It was the time that gave us “The Greatest Generation.” The Great War had been fought. The Roaring Twenties had come and gone. The Great Depression had hit. Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito all had made a vigorous attempt at world domination, and the Allies, with God’s help, had driven them to defeat and, in some cases, straight to Hell. From this era, three preachers emerge and teach powerful lessons that bear timeless truths for preachers today. The fourth preacher had already come and gone.

 

Charles “Chuck” Templeton

Chuck Templeton was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1915. He was brought up in church and became a widely heard and greatly used evangelist in his young adult years. Thousands of people would come to hear him under tents and in auditoriums around Canada and the United States.

In post WWII America, there was a general consensus amongst evangelists that America was on the verge of another Great Awakening. Evangelist Oliver B. Greene, and others like him, would set up a tent, and 6,000 people would come to hear the preaching, without one flyer being handed out. This was true in Canada, America, Australia, Japan as well as other countries around the world. Materialism had not yet taken root.

In those days, Torrey Johnson and Bob Cook had begun the Youth for Christ Organization. In this healthy, revival-promoting climate this group experienced rapid growth. Soon it became a movement and spread like wild-fire. Many thousands were being saved and brought into the kingdom. Chuck Templeton preached for the organization, and he eventually recommended that a young evangelist named Billy Graham be the preacher for this evangelistic ministry. Not long afterward, Templeton headed back to Canada to start a church. Under his effective leadership, the church mushroomed only months after it had begun. Hundreds came, then thousands and the young preacher and his team were kept busy with all the new converts.

Shortly into his pastorate, Charles felt the need to further his education. He moved to New Jersey and took up his educational pursuits at the famed Princeton Theological Seminary. There he was schooled in infidelity and unbelief. Though he had led thousands to faith in Christ, he was now awash in doubts and uncertainty. He left the ministry to pursue politics. After a failed political stint in the Canadian Parliament, he made an effort as a broadcaster, inventor, and finally an author. His most famous work? Farewell to God – My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. As he lay dying in June of 2001, he reflected his regret with these words, “I miss Jesus.”

This tragedy is not new and has been repeated again and again, but never quite so clearly, in modern times, as in the life of Charles Templeton. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (I John 2:19). Templeton, along with Judas Iscariot, teaches us that though a preacher may have crowds flock to hear him, his ministry is meaningless now and for eternity, unless that preacher has placed simple faith in the Word of the One who bore nail prints on his behalf.

 

Jack Shuler

Jack was born into the home of “Fighting” Bob Shuler in 1918. His father, not to be confused with the liberal minister, Robert Shuller, was a godly fundamentalist preacher and pastor of the largest Methodist church in Los Angeles. He had a faithful testimony of standing for truth, fighting evil and winning souls. He left a godly legacy for his children three of whom followed in his footsteps as preachers. Jack and his younger brother, Phil, became evangelists.

Jack was a powerful preacher and was greatly used of the Lord in the middle of the 20^th century. In fact, at the same time, Billy Graham was having his 1949 L.A. Crusade, Evangelist Jack Shuler had a tent across town at another location. Both preachers were drawing record crowds to the meetings and both were seeing many come to Christ. These were exciting times to say the least! Evangelist Phil Shuler, who had been an advance man for his brother, said that Jack Shuler was used to see at least one million people come to faith in Christ during his preaching.

Jack Shuler had a talented song leader and soloist named Jack Holcomb. He would lead songs and sing so as to ready the hearts of the people for the preaching. But Holcomb was the one who introduced Vodka to Jack to relax him after the evening gospel meetings. It sure did relax the preacher, in more ways than one.

With this sinful choice and duplicity in place, Jack was set up for greater temptation. He divorced his wife of 20 years. He remarried and fathered two sons with his second wife. He left the ministry and eventually died in his mid-40s. A few years before he died, he told his brother, Phil, “I’ll be dead in a few short years because of my choices.” How sad!

Jack’s life and untimely removal, due to sin, leave us with a powerful lesson to weigh. Neither a rich heritage nor the pinnacle of success and usefulness is any guard against the temptations from the Wicked One. Satan hates the gospel and those who preach it, and he will do everything and anything to take us out. The only way to withstand his attacks and emerge victorious is through fervent prayer, much exposure to God’s Word and yielding to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

 

Billy Graham

1918 brought another preacher into the world. It was Charlotte North Carolina where Billy Graham was born. No one could have known in his younger years, that he would have such an impact upon this world but impact it for God he did.

He was born into a dairy farmer’s home and was raised under conservative religious background. Yet in spite of his church-going upbringing, he was lost. It was in his 16^th year, at least five weeks into a several week campaign of Evangelist Mordecai Hamm that Billy Graham trusted Christ as his Savior.

A few years later, his parents would encourage him to go to a little Bible college in Florida. It was there he would sense the hand of God upon his life to preach, and on a dew-laden golf course, late one night he surrendered to God’s call.

