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.

Incidents and Illustrations - Part 1
Evangelist Robert L. Sumner

OOPS! DIDN’T MEAN THAT! The poor girl had planned carefully, worked long, and prepared hard to kill a big bunch of innocent people in Moscow on New Year’s Eve. She had her bombs strapped to her person, her cell phone was set to trigger the blast, and she was about to leave her house on her destiny of doom.

At that moment – providentially, we say – her phone service provider came on with an ‘automatic’ greeting to wish her a Happy New Year! She never received it. And for her, the New Year was anything but happy.

The moment her cell started to ring it triggered the device and she became a true ‘suicide’ bomber. She was the only fatality – the only one even injured, in fact. Someone described her as “the black widow.”

What was it Bobby Burns said in his “To A Mouse, On Turning Up Her Nest With The Plow” (penned in 1785, eight stanzas) about the “best laid plans of mice and men”? Using the Scottish dialect of what he actually wrote was, in stanza seven:

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain; 
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men 
                    Gang aft agley,        
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, 
                    For promis’d joy! 

AN “EVANGELICAL” HERETIC? He calls himself Servitus the Evangelical, which is like saying dark light or dry wetness – a contradiction of terms. Who would want to take the name of a heretic? Why, another heretic, of course. And this gentleman, hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, is indeed a heretic, a denier of the Trinity just as the original heretic Servitus.

Is it a sin to use a synonym? Of course not! Is it cowardly to use a synonym if you are going to attack a fundamental Christian doctrine. Of course! In the case of someone like this using a synonym to attack the Trinity, is it a conviction to die for? Obviously not! He doesn’t even want personal criticism.

But to come to the point of this item, Servitus the Evangelical (sic) made an interesting announcement recently:

Joel Hemphill's New Television Show. In early 2011, a new, Christian cable TV show began production that will feature Joel Hemphill and his wife LaBreeska and be entitled “To God Be the Glory." That is the title of Joel's book, published in 2006, about his new-found belief that only the Father is God and therefore Jesus is Lord and Savior, but not God [Editor: how could someone not God be Lord and Savior?]. The website 21stcr.org will air this program for those living where they don't receive this TV channel. More news to come concerning this new TV show.

Note that the “Christian” TV channel is not named. Hey, we wouldn’t want a wave of honest protest to the channel prior to the first show, would we, getting it cancelled before it even started? Servitus the Evangelical is a heretic. Joel Hemphill is a heretic. Good Christians wouldn’t want anything to do with either one. Period!

Oh, by the way, the first mentioned heretic above said about the second mentioned heretic, “Ever since he came public with his one God belief, he has been so vilified and denounced by his Christian brethren as a heretic.”

Correction: Joel always was into the so-called “one God belief” (all evangelicals believe in One God; how Joel is different is that He blasphemously denies the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ along with a denial of the Trinity). What Joel did was exchange belief in the Son only (denying the deity of Father and Holy Spirit) for a belief in the Father only (denying the deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit). But heretics aren’t known for making themselves honestly clear!

IS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ABOVE THE LAW? Apparently it thinks so. It defied a judge’s order to cancel its moratorium on drilling in the Gulf and now a New Orleans judge had declared it in contempt of court. In fact, Obama’s foolish and wicked actions have almost completely destroyed the oil industry in the Gulf.

Another federal judge has declared ObamaCare unconstitutional, but the administration is going right on with its plans to implement it.

Is impeachment the only answer?

CHRISLAM? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The latest religious invention (if another one doesn’t get created before you read this – a good possibility), if we can believe the internet, is this combination of Christianity and Islam they are calling Chrislam.

It seems congregations in a number of big metropolitan areas – plus others in smaller places – conducted Sunday School lessons and preached sermons in the morning services recently on Mohammad, the “prophet” of Islam. In addition, copies of the Qur’an were placed in pew racks next to the Bible. It probably gave them warm, fuzzy feelings all over, from false toupee and wigs down to painted ingrown toenails. The idea, according to its advocates, is that we are to love our neighbor, but we can’t do so without joining into a relationship with them.

Poppycock! Christians have been loving their neighbors for 20 centuries without joining into unequal yokes with them. This sounds like the Chaplain of Bourbon Street and his services among the nude strippers. It is anything but obedience to II Corinthians 6:14-7:1.

