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 2
Dr. Robert L. Sumner, Editor

A JOHN R. RICE REVIVAL!

We have dear friends in Starke (FL), Rev. Frederick Jackson and his lovely wife, Clydie. Rick is pastor of the Bradford Baptist Church and a member of our board of directors here at Biblical Evangelism.

Obviously, we love them dearly.

Be that as it may, Rick, as I call him, found a set of compact digital audio discs on the internet packaged as REVIVAL, released by The Sword of the Lord Publishers. It contained 20 messages that Dr. Rice preached at a revival in Portsmouth (OH) when I was pastor of that work, Temple Baptist Church, back in the 1960s. The set was missing a couple of discs, but he and his wife were able to replace them and then presented the set to me as a gift. The original price would have been over $100 when postage and shipping were added.

What a delight! What a treasure!

Some of the messages were: “Watching Jesus Die,” “Hell,” “The High Cost of Revival,” “The Ruin of a Christian,” “Am I My Brother’s Keeper,” “The Christian Home,” “The Scarlet Sin,” “The Greatest Question Any Man Ever Answered,” “The Lord’s Arm Is Not Shortened,” and “Getting Ready for the Lion’s Den.” Since the set I received numbered more than the 20 messages of the crusade, apparently the Jacksons added some others they thought we would enjoy.

And did we ever! I was impressed once again, approximately a half-century later, with how Dr. Rice’s messages were so Scripture-sated. He left nothing to imagination, proving every point he made by the Word of God – and illustrating profusely from his past experiences in evangelism. My heart and soul was deeply moved as I listened anew.

We mention it now to say that if you ever get an opportunity to obtain this set called REVIVAL, be sure to do so. As noted above, it is a treasure.

We were amused that the set, neither on the outside package nor in the introductions to any of the sermons by the Sword staff, made any mention of the pastor of this church that was prominently featured. In fact, while the back of the package featured a number (six in all) from Rice’s “Editor’s Notes” about the meeting, all reference to the pastor were carefully edited out.

Alas, for well over a quarter of a century I have been a persona non grata to them. In the early 1980s a bunch of us (both workers on the staff and members of the Sword board of directors) quietly left – without any disturbance or disruption at all – because we could no longer agree with nor support the leadership at the time. I guess it was a given the pastor not be named.

The humor for me came in the fact that in no message did Dr. Rice fail to mention me, sometimes calling me Brother Sumner, or Bob, or Pastor Sumner.

It was a great crusade with people saved in every service and in homes and other places.

Lord, do it again!

A HARD NUT TO CRACK

FOR CALVINISTS

Years ago we printed a Billy Sunday sermon preached during his Detroit crusade, “Nuts for Skeptics to Crack.” It was a winner, but we don’t refer to it now.

The expression “a hard nut to crack” – sometimes defined “a tough nut to crack” – is defined: “A difficult problem; also, an individual who is difficult to deal with. For example, ‘This assignment is a hard nut to crack,’ or ‘It won't be easy getting her approval; she's a tough nut to crack.’ This metaphoric expression alludes to hard-shelled nuts like walnuts.” And this source said the saying went back to the early 1700s.

Calvinism, to make it work in soteriology, has invented two calls for sinners. One is a ‘general’ call (which, as I understand it, is meaningless – simply a ‘show’ call that is given to all mankind); the other is an ‘effectual’ call, which always results in the salvation of the sinner thus called and is only offered to the elect. Where is this distinction in the Bible? Nowhere! It is nonexistent, a phony made up to fool the uneducated. You see, in theology if you need something to enhance your ideas, you just make it up.

A true Calvinist defines saving election something like this: in eternity past, based upon nothing other than His own sovereignty, having nothing to do with man’s works good or bad, God chose certain people to be saved; all the others He did not choose (i.e., reprobation, but most don’t talk much about that) and they will not (make that cannot) be saved. All of those that God chose in eternity past will be saved. Not one single individual not chosen by Him in eternity past will be saved.

