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.

A Letter From a Prisoner
Evangelist Robert L. Sumner

Dear Brother L:

Thank you for your gracious letter of September 9. You wrote kindly even though you were disagreeing with something I wrote in our paper, The Biblical Evangelist. Good Christians can disagree and still be friends, of course. And I am glad that you are seeking to be a clear light in a dark atmosphere, manifesting Christ to those around you. That is good. God bless you, my brother.

I preached a couple of times in your area at the Beeville Baptist Church – in 1988 when T. E. Williams was pastor and again in 1989 when Tim Stowe was pastor. In fact, we made our headquarters at nearby Ingleside for several years.

You questioned what I said about the bungled execution of the vicious, cruel killer in Oklahoma. You asked, “Where is Christ in this?” While you are correct that you do not have any right to judge me or my motives, you have a perfect right to judge my actions, especially in my writing. Our Lord told us to “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:14). So you have a right to judge whether my writing was according to Scripture or not. You do not think so. I think it was.

Let’s see what the Bible teaches.

You said, “Our God is one of love and light.” That is true indeed, but it is also true that He, in a passage where we are told, “let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear,” goes on immediately to add, “For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). We must be careful not to make God’s attributes of “love” and “condemnation” fight or contradict one another. Both are true, of course.

Go back and read what I said about that inhuman monster in the Oklahoma prison whose innocent victim “was beaten, abused, and terrorized,” and then buried alive while he and his buddies joked about it. I used, admittedly, harsher language about him than I would about some other killer.

And as for using harsh language, go to Matthew and read what our Lord said about those “clean living, religious” people in His day (Matthew 23:23-33). My language certainly wasn’t any harsher than His. Remember, God Himself doesn’t forgive unrepentant, wicked sinners. He offers it to all, but it is not given apart from repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am sorry you are in prison. But you can be a good witness for Christ there. I trust you will be.