Journalist Brit Hume's Response to Critics

I don’t recall watching a Sunday morning news or commentary program for years, but in God’s providence I turned on the television four weeks ago, just a few minutes before Brit Hume made his now famous comments about Tiger Woods. I was amazed and grateful for what he said.





(Click here to see the video.)

Christianity Today interviewed him about this, and the very hostile responses and ridicule from the late night comedians and others. I appreciated Brit Hume’s response. May we have more journalists like him, not less. Click here to read the interview.

And on a side note, I received the following email recently and wanted to share it with you:

Reader Response

My precious father served the Lord faithfully at a Bible school for 30 years. I bought him a copy of Heaven years ago and he read it and reread it. He loved Jesus faithfully and passionately all his life—and the book meant so much to him. It was on his bedside table the night he died and the verses he had underlined were read at his funeral. He totally loved the idea of a restored earth—and he grew increasingly impatient to be with the Lord—at 92 he got his wish. —H.M.

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Albert Mohler on the Air Conditioning of Hell

Before I get to today's blog: If you've followed the news lately, you've probably heard about CBS's controversial decision to air a prolife commercial produced by Focus on the Family during the Super Bowl, telling the story of football star Tim Tebow and his mom Pam. (Read more about Pam's courageous decision not to abort Tim.) Good for CBS. And I hope they don’t cave in to the National Organization for Women who have recently launched an effort to call on CBS to drop the ad. To encourage CBS, you can send them a comment on their website. I blogged about Tim last year, and asked readers to pray for this young man. Please continue to pray for Tim and his family—you can bet that they will be targeted for their prolife stand.

Now on to today's blog: After posting my blog on hell, someone pointed out Al Mohler's blog post, "Air Conditioning Hell: How Liberalism Happens," on the same subject. It's excellent. Following is portion of it. Click here to read the rest.

Theological liberals do not intend to destroy Christianity, but to save it. As a matter of fact, theological liberalism is motivated by what might be described as an apologetic motivation. The pattern of theological liberalism is all too clear. Theological liberals are absolutely certain that Christianity must be saved…from itself.

The classic liberals of the early twentieth century, often known as modernists, pointed to a vast intellectual change in the society and asserted that Christianity would have to change or die. As historian William R. Hutchison explains, "The hallmark of modernism is the insistence that theology must adopt a sympathetic attitude toward secular culture and must consciously strive to come to terms with it."

This coming to terms with secular culture is deeply rooted in the sense of intellectual liberation that began in the Enlightenment. Protestant liberalism can be traced to European sources, but it arrived very early in America—far earlier than most of today's evangelicals are probably aware. Liberal theology held sway where Unitarianism dominated and in many parts beyond.

Soon after the American Revolution, more organized forms of liberal theology emerged, fueled by a sense of revolution and intellectual liberty. Theologians and preachers began to question the doctrines of orthodox Christianity, claiming that doctrines such as original sin, total depravity, divine sovereignty, and substitutionary atonement violated the moral senses. William Ellery Channing, an influential Unitarian, spoke for many in his generation when he described "the shock given to my moral nature" by the teachings of orthodox Christianity.

Though any number of central beliefs and core doctrines were subjected to liberal revision or outright rejection, the doctrine of hell was often the object of greatest protest and denial.

Considering hell and its related doctrines, Congregationalist pastor Washington Gladden declared: "To teach such a doctrine as this about God is to inflict upon religion a terrible injury and to subvert the very foundations of morality."

Though hell had been a fixture of Christian theology since the New Testament, it became an odium theologium—a doctrine considered repugnant by the larger culture and now retained and defended only by those who saw themselves as self-consciously orthodox in theological commitment.

Novelist David Lodge dated the final demise of hell to the decade of the 1960s. "At some point in the nineteen-sixties, Hell disappeared. No one could say for certain when this happened. First it was there, then it wasn't." University of Chicago historian Martin Marty saw the transition as simple and, by the time it actually occurred, hardly observed. "Hell disappeared. No one noticed," he asserted.

