I call you attention to the words of Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5:  "Do the work of an evangelist."

    Please also note these words in Ephesians 4:8, 11, 12: "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men . . . . And he gave some, apostles; and some prophets; and some, evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

    My chapel talk to you this morning is a little different from the type of chapel message I usually give.  There is a great deal of talk now about evangelism, and I want to bring you a special message on the subject of evangelism in our day and also the peril that threatens evangelism.

    You will notice from the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians that the Lord gave gifts unto men, and you will notice from the verses in Ephesians that the Lord Jesus Christ, when He ascended on High, gave gifted men; our Lord, according to God's Word, gave these gifted men to the saints, His body, which is His church.  Evangelists are no more given to the world and to sinners than are pastors and teachers and all Christian people.

    Every Christian is given to the world as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.  It does not matter where you live or in what circle you move or what your business is -- if you are a Christian, you are given as a witness just the same as an evangelist, just the same as a pastor, and just the same as a Bible teacher.  Now, let's keep that clear.  There may be more light focused on you; but as far as the reach of your influence goes, you, as a Christian, have just as much responsibility to win souls to Christ as has an evangelist or pastor or teacher.  You are to witness to the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ in this wicked world.

Evangelists Given to the Whole Body of Christ

    I am sure that no office has ever been more understood than the office of an evangelist.  The work of a God-called evangelist has not always been clear in my own mind.  When I started out, I did not see clearly my own personal responsibilities; but as the years have piled up, more and more I have come to understand my job.  As I now look back over the experience of many years and look at these experiences in the light of God's Word, I am sure I am right in the position I am taking today.

    Now, notice these words of Paul to Timothy:  "Do the work of an evangelist."  This does not necessarily mean that Timothy was an evangelist.  Sometimes a pastor can do the work of an evangelist; and an evangelist can and should, at least to some extent, do the work of a teacher.  The evangelist is supposed to do his work with all long-suffering and teaching.  Paul was an apostle, but he also did the work of an evangelist.  John was an apostle, but he also did the work of a prophet.  There is some overlapping in the work of God-called men; but the office of an evangelist, pastor, and teacher is each a distinct office.

    An evangelist is given by Almighty God to the body of Christ.  He is not given to a denominational machine and never has been.  He is given by the risen Christ to the saints, the body of Christ.  Read Ephesians carefully, and you will find that Paul is addressing the saints.  He is talking "to the saints which are at Ephesus."

    Remember, a saint is any man or woman who has been born again.  If you are saved, you are a saint.  You may not be a very saintly saint, but you are a saint.  If you are not a saint, you are a sinner; and a sinner is going to Hell.  So every Christian is a saint, positionally.  He may not be as saintly as he ought to be in practice, but he is a saint.  So the risen Christ gave the evangelist, the pastor, and the teachers to the saints.

    No religious denomination on this earth has a right to claim any evangelist as its own.  The evangelist belongs to the whole body of Christ.  No pastor in any community in America can truthfully say, "I have been given to just this one church."  He belongs to the Lord, and he is given to the body of Christ.  His first responsibility may be to his own church where he is pastor; but he is supposed, as opportunities are open wherever he may be, to help shepherd the sheep.

    You can put a denominational tag on a Bible teacher; but if he is God's Bible teacher, he does not belong just to the Methodist  or Presbyterian or Baptist of some other denomination.  He belongs to the body of Christ.  I want to get this clear because we are facing a terrible peril in some of the mass evangelistic movement in our time.

    I started to give this message just to the ministerial students, but I thought it over, and I said to myself, "No, I will give it to all the students."  We have missionary students and young folks who will go out into the world into all walks of life.  Some will be schoolteachers, and some will be in the business world, and all Christians should understand that they are witnesses and should not sit down and wait for some evangelist or pastor or teacher to do the work a businessman, a teacher, or some other employed person is supposed to do.  A clear knowledge of the office of the evangelist and pastor and teacher will help every Christian in discharging his own responsibility.

    Now, I am an evangelist.  As an evangelist, I am given to the whole body of Christ.  Someone said to me, "You quit evangelistic work, didn't you, when you founded Bob Jones University?"

