May I Commend Brother G. C. Brewer?
It has never been my privilege or pleasure to personally meet Brother G. C. Brewer. Although I have read his articles in various journals, and have corresponded with him, particularly in the preparation of articles for the Voice of Freedom, which is devoted to the purpose of exposing the errors of and dangers of Communism and Catholicism . . . I repeat, I have never met Brother Brewer.
However, in the April 12, 1956 edition of the Gospel Advocate, Brother Brewer had an article entitled, "Fifty Years In Meeting Work." In this article, he takes us back to meetings in the 'Long Ago'.... possibly fifty, seventy-five or one hundred years ago, when the Bible was preached, and meetings continued for as long as six weeks.
The third section of Brother Brewer's treatise is devoted to "When the Digressives Took Over" . . . He speaks of their becoming more 'up-to-date and popular.' That, instead of congregational singing, they wanted an organized choir, and finally instrumental music in the worship. They had poorer singing, but more pride. The evangelist would come and his wife would be an assistant evangelist who would sometimes preach to women only, while the husband preached to men only. They would have a choir director ... and he would bring his wife with him, and she would have a women's class in singing or in something else. They would probably have an educational director and his wife. And the result was a lot of bally-hoo, a good deal of effort at organization and no gospel preaching . . . I have been lifting the above remarks directly from Brother Brewer's article ... it's worth reading and re-reading ... because he was writing about when the 'Digressives who Took Over.'
But, what I appreciate even more, from the pen of Brother Brewer, is his entire section No. 5, entitled:
'WHAT WE MAY EXPECT FROM PRESENT TRENDS." (We copy It in full.)
"Sometimes we have men who are predicting another division in the church and a wholesale digression of churches. This well may be feared. But the love of success, the ambition for big programs, the tendency towards making a preacher an executive with such a multiplicity of activities to supervise that he has to have a dozen secretaries and helpers can easily cause the creation of an "institutional" church that has little resemblance to a New Testament congregation. It would be a glorious thing if all the so-called members of the churches over the country were forced to sit at the feet of a gospel preacher for a series of six weeks' preaching each year. Gospel preaching would stave off any departures and would create and educate some real Christians to carry on the work of the Lord. There is no substitute for gospel preaching. Therefore, there is no substitute for our old-time meetings." (The emphasis on the last sentences was Brother Brewer's. L.W.M.)
Yessir . . . I'd like to publicly commend Brother Brewer, for the foregoing material. It's what we need. it's as refreshing as a long, cool drink of water from an Ozarks spring, after an all-afternoon brush arbor meeting.