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John PiPer
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2013 Dsrg Gd
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Table o ConTenTs
i Introduction
01 A ribute to My Father09 Hello, My Father Just Died
14 Funeral Message or William
S. H. Piper
26 Toughts on My Father
29 Evangelist Bill Piper:Fundamentalist Full o
Grace and Joy
59 A ribute to My Father, on
My Last Fathers Day
at Bethlehem
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InTroduCTIon
My ather turned 94 in heaven this year (013). I have spent
this aernoon listening to him as he read his poems and sang
hymns with me. I recorded these little duets three years beore
he died. It has been a sweet aernoon.
I wish I had elt at 17 what I eel at 67. I wish I had known
and elt the value o a athers Song. I wish I had sung with him
earlier, just the two o us. Perhaps some young son reading thiswill ask the Lord Jesus to take away the immature embarrass-
ment at his athers Songthe Song o his lie.
My ather was an evangelist-poet-singer-songwriter. I have
in ront o me a older with the lyrics and the musical scores
that he wrote. Five o these are the actual pre-lined music paper
where he drew in the notes and printed by hand the lyrics
between the treble and bass cles.
Tere are titles like Im in Debt to Jesus, Christ Is the
Answer, Ty Hand upon Me, Lord, ake ime to Pray,
and Lord, Make Me Pure. One, called His Grace Is Su-
cient, is printed with the words Copyright, 1943, by William
S. H. Piper in the bottom margin.
I have written beore that my ather was the happiest man I
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ever knew. One o the reasons or this was his singing aith. o
eel the signicance o this, you need to understand that he was
a undamentalist. Tats not a bad word in my vocabulary. And
hes the reason. Fundamentals are worth dying or and ght-
ing or. But that ght has killed the Song in the hearts o many
people. But not in Bill Piper.
What you ght orwhat you die oris the joy. Te Song.
So i you lose it, all is in vain. Fundamentalists ght worldli-
ness. But worldliness means ascination with inerior joys.
Tats what I learned rom his kind o conservatism. You dontcreate donts to destroy joy, but to protect it. Te Christ-less
pleasures o the world are a kind o music that has no eternal
soul. You resist or the sake o the Song.
So the music never died. Late in lie he was still celebrating
the suciency o gracethe theme-Song o his lie.
When the days o youth have ended,
And your body bends with pain,
When the strength o early years has passed away,
Bear in mind that Christ has promised
He is coming back again
And His grace will prove sucient til that day.
He wrote that when he was 7. His aith in the suciency o
Gods grace never wavered. So the Song never ceased. Trough
loss and aging, and, nally, death, he wept and he sang. Actu-
ally, in his death I had to sing or him. We were alone in the
hospital room. He drew his last breath. I stroked his orehead,
and sang,
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My gracious Master and My God
Assist me to proclaim
o spread through all the earth abroad
Te honors o Ty name.
His Master was gracious. He believed that. So he gave himsel
to proclaim the grace o God all his lie. And lest anyone think
that ollowing his Master was a miserable aair, he sang.
O how I love my ather, and his great Saviorand his Song.
Surely this indomitable Song in our home was the birthplace o
my lies theme: God is most gloried in us when we are most sat-
ised in him. May God make this legacy a tting tribute to my
ather, and a great honor to his song-inspiring King.
John Piper
May 8, 013
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a TrIbuTe To My aTher
J 19, 2005
Tis is a ragment o the legacy o truth imparted to me by my
ather. Te word impartedwas no mere transmission o inor-
mation. It involved a whole lie o proclamation and demon-
stration. I will mention eleven precious truths imparted to me
by my ather.
1. T i gt, mjtic G i , w
w mt t i i g.
Most o these truths that I will mention are rooted in my
memory o particular texts that were branded on my mind at
home. Few texts were more oen on Daddys lips in relation to
me than 1 Corinthians 10:31: So, whether you eat or drink, or
whatever you do, do all to the glory o God.
I am sure that in heaven some day the Lord will make plain
the unbreakable chain o infuences that led rom that verse
when I was a boy to the mission statement o Bethlehem Bap-
tist Church: We exist to spread a passion or the supremacy o
God in all things or the joy o all peoples through Jesus Christ.
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Tis wont be the only infuence you will see o my ather on
that mission statement.
2. W tig t g t w t G -
w mk tm t g.
Even more prominent in my growing up was the presence o
Romans 8:8 in our amily: God works all things together
or good or those who love him and are called according to
his purpose.
I have several vivid memories o this truth. One was in 1974when I rode with my ather in the ambulance rom Atlanta
to Greenville with my mothers body in the hearse ollowing
behind. Tey had just been fown in rom Israel where Mother
had been killed in an accident and Daddy was seriously injured.
All the way home, or three-and-a-hal hours, he would weep
and talk and weep and talk. He was y-six. Tey had been
married thirty-six years.
And when he talked, it was Romans 8:8. I remember the
very words: God must have a reason or me to live. God must
have a reason or me to live. In other words, God governs our
accidents and makes no mistakes.
I will never cease to be thankul that I heard and saw the
truth o Romans 8:8 in my athers lie, When things dontgo the way they should, God always makes them turn or good.
3. G c tt.
How many times did I hear the words o Proverbs 3:6: rust in
the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight;
in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your
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paths. And Philippians 4:19: My God will supply every need o
yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
I can see us as a amily when I was just a child. We were all
(Mother, Daddy, and my older sister Beverly) sitting around a
card table in my parents bedroom olding letters and stung
envelopes which would be sent to pastors asking them to con-
sider having my ather come lead their churches in evangelistic
meetings. Tis was Daddys liehe was a ulltime evangelist
and our livelihood. Te answers to these letters meant bread on
the table and paid bills. Ten we prayed over these envelopes,and Daddy closed in a spirit o utter condence: God will
answer and meet every need. He can be trusted.
He told me more than once o a nancial crisis when I
was six years old in which he almost lost everything. And he
said that God used Psalm 37: to sustain him and bring him
through: Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he
will act. And so I saw and I learned: God can be trusted.
4. li i pci, i i pci. dt pm
tt wi it tmw, t wt it t.
My memory o my athers preaching was that he always began
with humor, but within seconds, he was blood-earnest and
talking about heaven and hell and sin and Christ and lie anddeath. One text above all others rings in my ears with terrible
seriousness. He squinted when he said it, and his mouth pursed
tightly the way it does aer you taste a lemon: It is appointed
unto men once to die, aer that comes judgment (Hebrews
9:7). It made a huge impression on me as a boy.
Te motto on Daddys college wall was, Te wise man
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prepares or the inevitable. Te plaque in our kitchen when
I was growing up was, Only one lie twill soon be past, only
whats done or Christ will last.
5. a m t g ik mici, Cit
i t gt ht-stif.
Tats a quote rom Proverbs 17:. My ather has been the hap-
piest man I have ever known. Here is the kind o things he said
in a sermon called A Good ime and How to Have It.
Right rom the start, lets get one thing straight: a
Christian is not a sour puss. I grant you that some
o them look and act that way, but you simply cant
blame God or it . Some olks seem to have been
born in the objective case, the contrary gender and
the bilious mood.
What a legacy o joy my ather has le!
6. a Citi i gt t gt t.
We Pipers were undamentalistswithout the attitude. We
had our lists o things not to do. But that wasnt the main thing.
Heres what my ather preached in a sermon called Te
Greatest Menace to Modern Youth.
Millions insist upon thinking that Christianity is a
negative religion. You dont do this and you cant do
that. You dont go here and you cant go there. o the
contrary, the Bible constantly sounds the triumphant
and positive note. Be ye doers o the Word and not
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hearers only. Whatsoever your hand ndeth to do,
do with all your might.
God wants us to be doers, not donters. A Christianwho is only a donter is a sour saint who spreads gloom
wherever he goes. A donter is usually a hypocritical
Pharisee. Years ago, I heard the late Dr. Bob Jones say,
Do so ast you dont have time to dont.
Tat le an indelible mark on my lie. We had strict standards,
but I never chaed under them. Tey were not the point. Enjoy-ing Christ, doing good, and loving people was the point. Te
rest was just encing to protect the good eld o aith and purity.
