History

THE OLD FASHIONED BAPTIST HOUR

“The Old Fashioned Baptist Hour” was a radio ministry of Fundamental Baptist Church in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  Pastor Samuel Dempster had been sent to Kingston, Ontario by Jarvis Street Baptist Church, as a missionary, church planter, founding Fundamental Baptist Church.  Several years earlier he had founded Bethsada Baptist Church in Delhi, Ontario.  Prior to that Samuel and his wife Mary moved from Belfast Northern Ireland to Canada as missionaries, sent out by Belfast City Missions, to minister in Melita and Emerson Manitoba.   Pastor Dempster engaged in numerous ministries, such as, door to door evangelism, home bible studies, church services, a church magazine and this radio ministry, which was live from CKWS 1380, in Kingston. The limited resources of those days resulted in limited radio time.   The Internet has allowed the family to give the preaching and teaching ministry of the late Pastor Dempster to the entire world.

Pastor Dempster  would often tell me that he had been called by the Lord at an early age to preach the Unsearchable Riches of Christ.  Never interested in financial reward, he would have preached for nothing, and often did.  He was a gifted preacher, teacher and pastor often saying, “My task is to exalt and lift up Christ,” may I never preach a man oriented message.”  The statement of faith at the church he founded was “The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.”

These sermons and services are being placed on the internet as an answer to a prayer request from Mary Dempster, 1917 - 2010.  Mom was  suffering in a nursing home with severe dementia at the time.    In December 2008,  she asked that the Lord would give her someone to witness to.  I can say with firm conviction that next to the Lord Jesus Christ, mom was a driving force behind dad’s ministry.  Although the quality of the tapes which, were taken out of the church attic have deteriorated over the years, they have been changed to MP 3 format.  The quality of some tapes is obviously better than others.   It  has been a great pleasure and of much spiritual benefit to have listened to all of the sermons that have been posted on this site. The photographs on display are of  Samuel and Mary when they began their ministry as Missionary’s to Canada, and the year that Pastor Dempster retired due to poor health.

The purpose of this Internet Ministry is to glorify God, build up and edify his saints and witness to the lost.   It provides free bible, in depth  teaching,  unlike the superficial man centered messages of today.   May Christ be lifted up

Any broadcast or reproduction of the (sermons unaltered) having as its object the spread of the Gospel is encouraged.  Commercial use or printed reproduction without permission is EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN.

Yours in Christ

John  Dempster

OLD TIME BAPTIST HOUR - FOREWORD

The Dempster influence as it relates to the ministry of Samuel Dempster who founded Bethesda Baptist Church in Delhi, Ontario, Canada  and Bath Road Baptist Church in Kingston, Ontario, began in the 1800s  with the birth of Samuel Dempster Senior in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1890.  Samuel Senior became a believer in 1923, under the ministry of W.P. Nicholson, the great Irish Evangelist , in the great Belfast Revival.  He had married Annie Lonsdale in 1919, after the war and they settled in Belfast on Excise Street.  Samuel served in World War I and was distinguished with a Meritorious Service Metal for   bravery when he kept a rope bridge from falling into enemy hands and saved a soldier, on the bridge who had been wounded by enemy fire.    Samuel and Annie had two children, shortly after the war, Margaret and then Samuel  Jr., who was born on Sept 28, 1923. 

            Sam grew up in the Anglican Church, but had no real experience with the Lord until he was 14 years old and he gave his heart to the Lord at a Boy’s Brigade meeting at the Great Victoria Street Baptist Church.  It was a day he would never forget.  At the time Sam was something of an athletic prodigy, having won international caps for Northern Irish soccer teams at the position of centre-half.    There used to be a saying on teams he played with:  “bacon, eggs and ham, Slip it to Sam.”  His sports prowess became known throughout Belfast and Northern Ireland, and it grew as he got older. 

            When  WW II broke out, Sam was too young to join the army so he enlisted in the fire brigade.  There he distinguished himself in fighting the fires that resulted from the bombing of Belfast, particularly the ship yards.  The night Coventry was flattened by the Germans, Sam was there, but he almost lost his life in a burning paint factory.  One of his fellow fire-fighters carried him out unconscious from the burning inferno. 

            While he was working at one of the Belfast fire stations,  he met Mary Graham, who worked on the telephone lines as a dispatcher, sending out calls to various teams throughout Belfast, telling them where they needed to go to fight fires.  He knew she was a Christian.  They began dating and after about a  year or so,  Sam proposed  to Mary and they began to plan their life together.

            It was very obvious that the Lord came first in their individual lives but also in their marriage.  After the war, they studied at Belfast Bible College in Listburn,  and from there planned to do mission work in Lebanon after graduating.   When they graduated they became members of the Belfast City Mission Society and were ready to go overseas. 