What is it doing? It is making the Lord Jesus Christ an equal with the pedophile Mohammad. It puts the holy, infallible Word of God – more than neighbors in a pew rack – on a level playing field with the hate filled, vengeance-filled Qur’an. Since when should a discredited cult be placed on a par with a holy God and His holy book?

It is foolish, wicked blasphemy!

The same source said the movement was being endorsed by Rick Warren and Robert Schuller. The latter we can believe, but Warren? Say it isn’t so, Rick!

 “FEED THE CHILDREN” FOUNDER FIRED. Larry Jones, who founded this organization over three decades ago to help starving boys and girls, was unceremoniously booted by his board. Why?

For one thing, they said he secretly installed bugging devices in the executive offices of the billion dollar charity. Second, the governing group claimed he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks (bribes) from charity vendors. Third, they charged he ran a tight ship with little or no oversight or supervision. Fourth, he secretly gave himself and his wife raises. Fifth, he misspent charity monies. (Jones had to get along on about $235,000 a year as president.) Sixth, he hid porn magazines on the charity premises (he said he had them because he was writing a novel). Seventh, he pocketed unused travel money. Eighth, he kept gifts from appearances instead of turning them over to his employer. Ninth, he “misused” a charity employee as a nanny.

The beleaguered charity leader is fighting back with counter lawsuits. He mainly claims the board of directors acted out of “personal malice and spite” and of wanting more power for themselves. He also says they, according to The Oklahoman, “knowingly failed to pay taxes on purchases, lied about their efforts in Haiti to get contributions, mismanaged the charity’s savings accounts and improperly fired whistleblowers.” He also alleges directors want to misuse charity funds to pay $300,000 in attorney fees.

Now the Oklahoma attorney general’s office is getting into the act, launching a massive investigation that Assistant Attorney General Julie Bays says could result in criminal charges. She said, “This is a charity that, no matter what the personalities are, has always done good work,” but she added, “Whether or not they did it efficiently or not, or whether there was some wrongdoing, that’s still up in the air.”

The family is involved in a strange way. Wife Frances Jones was still working at Feed the Children while this was going on, but it later bought out her contract. Daughter Larri Sue, who first sided with the board against her father, then was fired by the board as the group’s general counsel, is also suing Feed the Children (she and her father are estranged, no longer speaking). Son Allen Jones is being sued by the charity claiming he stripped its warehouse of “equipment and materials.” He denies the charges.

Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates both private and nonprofit charities, gives Feed the Children a four star rating at 69.29, but notes the law suits. (It takes no position on the latter, simply reporting them so givers can determine for themselves whether or not to support it.)

According to The Oklahoman, Feed the Children is investigating whether Jones used a major kickback to help pay off a $1 million construction loan on his new house valued in county records at $1,369,257. (Nice pad, huh?)

We are like Charity Navigator, taking no position. Just reporting. You decide.

WHAT CAUSED THE NEAR RIOTS IN WISCONSIN? The state was trying to solve a budget shortfall of $3.6 billion and that wasn’t easy. A big part of the problem related to “public employee union pensions and benefits” that are breaking banks not only in the Cheese State but other states as well.

Governor Scott Walker asked those employees to contribute 5.8% toward those items and for state workers to raise their share of their own health insurance from less than 5% to 12.4% (still less than the average Joe pays). He also asked them to pay one-half of their own retirement benefits (the average Joe pays 100% of his). You would have thought he had asked them to strap bombs to their waists and become suicide bombers. Actually, he was just asking them to become like ‘real’ workers in the private sector. After all, gravy trains eventually run out of gravy.

Adding to the uproar was the fact he wanted to “trim back collective bargaining rights” for government workers. (Isn’t collective bargaining as American as apple pie? No, not for individuals who work for the tax payers; it is a relatively new thing and it leaves the bosses – the tax payers – high and dry!) These have increased greatly of late – some say they are out of control. Dick Morris calls it “union thugocracy.” Walker wants to leave those issues of how a school works in the hands of its administrators. The unions want to keep control. (One illustration Walker used was a “teacher of the year” being fired because she had less seniority! Incredible!)

Columnist George Will explained it like this: "[Public-sector] unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway – grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members' employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees' salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy 'negotiations' with unions."

