor Young was a Bob Jones graduate for many years ago, and he had come to New Jersey fresh out of Bible college with a call to preach the gospel, to share the good news, to teach and shepherd, and the Lord used him in a very mighty way.

And before I get to that, I maybe want to backtrack just a little bit. The reason why I went to New Jersey here just this past weekend was because about two to three weeks ago, Pastor Young passed away. He went to see the God whom he had served for his entire life.

I had a privilege of being one of the last people to see him before he saw his Savior’s face, before he heard, well done, thou good and faithful servant. And young people, one thing I’m learning is that especially when you’re in a deathbed moment with somebody, don’t have any regrets. While I was there, I got down on my knees next to the bed, even with other people around in the room.

And though he was not conscious, though he was not verbal or responsive, or even with his eyes open, frankly, he was just hours away from passing away. I knelt down and I told him how grateful I was for his life and for his ministry, how grateful I was for his faithful teaching of the Bible, for his godly example that he had set, for instilling within me a love for the Lord, a love for God’s Word, a love for study.

And it was an emotional moment for sure, as I shared with him my gratefulness before he passed on. But this past weekend, I had the very distinct privilege of being asked by his wife, who’s also my aunt, Annie Lane, to come and to give the message at his funeral. There were many men who were there.

In fact, the platform was chock full of men who shared their memories of Pastor Young and of his ministry, both home and abroad, of him as a friend, as a pastor, as a co-laborer, as a mission board director, and many other roles and hats that he wore throughout his life.

And by their testimonies. And, you know, I stood and I was asked to speak on the everlasting love of God, and we talked there in the message about the fact that God’s love is a love that endures. It doesn’t stop when things get difficult or tough.

His love is a love that dies. It sent Jesus to the cross because he loved us so much. He was willing to die for our sakes.

It was a love that remembers that even when we feel marginalized, forgotten, unappreciated, God remembers us. He knows the sacrifices that we’ve made and he values them. We saw that he also had a love that grieves.

We saw how Jesus wept and the fact that God understands because Jesus came and felt the grief of loss as a human, he understands our grief and we can cast our care upon him because he cares for us. And then we looked at the fact that God’s love is a love that wins, that conquers, that in all these things, even the difficulties, the things that make us wonder if God has forgotten us, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Of course, that theme was a theme we had at our recent Thee Generation Youth Summit, but it was something that was still fresh on my heart. And I was burdened there just as we celebrated this man’s life, as we memorialized him, as we reflected on God’s love that made it all possible to end on a note of triumph. Because the fact of the matter is, Pastor Young had an abundant entrance as he stood before his king.

And he triumphed. He won because of Jesus Christ. And there was much more that I wished to say at that funeral.

and in fact I wanted to say a little bit more maybe just share a little bit of his ministry and history by way of remembrance as I mentioned Pastor Young as a young person God got a hold of his heart again I may not get all the pieces exactly right but I’m giving my best recollection of them he went off to Bob Jones University with a plan to be a missionary aviator that was his heart. He had a great interest in mechanics and so on.

However, that was not the Lord’s plan. Some medical things, I think it might have been an eyesight issue, maybe some other things, made it so that he was not qualified for that. I think if I remember right, he didn’t want to be a pastor.

Oh, young people, don’t tell God what you’re not going to be. Well, God ended up calling him to be not only a preacher, but a pastor. And as I mentioned briefly earlier, God called him to come and become a youth pastor in Mapleshade, New Jersey.

And that’s the town that I grew up in. And when he came, he came to a church and to a youth group that was thirsty, that was hungry to hear the word of God proclaimed clearly, applied in a way that was fair, that was strong. and yet that was biblical.

In fact, I was just talking to one of my relatives at the funeral just yesterday, and she had shared just the fact that she had such a hunger there in the youth group at that time before he came for somebody to just preach the Bible and apply it to the situations that teenagers were facing. That’s exactly what he did. When he came, he preached, and he didn’t just preach theoretics.

He preached about real stuff. He preached about the movies. He preached about biblical modesty.

He preached about all kinds of stuff. Many of the teens, they loved it. They just were thirsty and hungry for someone to preach to God clearly, and that’s exactly what he did.

In fact, last fall, I was speaking to someone who was a youth leader right around this time who actually was introduced to being a youth leader. And by his recollection, he said he walked into the teen service and he said there were teenagers everywhere. By the way, when he first got there, there were only maybe 15 or so teenagers in the youth group.

But this man told me when he arrived at the youth group setting there, there were teenagers everywhere. But he said the thing that struck him when he stepped into the room, Pastor Young was preaching at that moment. He says preachers were everywhere.

They were in the chairs and kind of the auditorium section. They were in couches and all over, but they weren’t doing what teenagers normally do. They were gripped by his preaching.

Pastor Young, he’d shuck the corn. He’d go after it. He would explain the Bible, and he wasn’t afraid to tackle difficult and even controversial issues.

He was a man who was committed to preaching the Word of God faithfully. And by faithfully, I mean saying clearly what it said without apology and without compromise. You know, young people, if you’re thankful at times for being clear on this podcast and at times explaining the Word of God in a way that makes sense and is relevant, I have to say, I owe that to Pastor Russ Young, because that’s what he did in my growing up years, is he preached the word of God straight.

Well, as a result of his faithful preaching and teaching in the hand of God on his life and several faith-filled evangelists that he had through, God built that youth group in a remarkable way. It went from being about 15 young people, again, that’s the word on the street that I’ve heard, to being at times over 300 teenagers. Young people, you need to understand, God was doing a reviving work in that Baptist church way back in those days.

