Why Bible Presbyterian?

Heaven does not here ring out to the shouts of "love, love, love" though that is absolutely essential and has been desperately lacking in our relations one to another. Yet it is not the central characteristic of God for us today. We do not hear "evangelize, evangelize, evangelize" though that is absolutely essential and perhaps has been desperately lacking in our churches today. We don't even hear "unite, unite, unite" as though that would bring us God's approbation. Dr. Arthur Steele, in his syllabus for teaching has listed the PCA as part of the neo-evangelical movement. He rightly points out, "One must look at the direction a church is leaning to discern its future." Uniting has harmed some of our closest brothers. In times of crisis and decline two directions are usually seen: union based upon declining conviction, and disintegration from a non-biblical separation. Unity binds us in a biblical sense to many even beyond the Presbyterian fold. Let it bind our own family together. Unity and not necessarily union is the critical element to our usefulness to Christ. Nor, do I think, do we hear the central message of this passage cry "reconstruct, reconstruct, reconstruct." It is possible to disagree on this point and yet work together as we heed a holy God. And let me say, Bible Presbyterians have in the past been ahead of what the most outspoken Reconstructionists in our activism and call for our churches and nation to turn back to God's Word. We could perhaps make similar disclaimers on the centrality of "program," or "size," or even of "relevance." God grant us wisdom in determining the applications for our church of a Holy God.

This year, I have been in the BP Church fifty years. As a matter of fact I was one day old the day that Faith Theological Seminary was started.

Little Mrs. Perkins, a visitor from the Tacoma BPC, in 1940 came to our poor home and brought clothing and help. She invited the family to her church. My parents sent us. I was a child of three.

What a church it was! Dr. Roy Talmidge Brumbaugh was pastor. The perception is that he, like other BP founders brushed his teeth with barbed wire and used ground glass for catsup. Not so. He was of the family of Pennsylvania's Governor Brumbaugh, and was a mighty preacher and leader. He came to Tacoma from the great Wannamaker Church in Philadelphia. His full sermons were printed in the paper every week. He was a great defender of the faith as well as an evangelist. Over forty thousand soldiers were brought to the church through his leadership. Many were saved. I was among those led to Christ by his ministry.

In those days, other giants roamed the halls of our denomination. I left engineering studies in Washington to attend Highland College in California. There, Clyde Kennedy, who had founded the college, and pastored Calvary Bible Presbyterian Church of Glendale set a pattern of godly and fearless activism and evangelism. He absolutely ignited us students with heroism. Numerous times he rented the Los Angeles Civic Auditorium as the place to hold a great public rally on the controversies of the day. The crowds always came. I don't remember ever seeing him buy gas for his automobile, or pay for a meal at the restaurant without his giving a tract or witness for Christ. Many in Christ's service today accepted Christ through his personal witness. Though virtually forgotten, he was one of the greatest prophets of our church.

I wish all could have been in Collingswood during the early 60s. The church was full, and the pulpit thundered the timeless truths of God. Many souls were won to Christ in that pinnacle-time. Timid souls were sent soaring into brave service to their Lord. Later troubles cannot dim, in my mind, those memories.

Not too far from here, we heard news of some stubborn Dutchman who in the 50s came out of the Dutch Reformed Church to ally himself to our rag-tag band. His strength, that which brought Instant love of him, was his straight-forward speech and life. Here truly is an "Israelite in whom is no guile" His was a painful and costly struggle. His name was Vandermay. How impoverished we, and we trust he, should have been had he not led his family in this holy act.

One of the greatest crimes we have committed upon our children is the failure to print the lives our unmatched missionaries! No denomination can claim better servants. Sara Hosmon, Louisa Lee, Albert Dodd, J. Gordon Holdcroft, Thomas Lambie, Dwight Malsbury and Malcomb St. Clair Frehn are just a sampling of those from our number "of whom the world was not worthy."

