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Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation. The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here. Off the Cuff! (Part 1) For the child of God, this is a special and sacred time of the year, an occasion for us to put special emphasis on our Lord’s sacrifice at Calvary and His victorious emerging from the tomb after three days and three nights. As for Our dear friend and former board member, W. Wilbert Welch, now in his nineties, is rejoicing in William L. Pettingill was certainly an influential man of God in his day, co-founder of the And we think you will appreciate the editor’s contributions this issue, an Easter message dealing with our Lord’s resurrection, and an article about MEMORIALS We were saddened to lose not only a dear friend of long standing but a beloved member of the Biblical Evangelism board when Roger Copas went to be with the Lord early that morning and then joined Him in celebrating Christmas Day. The message sent by a son to Roger’s many friends announcing his Homegoing read as follows: “We wanted to share with you all that my dad passed away this morning. Our family was able to be with him the last few days and enjoy his final days together. Many of you knew my dad and his love for the Lord and heart for people. We are in great peace as we know he is in Heaven. We will miss him but know that we will see him again because of God's saving grace! There may have been more eloquent speakers but no one was a more genuine leader of people than my dad. Merry Christmas, Dad, you can celebrate Jesus' birthday with Him ... we will miss you and we love you!” Roger was saved under our ministry back in the early 1960s; I had the joy of baptizing him and later uniting him and his young bride, Linda, in holy matrimony. We also had the privilege of preaching and conducting crusades in his churches. In the early 1990s he was stricken with deadly cancer and they did everything but conduct his funeral back then, but God miraculously raised him up and gave him a bonus greater than he gave King Hezekiah of nearly 20 years. (I say “miraculously” because that is what the doctors called it!) Born in Portsmouth (OH), the son of Verlin and Mildred Copas, after his second birth – while he was working as a barber in his own shop – he felt the call of God to fish for souls. He and Linda went to He served his first church, Pinecrest Baptist, from 1972 to 1979 and then accepted a call to the staff of While he was a true pastor with a real heart for people and helping them, his first priority was his family: Linda and his two sons, Scott and Randy. The latter were big boys and very sports-minded. He loved to watch them play and often drove long distances to watch them do so. At least one played football on the university level. In addition to wife Linda and his sons, he is survived by two daughters-in-law, Sue (wife of Scott) and Susan (wife of Randy) and four grandchildren: Zach, Logan, Morgan, and Hunter. Sharing their loss is his sister, Pat Jenkins of Oak Ridge (NJ), along with several nieces and nephews. The memorial service was held in Memorial contributions may be sent in his name to the * * * * * They called him “Goldie” and he lived up to his name in proclaiming the precious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. During World War II he was one of those rare but courageous glider pilots, sailing dangerously high in the skies above enemy lines seeking information – as well as occasionally airlifting vital supplies – without any real protection for himself. It was an all-volunteer job in those days. He survived. In fact, he called it “an adventure.” But death comes sooner or later to everyone (Hebrews He founded and led the Dr. Goldman was saved under the dynamic preaching of Dr. John Rawlings a few days before Christmas (he didn’t know it, but a pact had been made by his sweetheart and her mother that if he didn’t get saved by Christmas, she would return his ring and break their engagement). As a result, he and Katherine Ruth Aven were united in holy wedlock on Shortly after they were married Goldie surrendered to preach and did something we’ve never heard of anyone else ever doing. He placed an ad in the paper announcing, “Young preacher has never preached a sermon, but wants to get started. Phone Curtis Goldman #5867.” Believe it or not, a preacher in a nearby town saw the ad, needed a supply for his absence in a revival meeting, called him, and Goldie’s first sermon resulted! He turned down two “one hundred percent” calls, one in * * * * * He was the right-hand man of Lester Roloff, working with him for 35 years, and when the latter was killed in a plane crash, Wiley Cameron, Sr., took the reins of the City of Refuge Ministries and became pastor of the Cameron leaves his wife, Marion Faye; three daughters, Patsy, Genie Smith (David), and Alice Ptak (Tom); 11 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. All the survivors are in the Eatonton (GA) area where Wiley had moved following his retirement. * * * * * This item is a little late, but friends in Mrs. Koppin receive a Batchelor’s Degree in music from Believe it or not, she was also deeply interested in boating. A member of the Indianapolis Sailing Club and the Indianapolis Cruising Club, she and her husband Gilbert also helped launch the National Y Flyer fleet at the latter club. As for politics, for two decades she was Ward Chairman in Prior to her decease she was very active in Sunday School, Missions and Christian Education at the * * * * * I heard him one time in the flesh but numerous times on television. The one occasion I heard Oral Granville Roberts in person was when I was a young pastor in Graham (TX) and went to his tent meeting at My purpose in going was to observe the “healing meeting” section of the service. It did not take place until the crowd was exhausted and many