The liberal theologians and preachers who so conveniently discarded hell did so without denying that the Bible clearly teaches the doctrine. They simply asserted the higher authority of the culture's sense of morality. In order to save Christianity from the moral and intellectual damage done by the doctrine, hell simply had to go. Many rejected the doctrine with gusto, claiming the mandate to update the faith in a new intellectual age. Others simply let the doctrine go dormant, never to be mentioned in polite company.

What of today's evangelicals? Though some lampoon the stereotypical "hell-fire and brimstone" preaching of an older evangelical generation, the fact is that most church members may never have heard a sermon on hell—even in an evangelical congregation. Has hell gone dormant among evangelicals as well?

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Dismiss Hell and You Dismiss Jesus

My blog posts on the Haiti earthquake have generated some great comments, both on the blog and on my Facebook site. I've read them all and benefited, so thanks to many of you.

One comment, however, took things in a different direction, raising the subject of Hell. (This wasn’t the issue in the Haiti discussion, but I want to address it now as a new subject.) Someone wrote to the commenters who were discussing God’s judgment of people:

You seem to be missing the big point here—the complete absurdity that God hurts people for any reason! Jesus told us God is not like the pagan deities who tortured people in Hades, but that he is forgiving, loving, and caring. If one is willing to look, there's substantial evidence contained in the gospels to show that Jesus opposed the idea of Hell. True, there are a few statements that made their way into the copies of copies of copies of the gospel texts which place “Hell” on Jesus’ lips, but these adulterations came along many decades after his death.

This comment is misinformed. The truth is that the oldest and most reliable biblical manuscripts include Christ’s explicit statements about Hell. The gospel writers didn’t make up their Lord’s words in the gospels. They simply recorded them. And the hyper-careful scribes didn’t add them to the manuscripts, they simply copied them, word for word, from one to another.

The truth is that Jesus spoke more about Hell than anyone else in all of Scripture. (Because of its importance, I devoted a chapter of my book If God Is Good to the subject of Hell.) Jesus referred to Hell as a real place and described it in graphic terms (see Matthew 10:28; 13:40–42; Mark 9:43–48). He spoke of a fire that burns but doesn’t consume, an undying worm that eats away at the damned, and a lonely and foreboding darkness.

Christ says the unsaved “will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). Jesus taught that an unbridgeable chasm separates the wicked in Hell from the righteous in paradise. The wicked suffer terribly, remain conscious, retain their desires and memories, long for relief, cannot find comfort, cannot leave their torment, and have no hope (see Luke 16:19–3 1).

Our Savior could not have painted a bleaker picture of Hell.

C. S. Lewis said, “I have met no people who fully disbelieved in Hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heaven.” The biblical teaching on both destinations stands or falls together. If the one is real, so is the other; if the one is a myth, so is the other. The best reason for believing in Hell is that Jesus said it exists.

It isn’t just what Jesus said about Hell that matters. It is the fact that it was he who said it.

“There seems to be a kind of conspiracy,” wrote Dorothy Sayers, “to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not ‘mediaeval priestcraft’ for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christ’s deliberate judgment on sin.... We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ.”

Why do I believe in an eternal Hell? Because Jesus clearly and repeatedly affirmed its existence. As Sayers suggested, you cannot dismiss Hell without dismissing Jesus.

Atheist Bertrand Russell wrote, “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”

Shall we believe Jesus or Bertrand Russell? For me, it is not a difficult choice.

C. S. Lewis said of Hell, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.”

We cannot make Hell go away simply because the thought of it makes us uncomfortable. If I were as holy as God, if I knew a fraction of what he knows, I would realize Hell is just and right. We should weep over Hell, but not deny it. If there isn’t an eternal Hell, Jesus made a terrible mistake in affirming there is. And if we cannot trust Jesus in his teaching about Hell, why should we trust anything he said, including his offer of salvation?

