Tent Revival Time

Ever attend a tent revival?

Summertime is tent revival time – well, it was in the 1950s when no one I knew, nor the church or public elementary school I attended, enjoyed air conditioning.

Here’s a definition for “revival”: “A restoration to use, acceptance or vigor after a period of obscurity or quiescence; a time of reawakened interest in religion; a meeting for the purpose of reawakening religious faith, often characterized by impassioned preaching and public testimony.”

Every believer needs revival once in a while. Of course, as one preacher said, “You can’t revive a dead man.” He meant that a dead-in-trespasses-and-sins person has to first “come alive in Christ,” or attempts to revive him will be as futile as, to use an old expression, beating a dead horse.

I trace my conversion-to-Christ experience to my sixth year of life and a Sunday night service in a rural South Carolina Pentecostal church where my family worshipped. That conversion “took,” but I’ve often needed reviving since I reached that place in my life where two spiritual roads diverged.

My childhood church held in-house revivals about twice a year, but the first tent revival I, as a preschooler, recall attending took place in an “outdoor cathedral” pitched on a vacant lot in an industrial area located along White Horse Road in Greenville, S.C.

Oral Roberts brought his tent to Greenville, a city sometimes called “the buckle on the Bible Belt.”

My grandmother, “Ma” Crain, liked Roberts, who reportedly stuttered as a child but became a great oral communicator. Ma, Pa, other family members and I attended one of his Greenville evening “healing services.”

Roberts preached passionately, and people lined up for prayer. A few people lay on stretchers and waited for coveted moments when the man of God would “lay hands on them and pray the prayer of faith.” We sat far back, and I didn't see any healings happen, but some folk spoke into a microphone and testified about being made whole.

My family, from farming and mill-working stock, blended with working-class folk longing to see the power of God displayed on White Horse Road. When thinking about that meeting, I often recall these words of Jesus: “ And the poor have the gospel preached unto them.”

I was about seven years old when someone raised a large tent near the home of Ed Few, our church song leader. When my father drove our black 1951 Chevrolet onto the field where that big-top stood, I felt we drew closer to God. Maybe leaving asphalt and driving onto good earth symbolized leaving Egypt and heading for The Promised Land.

Ancient Israelites, those who took 40 years to reach God-promised land due to doubt and disobedience, built a movable, wilderness tabernacle for the Lord. The Bible records God as saying, “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). Someone said, “‘Redemption’ concerns God's desire to dwell among his people.”

A man pulled a snow-cone booth – one such as seen at a county fair – onto the tent site near Few’s house. I wanted a cherry-flavored ice-filled cone, but Dad wouldn’t buy. Maybe he thought that vendor spoiled the pure-and-undefiled quality that meeting under a tent fostered. I figured a fellow might worship better if he wasn’t all dried out.

Some folk are touchy about mentioning money and religion in the same sentence, but religion can’t totally disassociate itself from finance. There are church light bills, and the parson and his family have to eat. Someone said, “The gospel, like water, is free, but you have to pay to have it piped to you.”

Revival tents have mostly disappeared from the South, which regional writer Susan Ketchin called a “Christ-haunted landscape.” Today’s evangelists often rent stadiums and civic centers. These are up-town times.

I’ve seen only a few small revival tents in recent years. Near noon on a not-long-ago summer day, I rounded a curve in North Georgia and saw a small tent. A portable out-front sign conveyed this message: “No, the circus isn't coming – Jesus is!”

I wanted to stop, wait for nightfall and attend a service under that little big-top. I wanted to hear unpolished singing and preaching blare from a faulty sound system, wanted to shuffle my shoes in sawdust and see a preacher perspire.

But I drove on in my air-conditioned car and thought about wilderness tabernacles and cherry-flavored snow cones.

Easter Egg Hunt

My mother and I gathered with some children and their parents down behind the late Troy Burrell's house for a Saturday-before-Easter egg hunt in the early 1950s.

Troy and Floy Burrell's house sat near the paved road that ran in front of their rural Greenville County, S.C., residence. Their small yard with a circular red-dirt driveway slanted down toward a gray, unpainted barn and a creek that ran through their pasture.

Some trees and undergrowth grew next to open, close-cropped areas of that pasture, so grownups attending the Easter get-together had places aplenty to hide eggs.

Mother had hard-boiled and dyed some eggs -- we didn't have plastic eggs back then, as I recall -- and I, about five years old with straw Easter basket in hand, was ready for my first major egg hunt, sponsored by Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church. My parents, my younger sister and I attended that church, which met at the church house located a few miles from Troy Burrell's home.