While God did indeed choose some to be saved in eternity past and based neither on good or bad works, the Scripture says it was based on something: His foreknowledge (I Peter 1:2, “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”). In short, it was not based on God’s good pleasure alone, but on what God foreknew. Non-Calvinists, also called Biblicists, understand this to be based on His omniscience, His foreknowledge of how each individual would respond to the call of God in Christ Jesus. This saves God from being called a “respecter of persons” (which He is not, Acts 10:34, but would be if the call was based only on His good pleasure). It also takes a muddy doctrine (election) and makes it as plain as day.

But what is the ‘hard nut’ to crack?

It is found in Paul’s advice to them that had “obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (II Peter 1:10). Note that these folks were already saved; they had already “obtained” the righteousness of God necessary to salvation through faith. No one questions that, to my knowledge.

But then Peter goes on to say, after listing numerous virtues of the Christian life that make one fruitful in His service, “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Vss. 8-11).

Note those words in verse 10: make your calling and election sure! And they were to do so diligently!

What in the world could a born again Christian do to make his election sure? According to a Calvinist, he is either elect, or he isn’t; he has got it or he hasn’t. If he hasn’t been elected, there is nothing he can do in either time or eternity to make himself elected.

So tell me, Mr. Calvinist, what can a born-again Christian, one who was chosen by God in eternity past, do to make his salvation “sure”? The word for sure in this passage, W. E. Vine tells us in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, is bebaios, meaning “firm, stedfast.” It is the same word used in verse 19 of the same chapter regarding the “sure word of prophecy.” Is the Bible sure or not?

Yes, that is a ‘hard nut’ for a Calvinist to crack.

For a Biblicist there is no problem. Peter was simply asking those who “lack” the virtues listed: are you sure you are one of the elect, based on the checklist for believers in verses four through seven? If you discover there that you are not saved, give diligence to immediately trust the Lord Jesus Christ and be born again!

Is your calling and election sure? Do you know you have been saved? Go over God’s checklist.

THE WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS AND THE OSLO ACCORD

What do you think of when you hear the word “settlement”? Most today, I fear, when they hear the phrase “West Bank settlement,” think of squatters on land temporarily that doesn’t belong to them.

That is not true in Israel! Many of the homes on the West Bank are in communities three decades old and some of the Jews have lived there all their lives. (Jewish residency there goes back way beyond the time of Christ, of course.) For example, Linda Cohn, writing a “Guest Opinion” in Jewish Review, told of staying in a home in Tekoa on the West Bank where the host couple had lived since birth.

She wrote: “There was a big tree out front and hundreds of birds sang every morning and every evening. The husband said that when they came to Tekoa, there was not one tree and not one bird. These are the people who are expected to leave their homes in order to create a Palestinian state.”

In Hebron, where Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Leah are buried, the Jews are only permitted to live in three percent of the city while Arabs are allowed in 98 percent.

Cohn said that under the Oslo accords, where Palestinians are in control, no Jews are allowed. It is, she said, “a crime punishable by death in both Palestinian and Jordanian territories for an Arab to sell land to a Jew.” In Bethlehem, where Arabs are in control, there are walls and checkpoints – in contrast to the wide open borders when Israel was in command.

According to the Oslo accords, the Palestinians were to permit open access to all holy places under its control. It is not happening. They are in open violation to “every stipulation” of the treaty they signed in Oslo. Cohn noted that the hilltop settlements of a few trailers inhabited by poverty-stricken people “are considered to be a threat to world peace, while rockets from Gaza are not.” Strange, isn’t it?

Rockets? Yes, an Israeli city a mile and a half from the Gaza border, Sderot, has been hit 8,000 times by rockets from Gaza. I guess the Muslims considered that mere target practice.

The sad thing is that President Obama, as Cohn noted, insists the Palestinians get a state there “no matter whether they abide by Oslo, no matter whether they desecrate Jewish holy places, no matter whether they commit murder or advocate ethnic cleansing.” In fact, the Obama administration announced a stark reversal in U.S. policy with an offer to sign on to a UN Security Council statement rebuking Israel over settlements in disputed territories. That comes from having a Muslim president (I’m not arguing that he is a member of the Muslims; I’ll let the ‘experts’ argue that). It is just that he, beyond doubt, has a Muslim bias.