We may pride ourselves in thinking we are too loving to believe in Hell. But in saying this, we blaspheme, for we claim to be more loving than Jesus—more loving than the One who with outrageous love took upon himself the full penalty for our sin.

Who are we to think we are better than Jesus?

Or that when it comes to Hell, or anything else, we know better than he does?

God determined he would rather endure the torment of the Cross on our behalf than live in Heaven without us. Apart from Christ, we would all spend eternity in Hell. But God so much wants us not to go to Hell that he paid a horrible price on the cross so we wouldn’t have to. This can be distorted into self-congratulation: if God paid such a great price for us, we must be extremely valuable. A better perspective is that if God had to pay such a great price for us, it emphasizes both the extent of his love and the extent of our evil.

Jesus asks a haunting question in Mark 8:36–37: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

The price has been paid, but we can’t benefit from forgiveness unless we choose to receive it. A convicted criminal may be offered a pardon, but if he rejects it, he remains condemned.

By denying Hell’s reality, we lower the stakes of redemption and minimize Christ’s work on the cross. If Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection didn’t deliver us from a real and eternal Hell, then his work on the cross is less heroic, less potent, less consequential, and less deserving of our worship and praise.

Theologian William Shedd put it this way: “The doctrine of Christ’s vicarious atonement logically stands or falls with that of eternal punishment.”


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Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is this Weekend

This Sunday, January 24, is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday; marking the 37th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. There is a great spiritual warfare associated with the issue of abortion. Killing children is Satan's way of striking out at the very heart of God. If he cannot kill God, the next best thing is killing those created in God's image. He is killing God in effigy.

Today our churches must, once and for all, dispel the illusion that showing grace means not talking about hard issues. Every time the subject of abortion is brought up, some people get offended, others get hurt. But what is the alternative? Not bringing it up, thus offending God and setting up people to follow the lies of culture, which ends up hurting them far more than telling the truth?

Our doctrine of grace has been distorted by our culture's dogma of tolerance. Many Christians and even some pastors have told me, "It's cruel to bring up the subject of abortion." But by talking about abortion in our churches—with grace and truth—we will prevent abortions and offer forgiveness and healing to women and men who are suffering in silence. The greatest kindness we can offer them is the truth. Women who’ve had abortions and the men who’ve participated in an abortion decision can find help and healing through their local Pregnancy Resource Centers. (Also see the article Finding Forgiveness after an Abortion.)

Last weekend, along with my son-in-law Dan and good friend Diane Meyer, I spoke at my home church, Good Shepherd, about the sanctity of life. Listen to the audio or watch the videos from the service. (By the way, the Eternal Perspective Ministries website has lots of prolife resources for pastors, including two PDF handouts that can be downloaded for free, Biblical Perspectives on Unborn Children and How Can I Help the Unborn and Their Mothers?)

As we go through this weekend, I would ask believers to remember and pray for prolife ministries and victimized mothers and babies. If the darkness of child-killing is to be overcome with the light of truth and compassion, it will require spiritual warfare, fought with humble and consistent prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20).

I’ll close with these heartbreaking statistics from the The Liberty Counsel, which are a profound reminder of the devastating effect abortion has had on our country:

Since that time [the 37 years since Roe v. Wade], approximately 50 million innocent and helpless children have been killed by abortion. About 1 in 5, or 20 percent, of our nation’s youth have had their lives ended by abortion. Minorities have also been hit hard by abortion. African-Americans account for about 12 percent of the population, but 37 percent of the 1.3 million abortions each year. Latinos make up about 15 percent of the population, yet account for about 22 percent of the annual number of abortions.

In all the wars in American history combined, from the Revolution to the War on Terror, we have lost approximately 910,000 people. However, in 37 years we have lost about 50 million children to abortion. We lose more children to abortion each day than we lost in all the tragedies on September 11, 2001. About 98 percent of abortions are done for convenience unrelated to health. Less than 2 percent of abortions are done for serious health reasons, rape or incest.