I felt excited when the big folk finished hiding eggs and called, "We're ready!"

Youngsters scurried like chipmunks into the pasture area designated as our happy hunting ground for that afternoon. Mother sort of walked along with me. I couldn't see any eggs, so she gave me a hint.

"There might be some over there," Mother said, motioning toward a clump of grass near a tree.

Some big kids overheard Mother's hint, and before I could get myself in motion, that mob raced like a flock of starving chickens toward that grassy clump. They found several eggs in that area, and I felt angry.

No miracle happened that Saturday before Easter in Troy Burrell's pasture. No eggs miraculously popped into my straw basket. I had to get busy and find some eggs before the big guys got 'em all! I began learning some life lessons from that experience.

Here's one thing I observed: Mother wouldn't always be able to help me. A time comes when supportive mamas have to let children take their lumps. My mother didn't say a word to those greedy egg-rustlers who were quicker on the draw than I was.

"Tough guy" actor Michael Parks of the old TV show "Then Came Bronson" recorded a song written in 1925 by Joe Goodwin. That song contains these words: "Tie me to your apron strings, again. I know there's room for me upon your knee. Sing that cradle song to me and then, won't you tie me to your apron strings, again."

Do you recall that heart-rending song called "Suppertime" by Ira F. Stanphill? These words from that song always touch me: "Many years ago in days of childhood / I used to play till evening shadows come / Then, winding down an old familiar pathway / I heard my mother call at set of sun / Come home, come home, it's supper time / The shadows lengthen fast / Come home, come home, it's supper time / We're going home, at last."

I suppose many of us recall memories of mothers or grandmothers who gave us comfort, and we may have felt nostalgic about returning to a distant era and hearing their kind, encouraging words.

Memories can be wonderful and inspiring, but a time comes when our parents can't help us.

I also learned from that egg hunt that life is tough. I won't always find the most eggs, win prizes and stand in the spotlight.

Another principle I began learning at my first major egg-finding event is this: People, including Christian brothers and sisters, will hurt and disappoint me, and I'll be learning how to forgive them until the day I go to meet the One who showed -- and still shows -- us how to forgive.

The Unpardonable Sin

A thin, gray-haired lady smiled continually and stood at the back of a nursing home meeting area while I spoke.

Years ago, I monthly visited the nursing facility that housed this lady and many other elderly “guests.” I usually played my guitar, led hymns and gave a short sermon in a sitting area located between two hallways where guests gathered.

The thin lady, a newcomer to the group, kept a smile on her face during the meeting I now write about. After we sang a final hymn at that gathering, I shook a few hands and approached the woman with the mystic smile.

“You must be a Christian,” I said.

The lady, still smiling, said, “I’ve committed the unpardonable sin.”

I questioned her statement, but she repeated, “I’ve committed the unpardonable sin.”

I saw a young woman – maybe in her late twenties – approaching, and the smiling lady said, “Oh, here’s my daughter coming to visit.”

The older lady introduced me as the man who’d just held a religious service, and the daughter, showing little facial expression, offered me her hand. Her pale hand felt like a lifeless fish placed in my palm.

I wondered about the relationship between this mother and daughter. Had the mother sinned in some manner that drove away the daughter’s father? Was the daughter weary of her mother’s preoccupation with religious guilt?

“Good to meet you,” I said to the daughter.

I left them to their visit and don’t recall ever again seeing that mother and daughter. Perhaps the mother was transferred to another wing of the nursing home. I have thought many times about that mother and her offspring and about people who become obsessed with thinking they may have committed “the unpardonable sin.”

What is “the unpardonable sin”?

In Matthew 12:31, 32 Jesus declared that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin for which there is neither forgiveness in this world or in the world to come.

James K. Bridges, former general treasurer of the Assemblies of God, says, “It is vital that we understand the role of the Holy Spirit in God’s plan of salvation in order to grasp the Savior’s meaning of how one sins against the Holy Spirit.”

Bridges says that one can know conviction of sin, a drawing to God and understanding of Christ’s saving work only through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

If a person rejects the avenue by which grace comes, there can be no pardon. Blaspheming (profaning the work of) the Holy Spirit is described as “insulting the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29).

Bridges says, “When a person with full understanding of what he or she is doing ‘tramples the Son of God underfoot, and counts the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing,’ the Holy Spirit is denied the opportunity to administer the grace and pardon of Christ.”

J. Oswald Sanders wrote in his “Bible Studies in Matthew’s Gospel,” about the unpardonable sin: It is a calculated sin, not one of impulse. It is a sin of knowledge, not ignorance. It is not an isolated act but a habitual attitude. It is a sin of the heart, not merely of the intellect or tongue. It is a sin of finality – complete rejection of Christ.