Ann Coulter noted public sector employees in Wisconsin make an average $76,500 per year. Because of these union contracts, seven Wisconsin bus drivers took home over $100,000 in 2009. The ‘king,’ driver John E. Nelson, pocketed $159,000. Overtime pay for bus drivers alone that year totaled $1.94 million! Bus drivers, mind you! No wonder citizens voted in Walker and his promise to do something about it.

The Patriot reported about the bargaining: “Mr. Walker's very modest proposal would take away the ability of most government employees to collectively bargain for benefits. They could still bargain for higher wages, but future wage increases would be capped at the federal Consumer Price Index, unless otherwise specified by a voter referendum.”

Later it said, “Government unions face no competition, so there is no impetus to produce or perform at a higher level, and to call government union negotiations ‘bargaining’ is a gross mischaracterization.”

Perhaps we should sum this up by quoting the hero of every union member, ex-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In a letter in 1937 to the head of the National Federation of Federal Employees he declared: "All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public-personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government-employee organizations. The employer is the whole people ..."

According to Politico, Obama’s campaign group ‘Organizing for America,’ an arm of the Democrat National Committee, was busing protestors into Wisconsin and adding to the turmoil, seeking to force the state leadership to drop Walker’s plans. And some legislators were leaving the state (or hiding under their beds?) rather than facing their duties for which they are handsomely paid. Michelle Malkin called them “fleebaggers.” Voters should remember these acts at the next election time.

Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express added: “This is all a political ploy … proven yesterday when it was revealed that the Obama campaign team organized the protests, provided the buses, and ran 15 phone bank centers to pressure union members to attend these mob scenes.”

We watched some of the protestors and most were arguing it was “for the children.” Nonsense! It all had to do with the workers and their battle for money. If they were concerned about the children they would have gone back to school and worked at teaching them (instead of forcing schools to close while they rioted in the streets). Do the teachers protesting think everyone else in Wisconsin and the rest of the country is a moron? It was not about the children; it was about the teachers.

One sign said “Scott Walker – Adolph Hitler. Can you tell the difference? I can’t! (If you can’t, you must be in a coma.) Don’t let this history repeat itself!!!! 1933 Hitler abolished unions. Look at history.” Then there was a swastika in a box but writing under it was too small to read. A female teacher was holding the poorly made sign (hopefully she was not an art teacher). And we’ll overlook the fact that this ‘underpaid’ molder of little minds obviously meant (about the difference between Walker and Hitler) “if you can tell a difference,” not “can’t” (that would mean she was in a coma) although the coma part then wouldn’t make sense. Hey, excuse her. She’s only a teacher of little minds wanting more money.

I listened to one of the 14 Democrat senators in exile explain why he was hiding out in Chicago. He explained it was all that evil governor’s fault (the senator insisted he was doing his job by not doing his job). I guess you have to be a liberal to understand that! The host of teachers calling in “sick” were as bad (or worse) than the evil politicians. FoxNews reported some protestors told its staff that doctors were standing on street corners passing out fraudulent sick notes to any who asked – no examination necessary. The interview showed the signed affidavits that were as phony as a $3 bill.

Columnist Burt Prelutsky wrote: "There are many lessons to be learned from the demonstrations in Madison … First and foremost, workers in the public sector should never have been allowed to unionize. Once that happened, it was inevitable that civil servants would wind up being better-paid and better-pensioned than the folks in the private sector. That's because they got to wind up negotiating with politicians who had nothing to lose by giving in to union demands.

“… There was a time when unions fought the good fight, but that was a very long time ago. Listening to the union members in Madison raving about the glorious accomplishments of unions is a lot like listening to Arabs boasting about all of their great contributions to mankind, and being reminded that they took place several centuries ago.”

Some said they were in the streets seeking a rule by democracy. It seemed to me they were trying to achieve government by mob rule. Perhaps I am mistaken.

The president, who can’t handle his own budget, waded in to tell the governor what he ought to do. He called Walker’s proposals “an assault on unions.” While that may not necessarily be true, just maybe they need to be assaulted to save the financial equilibrium of the state … and country!

The overweight leftist, Michael Moore, got into the act by describing Wisconsin as “the new Cairo.” He also urged union members to “shut the state down.” Maybe Mike ought to mind his own business, do you suppose? But I guess that is asking too much. In all his years in the public eye he hasn’t done that even once.

We salute Walker and his faithful men but we were disappointed with the chickens in Ohio, Michigan and other states that decided the price to battle the unions was too high and threw in their towels.