The youth of our nation under the age of 35 are more pro-life than any other generation. A majority of all Americans oppose abortion. Last Monday, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, about 15,000 people, mostly youth, gathered in Houston, Texas to protest Planned Parenthood’s 78,000 square-foot abortion facility scheduled to open in April in the midst of a minority community comprised of Hispanics and African-Americans. [Read more about Planned Parenthood's first "big box" abortion store in America.] One of the youth held a sign saying, "We survived Roe. Roe will not survive us."

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Was it wrong to Criticize Pat Robertson’s Comments about Haiti?

I received the following comment about my blog on Haiti and Pat Robertson's comments: I am no fan of Pat Robertson, but I have listened to the clip where he talks of Haiti over and over and I have never heard him even ONE TIME say that God punished or judged Haiti. What Robertson said was that Haiti has been cursed since making a pact with the devil. The difference between those two statements are night and day. You have gone on hearsay to condemn a fellow brother in Christ, and that sickens me. You have misrepresented the facts, either through carelessness or through intent. Either way, you owe an apology to Pat Robertson.

In writing that blog, I did not act on hearsay, but carefully listened to Pat Robertson's broadcast myself. (Click here to read and hear his actual words.)

In my mind, the obvious point of him saying that Haiti had made a pact with the devil was to explain why the earthquake had come. He distinguished Haiti from the Dominican Republic, saying that Haiti has been “cursed by one thing after another”—in context the latest curse could be nothing but the earthquake, which was what was being addressed. The subject was not Haiti in general but the Haiti earthquake in particular. Pat's comments, which I listened to in context twice, were clearly intended to shed light on why the earthquake hit Haiti.

CBN, Robertson’s network, has issued a statement regarding his comments. They claim, “Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear.”

In my opinion, the second statement above is entirely accurate. But the first statement is only partly accurate.

I do listen to people’s criticisms and have made several public apologies over the years. So I took this blog reader’s words to heart and watched that portion of the broadcast again. The blog reader argued, "I have never heard him even ONE TIME say that God punished or judged Haiti. What Robertson said was that Haiti has been cursed since making a pact with the devil. The difference between those two statements are night and day."

I respectfully disagree. The difference is NOT night and day. Yes, he did not use words punish or judge. Or as CBN said, “Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath.” But the question is whether the words in context meant punish, judge, or the exercise of God’s wrath.

Think with me. Suppose a young man dies in a terrible car accident and people are gathered in my living room, asking "Why?" These are people who are looking to me for spiritual answers. In the context of discussing the accident, I speak up and say this: "A lot of people don't know this and don't like to talk about it, but... the truth is this young man's grandfather made a pact with the devil, and his family has been under a curse ever since. Many terrible things have happened."

Now, what would you naturally understand me to be saying? Undeniably, that there is a direct connection between the young man's death and his grandfather's pact with the devil. Why else would I be saying it? To explain other bad things that have happened to the family over the years? Well, that could be part of my intention, but my clear and unmistakable point would be to explain precisely what we are all talking about in the first place—the young man's car accident.

Suppose when people took offense at this I replied, "But I never said God judged this young man and killed him because of his grandfather's pact with the devil. I never said anything about punishment. What I said was as different from that as night and day!" Well, I didn't use the word "judge" or "punish" but that is exactly what I have claimed, simply using other words. Given the fact that we were talking about the young man’s car accident, how else could anyone in my living room interpret the true meaning of what I said?

Now, some people DID misrepresent Pat Robertson as saying the people of Haiti didn't deserve our help. You will notice (if you reread my blog post) that I said, "To Robertson’s credit, by the way, he did say we should reach out and help the people of Haiti." I agree with CBN’s statement, “If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear.”

I believe it would be slander to say Pat Robertson didn’t express compassion for the people of Haiti. But it is not slander to point out, as I did, that what he said was unfortunate and presumptuous, since we cannot know for certain why the earthquake hit Haiti.

