The Abilene Meeting
This is a report of a meeting held by Brother Clark in Abilene in late September. The report appeared in the weekly bulletin of the Caprock congregation, where Brother Clark preaches.)
The gospel meeting with the North Park church in Abilene, Texas, which closed last Sunday night was unusual in a number of ways. There was first, an unusual interest in the meeting from the time it was arranged because the preacher would not be a stranger to the churches of Abilene, nor to the citizenry of the City in general; at least those who had been there through the years. I had lived in Abilene, at different intervals for many years, had appeared before Abilene audiences by special invitation on many occasions, Lectureships, gospel meetings, etc., and then had preached regularly for the College church for five years while the church was meeting in Sewell Auditorium on the campus of Abilene Christian College. This of itself, insured an unusual interest in the meeting.
Extraordinary Interest
But the thing that most of all created an extraordinary concern for what would be said from the pulpit during the meeting, was the well known stand which, as a gospel preacher, I have taken with regard to the question of church support for the institutions that have grown up among us and are seeking and receiving financial church support; and my opposition to the cooperational combines, the "sponsoring church" system, now so generally practiced among the churches as they function in both the field of evangelism and benevolence.
There had never been a sermon preached in Abilene directly having to do with these issues, or so it was reported to me. There was of course, the well known debate held at the Highland church several years ago, but the question had just not been discussed in the pulpit of any local church from the first. And since it was advertised that there would be a full discussion of these issues during the meeting, there was naturally a considerable interest on the part of everybody. Moreover, on Wednesday and Thursday, before the special discussion on these issues on Thursday night, there were a large number of both radio and television spot announcements throughout both days telling the subject for discussion and inviting the people to come and hear. And, it was one of the stimulating aspects of the occasion that the entire expense of both radio and television advertising of this discussion, with one exception, was voluntarily paid for by individual members of congregations of the City which practice the very things in question, but who obviously, do not approve the practices.
The actual sermon of Thursday evening was a full two hours in duration and was heard by a near capacity audience made up of people from just about all the congregations of the City, with a specially large attendance from the College church And so great was the interest there wasn't a restive moment on the part of anybody during the entire service.
No Punches Pulled
Though it was the expressly stated desire of the speaker to exercise the greatest of kindness and consideration for the feelings of those who listened, because he was conscious that he was speaking to brethren who had been friends for many years, you may be sure that no punches were pulled, and that there was no compromise of conviction and no effort at mere conciliation. The perfidious and absolutely false accusations made by some present and others in general; their arrogant, steam-roller tactics and their manifestly deep seated malignant prejudices, rivaling and even exceeding the prejudices of the denominational world; their patronizing attitude and constant assertion and implication that the whole matter is "Much ado about nothing", just another effort on the part of a troublesome element in the church to try to bind a mere way or means of carrying out the will of Christ in the field of expediency, where any one of many ways would be scriptural; these and many more of their false and unfair practices were exposed with both candor and frankness. Then for about thirty minutes at the last of the address of Thursday night different passages of scripture which they wrest in their efforts to establish their unscriptural practices were discussed and diagramed on the black board. The Saturday night meeting was also given entirely to a study of the actual teaching of the New Testament on the function of the local church. This was another two hour discussion with equally as much interest manifest as had characterized the meeting on Thursday night.
An Effort At Response
The College church announced that on Sunday night at six o'clock their preacher, George Bailey, would speak on the subject of "Church Cooperation". A number of us went to hear as much of the discussion as possible, but since we had to be at North Park for a service at seven, most of us had to leave at 6:45. However, some stayed until the sermon was over at seven.
Brother Bailey set up a straw man, to begin with, attributing to us a position which no man among us was ever either ignorant or naive enough to occupy. He affirmed that there are many who contend that there must be found an express pattern, in detail, for the doing of those things which ARE GENERICALLY authorized. But such is ridiculous; that which is thus taught is not GENERICALLY authorized at all, it is SPECIFICALLY authorized. And in this case we have no alternative; such matters are not optional.
The man ought to go back and join the primer class again!
His entire discussion placed the whole matter in the field of expediency. In other words, he simply repeated the platitude that "the Lord told us to do these things, but didn't tell us HOW; therefore, any way is all right, just so it is done decently and in order". The fact that it is not a matter of mere ways and means at all, but that it is a question of WHO, WHAT INSTITUTTION, is to function in these matters he completely ignored. One would think that this had never dawned upon him at all had he not made the statement that in the field of evangelism the church is its own missionary society, but that the church is definitely not, and could not be, its own benevolent society.
Then, as they all do, in his effort to use at least some scripture, he perverted Acts 11:27-30, stating that the funds from Antioch were most likely sent to the Jerusalem church, since it is the weakest sort of an inference to suppose that the other churches of Judea even had elders, and that the money was dispensed among the needy of the other churches by the Jerusalem elders!!! This was his way of finding a "sponsoring church" in the New Testament! He also made the chronological blunder they all make of saying that Paul could not have made the statement of Gal. 1:21-22 had he and Barnabas distributed the funds to the churches of Judea, as the passage says they did. Whereas, of course, a beginner should know that the statement made by Paul in the Galatian passage is that, when he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia he was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea, and that this was long before he and Barnabas distributed the funds from Antioch; indeed, it was even before the establishment of the church at Antioch.
But, what was to be expected? His whole effort was completely beside the point at issue' And his every effort at exegesis was as infantile and fallacious as his effort on Acts 11. It was apparent that he was simply "parroting"; repeating what he thought was the best of what others among them have said and which would come nearest pleasing and satisfying those who were responsible for his effort in the first place.
Visible Results
There were two baptized and five placed membership with the North Park church during the meeting. But, according to the elders of the church, this was perhaps, the least of the good accomplished by the meeting. But, a report will be made later through the papers by Brother O. B. Procter, who is the local preacher for the North Park church and also one of the elders.