I came across a few old Southern Baptists voices this morning. It made me wonder where all the prophetic voices are in our day.
First, there is this amazing quote from Adrian Rogers. (Follow that link for the audio.) It just shows so much of our current political debates are nothing new, except that our generation doesn’t have the common sense to see the consequences.
“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for.
That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”
Then there was this video clip of Billy Graham talking about happiness. The whole part about getting rich was very timely. I think he said something like this in nearly every sermon, but it’s still good to hear.
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I just noticed this video was from Lexington KY – Southern Baptist territory too!
Wooo, Lexington! That’s my hometown! (Sorry, don’t get a chance to shout out old Lex-Vegas very often.)
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Tony,
Interesting post. You young guys go ahead listening and learning from these young preachers and professors. But don’t forget the ones who have gone before. They also deserve a hearing.
Some of you may be surprised at how much you get from them.
Preachers like Vance Havner, R. G. Lee, W. A. Criswell (wacriswell.org), Herschel Hobbs, Jerry Vines, Paige Patterson, Josh McDowell, and, of course, the ones you refer to, Adrian Rogers and Billy Graham.
And even a few non-Southern Baptists like Warren Wiersbe, J. Vernon McGee, H. A. Ironside, R. L. Sumner, John R. Rice, John Phillips, John MacArthur, Charles Spurgeon, D. L. Moody.
You won’t agree with everything they say, but then, you don’t agree with everything your professors say either
.
David R. Brumbelow
My husband (while in school with the Marine Corps) attended church where Adrian Rogers pastored in Tennessee . He loved absolutely every sermon he ever heard Pastor Rogers preach! I just heard this quote from him the other day and had made a mental note to look it up. It’s so good to see someone else using the same quote!
Have a blessed evening!
Sallie
Old SBC Prophets how about, Broadus, Daag, Melton, and Robertson and
Machen/
@David: Thanks for the comments. I just found a Criswell video I’ll post later tonight.
Yes, we have had our prophets, and like Israel of old have rejected them by not following their teaching.
The SBC had its prophets back in the 1800s. J.P. Boyce did not believe the south should secede, while John A. Broadus was a secessionist. Boyce thought there would be a war, and the South would lose it due to the way that Southerners had treated the Black family. In the records of the FBC of Charleston where he grew up, there was the case of a Black woman whose husband was sold off. She eventually took up living with another man. The church Excommunicated her. Some time later she applied to be readmitted, but the church refused to accept her with her marriage arrangements. She argued, “My husband has been sold off. I will never see him again. What can I do.” The church had no answer to her problem, but they would not accept her back. There are other cases, worse still, where children were sold off, parents were sold off, were even ministers abused family members who objected rather strenuously to having a baby sold out of their arms. Things of this nature was very likely what Boyce had in mind. Southern Baptists might well owe that man a lot, for it is said he carried Southern financially at a time with the Convention did not have the money to support it. Boyce was independently wealthy, having investments outside of the South during the war. He once expressed the wish that he could help a ministerial student with his theology like he could help in something else. Wonder what he would say, if he could see the situation today. Recently I wrote an article on the theology of the Great Awakenings and the origins of missions among Baptists, but I do not think any will publish it due to the findings. God willing, one day I will publish it. My hope is that it will serve to provide one of the chief elements in another awakening, namely, the theology of such, the other two elements being the Presence and the humility. David spoke in his Psalm in I Chronicles 16:15 of God being faithful to His word for a thousand (1,000) generations. Allowing 20 yrs. per generation, that could imply the possibility of 20,000 years. for some years now I have been praying not only for a Third Great Awakening, but for one that would win the whole earth in one generation and then for a 1,000 more generations after that. Could it be that man might go to the stars (if he has not already gone), and so we might have a literal fulfilment of the gathering of the elect from one end of the heavens to the other?
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