Public figures take on a great responsibility. If it was just my friend who said such a thing at the dinner table, I would talk to him privately. But Pat Robertson is a public figure who is widely understood to be speaking on behalf of other Bible-believing Christians. Since most of us have no private access to Pat Robertson, the only way we can respond, and try to do damage control and correction when unbiblical positions have been taken (e.g. Robertson's endorsement of pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani for the presidency) is to speak out publicly. I take no pleasure in doing this, but when these things happen, to be silent is to appear to agree with what may be misguided and harmful.

In the radio segment I linked to, I emphasized that God does sometimes judge nations and people for their sins, but that we can be certain of this ONLY when the Bible tells us, and not otherwise, because sometimes we will be wrong in saying God is judging people for their sin—e.g. in the cases of Job and the man born blind (John 9:1-3). Many God-fearing people were killed in Haiti, people who never dreamed of making a pact with the devil. And countless God-hating people in many nations continue in prosperity, for the moment. I also emphasized that our nation deserves severe judgment, if for no other reason than our mistreatment of the unborn.

I appreciate much that Pat Robertson has done, and I am glad that most of my careless words, and yours, don’t travel as far as his. I have said many stupid things, and I’m confident every reader has too. But we should seek to be especially careful as more and more people hear us. We’re told, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). Teachers of God’s Word have a wider audience than other members of the body, and their potential for misrepresenting God’s Word is great. I am painfully aware of this in my own teaching and writing ministry.

I truly wish our brother Pat Robertson the best. I hope he and all of us will be more careful not to speculate about the specific reasons that disasters fall on people. Job’s friends did that about the causes of Job’s suffering, and Jesus’ disciples did it about the causes of the blind man’s suffering. Scripture makes clear that they were wrong to do so, and we should be careful not to do the same.


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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

(Those who read my last blog on Haiti might like to check out an interesting essay written by Al Mohler called "Does God Hate Haiti?")

Every year, while Eternal Perspective Ministries doesn’t close for every holiday, I make sure we’re closed on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I want to send a message that it is a serious and legitimate holiday that deserves observance. It is less about one man than it is about a vision, a movement, a value of reconciliation between people of every tribe, nation and language.

John Piper wrote a great blog about Martin Luther King, recognizing he was sinner, flawed and inconsistent, but that he stood for much that was magnificent and greatly needed. That’s why I stood and applauded Friday night when before a basketball game one of the players spoke about MLK’s dream of racial harmony. Piper cited something I first read twenty-two years ago when I contemplated civil disobedience for the sake of the unborn children. This is from Martin Luther King’s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" (April 16, 1963):

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

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The Haiti Earthquake: Was Pat Robertson right?

Before I get to today's blog, those who read my previous post on my friend Jim Harrell going home to Jesus may wish to listen to a 3-minute audio clip of me sharing about the work God did through Jim and his suffering.

Like many of you, I'm praying for those affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Heartbreaking.

It's been well publicized that Pat Robertson claimed the earthquake is God's judgment on Haiti for past sin, including making a pact with the devil.
Yesterday I was on the radio talking about the subject of evil and suffering, and was asked about Robertson’s comments. If you wish, listen to the audio of the 10-minute exchange concerning this.

The earthquake is a reminder that all of us live only by God’s mercy. Though God judged both individuals and nations as recorded in Scripture, we know this only because he revealed it, NOT because of the terrible things that happened. Job’s friends wrongly stated Job suffered because God was judging him for sin, while God called Job blameless. Jesus said the man wasn’t blind because of any sin committed by him or his father, but that God might be glorified in him. And check out Luke 13:1-5:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

This is no time to declare that Haiti as a nation is being judged. We don’t know that, because God has not revealed it, and it is just speculation. We do know that we ALL deserve God’s judgment, and we all live by his mercy. Does Haiti deserve worse judgment than America does for our slaughter of 50 million unborn children and our exportation of glorified sexual immorality to every corner of the world? We should humbly and generously be the hands and feet of Jesus to serve and help the poor people of Haiti, in the name of our Savior, no stranger to poverty and suffering. (To Robertson’s credit, by the way, he did say we should reach out and help the people of Haiti.)

