Published Monthly in Defense of the Church Against 411 Errors and Innovations

“Thou hast given a banner to them “Lilt ye up a banner upon the highthat fear thee, that it may be dislay- mountain, exalt the voice unto them.”

ed because of. truth”-(Psalms 60:4) -(Isaiah 13:2)

NUMBER SEVEN , JULY, 1948 VOLUME TEN

BIBLE PREACHING AND THE MODERN TRENDS’ WALLACE W. THOMPSON

The Bible presents a correlation of facts through t h e ages. Its promisesare wonderful, to be enjoyed by the obedient, Most of its prophesies arep r e c i o u s , reaching ‘their fulfillment in Christ. The truths revealed andinspired in the Bible are profound, far-reaching and deeply felt. The obed-ient, faithful servant is praised throughout the history of God and man.The disobedient are blisteringly, scathingly rwbuked, God’s vials of wrathare emptied out upon individuals that presume authority, and the oneswho ‘assume Pharisaical importance, pretense, and show of self righteous-ness. The plagues of the Bible, which indeed are many, God promises to

‘heap upon those who add to or take from the sacred volume. The callhas ever been “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” The soul-reachingquestion has ever been, “Who is on the Lord’s side”? There h’as neverbeen a preacher of righteousness that pleased the people, nor will thereever be! Noah, a preacher of righteousness condemned the world, not be-cause the world was not .already condemned, ibut because they refused toaccept the Word of God. “God sent not his Bon into the world to condemnthe world, but that the world through him might be saved.” The world

‘was condemned already, and stands condemned when Christ is refused.Which of the prophets pleased ‘the people? Which one did not the Jewspersecute,? Which of the apost& pleaswd the people? Which one escapedpersecution? If today a fellow is popular, pleases the people, he is nota servant of Christ, but he serves his own ‘“belly.”

TEE TREND OF DOUBT

The lack of faith has ever been disastrous. It caused Peter to sink into .the water. It caused Thomas to doubt the Lord Jesus Christ. It causedthe church at Laodicea to wax indifferent and become lukewarm. It causedDemos to forsake Paul and the Lord to follow the lo‘ve and lures of the

‘world: It c&used Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Spirit and losetheir lives. The lack, of faith oaused the Greeks to seek after worldly WiS-dom. It caused the Corinthians to be torn with party strife, to follow aftermen rather than God. Truly, it is the “sin which doth so e’asily beset US.”None deny, the spirit of doubt is in the world, such ias caused Pilate andHerod to become friends and execute the Savior of men to please thepeople. Sut the mind of doubt is finding its way iato the hearts of Pro-fessed ‘believers. There are preachers on the West Coast and possilbly on

” other coa&, t&t “doubt if all. God’s saved are .in the church of Christ.”.:

2 THE BIBLE BANNER

Some seem to “doubt if immersion for baptism isessential” and seem to <want to take folks intothe fellowship of the truth who have been sprinlk-led and not immersed. Some preachers, one es-pecially from Tennessee in the Yosemite CampMeeting, dndicated in ‘a sermon that God ans-wered a sectarian’s prayer and he would not say,that Individual was not a Christian. Yet thesectarian does not wear the name “Ohristian.”If the church of Christ is not different, thenit is simply another denomination. These weak,indifferent, doubting preachers a r e afflictingand affeoting the church members with doubt,are preying upon <the young people in the king-dom instilling in them the spirit of doubt andcompromise.

THE TREND TOWARDSWCRLDLY WISDCM

To the world the name for this is Philosophy.The word calls for a ~‘love” of the thing. Somepreachers seem to know more about Plato, Epic-urus, Aristotle, and Zeno, Greek philosopherswho sought after “worldly wisdom.” To God andthe church such ti foolishness. The Bible is nota treatise on human wisdom, but contains the“wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-able, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full ofmercy and good fruits, without partiality, andwithout hypocrisy.” Philosophy is a sciencethat attempts to explain the causes, reasons,powers and laws, including in it as a branchof learning mental and moral sciences such aslogic, psychology and ethics. To place the Bibleon thi8 level lowers Its standard and degradesits author to a rank with pagan philosophers.There are causes that cannot, be explained.There lare conditions existing for which reasonscannot be given. There are things that lo@c can-not understand and comprehend. What thingsare they ? They are the things of God, t h ethings of Divine revelation and inspiration.When it reaches the point a man or a group ofmen love their philosophy more than the Wordof God, they have launched out upon the un-charted seas of human wisdom to dash their ves-

sel, the soul, upon the rocky shoals of infidelity.When this we do we leave the lighthouse of God,drifting upon the waves of foamy shame to belost <in the depths of eternal darkness. Turn backmy friends before it is too late! Love God‘sWord and church above all things else, for #‘theworld passeth away, and the lust thereof: buthe that doeth the will of God ,abideth forever.”(I Jno. 237).

THE TREND OF PSYCHOLOGY

This is another science, a science of the mind,that is indeed growing. Even at this date it justhas its “rompers” on. This science is divided intotwo great divisions, viz, (1) the analytic orintrospective, and (2) the experimental. Thatthese divisions are human arrangements cannotbe denied. At least half of the science is notproved, the experimental! Some have gone sofar as to say that if Stephen had used the rightkind of psychology the Jews would not havestoned him. Others, if Saul or Paul had used theright kind of psychology he could have beenspared. One might las well affirm that if Christhad used the right kind of approach he wouldnot have been crucified. Thus one can easily seethat God did not plan the truth and the churchto <be advanced through human science or psy-chology. The Eilble plan of salvation originatedin heaven, included in it is faith, service ‘andsacrifice. In these three functions Jesus is ourexample. Our admonitions in the Bible are to“Preach the Word” and “‘Speak thou the thingswhich become sound doctrine” and “If any manspeak, let him speak as the oracles of God” and“Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.”These Divine commands are given to every ser-vant. The Bible is not ma book telling us the,func-tions of the mind, how it ought to operate, but it‘is a Book that directs our mind to follow after,the mind or spirit of Christ. Let us accept it assuch.

THE TREND TOWARDSCOMPROMISING TRUTH

Truth is pure, unmixed, flowing from God’s(Continued on page 16)

T H E B I B L E B A N N E R

Entered as second class matter March 31, 1947, at the Dost office at Lufkin.Texas, under the Act of March 3. 1879. Published the 10th of each monthby the ROY E. Cogdill Publishing Cawany, Box 980, Lufkin. Texas, at theoffice of The Banner Pdnting Company, 123 E. Dozier Street, Lufkin. Texas.R O Y E. Cogdill, Publisher: Fey E. Wallace. Jr., Editor: C%ed E. WallaceCo-editor. Subscription rate $1.00 per year.

A S S O C I A T E E D I T O R S : !R L. Whit&de, Denton, T e x a s : J . E a r l y Arceneaux. Lovelady, Texas. C. R. Nichol *Texas: W. Curtis Porter. Monet& Arkan-: 0. C. Lamb&, 643 Magazine. Tupelo, Miss.: James ‘W. Adams. Terr&. %%*Addrasss all matter for publication. subscriptions and notices of change of a&rega to The Bib16 Banner. Post Off& Boa 990;Lufkin. Team.

Published Monthly by the Roy E. Cogdill Publishing Compuny, Box 980, Lufkin, Texas

T H E B I B L E BkNNER a

PRESENT DAY CHURCH PROBLEMSCLED E. WAmACE

(This is the first of a series of five sermons on thistheme delivered during the Lufkin Bible fichool inlanuary, 1948. Brother Cled E. Wallace, co-editor ofthe Bible Banner, has been seriously ill but is backat home ,and we are hoping and praying will soonbe entirely recovered. R. E. C.)

er, deacon, and what-not you c’an find somespecific as well as some general instruction inthe Bible about how you ought to function andabout how you ought to act.

In every institution, every organization, wheth-er it be political or social or religious, problemsare bound to arise, and there is not any way tokeep these problems from arising as long asthere is growth and development. I am readinga text in the third chapter of I Timothy. Tim-othy W~JJ to note some things that were wanting.Among other things there were some false teach-ers that needed to be put in their place. Buthere is the charge that Paul gave Timothy, andthe atmosphere of all of it shows that it wasa matter of extreme importance. He said, “Tim-othy, I write these things unto thee, hoping tocome unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long thatthou mayest know how men ought to behavethemselves in the house of God, which is thechurch of the living God, the pillar and groundof the truth.”