He had been involved in various ministries before the 1949 L.A. crusade. He pastored for a short time. He traveled as the evangelist for Youth for Christ. He was even the president of Northwestern College in Minneapolis, MN. But after the 1949 L.A. Crusade, Billy became widely known around the country.

A month before the crusade, Billy met with his old friend, Chuck Templeton. He had already been to Princeton and was swirling in a sea of doubt. He peppered Graham with questions some of which he could not answer. Billy was shaken. According to his own testimony, he went out into the woods of California, set his Bible on a stump and prayed, “Lord, I don’t understand everything in that Book, and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m just going to believe it, every word of it.” It was a turning point. The ’49 crusade may not have been held, had he not had that conversation. In reality, a great much of Billy’s life may have been different.

He would travel to over 160 countries preaching the gospel to over 200 million people in person and millions more via radio, television and internet. As many as 3 million people placed their faith in Christ through his preaching. He was used to speak to foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and every US president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump. Chuck Templeton said of Billy, “There is no feigning with him. He is intensely innocent.”  He maintained moral and financial integrity. He refused to be alone with a woman in an elevator, and he had his ministry audited every year to keep above board. From this we can learn, and for this we can be grateful.

But Billy had made some serious compromises in his ministry. In the 50s and beyond he had accepted the endorsements of liberal preachers and even the Catholic church. At times he would cooperate with them in his meetings which led to a spirit of ecumenism and greater compromise. The steps that seemed only pragmatic and innocent at first opened the door to later statements and moves that were embarrassing at best and violated Scripture at worst.

All of us have watched, with interest, the events of the past weeks surrounding his death. We have seen the motorcade of his funeral procession met with hundreds of onlookers. We have heard the President’s encouraging speech as Billy Graham’s body lay in honor in the Nation’s Capitol Rotunda. We have seen the funeral with thousands attending and thousands more watching on television. And we have rejoiced at the opportunity for the gospel to be heard afresh and an invitation extended to come to Christ for salvation.

Billy gives us an incredible lesson to consider. The gospel works just as it is! It doesn’t need updating or revising. The message of the Cross is and always will be effective in any age and generation. But it must never be compromised! Never. Any immediate results that seem to come from compromise will be revealed for what they really are at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10-12; I Corinthians 3:11-15).

 

John the Baptist

He’s the one who had come and gone before the other three. His birth, a little over 2,000 years ago, happened without much notice or fanfare the world over. Yet in the little town where he was born there was quite a stir.

His birth was prophesied by Isaiah hundreds of years beforehand. He was born to Zachariah and Elizabeth who were “well stricken in years.” He was only one of three in the entire Bible who was under a lifetime Nazarite vow. This fact alone, set him apart as being under a life of sacrifice and discipline. His clothing was camel’s hair and his food was locusts and wild honey.

He wasn’t on the cutting edge of ministry. Truthfully, he wasn’t into any of that at all. His method was as old as Enoch. It was called preaching. Timeless, Transcending, Bible-Preaching. It was fearless preaching. He confronted the religious hierarchy of the day. It was compassionate preaching. He brought people to the solution, the Word of God. It was humble preaching. He pointed people away from himself and to the Savior. He preached on judgment, on Repentance, on Sin, on the Holy Ghost and on Jesus! Oh, how he preached on Jesus! Remember his message, “Behold the Lamb of God?” It was a classic.

You would think that with such an outdated method, he would be a flop, but it was just the opposite. “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan” (Matthew 3:5). Many were saved and baptized. He had the unique privilege of physically introducing Jesus for the first time to a world in desperate need! After all, John was the one of “He must increase, but I must decrease” fame. Then, as the multitudes flocked from his audience to follow after Christ, he said to his disciples, “…this my joy therefore is fulfilled” (John 3:29).

Then the testing came. After confronting Herod for the sin of adultery…adultery with his brother’s wife, he was captured and thrown in Jail. That is one without cable TV and a workout room. This was not the 20th century, and it certainly was not the land of the free. It was there that John had his own personal crisis. While in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another” (Matthew 11:3)? It was a momentary lapse in a monumental life. Jesus sent them back to John with an answer of hope, assurance and courage, then he turned toward those present and said, “Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).

John’s ministry would be better measured in months rather than years. He never wrote a book. He never saw a million saved. His body never lay in honor or in state. Instead he came to the end of his life and they lopped off his head because he would not remain silent about the truth. Yet, after he had died, John was the one Herod thought had resurrected and was preaching around Judaea. In fact, it was Jesus. Let that sink in. John the Baptist was so much like the Lord Jesus, Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist.

John the Baptist gives us three weighty truths, and they are these. Magnify Christ in your message. Magnify Christ in your Stand. Magnify Christ in your Death.

It is more than interesting to consider the lives, the connections, the messages, the choices, the failures, and the deaths of these four preachers. May every blood-bought child of God, every preacher of the Word, and every servant of the Lord take note and walk in integrity; reject deception and duplicity, stand firmly, and die honorably, so that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ is honored in all!