7. T Citi i i pt.
I have one precious DVD o my ather preaching. It is a message
on the new birth rom John 3:7: Do not marvel that I said to
you, You must be born again. Becoming a Christian is not a
mere decision. It is a supernatural work o the Holy Spirit.
And thereore he believed in prayercrying out to God
to do the miracle o the new birth. We prayed together every
night as a amily, because the great need in lie is supernatural,
divine power to live a lie o sacricial love with joyand that
is a ruit o the Holy Spirit, not a work o our own. I saw thatmy athers work was not a human work. It was divine work.
Impossible work. But with God all things are possible.
8. bi cti i imptt, t t t
pp p wit it.
At this point, he admitted openly to me with grie that our
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undamentalist tradition let him down. Tere was great truth,
but too many o them were not great lovers. I can remember
him saying: I they only understood Ephesians 4:1, speak-
ing the truth in love. So rom as early as I can remember, he
showed me the importance o both right doctrine and the way
o love. Tey must never be separated.
9. rpct mt.
I you wanted to see Daddy angry, let one o his children sass
our mother. He not only knew the command o God to honorour mothers; he also knew the extraordinary debt that every
child owes a mother.
ime and again, he would compare true love not to married
love but to mothers love. He knew the price my mother paid
or him to be away so much in ulltime evangelism. Tereore,
he would tolerate no insolence or disrespect toward her. I trem-
bled at the erce gaze in his eyes i I said something sarcastic to
my mother.
10. b w G m t t m .
My ather was shorta good bit shorter than I am. But he was
content and could joke about it. Te one I remember is his rec-
ollection as a boy that he was part o a ootball team called Lit-
tle Potatoes but Hard to Peel. I think God delights to make
short men great preachers. (Remember John Wesley!)
For me, this contentment with being who God made us to
be meant reedom. Daddy never orced me or pressured me to
be an evangelist or a pastor or anything elsejust holy. Tis
is the will o God, your sanctication (1 Tessalonians 4:3).
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Daddys counsel was always: Love God with all your heart and
be what he has made you to be. Ten, what your hand nds to
do, do it with all your might or the glory o Christ.
I close with one more truththe central truth o my
athers lie. Tis was what he preached and what he loved. So I
will let him preach it again.
11. Pp t t tg it
i J Cit.
My ather was an evangelist. His absence rom home two-thirds o the year (in and out, in and out) meant one main
thing: Sin and hell are real and horrible, and Jesus Christ is a
great Savior. Heres a direct quote rom my ather:
In my evangelistic career I have had the thril l o seeing
people rom all walks o lie come to Christ. I have
seen many proessional people saved. I have kneltwith Ph.D.s and led them to Jesus. College proessors,
bankers, lawyers, doctors. I have seen them all saved.
Ten I have seen many rom the other side o lie come
to the Lord. I have put my arm around drunkards in
city missions and prayed with them. I have sat by the
bedside o dying alcoholics and led them to Christ. Ihave seen the poor, the orsaken, the derelicts, the
outcasts all come to the Savior. Yes, God takes them,
too. Isnt it wonderul that anyone who wants to can
come to Christ? (Grace or the Guilty, p. 111)
Perhaps you never had a ather like this, but right now you hear
your heavenly Father calling. How many times did I hear the
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Fathers voice in my athers voice and see His pleading ace in
my athers pleading ace.
Soly and tenderly Jesus is calling...Come home! Come home!
Ye who are weary, come home!
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
I thank you, heavenly Father, or my earthly ather. What
a legacy he has le to me and my sister and our children andgrandchildrenand to the church o Jesus Christ. And to the
nations o the world to the glory o Jesus Christ.
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hello, My aTher JusT dIed
Mc 6, 2007
Te big hospital clock in room 436 o Greenville Memorial Hos-
pital said, with both hands straight up, midnight. Daddy had just
taken his last breath. My watch said 1:01, March 6, 007.
I had slept a little since his last morphine shot at ten. One
ear sleeping, one on the breathing. At 11:4, I awoke. Tebreaths were coming more requently and were very shallow. I
will not sleep again, I thought. For ten minutes, I prayed aloud
into his le ear with Bible texts and pleadings to Jesus to come
and take him. I had made this case beore, and this time elt an
unusual sense o partnership with Daddy as I pressed on the
Lord to relieve this warrior o his burden.
I nished and lay down. Good. Tank you, Lord. It will not
be long. And, grace upon grace, hundreds o prayers are being
answered: He is not choking. Te gurgling that threatened to
spill over and drown him in the aernoon had sunk deep, and
now there was simple clear air, shorter and shorter. I listened
rom where I lay next to him on a oldout chair.
Tats it. I rose and waited. Will he breathe again? Nothing.
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Fieen or twenty seconds, and then a gasp. I was told to expect
these alse endings. But it was not alse. Te gasp was the rst
o two. But no more breaths. I waited, watching. No acial
expressions. His ace had rozen in place hours beore. One
more jerk. Tat was al l. Perhaps an eyebrow twitch a moment
later. Nothing more.
I stroked his orehead and sang,
My gracious Master and My God
Assist me to proclaim
o spread through all the earth abroad
Te honors o thy name.
Daddy, how many thousands awaited you because o your proc-
lamation o the great gospel. You were aithul. You kept the
aith, nished the race, ought the ght. Make riends or
yourselves with unrighteous mammon that they might receive
you into eternal habitations (Luke 16:9). I watched, wonder-ing i there could be other refexes. I combed his hair. He always
wore a tie. Te indignities o death are many, but we tried to
minimize them. Keep the covers straight. Pull the gown up
around his neck so it looks like a sharp turtleneck. uck the
gappy shoulder slits down behind so they dont show. Use a wet
washcloth to keep the secretions rom crusting in the eyelashes.
And by all means, keep his hair combed. So now I straightened
his bedding and combed his hair and wiped his eyes and put
the mouth moisturizer on his lips and tried to close his mouth.
His mouth would not stay closed. It had been set in that posi-
tion rom hours and hours o strained breathing. But he was
neat. A strong, dignied ace.
I called my sister Beverly rst, then Nol. earully we gave
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thanks. Get a good nights rest. I will take care o things here
with the doctor and the nurses and the mortuary arrangements.
I will gather all our things and take them back to the motel. I
wish I had been there, Beverly lamented. Yes. Tat is good. But
dont let that eeling dominate now. In the days to come, you
will look back with enormous gratitude or the hundreds o
hours you gave serving Daddy. It is my turn to be blessed.
Te nurse came to give him his scheduled morphine shot.
As she walked toward me I said, He wont need that any more.
Is he gone? Yes. And thank you so much or your ministry tohim. I will notiy the doctor so he can come and veriy. I will
leave you alone. Yes, thank you.
Te doctor in his green rock came at 1:40 and listened
with his stethoscope to our dierent places on Daddys chest.
Ten he pulled back the sheet and said, I must apply some
pain stimuli to his nail base to see i he reacts. Ten he used
his fashlight to test Daddys eyes. Te nurse supervisor willcome and get the inormation we need about the mortuary.
Tank you.
Alone again, I elt his cheeks. Finally cool aer the evered
and fushed ght. I elt his nose, as though I were blind. Ten I
elt mine. I thought, very soon my nose will be like your nose. It
is already like your nose.
Te nurse came. No thank you, an autopsy will not be nec-
essary. Mackey Mortuary on Century Drive. My name is John,
his son. My cell phone is . You may stay as long as you like.
Tank you. I will be leaving soon.
Now I just look at him. Nothing has changed in his ace
here in the darkness o this dim light. Just no movement. But I
have watched his chest so longeven now, was that a slight rise
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and all? No, surely not. Its like sailing on the sea or days. On
the land the waves still roll.
He has our-days beard and dark eyes. I li an eyelid to see
him eye to eye. Tey are dilated.
Tank you, Daddy. Tank you or sixty-one years o aith-
ulness to me. I am simply looking into his ace now. Tank you.
You were a good ather. You never put me down. Discipline, yes.
Spankings, yes. But you never scorned me. You never treated
me with contempt. You never spoke o my uture with hope-
lessness in your voice. You believed Gods hand was on me. Youapproved o my ministry. You prayed or me. Everyday. Tat
may be the biggest change in these new days: Daddy is no lon-
ger praying or me.
