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
Dr. Robert L. Sumner

IF SATAN’S DEAD, WHO’S DOING HIS WORK? There are any number of “sensational” magazines in print, usually found at checkout counters. Their headlines are, to say the least, eye-catching. One offered, “Girl’s Tombstone Glows in the Dark!” Another announced, “Scientists Discover 50-foot caterpillar!” Still another revealed, “Woman Lives Under a Sink for 40 Years.” And still another said, “Gandhi (fore)tells all. Assassinated holy man predicted Jesus will return to Earth next year” (this was in 1997). Well, you have to admit, that’s no worse a guess than some of today’s “prophetic preachers” offer their hearers!

But we mention these ‘gems’ now simply to pass on the front-page revelation found in the same issue as Mahatma Gandhi’ prophecy: “Satan’s Remains Found in Mexico!” You have to admit, that is really earth-shattering news and you can only wonder why Dan Rather, who loves to report “scoops,” didn’t do a “60-Minute” segment about it. Or, if not Dan, some of his other media bigwig cohorts.

Alas, the simple truth is still found in I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” One of the biggest mistakes a child of God – or anyone else for that matter – could make is to assume that Satan is dead. He is very much alive and, you may be sure, is working hard because “he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12) before Christ returns and he is “jailed” in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3).

A BIG, BIG MISTAKE! You probably read about Adriana Iliescu, the Romanian professor who gave birth to a 3-pound, 7-weeks-premature daughter, Eliza Maria, at age 66 (breaking the previous record by one year), thanks to vitro fertility pills (originally it was triplets, but one died in the womb at 10 weeks and another a few weeks before Eliza was born). She didn't become the world's oldest “new mother” for the publicity, however.

What you may not know is what she told the London Telegraph: she had become pregnant twice some four decades earlier and aborted both babies. The last two score years have been spent deeply regretting those decisions. Her conscience continually troubled her since she correctly considered her past exploits to be murder. And almost all that time she has wished she had a child (her marriage had only lasted four years).

According to WorldNetDaily, "Iliescu said the moment she looked at her baby and touched her for the first time was 'the happiest in my life. She grabbed my finger with her tiny hand and held it – it was a gift from God'."

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN! A wrong obituary was printed when the brother of Alfred Nobel died, one newspaper printing the obituary of Alfred himself, not the brother. How embarrassing. That was especially true for the scientist – who had made millions by inventing new and more powerful explosives – and when he read the account of how he had invented dynamite and had thus aided the warring factions of the world, he was appalled.

Remember the old saw, “If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade”? That’s what old Al did. Since he didn’t want to be remembered as a man who made mass killing easier, he set up a foundation to reward peacemakers. All of you today are familiar with “The Nobel Peace Prize.”

If life has handed you a lemon, remember Alfred Nobel. Your best days and the most memorable may be ahead!

PITY THESE “POOR” BOYS NEEDING A HANDOUT! This is from an old clipping so perhaps the Golden Bear State has closed this loophole, but when we read about it California had a program for workers disabled on the job. It involved lump-sum, tax-free benefits. Hundreds of ex-athletes, many of them millionaires, who were injured plying their trade (a kids’ game), applied for benefits – scores of whom had only “briefly” worked (make that ‘played’) in California.

Joe “Panty Hose” Montana, who cashed paychecks totaling many millions while the star quarterback for the San Francisco Forty-Niners, was one. Bo Jackson and Jim Plunkett, stars with the Oakland Raiders were a couple of others. In fact, the San Diego Union-Tribune, that broke the story, said 151 ex-Chargers had filed 310 claims involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in a 5- or 6-year period. In the baseball arena, 45 ex-San Diego Padres players had filed a total of 62 claims in the same period.

Some would say they were merely taking advantage of what was out there. Perhaps, but we would call it thievery, putting an additional burden on honest California taxpayers. What would you say?

HOW NOT TO SAVE A MARRIAGE! Salley and Renzie thought they had come up with a great plan to preserve the marriage they were about to enter. They had a prenuptial agreement drawn up, including such things as Sally doing 1 hour of yard work every time she used an expletive and Renzie paying $5 each time he nagged or complained, Sally cooking breakfast at least 4 times a week and Renzie rubbing her back 5 minutes at least 3 times a week.

After 3½ months of wedded bliss (?), Renzie secretly filed for divorce and Sally didn’t learn about it for two more years. (She had been served with a notice, but good old boy Renzie assured her he had dropped the suit.)

Is that the way to guarantee a happy marriage? Obviously not. Is there no ‘secret’ to a happy marriage? Well, it certainly is no secret – although it hasn’t been tried much – and the ingredients are found in the Holy Bible. A successful union starts on a solid rock foundation, and that Rock is Christ. A couple acknowledging Him as both Savior and Lord; careful to maintain regular, faithful public and family worship; honoring Him biblically with tithes and offerings; vigilant in practicing purity in their personal lives; and watchful in dignified and sanctified language with one another will fail to celebrate their 50^th anniversary only if one dies first. Trust me on this one!