of the faithful had given up and gone home. Most of the “healings” were things not outwardly observable, such as stomach ulcer, collapsed lung, etc. – that is, you couldn’t tell whether a healing had taken place or not – and I remember one really tough time he had with a blind (or partially blind) man who refused to say he was healed (all must do that as a sign of faith, of course). Oral finally gave up on him, quoting Mark 8:24, “And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking,” assuring him when he got home the rest of the miracle would occur (Vs. 25, “After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly”). Roberts was, above all, a master showman, but he did not start out that way. The son of a Pentecostal Holiness preacher, as a teen he stuttered badly and at one time was even diagnosed with tuberculosis, spending more than five months in bed. He claimed to have been cured of both under the ministry of Evangelist George W. Moncey in July of 1935 and the next year he was ordained a Pentecostal Holiness preacher. In the period between 1941 and 1947 he served briefly four different pastorates. It was the latter year that he published his first book, If You Need Healing – Do These Things! and launched his first city-wide healing crusade. His specialty was tent meetings – he called them “Tent Cathedrals” – and he eventually had the world’s largest portable gospel tent, seating over 12,000. He put Pentecostalism on the map and even helped launch the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International. However, he evidently wanted a higher niche in religious circles and in 1968 he left the Pentecostal Holiness movement and joined the respectable United Methodists of the south where some of its churches were still evangelical, although most were liberal. The move apparently didn’t help and at his death he was still being billed in the media as “the fiery Pentecostal preacher.” [The Methodists, incidentally, refused to accept his Holiness ordination, making him a mere Methodist layman, and refusing to accept ORU grads as candidates for Methodist ordination!] He started Oral Roberts University in 1965 – and a major goal was to bring an NCAA basketball championship to the institution (he paid big bucks to hire noted coaches and the team did well for a spell, but has fallen on hard times of late). One eternal benefit was that a tourist visiting its campus in the 1960s with his 7-year-old son, Jerry, Jr., inspired Jerry Falwell to do something about his own dream for a school and we now have Roberts opened his $250 million City of As Oral got older his tales got wilder. He told his givers in a 1980 letter that a 900-foot Jesus appeared to him as he prayed in front of his City of Faith (“He stood a full 300 feet taller than the 600 foot tall City of Faith,” the tallest complex in Tulsa, Oral reported). He wrote the faithful, according to Tulsa World, quoting the letter: "I felt an overwhelming holy presence all around me. When I opened my eyes, there He stood ... some 900 feet tall, looking at me; His eyes ... Oh! His eyes!” This was followed by an even more bizarre story making him a laughingstock all across In the 1970s Oral’s prime-time specials drew an estimated 40 million viewers and he is generally credited with being the founder of the “health and wealth” prosperity gospel. His “seed faith” formula (that God would miraculously return viewers' contributions many times over) made many of his prominent healing peers, who stole the idea, very rich men indeed. Oral knew both joy and sorrow. For joy, he was happily married for 66 years to Evelyn Lutman, a godly woman who preceded him in death. For sorrow, his daughter Rebecca and her banker husband, Marshall Nash, were tragically killed in a plane crash in 1977, and his firstborn son, Ronald, committed suicide in 1982. Oral died at age 91 in December, three days after a fall in his home, when he broke both neck and pelvis. That Oral Roberts made a strong impact on the evangelical community is indisputable, even though we disagreed with much of his major theology, especially so-called tongues speaking (he held “speaking in tongues is normative for every believer”) and his brand of divine healing. He did hold to the fundamentals of the faith, for which we are grateful and the reason we report his death in this section. The Houston pastor of America’s largest church, Joel Osteen, is an Oral Roberts University dropout. MILESTONES Our longtime friends, Donald & Bettye Ledbetter celebrated fifty years of wedded bliss on We salute the IS CHRIST’S CRY REAL? We long admired the conservative work of Phyllis Schlafly and what she exposed in the political arena, especially her fight against the ERA Amendment. In fact, the latter might have passed if it had not been for her leadership in opposing it. One of her sons, Andrew, founded Conservapedia (a take on Wikipedia, which he found too liberal, as we also have). Alas, we have found his source too unreliable to suit our taste. The Schlaflys are strong Roman Catholics and perhaps that is his problem in his new online ministry. We say that to note Andy also has what he calls the Conservative Bible Project and he really should have stayed with politics. He knows nothing – make that next-to-nothing – about Bible manuscripts and his ignorance shows in one of his latest press releases. He claims the Lord’s cry from the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke His scholarly proof? It was added by translators who were professors and, "Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it's professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible." Can you believe that? Talk about guilt by association! The issue is whether the words are in the original text, not the occupations of the translators. I guess this is what you get when amateurs like Schlafly mess with the holy book. As we noted in our