What are your heroes of the faith?

[LastDaysJames]

What are your heroes of the faith? NOT including Bible heroes (that is a separate catagory) I am talking more so in the last 200 - 300 years to present!

Some of my favorite is...

1) Billy Graham

2) Smith Wigglesworth

3) Dwight Thompson

4) R. W. Schamback

Edited May 9 by LastDaysJames

[Vine Abider]

A few local brothers I know - Tom, Tony, Peter, Chuck and Dan, and a few sisters here I know.

[BibleStudent100]

18 hours ago, LastDaysJames said:

What are your heroes of the faith? NOT including Bible heroes (that is a separate catagory) I am talking more so in the last 200 - 300 years to present!

Sir Isaac Newton!  Great theologian.

[Dennis1209]

I would nominate Edward M. Kimball. Who is he, and how did our Lord mightily use him in a chain of great heroes in the faith?

The great evangelist Billy Graham attended Bob Jones University when it was in Cleveland, TN. In 1936. Billy was converted in 1934 during a twelve-week revival by a man named Mordici Ham.

                       Billy Graham

Mordici Ham - Ham, Rev. Mordecai F., a prominent and useful minister in Southern Kentucky, was born in Allen County of that State, April 30, 1816. He united with Trammels Fork Baptist church, in his neighborhood, in April, 1838; was licensed to preach in 1842, and ordained in 1843, at which time he became pastor of Bethlehem, the oldest and largest church in his county, and has continued to serve in that capacity to the present time. He has preached statedly to four churches, and, on account of the scarcity of preachers in his region, has sometimes supplied as many as six. He has received into the churches he has served over 2000 members, by experience and baptism. Mr. Ham has performed considerable missionary labor, and has, with the assistance of his co-laborers, formed several new churches. For some years he has been collecting at his own expense a library for the use of young ministers in his locality. He has expended several hundred dollars in this enterprise, and has commenced the formation of a valuable library, especially rich in the subject of Baptist history. He has been eighteen years moderator of Bays Fork Association. His only son, Rev. Tobias Ham, is a young preacher of excellent promise.¹ At the age of eight years old, he was influenced in a 1924 meeting by a preacher named Billy Sunday.

         Mordici Ham

Billy Sunday was a famous baseball player of his day and turned evangelist. “Nowadays we think we are too smart to believe in the Virgin birth of Jesus and too well educated to believe in the Resurrection. That’s why people are going to the devil in multitudes.”

“Center fielder Billy Sunday made a three-base hit at Farwell Hall last night. There is no other way to express the success of his first appearance as an evangelist in Chicago.” So reported the local press about Sunday’s first public appearance as a preacher in the late 1880s. “His audience was made up of about 500 men who didn’t know much about his talents as a preacher but could remember his galloping to second base with his cap in hand.”

This was just the beginning for Sunday. Until Billy Graham, no American evangelist preached to so many millions, or saw as many conversions—an estimated 300,000.

From baseball to the Y

“I never saw my father,” Sunday began his autobiography, for his father had died of pneumonia in the Civil War five weeks after Sunday’s birth. In fact, his early childhood in an Iowa log cabin was enveloped by death—ten deaths before he reached the age of 10. His mother was so impoverished, she sent her children away to the Soldier’s Orphans Home. Sunday survived only with the support of his brother and his love of sports, especially baseball.

His professional baseball career began with the Chicago White Stockings in 1883 (he struck out his first 13 at bats); he moved to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and in 1890, to the Philadelphia Athletics, where he was batting .261 and had stolen 84 bases when he quit.

Ever since his conversion to Christianity at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago in 1886, he had felt an increasingly strong call to preach. The YMCA finally convinced him to leave baseball to preach at their services (which meant a two-thirds cut in pay).

He moved on to work with two other traveling evangelists, then was invited to conduct a revival in Garner, Iowa. From then on, he was never without an invitation to preach, at first holding campaigns in midwestern towns and then, after World War I, preaching in Boston, New York, and other major cities. Much of his success was due to his wife, Helen Amelia Thompson. She organized the campaigns and did much of the advance work. She even tried to better Billy’s vocabulary in her letters to him, deliberately including words he would have to look up.