            At the same time as they were studying, Sam was distinguishing himself as a superb centre half for the Distillery Football Club.  He would often be away on weekends playing throughout the North and the South of Ireland.  After graduating from Bible School and preparing to head overseas, an incredibly lucrative contract to play with Sunderland, a Division II team in England was offered to  Sam.  He was offered 10,000.00 pounds, an amazing amount of money at the time.  Sam would later tell one of his friends , “It was like the old devil offering all the kingdoms of the world to keep me from doing the Lord’s work.”  Needless to say Sam and Mary decided against this option.

            Around this time, Sam Dempster III was born, and the young family stayed in Ireland for another 2 years before they headed overseas, this time to Canada instead of Lebanon.  Lebanon had become closed because of political problems in the Middle East after WW II.  The Dempsters’ first church was a Presbyterian Church in  Melita Manitoba ,in 1948.  It was during this year that their second child was born, Marie Elizabeth.  Mrs.  Dempster experienced quite a lot of difficulty with childbirth and was sick for months afterwards, but testified to  a divine messenger, who appeared to her and told her that all would be well.   The next day after the appearance of this heavenly figure, Mary Dempster began to get well.  Within days she was restored completely. 

    The Dempsters moved to Emerson in 1950 where they served the Baptist church there.  Samuel had left the Presbyterian Church over the issue of infant baptism. They endeared themselves to the community there and saw real fruit for their labours.  Sam also had a tremendous influence on other pastors some of whom came to know Jesus under his ministry.  Two notable ones were Les Tarr, who later became a distinguished author and journalist, and Reg Brown, who would become a passionate preacher.

  While in Emerson Sam injured his back severely and needed a spinal fusion.  This was in the days before medicare , so without money and without insurance, the young family was in dire need.  While in hospital in Winnipeg, Mary, Samuel JR 111 and the newest addition Marie moved backed to Melita to avoid the Red River Flood of that year.  While in hospital in Winnipeg Sam received the Gospel Witness Magazine and heard many  good things about a fiery Toronto Baptist preacher, who was dead set against liberalism, Dr. T. T. Shields.   Around this time it was decided to go to Toronto to study under this preacher at a seminary he had founded, named Toronto Baptist Seminary.    It was there that he experienced a deeper education and a lot of compassion, for the Jarvis Street Baptist Church paid his medical bills for a spinal fusion!

While at TBS, Sam had a chance to launch a fledgling work in Delhi, Ontario.  There began the work of Bethesda    Baptist Church, and there the Dempsters’ third child, Stephen Graham was born.  The Dempsters stayed there for a few years but under the direction of Dr. T.T. Shields and Dr. H.C. Slade they felt the call to serve the Regular Baptist Denomination , by founding another church in Kingston, Ontario.    There he met with a number of families who were sympathetic to the establishing of a church in this city.  They soon developed the motto, “The church in the heart of Kingston with Kingston on its heart.”

While at Kingston, the church began to grow.  The growing congregation met in the Liberal Hall and then the Orange Hall on Princess Street,  before building a new church on Princess Street, named Fundamental Baptist Church.  It was officially opened in the October of 1962.  But before this, the Dempsters had their fourth child, Jonathan Christian, born in 1954 and their final child, David Forbes, born two years later in 1956.  

            The church grew in fits and starts in its new building, and there a strong teaching and preaching ministry was established.  Over the years the church began to be known for its adherence to the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace.  But this was matched with a genuine interest in evangelism, pastoral care and social outreach.    This was all done while Sam was a tentmaker, working as a photographer, to help make ends meet while he preached the gospel with his life during the week and with his lips on the weekends.   Dad would say about his preaching, that he was an Ambassador for Christ and as such he was called to preach a Christ Centered  Gospel, not a man oriented gospel. Many of the sermons that are published on this website,  bear witness to a mind deeply rooted in the Bible itself, widely informed in the secondary literature of the Bible, and a concern above all to glorify and exalt Jesus Christ.  One of his favourite hymns was Charles Wesley’s  “Christ whose glory fills the skies”:

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by Thee;
Joyless is the day’s return
Till Thy mercy’s beams I see;
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, Radiancy divine,
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

May the benediction with which Pastor Dempster closed every church service be true in all those who listen to his words: “And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and communion of the Holy Ghost, rest remain and abide on all those that love Him and until we see thee face to face, and tell the story, saved by Sovereign Grace. Amen.”

Dr. Stephen G Dempster  PHD

Dr. Stephen Dempster

A CHURCH IS BORN!   WRITTEN BY PASTOR SAMUEL DEMPSTER

http://www.divshare.com/download/7193218-6fe View Here

THE KING’S BUSINESS - AN EARLY CHURCH MAGAZINE  - ONE
http://www.divshare.com/direct/7193276-349.PDF

THE KING’S BUSINES  - AN EARLY CHURCH MAGAZINE - TWO
http://www.divshare.com/download/7193542-5bd

THE KING’S BUSINESS - AN EARLY CHURCH MAGAZINE - THREE
http://www.divshare.com/download/7193699-afa

THE KING’ S BUSINESS - AN EARLY CHURCH MAGAZINE - FOUR
http://www.divshare.com/download/7193716-0d0 VIEW HERE