Remember, what the media presents is one thing; reality is another. And speaking of ‘strange,’ if someone says a nice word about Israel or the Jews, he is “a Zionist.” But if he slanders them and misrepresents them he is “telling it like it is.”

Obviously, if God doesn’t take care of the Jew no one will.

COLLEGIATE ALERT!

Let’s hope Jay Ambrose is wrong! He is a Colorado columnist and the former Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers. One of his recent columns was headlined: Next on Obama takeover list: colleges.

He warned that the Obama administration is planning “a longwinded, frequently unclear new set of regulations [of the country’s private, nonprofit colleges and universities] that would intensify and increase oversight by states, in some cases conceivably overriding a long-established, thorough, fair, respected and effective accrediting process by non-governmental agencies.”

Ambrose called it “a frightening assault on academic freedom [since] crucial decisions are transferred from faculty and administrators to bureaucrats and legislative bosses who just might use weapons of mass authority to demolish instruction of a kind they don’t like.” And most bureaucrats surely don’t like religious instruction (especially evangelical) even a little bit.

Why does the Obama crowd want to do it? The only excuse they have offered is that federal aid might be going to students in some cases for teaching that is almost worthless. Oh? There are laws already on the books for cracking down on them; don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, to use an old phrase.

You have the president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation saying the plans could “fundamentally undermine the role of accreditation” and warning that Obama’s rules “call for states to intrude into academic areas.”

Others up in arms, according to Ambrose, include Colorado Christian University. He says Krista Kafer of the school’s Centennial Institute produced a paper treating “the threats in scholarly detail.” And the university’s president, former United States Senator Bill Armstrong, wrote an article expressing his concerns.

Ambrose expressed the problem: “The Obama administration does not much trust liberty. If something out there sneezes, regulate it. Surround it with endless pages of rules, blankets and blankets of rules, enough rules to smother the slightest hope of autonomy. Do more if necessary. Take over things. Take over health care. Take over the auto industry. Take over financial institutions. Government knows all. Government should do all. Government, we praise thee!”

While the latter might have been a little facetious, he pretty much hit the nail on the head. After all, if “it ain’t broke don’t fix it!”

Wake up, America! Let’s not lose it all.

WARNING ABOUT THE

MASTER’S SEMINARY!

On the other hand, you might call this an advertisement for it – depending on your viewpoint and whether you are a five-point Calvinist. (Your editor very definitely is not!)

In one of my meetings was a fine young man who, his undergraduate work completed, was looking for a seminary. Masters was recommended to him and he was interested, but he had heard the school was strongly Calvinistic. So he did what any red-blooded young man should do in such a case.

He called the school to inquire!

The person he talked to assured him that not only was the school a 5-point Calvinist institution, anyone who enrolled would also be one by the time he received his degree. Fair enough. We like the honesty.

He scratched Masters off his potential list.

Alas, the story does not end with a “happily ever after.”

The school he eventually chose, attended and earned his degree, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was every bit as radically Calvinist as Masters. So – you guessed it – he is now a 5-pointer.

The moral of the story is: if you don’t want to end up believing something you originally abhorred, find out about the school’s positions before you enroll. After all, professors are trained to where they can twist Scripture to mean whatever they want it to mean.

[We definitely do not mean they are all dishonest, just that some have had their professors twist things for them so deceitfully, they think they are speaking truth. That is why Paul warned about men who deceitfully misrepresent, with enticing words of man’s wisdom, the Scripture.]

QUESTION OF THE DECADE

Why would CBS sit on its own story – instead of scooping the rest of the media – when its own chief correspondent on the scene (a ‘60 Minute’ veteran), Lara Logan, was publicly gang raped for 20 to 30 minutes by the mob of hoodlums in Cairo’s Tahrir Square while covering Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s downfall for her network?