I look you in the ace and promise you with all my heart:
Never will I orsake your gospel. O how you believed in hell
and heaven and Christ and cross and blood and righteous-
ness and aith and salvation and the Holy Spirit and the lieo holiness and love. I rededicate mysel, Daddy, to serve your
great and glorious Lord Jesus with all my heart and with all my
strength. You have not lived in vain. Your lie goes on in thou-
sands. I am glad to be one.
I kissed him on his cold cheek and on his orehead. I love
you, Daddy. Tank you.
It was 1: as I walked out o room 436. Just beore the
elevators on the ourth foor in the lounge, a young man in
his twenties was sitting alone listening to his iPod with head-
phones. I paused. Ten I walked toward him. He stopped his
music. Hello, my ather just died. One o the greatest tributes
I could pay to him is to ask you, Are you ready to meet God?
Yes, Sir. Tat would make my ather very happy. You know
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Jesus is the only way? Yes, Sir. Good. Tank you or letting
me talk to you.
As I drove out o the parking lot, I stopped. Te moon was a
day past ull. It was coldor Greenville. I looked at this great
hospital. Tank you, Lord, or this hospital. I will probably nev-
er lay eyes on it again.
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uneral MessaGe or
WIllIaM s. h. PIPer
Mc 9, 2007
Everybody with a little lie experience knows that in many cas-
es parting is sweet sorrow. Te experience is so common that
we have proverbs to express it. Actually, it comes rom Shake-speares Romeo and Julietwhich is more than incidental to
say because my ather was trained in Shakespearean drama at
Bob Jones University.
Good night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Tat experience is not new. Every tear has been a sad and happy
tear. But what has been new or me is that it is not the imme-
diate experience o my athers death that makes me cry. It
doesnt work on me directly. It works indirectly. It comes at me
through other people. Most o my tears since Daddy died on
uesday have been sitting in ront o my computer and reading
emails. My athers death and my athers lie are touching me
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most in these days through the way they are touching others.
Tat was new to me.
Tk y
I mention this simply to say that so many people have touched
me and touched my ather in these last years and months o
departing rom us mentally and then bodily. And I want to
thank God and you publicly.
Tank you, Beverly and Bob. Nobody knows what you paid.
You have the right middle name. She would have done the same.And thanks to Berchetta and Steve and Brande who supported
her and in the last days have made a place or us to be at home.
Tank you, John and Marilyn Vanden Akker or your part-
nership in the ministry o Rogma and your relentless care or
my ather. And thanks to all the Rogma board who respected
and loved my ather.
Tank you, Brent Armstrong, my athers aithul pastor,
and all the riends at his church, Oakwood Baptist in Anderson.
He could not have asked or a better pastor, even rom a distance.
Tank you, Sharon and Larry, Nancy and Fred, Paul and
Linda, and Pam and John or loving your uncle well, especial-
ly aer Elmer and Naomi were gone. What an extraordinary
bond existed between our athers.Tank you to Shepherds Care where he spent the last two
years o his lie. He liked his place and turned it into a sanctuary
where memories o gospel triumph were happening all over again.
Tank you to Dr. Bill Logan and the sta at Greenville
Memorial Hospital who tenderly honored my ather with dig-
nied care and protected him rom pain in his last week.
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Tank you to Bill Philips and the team here at White Oak who
have lied so many burdens rom us and made this day possible.
Tank you to all o you or coming to express your support
to us and to honor my ather. Your presence is a grace that we
do not take or granted.
Tank you to Bethlehem, the church I serve, and to the
hundreds o riends who have prayed and written. It is a beauti-
ul thing when the sheep shepherd the shepherd.
Tank you to Karsten and Shelly and Millie and Frances
and Able and Ben and Melissa and Lilia and Abraham andMolly and Barnabas and Lesley and Grace or coming to hon-
or their grandather and great grandather. And to Oscar and
Orison who were willing to stay behind.
And thanks, above all, to Jesus Christ, my athers God and
my God. o use the words o George Mueller when he preached
his wies uneral sermon in 1870: Te Lord was good to give
her to me. Te Lord was good to leave her with me so long. TeLord was good to take her rom me. So we thank him or Bill
Piper: Te Lord was good to give him to usa child does not
choose his parents, God does. Te Lord was good to leave him
with us so longsixty-one years or me, more than I deserved.
Te Lord was good to take him rom usso quickly, so gently,
so ree rom pain. Tank you, Lord Jesus.
lt M t Pc o M Tim
When Daddy turned eighty, there was a great celebration.
Some o you were there. When I stood to speak I said, I have
come to preach my athers uneral sermon. What I meant was
that I wanted Daddy to be alive and to hear my tribute. And he
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heard it. And so I dont intend to preach it again. Instead, it is
printed in the booklet you have called A ribute to My Father.
oday what I want to do, as much as possible, is let my ather
preach to you one more time. Not with a recording but through
the heart and mouth o his son. You know, when someone asks
you, Who were the key infuences in your lie that made you
what you are? your answer to that question is only as valid
as your memory. And you dont remember but a tiny raction
o the infuences that made you what you are. Many decisive
infuences came into your lie beore they could even register inyour memory. And millions upon millions o infuences have
entered your lie o which you have no memory. Tis is not only
because you have orgotten millions o moments in your lie,
but because thousands o infuences on you, you never knew
about in the rst place. For example, the prayers o others or
you. You dont know about them, but they shape your lie.
Tis act has two eects on me. One is to make me thankulor the sovereignty o God. He governs all the infuences over my
lie. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:10, By the grace o God I am
what I am. I am glad that neither I nor any other human governs
my lie. God does. My days are in his hands. And I am glad.
Te other eect this truth has on me is to send me back to
my athers preaching to uncover more deeply my roots. I have
seven o my athers books here. Te more that I read them, the
more I marvel at how unoriginal I am. And this makes me very
happy. Original theologians tend be heretics. I want what I say
to have roots. I dont want to be new in what I believe. I want
to be true.
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s, s, stif
And so I have chosen one o my athers sermons rom the
bookA Good ime and How to Have It. Te sermon is onpages 4349, and it is called, Saved, Sae, and Satised. Te
date on the book is 1964. I have simply marveled at how what
I preach and write is simply an updating o his vision o the
Christian lie. He never used the phrase Christian Hedonism;
he just preached it. He never used the phrase God is the gos-
pel. He preached it. He never wrote a book called Counted
Righteous in Christ. He just preached it. So I have reveled inthe roots o my lie. And I thought I should let the root speak
through the branch.
Saved, Sae, and Satisedthree o the great themes o
his preaching. First, everyone must be saved or perish. Second,
when God saves you by his sovereign grace, he keeps you sae by
his sovereign grace. Tird, Christ himsel is our supreme satis-
action. A ew comments about these three great themes o my
athers preaching and lie:
1. Saved
Always, as he introduces a new theme, there fows o o Dad-
dys tongue a stream o verses rom all over the Bible that lays
the oundation or his comments:
Isaiah 4:: urn to me and besaved, all the ends o
the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.
Jeremiah 8:0: Te harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are notsaved.
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Luke 8:1: Te devil comes and takes away the word rom
their hearts, so that they may not believe and besaved.
John 3:17: God did not send his Son into the world tocondemn the world, but in order that the world might
besavedthrough him.
Acts :47: Te Lord added to their number day by day
those who were beingsaved.
Acts 16:31: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will besaved.
Saved?
But why talk so much o being saved? Why give your whole lie
to this? Te world doesnt think it needs to be saved. Daddy
told me more than once: Getting people lost is much harder
than getting them saved. People dont think they need to be
saved. It doesnt mean anything to them. So why talk so muchabout it? Four reasons:
1) Because we are by nature corrupt. We dont just sin, weare
sinul. Our nature is bent, corrupted, depraved. We are sel-
ish to the core. We are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephe-
sians :13).
) We have all acted on this nature relentlessly all our lives and
piled up a huge debt o guilt. All have sinned and all short
o the glory o God (Romans 3:3). In act, since Paul says,
Whatever does not proceed rom aith is sin (Romans
14:3), and Hebrews says, Without aith it is impossible to
please God (Hebrews 11:6), all that we do apart rom aith
in Christ is sinno matter how virtuous it is.