If you're looking to give to help with this disaster, check out the front page of the Eternal Perspective Ministries website for links to a few of the many ministries who are actively responding to the crisis. (You can also send your contributions to EPM, and 100% of designated contributions will be passed on to worthy ministries working in Haiti.) You might also want to check out an article about natural disasters excerpted from my book If God Is Good.


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Jim Harrell Goes to Jesus

My heart is broken by what’s happened in Haiti. There are many good Christian relief ministries worthy of supporting. (Check out the Eternal Perspective Ministries website for some links.) We live in a world devastated by the fall and the curse, a world in which precious loved ones die. This blog is about the life and death of such a man.

I came to know my friend Jim Harrell after Jim read my book Heaven. (That's me on the left, then Jim, then his good friend Vince, when I visited the Harrell home in Wheaton, Illinois, less than three months ago.)

After Jim first contacted me two years ago, he and I talked on the phone, exchanged e-mails, and quickly connected at a heart level. He contracted ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2003. While his body deteriorated and he lost normal functions, one after another, Jim touched more people (and was touched more by God) during his nearly seven year struggle with ALS than at any other time of his life.

Readers of If God Is God have met Jim in the pages of my book (he’s the very first person in the dedication, the first one I talk about in the book, and I refer to him three other times). Those who follow my blog may recall a three part series I posted about him over a year ago, with links to the videos telling his story. As life got tougher and tougher, Jim shared his faith openly with many people, inviting them to his home to hear about Christ. God used this brother in countless lives.

Last Friday, January 8, I received an e-mail from Vince:

Randy, I write to let you know that just about twenty minutes ago our good friend and brother Jim Harrell, finally went Home and I trust right about now, King Jesus is wiping the last tear from his eye. I truly believe that Jim is unbelievably happy right now as he is where he has longed to be, and has so wonderfully and courageously suffered gathering "his stones or treasures" to present to his Lord and Savior.

As of this past Monday, I finished reading chapter 42 from If God is Good to Jim and expect Linda, one of his children or one of his band of "Harrell's Helpers," were able to read the final three chapters to him over the balance of this week. It is very, very fitting that Jim's last days on this earth coincided with reading the last chapters of your book. He drew great comfort and strength from your book and always anticipated reading and discussing it when we got together.

I believe the Holy Spirit guided your heart and mind in this work right down to steering you to position the specific references to Jim so deep into the book. Jim refused to read ahead and seek them out. I sincerely believe your book and the poignancy of your words was one of many drivers and contributors to Jim's strong will to keep fighting. So many of the passages reinforced Jim's resolve and helped him focus on what he believed to be so important....to accept God's will and to use this disease and its attendant suffering as a means to draw himself and others closer to God.

I know you rejoice with all of us, knowing Jim's pain and suffering is over and he is in the special place God has prepared just for him.

Sincerely,
Vince

Jim’s memorial service is today, Thursday evening January 14, at Wheaton Bible Church, where many people are expected. Please join me in praying for Jim’s wife Linda, and his two grown sons and daughters.

I’ll finish with the letter I sent to my old friend and Jim’s, Chris Mitchell, to share with Jim's family, after learning of his home-going:

To Linda and each member of the Harrell family,

I consider it a privilege to have known your husband and father through phone conversations, e-mail and my visit in your home in October, where I met several of you. I remember vividly Jim’s wit, his passion, his laugh and his love for Jesus, and desire in his final years to make a difference that will count for eternity. Surely he did. In the process, I came to consider him a true friend.

I do not pretend to understand all of God’s reasons for what Jim went through, but he understood at least some of them, as you well know. There is always much we can’t understand, but the better you know Jesus, the more you realize that he is trustworthy even when things don’t seem to make sense.