    I said, "No.  Every day since I have been connected with Bob Jones University, I have been fulfilling my office as an evangelist."

    We have been training evangelists.  We have been in Bob Jones University not just educating people but training young people to do the work of the ministry.  Evangelism has made Bob Jones University what it is.  We, of course, have kept the program balanced; but this institution would have been technically dead without evangelism.  Every church or institution, however orthodox it may be, sooner or later dies unless it has an aggressive evangelistic emphasis.

    When I am calling sinners to repentance, I am calling sinners to come to Jesus Christ, as any other Christian should do when he has the opportunity to do it.  As an evangelist, I may have access to more sinners than some other Christian; but what I  am doing in winning souls to Christ is what every other Christian is supposed to do.  My responsibility as an evangelist is to stir up Christian people to win souls, to live separated Christian lives, to do the job that God expects of them, and to be the kind of people that God expects them to be.

    Jesus Christ gave some apostles and some prophets.  There no prophets now.  There are, of course, men who have a prophetic style of message; but God has told us everything we need to know about the future in His Word, which is forever settled in Heaven.  There are no apostles now.  They are all in Heaven with the Lord.  The Bible had not been finished and there were apostles still on earth when Paul said that our Lord gave some prophets and some apostles.

    There are, however, still in this world God-given evangelists, pastors and teachers; and they are given to the saints.  The pastor is supposed to feed the sheep, and the evangelist is supposed to stimulate the sheep into real spiritual activity.  The evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher all have jobs; and each has his own slant; and yet they should all work together; and it is necessary for them to work together if they is to be a well-balanced spiritual condition in the body of Christ.  All saints need the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher.

    An evangelist is to do his work with all long-suffering and teaching.  No evangelist is really a good evangelist who does not have an element of teaching in his ministry.  The pastor, who shepherds the sheep and feeds the sheep, is supposed to put an evangelistic note in his ministry.  A teacher who does not put an evangelistic note in his ministry will have a deadening influence on the people he teaches.  The deadest people I have ever known in my life have been some well-taught Christians.

    You seldom find a well-balanced program in a church.  We have tried to have that kind of program in Bob Jones University.  We open every semester with a revival.  We keep putting pressure on Christian young people.  We tell them about their responsibilities. We have a record of 32,000 people that were led to the Lord Jesus Christ during the last year by the ministerial students in Bob Jones University.  Most of our graduates who have gone out into the world are soul winners; and if they are pastors, they not only know how to feed the sheep, but they know how to win souls to Christ, as every Christian should know and do.  All of these Christian young people, whether on the mission field or at home, who have gone out from Bob Jones University, have some evangelistic slant; and some of them are real evangelists.  As a matte of fact, we have trained a large percentage of the evangelists who are conducting campaigns throughout the world.

    Sometimes you pick up a paper, and you read where some evangelist led so many people to Jesus Christ.  That is never true.  If he did it, he is not operating in the role of a witness for Jesus, and he is neglecting the main part of his business.  Any evangelistic campaign that does not leave a church strong in evangelistic emphasis and does not leave a group of real soul winners has not had an effective evangelist leading the meeting, even though there may have been a good many people saved.

    We have gone far afield in our thinking; and we have got to get back to the Bible teaching about evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  Some fundamentalists in this country are going to have to recognize the evangelist and the office of the evangelist, as some of them have not done, and some evangelists are going to have to recognize the importance of Bible teaching, as some of them have failed to do, if we are going to have a balanced program.  There is no conflict whatsoever in the work of a true pastor with the work of a true Bible teacher or a true evangelist.  Evangelists, pastors, and teachers can all work together for "the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry."  That is their business.

    An evangelist has never been given by Almighty God to an ecclesiastical machine.  Every time ecclesiastical machinery has controlled evangelism it has put evangelism on the rocks spiritually.  All you have to do is to go back and read the record.