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3) Because o this sinul nature and these mounting sins, we
are under the just sentence o condemnation. Te judge o
the universe pronounces a sentence o guilt over us. And
this is impeccable justice.
4) Te punishment ollowing this sentence o condemnation
is everlasting torment in hell. Matthew :41: Ten he will
say to those on his le, Depart rom me, you cursed, into
the eternal re prepared or the devil and his angels. My
athers eyes were never more penetrating than when he
looked into your eyes and warned about the unspeakablereality o eternal punishment. Tis is a kind o love with
which the world does not want to be loved.
The Remedy
And o course the great burden o his message was that there
is Grace or the Guilty, the title o one o his books. And he was
unapologetic about being rigorously doctrinal in his evangelis-
tic preaching, because the remedy or each o these our condi-
tions rom which we need to be saved involves proound bibli-
cal doctrine.
1) Te remedy or our corruption and our sinul nature is regen-
eration. Tat is, we must be born again. And this is a gi and
miracle o sovereign grace. You cant make yoursel to be
born again any more than you made yoursel be born. Jesus
said in John 3:78, Do not marvel that I said to you, You
must be born again. Te wind blows where it wishes, and you
hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes rom or
where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born o the Spirit.
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Tis is the work o God. I you have not been born again, ask
God to do this miracle and give you spiritual lie.
) Te remedy or the guilt o sin and the mounting up o sinsday aer day is the redemption in Christ Jesus, the orgive-
ness o our sins, because he bore them or us. Colossians
:1314: He has orgiven us all our trespasses, by cancel-
ing the record o debt that stood against us with its legal
demands. Tis he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Christ
bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter :4).
3) Te remedy or the sentence o condemnation that hangs
over us because o our depravity and our sins is justica-
tion. Tis is the declaration in the courtroom o heaven that
those who are in Christ Jesus are not only orgiven, but also
counted perectly righteous as though they had ullled
every demand o the law. How can this be? How can I, a
sinner, be counted righteous beore God? Romans :19: Asby the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners,
so by the one mans obedience the many will be made righ-
teous. Corinthians :1: For our sake he made him to be
sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness o God. Te remedy or our condemnation
is that, because o Christs righteousness being imputed to
us, Tere is thereore now no condemnation or those who
are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
4) And the remedy or the curse and the penalty o hell and
the wrath o God that hangs over us because o our deprav-
ity and sins and condemnation is propitiation. When you
propitiate someone, you remove his anger. Tat is what
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Christ did when he died (Romans 3:). Christ redeemed
us rom the curse o the law by becoming a curse or usor
it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree
(Galatians 3:13). First Tessalonians :910: God has not
destined us or wrath, but to obtain salvation through our
Lord Jesus Christ, who died or us so that whether we are
awake or asleep we might live with him. Tis is not because
there was no wrath, but because Christ suered in our place
not only to cover our sins but to remove the wrath o God.
My ather preached, Tere is no other name under heaven giv-en among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:1), because
everyone is sinul, guilty, condemned, and hell-bound, and
because Christ is a great Savior. Everything hangs on whether
you are united to Christ. In Christ we are orgiven, justied,
and ree rom wrath. And union with Christ comes by one
means: being born again through aith in him.
2. Sae
And when you are united to Christ by aith, you are sae. Forev-
er. Not because the rest o your lie doesnt matteras though
you can live your lie as though other things in your lie are
more precious than Christ. Tis is the great misunderstanding
o eternal security in so many churches, which causes so much
alse Christianity. And my ather was greatly burdened by this.
Te saety o a Christian does not lie in the act that I
once prayed to ask Jesus into my heart and now I can know I
am saved even i he has no central place in my lie. Te saety
o a Christian lies in the biblical act that those who embrace
Christ as their Savior and Lord and reasure, God preserves.
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Tat is, God comes aer us again and again to make himsel
central in our lives. Jeremiah 3:40 is one o the greatest state-
ments o the new covenant that Christ bought with his blood:
I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not
turn away rom doing good to them. And I will put the ear o
me in their hearts, that they may not turn rom me.
Our saety rests on Gods promise that because o Christ
he will not let us minimize him without convicting us and
causing us again to pursue him. In other words, the mark o
a Christian is not perectionwe oen stumble and yield totemptation to put other things ahead o Christ in our aec-
tions. But the mark o a Christian is that we grieve over this.
We hate this about ourselves. And again and again we renounce
our love or other things more than Christ and pursue him as
our highest reasure. Tat is what God promises to do or all
who are justied by aith alone. Tose whom he justied he
gloried (Romans 8:30). It is as good as done. It is sure. Tejustied are sae.
Do we coast because we are sae? Do we love what the world
loves because Christ died or us that we might love him above
al things? No. Tat is not the heart o a Christian. Rather, we
do what Paul says in Philippians 3:1: Not that I have already
obtained this or am already perect, but I press on to make it
my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Because
we are saeJesus made us his ownwe press on to make it our
own. We resolve everyday what? Which brings us to the nal
point: Saved. Sae. Satised.
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3. Satisfed
We resolve everyday that today Christ will be our supreme sat-
isaction. Te psalmist prays in Psalm 90:14, Satisy us in themorning with your steadast love, that we may rejoice and be
glad all our days. Satisy us with your love. Not with the toys
o the world. Do you pray like that? Is this your longing?
Can you resonate with Paul when he says, Whatever gain
I had, I counted as loss or the sake o Christ. Indeed, I count
everything as loss because o the surpassing worth o knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suered the loss oall things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain
Christ (Philippians 3:78)?
How oen I have quoted C. S. Lewis that people who pre-
er the worldeven the innocent worldto Christ are like
children making mud pies in the slums because they cannot
imagine what a holiday at the sea is like. Daddy put it like
this: I have oen seen a cow stick her head through a barbed
wire ence to chew the stubby grass bordering a highway, when
behind her lay a whole pasture o grass (A Good ime and
How to Have It, p. 48).
a i P: i y sticti i J Cit
Tis is my athers nal pleait is what I intend to devote the
rest o my lie to: Find your supreme satisaction in Jesus Christ.
It does not come naturally to allen human beings. But Chris-
tians have the Holy Spirit. Tey are in Christ Jesus. We are not
o the world. We have a new nature. Te mark o a Christian is
not perection but new aections or Christ.
Here are his closing words and mine:
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Just remember, my riend, who Jesus is. He is God.
When you ully trust Him you have all that God is
and all that God has. You cannot be otherwise than
satised with the perect ullness o Christ. Because he
is God, He is all you need and more. Tere is no corner
o your lie He cannot ll, no problem He cannot solve
and no need He cannot supply .Yes, my riend, in
Christ we aresaved,sae, andsatised. He is a perect,
a complete, Savior. And I must add, He is the ONLY
Savior. rusting Christ spells JOY. Failure to trust himspellsjudgment. Now is the time to accept him. oday,
i you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.
(A Good ime and How to Have It, pp. 4849)
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ThouGhTs on My aTher
J 13, 2008
My ather, Bill Piper, was an incredibly intense preacher o the
gospel with a strong evangelistic bent. Tats because he was an
evangelist. He was not a pastor and never was a pastor. For 0+
years he served as an itinerant evangelist trying all the time to
rescue people rom perishing.Because o this he always had the smell o hell singeing his
garments and the aroma o heaven beckoning him on. Te
result was an amazing combination o blazing-eyed intensity as
he preached with high levels o joy, praise, and exultation over
the hope that he had in Jesus Christ.
My ather was one o the most intense people Ive ever
known when he was in the pulpit and perhaps the happiest per-
son Ive ever known when he was at the dinner table. Ive never
thought those things were in confict, and they always struck
me as describing the way one ought to be.
A Christian has to be realistic. Te world is in a horrible
state and eternity is looming very close with either hell or heav-
en, and we must be serious and intense. And on the other hand
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Christ has come to redeem the world. He has rescued us. How
can we not serve the Lord with gladness and rejoice always?
My ather seemed to combine those in a remarkable way.