There were so many people saved. The young people at that time, most of them attended public school. And they would bring their friends, because Pastor Young not only was a good preacher, he could run a fun youth program.

He had all kinds of fun activities that he would do. They would do an activity called Bigger and Better. Everybody would get, like, I don’t remember what they’d start with, like a quarter or a dollar or something like that.

They’d have to go out and trade up. And all the stories of people coming back with cars and washing machines and refrigerators and stuff like that were a lot of fun. But the young people, they had a blast, but they didn’t just come for the fun and games.

They came to hear the word of God, and he preached the gospel. He preached the gospel with passion, with fervor. He had men in, evangelists in, who would preach the gospel and invite young people to trust Christ as their Savior.

Many, many, many, many, many were impacted by the preaching of the gospel through this man’s ministry. Much of my family was saved as a result of his faithful gospel preaching and having faithful gospel preachers come in. Honestly, much of my extended family was saved as a result of his ministry there in that church.

God’s hand was on him. Frankly, as a young preacher, like many of you, I trust and I hope will be if God calls you to that, he believed that God could use him. He believed that God was at work and the Word of God was powerful, that the Spirit of God was key to anointing him and his Word to make a difference in people’s lives.

Literally, dozens and dozens of men are in the ministry today as a result of that incredibly fruitful season. Through a variety of circumstances, he ended up becoming a pastor, the senior pastor of Faith Independent Bible Church, a town over in Pensacola, New Jersey. And there, once again, God was greatly at work in that ministry.

I was born. During that phase, they met in a community house, Morristown Community Center, where they rented for the beginning of the ministry there. I don’t remember a whole lot about those days because I was a baby, but I do know this.

It was during that time that Pastor Young even challenged my own father with faithfulness to the ministry, faithfulness to the Lord, to attending church. God used that time to firm up my parents, who by this time were married and were following the Lord, and God began to deepen them and their own walk with Christ. And God used him.

God used him to build Faith Independent Bible Church from the small group of believers that had assembled together and formed a church into quite a mighty organization that God used in the community. And you know, young people, my life was impacted by that church, by the preaching of the gospel, the men of faith that he brought through to preach the gospel. Again, I remember as a young person sitting in our auditorium, which they had built, Pastor Young was the general contractor who built our church building.

I remember playing in the dirt pile off to the side while everybody else was creating the foundation and the structure. In fact, I was the first person to ever use the potty on that property right there. I claim to feign.

But anyway, that was embarrassing. I should probably cut that out of this podcast episode. But in that building, a preacher came through and was preaching the gospel one Sunday in a special meeting, and God gripped my own soul with my need of Christ.

And I remember going forward in invitation and in the back room behind the front auditorium there kneeling at a couch and being led to cry out to Jesus to come and save my soul and rescue me from the consequences of my sin and the joy of sins forgiven. We were challenged regularly to have a biblical worldview. We were challenged to let the Bible and not humanistic thinking shape our understanding that the very foundation of knowledge was not what worked.

It wasn’t what created results or success, but it was the clear, faithful teaching of God’s Word. I was taught, even as a young person regularly, that it was the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account. It was what made us right in the sight of God, not human effort or human merit.

I was given a very sound foundation of theology. I was given a heritage of unashamed proclamation of sin, of compromise.

And I was given quite an example, a foundation, a backbone of faith. Not to take man’s word for my foundation, but to take God’s word for the foundation of my life and my ministry. I have not always been a good church member of faith, well, a good attender of the church there.

I, again, as a teenager, I had my rebellious years, but even during those years, pastor was faithful to call out things even in my own life to confront me with areas where I wasn’t walking with the Lord. He’s the man who baptized me when I really got my life serious about following Christ. He was a man who encouraged me by giving me opportunities to preach, even when as a young punk preacher, I said things I shouldn’t have said and did things I shouldn’t have done.

And yet he was patient and he was kind. And even when I had to apologize for dumb things I did and said, he was a man who was good to me. Even in the final years of his life, whenever we’d be home, he’d have me preach in the pulpit, sometimes for services at a time.

And I’m just grateful for him giving me a chance, for him loving me, and for him being faithful, a faithful example. And so, young people, can I just say this? I don’t know what God has for your life.

But I do know this. If you’ll say yes to Jesus, if you will determine to do whatever he wants you to do, God could use your life. God could use your life to build a youth group from 15 to 300 to God’s still in the business of saving souls.

God can use your life and your faithful teaching of the truth in whatever capacities he gives you as you grow and follow him to establish and give a foundation for someone else to stand upon so that their life can make a difference. Young people, I’ve been, again, In our 14 years of traveling and evangelism, I directly attribute the fruit that God brought through our account, though there have been many who’ve poured themselves into my life.

One of them that I believe that that fruit abounds to his account is Pastor Russ Young, Pastor of Faith Independent Bible Church in Pensacola, New Jersey. And so, young people, if you can take anything away from this, surrender your life to Christ, what you’re envisioning right now may not be all of what God wants for you, and yet what God wants for you is good. And what God does in you and through you will impact other people.

Maybe it’ll be siblings. Maybe it’ll be people under your ministry. Maybe it’ll be people that you have no idea how much you impacted their life.

But if you’ll say yes to Jesus, if you’ll surrender completely and entirely to him, if you’ll rely upon the Spirit’s power, and if you’ll understand and proclaim God’s Word, your life will turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I just wanted to commemorate Pastor Young, and I trust that the Lord will use this testimony to encourage you to live a life of total surrender to God and total dependence on His power to reach the world with the gospel. Thanks for listening.

To share your testimony, please visit thegeneration.org slash testimony. That’s T-H-E-E generation.org slash testimony.