You are grieving, and it is important not to minimize that. Jesus wept, so should we. But as Scripture says, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Because as surely as God is just and true and keeps his promises, Jim is safely home with Jesus this very moment. In the coming resurrection he will be stronger in body and mind than any of you have ever seen him. He did not pass his peak in this world—he is already better by far, just to be with Jesus, but his peak in body and mind will come in the resurrection, and he will never pass it. All of us who know Jesus will sit together at feasts on the New Earth, and great stories will be told. Your relationship with him hasn’t ended, it has only been interrupted (a very painful interruption, to be sure). A great reunion awaits, bought and paid for by divine blood.

I know what you also know, that Jim’s desire for you now is to accompanying the tears with great laughter, and to experience rest and healing and reflection, and to draw close to God and each other. You know he would want you to tell stories and laugh and look to Jesus, and look forward to the reunion. Please do.

I am honored to have had Jim as a friend for this past two years. He promised me he would greet for me my old friend Jerry who died of cancer 17 years ago, and my mom and dad as well. It won’t be long before we leave this world, whether one at a time or all together. Heaven sounds even better to me now that among those I look forward to seeing in the presence of Jesus is Jim Harrell, my special friend and my brother.

My heart is with you all this week, and will be in this year ahead of you. May you all grow deeper in your love for Jesus, honoring Him in your choices, being quick to call upon his grace, and remembering always the permanent marks of his love for each of you, displayed on his hands and feet.

Looking forward to the great reunion,

Randy Alcorn


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Is God calling you to missions in 2010?

I have the highest regard for the cause of world missions, and the greatest respect for Action International, one of many fine missions groups. While Doug Nichols is making this request, these ten qualities express what many other missions are looking for, too. Ask yourself if you or someone you know fits this profile, and ask God whether He wants you to step out in faith and follow Him to bring Christ to people in another part of the world. And note also how nearly all of the ten qualities are exactly what we should each develop, whether we serve God overseas or right where we are now.

In 2010 Please Send Us Your Best and Brightest as Well as Others!
Doug Nichols, Action International

Hundreds of additional missionaries are needed to serve with Action International Ministries (ACTION) in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America—workers to serve in evangelism, discipleship, and development with all sections of society including the poor, needy children, and under-trained pastors and Christian workers.

Whether you are “the best and brightest” of your school or church or just ordinary like the rest of us, there are 10 basic requirements to serve with ACTION:

1. An ability to feed yourself on the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).

2. A desire to rejoice in the sovereignty of God in all circumstances (Daniel 3:17, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 6:10).

3. An understanding of one’s biblical call of God to missions (ministry) and a well thought-out biblical philosophy of ministry (Luke 9:57-62, 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

4. Basic evangelism skills (2 Timothy 4:5).

5. Discipleship skills (2 Timothy 2:2, 2 Peter 3:18).

6. Skills that allow one to function on a team, and help carry the load (Hebrews 10:24-25).

7. Relationship skills that allow for one to gently confront others, and also to receive correction and not be easily offended (Galatians 6:1-2).

8. A life marked by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25).

9. A servant attitude (2 Corinthians 4:5; Philippians 2:7).

10. The willingness to adapt to a different culture and to understand that what is personally familiar and comfortable does not always work elsewhere in the world (1 Corinthians 9:1-23).

What do you think? Are you interested? Are you age 21 to 75 and willing to trust God for support (personal and ministry) and for Him to use you for His glory?


Learn more about Action International Ministries at www.actionintl.org


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Prolife video: For Women Who Are Considering an Abortion

This prolife video, "For Women Who Are Considering an Abortion," is very powerful. The woman is excellent, composed and yet vulnerable, and the human dimension is very strong. Her words about those who have had abortions, after being victims of rape and incest, are right on. Wow.



(Click here if the video doesn't show up for you.)

Those who are preparing for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday on January 24 might like to browse the prolife article section on the Eternal Perspective Ministries website, which has dozens of prolife articles. Here's some selected resources from EPM related to this topic:

Is Abortion Right When Pregnancy is Due to Rape or Incest?

Can God Forgive Abortions?

50 Ways to Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers


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