He was a lover o humor. Nobody laughed more than my ather
laughed. I he told a joke he always laughed most at it, so wheth-
er you thought the joke was unny or not you were just drawn in
by his belly laughter.
Practically speaking, what I remember about my ather is
that he le home a lot. He would leave home on Monday and
get back the ollowing Monday. Sometimes he would be goneor two or three weeks. Te whole rhythm o our lie was built
around my athers comings and goings.
Ive never elt any resentment about my ather traveling so
much because it was or such a glorious cause. It wasnt like busi-
ness. It was our lie. Tis is what we lived or: we lived or the
gospel as a amily. My mother knew what she had gotten into.
It wasnt easy or her to be without her husband approximate-ly two-thirds o the year, but we were in it as a amily together.
Daddys leaving was our part in the gospel spreading. And when
he came home he would tell us great stories about people who
had come to Christ aer resisting or years, people who broke
on the last day o the crusade and walked with tears to the ront.
We would hear these glorious stories and how could we not sup-
port that or be thrilled to be a part o it somehow?
He did little things or us kids too. My sister had a spoon
collection and I had a coin collection, and when he was travel-
ing he would always be looking out or a spoon or Beverly and
some coins or Johnny. And because he traveled so many places
he could nd some pretty unusual items. Little things like that
made his going and coming poignant and special.
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Now that he is with Jesus, I eel the weight o being the
patriarch in the Piper amily. Tat eels like a burden, but its
a good one. I was happy to let him keep it and wouldnt have
wanted it rom him, but when God said, Bill, time or you to
come home, then that mantel came to me.
Tere is no great-grandather anymore, only grandather,
and it eels like a wonderul opportunity or me to love my
grandchildren and my kids. I do that mainly through daily
prayer. I name beore God every day all o my children and all
o my grandchildren the way Job did.Scripture says that Job got up and sacriced or his children
every day, i perchance they had sinned. I pray rather to try and
keep them rom sinning. Nonetheless, there is a prayer cover
that I eel like I owe this Piper clan which my dad once kept up.
About 10 years ago, Sam Storms wrote me and said, John
I elt led and made a commitment to pray or you every day or
the rest o my lie. I couldnt believe that! So I wrote in the Stararticleour churchs weekly newsletterthat Ive never had
anybody make that commitment to me beore. Tat was a bad
mistake. I got a letter rom my dad the next week saying, John-
ny, beore you were born I made the pledge to pray or you every
day o my lieand I havent ailed. I just elt awul!
I called him on the phone and said, Daddy, I knew that! I
dont know why I said what I said.
So there are actually at least two people in the world who have
made that commitment to me. But that prayer cover as the patri-
arch is gone. I dont have it anymore. Rather, I am that patriarch.
And I want to be as aithul as he was to name all o my children,
my wie, my daughters-in-law, and all o my grandchildren, inter-
ceding or them every day and covering them with prayer.
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evanGelIsT bIll PIPer:undaMenTalIsT ull o
GraCe and Joy 5, 2008
Te title I have given this message about my ather is Evange-
list Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full o Grace and Joy. Tat title
is meant to carry several apparent incongruities or paradoxes or
ironies. I expect you to eel tension between the wordundamen-
talistand the phrase ull o grace, and between the wordunda-
mentalistand the phrase ull o joy. But the lead word is evange-
list. Underneath being a child o God, redeemed by the blood o
the Lamb, and justied by aith, and possessing all the riches o
the glory o God in Christunderneath that most basic identity,
my athers chie identity was evangelist. Independent, unda-mentalist, Baptist evangelistull o grace and joy.
T Pxic Citi Itit
It seems to me that any serious analysis or exploration o a
human beings lie will always deal in paradoxes. It will see ten-
sions. Again and again, the serious eort to understand another
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person will meet with ironic realities. Here is what I mean by
irony: Its the incongruity between what might be expected
and what actually occurs (www.dictionary.com). Te diction-
ary gives this example: Hyde noted the irony o Irelands copy-
ing the nation she most hated. In other words, its a great irony
to imitate the people you like the least.
It seems to me that there are very deep and basic reasons
why every serious eort to understand another personespe-
cially a Christianorces us to deal in irony or paradox. One
o the most basic reasons is that Christians are both allen andredeemed. We are saved (Ephesians :89), and we not yet saved
(Romans 13:11). We are adopted (Romans 8:1), yet we wait or
adoption (Romans 8:3). We are pure in Christ, but not yet
pure: Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump,
as you really are unleavened (1 Corinthians :7). What an irony
that unleavened bread should be told to become unleavened.
Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:0); we aresojourners and exiles here (1 Peter :11). But the earth is the
Lords and everything in it (1 Corinthians 10:6); and all
things are yours, whether the world or lie or death or the
present or the utureall are yours (1 Corinthians 3:1).
We were bought with a price and are slaves o no man (1 Corin-
thians 7:3). Yet, Be subject or the Lords sake to every human
institution (1 Peter :13). Our lives are hidden with Christ in
God (Colossians 3:3). Yet Jesus prays that we not be taken out
o the world (John 17:1). Indeed, some o you they will put to
death but not a hair o your head will perish (Luke 1:16, 18).
In act, you have already died (Romans 6:8). So consider your-
selves dead (Romans 6:11). How ironic that dead should be told
to consider themselves dead.
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In other words, irony and paradox and incongruities are
ound in every Christian lie because our very identity as
Christians is paradoxical. Tats what it means to be a Chris-
tian. I youre not a paradox, youre not saved. In act, I would
go even arther and say, i youre not a paradox, youre not a
human. What could be more basic to allen humanityand
what could be more ironicthan that those who are created
by God in his own image should use that God-like personhood
to deny their Maker? Like a digging ant denying the earth; or a
fying bird denying the wind; or swimming sh denying the sea.
bi Pip: hm, Citi
So there are these two great reasons why, as I have pondered my
athers lie, I have ound him to be a paradoxical person: He is
a Christian, and he is a human. Does it not seem like a strange
incongruityperhaps not a real onethat a blood-earnest,
soul-winner, who hammered away at the temptations o the
world and the dangers o the fesh should in his sixties celebrate
the body o his wie with words like these:
Her hair is like an auburn sea,
Wind-whipped, waved, mysterious.
Her orehead, like a wall o pearl
Stands majestic, proud, serene.
Her wide-set eyes are like clear, sparkling,
hazel-green pools, calm, compassionate, penetrating.
Her nely chiseled nose stands rmly between
cheeks that are air,
like pillows o down.
Her mouth is so, pleasant and ruby rich.
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Her skin is like the eathers o a dove.
Her breasts are like rose-tipped apples o ivory,
And her belly is like a ocean wave, smooth and restul.
Her legs are like pillars o granite, strong and rm.
And her eet like those o a deer, swi and beautiul.
Her breath is like sweet nectar,
Her kisses like perumed owers,
And her love like paradise.
Perhaps I shouldnt be surprised that Bob Jones University
should produce soul-winners that write like Song o Songs.Maybe the incongruity is just biblical aithulness. But almost
everywhere I turned in my athers lie, there were these seem-
ing paradoxes. He was human, and he was Christian.
Cpt Px
And he lived with other humans and other Christians, whotogether created corporate paradoxes. Does it not seem like a
strange incongruityperhaps not a real onethat the most
undamentalistic, separatistic, worldliness-renouncing school
in America, Bob Jones University, where my ather graduated
in 194, should have as part o the commencement celebra-
tion in those days a perormance o As You Like It (1939) and
Romeo and Juliet (1940) both written by William Shake-
speare, who in his own day ridiculed the Puritans, and whose
Globe Teater was demolished by the Puritans in 1644? Isnt it
a strange irony how three centuries can turn worldliness into a
delightul comedyas the BJU program said in 1939?
So whether personal or corporate, my athers lie appears to
be permeated with paradoxes. And under the title Evangelist
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Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full o Grace and Joy, I hope to
capture some o them in a way that gives you hope in the grace
o God through the gospel o Christ.
a o-i, n-n rig
William Solomon Hottle Pipernamed aer a Bible expositor
that his ather admiredwas born in Reading, Pennsylvania,
January 8, 1919. He was the third and youngest son o Elmer
and Emma Piper. His ather had been a machinist (I couldnt
orget that he was missing hal o one nger), but aer his con-version, he became a sel-taught Bible student and then the
pastor o West Wyomissing Nonsectarian Church. My ather
told me that he wouldnt have been surprised i his ather could
quote virtually the entire New estament rom memory. My
guess is that this was an overstatement, but it signals the mas-
sive priority o the Bible and Bible Study that passed rom my
grandather to my ather to me.