Consider Dr. Frehn who this past year was caught up to Glory. He taught me at Highland College while he was on furlough from Japan. He had been one of McArthur's translators in the war trials of 1945 after years of service in Hokaido. I remember his saying one day in Greek, "Our text (Huddleson Greek Grammar) is a little book, but we are going to learn it all." And we did. I still remember those paradigms of the irregular verb! He used Shedd's Dogmatic Theology text in class. What enlightenment. He was without a doubt the best teacher I ever had. Have our children even heard of him?

Think of Albert Baldwin Dodd. in 1902 he had earned three degrees from Princeton, and presented himself to the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board as a candidate to China. The Board refused him because of a heart murmur, and also because he was partially paralyzed from polio. They told him that he would die from the six-month trip to China. He was convinced God had called Him. He struck a deal with the Board, that if he paid his own way to China and was still alive six months after arrival, they would accept him as their missionary. He remained a missionary to the Chinese people for seventy years. Here was a man who, when he got on an airplane passed out tracts to every single person on the plane. On the train, or the bus he was always evangelizing. Though he was really a scholar and Old Testament teacher in several Chinese theological seminaries, few mission Boards have seen as faithful an evangelist. He was one of those to point out the unbelief of his Board's missionaries. His revelations were instrumental In the founding of the Bible Presbyterian Church.

Sara Hosmon was quite a person. As a girl she lost a leg near the hip in an accident. That didn't seem to slow her. In a day when girls didn't become doctors, she did. God called her to Saudi Arabia and she obeyed. Edna Barter told me of their return to the field In 1952. The ocean liner took them as close to Sharjah's shore a. possible. There was no dock. She and Dr. Hosmon had to get down into a rowboat to go in closer to shore. Soon the shallow waters prevented even their small boat from going farther. Then, Edna said, this elderly one-legged woman (Sara Hosmon) climbed out of the boat and the two of them waded ½ mile to shore carrying their few things. There was nothing awaiting them but sand and a small dirty village. Hosmon saw souls without Christ. This giant of the faith who worked 40 years in Arabia has been forgotten on earth even by her own church.

I remember once being captured by Palestinian comandos. Forty-five Russian rifles were aimed at my head. "What are you doing here? Who are you?" They really threatened! I told them that I worked at the Baraka Hospital in El Arroub near Bethlehem. Their leader smiled and asked, "How is Mrs. Lambie?" The Lambies were a legend in their day. Today you could go to almost any Palestinian refugee camp in the Middle East and find some who heard the gospel from the Lambies. Here was a man who not only had his M.D. degree but also had a doctorate in Science. More, he was a great evangelist. God had used him to start and build seven hospitals In his lifetime. He was court physician of Ethiopia for years. The common people loved him because of his great compassion and simple preaching. His tract on separation from apostasy Is still used in our churches. We don't have time to speak of J. Gordon Holdcroft or the Malsburys and how God used them.

Those were great days of excitement and growth in the Bible Presbyterian Church. We were small but unparalleled in our power. Oh If you could all have been there! Oh that we could go back to those early days. That sounds like the words of a sentimental fool. I consider myself neither. I know we cannot go back. The twisted remains of sin obscure even our backward glance. The world has moved forward. God's clock has changed. A new generation and new challenges beckon us. And we delight in this new day. I rejoice in the young men God has given for the new day. As we look at Reformation history what a sad day for us if the Reformation had stopped with Zwingli. As great as he was, his church would have been merely a humanist renaissance movement. His teaching and life were dominated to some extent by the Romanist-humanist Erasmus. Bullinger, his successor maintained the status quo. But Farel -- here was one who D'Aubigne says "despised the men who are never more than half-way on the side of truth, and who, while aware of the dangers of error, are full of deference for those who propagate it." As D'Aubigne goes on to say, "thus in Farel was seen that decision which became one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Reformation in France and French Switzerland (and I add the Bible Presbyterian Church) which has sometimes been stigmatized as rudeness, exclusiveness or intolerance." Erasmus, the leading scholar of the day and editor of the "Textus Receptus", was highly irritated at this new development among the Protestants. He wrote, in a letter to the pope and still on file there, of Farel, "They have always in their mouths these five words -- Gospel, Word of God, Faith, Christ, Holy Spirit; and yet I doubt not that it is the spirit of Satan that impels them." One reformer says of Farel In a letter to Luther, "Some could wish that this zeal against the enemies of the truth were more moderate; but I cannot help seeing in this very zeal an admirable virtue, which, if seasonably displayed is no less necessary than gentleness." D'Aubigne adds, "posterity has confirmed that judgment." Finally Calvin appeared to systematize the results of the Reformation. Without the latter the first were incomplete. Younger men, unto you may fall such responsibility in our own church. We pray God, for the sake of our children, that you have in your midst a Farel and a Calvin.