Now there are no problems or theories of analarming nature in the church as long as every-body is behaving himself, conducting himself ashe should. Notice w&t the apostle says thechurch is, the house of God, it is the family ofGod. In another figure the apostle calls it thebody of Christ, and said God set the membersvin the body even as it pleased Him, and that eachmember is to function and contribtite its part tothe growth and to the health ,of the body. I ibe-lieve he uses the expression “the building upof itself in love,” joined to him who is the head,even Christ, and the members fitly framed to-gether. And he says there are many members butone body. If the members can find their placeof functioning in the body in a scriptural way,then everything goes smoothly and divine pur-poses are carried out. It is only when somebody,it may be through ignorance, it may be throughmisinformation, but for whatever cause, if hetries to function out of his place then problemscome up; prolblems arise. Sometimes we findone member is not satisfied to function wherehe rightfully belongs. When one member d thechurch decides that he can% function in theplace where he belongs ,that in itself would cre-ate a prOMem. when I look into this book thatPaul wrote to Timothy, this letter, I find he hasa good deal to say about how elders are to con-duct themselves, how old men and old womenare to conduct themsehes, and young men andyoung women. In fact, whoever you are, wheth-er man or woman, whatever your relationship,husband or wife, son or daughter, elder, preach-

Lt isn’t sultprising that we have prorblems inthe church. It is like a family. We have prob-lems in the family, a father and a mother, andchildren, and problems are constantly arising.Because the problems come we don’t proposeto destroy the family or disrupt it, but theseproblems must be met. When a man is in busi-ness he has his pro’blems to come up. Difficul-ties, and sometimes obstacles which at the timeseem insufferable and some seem to be unneces-sary, but there they are. In government we haveour problems arise, and everywhere and in every-thing these prdblems come, and so there is no-thing strange or to be decried about the factthat problems arise ln the church. We can’t ig-nore #them. If a mother refused to 41 a doctorwhen her child wasn’t feeling well, or apparentlysick, because she is afraid that the doctor wou’lgfind something wrong tith it, why that would betragic. ‘The quicker you recognize a problem andthe more positively and righteously you deal withit, the quicker the proposition is settled.

Sometimes these problems are just growingpains, these pains that the church hm, but somechurches couldn’t have growing pains, for ob-vious reasons, and therefore we would have toname it or call it something else. Coming to

these problems, history repeaits itself, in therise and decline of nations, and you will find aparallel that is rather striking in the rise, thegrowth and the decIenSion of the church. Whena nation is young and has obstacles to overcomeand meet, when this nation, for inst@.nce, haaenemies that are without that threaten, and newsitulations constantly arising, it makes for unityand self-sacrifice. Later, when the nation growsstrong and weklthy and increases in power andinfluence, patriotism declines, and original con-cepts change, and you find new problems aliise,and after awhile maybe the nation will growstrong and self-suffioient and independent, andgfiadnally moral looseness begins to creep in;idealism falls, and the tist thing you know thenation begins its decline. You can read any his-torian on bhe rise and fall of a nation, the Rom-an Elmpire for instance, and get the idea. Whenit comes to the church, we find the church is es-tablis’hed and it grows strong and there areperiods of di$ficulty. In these periods, especiallyin religious history, we find the first centuryproduces certain problems and later centuriesothers, and although these problems vary, theprinciples underlying them are just about thesame.

6 T H E B I B L E B A N N E R

In the first century the outstanding character-istic was persecution and martyrdom. I mlarvelat the establishment of the church and what itaccomplished in the first century. Why youthink about the fact that Jesus Christ with justa few unknown disciples around him said, “Uponthis rock I will build my church and the gatesof ,Hades shall not prevail against it,” and hebuilt’it. When we look at that church on Pente-cost, and its personnel, and see from a worldlypoint of view its prospects and power, and thenfind it increasing and developing and growing,and persecution and martyrdom instead of hold-ing it down, seems just to have set it afire andpromoted its growth and liberality and zeal andinfluence. Evidently God was with them forwe note the growth of the church. The churchwon out and government applauded and adoptedit so to speak? and the church became popular,then compromises set in. Changes began to bemade, and such changes in organization and doc-trine, and worship, led to the full development ofthe Roman hierarchy.

~Then there was an age that we know as su-peratl’t~on and tyranny and utter confusion Itlooked like Christianity could not survive, that.it’s authoritative book would even be destroyed,the Bible would be burned up and destroyedandyet there came a time when the Bible emerged.Then instead of a full restoration of New Testa-ment Chrltianlty, instead of purity of the doc-trine and worship of old, there was a period of$+nn+ational prejudice land, bigotry. Men werestrong for their creeds. They would fight for:them, they were bold in their defense of andpropogatibn of their doctrine. Then that was

,,halted and we have indifference.

INDIFFERENCE A PROBLEM ‘lX3DAY

The spirit of the age in which we live is af-fecting the church and that is one of our prob-lems. We have at the present time a condition.of indifference and false tolerance and everyqan’s opinion against divine authority. Indiffer-ence is the problem today. The average man inreligion is not going to defend his creed. He maybelong to a denomination, and he may be xeal-

z 011s as a member of it, but he cares nothing aboutdootrine. It doesn’t make any difference to him

.,aBout the distinctive features of his creed,he 4s indifferent toward those matters. It neveroccurs to anybody today that somebody elsemight be right and we might be wrong, or thatwe might be right and somebody else wrong. Thespirft of indifference and ,the spirit of false toler-ance of this age Is that we are all right, re-gardless of how wrong we are.

LA& OF CONVICTION TODAY

We are living ,in a ‘period of utter lack of doc-trinal or religious convictions. You can go -back

for example to the history of Israel, for our ad-monition and’for our learning, and we must keepin mind’ that the church is a divine institut#on.It was established by divine authority and it isto be maintained on divine princi@es_ Well, Godestablished the nata:on of Israel, and he gave thatnation a .law: he gave ‘that nation a religion,and when he told Moses to build the tabernacle,he said, “See that you build it according to ‘thepattern.” They were to worship God strictly ac-cording to the pattern. Moses in his farewell ad-dress to Israel, sa%d, over and over again, whenyou go into the land of Canann, when you get outof this land of sacrifice, trials and troubles, theystill remembered .the terrible things in Egypt,when you get into the land that God has promisedyou will live in houses that you didn’t build, youwill drink water out of &terns that you didn’tdig, you will eat the fruit of vineyards that youdidn’t plant, you will inhabit dties that cost youno effort, your silver and your gold will multi-ply and your heart will .be lifted up, and you willsay, ‘?My mighlt and my power have gotten methis wealth,‘? and you will forget. You will forgetthat it is God who gives you power to do thesethings. And Israel did forget. And we could re-count with some interest the steps, the gradualsteps, that finally led to their complete apos-tasy and captivity. The history of a church canbe like .that. As a matter of fact, when you lookat this matter of indifference and of false toler-ance today in religion you can see how far in-deed the church has drifted from its principles.

THE mCl3LEM OF PREACHING

This leads up to some specific observationsas to problems. First, what problems do we havethat cause the most concern? The first one thatI note and pay Iparticular attention is the preach-ing problem. There is no more important prob-lem facing the church. The character of 4 h,echurch is determined and has always been deter-m’ined by the character of its preaching. Whenthe Holy Spirit came down for the sole purpose,apparently, of revealing the truth, ‘to make itknown; God devised a plan. Jesus Christ executedit, and the Holy Spirit revealed it; and when Hecame, He came down to reveal, and when thechurch was established it is said they continuedstedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, in fellowship,in the breaking of bread and prayers. They con-tinued in the apostles’ doctrine and the apos-tles’ teachtig, and you know the teaching of theapostles determined the character of the church.The character of the church can’t be changedunless the character of the teaching is changed,and a lot of our problems root right back to theproblem of the wrong kind of preaching. I wantto emphasize this matter of the importance ofpreaching. The- world depended on its wisdom,Romp, depended upon .it+ armed might,- nations.

T H E B I B L E B A N N E R 6

and institutions of various kinds depended onvarious means, but God. depended for ‘his workon what is known in the Bible as the “foolish-ness of presching.” “Foolishness of preaching,”for in the eyes of the world it is a foolish thingto. expect such a thing as preaching to accom*plish such tremendous and unheard of results.It was God’s good pleasure through the foolish-ness of the preaching to do something that thewisdom of the world had not done, and could notde, and that all the armed might of all the na-,tions had not done and could not do. He proposedby ,the preaching of the simple Gospel, whichPaul declared to be the power of God unto salva-tion, to accomplish something in the way of re-demption that all the combined means of theworld known and unknown could not accom-plish.

‘“@HE RIGPIT ATTITUDETOWARD PREACBXEG

.,Paul took himself seriously as a preacher. Hecalled himself a preaoher. Preachers are some-(times called doctors and they are sometimescalled pastors, and they are sometimes calledministers, and first one thing and then another.I don‘t know of anything ,in the world I wouldrather be called than simply a preacher. That iswhat Paul called himself, and you know he saidthis regarding himself, V hold not my life of anyaccount ss dear unto myself so that I may ac-domplbsh my course and the ministry which Ire@dve from the Lord Jesus to testify the, gos-pel of the grace of God.”