Prancing and cavorting

Sunday’s preaching style was as unorthodox as the day allowed. His vocabulary was so rough (e.g., “I don’t believe your own bastard theory of evolution, either; I believe it’s pure jackass nonsense”), Christian leaders cringed, and they often publicly criticized him. But Sunday did not care: “I want to preach the gospel so plainly,” he said, “that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.” Sunday was master of the one-liner, which he would use to clinch his practical, illustration-filled sermons. One of his most famous: “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”

He used his whole body in his sermons (and other nearby objects, such as his chair, which he would sometimes fling around while preaching). As one newspaper wrote, “Sunday was a whirling dervish that pranced and cavorted and strode and bounded and pounded all over his platform and left them thrilled and bewildered as they have never been before.” He concluded his sermons by inviting people to “walk the sawdust trail” to the front of the tabernacle to indicate their decision for Christ.

Unusual for American evangelists, Sunday also addressed social issues of the day. He supported women’s suffrage, called for an end to child labor, and included blacks in his revivals, even when he toured the deep South. This made him enemies, as did his support of Roman Catholics (whom he considered fellow Christians) and Jews. On one of the hottest topics of the day, evolution, he walked a tightrope: he had no sympathy for evolution, but neither did he warm up to Genesis literalists. However, he was never a friend of liberals: “Nowadays we think we are too smart to believe in the Virgin birth of Jesus and too well educated to believe in the Resurrection. That is why people are going to the devil in multitudes.”

And he firmly stood against card playing, movie going, and Roaring ’20s fashions. “It’s a damnable insult some of the rigs a lot of fool women are wearing up and down our streets,” he said. His favorite vice was “Mr. Booze.” In fact, his preaching was instrumental in getting Prohibition passed. “To know what the devil will do, find out what the saloon is doing,” he said repeatedly. “If ever there was a jubilee in hell it was when lager beer was invented.”

After World War I (which he raised millions of dollars to support), Sunday’s influence decreased. Radio, movies, and other entertainments drew masses away from the preacher, though he never lacked for speaking engagements.

“I’m against sin,” he once said. “I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fist-less and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.”²

                        Billy Sunday

Who influenced Billy Sunday to accept the Lord? John Wilbur Chapman influenced Billy Sunday. Chapman grew up attending Quaker Day School and Methodist Sunday School. At age 17, he made a public declaration of his Christian faith and joined the Richmond Presbyterian Church. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lake Forest College and his seminary degree from Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He completed his ordination into the ministry 13 April 1881, while still attending Lane. He was later awarded a doctorate in divinity from the College of Wooster and an LL.D. from Heidelberg University.

Chapman took on several pastorates before shifting to the evangelistic circuit. He began preaching with the legendary D.L. Moody in 1893, as well as leading many evangelistic events of his own. While not personally responsible for his conversion, Chapman was a strong influence on the ministry of Billy Sunday [Wikipedia]. Other sources credit Chapman with converting Billy Sunday.

           John Wilber Chapman

Who brought the Gospel to J.W. Chapman? Dwight Lyman Moody: When Moody turned 17, he moved to Boston to work (after receiving many job rejections locally) in an uncle's shoe store. One of the uncle's requirements was that Moody attend the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon, where Dr. Edward Norris Kirk served as the pastor. In April 1855 Moody was converted to evangelical Christianity when his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, talked to him about how much God loved him. His conversion sparked the start of his career as an evangelist. Moody was not received by the church when he first applied in May 1855. He was not received as a church member until May 4, 1856.

According to Moody's memoir, his teacher, Edward Kimball, said: I can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed upon him, that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday School class; and I think that the committee of the Mount Vernon Church seldom met an applicant for membership more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel truth, still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness.

             Dwight Lyman Moody

J.W. Chapman was attending Lake Forest College in the late 1870’s, and heard a man named Dwight L. Moody, a famous minister. After hearing Moody preach, Chapman received the Gospel after Moody personally spoke to him. So, who won D.L. Moody to the Lord?

Edward Kimbell: You may recognize the names of the great men of God above, but who was Edward Kimbell? He was just a Sunday School teacher and a timid person. Some – like Samson and Caleb – most people have heard of. Others, like Onesimus and Bezalel – many have not. But each life tells a story of the grace of God that points us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of my favorite “minor characters” in American history is a man named Edward Kimball. There are not many people who could tell you the historical significance of Edward Kimball. After all, he is so un-famous that he does not even have his own Wikipedia page. But through his simple service to God, he has had a worldwide impact.

In 1854, Kimball was a Sunday School teacher in Detroit, and one day he went to visit a 17-year-old boy who was in his Sunday School class who had little interest in God or religion. During his visit with this young man at his job in a shoe shop, he led the boy into a relationship with Christ. That young man was D.L. Moody, who went on to become one of the greatest evangelists in the world, sharing the gospel with 100 million people, as well as founding Moody Bible Institute and The Moody Church in Chicago. But the story does not end there. Through his ministry, Moody was responsible for a London pastor named F.B. Meyer coming to faith. Meyer was responsible for J. Wilbur Chapman coming to faith, and Chapman influenced Billy Sunday, another prominent evangelist of the 20th century. Billy Sunday was integral in a man named Mordecai Ham coming to faith. And Mordecai Ham was the preacher responsible for leading a young man named Billy Graham to Christ.

