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MARCH 2003

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Today when we want water we turn on a faucet. It was different years ago. You had to let down a bucket on the end of a rope and you could draw up a sparkling bucket of cool refreshing water.

The poet was stirring up nostalgic emotions when he sang of “The old oaken bucket that hung in the well.”

Some of us who are caught in the trappings of a furious modern life, would often like to go back to those simple days. I think Isaac felt that way. His people were nomads. They never built permanent homes, and they lived in tents. As they traveled they found the wells that their father Abraham had dug many years before. Memories flooded their hearts as they found these old wells. But they were filled with debris of many years, so they dug the wells again and drank the sweet water from them.

Today I want us to think about some spiritual wells. We drank deeply of these wells when we were first converted. But the years have gone by and these wells have become choked with sin and worldliness and neglect and indifference.

I. We need to dig anew the well of Prayer

The sin of a prayerless life. The Bible says, “My God shall supply all your need according th His riches in Glory by Jesus Christ” Phillippians 4:19. But the supply is dependent upon prayer. We must ask God for what we need. The place of prayer is not only a place of provision, but is it is also the place of POWER.?

Go to Niagara Falls and you will see millions of gallons of water roaring over the falls every second. This water creates great power, power that lights up large cities and turns the wheels of commerce and industry. But go to a quiet room where you see a Christian on his knees and you will realize that here is a power greater than a thousand Niagaras. Let us look for a moment at what has been accomplished by prayer: WHAT PRAYER HAS DONE! It has divided the seas and rolled up the flowing rivers. It has made the rocks to gush in the wilderness. It has quenched the flames of fiery furnaces. It has muzzled the jaws of lions and offset the poison of vipers. It has conquered devils and commanded angels. It has recalled souls from death and hell. It has tamed the souls of men. It has beaten and routed and destroyed armies of atheists. George Adam Smith was a dynamic preacher of another day. He went to Switzerland and climbed the highest mountain there that a tourist could climb. When he reached the top he was about to leap to his feet in enthusiasm. But the guide pulled him down and said, “On your knees in a place like this.”

Today as we face the future with all of its uncertainty, we would be wise to say, “On our knees at a time like this.” Yes, we need to pray, we need to dig anew the old clogged up well of prayer.

II. We need to dig anew the well of Bible study

This well is choked quicker than the well of prayer, because it takes more time. We can breath a prayer anytime; it takes hours to make a study of God’s Word. The ignorance of the Bible today is most appalling. Some years ago Roger Ababson published a leaflet with the title, “Essentials of Business Success.” The leaflet contained absolutely nothing but a reprint of the Ten Commandments. Sometime later a western manufacturer wrote to Mr. Babson and said, “Those are the finest rules I ever saw. Where did you get them?”

• In the Bible We find bread for our Hungry souls. During the Civil War a soldier lay in the hospital, sick and depressed. Then his father came to see him and said, “I’ve brought you a loaf of your mother’s bread.” Soon the soldier was on the mend. Oh, sin-sick souls, Oh struggling unhappy Christians, you need the Bread from heaven, you need God’s Word.
• In the Bible we find Tonic for our sick hearts. A shepherd in Scotland would call his sheep and they would follow him. Someone asked, will they follow a stranger? And the shepherd answered, “Only if they are sick.” Do you know why so many church members follow false doctrines and false religions? It is because they are sick spiritually, it is because they have not taken the tonic of God’s Word. The one who follows the Bible never follows error.

III. We need to dig anew the well of faithful church attendance

It seems to me that folks don’t need as much religion as they used to. We have the pictures of the Pilgrims, trudging their way to church through the deep snow. It was cold, there were dangers on every hand, and the father carried his gun on his shoulder. But they felt the need of a fresh touch with God, so they made their way to God’s House. We need that touch with God just as much now, if not more, than they did.