Te upbringing o the three boys, Harold, Elmer, and
Bill, was old-ashioned, no-nonsense, and strict. He gives us a
glimpse into the discipline o his ather in one o his sermons.
Behavioristic psychologists teach that temper
tantrums and deiant attitudes are normal and
healthy. o curb them is dangerous. I you discipline
the child you will develop within him inhibitions
and warp his personality.
Im glad I had a ather who believed otherwise. I
got warped a good many times, but it wasnt my
personality! O, yes, we had plenty o counseling
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sessions but generally he did the talking and when he
nished I said, Yes, sir.
Old ashioned? Indeed it was! Scriptural? Absolutely!Right to the letter.
I was reared in a amily o three boys. o this day I
can hear some o the neighbors and church members
say, Brother Piper, you are just too hard on those boys.
Nevertheless, all three are ollowing Christ and two
o them are Baptist preachers. Tere was no doing asyou please in our home. My ather believed he was
responsible or the behavior o his children and as long
as we were under his roo we were expected to obey.1
Te strictness o his ather had some surprising side eects that
were proound. He told me about one o them. It turns out that
both Bill and Elmer had disobeyed their ather. Elmer was the
older, so his ather said that he was the more responsible and
that he would get the whipping or both boys. My ather told
me with tears in his eyes a ew years ago that he could hear the
belt on the backside. Tough he was just a boy, he said it was
one o the most vivid pictures in his lie o the substitionary
atonement o Christ in our place.
In a sermon about the salvation o children, he tells usabout his own conversion to make the point that young chil-
dren can be saved.
Tat children can be saved I know rom my own
experience. I have a brother who was saved at the age o
seven and another who gave his heart to Christ when he
was eight. I received Christ as my Savior when I was a boy
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o six. Certainly there were many things I did not know,
nor need to know. I knew enough to be saved. I knew I
was sinul and needed a Savior. I knew that Christ was
that Savior I needed. I knew that i I would believe on
Him and coness Him as my Savior He would save me.
Tat is all I needed to know and that all any child needs to
know to be saved. I trusted Christ and he saved me.
T C t ag it
Besides his conversion at the age o six, probably the most deci-
sive event in his teenage lie (and I mean even more decisive
than his marriage to my mother at age nineteen) was what hap-
pened when he was een. He told me this story ace to ace
several times over the years, and he always came to tears as he
said it. He saw it as a moment o supernatural conrmation
on his divine calling that never le him and that stamped hisentire lie. I will let him tell the story rom his bookTe Great-
est Menace to Modern Youth.
I can vividly recall the thrills that accompanied the
delivery o my rst Gospel sermon. I was een years
o age and had just surrendered my lie ully to the
will and service o Christ. Te young people o ourcommunity had joined together to promote a city-wide
revival and had invited a well known evangelist.
For the Saturday night service, the evangelist decided
to turn the entire service over to the young people. For
some reason I was asked to bring the message and to
give the invitation.
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I had been reared in a Baptist parsonage. All my lie I
had heard great preaching but I had never tried to do it
mysel. Tis was to be my rst attempt. I didnt know
how but I tried. My heart was lled with zeal and I
wanted to do my best or the Lord. Te big night came.
For my message I had selected some thoughts on about
a hal dozen Gospel tracts. At the time o the sermon
I spread these tracts all over the pulpit and I simply
preached rom one tract to the next.
I dont recall a thing I said. It probably was a poorsermon. But the thing that mattered was that when I
gave the invitation to receive Christ [this is where the
tears would inevitably come], ten precious souls le
their seats, came weeping to an improvised altar and
surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Te thrill that came to me then is still with memany years later. I knew that Jesus had walked on
the water but I elt as I le the building that night
that I was walking on air! Believe me, I was on cloud
nine! And, better still, Ive never come down. What
thrilled me most was the sudden realization that I had
immeasurable power at my disposal. Tat the God
o heaven, the God o the Bible, was willing to speak
through me in such a way as to touch other lives and
transorm them and change their destinies.
I never dreamed such a thrill was possible or me. I had
not known such power was at my disposal. I said then,
God, let me know this power the rest o my lie. Let me
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be so yielded to Tee that Ill never cease to know the
thrill and joy o winning others to Christ. And I can say
with honesty, I am just as excited right now [this book
was published in 1980, orty-six years later] about the
soul-winning power o God as I was at the age o een.
Young people, believe me, the greatest thrill youll ever
have this side o heaven is the thrill o leading another
precious soul to Christ.3
From that day on, my athers ace was set like fint to be a ull-time evangelist. Beside his name in his senior yearbook are the
words: He wants to be an evangelistic preacher. He never
turned back.
bi e: T Gp sgt
In the last two years that he and his brother Elmer were in
high school together, they had their own radio program on
WRW in Reading, Pennsylvania, cal led Bill and El, the Gos-
pel Songsters. Tey sang and preached. Teir theme song was
a song called Wonderul Peace. Until you hear it, you can
hardly imagine how dierent the teenage world was seventy-
ve years ago.
Perhaps my wie is right in her analysis: When she saw this,she pointed out that in 1936 adolescence as a distinct cultural
phenomenon hadnt yet been created. Tere was no such thing
as a vast teen culture. Tere was no teenage music. Frank Sina-
tra was born our years beore my ather. He is usually consid-
ered the rst teen idol. Te beginnings o a distinct youth cul-
ture was just about to begin. So when my ather was in high
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school the overlap between the music that mom and dad liked
and what teens liked was much greater then than now.
In other words, my ather grew up much more quickly than
I did. He skipped a good bit o the usually-wasted years called
adolescence, or what later was called the teenage yearsthe
term teenagerdid not occur in the English language until 1941.
He graduated rom high school with his sweetheart Ruth Eula-
lia Mohn in 1936. You can see rom the note in her senior year-
book that her heart was bound together already in the calling o
his lie. Hers reads: She intends to take up evangelistic work.
Mig t rt, Cg t b J
Aer graduation, my ather traveled with the Students League
o Nations and studied at John A. Davis Memorial Bible
School in Binghamton, New York. Ten on May 6, 1938, he
and his brother Elmer in the same wedding ceremony married
Ruth and Naomi. Elmer married Naomi Werner. And Bill
married Ruth Mohn. Bill and Ruth were both nineteen.
Tey moved to Cleveland, ennessee, to attend Bob Jones
College. Te school had moved to Cleveland in 1933 rom near
Panama City, Florida, where it was ounded in 197. Ruth and
Bill both enrolled. My ather was an average student and a
very gied speaker and actor. He had leading roles in severalShakespearean plays. He developed a deep admiration or Dr.
Bob Senior, the ounder o the school, and quoted him oen
the rest o his lie. My ather loved the education he got at Bob
Jones. He never belittled the school as an educational institu-
tion. When the time would come or cutting o ties with the
school, it was a deeply painul thing.
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He graduated in 194 and entered ull-time evangelism. My
sister Beverly was born in 1943, and I was born in 1946. Tat
same year Bob Jones moved to Greenville, South Carolina,
and our amily moved with them. Greenville became the base
o Daddys evangelistic ministry or the rest o his lie. Tis is
where I grew up.
T rtm lig Cmig hm
Lie, in my memory, was a rhythm o Daddys leaving or one
week or two weeks or as long as our weeks, almost always onSaturday, and then coming home on Monday. When I dedicat-
ed the bookDesiring Godto him, I wrote
I can recall Mother laughing so hard at the dinner
table that the tears ran down her ace. She was a very
happy woman. But especially when you came home on
Monday. You had been gone two weeks. Or sometimesthree or our. She would glow on Monday mornings
when you were coming home.