Evangelism in the Methodist Church

    I was converted at an altar in a Southern Methodist church when I was just eleven years old.  As I have told you students, I was baptized in a creek because my mother was a Baptist, and she saw that I got under the water.  By the time I was fourteen years old, I was putting up brush arbors and holding revival meetings in the country.  I walked miles to get country schoolhouses in which to hold revivals.  We had great evangelistic names in the Southern Methodist church at that time.

    It is my sincere opinion, as the years had gone, that the Southern Methodist church was the greatest evangelistic force on this continent when I was a boy. Sam Jones was probably the greatest platform preacher who ever stood before the American public.  He was courageous genius.  He could preach on conscience, God, and judgment as possible no man ever had preached in America, with the possible exception of Jonathan Edwards; and he preached with a liberty that possibly Jonathan Edwards never had.  The strange, peculiar, fascinating man used to preach people under conviction so they could not sleep at night.  He did not preach grace as much as some men preach grace; but he preached people under such conviction so they will want grace than to preach grace to folks who do not really want grace.

    There were Sam Small, George Stuart, John B. Culpepper, Henry C. Morrison, and a host of other men who were not so well known but who were powerful preachers.  I remember when I was a boy in Alabama, a Southern Methodist evangelist came to our county seat town and held a meeting.  There were over on thousand people converted in that small town, and he stamped his influence on the whole county.  They called him a free lance, and he was later tried for preaching within the bounds of another Methodist preacher's territory against this preacher's orders.

    The ecclesiastical machine in the Southern Methodist church passed a law that no man, whether preacher or layman, could hold a public religious service within the layman, could hold a public religious service within the layman, could hold a public religious service within the bounds of another preacher's territory if forbidden to hold that service by the pastor.  These evangelists were gentlemen, and they were loyal to their church.  They were never unethical, but they kept preaching.  Faithful, godly Methodist preachers and Baptist preachers and Presbyterian preachers and other preachers invited them to their own towns for meetings; and they turned towns and some cities upside down.  One of the greatest meetings ever held was conducted by Sam Jones in Nashville, Tennessee.

    I began my evangelistic career when the fight was on.  I saw evangelism thrive under persecution.  Remember, the churches in those days were orthodox; but the dictatorial ecclesiastical machine persecuted the God-called evangelists who were doing such a marvelous work.

    I remember that not long after Mrs. Jones and I were married, I had just closed a meeting in a little town near Greensboro, Alabama.  I had gone to college in Greensboro, Alabama.  I had held meetings in almost every country church in a radius of twenty-five miles while I was a college boy.  I went to attend a session of the Alabama Conference in the old town which was in the shadow of the school.  My young wife was with me, and I was so happy to get back and meet old friends.  Many of the preachers were there who had had me in meetings.  They were brotherly and cordial.

    I hadn't more than sat down in the church when the bishop, who is now dead and gone, made the most vicious attack I ever had made on me by anybody.  The bishop did not call my name, but everyone knew who he was discussing.  He said something about a young free lance going over this country holding meetings and not under control of the organization of the church and advised all the pastors not to have him.

    It wasn't an easy dose of medicine to take, but I took it.  Good old country preachers came by and shook hands with me and told me not to let it bother me.  They told me to go ahead and they would stand by me.  I kept up the fight because I knew I was doing what God called me to do.  The Baptists and Presbyterians, especially the Baptists, stood by me everywhere I went.  In a short period of time, more than 25,000 people joined the churches in Alabama under my ministry.  In those days there was some dictatorship in some of the ecclesiastical setups, but the preachers believed the Bible, and I could conscientiously advise people to join the churches.  I have never in my life advised any convert to join a modernistic church.  My conscience is clear in that particular.

    I was an evangelist for a few years and held meetings in many parts of the United States.  With the exception of Billy Sunday, no man ever had greater revivals than God gave us.  Some of them were historical.  Some time ago the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser came out with its 135th Anniversary Edition, and this paper carried my meeting of almost forty years ago as the historical religious event in the 135 years' history of the city.