SOMETIMES IT’S EMBARRASSING TO BE A BAPTIST. The press clipping before me says Fred Phelps is pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka (KS), an independent congregation. He and his members go to military funerals and picket, holding up signs that say, “Thank God for IEDs” (an acronym for Improvised Explosive Devices, that blow up our troops in Iraq and Pakistan), and “God Hates Fag Enablers” (Fag being a term of contempt for Sodomites). Phelps’ translation of John 3:16 must say, “God so loved all the world but the Sodomites,” or he has a hyper-Calvinist mentality that says the “world” is one limited to the world of the elect!

People attending a military funeral are grieving. They have lost a precious loved one or friend. It is not the place or time to be promoting political agendas. It makes me want to follow him with a sign that says, “This ‘Nut’ Doesn’t Represent Me or Any Baptists I Know!”

AMERICA'S ENEMY: HOLLYWOOD! Columnist Don Feder, who is Jewish, noted (after the 2006 Academy Awards): "What really enrages the Hollywood left is the realization that, more than any other group in our society, evangelical Christians – who now constitute the largest voting bloc – stand in the way of its political agenda: abortion on demand, a contraceptive culture, erotic indoctrination masquerading as sex education, universal day care, the complete societal acceptance of homosexuality and hate-crimes legislation that criminalizes religious speech. By attacking Christians, Hollywood is advancing its agenda...

“Over the past 40 years, Hollywood has been primarily responsible for the rapid degeneration of our culture. Modern cinema is filled with violence, sadism, sex at its most animalistic, crudeness, nihilism and despair. If Hollywood wants to treat Christianity as the antithesis of all it holds dear, Christians should feel complimented."

The Patriot noted that the real balloting for “best” was at the box office, not the Academy. It then noted where the Academy’s “Best Picture” nominations were in the box office: Brokeback Mountain (26th); Crash (49th); Munich (64th); Good Night, and Good Luck (89th); and Capote (100th). “In all, Hollywood's Fab Five grossed $235,643,912 and averaged $26.3 million in profits.”

 By comparison, the top winners at the box office were Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe); War of the Worlds; and King Kong. These films grossed $1.41 billion and averaged $125.4 million in profits. And Patriot went on to note: “In fact, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a film based on one of Christian writer C. S. Lewis' Narnia books, grossed more than all five of the Academy's nominees combined.”

Will Hollywood pay any attention? Of course not! It would interfere with its agenda!

WAS JESUS MARRIED? The name “Phipps” has always been held in high esteem by your editor. For one thing, years ago I conducted evangelistic meetings with Rev. Gerald Phipps, a fine pastor with high standards and strong doctrinal and practical positions. In the second place, the first daughter I ever relinquished to another man was a Phipps, Dr. Terry Phipps, a professor in the science department at Cedarville University.

While I am not having second thoughts about that noble name, I am repudiating a Professor William E. Phipps. He is the infidel (dictionary definition: unbeliever) who authored the book, Was Jesus Married? The Distortion of Sexuality in the Christian Tradition, published by Harper & Row. He concluded there that Jesus probably was married. Among those highly recommending it was Frederick Grant, one of the liberal translators of the Revised Standard Version (in a book co-authored with two others he said: “We may admit at once that the older view of Jesus’ life and ministry was not entirely historical,” emphasis added; so much for inspiration and inerrancy).

At the time of the publication of Married? he got much publicity: all major wire services, 170 AP newspapers, and several international news magazines featured stories about it. That, however, was not so unusual; any author who will spit on the sacred memory of Jesus will get the big drumbeats of the media.

This Phipps is chair of the department of religion and philosophy at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia and one of his other books was Muhammad and Jesus: A Comparison of the Prophets and Their Teaching. That was another winner (as the kids would say, not) and no doubt the professor felt magnanimous in giving Jesus the title of “prophet,” along with Islam’s bloody founder.

UNANSWERED PRAYER AT DUKE UNIVERSITY. We like to intersperse a little humor from time to time just to keep our readers alert and happy. This relates to a “scientific” study by researchers who wasted $2.4 million (I kid you not) to see if prayers are answered. It was sponsored by the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center and the prayers were to benefit heart surgery patients – some of whom knew they were being prayed for and some didn’t.

Our local newspaper gave the item a front-page boldface headline, Is there power in prayer? With a subheading, “Study finds no help for patients.” We are quick to add that those who did the praying did not know the people they were interceding for: they were simply names the researchers gave them. It is difficult to pray effectively for total strangers for whom you have no personal burden!

We can tell why the prayers were unanswered. We recall Evangelist Charles Finney’s comment while still unsaved and the local prayer band asked if he wanted their prayers and he joked that he couldn’t see that their praying did the slightest good. In fact, right now we just offer one verse, John 9:31, “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.” We expounded this at length years ago when SBC president Bailey Smith was making national headlines over a remark that God didn’t hear the prayer of the Jews.

We think the millions wasted on this project would have been better spent teaching morals and ethics to Duke’s Lacrosse team, that made even bigger headlines recently.