Bridges says that the devil has led some people to believe they have committed the unpardonable sin and that people who are fearful they have committed such a sin would do well to heed the words of William Barclay, who said, “The person who cannot have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit is the person who fears he/she has, for the sin against the Holy Spirit can be truly described as the loss of all sense of sin.”

Had the smiling woman I met in a nursing home committed the unpardonable sin? I doubt it, but I don’t know. Could she have become obsessed with an unresolved real or imagined sin and her conflict become complicated by Alzheimer’s disease or senility?

Some people may have committed the unpardonable sin and no longer feel drawn to Christ. But sensitive, repentant believers in Christ can trust in this truth: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

The Best of Intentions

My wife Carol and I recently watched a TV documentary about three African-American fathers who were filmed in 1996 telling of their plans to be good dads.

The program, hosted by Al Roker, followed up a “Dateline NBC” report from 1996 that recorded several births among black women at a Newark, N.J., hospital and interviewed the unmarried fathers of the children as they vowed to be there as their babies grew up.

“I’m gonna be there when you graduate,” one videoed father said to his newborn.

The program tracked down the three “babies who’d become youngsters” (two boys and a girl who were 12 years old at the time of the second filming) and the fathers who promised to stand by them. Jail, joblessness, depression and irresponsibility had intervened – none of those fathers had “been there” for their children.

Each youngster seemed well spoken and well cared for – their mothers deserve credit – but their lives “could go either way, and soon,” someone said. One boy called his father “evil.” The girl, cuddling a cat, said she would never marry. She learned her father was in prison before her mother could snatch away a newspaper telling of his plight.

We sometimes express the best of intentions but often don’t deliver.

Connie Smith commented on some marriages when she intoned these words from a country song: “The wedding bells have barely stopped their ringing / But already all your love for me is gone / On the day that we were wed / Well, I guess we should have said / ‘For better or for worse, but not for long.’”

Travis Tritt in a song called “Best of Intentions,” crooned these lyrics: “Never could build you a castle / Even though you're the queen of my heart / But I've had the best of intentions from the start / …Now some people think I'm a loser / Cause I seldom get things right / …Please tell me you will remember / No matter how much I do wrong / That I had the best of intentions all along.”

Randy Travis sang “Good Intentions,” a song containing these words: “Mama always prayed I’d be a better man than Daddy / And I determined not to let her down / Deserted by the man she loved and left to raise four children / We were the local gossip of the town / …There’s lots of things in my life I just as soon not mention / Looks like I’ve turned out like all the rest / But Mama, my intentions were the best.”

Israel’s King Solomon began his reign with humility and dedication. In Gibeon, God appeared to him in a dream and invited Solomon to ask for anything he wanted. Solomon pleased God by saying, “Give me wisdom to rule your people well.” God gave him wisdom and blessings. The Bible records that God said, “There will not be any among the kings like you all your days, if you walk in my ways, keeping my commandments and laws” (1 Kings 3:13). Solomon later failed to live up to his good intentions.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus celebrated Passover, and then he and his disciples “went out” into the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:26). Jesus said to his inner circle, “All of you shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, ‘I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’” (Zechariah 13:7).

Peter said, “Even though they all desert you, I will not!”

Jesus said, “Even this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

Peter insisted that even if he had to die with Jesus, he would not deny him. The King James Version of the Bible translates Peter’s vehement response as: “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” All the disciples standing near Peter agreed with his pledge of loyalty unto death. The KJV translates their response: “Likewise also said they all” (Mark 14:31). They sounded forth with their best intentions. Before that night ended, Jesus’ disciples left him standing alone, and Peter had denied him three times.

Since the day I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I’ve often fallen short in maintaining my relationship with God and “missed the mark” in loving people. I’m glad God’s grace can save repentant sinners – and cover the confessed sins of believers who fail to live up to the best of their intentions.

Greed - Watch Out for It!

I clinked two quarters into an Aberdeen, N.C., vending machine holding Saturday, January 24, 2009, copies of “The Charlotte Observer” newspaper, which featured this headline: “Jobless rate in N.C. rises to 8.7 percent.”

My wife and I subscribe to “The News and Observer” of Raleigh, N.C., but I buy Saturday editions of Charlotte’s popular paper to peruse its weekly religion section.

The January 24 Charlotte Observer reported that North Carolina’s 8.7 percent December unemployment rate (that figure represents 400,000 idled workers) is the state’s highest since 1983. South Carolina had 8.4 percent unemployment in November – the third highest rate in the nation during that month.