On another occasion he said, “Brethren, astouohing the gospel which was preached by me,it is not after men, neither did I receive it *ronlman, nor was I taught it, it came to me by reve-lation of Jesus Christ.” That is where I got it,and it is a grecious thing to me, even more val-uable than my own life. and ?hough we or anangel from heaven should preach any other gos-pel than that which has been preached unto you,let him be anathema.” If I am any judge of theteaching of the scripture, Paul had less regardfor a man who would preach something else be-sides the gospel, than he did for any kind ofmiseonduot that is on record; because it was soVital. When-he wrote to Timothy, he said, ‘Tim-othy give heed to thyself:’ Give heed to yourself.M ‘a man gives heed to himself as a preauher,why a preacher’s attitude ought to be criticallylooked Mto. What is my attitude toward thetruth ? You. know attitudes are in the heart.They may not immediately be perceived external-ly, but an attitude in the heart is going to creepout where it can be observed. A man must notdompromise the-truth in his heart. If he doesyou are going to mve problems spring up thateven he didn’t dream of as a result of his work.It will be a regular Pandora’s box of evil things.

THE SPIRIT GF REITICENCE: _

Today we note in the attitude-of a good ma&preachers, rather tit is an outgrowth of theirattitude, a marked reticence compared with ‘ageneration ago. In other words, a spirit of h-servation regarding the announcement and theemphasis upon some clearly revealed truths:That is not a healthy sign, and the results thatwe can see on that even in a generation doesnot present a good prospect, if it reaches thefruit that it promises to. Preaching a good manyyears ago was, and some preaching is now, andit all ought to be, cold and uncompromMng. Wecan remember what happened when doors wereshut against us and when opposition and perse-cution was just as strong as it could be,. andwe might have to move out and hokl ,a meetingin the open air or build a brush arbor pn some;body’s land, though he might not be a memberof the church. The opposition that preachers metmade them strong ,because they were forced .todefend the truth and they loved the truth. Weemphasized those things that were distinctive;not denomlinationally distinctive, because thechurch is not a denomination. You can look at<the church as a New Testament affair and thebody of Christ, composed of all the people ofGod. The distinctive features of the church justas clearIy distinguish it from denominational&qof every shape, as one thing can be disltinguish-ed from anything else that is different. We om-phasized and underlined and underscored thosedistinctive characteristics, things thsit separatedlthe church from ,the world land everything thatperrtiained to it, even rehgiously. Xt ‘takes a prettyhigh grade of courage to do that.

.: ‘-,, : .)

PREACHERS NEED COURAG’E LThe right kind of a preacher ought to be an

exceptional sort of a fellow. They need a lot ofcourage and ought to be able to do, if need be,like Elijah did. It looked like he was the onlyone left, and they were seeking his life to pleaseRing Ahab, the popular head of an apostafe naytion who killed a good man, through coVetOUS-

ness, and took his vineyard. When he rods inwith his associates and his courtiers on one side.who should march in .on the other side but Eli-jah the prophet? “dhab, have you both killedand take possession? Is # thou, thou troulbler ofIsrael? I have troubled Israel, but you and yourfather’s house, in that you have forsaken, th)commandments of Jehovah, you won’t get bywith it Ahab.” He wont on to tell him that darkcalamities would come to him and his house,over his sins. In ather words, the dogs ,wouldlick his blood where they licked the blood ofNaboth, and you know aga%st such opposition,even King Ahab turned white as a sheet, andfaltered and feared. It was simply through theforce of the truth. It took courage to do a.thing

6 T H E B I B L E B A N N E R

like that. It took courage for Paul in Athens,alone, to meet people on the street - some ofthem philosophers and some of them Jews, anddispute with them. He reasoned and persuadedin the synagogues, and when he was driven outoY one place he went into another and did theSame thing. It took courage when Stephen stoodup before those traducere of the truth and said,*‘Ye .&lffnecked and uncircumcised in heart andears, as your fathers did, so also do ye. Whlichof the prophets did not your fathers persecute,and killed them that showed before the comingof the Righteous One, of whom ye are now be-come betrayers and murderers.” “Stiffneckedand uncircumcised in heart and ears,” and heknew it would cost him his life. That wasn’t amistake on Stephen’s part. It was a choice be-tween treachery to the cause of Christ and deathas a martyr, and he accepted the choice withoutfear or without trembling. In his triumph hesaid, “I see Jesus standing at #the right hand ofGod,” and he could say with full faith, “LordJesus reecive my spirit.” There was no reticenceor cowardice or anything of that sort.

THE SPIRIT ,CF CIIRIST

The preacher needs to take an attitude test.You know a sweet spirit is a fine thing if it isthe right kind of a spirit. We ought to be likethe Lord, the spirit of Christ, but you knowChrist could be gentle on ou?a&ns, and he couldbe stern and unyielding on occasions. Everyonce in awhile I pick up a paper and find some-body telling us how we ought to imitate thespirit of Christ, and I read usu~ally about a para-graph and a half and I find that the writer iscondemning Christ and the apostles. Oondemningthe very things that they did. I read an articleawhile back, and I guess you did, a pretty goodfriend of ours, and he intimated that he thoughtwe’d take after him and get his tag for what hewas saying, but he chose to run that tremend-ous risk end all. The first thing I thought ofwhen I read it was that I’d just write a littlesqutib lend say, You’re perfectly safe, minnowsare safe, we’re out after whales, we’re not goingto bother you. What is the spirit of Christ? Youknow the spirit. of Christ is absolutely intolerantof error, and you can’t tolerate some error andbe intolerant of others; you must either accept,a11 of it or reje& all of it. That puts it up to ourability to detect and understand the truth, butwhen you know what the truth is, and whenyou understand what error is, no truth can becompromised, nor can any error be consistentlyaccepted. Preachers used to do the ki nd ofpreaching that would put people to talking, andput them to arguing. I recall when I was inTemple a good many years ago, that the tele-phone rang, Foy called me from Lometa. Feyand I always were pretty close, and he said,

“C&d, you had better get on out here. Why,” hesaid, “we’ve got this thing bottom side up andupside down, hind part backwards,” and hesaid, “this whole town is afire.” I said I had bet-ter go out, end I went out, and of all the crowdsyou ever saw, and of all the preaching you everheard, we just baptized about l!lO or 115 duringthat meeting, and restored about all the haok-sliders in the country, ‘end practically ruinedevery denominational church in that country.And you know the preachers were going up enddown the streets, and some of them were evenheckling him in his services. They were havingthe hottest time you nearly ever asw. An argu-ment took place on the corner of the street,and there was one noted old infidel there. Hedidn’t believe in anything, and he was sittingthere listening to them, and really wes enjoyingthe argument. One fellow, all excited, said, “Thatfellow got up there last night and told thatcrowd that there wasn’t but one church.” Thisold infidel said, ‘Well, if that young fellow staysaround here long, there won’t be [but one.“’ Youknow soft preaching never would have done that.The church grew in opposing error. Courage onthe part of preachers does not mean that thereare not proprieties that we must observe. Thereis courtesy and all that, but there is not anycourtesy in all the world that I know of thatwould keep me or hold me back legitimatelyfrom preaching the truth of the gospel on anyproper occasion, end a man that will withholdthe truth, any truth, for fear of the sensabili-ties of somebody in his audience, because of somepressure, social, finanoial or otherwise, is notworthy of the gospel of Christ. Now these arejust some principles that I think ought to bebrought out and talked &bout.

NEUTRALITY IN PREACHING

There is a spirit of neutrality in preaching.You know sometimes an issue will come up thlatis loaded. Any capable preacher knowe the Ri-ble ought to be able to see an issue. All right,here is an issue that comes up, but the issue isloaded. I know it is right, I know that is whattihe Biible teaches, I know that is where I oughtto take my staml, but I know that if I do it willjust cost me some popularity, it will cost mesome friendships, it mmay cost me position, it rnaxcost me in painful ways, and so I’ll just wait. Mysympathies are with the ones that make thefight, but I don% want to get hurt. Some don’tbelieve the f,alse doctrine but throw their influ-ence on the other side and do injustice even totheir own convictions, what little they have bycomplimenting the fellow that holds to thosethings. We have men today, prominent men withbig names and indeed fine ch’aracters in manyways, that never take a stand on any issue untilthey see which way the wind blows. They’ll come

T H E B I B L E B A N N E R 7

out right if the pressure goes the right way, andthey might not come out wrong if it went theother way, but they just wouldn’t come out atall. You know courage ls one of the requirementsof preaching, and understand this preaching ques-tion is one of the most important issues.