Evangelists Face Danger of Being Swallowed by Ecclesiasticism

    After these great campaigns, and after fighting my way through these difficult battles as just a young preacher, I had a letter from an outstanding Methodist minister who held a high official position, asking me to join all the other Methodist evangelists in a conference in Nashville, Tennessee.  I went to this conference; and this gentleman who invited us and who I think meant well said in substance:  "The church has not treated the evangelists right.  We want to recognize you.  We want to put our arms about you.  We want to back you."  There were a few of the old-time, battle-scarred evangelistic heroes there; and there were also a number of young men there.  Some of these young men had had a pretty hard battle and were getting discouraged; so they were enthusiastic.  They did not like the idea of being kicked about by an ecclesiastical foot, and they were so happy to know that the ecclesiastical machine was ready to make peace.

    One by one the evangelists said they were very happy and would be glad to go along.  The chairman asked me if I would go along.  I said:  "Doctor, I have been in this work a number of years now, and God has blessed me, and I do not want any entangling alliances.  I want to be free.  I do not believe an ecclesiastical machine can successfully direct and control a God-called evangelist.  I have tried to be ethical, and I have never gone into any preacher's church without an invitation.  I have, however, gone into towns, and held meetings in courthouses, tents, theaters, and on street corners when some pastor didn't want me; but I always had the saints with me.  I have had preachers from other churches help me, and most of the Methodist preachers have personally been friendly to me, but I just don't feel like coming under the machine and letting the machine control me."

    The organization headed up by this very fine man, who was a good friend of mine, approved a number of evangelists; and, strange to say, they approved me; but I went my own way and did the work I had always done.  Now, note this:  those gifted young evangelists did not last under the machine.  In just a few short years, they were out of evangelistic work, for the doors of opportunity had been closed in their faces.

    God gave the evangelist to the body of Christ.  A pastor had no more right to control the activities of the evangelist than an evangelist has to control the activities of a pastor.  Some pastors have talked about evangelists criticizing the pastors; but, oh, how some pastors have criticized evangelists!

    Having been in this work for fifty-eight years, I carry some scars; but I have never surrendered.  I have seen evangelists surrender, and I have seen their fires of evangelism go out.  Those fires always go out when God's man figures he has to have any propping post except the arm of God and any leadership except the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

    I remember, back in those days when the Methodist church tried men like Henry C. Morrison and other men for going into some pastor's territory, these men kept going; they fought their way through, and now they have gone to Heaven.  I still find converts from the ministry of these great men of God who were opposed by ecclesiastical leaders.  Yet later the evangelistic cause they represented was swallowed up by an ecclesiastical machine, and the evangelism for which these great men fought lost its power in a great church.

    Dwight L. Moody was a perfect evangelistic type.  As a Christian, he was a great personal soul winner; as an evangelist, he put more Christians to winning souls than probably any other evangelist in the history of America.  Moody and his work, as far as we know, were never swallowed up by ecclesiasticism and was the work of some other evangelists.

Modernism Among Presbyterians

    A few days ago, I read in a secular paper an article on what the Presbyterians believe.  The author of this article is Dr. Bonnell, pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City.  By the way, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in days gone by was a great orthodox church.  Men like G. Campbell Morgan, John McNeill, and the great Dr. Jowett often spoke in that pulpit.  I quote some statements from Dr. Bonnell:  "Except for a minority, Presbyterians do not believe in the literal inerrancy of the Scriptures.  They believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures; that God spoke through men whose minds and hearts He had touched.  They, therefore, emphasized  inspired men, not inspired words."

    If Presbyterians believe what this man says they believe, then they do not believe the Bible because the Bible declares plainly that what God says to man came not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Ghost teaches.  All orthodox Christians believe that in the original languages the Holy Spirit chose the words from the vocabulary of each writer and that the Bible is verbally inspired or God breathed.

    Dr. Bonnell says further:  "Except in minor Presbyterian groups, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is not used as a test of orthodoxy in receiving new members or in ordaining ministers and elders."  This means that a man may be a Presbyterian minister and not believe in the virgin birth, and he can be an elder in the Presbyterian church and not believe in the virgin birth.

    Now, I have called your attention to this, not to make an attack on a denomination, but to call your attention to what the Presbyterians believed when I began my ministry..  All the Presbyterians preachers I met were orthodox men.  They believed the Bible from cover; and they did not test the Bible by human standards of scholarship, but they tested the conclusions of scholarship by God's revelation, which is the Bible.