When Christians absent themselves constantly from the services of the church, he may not go down into sin, but certainly something good goes out of him. I personally know of men, women and boys and girls, who have traded their Christian experience for the advantages they thought they would gain from the world, but their life is shipwrecked now and unless they repent and turn back to God they will certainly go to hell. What a pity, Oh God, how sad it is. Strength and power are found in God’s house as in no other place. Get into your church and become a faithful member. Give your best to its work and take all the church has to offer you. You will be a stronger person because of it. The Church means little to some people, because they don’t give it a chance to help them. They are not FAITHFUL.

IV. We need to dig anew the well of service;

Every person that calls Christ his Saviour, has a duty to give back to God some of whet He has invested in saving you. Here is where the Wells turn into rivers. Isaiah said God’s man would be “like rivers of water in a dry land.” We look at the M.P. Church today and bemoan our smallness. There is not one thing wrong that a lot of Prayer, brokenness, and fasting, would not restore. We need a good dose of Holy Ghost Salvation, that breaks our heart for the lost and then God comes in our brokenness, our despair, and blesses, restores, and helps us mightily.

James O’ Kelly vs.
Francis Asbury’s Episcopacy

In Partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Methodist Protestant History and Discipline Class of 1997 at John Wesley Institute

James O’ Kelly, of Irish decent, one of Francis Asbury’s presiding elders noted for his rigid discipline and assertive authority, led the first great split in American Methodism.

O’Kelly was listed among the 13 married preachers. He was admitted to the Conference in 1778 and was ordained at the Christmas Conference in 1784. He traveled widely in North Carolina and Virginia and was a member of the short lived Council which was established with Asbury’s administration. O’Kelly clashed with Asbury’s Episcopal leadership because Asbury would not share authority with another and believed that “you must either crush men into subjection or promote them into cooperation”.

The Episcopacy had no semblance of a constitution so that there was no law but only the will of Asbury. The Council was made up of the bishops and presiding elders. The presiding elders were appointed, changed and put out of office by the Bishop who was in supreme control. The Council could be called at such times as the bishops decided it should be held and was very restrictive on the preachers because it had a set purpose to substitute the assembling of the preachers and so thwart anything they might plan in opposition to the Episcopacy. Every measure was taken to secure the power of the Bishop.

O’Kelly proposed the call of a convention, two representatives from each district, but Asbury would not hear to it. O’Kelly proposed that he should be allowed to visit and submit his argument to the Northern Conference but Asbury rejected this also. Nineteen ministers were expelled from the union of the Church, containing over sixty or seventy thousand souls, by the voice of Francis Asbury, however, when Asbury’s displeasure subsided he stationed them under the condition that they would agree for him to be their Bishop. He also placed O’Kelly as presiding elder in that district.

O’Kelly and other leading preachers wanted to curtail the power of the Episcopacy and were busy through the mail disseminating their views. Their objective was to have the right of appeal from the stationing power of the Bishop. They came to the Conference of 1792 in a decided majority.

O’Kelly proposed a resolution providing that any preacher who was dissatisfied with an appointment given him by the Bishop could appeal to the Conference. When this resolution for a more liberal administration from Asbury was met only by stern refusal and a tightening of his authority, O’Kelly, who was an extremist in any position he took, lead a secession carrying several preachers including William McKendree and more than one-fifth of the Methodist people. They organized a rival denomination known as the Republican Methodist Church in Surry County, Virginia. In 1794 this church became known as the Christian Church.

Some of the preachers who had been drawn away with O’Kelly came back to the Episcopacy because they professed to have had enough of O’Kelly’s zeal when he preached three hours at a time upon government, monarchy, and episcopacy calling the Methodists aristocrats and Tories.

The schism lead by James O’Kelly seriously affected the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church for several years.

Although James O’Kelly’s death in 1826 prevented him from seeing the culmination of his labors for the ministerial right of appeal, his secession and its causes had shaken the very foundations and principals of the Episcopacy and had widely affected the public mind against the arbitrary system of Asbury.

O’Kelly’s movement of reform was a determining factor in the formation of the Methodist Protestant Church which was organized in 1828 including the ministerial right of appeal and lay representation. The result of O’Kelly’s work is still alive today in the Methodist Protestant Church.

