Louis T. Talbot
1889-1976
 

“Whether or not one believes in its reality, the resurrection of Christ is of vital consequence to every person on earth.  It is the “touchstone of destiny” for all mankind.”

Born in Sydney, Australia, Louis, as he grew up, assisted his father in the brewing business, becoming a distributor of alcoholic beverages.

But with the help of his mother’s prayers, he, now in his manhood and still unsaved, became restless, dissatisfied, disillusioned as to the business he was in. He dreamed of America and a new life. His brother Jim, in Moody Bible Institute, was to be a preacher: “Why couldn’t there be two preachers in the family?” So “Louie” followed Jim to Moody, now cut loose from the liquor evil and ready for a fresh adventure.

He was far along in his studies at Moody when, under the preaching of John Harper of London, he was genuinely converted.

After Moody Institute, this young Australian went from pastorate to pastorate in the United States and Canada until he received a call to the great Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, the very church the mighty R. A. Torrey had founded.  Dr. Talbot was also president of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA).

He met and married Audrey Hogue while pasturing a Congregational church in Paris, Texas.

The story of Dr. Louis Talbot’s activities in Los Angeles makes a fiction tame.  He found a church of 1,200 discouraged members; he left it with 3,500 and the future bright. He came to a debt of over a million dollars; he left the church free from debt and thousands of dollars raised on new promotional enterprises. He extended the missionary program to where literally hundreds of American missionaries and native workers circle the globe, supported by this great church. He came to 300 students in the Bible Institute; he left it with more than a thousand. His ministry over the air was phenomenal.