Later: we were wondering if this fiasco would be over by Christmas, say nothing of in time to report in this issue, but we are happy the matter got settled (the matter of the unions passed without any word from them, thanks to a procedure maneuver) and the cowardly, negligent-to-duty senators came crawling out of their Illinois holes to return to Madison with heads hanging low in defeat. One columnist offered a little humor: “What do you get when fourteen Democrat Senators go AWOL from their jobs in Wisconsin? You get fiscal responsibility, the tools to balance an out-of-control budget, and a boatload of evidence that the Progressive Left is prone to violence and thuggery over process.”

Result: Death threats to the Republican senators and their families. Those union thugs do play rough, don’t they? At this writing at least two had been received (one laded with obscenities, which says tons about the character of the writer) and one suspect, a woman, had been located by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, who did not identify her.

As expected, Union Boss-in-Chief Barack Obama called the whole fiasco an assault that denigrated and vilified public sector employees. Personally, we thought it was a fine defense of beleaguered tax payers.

One source reported: “Union leaders and their hired thugs descended on Madison to lock up the Capitol building and protest raucously, issuing threats (and in some cases, trying to carry them out) of physical violence and even death against Republicans. They overwhelmed state house security, climbed through windows, and have done over $7.5 million in damage to the building.” The state should be reimbursed from the union dues fund for that.

Still later: a judge stepped in and put the action on hold. Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order on the action the beleaguered Wisconsin legislature passed and the governor signed. Guess what? It turns out the judge’s son is an SEIU, AFL-CIO leader. I thought judges were obligated to recuse themselves in cases involving relatives or other personal interest? But I guess not politicians.

AN EXPLANATION. To give you an illustration of the above problem, in San Jose (CA) a lonely City Council member (the only Republican on the council), Peter Constant, decided he would save the city $70,000 by doing his own secretarial work to help with the city’s $100 million budget deficit.

What do you think happened? A shower of praise for his help? Not exactly. The president of the CEO (Confidential Employees Organization), the public sector union for city employees, filed a lawsuit demanding the position be filled, hang the cost. La Verne Washington declared Constant had no right to create his own “process and procedures,” saying they were in place “well before Pete Constant got there.”

[Those familiar with union rules understand this. A Boeing employee, for example, could not tighten a lose screw he noticed that was not in his jurisdiction, even if the plane crashed as a result.]

According to Bryan Shroyer, who works with a PAC trying to stop union corruption, “This issue underscores the problem with collective bargaining agreements for public sector unions. Contracts such as this have created hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer liabilities and hinder the ability of government agencies to make cuts when funding does not meet financial needs. In the end, it is the taxpayers who are expected to make up the difference, which explains the negative sentiments most Americans feel toward public unions.”

He added, “For years, public sector unions have spent billions electing pro-union politicians who will vote favorably on wage and benefit packages for government employees. It is a game of power at any cost, which unfortunately places these costs on already over-burdened taxpayers.”

The city is now waiting to see how the California Labor Relations Board will rule on the case.

OUR SCHOOLS ARE IN BIG TROUBLE! William J. Bennett, former United States Secretary of Education, had an article recently about reform for our public schools. He said a third of our country’s fourth-graders score “below basic” in reading, as do more than a fourth of our twelfth-graders. The latter are even worse in math where thirty-five percent of the kids are scoring “below basic.”

And what is “below basic”? Bennett explained, “‘Below basic’ is a term of art. In reading, this means students scoring ‘below basic’ cannot ‘locate relevant information,’ cannot ‘make simple inferences, and use their understanding of the text to identify details that support a given interpretation or conclusion,’ cannot ‘interpret the meaning of a word as it is used in the text.’ In math, it means students cannot show even a ‘partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work’ at their grade level.” He added, “… scoring at the ‘basic’ level is, by the way, still not where we want our students. The next level up is ‘proficient,’ so ‘basic’ is just about the lowest bar revealing a modicum of ability. ‘Below basic’ is a disaster.”

Bennett lamented, “In a system where we Americans spend nearly $600 billion on public elementary and secondary education, we can and need to start to do better. Much better.” Amen to that!

He also noted – and this is very significant – that such liberal and major media outlets as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker have written that the problems in the public school system “stem from teachers' unions deemed to be too strong.”

This makes the previous item even more impressive and meaningful. The unions are not only ruining the work place and our national politics by their meddling, they are destroying our educational system as well.