Our preaohing is a little bit like another thing Ihave observed, I am expecting in this capacity atlea$t a few times during this series to say thewrong thing at the psychological moment, andnow is when I am going to say one. I picked upthe Go&p4 Advocate and the Firm Foundationafter I had this speech pretty well mapped out,and I knew when I made it that I wouldn’t de-liver it like I fixed tit. But anyway, I picked upa paper, and they had a lectureship at GeorgePepperdine College. I looked over the subjectsof that lectureshtp and they had another lecture-ship at David Lipscom5 College and I lookedover the subjects of that lecturezhip. Well, whatwss wrong? On firrlt glance, why, if a manwasn’t a little critical, he possibly woldlh’t no-tice anything. A good friend of mine was doingall the leoturing over at George Pepperdine.Do you know what he lectured on ? He spentthe whole time, and he was the big shot in thelecturesh8ip, about all he talked about and all hepreached about in it was court&@ - like any-body didn’t know how to court tit&out somepreacher telling him - courtship, marriage, andthen the home, how husbands and wives oughtto get along together. I know husbands andwives ought to get dong together, and I knowthat they have to learn how to get along togeth-er. If you take a dozen people and bring themtogether, or a hundred people, or btwo hundredpeople, we know that you have to give diligenceto keep the unity of the spirit, and if a goodman marries a good woman, why, if he’s got ahead of his own, which he sometimes has, and ifshe’s gut a head of her own, which she alwayshas, they have to learn how to get along. Well,what is wrong with that kind of a program ?I’ll tell you in just a minute. Over ‘at David Lips-comb College they had a lectureship and thewhole program, every feature of it, was on ,thepersonal godliness of a Christian. One lecturewas on jealousy, and another lecture was on en-vy, and another lecture was on honesty, and allthat. Well, what’s wrong with that? Well, I’lltell you exadtly what’s wrong with it. In thefirst place, as good a preacher as that fellow isat George Pepperdine, and as good friend of mineas he is, ,there’s at least five Ibishops in the Me%odist church th%~t can outlecture him a 11 tosmash on every one of his subjects, and do itmore eloquently and in a more scholarly way.You know 8t used to be, a way back when SamJones and Billy Sunday and those big unionrevival&s were coming in, and they were stay-Ing off of everybody’s doctrine, but they were

preach’ing on dancing and preaching on whis-key drinking, and preaching on card playing,and preaching on popular sins and all, of course,most of what they said about those things wastrue, but they were not preaching the gospel.You know what they were doing? We were notencouraging horse raoing, nor divorce, nor gamb-ling, nor drinking or anything like that, butI’ll tell you what we were doing, we were preach-ing the gospel and ma%g Christians out offolks, and somehow or other they just actedpretty well in those regards without featuringthose as major things. It is the church’s busi-ness to preach the gospel, and when the churchconfines its program to a kind of social gospelit will grow weak. I don’t care how much mor-ality you preach, I don’t care how much youpreach against marriage ,and divorce, and againstsobriety and honesty and all of that, of course‘there is some of that in the Brble, a lot of it, andit ought to ;be preached, but when you featurethose things, and lectureship after lectureshipgives the whole time and absolutely puts noemphasis whatever on those distinctive prin-ciples of the gospel that the church was es&b-lished and grew on, as long as it grew, dsazteris ‘bound to restit. That is the way the digres-sives did years ago. They quit preaching the gos-pel and began preaching morality, and a sweetspirited proposition, ‘and about eleven timesout of nine when a man begins to emphasize thesweet spirited part of it, why it is cowardice onhis part, and he just miztakes the spirit he has.You know the gospel is all that will &save peo-ple. It is the power of God unto salvation. Thelast time I delivered a lecture at a college lec-turezhip by invitation, I’m just a little II Y tashamed to tell you what I spoke about. I actedpretty nice when I was up there. I have alwayssort of felt that they put me on that theme tokeep me off of something else, and I promiseqmy wife before I went up there that I wouldn”tbe a bull in a china closet or anything of thatsoft if I could help it. Think (about assigninga preacher the subjeo’t of discussing the BusinessLife of a Ch9lstia.n. What does a preacher knowabout business ? Some brethren could do a lit-tle lecturing on that no doubt but they shouldassign me a subject that I knew somethingabout. rrhe head of a college one tdme, and Itold the folks at home once @at I was 8 littlebit more important than some of them thoughtI was, but the IpresMent dp a school, a goodfriend of mine, came all the way to Austin onetime just to see me and discuss some of theprobIems that were bdtherlng hilm. He wsz pos-sibly disappointed because I didn’t know asmuch about them as he had hoped I would, ifthat was really his purpose, to get some infor-mation. One time they sent me a program fora lectuxwhlp, and it had one subject, I think it

8 THE BIBLE BANNER

was stewardship or something like that, and itwas divided into sixteen or eighteen differentheads, and each lecturer was supposed to takeone of those sub-heads and make a speech outof it. Why, they just spread the thing out sothin, and what was there to all of It ? Not muchof anything. I ‘heard some of them, and when Iwas asked about my reaction to it, I said, “Thesubje& that you have given, that you have di-vided into sixteen sub-heads, might form thebasis of one pretty good lecture ,if you’d getsomebody that could handie it.” The idea of tak-ing one little part of a character that is notdoctrinal or distin&ive and divide that intoa whole series of lectures <and just have a lot oflittle pep talks around.

The &h&oh is facing a problem today thatcan only be met by men who love the truth,who have an attitude toward it hike Paul hadtoward it, and who will preach Pt and urge itsprinciples in the right sort of a spirit regard-less of consequences. You know it is not thepreacher’s business to get his color from theohurch.‘You know preaching is so important thata man ought to mold sentiment and arouseconviction by ,&e power of his preaching. Notmerely by h’is personality, ,but by the powerof the truth that is in what he says. So Paulsaid- to Timwthy, ‘(Preach the word, be urgent inseason, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhortwith all longsuffering and doctrine.” The timewill come .when they will not endure the sounddoctrine. Don’t let that affect you. They willheap to themselves teachers after their ownlusts. That will possibly leave you out, andmaybe it will minimize your audiences, but yoube faithful as an evangelist. Fulfill your mini-stry, preach the word. That is what we needtoday.

DOCTRINAL AND PRA~CTICALPRHACHING

Another distinction that is sometimes made,and our brethren didn’t make it till a few yearsago, but they are making it now; the distinctionbetiween doctrinal and practical preaching. I be-lieve they call it ‘the difference between doctrinaland spiritual preaching. Something of that sort,doctrinal and practical. You know there is notanything that is not practical in Christianity;honesty, morahty or anything else that is puton the right basis. But it grows out of the soilof doctrinal truth. I had ‘been preaching a goodwhile before I ever heard some cultured sistersay, I don’t like doctrinal preaching, or some’brother say, “Well, you know the kind of preach-’ing that stirs folks up and makes them mad,why that is not the kind that will do any good.”I heard that just awhile back. You know youcan do some preaching that will make folksmad ,that is the wrong kind. I remember’ one

time over here at Mansfield in a meeting thatI was just preaching away on’ the principles ofthe gospel, and the wife of one of the meni&ersof the church was a devout Presbyterian, andvery conscientious, and she went out one serv;ice and said to one of the sisters, “‘That manmakes me absolutely so mad I could kill him.”The sister s&d: “He hasn% called any nameshas he?” She said, “NO, but he doesn?. have. to,everybody knows who he ia talking about.!’Well, what was the matter with her? Whyitwas hurting .her. I didn’t teach that Presbyter-ians teach so and so and- it was a lie, I mi,gbthave under certain condtions, but I.didn% preachit, but I just told what the New Testament toldabout the church, what it taught .about bap-tism, its action and its design, and w ha It ittaught on the covenants and what it taughtabout worshlip, and all. Well, what was theresult ? She surrendered and was baptized.

ThYs ‘preaching ,problem is one of the big prob-lems. I don’t want to try to say all of it tonight,my time is up, but I have one thing that I clippedgives ‘a little trend. I expect many of you saw it,and I’m not sure that I haven’t seen it somewherebefore, but it just struok me as particularlyforceable at this time and under these circum-stan’ces. “Old Parson Stubbs, he used to preachat ‘Tobin’s school house -and at beach; A preach-er of the olden brand, with scriptures versesright at hand. With half the Bilble learned: byrote, right in his head where he could quote.I’m sure the bells of heaven rang when heprayed and when he sang: he raised a loud re-proving din against all fashion breed of sin; hespoke aloud, some say he raved ‘about the needof getting saved. He held revivals now and thenwhere women, kids and grown up men,’ ‘withtear-streams couming down their face, soughtpardon and redeeming grace. He thundered forththe truth, the word, in tones that were distinctlyheard; and he had one message meant for all,t’was seek redemption from the’fall. The parsondied in ‘93, his life’s song was Abide With Me.His last words were, It is MS way, Goodbye,I’m going home today. A man now preacheth inhis place, who scoffs the very sound of grace.He has AM’s and PHD’s and other marks ofhigh degree; He lectures on ‘the planet Mars,the glory of the moon ‘and stars’; The beautyof the mountain range, and other topics vagueand strange. His lectures might be very good ifthey were ever understood, but they, don’t puta man on pins and make him sorry for his ains:They never stir a wicked gent -up to” the pointwhere he’ll repent. I wonder, what this man will.sing when slipping off to meet the king, and iflike Parson Stubbs he’ll say, Goodbye, I’m’ go-’in’g home today.”