    Remember, in the South the greatest evangelists were Southern Methodists.  Up North practically all of the great evangelists that I ever met were Presbyterians.  There were Chapman, Billy Sunday, Biederwoulf, Torrey, and others whose names should be remembered.  The Presbyterians in the North put their definite approval on certain evangelists.  Dr. Munhall, who was a great Methodist evangelist who lived in the days of Dwight L. Moody and who went down in his old age fighting for orthodoxy in the Methodist denomination, told me that some friends tried to get him to accept a position as an evangelist under the Presbyterian denomination but he did not feel, under the circumstances, it was the thing for him to do.  

    When I first began to work in the North, every Presbyterian minister in every town was in my campaign, and I really believe I had my greatest cooperation from these Presbyterian leaders.  These Presbyterian leaders stood back of Billy Sunday when he attacked modernism that was beginning to creep into Christian universities and colleges over the country.  Evangelism in the Presbyterian church has since those days been largely scrambled into liberalism and modernism.  If Billy Sunday were living today, the Presbyterian ecclesiastical leaders would not back his old-time, uncompromising, evangelistic Gospel -- that is, if Dr. Bonnell has correctly reported what Presbyterians now believe.

    Now, if Dr. Bonnell has reported correctly (and I take for granted he knows what he is talking about) about the beliefs of the Presbyterians, then any evangelist that goes into a city under a ministerial union with a Presbyterian preacher of the type who does not belong to the little fundamental group that still believes in the virgin birth, he will be selling evangelism down the river and will be a party to a great crime against God's faithful, uncompromising, orthodox, evangelical Christians who are trying to hold in these communities a base of testimony.

    I have been in evangelistic work for fifty-eight years, and my work has taken me to practically all the states and into many foreign countries, and most of my campaigns have been union campaigns, but I have never knowingly conducted any campaign under the sponsorship of any ministerial association of I knew there was a modernist in that association.  As an evangelist, I am given to the body of Christ, to God's born-again Christians; and for me to work under the sponsorship of a modernistic preacher, knowing he is a modernist, would mean that I was betraying God's faithful saints who have refused to surrender.

The Evangelist's Problem Among Southern Baptists

    I am now coming to a situation in connection with another great American denomination, and I am not attacking anybody.  There many preachers and laymen in this denomination that I have in mind that are still orthodox, but this denomination is becoming in its leadership rapidly modernistic and boss ridden.  I have a right to refer to this denomination, for I am sure I have had more converts of my ministry to join this denomination than has any other man in America.  I refer to the Southern Baptist denomination.  When I was a boy, every Baptist preacher I knew was orthodox and all the schools of this denomination were sound.  A large percentage of my evangelistic campaigns in the South originated with Baptist preachers.  I preached salvation by grace.  I preached against any kind of religious dictatorship -- ecclesiastical or political.  I preached against men committing their consciences to an organization of any kind.  The Baptists in this country stood with me.

    Baptist churches back in those days had the greatest evangelistic pastors as a whole in America.  There were my friends.  Dr. Truett personally urged me to come to Dallas for a revival meeting and said, "You are one man that my church will back to the finish."  Many times the Baptist preachers would go to the Methodist preachers and Presbyterian preachers and urge them to join in an invitation to me to hold a meeting.  They would say, "We will go in with Bob.  He is sound. He is orthodox.  He believes the Bible.  He believes in salvation by grace.  We will stand back of him."

    Ecclesiastical machinery in those days was limited in the Baptist denomination.  There was no overhead government.  The people gave their money, not to a cooperative program, but they earmarked their gifts; and God preserved them in a wonderful way.  And the Southern Baptist denomination has grown rapidly.  But here is a strange thing:  The Southern Baptist denomination has never had a large number of outstanding evangelists, but the average pastor of the average Baptist church when I was young had an evangelistic fervor.