sermon “Christ’s Calls from the Cross,” this prayer of compassionate forgiveness was repeated by the Savior throughout His six-hour ordeal. The original language is in the active imperative, literally meaning, “Then Jesus kept saying …” In other words, He continually repeated the prayer over and over – all through the humiliation, all through the suffering and agony – “Father, forgive them … Father, forgive them.” But Schlafly and his fellow textual amateurs want to remove that precious thought from the Word of God. Why? Because there is no mention of sprinkling holy water by a human priest? God forbid! But surely, since the facts are against him, he must have some hidden agenda in his accusation other than “it is a favorite of liberals.” It is also a favorite of Bible-believing conservatives! OBAMA, REID AND THE LORD’S DAY! In December, with his radical health care bill the public majority of Americans have said loudly and clearly it does not want in dire shape, Obama huddled with Senator Majority leader Reid and when their conference broke up the latter immediately called a rare Lord’s Day session for the Senate – something one major newspaper said communicated a clear message: “church be [obscenity deleted].” As WallBuilders noted, no such “emergency session” was ever held until the 20th century and, “In fact, there were no congressional Sunday sessions even during the nation's most serious crises, including World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Only in recent years has Congress decided to violate the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution's ‘Sundays Excepted’ Clause.” That “Sundays Excepted” clause is in the Constitution, Article I, Section 7, Paragraph 2, near the end, “If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.” The Supreme Court recognized this during Kennedy’s administration, saying in a ruling about this clause, “Can any impartial mind deny that it contains a recognition of the Lord’s Day as a day exempted by law from all worldly pursuits? ... Sunday was recognized as a day of rest.” Various state senates have also so ruled. In fact, the United States Senate said in 1853: “Sunday ‘the Christian Sabbath’ is recognized and respected by all the departments of the government. In the law, Sunday is a ‘dies non’ [a day on which no legal business can be transacted]; it cannot be used for the service of legal process, the return of writs, or other judicial purposes; the executive departments, the public establishments, are all closed on Sundays; on that day neither House of Congress sits.” Maybe Obama, Reid and other political religious pagans ought to study American history – and American law – before cramming down our throats a bill we do not want! WASHINGTON & ETHICS! In early December the Gallup Poll – one of the oldest and most highly respected in the country – showed Obama’s approval rating dropping to a low of 47%, a record in modern history for a president in the first year of his first term. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded by mocking the prestigious poll, comparing it with “a 6-year-old with a crayon.” Hey, if you can’t answer, mock! Well, the 6-year-olds with crayons are at it again. It recently released its ‘Honesty and Ethics of Professions’ poll and it shows less than 50% of the public have much confidence in Washington politicians. Most Americans polled rate members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate “low/very low” for honesty and ethics. The senators did a little better (by 6%) than Pelosi and her buddies. How many in the poll gave the shysters “high/very high” rating? The Senate got 11% and the House 9% – probably from those on the dole and happy to get something for nothing (i.e., paid by others, without having to work)! Probably Tiger Woods would get higher marks than the politicians for “honesty/ethics.” P.S. To be straightforward and open, my fellow ministers in the cloth are slipping in the public eye, too. While half (50%) still get “high/very high” ratings, this is the lowest since Thanks to columnist Star Parker for this information. DRIVING MISS DAISY! No, this editorial is not about that movie – which we didn’t see anyway – but about our friend Dr. Arthur Houk (we held meetings with him at the First Baptist Church of Tumwater, Washington, back in July of 1957, well over a half-century ago). Art has a “Chauffer for Preachers” on his web. It seems that after graduating from what is now He wrote the other day: “I appreciate your new book on Fights. After reading the chapter on H. A. Ironside I thought you would be interested in my experience with him,” and he enclosed the article, “Chauffer for Harry Ironside.” It not only interested us, but we felt we should share it with you. He wrote: Harry Ironside lived from 1876 to 1951. He pastored Dr. Ironside was legally blind at that time and his wife was a big help to him. He preached an expository Bible message at the Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church in After Dr. Ironside finished speaking with his wife, I asked him this question, “What do you think of the ‘come outism’, or separatist movement away from the leading denominations where churches have broken away and become independent?” His reply was, “The separatist movement is very good and very spiritual as long as it does not go to their heads.” By this, he meant the separatist people are not to become too proud. This is indeed interesting, because he had just preached in a church which was affiliated with the Presbyterian USA group, which was apostate even at that time. Dr. J. Vernon McGee later broke off fellowship with the Presbyterian USA denomination. Dr. Ironside also preached in the Church of the Open Door in Dr. Ironside was a great, good man and those trying to slur and slander his memory should be ashamed of themselves! Amen? |
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