(Continued on page 15)

T H E . B I B L E :BA;NNER 9

. ‘,.‘.’ CHRISTIAN FREEDOM;H A R R Y ..FIcK& SR. / ’

‘It is doubtful’ if any 'nation on earth has everbeen as ‘freedom conscious as the United Statesof’ America. During ‘two world conflicts we lis-’tened to our orators, and to others; declare theadvantages of, freedom from fear, fredom fromwant, freedom of rellgidn and freedoq of speech:I,n a vague sort of way we believed what weheard, though few of us took the time to digdeep enough into the matter .to learn what wereally meant when we spoke of the basic “idealsof freedom.” We were fairly ‘well-fed, we l&idenough clothes and fuerl to keep us warm, weattefided church services when and where wef&t like it and we expected the cop on the beatto protect us and our property from burglarsand thmieves. Nearly everybody in Amerioa seem-ed satisfied that they had .a pretty good ideaof what the nation stood for; but even so, mostof us sort of ‘took things for granted.It has long been the opinion of this writer that

the Ivory Soap percentage (99 and 44/100) ofthe people of this nation have a poorer concep-tion of CHRISTIAN freedom (which was thebasic. reason for the foundiig. of this nation)than they do of the m&ming of American, free:dom1. It is my ambition, therefore, to point outthe real meaning of freedom as the focal point ofthe Christian religion, not as it is worded in de-nom&&ion&l theology, but as it is revealed ‘inthe ‘New Testament. * ,.;.. _,

FfUESlDOM F R O M IGNORAWCE ‘-’ .’<.,‘.*’The first of these we shall call Freed.om l?rom

Ignorance, and it is based upon two statementswhfch were made by 1Tesus. ’ He said, “And ye:shall know the truth, ‘and the truth shall makeyou free.” (Jno. 8:W2) And, “If the Son thereforeshall mlake you free, ye shall be free indeed.”(verse 36)

The goal of secular education is to train man’to become an asset to self and humlanity. With-,out education man ,gropes in, darkness for the.lines which tie Mm to ,the fields of real useful-~ness: He cannot know how to properly use the.multitude of things which God .has enclosed innatural lam unless. he is trained in the %&oussciences. He, is hewless in the vast fields ofelectronics, medicine, ar&aeology ana dozens ofothers, if he is ignorant of the prcinciples by.which they move. His mind must be, properlydeveloped to use the rules and ‘apply the formu-las’ which bring into being plastics; sound. andpharmaceutical supplies: An ignorant -tind ishelpless in all but a,.‘few, of the-many fields ofwork which have contributed so much to thepeace, comfort and development of man.

But there is something more. tragic +n anignorant mind: an intellectual mind and an ig-- ..- .-._ - -._ ..__. ._

norantt soul! It was this that Jesus had in mind:educating ‘men in the field of spiritual develop:nient. This is accomplished ‘by “the truth”by which the Son of God proposes to “makeyou free.” Free from the sha&kles of spiritualignorance; free from bias of prejudice and er-ror-which are tools of the devil to keep menin bondage (2 Tim. 2:&, 26) The average mankn6ws little or nothing of the issues which in-volve his eternal welfare, though he may knowby heart, the issues which concern his businessand politics. Many children (some, whose par-ents are members of the church) can tell youthe names of every movie star in Hollywood-and how many adulterous marriages contracted-who can’t name ‘the books of the New Testr-ment. Ignorance of the simple story of the crossis responsi~ble for millions being lost, when allcould know the truth, the truth which makesman free from sin.

;: /F R E E D O M OF FAITH

.,Freedom’ of faith is an important plank in

Chri’stian freedom. This gives us the right tobelieve land practice exactly “the faith” of tiheNew Testament, for which Jude says we are tocontend earnestly, (Jude 3). In spiritual thingswe are not-under this freedom-ham strung by.the humzm. creeds+ ,:human traditions and thedoctrines, -of men... We are free under God topractiae the things for which we ,have com-mands *and examples in the Word of God. Herewe are free from humtan opinion, being suppliedby the Holy scriptures, that which perfects usin all good works: (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).

Some have contended that ‘freedom of faithmeans freedom’ ‘to believe what one pleases.This i&St ‘true-e5,ther ,w+lwiith regard to things~ma*~terial or .spiritual. The laws ‘of our land prohibitus from believing anythymg we please in mater&lmatters, -and the laws of God prohibi,t us’ frombelieving anything we please in spiliitual mat-ters. The bank robber makes his calls afterhours, because ,he’ believes in that kind of pro-gram.. -But there are policemen land guards@hose business it is to prevent him from prac-‘tioing his faith in such matters. There are a mil-lion men in’ our penal institutions who were once.rudely awakened to the realization that theycould not believe what they pleased, or practlCewhat they believed. , ,:. . .‘.

Freedom of ‘faith simply means that man isfree to believe and practice, what God teauhes.Reali&ing :that he will, some day bs judged by.the things written in .the bodks; (IRev. 20:12&Vhe is not scari?d”by the pompous olaims of e&ecolesiast&sm. ‘He’ is free from the bonds of .de-.nomin&tionalisni am% f rom ‘the ‘dead bonw”of~

10 T H E B I B L E B A N N E R

church traditions. He doesn’t have to wear asectarian name, ‘be guided by a denominationalcreed and led around by the nose at the handsof some man. In brief, he is free under Christ,the Captain of heis salvation, to be just a Chris-tian, a member of the church he can read aboutin the Word of God.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Another important item is freedom of speech.God tells us to “speak the things which becomesound dootrine,” and speaks of “sound speech<which cannot be condemned.” The free speechof Christ will ntit turn one person against an-other; it is the authority of humian opinionthat does this. Human documents, human creeds,human councils--speaking by no higher author-ity than their own little minds--4rre the flies inthe ointment which generate the seeds of reli-glous prejudice. When we speak the words ofthe Lord, we are speaking the truth, but whenwe speak the concoctions of our own minds(even though we may try to dignify the sameby references to scripture) we speak the lan-@rage of Ash&d. No speech is free spirituallyand scripturally free when it must feel the pulseof human councils and creeds before speaking.

Most readers of gospel literature rememberthe case of the Baptist preacher who went fish-ing with his non-Baptist friends. Evidently theconversation was on religion, during the courseof which the non-Baptist asked the preacher,“See, here is the water; what doth hinder meto be baptized ?” Evidently the preacher re-membered the case of the eunuch in Acts 8,and w4thou.t any formality or voting, he im-mersed his friend in the creek. Later, when thematter was brought to the attention of the gov-erning body of the Baptists who had jurlsdic-tion over this particular preacher, he was warn-ed never to let such a thing happen again! Thereason given was that the thing wasn’t carriedout according to Baptist custom. Well, this iscertainly true; but it definitely was New Testa-ment custom to do it as descrbed in Acts 8.But this preacher and thousands of other de-nominational constituents are not free underCod to speak the truth in Christ. Really, it isa delightful experience to have fresdom ofspeech in spiritual matters, ruled only by theinspired mandates of ,a divine lawmaking body,unhampered by the unscriptural paraphernalia ofdenominatlonalism’s lower court.

FREEDOM FROM SPIRITUAL WANT

The true Christian also ~XU freedom fromspix%tual want. Jesus says something about thisin the sermon on the mount. “Blessed are they,that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for‘they shall ibe fill&.” Being “filled” involves morethan escape frmn sin (though this is certainly

sufficient reason for hungering for righteous-ness) ; it is the sum of all the Christian gracesWhich come as a result of true spiritual hun-ger. The man who desires to obey the gospel ofChrist, can. He doesn’t need to &agonize for years,trying to get religion or come through some sortof an experience which is ‘better felt than told.”There are numerous examples of what to do to besaved in the book of Acts of Apostles. Whenone’s soul is really hungering and thirsting forsalvation, it can ‘be easily satisfied by followingthe examples of prim&q obedience suggested.In order to live the Christian life and worshipGod acceptably, one has but to “walk the newlife” as this life is described in the rest of theNew Testament. There is no excuse for starvingto death (spiritual want) on a diet of sectarianlectures. New Testament Christianity makes onefree from spiritual want.

FREEDOM FROM FEAR

There is a final, but most important freedom,which Christianity alone can give: freedom fromfear. Human religions, human traditions andprinciples of pure morality, can take one no far-tlher than the grave. From a purely human pointof view much good is performed upon the bodiesof men by organizations which are purely humanin name, origin, doctrine, and practice. In thename of everytmg, from the Grand Order OfSo-and-So to the Council of the P. D. Q., humanbodies are helped by other humans more fortu-nate than the sufferers. Such work has merit,whether organized or unorganized, but the advo-cates of such doctrines of human mercy canproceed no farther than the point where thebeneficiary dies. Not so with Christianity. Chriitproposes to make men FREE, free from fearof the unseen. David expressed it in these worda:“Though I walk through the valley of the .&a-dow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou artwith me . . .” Dozens of passages expresz thesame sentiment. Jesus tells us that He will comefor His faithful, and adds, “Where I am, thereye may be also . . :’ May Cod help us to ap-preciate the real meanmg of this, so that we mayprepare for the inevitable appointment whioh weall have with death, and Ibe free from fear-rea-lizing the helping hand of Christ.