At the dinner table that night (these were the happiest
o times in my memory) we would hear about the
victories o the gospel. Surely it is more exciting to be
the son o an evangelist than to sit with knights andwarriors. As I grew older I saw more o the wounds. But
you spared me most o that until I was mature enough
to count it all joy. Holy and happy were those Monday
meals. O, how good it was to have you home!4
He had been elected to the board o trustees o Bob Jones beore
coming to Greenville in 1946, the youngest board member ever
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elected at that time. In 19, the University awarded him the
Doctor o Divinity degree in recognition o the impact o his
ministry in the churches o the United States.
Over the next decades, he preached in all y states, hal
a dozen other countries, held over 1,0 evangelistic crusades,
recorded over 30,000 proessions o aith, and published seven
books o sermons.
T Cg -Tim egim
Te personal toll this took on him, and what it cost my mother,was extraordinary. What keeps you going to hard new chal-
lenges week aer week when it means you must leave the ones
you love again and again? Heres what he wrote in his book
Stones Out o the Rubbish.
As an evangelist, my work necessarily keeps me away
rom my sweet wie and children much o the time.Some have asked me, How can you endure being away
rom them? Why dont you get a church and settle
down? Tere is but one answer. When I was a boy
o een, I sold out to the will o God. His will since
that day has been the supreme passion o my lie. Tere
have been ailures, mistakes and sins since then, but
His blessed will has remained more important to me
than amily, home or riends. God called me to be an
evangelist. I said, Lord, this will mean homesickness,
separation rom loved ones, loneliness and sacrice, but
NEVERHELESS, i that is your will, I will let down
the net. Te blessings He has given have oen been
more than I could contain. Te ruit I have seen has
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repaid me a million times over or whatever sacrices I
may have made.
Part o the burden he carried was the sordid stereotype o itiner-ant southern evangelists. It grieved him, but it didnt stop him.
Tere is a reason why the words evangelist and
evangelism meet with a eeling o nausea and disgust
in the minds o thousands o thinking people today.
All emotionalism worked up in the energy o the fesh,
deliberately aroused or outward results, or toyullyplayed upon by the impression-seeking preacher can
leave nothing but bitterness in the bottom o the cup.
Still others o my colleagues have been guilty o
employing cheap vaudeville showmanship tactics
which have done permanent injury to the cause o
true revivals. Spectacular, misleading, crowd-pulling
sermon titles, sensational predictions, erroneous
prophetic interpretations, high pressure money raising
methods, ostentatious dress and dramatic presentations
are but a ew o the current evils in evangelism. We
serve a spectacular God. Te universe He made is
ull o the spectacular. Christ is a spectacular Saviour.
Te Gospel o Jesus Christ is a spectacular Gospel.Te trouble is that some poor sinners saved by grace
endeavor to make themselvesspectacular, thus injuring
the Gospel they preach and the cause they represent.
Te glorious, beautiul, powerul Gospel o Christ
does not need to be garnished with vain predictions or
colored with sordid emotionalism.6
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nt y Tpic egit
My ather was not your typical evangelist. He was a doctrin-
ally driven, Bible-saturated evangelist. When he preachedto save sinners, he explained doctrine. One outline rom his
sermon notes goes like thisand it is typical o the sort o
preaching he did:
I. Christ is our redemption
II. Christ is our propitiation
III. Christ is our righteousnessIV. Christ is our sanctication
V. Christ is our example
VI. Christ is our expectation
VII. Christ is our completeness
He believed that the best way to call or repentance and aith
was to unpack the glories o Christ in the gospel, which meant
unpacking doctrine. He had about 00 sermons in his arsenal.
He told me that about twenty o them were blessed above all oth-
ers, and he would return to these again and again. What marked
out his evangelistic preaching as unusual was not the stories, but
basic doctrines o mans helpless condition in sin, Gods holiness
and wrath and the immanent danger o damnation, the glorious
ullness o Christs saving work on the cross, and the ree oer oorgiveness and righteousness to any who believed.
He was the most Bible-saturated preacher I have ever heard.
When he took up the reality o the new birth, or example, the
message was ull o the Bible. Here is what I remember most
o all rom my athers preachingthe relentless onrush o the
Bible spilling over rom his mind and heart. My ather loved
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the Bible. He believed the Bible. He built his lie on the Bible,
and he preached the gospel at the center o the Bible with
unashamed authority and almost no rills. And God used him
mightily in the salvation o sinners.
spti exi
In 197, something happened that broke his heart and changed
the scope o his relationships. I dont know all the details. I just
know that in June o 197, Daddy called Bob Jones rom a meet-
ing in Wisconsin and resigned rom the board o the school. Teways parted. I was eleven years old. Beore that I had watched
soccer games at BJU and seen lms that they made. Te campus
was just across the highway rom our home. But aer 197, there
was no more connection. We were not welcome.
Te larger issue above the particular details was the issue o
separation. Christian undamentalism today is dened largely
by the doctrine o separation. Te issue o whether to separate
rom Billy Graham and renounce his work became pivotal in
197. His New York crusade began on May 1 and ran nightly
or our months. Te supporters o the crusade were not all
evangelical. And the lines o separation became blurred. My
ather would not renounce Billy. And in the end, there was a
division between my ather and Bob Jones. Tis was one o thegreat ironies o his lie. Te movement that nurtured him and
shaped him, the school that he loved and served, would no lon-
ger support him. Only near the end o his lie was there a rec-
onciliation as Bob Jones III reached out to my ather. It was a
sweet ending to a long exile.
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dt rt, Mig t lv
In 1974, my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel. My
ather was seriously injured but survived. Tey had been mar-ried thirty-six years. A year later, God gave my lonely ather a
second wie, LaVonne Nalley. I perormed the wedding cere-
mony in December o 197.
Te eect o my mothers death and my athers second mar-
riage was proound on our relationship. It took my ather one
more step away rom closeness to me. LaVonne was a southern
lady with deep roots in amily and place. In the twenty-eightyears o their marriage, LaVonne never came to Minneapolis.
My ather came twice. Since we only saw each other once a year
or so, the relationship with the new relatives was cordial but
not deep. It never elt very much like amily. So it elt like my
ather had been drawn into an intimacy that was no longer
ocused on the amily he athered but the new relationship he
had with LaVonne.
My relationship with my ather had always been one o
admiration and respect and tremendous enjoyment when we
played games together or shed. But we never talked much
about personal things. And with the death o my mother, and
the movement o my athers heart into a new world o relation-
ships, the distance that I elt grew even greater.
I t sw egitic ecti
It never changed my basic eelings or him. I elt a tremendous
aection and admiration or him. In act, in my adult years, I
elt a huge compassion or pity or my ather, rst because o
the sacrices he made to do the work o evangelism, and then
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because o the death o my mother, and then because o his
increasing dementia. My emotional deault reaction to my
ather was never resentment that he wasnt home enough. My
reaction was: How can I show him that I love him and help him
to know how much I esteem his work and the aithulness he
has shown?
I always elt supported, loved, and admired by my ather.
He spoke well o me. He thought I was crazy or leaving my
proessorship at Bethel to be a pastor, since he thought I was
exactly where I belonged. But when the decision was made in1980, he supported me and loved hearing news rom the church.
Most o all he loved hearing stories o conversions.
I have always lived in the shadow o my athers evangelistic
eectiveness. I think its been good or me, because my athers
lie is like a living parable o the priority that God puts on
the salvation o one sinner who repents. I tell you, there will
be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than overninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke
1:7). My athers lie is a constant reminder o that truth. I am
thankul or it.
hmcmig
During the years aer my mothers death and my athersincreasing inability to travel in evangelism, the Lord opened
an amazing door with the creation o international correspon-
dence courses that my ather wrote. Rod o God Ministries
grew up with tens o thousands o people in Arica and Asia
taking these courses. Tat ministry continues today under the
leadership that my ather put in place. It was a thrilling gi to
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him as he aged because he was able to be involved in writing
and teaching into his mid-eighties.
