"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for ChristEllis, William T. (William Thomas)
Religion
"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for Christ
Ellis, William T. (William Thomas)
Baseball players -- United States -- Biography; Evangelists -- United States -- Biography; Sunday, Billy, 1862-1935
In no single particular is Sunday's work more valuable than in its
revelation of the power of positive conviction to attract and convert
multitudes. The world wants faith. "Intolerant," cry the scholars of
Sunday; but the hungry myriads accept him as their spiritual guide to
peace, and joy, and righteousness. The world wants a religion with
salvation in it; speculation does not interest the average man who
seeks deliverance from sin in himself and in the world. He does not
hope to be evoluted into holiness; he wants to be redeemed.
"Modernists" sputter and fume and rail at Sunday and his work: but they
cannot deny that he leads men and women into new lives of holiness,
happiness and helpfulness. Churches are enlarged and righteousness is
promoted, all by the old, blood-stained way of the Cross. The revivals
which have followed the preaching of Evangelist Sunday are supplemental
to the Book of the Acts. His theology is summed up in the words Peter
used in referring to Jesus: "There is none other Name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved."
One of Sunday's favorite sayings is: "I don't know any more about
theology than a jack-rabbit does about ping-pong, but I'm on the way to
glory." That really does not fully express the evangelist's point. He
was arguing that "theology bears the same relation to Christianity that
botany does to flowers, or astronomy to the stars. Botany is rewritten,
but the flowers remain the same. Theology changes (I have no objection
to your new theology when it tries to make the truths of Christianity
clearer), but Christianity abides. Nobody is kept out of heaven because
he does not understand theology. It isn't theology that saves, but
Christ; it is not the sawdust trail that saves, but Christ in the
motive that makes you hit the trail.
"I believe the Bible is the word of God from cover to cover. I believe
that the man who magnifies the word of God in his preaching is the
man whom God will honor. Why do such names stand out on the pages of
history as Wesley, Whitefield, Finney and Martin Luther? Because of
their fearless denunciation of all sin, and because they preach Jesus
Christ without fear or favor.
"But somebody says a revival is abnormal. You lie! Do you mean to tell
me that the godless, card-playing conditions of the Church are normal?
I say they are not, but it is the abnormal state. It is the sin-eaten,
apathetic condition of the Church that is abnormal. It is the 'Dutch
lunch' and beer party, card parties and the like, that are abnormal. I
say that they lie when they say that a revival is an abnormal condition
in the Church.
"What we need is the good old-time kind of revival that will cause you
to love your neighbors, and quit talking about them. A revival that
will make you pay your debts, and have family prayers. Get that kind
and then you will see that a revival means a very different condition
from what people believe it does.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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