And that, my friends, is a spiritual legacy. Edward Kimball’s story reminds us to never underestimate the influence you can have on the world by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with just one life.

              Edward M. Kimball

Some of us have probably at least heard of Billy Graham, Mordici Ham, Billy Sunday, J.W. Chapman and D.L. Moody; but whoever heard of the Sunday School teacher Edward Kimbell? Talk about a chain producing fruit! When Edward Kimbell stands before Jesus at the Bema Seat of Christ, millions and millions of souls will be standing with these ministers. And it will go all the way back to this unknown timid Sunday School teacher no one ever heard of.

1 William Cathcart, ed., The Baptist Encyclopædia (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), 491.

2 Mark Galli and Ted Olsen, “Introduction,” 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 74–75.

3 www.christianitytoday.com

 

[LastDaysJames]

I agree - there is a story of a missionary, who go lost, ended up in a small village, in the small village a man was on deaths door, and in a lot of pain, the whole village heard him scream night and day. The missionary, in the name of Jesus healed him, because of that the whole village got saved - more than that, than man who was sick had a son, his name was, Reinhard Bonnke! who ended up being a very powerful evangelist who was set manly to the German people.

Edited May 10 by LastDaysJames

[Ray12614]

Interesting topic.

I have had quite a few men who have influenced my Christian life. Many teachers who I will not name because some of the readers of this post are hostile to 'word-of-faith' ministers accusing them of heresy and/or worse. So, to avoid that mess of having them speak of what they clearly don't understand, I will focus on one word-of-faith man who have had an great impact on my life and my family and countless unknown people world wide.

Bobby Walker, an traveling apostle who spent many years in Hatti pioneering churches and my church supported him as we were able. Countless times he visited us when we could not afford to pay rent, much less support him. He invested money in us, and loved on us as people with the love of Jesus. Countless stories about Hatti and other nations he preached in. All those stories helped us with our personal walk with the Lord, and inspired us to never give up on people and ministry. He and his wife Inna took some of our kids on mission trips to Hatti and they came back changed for the better. One time he visited my church he came in with tattered shoes/sandals and told of reaching out to 'shoe shiners' who would shine westerners shoes for a living. He focused in on one man who he bartered with over price and Bobby got the man to shine his shoes for free, and all the other shoe shiners were enraged over it, but, the man shined his shoes for free. Then, Bobby had the man sit down on his chair and he took off the shoe shiners shoes, and took of his own newly polished shoes, and put them on the shiners feet, and Bobby took the old tattered shoes and put them on his feet. Then Bobby ministered the gospel to the man, and he received Jesus as savior and Lord. Bobby basically labelled his message to us as 'Walk a mile in peoples shoes before you decide they are not worthy of ministering to'.

The funny thing about this, is that I could not stand him the first few times he came to our church. I thought he was an loud-mouth blow hard who just wanted to push people around. Then, I saw him minister tenderly to little church kids, and hurting people, and those who just about had given up on life. He gave them encouragement, help, counselling, and yes, money to help several families through financial crisis's. After I saw his compassion on people I changed my opinion of him and listened to him and loved him greatly.

Bobby gave countless illustrations and stories like this about how he reached people with the gospel, and helped me personally mature in my walk with Jesus. NO, he is not on the list of generals and pioneers of the faith, but, Bobby was faithful wherever Jesus called him to go ministering to those many of us would pass by and ignore. I love him dearly as an father in the faith and his legacy has changed this man (Ray) for the better, and showed me how to serve Jesus wherever I am at.

Bobby died peacefully in his sleep after he called Inna and told her he was going to heaven and would see her soon, during the last mission trip he took to Cuba. His wife Inna continued his ministry until her death serving at their home church in Alabama. He may not be great in most people's eyes, but, I guarantee Jesus is pleased with him as an faithful servant. I look forward to seeing him again soon.

Ray . . . 

[LastDaysJames]

6 minutes ago, Ray12614 said:

Interesting topic.

I have had quite a few men who have influenced my Christian life. Many teachers who I will not name because some of the readers of this post are hostile to 'word-of-faith' ministers accusing them of heresy and/or worse. So, to avoid that mess of having them speak of what they clearly don't understand, I will focus on one word-of-faith man who have had an great impact on my life and my family and countless unknown people world wide.