My research was done from The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury In Three Volumes published jointly by Epworth Press, London, and Abingdon Press, Nashville, in 1958b and from History of Methodist Reform by Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D. published by The Board of Publication of the Methodist Protestant Church in 1899.

It was during World War 2. A bomber on a reconnaissance flight in Asia was on fire. Below lay a jungle reportedly inhabited by head-hunters and cannibals. To remain in the plane meant certain death for the pilot and the bombardier. Although bailing out might bring something far worse than quick death in an exploding plane, it also offered a chance, however slight, for survival.

The two men landed alive. Although they had no idea where they were, they knew they would have to move on or die. For several days they pushed through the jungle, hungry and bleeding.

Late one afternoon they heard a new sound, strange to their ears but unmistakably the sound of human voices. They crept closer and discovered that the weird sounds were some form of music. The jungle inhabitants were singing. Drums were beating. “What are they singing?” whispered the pilot. “It sounds sort of familiar.” The bombardier listened intently and then burst out: “It’s a hymn! I remember it. It’s “The Old Rugged Cross!”

By signs and humming the fliers made it known that they knew the song. The natives gave them shelter and food and bandaged their injuries. More than that, these former savages offered friendship and compassion. They had been brought to Christ years before by a missionary. Eventually the fliers were returned to their outfits and went home when the war was over.

This is only one of the many dramatic events that have attended the ministry of “The Old Rugged Cross.” Many miracles have been associated with it. In fact, the story of its writer, Rev. George Bennard, is one that can be explained only by the working of the Holy Spirit. Mr. Bennard died in October 1958, at the age of eighty-five. But he had lived to see his hymn acclaimed throughout the world.

George Bennard’s parents had been active church people in Scotland, but their immigration to America brought an unfortunate element into their lives. Bennard told of it at Winona Lake, Indiana, in the summer of 1958. “I learned early the heartache that rebellion against the gospel of Christ brings,“ he said. “My back ground was such that you would say I’d be the last chap in the world to preach the gospel. In the old country, my father was a faithful church worker, as my mother was.

But in the new land, where he needed work, he was persuaded to engage in the saloon business. “For a long time he never drank; then he was tempted and yielded. His drinking got worse and worse, until he lost his health and money. I can remember as a lad hearing my mother say to Father, “I wish you would get out of this awful business. It makes me so sad. I’d rather live in the poor-house than have you be a bartender.” Then a fire took everything we had, even our beds.”

When he was fifteen, George had to go to work in a coal mine to support his widowed mother and his five younger sisters. In 1895, he was attracted to a revival meeting conducted by the Salvation Army. His conversion followed. He took up Salvation Army work and eventually was commissioned as an adjutant. For three years he traveled throughout the Midwest holding revival meetings. Later he became a Methodist minister. Meanwhile he had written several gospel songs that were well received in Salvation Army circles, and in 1910 he decided to devote all his time to hymn writing and evangelism.

In 1912, Bennard was holding a revival in a small church in a Michigan town. The minister of the church heartily supported the campaign to win converts to Christ. But his wife vigorously opposed it “She was a professing Christian but an enemy of the cross,” said Bennard. “In my sermons I constantly emphasized the cross. She ridiculed it. However, the experience proved a blessing to me. It turned my mind more and more to the glory of the cross.”

He began studying about the cross, realizing more and more that it is the very heart of the Christian faith. Bennard said, “I remembered an old wooden cross I had once seen. The first ten words of the hymn suddenly came to me as if by a stroke of light – “On a hill far away stood and old rugged cross.” I kept brooding upon the picture I saw of the old rugged cross. The memory transformed into the cross upon which Jesus died. In two weeks I finished the hymn, both words and music, feeling that it had been given to me by the Lord.”