Not only was she horribly assaulted, but the mentally unstable gang of thugs repeatedly yelled, “Jew! Jew!” (Logan is not a Jew) as they performed their dastardly deeds. The “mob” consisted of about 200 people.

Yet CBS sat on the story about its chief foreign correspondent for five full days, only reporting it after The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal came forward with their reports. Yes, why?

Columnist Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, certainly no conservative writer, complained, “The sexual assault of a woman in the middle of a public square is a story ... particularly … because the crowd in Tahrir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy.”

Ah, but that is why the liberal CBS sat on the story. It didn’t fit its preconceived presentation of what was going on. At least that’s the way I see it.

If you have a better explanation, feel free to believe it and share it with your friends.

THIS GUY’S A COMER!

United States Army Lt. Col. Allen West won the south Florida east coast 22^nd congressional district last fall with 54% of the vote – in a strongly liberal neighborhood. He doesn’t pull punches. He ruffles feathers because he calls himself “an American” and not “an African-American.” He is also an honorable Iraqi war veteran.

Nor is he afraid to speak out about the radical Islamic war against America. In the first Town Hall meeting by a member of Congress since the Arizona congresswoman was shot in one, the executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic relations in Miami, Nezar Hamze, went to the microphone and charged, "Me and my children choose to follow the faith of Islam. You consistently insult it. How can we expect you to defend our right and practice Islam as far as the Constitution is concerned?"

West replied calmly, “I will always defend your right to practice a free religion under the First Amendment, but what you must understand, if I am speaking the truth, I am not going to stop speaking the truth. The truth is not subjective."

By the way, he also said of Minnesota’s Muslim in Congress, Keith Ellison, that he represents "the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established." Wow!

Is the opposition worried? I’ll let you decide by noting that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has already targeted (only liberals can use that word) him for the 2012 elections. He is a real threat to the liberal agenda.

EVOLUTION 101

In the mid-1940s, when evolution was riding high, Percy W. Heward of England offered a concise summary of the situation as it related to Christianity:

1. Anti-scripturally involves denial of Genesis 1-3, and of all revelation.

2. Doctrinally undermines the Godhead and creative glory and intervention of God, and also the fall of man and the fact of sin, thereby setting aside redemption.

3. Practically attacks the very standard and basis of morality, – justifying force as right, and opposing grace to the unfit.

4. Experimentally cuts at the root of love and of reverence, and of a right recognition of the limitations of human knowledge, and, moreover, damages truthfulness and clear thinking.

5. “Prophetically” sets aside the Coming of Christ, and the true meaning of the coming crisis, of millennial intervention and of God’s judgment on man’s lie.

6. Scientifically is unfounded theory, or “science falsely so-called.”

That sums it up pretty good, wouldn’t you say?

THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

My good friend, Dr. Robert Porter, sent me this editorial, “National Anthem at the Super Bowl.” He didn’t say who wrote it (in fact it may have been around for awhile), but we both concur strongly with its sentiment – not only for singers at super bowls, but all public performances. It went like this:

“So, with all the kindness I can muster, I give this one piece of advice to the next pop star who is asked to sing the national anthem at a sporting event: save the vocal gymnastics and the physical gyrations for your concerts. 

“Just sing this song the way you were taught to sing it in kindergarten  straight up, no styling. Sing it with the constant awareness that there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watching you from bases and outposts all over the world. Don’t make them cringe with your self-centered ego gratification. 

“Sing it as if you are standing before a row of 86-year-old WWII vets wearing their Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and flag pins on their cardigans and you want them to be proud of you for honoring them and the country they love not because you want them to think you are a superstar musician. They could see that from the costumes, the makeup and the entourages.

“Sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ with the courtesy and humility that tells the audience that it is about America, not you.”

Amen and Amen!