The ongoing economic recession hit the hospital in Pinehurst, N.C. That hospital recently cut 28 fulltime and 26 part-time jobs.

I work in product development for a carpet manufacturer. As my overseer and I recently crossed our company’s parking lot, our boss drove in from lunch, rolled down his car window and reminded us to develop a carpet to sell as a “special” in one of the national big-box stores known for merchandising home building materials. He said we must get that product into those stores or “there could be more layoffs” at our company.

My overseer later said, “Is that pressure or what?”

I heard of a 75-year-old man who trusted an investor “friend” and reportedly lost millions. He and his wife now live on $2200 per month from Social Security. Their children chip in to help them, he said.

In the January 24 Charlotte Observer, I found a column by the Rev. Billy Graham, who is 90 years old. A lady wrote to him, asking if recent scandals and economic hard times might be signs of God’s judgment and of Christ’s return.

“We’ve always had scandals – but they do seem to be getting worse,” the Rev. Graham responded. “The problem is we’ve forgotten God – and because we’ve forgotten God, we’ve forgotten his moral laws. When we turn our backs on him and put ourselves at the center of our lives, we ignore his rules for living and set up our own standards, doing whatever we think we can get by with.”

Greed is behind many of today’s financial scandals (and other scandals, as well), Graham said.

“The Bible warns us to avoid greed and labels it a terrible sin in the eyes of God,” he wrote. “Are these scandals a sign of Christ’s coming? They may well be. Don’t let these things touch you, however, but put Christ first and make it your goal to live for him every day.”

In an article titled “The Three Faces of Greed” (Christianity Today, January 28, 2009), writer W. Jay Wood says, “Sin seldom strides into our lives announcing its hostile intentions. It prefers stealth, camouflage, or even better, to appear friendly. As Thomas Aquinas taught, when we do evil we always will to act ‘under the aspect of the good.’”

Wood, a professor of philosophy at Wheaton College (Wheaton, Illinois), continues, “Greed is an inappropriate attitude toward things of value, built on the mistaken judgment that my well-being is tied to the sum of my possessions. Greed is more than mistaken belief – as if knowing a few more facts would somehow solve the problem. It also involves emotions (perhaps longing, un-fulfillment, fear) and attitudes (a sense of entitlement, rivalry). Greed alienates us from God, from our neighbor, and from our true self.”

Wood says that in an extreme form, Christian justifications for greed lead to a “name it and claim it” gospel of prosperity that “inverts the Gospel teaching about camels, needles, rich persons, and heaven.”

If you have seen a toddler forcibly take a toy from another child, you know what greed is. Greed is inherent in human nature and can evidence itself in individuals, groups, corporations and nations.

Jesus told his disciples, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15, NIV).

During economically prosperous times or tough, lean times, let’s give Jesus first place in our lives.

'In Times Like These'

As my wife and I watched a recent 6:30 p.m. newscast, I thought about that beloved old song “In Times Like These.”

With unemployment rising and a trillion-dollar “stimulus package” proposed for our hard-hit U.S. economy and with Israel at war with Hamas in Gaza and with numerous other concerns on my mind, why wouldn’t lyrics from Ruth Caye Jones’ classic hymn run through my head?

Here are some words from that famous song:

“In times like these you need a Savior / In times like these you need an anchor / Be very sure, be very sure / Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

(Chorus) “This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He's the One / This Rock is Jesus, the only One! / Be very sure, be very sure / Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!”

Ruth Caye Jones, known as “Mother Jones,” reportedly found inspiration to write “In Times Like These” during World War II when she was moved by reading the words of 2 Timothy 3:1: “This know also that in the last days perilous times will come.” As she read those words, inspiration for the song came, and she jotted lyrics on a small notepad she had in her apron pocket.

As the mother of five children and wife of a busy pastor (a Church of the Nazarene pastor, I believe), Jones’ life was full. She never aspired to do something “great” or “famous” and had no formal music training. But God took her song and sent it around the world to bless many. When Jones watched George Beverly Shea sing her song on a Billy Graham telecast, tears came to her eyes and she said, “I can’t believe I had any part in writing this song. I just feel that God gave it to me, and I gave it to the world.” She had written 15 other songs, but “In Times Like These” became her best known.

The story goes that Jones’ old family clock on the mantel (a wedding present) had been broken, but 15 years after “In Times Like These” had been written and the clock finally repaired, Jones realized that the first four notes of her song and the first notes of the clock’s “Westminster chime” were the same. She had used some notes from a clock that chimed to accompany words to a song about “time.” Jones died in Erie, Pennsylvania, on August 18, 1972, following a short bout with cancer.