The hymn that was to win world-wide acclaim brought comparatively little recognition to the writer in its earlier years. Bennnard continued his evangelistic meetings and went on writing hymns – a total of more than three hundred and fifty. Judged by its popularity and by its effect on the lives of many who heard it, “The Old Rugged Cross” was the greatest of them all.

A famous singer had frequent spells of depression. He had wealth and popularity; yet there was an ache in his heart that he could not understand. One of the records he had made was “The Old Rugged Cross.” One day when he felt unusually frustrated, he put the record on his phonograph and played back his own singing. Suddenly it awakened him to his great need for God. It flashed into his mind that reconciliation with God through Christ was what he was groping for. Then and there he decided to give himself and his career wholly to the Master. Thus, “The Old Rugged Cross” played a large part in his conversion and the dedication of his life to evangelistic singing.

One time Bennard spoke before a group of boys, mostly teenagers, who appeared sullen and indifferent. They were in a well-guarded room in a detention center for delinquent youth. When the chaplain in charge asked for hymn requests, one boy called out, “The Old Rugged Cross.” They sang it heartily, and then Bennard was introduced as its author.’

He told them the story of his own poverty-stricken life – about the influences that worked against God’s coming into his heart. Then he recounted how he had found Christ and real happiness.

“Boys, I’m an old man now, past eighty years of age,” he said to them, “but I want to tell you that Jesus is the best Friend any man ever had or ever could have. Let Him come into your life, and you will live again.”

The simple but earnest talk did not visibly move the boys, but later Bennard received reports that thirty-seven of the sixty-three boys had sought out the chaplain for counsel.

There are 30 books of the Bible in this message

Can you find them?

This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket, on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu, keeping him occupied for hours. He enjoyed it so much, he passed it on to friends. One friend from Illinois worked on this while fishing from his john boat. Another friend studied it while playing his banjo. Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend, was so intrigued by it she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend judges the job of solving this puzzle so involving, she brews a cup of tea to help her nerves. There will be some names that are really easy to spot. That’s a fact. Some people, however, will soon find themselves in a jam, especially since the book names are not necessarily capitalized. Truthfully, from answers we get, we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister or scholar to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have in seeing the books in this paragraph. During a recent fund raising event, which features this puzzle, the Alpha Delta Phi lemonade booth set a new sales record. The local paper, The Chronicle, surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Humana humbly puts it, “the books are all right there in plain view hidden from sight.” Those able to find all of them will hear great lamentations from those who have to be shown. One revelation that may help is that books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also, keep in mind, that punctuation and spaces in the middle are normal. A chipper attitude will help you compete really well against those who claim to know the answers. Remember, there is no need for a mad exodus; there are really 30 books of the Bible lurking somewhere in this paragraph waiting to be found!!

Dr. Thomas Lewis was President of The General Conference of The Methodist Protestant Church and President Emeritus of Western Maryland College.

In 1925 Dr. Lewis prepared a group of messages which were given before the Annual Assembly of Ministers at Westminster, MD in August of that year. This meeting was known as “The Summer Conference”.

Bishop W.F. McDowell of the Methodist Episcopal Church said this of Dr. Lewis at the Bishhop’s residence of December 16, 1925: “Dr. Lewis is highly regarded as a “Good minister of Jesus Christ whose spiritual glow shines brightly.”

Rev. Ken Renfroe stated in his preface to Dr. Lewis’ Diamond Jubilee Sermon “Dr. Thomas Hamilton Lewis, one of the greatest leaders and orators from among the denomination’s sons, was asked to preach the main sermon.”

Dr. Lewis preached the main sermon at The Diamond Jubilee of The Founding of The Methodist Protestant Church at The Annual Conference in Pocomoke City, MD. This was the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of The Methodist Protestant Church. “Fear not, Little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32 was the text for that sermon.

Dr. Lewis was a firm believer in the laymen and members of the church having a vote. “By breaking away from Episcopal Methodism,” he stated, “we were able to create a church, a God fearing church, a Bible believing church, though small, and we were able to set up the foundation for the Methodist Protestant Faith.