Why Bible Presbyterian? Certainly not because of our history. Our history is marred and incomplete, but it has evidenced God's blessings of power and usefulness. Moreover, God's promises to us are not blunted even by painful excesses in our history. Our future remains stunning in potential.

Our Fathers were very wise in the direction they gave to our Church. They placed our agenda in the very forefront of the day's controversies. To illustrate; On the new property of the Suncoast BP church there is a swimming pool. One of the pool tools left by the previous owners was an automatic pool vacuum cleaner. This particular model has a nasty habit of moving into a corner of the pool bottom and running in circles. That corner gets clean, but the rest of the pool remains dirty. Many denominations approach truth and society in a similar manner -- in a corner. Our Church fathers sought, biblically, to clean up the whole "pool" of church and society and not just a corner. We have been an activist group, vocal and involved in the central controversies of the day. Was that wise? Was it biblical? Would a future similar course justify a positive answer to the question of the evening, "Why BPs?" Can BPs be a blessing to the entire nation and church? Will the next generation of our church be content in the comfort of cleaning just a corner?

Consider Jeremiah, especially chapter 23. He had such a negative ministry. He condemned most if not all the clergy and people of his day. Was he a blessing to his people? Did he speak what God wanted him to? is his example a pattern for us? is his message of irremediable judgment applicable to our nation and people today?

We can see Jeremiah's commission as one of tearing down, and also the work of building up (Jeremiah 1:10). That is a necessary sequence in God's work for any day. We also see in Jeremiah's book that God's day of judgment upon His people had come. We do not know if God might still hold out to the U.S. what he denied Israel through Jeremiah; judgment. Solzhenitzin has said it is too late for America. If so, should we speak the Word of the Lord as Jeremiahs?

Why Bible Presbyterians? I have not satisfactorily answered that question this evening. But let me say that you are my family. I have known no other. You are most precious to me. I jealously covet your acceptance and love. Sometimes some of you have me so angry. But then, many times your integrity and love have made me terribly proud of you. Here at Synod I have learned of such pain. On one side is a brother who has experienced betrayal of long friendships. Those he has lovingly led to Christ and fed for years, have lacerated his heart with cruelty and hatred. My heart weeps with him. Another suffers daily from grinding financial need. Then here is another who is enduring the pain and uncertainty of disease. (We have rallied our congregation to pray for every need and rejoice in every victory you have had.) Give me this great family to love and pray for. Give me you, my brothers to stand with as we serve in this evil day. We must, as a denomination learn how to "bear one anothers' burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." Wouldn't it be great if other denominations could look upon us and say, "they are small, and we don't like their insistence on God's Holiness, they won't join us in our unbiblical compromise, but look how they tenderly care for one another." This is not learned in schools. This is only learned in heeding the Word of the Holy God.

Are you saved? Is Christ your Lord and Master? Repentance and trust in Christ as your Saviour is your great need right now. And then, are you a BP ready to enter into the struggles of the mainstream of the church and society, in bringing your neighbors, friends, politicians and public officials, as well as businessmen and industrialists to the obedience of God's Word? Have we more Hosmons, Lambies and Dodds or a Clyde Kennedy in our church family to bring the heathen to Christ?

Why Bible Presbyterian? Our history has shown us the way, both good and bad. Our exemplary centrality and vigor have shown us that we have what is needed for the future. Our size is strength in the sense that we have little to drag with us into the future.

Our direction must be provided by the Holy God in whose presence we stand. God grant us a continuing church in which idealism may remain unstained, and guide us to the "well done" of our Saviour.