Jones wrote her acclaimed hymn during stressful World War II days, and her message remains timeless.

The first verse of “In Times Like These” affirms our need for Jesus as Savior. Without Jesus, we’ll find no safe harbor from fears, worries and “the times we live in.” Jesus, “the Cornerstone,” is our Solid Rock. As hymn writer Edward Mote wrote, “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.”

In her song, Jones says to “be very sure your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.” Is your faith placed totally in Christ’s death and resurrection? Are you mistakenly trusting in your good deeds to try to get into heaven or wrongfully adding your “works” to what Christ has done for you? Even older Christians need to recall these words (from the song “Rock of Ages”) penned by Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778): “Not the labors of my hands / Can fulfill Thy Law’s demands / Could my zeal no respite know / Could my tears forever flow / All for sin could not atone / Thou must save, and Thou alone / …In my hand no price I bring / Simply to Thy Cross I cling.”

The second verse of “In Times Like These” points to God’s written revelation to us: “In times like these you need the Bible.”

Jesus said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).

Jones also tells us, “In times like these, O be not idle.” Jesus said, “I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4).

When hearing news of wars and troubles, I find comfort in affirming the words found in the last verse of Ruth Caye Jones’ famous song: “In times like these I have a Savior / In times like these I have an anchor / I’m very sure, I’m very sure / My anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!”

Give, and It Shall Be Given to You

Did you hear about the visiting preacher who spoke one wintry Sunday morning at a small country church?

The story goes that the young preacher left his wife at home with a sick baby and took their 6-year-old son to his scheduled service. Arriving early, father and son entered the foyer of the white clapboard church and spied a rectangular-shaped, stained-wood box sitting on a pedestal near the door that opened into the church sanctuary. Hand-lettered on the side of that box was this word: “OFFERINGS.”

The young minister, wanting to be an example for his son and thinking he’d plant some “seed-faith,” took out his billfold, fished out a five dollar bill and five ones and slid them through the slot in the box. The church’s pastor arrived and “had a word of prayer” with the visiting speaker. The on-fire young preacher worked up a sweat delivering his best sermon to a handful of people.

After folk left and the church pastor, the young preacher and his son stood in the foyer, the pastor lifted the lid on the offering box, took out the five dollar bill and five ones and said, “Well, it’s not much, but here’s your offering for today.”

As the young preacher thanked the older man, his 6-year-old son said, “Dad, if you’d have put more in, you’d have got more out.”

That old saying “If you put more into something, you’ll get more out” sounds a bit like Jesus’ statement, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom (put in your lap)” (Luke 6:38).

Jesus also noted that whatever measure (yardstick) you use to determine the amount you give will be used to measure what you get back.

I often hear someone say “What goes around comes around.” Perhaps that is a paraphrase of Jesus’ statement “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” The Bible is clear – whatever you give (good or bad) will be given back to you, and you usually get back more than you sow.

“If you give out grief, strife, anger, insult, then that is what will be returned to you, only pressed down, shaken together, and your cup will run over,” says writer Tim Edwards. “God promised Noah that as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest will remain…Be nice...it will come back to you, many times over.”

In “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” John Bunyan wrote, “A man there was, though some did count him mad, / The more he cast away the more he had.”

“Freely ye have received, freely give,” Jesus said.

I often think about people’s expectations of churches. I heard of a lady who phoned a pastor and asked, “What does your church have to offer?” Perhaps she was looking for a youth group for her child or for a singles ministry. Maybe many of us tend to “shop” churches like we do grocery stores.

President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Maybe we church members should “Ask not what our church can do for us – ask what we can do for our church.” When we truly give of ourselves, we will receive from the Lord.

When I was a young husband and father, Carol and I attended an Assembly of God church where I helped with youth and participated in music. I grew a bit weary with what appeared to me to have become “routine church.” I met with our gray-haired minister, the now-late Lyman Richardson, and said, “Pastor, I’m just not getting much out of church services.”

The Rev. Richardson, who played drums as a young man before he accepted Christ, looked at me through silver-rimmed spectacles and said, “‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.’”

His words, quoted from Matthew 20:28, penetrated my weariness, and I felt a release, the kind of release that comes after hearing and receiving truth that sets one free.

My old pastor explained that as a person “grows in Christ,” he will not be satisfied by simply hearing the Word – he will hunger for the spiritual satisfaction found in ministering to others. Christianity (Christ conforming believers to His Image) is a work in progress, a work that involves receiving God’s grace and giving of ourselves to others.