This quotation from Dr. Thomas H. Lewis’ message is one of great inspiration: “To the bar, therefore we bring our church, claiming that although organically separated from our bodies, we are not spiritually separated from them nor from Christ, we are his true flock in the passions of men.” Dr. Lewis believed that in order for a minister of God’s Word to be successful and carry out the work of God placed upon him, he must have a good disposition and these five qualities.

1. Compassion – He must be tender hearted.
2. Kindliness – An active feeling or impulse to help
3. Humility and gentleness – Both of the same nature, they describe the method of expressing the feeling rather than the feeling itself.
4. Gentleness – A method of expressing sympathy and helpful impulses – translated as meaning “ meekness”
5. Long suffering – Simply putting it, “GOOD TEMPER”

Dr. Lewis, being one of the greatest ministers God ever called, believed that no matter how educated you are or how strong a message you can preach, you must be able to get along with people. Disposition lies in the way a man places himself in social relations.

Dr. Lewis firmly believed in love. Quoting from one of his messages titled “The Energeia of Love”, he said “Love is energy, the highest energy and I have used the Greek form of the word because energy as used in the New Testament never means mechanical or human energy, but superhuman divine energy. It comes to us if it comes at all as a gift of God”.

In finishing this report on Dr. Thomas Hamilton Lewis, I would like to quote two statements that Dr. Lewis made during his message in 1903.

“Thank God for a united church covering twenty-eight states, preaching a theology with no concealments or reservations, and administering a government founded on the consent of the governed”.

“Thank God for a church that has no politics, courts no princes, builds no cathedrals, invokes no force but the sword of the Spirit, draws all its authority from “one is your master, even Christ,” and all its solidarity from “All ye are Brethren!” Thank God for a church old enough to point to its past as its vindication, and young enough to see the beginning of its triumphs as the vanguard of the People’s Methodism! Thank God, and again thank God for the Methodist Protestant Church!”

In my search for information on Dr. Lewis, I found what I have here in three different sources.

1. The book called “The Minister and His Soul”, written by Dr. Lewis.
2. A sermon preached by Dr. Lewis at The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of The Founding Of The Methodist Protestant Church, preached before the Maryland Annual Conference at Pokomoke City, MD on April 1, 1903.
3. The Modern Pilgrim written by Dr. Lewis.

The Missionary Record
Dianne Reid, Editor

Belize: Revival in Spanish Area

(Excerpt from a report from the Belize Field by Rev. Charlie Joe Green) ".....Spanish area revival.....was very much a success. Pastor Jorge Pinto had everyone's attention from the start to finish. His love for people and for the work of ministry was evident to all who attended our services. The response was good all week and lives were changed for the Lord.

Two nights at San Lazaro: We started with a packed house at San Lazaro on Monday night. The church had worked really hard to finish the new additionas and paint the entire building. Special singers and the youth group had a major part of the services. Both nights saw the altar full. The San Lazaro folks really responded to God's grace during this revival. Not only at their church, but also at Guinea Grass and August Pine Ridge. There is no doubt that the San Lazaro people were ready for this revival and ready to respond to God's grace. All of this quickly bonded the the visiting evangelist with the people.

Two nights at August Pine Ridge: APR had a tent set up in front of the church. The pastor says a man who listened from the road came later to the church because of the preaching he heard from the services.

Three nights at Guinea Grass: Fire Burn Church joined in with Guines Grass for their three days of revival. Each night was well attended. The rain hindered Sunday night's service, and it was still standing room only. The service ended with many around the altar, and I ended the service with all our pastors at the altar for prayer.

Saturday with the Pastors: I asked Brother Pinto to address our pastors for our monthly meeting. He gave a stirring testimony of the work at his church and outlined some of the principles he uses to lead the Honduras Evangelical Holiness Association of approximately 200 churches. Brother Pinto not only communicated the Spanish language but communicated pastoral ministry to us. We have been challenged for a vision of growth, and everyone knows the task ahead of us. Pray for us."