T Y P E W R I T E R SWe are now in position to supply you with newUnderwood Portables and ‘Standards at regular

p-&S.Universal Model Portable, $76.86 tex included

Champion Model, m.97 tax UcludedS&d&l Model, $laO.W tax Wtnd@d

We have also some used machines, rebuilt andin excellent condition at a bargain.

RMYY E. COGDILL PUBDISHING C C . ”

THE BIBLE BANNER 11

SOME OLD DOCTRINES RESTATED AND EXAMINEDFALSE ARGUMENTS AND PERVERSlONS OF SCRIPTURES

R. L. WHITESIDE

It is not my purpose to notice all the falsearguments and perversions of which religiouspeople are guilty-not even all I know about.First, let us notice some peculiar notions peo-ple have formed about the results of the sin ofAdam and Eve in the garden of Eden. ReadGene& 3.

When I was in the Nashville Bi’ble School,a visiting preacher of great ability said in asermon, “When Adam sinned the seeds of mor-tality were sown in the human body.” I did notbelieve that theory then, nor do I now. Recent-ly some Ibrother said that if Adam had not sin-ned, we would have remained immortal. Thatis a wild guess. There is not the least indicationthat man’s physical nature was affected by hiseating the forbidden fruit. Had he been per-mitted to have continued access to the tree oflife he would have lived on in sin. You do notbelieve it? Then read this: “And Jehovah Godsaid, Behold, the man is become as one of us, toknow good and evil; and now, lest he put forthhis hand, and take also of the tree of life, andeat, and live for ever-therefore Jehovah Godsent him forth from the garden of Eden, to tillthe ground from whence he was taken. So hedrove out the man; and he placed at the east ofthe garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flameqf a sword which turned every way, to keep theway of the Itree of life.” So it was the fruit ofthe tree of life that kept them alive; separatedfrom it they died. Not having access to it wedie. To say that Adam and Eve by sinningchanged their bodies from immortal bodies tomortal (bodies is to say that by sinning theyworked a great miracle on themselves! Then Ihave seen in print where brethren refer to “ourfallen nature”. I do not think they know whatthey mean by the expression. What do theythinlk happened to our nature? Do they thinkour nature fell into a state of sin and depravity?What else can they mean, if they mean any-thing? It all sounds very much like the Augus-tinian-Calvin&tic doctrine of inherited depravity.

When, as a youngster, I began to pay anyreal attention to preaching, I heard more thanone gospel preacher on what, I think they calledthe “Fall and Reinstatement of Man”. It wasargued that the steps that were taken to getaway from the tree of life must be retracedto get back. As they enumerated the steps theystepped-,them off on the rostrum. “They hearda lie--step no. 1; they believed a lie-step no.2; they obeyed a lie-step no. 3. To. get backyou must retrace the steps. You must hear thetruth-step no. 1; you must believe the truth-

step no. 2; you must obey the truth--step no.3.” That all looked plain and simple to me: sowhen I began to try to preach, I followed thatpattern for some time. With a little more ma-turity of thinking I saw that the line of thoughtcontained too much error, For one thing, Adamdid not believe the lie, for Paul says he was notdeceived. It is not certain that Eve told himwhat had been said to her. He was not influ-enced Iby the devil’s lie, but by his wife. She gavethe fruit to her husband, “and he did eat”. Andso, <what I had thought was a good sermon ex-ploded. I did not save any of its pieces.

Another theory about the effects of the sinof Adam and Eve is the Calvinistic theory ofinherited depravity and sin. Let some standardworks tell what the doctrine is. The aresbyter-ian Confession of Faith says; “From this or&l-nal corruption, whereby we are utterly indis-posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed allactual transgressions.”

They usually try to soften the doctrine tillthey begin to make their arguments for thesupposed necessity for a direct operation of theHoly Spirit in conversion; then they make thesinner utterly depraved, dead, with no abilityto do anything. We shall examine some of thefallacious arguments ,built on perversions ofcertain passages in efforts to ,sustain this hurt-ful doctrine.

Jeremiah 13:23-25. “Can the Ethopian changehis skin, or the leopard his spots ? Then mayye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubblethat passeth away, by the wind of the wilder*ness. This is thy lot, the portion measured untothee from me, aalth Jehovah: because thou hastforgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.” It iSargued that a sinner cannot do anything towardchanging his condition any more than an Ethl-opian can change his skin or a leopard hisspots-that this illustrates the condition of anunregenerate sinner. But some things are over-looked. It is not said that these Jews were ibornevil, ,but were “accustomed to do evil”. Also,Jehovah said evils would come upon them “be-cause thou hast forgotten me”. So they hadknown Jehovah, for people cannot forget whatthey had never known. Because they had be-come hopelessly corrupt, the ~Lor’d would “scat-ter them, as stubble that passeth away, by thewind of the wilderness”. Their condition wuiahopeless. Verse 27: “Woe unto thee, 0 Jerusa-lem! thou will not be made clean”. It is anguedthat nothing but the direct power of Jehovah

13 T H E B I B L E B A N N E R

can change an Ethopian’e skin, or a leopard’sspots. But did the Lord ever by direct powerchange people who have become wholly cor-rupt? Because Jerusalem ihad reached that con-dition the Lord abandoned them, and had themcarried into. captivity. And when the Jews againbecame so hopelessly corrupt that they cruci-fied the Lord, and then, ‘by bitter persecutionand slaughter, tried to destroy his church, theRqmans utterly destroyed their nation, killingmultiplied thousands of them and carrying theremainder into oaptivity. That is the way theLord deals with people when they become hope-lessly corrupt. Other. examples illustrate thesame truth.

What happened to the people at the floodshows what God did to people who became de-praved beyond remedy, though what is saidabout them is perverted into an argument insupport of the doctrine of hereditary total de-pravity. Genesis 6:5 “And Jehovah saw that thewickedness of man was great in the earth, andthat every imagination of the thoughts of hisof his heart was only evil continually”. But itis not said that they were born such corruptsinners. That point ls assumed, and the as-sumption not only lacks proof, but it flatlycontradicts what is said in verse 12: “And Godsaw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; forall flesh had corrupted their way upon theearth.” Their ‘corruption was of their own do-

ing-they corrupted their way. And becausethey had reached such corruption, and wouldnot heed Noah’s preaching God destroyed themwith a flood. And also when Sodom and Go-morrah reached the wholly corrupt condition,which the creeds wrongfully charge upon’ allmen, the Lord destroyed them. And so he didwith PharOah and his hosts. And such endingscame to people who #were “utterly indisposed,disabled, and made opposite to all good, j aad,wholly inclined to all evil”. People may reachthat state of depravity by their own doings,but they are not born in that condition.

Another argument is built on aa unwarrant-ed use of the word dead ln Eph. 23. It is be-lieved that a dead man can do nothing-can-not vven hear, and cannot believe, till Godmakes him alive by some direct influence of theHoly Spirit. But the prodigal son was dead, buthe returned to his father without any directoperation of the spirit of hls father. When Idebated the Holy Spirit question with Ben M.Bogard, in his first speech he put in his timetrying to prove that the sinner is so depraved,so dead, that he can do nothing till he is madealive by the regenerating power of the HolySpirit in addition to the word. I knew he wouldaccuse me of limiting the power of God: andso I decided to beat him to it and put him ina dilemma so that he would get hurt no matter

(Continued on page 16)

A N N O U N C I N G‘THE CERTIFIED GOSPEL” BY FOY E. WALLACE, JR.

Thislbodk is now off the press and at the bindery. It will be ‘ready for delivery within a few days now. Abook bearing the above title was published in 1997 by Lambert and ‘Son in Port Arthur, Texas. Thisbook contained a series of sermons preached by Foy E. Wallace, Jr. The new book which has just comeoff ‘the press contains all of Uhe original sermons and about twelve additional chapters making the booktw%ce the size of the original. The enlarged edition has 257 pages in it, printed on 60 lb. egg shell paper,a fine jdb of printing and bound in excellent cloth binding with jacket. Subjects discussed are:

Introduction by 0. C. LambertThe Certified GospelWho. Wrote The Bible ?Chrl& and the Church.How and When the Church Began.The Last Will apd Testament.Wlfat It Means to ‘Preach Christ.The $!ospel In Old Testament Example.Why Send For Peter?What ;To Do To Be Saved.God’s Call To, RepentanceRqtoring The Ancient Other.

Faith and Baptism.Repentance and Baptism.Baptism In the Acts of The Apostles.Baptism In The Apostolic Epistles.God’s Law of Conversion.Broken Cisterns.

:

The Sin of Sectarianism.The Lord’s Day.What atie Church Must Do To Be Saved.Seventh Day Adventism.The Music Question - Pro and Con.The Boll Movement.