    Now it is significant that a large percentage of the best known evangelists today are members of the Southern Baptist denomination.  A number of these men did not go to Baptist schools and were not reared in the Baptist denomination.  There were not educated under a Baptist organization; they went to independent schools and became evangelists under the stimulation of an independent setup, but they now have lined up with the Southern Baptist denomination.  These evangelists seem to be emphasizing in a particular way church loyalty -- not loyalty to the body of Christ -- and they seem to be leaning somewhat on the arm of an ecclesiastical machine.  They seem to feel it is essential to their work to carry a denominational stamp.

    Now, remember, God did not give evangelists to an organization; He gave them to the body of Christ.  They have no right to encourage any saint of God to go along and support a program even with their own denominational tag on it when that program is out of harmony with the Gospel of God's saving grace.  The peril that threatens evangelism today is the same peril that wrecked it in the Southern Methodist church.  It is the same peril that wrecked it in the Presbyterian church.  It is the same peril of ecclesiasticism swallowing up a movement, stamping it, and marking it with a strong ecclesiastical slant and tying it onto religious bossism.

Evangelists Should Not Accept Sponsorship of Modernists

    This present evangelistic wave is already spending itself.  A few men may be outstanding because of publicity and special promotion, but the rank and file of the evangelists (and there are a number of good, fine, consecrated men in the business) are finding it difficult to keep on.  They are going to face more difficulties, and many of them are going to be lost sight of, and some will soon be taking pastorates, and the thing will close out with the evangelistic movement of our day in the arms of an ecclesiastical machine that will choke the life out of it.

    Now, I have been wrong about a good many things, but I have never been wrong in my interpretation of an evangelistic movement for at least fifty years.  I am telling you young evangelists under the present trend of things, what we call real evangelism is on its way out.  In its place will come organization, religious education, social service, etc.

    I gave my warning at Winona Lake, Indiana, before World War I, and it came out as I said it was coming out. As a young man, I saw it in the Southern Methodist church, and I told them what was going to happen, and it happened that way.

    Let me remind you evangelists that we have to work with God's plan and do it God's way or there will be no real fruit and no permanent results.  God's plan is for the evangelist to go to the saints and help the saints.  It is a sin against God for an evangelist to go to a city on the invitation of modernistic machine churches and by so doing slap in the face the ministry of men who have never betrayed the Lord, men who have been faithful to the work of God through the years.  I never have done it. I haven't got much longer to carry on, but I am going to keep on keeping on being true to God's faithful saints.

    You evangelists cannot work under a local church of any denomination whose pastor does not believe in the virgin birth and the vicarious atonement, and be true to Jesus Christ.  Either Jesus was born of a virgin, or He wasn't.  Either He shed His blood for the remission of sin, or He didn't.  The Bible says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission.

    Let me, as a veteran of many years of experience, say to the young evangelists of America:  There is before you the greatest opportunity any evangelists ever had.  You can do a job for God.  The people are hungry-hearted.  There are wonderful saints of God scattered around over the country, and they that know God will hear you when you preach the Gospel.  The leadership of the evangelists should be taken out of modernistic ecclesiastical hands and delivered to the evangelicals, however unknown some of these evangelicals may be; and you evangelists have the opportunity to do it.  It is your responsibility to do it.

God Has Word for Evangelists Who are Faithful to His Cause and Plan

    You evangelists who are still true to God and not looking for headlines or showmanship or bigness or notoriety or influence but looking for an opportunity to serve can find this opportunity.  There are hundreds of little churches with pastors who are orthodox, and they need you.  In many towns, there a number of these little orthodox churches, and they need you and can unitedly sponsor your meeting.  They are fighting the Lord's battle against the dictatorship of the modernistic ecclesiastical machine, and some of them are being persecuted because they will not surrender.  You evangelists ought to go and help them.  There are enough true, faithful, evangelistic pastors and churches in America to have the most wonderful revival America has ever known at this time when people are heart hungry, but they can't have this sort of revival if the evangelists lean upon ecclesiastical arms and think about headlines and the big thing instead of doing what God wants done.