Bobby Walker, an traveling apostle who spent many years in Hatti pioneering churches and my church supported him as we were able. Countless times he visited us when we could not afford to pay rent, much less support him. He invested money in us, and loved on us as people with the love of Jesus. Countless stories about Hatti and other nations he preached in. All those stories helped us with our personal walk with the Lord, and inspired us to never give up on people and ministry. He and his wife Inna took some of our kids on mission trips to Hatti and they came back changed for the better. One time he visited my church he came in with tattered shoes/sandals and told of reaching out to 'shoe shiners' who would shine westerners shoes for a living. He focused in on one man who he bartered with over price and Bobby got the man to shine his shoes for free, and all the other shoe shiners were enraged over it, but, the man shined his shoes for free. Then, Bobby had the man sit down on his chair and he took off the shoe shiners shoes, and took of his own newly polished shoes, and put them on the shiners feet, and Bobby took the old tattered shoes and put them on his feet. Then Bobby ministered the gospel to the man, and he received Jesus as savior and Lord. Bobby basically labelled his message to us as 'Walk a mile in peoples shoes before you decide they are not worthy of ministering to'.

The funny thing about this, is that I could not stand him the first few times he came to our church. I thought he was an loud-mouth blow hard who just wanted to push people around. Then, I saw him minister tenderly to little church kids, and hurting people, and those who just about had given up on life. He gave them encouragement, help, counselling, and yes, money to help several families through financial crisis's. After I saw his compassion on people I changed my opinion of him and listened to him and loved him greatly.

Bobby gave countless illustrations and stories like this about how he reached people with the gospel, and helped me personally mature in my walk with Jesus. NO, he is not on the list of generals and pioneers of the faith, but, Bobby was faithful wherever Jesus called him to go ministering to those many of us would pass by and ignore. I love him dearly as an father in the faith and his legacy has changed this man (Ray) for the better, and showed me how to serve Jesus wherever I am at.

Bobby died peacefully in his sleep after he called Inna and told her he was going to heaven and would see her soon, during the last mission trip he took to Cuba. His wife Inna continued his ministry until her death serving at their home church in Alabama. He may not be great in most people's eyes, but, I guarantee Jesus is pleased with him as an faithful servant. I look forward to seeing him again soon.

Ray . . . 

I think you and I may have the same WOF preachers that we like... God bless! It is a shame that there are many people hostile towards WOF even tho Paul himself said that he preaches Word of Faith (Rom 10:8)

[lrs68]

My Grandfather 

Lester Sumrall

Dwight Thompson 

Jentezen Franklin

Perry Stone 

Ron Carpenter 

G.T. Haywood 

R. W. Schambach

John Reid

Donnie Swaggart

 

...many more but will add later when they come to mind 

[Ray12614]

20 hours ago, LastDaysJames said:

I think you and I may have the same WOF preachers that we like... God bless! It is a shame that there are many people hostile towards WOF even tho Paul himself said that he preaches Word of Faith (Rom 10:8)

Maybe . . . hummm . . . let me think about this . . . word of faith vs word of doubt/unbelief . . . it really is a no-brainer for me.

However . . . I freely admit that a few of the wof ministers have preached some error, JUST like non wof preachers have done and still do today.

We need to be like the Bereans who search the scriptures to verify if what is preached is true or not.

My point is that we personally are responsible for what we believe based upon the scriptures, and not upon preached messages that can go off-the-rails so to speak.

Unless you hear it from the scriptures . . . it is open for scrutiny . . . let God be true and every man/woman a liar when the two disagree.

Grace and Peace . . . . Ray . . . 

[TheBlade]

Hero's.. I know just like you so many to mention but who stands out? I think of the song where you meet all the saints but you say.. man I just want to see the one that shed His blood for me. But the grandmother and her husband that prayed 4h a day. The only time she let me thank her was I could stop thinking about her and when I did I could not stop crying told her if it was not for you I would not be saved. Just after that she went home. 

How many times has God used that song from a believer that put you back on the right path that song that ..that was Jesus talking to you. So many of them I can't count.  So we see all of them and .. oh so happy and blessed.. thanking them but they say...no your thanking the wrong one we are just like you.. look over there... He's the one that did it all. I am doing exactly what haha I don't like. Well duh ever one is going to thank God/Christ but every time I think of someone.. I know all they will do is tell me to thank Him.. the king of glory the king of all kings. 

He used so many men women of faith ..then this simple preacher knocking on our door going door to door.. our door.