$3.00 Per CopyORDER FROM

.’ ‘,

L. :_. ROY E. COGDILL PUBLISHING COMPANY

BOX 980, LUFXIN, ‘I’EXAS

THE BIBLE BANNER is3

USING THE LORD’S MONEYJ’AMES W. ADAMS

.‘&ig’inality is not claimed for the challeng-ing (1) title of this article. Due credit is here-with given to our friend and brother, E. W. Mc-Millan.,, and attention is directed to his article bythe sake title in the Firm Foundation of July1’3, .1948. Now, Brother McMillan is a nice manand quite able in discussinlg prayer, evangelism,Christian living, and some aspects of the worship,but he is definitely out of character in the fieldof polemics. One has but to read his ‘article toappreciate the truth of the statement. The amax-iag th,ing is that he should venture, if timidly,into so controversial a realm as that invaded byhis article. I dare say that he would not havedone it but for the fact that he is a budding col-lege president (Japanese work) and wants topave the road into the budgets of the churchesfor his prospective school. There is one thingfor which we are profoundily grateful, namely;that Brother McMillan is finally gett&g into aschool. Some of his friends ( ?) have been report-ing that a brother some time ago offered to en-dow a Bible chair in one of “our” colleges forhim if Brother MoMillan could get a school toaccept him, but that none of “our” schools wouldacquiesce in this agreement. We are, therefore,happy that Brother McMillan now has the oppor-tunity to head a school, so that suoh derogatoryrumors m,?ght be killed, but we are unwilling forhim to assume that he can dash off a few linesin the Firm FoundatYon and settle all matters‘connected ,with the issue relating to church sup-port of the colleges.

AMUSING ASPECTS OF THE ARTICLE

One’s first reaction to brother McMillan’s“article is amusement. In 4he first place, why did!, our brother wait until so late in the fray to pre-I’ .sent arms? The heat of the battle has abated.!:The missles no longer fly. The smoke of combathas a)most cleared away ‘and the &sue of the!confliot determined when our brotber comes tip-; toeing across the field of battle with his pea‘shooter. Where were you, brother, while the con-flict raged ? Could it be that you were afraidyou might be accidentally hit?

Another amusing thing about tlhis article isthe fact that our brother so skillfully constructedhis little straw soldiers to slay with his demonpea shooter. The very title of his article sugges’tsa question that is wholly beside the point withreference to the issue involved. No informedperson would argue with our brother concerningwhat is or ds not the Lord’s money. I do not re-call that this expression ever was a point at is-sue on the part of those who oppose church sup-part of the college. Where d¶d brother McMillanget the idea that a fixed part of an individual’s

money is the Lord’s and the rest his own, andthat our opposition to the support of the col-le’ge by the church is based upon such a theory?I am quite sure that no writer in the Bible Ban-ner ever expresed such as the ground’ of thepa.per’s fight against tke practice. What an in-dividual does or does not do is not the issue. Theissue has to do with what a church may’o’r maynot do.

W H Y DOD.3 BRO!lYiER MCMZLLA’N N O TAFFIRM THE PRACTXCE HE ENDQRBEB?

‘From his misleading title, our brother proceedsto a discussion of several negative arguments’ ( ?)on the church-college question that he has beardsomewhere. Where he heard them I do not pro-fess to know, but that they in any sense repre-sent the Bible Banner’s opposition to the churchsupport of the college, I do deny’most fervently.If Brother McMilllan wanted to write on thisissue, why did he write a rebuttal to negativearguments never offered by the leaders of theopposition to the practice in question? Why didhe not write an article af~firming&hat it is scrip-tural for churches to contribute to the supportof the colleges from their treasuries ? It is nottoo late for him to do so if he is ambitious to setall right on the question. WPl he try it? We shallsee.

‘YM3E PROPAGANDA SPIRIT”

Brother McMillan accuses some who have writ-ten of being motivated by the ‘propaganda spir-it.” In other words, some are accused of beinginsincere and dishonest. Careful! Careful! andshame! shame! Someone will be sure to chargeyou with judging a brother’s motives, and thento whom may we look for our lessons in the“ethioal attitude in Christian journalism.“ Someof us will be forced to turn to the Qospel Broad-cast yet. However, on second thought, BrotherMcMillan ought to have a good nose for propa-ganda inasmuch 8s he and his consort, one ofthe Davidson boys, became so familiar with itsuse in the promotion of the New Christian Lead-er several years ago. Remember?

O R P H A N H O M E S AGAIN ’

Litke others who have written on the subject,our brother wants to bring the orphan homes interthe discussion. Like the little boy about to tastethe Mckory who says, “Tommy did it too.” Ininjecting the orphan home into his article, Bro-ther McMillan assumes two things: (1) He as-sumes that orphan homes and colleges are iden-tical (like some of our other “illogicians” #hethinks similafity proves identity) ; (2) He as-sumes that *if one endorses the support of an .or_-

14 T H E ’ B I B L E B A N N E R

phan home from the church treasury, it is scrip-tural to support a college from the church treas-ury. If one could prove that colleges and orphanhomes are identical, such would not prove thatto contribute to-an orphan home from the churchtreasury makes it scriptural to contribute in thismanner to a college. It would only prove tlhe in-consistency of the man who endorsed the one andcondemned the other. An inconsistent practiceon (the part of men is poor evidence that anypractice is scriptural. Surely, our brethren arehaard pressed if they have no better than this tooffer in defense of their practike of supportingthe college from the treasury of the church.OUR BROTHER ASKS SOME QUEZ3TR3NSWith an air of “this is the crux of the whole

matter,” Brother McMillan poses some ques-tions. He asks:

“Another thing-those Bible teachers whoteach the Bible daily in our schools, arethey, in their Bible teaching, doing the Lord’swork? And whose money should support theLord’s work in Bible teaching-the individ-ual’s money or the Lord’s money”?

May we ask brotbher McMillan a few questions ?When Paul taught in the school of Tyrannus,was he doing the Lord’s work? Did that obligatethe church at’Ephesus to make a contributionfrom its treasury to the school of Tyrannus ?When Paul taught in the synagogue of the Jews,was he doing the Lord’s work? Did that obligatethe churches to contrijbute from their treasuriesto the synagogues of the Jews ? Your scribepreaches bwo months of the year on Sunday af-ternoons at the State Hospital in Terrell. Inpreaching the gospel there, is he doing the Lord’swork? Does that obligate or even justify thechurch in contributing from its treasury to thesupport of that institution? In the answer tothese qeustions,will be found the answer to ourbrother’s question.

Brother McMillan raises another question. Heasks :

‘Inasmuch as Bible teaching is a workwhich the Lord requires; anld inasmuch asthe buildings for that teaching are admitted-ly a legitimate expense of the churoh assuch: inasmuch furthermore, as daily chapelservices in schools are worship periods de-signed for the spiritual welfare of those whoattend, why should it be a sin to share theexpenses out of a church treasury”?

Let us suggest a parallel for our brother’s# consideration. Inasmuch as preaching the gospel

is a work which the Lord requires; and inasmuchas the support of preachers and the incidentals tothat work are the legitimate expense of thechurch as such; inasmuch furthermore as thepurpose of the miaslonary society is the spiritualwelfare and eternal salvation of those whom itreaches, why should it be a sin to share the ex-penses of this work out of the treasury of the

church ?Our brother makes another faux pas when he

argues from “reciprocity.” Does he really believe,that the church is duty bound to make contri-butions from its treasury to the support of allinstitutions which directly or indirectly contri-bute to its welsfare ? When he answers this ques-tion, your scribe will be happy to deal with it.

THE TOUCHING CLIMAXIn bringing his readers to a climax, Brother

‘McMillan very touchingly takes them to the judg-ment, and rejoices that there all are convincedthat they should have condoned the schools inthe budgets of the churches and that they shouldIhave helped all of the schools raise the moneythat they are perennially in need of. Well - Iam not a prophet like my brother, but judgingfrom the past it might be that some will not besorry that they did not get more money for thecollelges. When we think of Bethany College,College of the Bible at Lexington, Johnson BibleCollege and others, we wonder.

Altogether, Brother McMillan made a nobleeffort in his article to placate the offended, ex-cuse the offender, defend the schools in thebudget, and plead for more money for the col-leges. It is too bad that he did not succeed toany noticeable degree in any of his objectives.Honestly, brethren, Brother MdMillan has hishands full in cleaning up and keeping clean theJapanese work without injeoting himself into thechurch-college issue, #but if he thinks be can settlethe ma.tter in favor of the college in the budget,we will be happy to see an article from him atan early date affirming unequivocally that it isscriptural for a church to support “our” collegesfrom its treasury. We await his pleasure.

“ASK YOUR PREACHER”By W. CURTIS PORTER

Contains six sermons that are just whatthe title implies-questions to the preach-ers who teach for doctrines the command-ments of men. Excellent to hand to your

religious friends. Paper bound.

Single copy sotWrite for Quantity Prices

The Bible was divided into chapters by Hugoin 1240.

-O-

John was the only apostle who died a naturaldeath.

-o-

The New Testament was written, by eightmen-six apostles’and two evangelists.