Only in the last couple years was his memory so impaired
that he couldnt serve in that way. His second wie LaVonne
died August 4, 003. Aer a brie stay in independent living in
Anderson, South Carolina, near his church, Oakwood Baptist,
that cared or him so well, we moved him to Shepherds Care
in Greenville, owned and operated by Bob Jones University. It
was, in my mind and his, a kind o homecomingto the school
he loved and to the undamentalism he never really leandparadoxically never really belonged to. I look back on Gods
mercy in my athers nal days with tremendous gratitude. Te
Lord took him on March 6, 007.
s-digt mtit
Aer his deepest identity as a gospel-glorying child o God, my
athers identity was most essentially evangelist. Tis dened
his lie rom age 1 to 88. In the last days, the unreality that his
mind created at Shepherds Care was not casual times with
his amily but evangelistic crusades. Across the lawn there is
where the meeting will be tonight. From beginning to end, he
was dened by evangelism.
But he was also a undamentalist. By his own sel-desig-nation. It was not a term o reproach but o honor. In the rst
decade o the twentieth century, liberalism was gaining a oot-
hold in most denominations. Te common word or the liber-
als then was moderniststhose who believed that modern sci-
ence had made some essentials o the Christian aith untenable.
My ather dened modernism like this:
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By modernists, we mean ministers who deny the truth
concerning Jesus Christ: His miraculous conception,
His absolute deity, His vicarious atonement or the sins
o mankind, His bodily resurrection, and His personal
visible return to this earth. Modernists also deny the
need o regeneration by the Holy Spirit and the act o
a literal hell.7
In other words, in the early days o the undamentalist-mod-
ernist controversy, the battle was not or marginal doctrines
or behaviors but essential doctrineundamentals. WhenJ. Gresham Machen wrote his response to liberalism in 193,
he did not title it Fundamentalism and Liberalism but Chris-
tianity and Liberalism because he believed liberalism was not
Christianity at all.8
wo years beore my ather was born, the our-volume set
o books called Te Fundamentals was published (1917). In
19, Harry Emerson Fosdick red his shot across the bow o
the ship o the church called Shall the Fundamentalists Win?
My ather grew up in this super-charged atmosphere o mod-
ernism threatening the very lie o the churches in America. In
his early sermons in the orties and ies, he returned to this
battle again and again:
Christianity is in the throes o a gigantic confict with
the enemies o the Lord. Te ollowers o Satan have
shown their colors and the Faith is being blatantly
denied and rejected. Corruption and disintegration
have begun in a dozen denominations where the enemy
had spread his deadly poison.9
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Te breach between modernism and undamentalism
keeps getting wider. Te aith once or all delivered
unto the saints has been shunned in avor o bloodless
aith which glories man, denies his depravity, rejects
the absolute authority o the Bible and the Deity o
Jesus Christ.10
In act, by the time my ather was ten-years old, most people
recognized that the battle to save the mainline denominations
rom liberalism was being lost. Ten the question became how
to deal with this, and the debates about degrees o separationaltered the meaning o the term undamentalism in the 1930s.
It ceased to mean orthodox Christianity over against those
who denied essentials, and came to reer one group o ortho-
dox Christians, namely, the ones who believed that the biblical
way orward was strict separation rom denominations, groups,
and relationships that were not ully orthodox and were not
separated rom those who were not ully orthodox.
Bob Jones University was and is one o the strongest rep-
resentations o this development o undamentalism. And my
ather embraced it and was dened by itup to a point. For
him, the heart o undamentalism was the true doctrine. His
passion was evangelismsaving people rom perishing in hell
by leading them to the divine Savior and his substitutionarywork on the cross. In other words, i the undamentals were not
true, the gospel is a alse hope, and evangelism is misleading.
Tereore, the note struck more clearly than all notes was the
doctrinal importance o undamentalism:
Tough undamentalists do not agree upon every point
o doctrine, they are denitely agreed upon the essential
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elements o the Christian aith: the total depravity
o man, the absolute deity o Christ, the vicarious,
substitutionary atonement or sin through the blood
o Christ, His bodily resurrection, the need o the new
birth and the blessed return o Christ to the earth.11
Another dimension o undamentalism that he embraced was
authoritative preaching that was willing to name evil and
deend truth.
oo many present-day pulpiteers are so pedaling theGospel. Even many who are robed in the vestments
o undamentalism are void o a semblance o holy
boldness in their preaching. Tey handle sin with kid
gloves, avoid great issues and shrink rom declaring
cardinal doctrines. Pussyooters in the pulpit! What a
tragedy! Tey are a blight to the Church and a blockade
to the Holy Spirits blessing.
God wants trumpets in the pulpit, not violins,
trumpets that sound the reveille and warn o the
judgment to come. Te tabooing o negative
preaching has taken the re and brimstone out o
the pulpit, dried the tears o repentance and kept the
altars empty. I would not or a moment minimizethe eectiveness o the positive proclamation o the
glorious transorming gospel o Jesus Christ. It is my
contention, however, that the sledgehammer preachers
o yesterday were not entirely wrong, and that a
balanced, middle-o-the road position must be taken.1
Ten there was the undamentalist vision o separation not
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just rom alse doctrine but rom all orms o worldliness that
weaken the boldness and spiritual power o a Christian.
Every Christian who indulges in the sinul pleasureso this world is a compromiser and a stumbling-block.
No dancing, theater-going, card-playing, gambling
Christian can hope to be a soul winner or have a
testimony or God. I men see this world in you, you
will never point them to the next.13
I grew up in a home where it was assumed we would not smoke,or drink, or gamble, or play cards, or dance, or go to movies. We
were undamentalists. So why didnt I kick against this growing
up? I have never thought ill o my parents or these standards.
I have never resented it or belittled it. When I was in my early
twenties, I was indignant in some o my classes at Fuller Semi-
nary when certain young aculty members were cynical and
sarcastic about undamentalism. Tey sounded to me like ado-lescents who were angry at their parents and their backgrounds
and couldnt seem to grow up. I never elt that way about my
parents or about the undamentalism o my past. Why?
mtit m
I think I know why. My mother and my ather were the happi-est people I have ever known. Tis strikes many as an incongru-
ity, a paradox. But this is the key to my athers infuence on me
and, I believe, one o the keys to the power o his ministry. Te
undamentalist orceulness in the pulpit, the undamentalist
vision o the razorsharp edge o truth,14 the undamentalist
standards that move rom the en Commandments down to
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dancing and card-playingall o this was enveloped in a world
o joy and reedom.
Freedom? Fundamentalistic reedom? Yes. Ill illustrate.
When I was in the seventh grade, our class, Mrs. Adams home-
room, won the attendance award or the year. Te award? Te
whole class would go to a movie at the Carolina Teater on
Main Street during school time. My heart pounded. I went
home and asked my motherDaddy wasnt homewhat
should I do? She said, Do what you think is right. I weighed
all the actors, and I went.Te next year, in the eighth grade, a girl called me one night
and asked i I would go with her to a dance. It was one o those
Sadie Hawkins events where the girls invite the guys. She was a
pretty girl. My heart pounded again: Uh I dont dance, I said.
She said, We dont have to dance, we can just sit and watch. Uh
just a minute. I went and asked my mother what I should do. (Dad-
dy wasnt home.) She said, Do what you think is right. Ten shechecked her calendar, and we were going to be out o town. Saved.
What was my mother, speaking or my ather, doing? She
was saying: We have standards, son, but they need to come
rom the inside. I they dont come rom the inside, they are
worthless. On these issues, youre old enough now to discov-
er who you are deep inside. When my parents said, Do what
you think is right, they were not oolish relativists. Tey were
wise undamentalists.
Ttig i l
Soon I was old enough to start talking about these issues with
my ather. Daddy, why is there a split between you and some
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other undamentalists? One thing I remember above all about
these conversations. He went to Ephesians 4:1 over and over
and reminded me that in all our devotion to the truth we must
speak the truth in love. He used to love to play on the Greek
verb and translate it truthing in love. He elt as i undamen-
talism was losing the battle mainly or spiritual and attitudinal
reasons, not doctrinal ones.
Already in the 1940s, there had emerged in my athers
preaching and teaching and writing a warning about the dan-
gers o undamentalism. For the careless listener, this couldsound like he was abandoning the ship o undamentalism.
Some would say he did. He would surely say he didnt. I dont
think he did. Let me try to capture the spirit o this warning
rom his own words:
Some proessing Christians, oen those who boast
o their undamentalism, are given to a grievous
censorious and critical attitude toward everything an