    I remember years ago when an evangelist told me he would not take any town of less than 50,000 people I saw him out of work in less than five years.  He was looking for a foothold anywhere he could get it.  Now, remember, for fifty-eight years, I have practiced what I am now preaching.  There has never been a time when I did not have an open door.  After fifty-eight years in  this business I still can't accept all the invitations that come; and I have never accepted an invitation to any church that had a modernistic pastor or the invitation of any group of churches if there was a modernist in the organization and I knew it.

    I have been always ethical in my work.  I will not accept an invitation to preach in a man's church unless I can recommend that the converts under my ministry join his church, and I will not preach under a group of churches unless I can recommend converts to these churches.  It is not ethical to hold a meeting  under a group of churches and not send the cards to those who invited you if cards are signed for those churches.  Remember, when you work under a modernistic ecclesiastical setup, you are not only a party to making it hard for your orthodox brethren, but you are gone against the clear-cut statement of Scripture.  You are also by your influence and position bidding Godspeed to false preachers of a false gospel, and you are partaker of the evil deeds of such men (2 John 9-11).

    Most of the evangelists who have gone out from Bob Jones University have stayed true.  A few of them are leaning on ecclesiastical arms instead of leaning upon the power of God.  Just give those fellows time; they will wind up as the pastors of some machine churches, or they will be begging for somewhere to preach because the power of God will not stay with them.

    I have just recently closed an eight-day meeting in the Free Will Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina.  The pastor of that church is a young man.  He went there three years ago.  His church is located almost in the shadow of two denominational universities and a great state university.  He preaches the Gospel.  He is working hard.  He is winning souls to Christ.  He has about two evangelistic campaigns a year in his church, and he has an evangelistic type of ministry as a pastor.  He and his folks are out after souls.  He has received an average of about one hundred members a year since he has been there, and they are really converted before they are received into the church.  A few months ago, Bob, Jr., held a meeting there, and he told me about the spiritual job the church was doing.  I went there because I knew it was an opportunity to serve.

    I am taking as many of these short messages as I can and taking them in churches that are fighting for the cause, churches that will not surrender to the modernistic, worldly, ecclesiastical machine.  I am still doing my work as an evangelist by helping to perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry.  I am trying to help these men fight for the cause.  I can scarcely think of a town or city in America that does not have at least one good base of testimony.  These bases are often lost sight of in all the glamour of the ecclesiastical dictatorship in America.

    The hope of this country is not in cathedrals.  It is not in big city churches, with their modernism.  It is no in these ecclesiastical organizations where they bring in the money in a common basket and distribute it according to the way the bosses say to distribute it.  It is not in these schools that have gone modernistic after having been built with the sacrificial gifts of saints.  The hope of this country is for evangelists to get in the role where they belong and go to the saints and help these faithful born-again, uncompromising, orthodox Christians to lead a crusade and demonstrate in our day what God Almighty can do through His faithful servants.

    You evangelists had better take small meetings and have good meetings than to get big meetings by compromising.  I have never known in my long evangelistic career a faithful evangelist who stayed true to God and did not compromise and who kept on keeping on who ever had to suffer for lack of food to eat or a shelter over his head.  But you servants of Christ ought to stay true even if you have to go hungry.  May God help pastors and teachers and evangelists who have been born again and who believe the Gospel and the Bible to stand together in this time of crisis and save evangelism from being swallowed up and destroyed by the modernistic ecclesiastical machine.

    Remember, the Devil will compromise; God won't.  The Devil will take today what he can get and will come back some future day to get something else.  Some of our Bible-believing preachers have had their character bankrupted by the pressure of the ecclesiastical machine; and without stopping to realize just what they were doing, they have been a party to an influence and dictatorship that chokes the spiritual life out of the churches and suppresses the evangelistic impulses of men who have been called of God to do the job.

    Now, before closing, let me remind you that I do not want anything personally and selfishly.  God has been good to me.  I have had everything I want expect to do what I can to encourage young evangelists to do what God has called them to do -- that is, to be real evangelists -- and to encourage the pastors of this country who are struggling against the pressure of modernistic ecclesiasticism to be faithful.  God put you men in trust with the Gospel.  Don't betray His trust.  God bless you.