T H E B I B L E B A N N E R 16

JUST TEACH THEM TO LOVE JESUSC!LEQNLYLHS

,What a person should preach, and when heshould preach M, may never be a settled question.There has always been controversy about thismatter. Many have been known to change almostover night. Sometimes preachers preach foryears, and do a lot of good, then suddenly learnhow to “preach in love.” Then they condemn allwho may be doing it as they formerly did. Stillothers want to “preach in love” on some sub-

jects, but do it otherwise on others. One of themost nauseating ~arguments I have read in sometime is advanced in a little mimeograph sheetthat came to my desk from a Texas town, con-cerning preaching on givin’g. Here it is: “Reallywe do not need to preach every Sunday and allthe time on money, if the people know what iti& going for ,and that the work of the Lord needshelp in this section or that, -they usually givefreely. Some preachers are noted for “preachingon money all the time,” others for presentingChrist and the need of the world for Christ andstir up the hearts of the people to give promptedby a love for Christ and his cause and the lost.This done, it does not take preaching every Sun-day on money. There is something wrong with#a preacher who is continually preaching andwh$pping a church into line on giving.” NO W

the purpose of this statement, I do not know.‘Sometimes statements are made to create afollowing, or reconstruct one fast falling apart,but that does not give excuse for teaching thatwhich is wrong.

Suppose we take the above reasoning and seeif we can harmonize it with other subjects. ‘$Real-ly we do not need to preach every Sunday andall ,the time on premillennialism. Some preachersare noted for preaching on premillennialism allthe time, others for presenting Christ and theneed of the world for Christ end stir up thehearts of the people not to be premillennialists.There is something wrong with a preacher who isIalways preaching and whipping a sinner into lineon premillennialism:” ‘Or suppose we try another.“Really we do not need to preach every Sundayand all the time on baptism. Some preachersare noted for preaohing on baptism all t h etime, others for presenting Christ and the needof the world for Christ land stir up the hearts ofthe people to be baptized. There is somethingwrong with a preacher who is always preachingand whipping a sinner into line on baptism.” Let’stry once more. “Redly we do not need to preachevery day and all the time for people to send inmoney to help on a radio program. Some preach-ers are noted for preaching on sending money tohelp on a radio program all bhe time, others forpresenting Christ and the need of the world andStir Up #tie-hearts of the chmh to pay for radio

Programs. There is something wrong with apreacher who is always preaching and whip-ping a listening audience into hne on sendingmoney to help on a radio program.”

Will the person who wrote these lines accepttthem all? If they are true in one illustrationthey are true In all of them. If they are not truein one they are not true in any of them. It doesnot take any deep thinking on the part of any-one to see the lack of logic in the whole set up.Those who know a little about human nature areable to recognize the grand stand play that isbeing made. How is a person going to learnabout any subject unless that subject is taught?Can you teach a man to love Jesus, say nothingabout what Jesus requires of him, and get himto obey the commandments of Jesus ? A mancould stand in the pulpit and cry “love Jesus”unt,il he was black in .the face, and people wouldnot know anything about what Jesus reqv’tiredof them.

I am glad that there *is a general awakeningon the subject of liberality. It has been left alonetoo long. Many who would condemn snother forfailing to preach one subject because of the re-action it might have on an audience, will refuseto preach on 1iberali~t.y for the same reason, andfeel very hbly about it. If they think it will helpthem any, and have a grudge against another,they will join in an attack against him. “Hepreaches too much on giving.” Such tactics arefast losing favor, however, because brethrengenerally are learning more about thiis sub-ject, as well as many others, that have beenkept from them.

How much should a preacher preach on glv-inn? Until the brethren learn how and howmuch to give. How much should one preach onbaptism? Until everyone is baptized. How muchshould a person preach on premillennialism? Un-til there are no more premillennialists. You cango on from there.

CHURCH PROBLEMS -(Continued from page 81

You kndw Paul told Timothy, you take heed toyourself and you take ,heed to your doctrine forin ao doing you’ll save (both yourself and themthat hear thee. Any motive that a man has inpreaching that is not connected with saving hlm-self and those that hear him, with due regard tothe fact that God is the author of it is unworthy.If he feels that way tabout it, human opinion&magainst divine authority will have no influenceon him whatsoever in any form or -fashion orfrom any source.

16.” ,I,

T X E B+BLB “BANN@R

(Continued from pige* 2)

fountain. There can be no compromise with er-ror and truth still /be held. To coniprom:se is,to loose one’s self from the anchor of. truth.Too many are making the truth a matter of poli-tics land diplomacy. It’ is possible for folks to%elieve a lie” ‘and be damned if we receive nota “love for the truth.” The whole world is af-flicted with delusions due’to the ‘fact people donot receive a love -for the truth. Thus God per-mits man’s mind to be deluded, deceived whenthat man does not hold a strong love ‘for thetruth. It is the” ,truth that frees men from, sin@no. 8%). Jesus is, the “truth” (Jno. 14:6).We are “pudfied by the ‘truth” (I Pet. 1:22, 23).We are set apart ‘by the %uth” (Jno. 17~17).There is not a question but t&t .the church to-day id feeding Upon “softism.” Not all this at-titude is coming from the colleges, but a greatportion Of it is. TO ,giVe you proof Of this state-ment a group of college graduates were calledupon to go to a foreign field on a specipal cam-paign After they arr4ve.d on the field land were

(03 the job it was discovered by a faithful preach-‘er that they were not trained to teach the truth‘and a special session every day was held ,to in-struct these graduates in the doctrine of Christ INow if you doubt this statement I have definite

proof, can give you ,the name of the preacher,tell YOU where the work was, and the name ofthe institution from which the students gradu-ated. It would be .much be,tter for institutionstlot to teach any Bible in their halls, rather thanimplant in young minds the id& that it mjattersbut little what one believes religiously.

T R E N D TOWuQRD ENTERR’AINMBNT

This cry Was first the cry of denominational-ism. Due to laxity in teaching the Bible truths athome and in’the church, the young folks in de-nominationalism became worldly minded. Theywere taught constantly that one church was asgood as another, and even that people could besaved outside the church. They evidently be-ieved it and began to stay away from the churchin droves. In the excitement the bewildered par-ents began to cry out for a return to Bible prin-ciples that would save <their children and them-selves, but they started the appeal, “What willbecome of our young folks”? Someone suggestedthat entertainment be found for them, and thusbegan a phglse of activity in sectarian churchesthat has entered ‘into the church of Christ. Thechurch has never been by the tiithority of Christengaged in the recreational buslness, but hasIbeen engaged in the saving of souls. The en-tertalnment ddea has gone so far in denomination-al churches that church dances are being spon-sored for their plea&me, ‘and recreational halls

. .._ are ‘a: matter +f ‘necessity in church blueprintstoday. Recreation and entertainment are mat-ters of social and domestic responsibility. World-ly pleasure *and the church have never been. as-sociated in the ‘mind of, God. We would not besurprise1 if someone soon -advocates a “Theatrefor memibers of .the church to show only goodpictures’! or a “Sw@nning pool for members ofthe church” or a “Bowling alley for church mem,-herd’ or some_other ~worldly project to fasten onto the spiritual.

IN CONCLUSION

Let us ignore the modern trends in the worldthat will. lead us away from the simplicity ofthe New Testament. Let us refuse to fasten to<the church any institution of a worldly nature.Let us cling to the truth and the love for it weshould manifest, rejoicing in the Lord’s handi-work, the true tabernacle, ever lookFmg .for thecoming and claiming of our blessed Lord fromthe courts of eternal glory!

SOME OLD DOCTRINES-(Continued from page 12)

which way he went. I began my reply by saying,“One objection I have to Mr. Bogard’s theory is,he- limits the power of God. He has the sinnerso depraved and so dead that God could notmake’ a gospel that would reach him. I thenwaited .for results-they came in his next speech.He came up waving his arms and talking loud-er than usual, saying, “It is not a question ofwhat God can do. God can do anything he wantsto ‘do. He could have made a gospel that would

‘reach. that dead sinner, if he had wanted to.” I‘replied, “Oh, well,, the sinner -is not ag dead aswe have heard he is, for God could have madea gospel that would ,reach him, if-he-had-wantcd-to. So the trouble is not with the inability ofthe sinner at all: it is with the ineffectivenessof the gospel God made! But I maintain that,God made the very gospel Bogard said he couldhave made, and I .wlll ,proceed to prove it, forit is useless in the face of Bogard’s admission‘to talk any more about depravity and the deadsinner”. Then I ‘proceed& to,.ehow by numerouspassages that the gospel is God’s power for sal-vation, and that sinners were able to hoar, be-lieve, and obey that gospel., ‘Search the book of IActs, and not one time will you ,find that anysinner was told that he could not obey the ,gospelwithout a direct work of the Spirit. Will any onesay that Luke’, an inspired historian failed tomention an absolutely essential thing, reallythe only essential thing? He did, if the advo-cates of the direct operation theory are correct.Who can beH&e!it:?. : “: ~1:. ’ .:. _;: :

-.. ..:.~ 9.. (M&f&- t&. f&lIo\ii.). ) *_ .t.‘:’ . .