A “REPUBLIC” VERSUS A “DEMOCRACY”

Most folks today, I am sorry to say, don’t know the difference so let’s have a civics lesson. To help our readers I’m going to quote black economist Walter E. Williams. He wrote:

“Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy. Webster defines a democracy as 'government by the people; especially: rule of the majority.' In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives.

“As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent force. The restraint is upon the individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.

“To highlight the offensiveness to liberty that democracy and majority rule is, just ask yourself how many decisions in your life would you like to be made democratically. How about what car you drive, where you live, whom you marry, whether you have turkey or ham for Thanksgiving dinner? If those decisions were made through a democratic process, the average person would see it as tyranny and not personal liberty.

“Is it no less tyranny for the democratic process to determine whether you purchase health insurance or set aside money for retirement? Both for ourselves and our fellow man around the globe, we should be advocating liberty, not the democracy that we've become – where a roguish Congress can do anything simply by mustering a majority vote."

In spite of what the politicians are always talking about, the United States was not founded as a democracy, but a republic! Now you know.

OPEN LETTER TO JOHN L. PEROYEA & SALEM COMMUNICATIONS

Let me welcome you to Cult Modus Operandi 101.

But, first, let me object to the fact that you have the program of anti-Trinity, anti-Deity of Christ Irvin Baxter on your network. His program is called Day Star. A friend of mine wrote you a kindly letter objecting to having such an unchristian cultist on your station. Your response was anything but satisfactory.

While you said you always appreciated “listener input,” your opposite response to my friend said that Baxter’s program had been “closely monitored” to see that it met your national ministry division standards. Then you admitted some of the items my friend sent proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the heresy of Baxter; you lamented that while some of what he sent you proving Baxter’s heresy you wouldn’t want “broadcast over our airwaves,” you had found no fault with what Baxter “consistently” did present of “a Biblical perspective with no deviation.” And you say the same was word handed down from members of your national ministry division you had consulted.

To which we say – and forgive our bluntness – Hogwash!

I see your title with Salem is Regional Vice President of Operations, so you should be a man of some influence – and intelligence. I trust you also love the Lord, but perhaps not more than Baxter’s checks coming to your studio on a regular basis.

Now a word about Cult Modus Operandi 101. Cults long ago learned not to be open with their secretive “members only” kind of doctrine. Would a Mormon elder, performing his two-year missionary duty, make many converts by knocking on a door and when someone answered announce, “Good Morning Madam/Sir. I am a Mormon, a Christian, and I want to tell you about all the wives Jesus had and about our secret underwear”? He would get 999 doors of 1,000 slammed in his face – and some might even call the police.

Would a follower of Herbert W. Armstrong get on the radio or television and say, “Howdy, folks! I’m going to tell you how you can join us and become a member of ‘the family of gods,’ become a god just like the God of the Bible, create your own world and be the ruler over it”? He would be the biggest loser on the air.

What if a Seventh-day Adventist got up and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, today I’m going to show you – even though you always thought Jesus did it – how Satan bore your sins away”? He would be booed out of town.

I could suggest the same about the Unity cult, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Unitarianism and all the other hundreds of false prophets and false cuts, but, as already noted, you are an intelligent man and I’m sure get the idea.

Long ago the cults realized that to survive, grow and get funds from suckers, they would have to use the Trojan Horse method of modus operandi. So they disguise themselves and – because no cult of which I am aware refuses to use misrepresentation and lying to “advance the cause” – they buy time on radio/television, ads in newspapers and magazines, etc., and pretend to be that “good old neighborhood Bible church” down the street that preaches the gospel.

And you sell them time on the air to help them succeed, always promising yourself and any who complained about it that you would monitor what they said on your station to make sure they don’t present their heresy there! Boy, have you ever been suckered! You are advancing the cause of Satan and doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. May God have mercy.

The first point under your five-point Statement of Faith (which is very fine except it says nothing about eternity, future judgment, or Heaven and Hell), “We believe that there is one God, eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” All we are asking is that you live up to your own declaration of faith and not allow anti-Trinitarians who mock the Deity of Christ on your airwaves.

Is that asking too much?