Category: All Articles

A Monument to Christ’s Willingness to Answer Prayer

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Ministry

–Summer of 2000

A Monument to Christ’s Willingness to Answer Prayer

In the late 1800’s, Martin Wells Knapp, Methodist evangelist and founding editor of God’s Revivalist, felt that God was going to use him for more that just the publishing work in which he was then engaged. His diary entry for July 17, 1890, reads as follows:

A training school for gospel workers is on my heart and in my head. It seems as if God put it there. I agreed tonight that if He will give me the building for the Home, to use it for His glory and to put this or a similar statement on it: “This building is a monument of the power and willingness of the loving Christ to answer prayer.”

That prayer became a reality in 1900 when Knapp bought property at 1810 Young Street, Cincinnati. The red-brick mansion, which is still the administration center for GBS, was filled to capacity when classes began on September 27. Few if any could have envisioned what God would do on this campus in the century ahead. God’s Bible School and Missionary Training Home was to give life to a number of notable religious organizations, provide a home for the Revivalist Press, host one of the largest camp meetings in the Midwest, and send a steady line of courageous and dedicated graduates to so many places at home and abroad that the alumni motto would become “The Sun Never Sets on the Graduates of God’s Bible School.”

Throughout this century on the Hilltop, GBS and God’s Revivalist have been united in a happy marriage which has blessed the world. Knapp founded the periodical twelve years before the school and used the former to create the latter. Probably there would be no GBS without the Revivalist; and probably there would be no Revivalist now without GBS. Both are the result of Knapp’s genius and sacrifice, and both still bear his imprint. Together they have made the Mount of Blessings the vital holiness center which it has been and which it still remains. In God’s kindly providence, they will continue to do the same in the years before us.

It is therefore appropriate that this special commemorative issue for the GBS Centenary appear in the very pages which helped give birth to the school one hundred years ago. Obviously we have encapsulated the century past with only the briefest summary. We hope our readers will seek more exhaustive treatment in the two official histories now in preparation—one a rich pictorial presentation with accompanying verbal vignettes; and the other, a scholarly, interpretive narrative.

The history of this venerated institution has demonstrated that Knapp’s prayer has been answered again and again. After a century on its Mt. Auburn campus, God’s Bible School still remains a “monument of the power and willingness of the loving Christ to answer prayer.”

It’s Time to Come Home

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles

–Summer of 2000

It’s Time to Come Home

Over the past five years of my presidency, a number of alumni have sought to reconnect with their alma mater. They have written, e-mailed, or just dropped a word to the right person letting me know of their interest in getting in touch with the school. A typical conversation will go something like this: “I haven’t been back on campus since I left twenty-five years ago. I’ve occasionally driven by just to take a look, but I couldn’t get up the courage to stop.” As the conversation winds down, usually this statement will be made: “You know, maybe it’s time I came back home.”

GBS has always has a diverse alumni within the various traditions of Methodism. Students have left these halls and gone in a number of directions to take up the work of spreading the gospel. Our graduates have served in every branch of the holiness movement and nearly every missionary-sending agency within the Methodist/holiness tradition. There are others who have become doctors, lawyers, financiers, executive within major corporations, and those who have taken up blue-collar jobs. Because of this tremendous diversity, some alumni feel a little uneasy about returning to campus. For most, it has been simply a matter o flossing contact and never taking the time to initiate or reestablish a relationship with the school. There are few who, because of a bad experience, do not want to reopen the pain that they have put behind them. Others feel that since they no longer share some of the same distinctives, they will not be welcomed. Then there is the final group who have lost their way spiritually and feel ashamed to return.

There is one thing that all of them would agree upon. Namely, that their days at GBS molded them forever. There is something about the time that was spent here that they cannot get away from. It always surfaces as a very warm and precious memory. Their mind at one point or another will always bring them back to the Hilltop. They have deep spiritual roots that lie embedded in events that happened while they were here. These grounds are precious, and hold a lot of memories for those of us who are GBS alumni.

Those who have made the initiative to reconnect, or those who have let us know how to reconnect with them, have unanimously found one thing—a very warm welcome awaiting them! This September 27th, 2000, God’s Bible School and College will celebrate its centennial anniversary. This will be one of the most historical moments in the life of this institution and the holiness movement. As a fellow alumnus and as president, my words to all of our alumni scattered across the world are simply this, “Wherever you are, wherever you have gone, whatever you have become, it’s time to come back home.”

Trickle-Down Theology

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–May of 2000

Trickle-Down Theology

Pollsters of every sort are needling the church by claiming that Christians today are lying, cheating, stealing and committing fornication at the same rate as non Christians.  I am not sure whom these pollsters are surveying, but in the community of saints with which I am privileged to have fellowship, this would certainly not be the case.  The vast majority of the Christians I know could well be described in the words of Paul, “…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Why then are the pollsters taunting us with such nonsense as Christian-liars and sensual-saints? That answer is not too difficult.  They simply expect the church to be different and are bitterly disappointed when they survey church-going people who are not!  My belief is that they are surveying mostly people who have only identified with the Church, but have never experienced the real, radical, transforming power of saving grace.  These people don’t have a clue as to how God’s grace can and will make a difference.  The pulpit voice they listen to is failing them.

What troubles me even more than this is the shallow, watery, weak-willed, entry-level commitment that has produced a community of saints who have ceased to talk about how God is impacting their lives through His Word.  Testimonies are silent about how God is altering the essence and expression of both the content and context of their lives through their daily contact with scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit. Very little is being said about how God is putting them in a narrow place to convict and conform them to the likeness of Christ.   I see this as the scourge and the curse of the church today. These warm-hearted souls who do know the saving grace of Jesus, who have ceased their sinning and going astray, have for some reason or the other failed to understand the extreme importance of allowing the Word of God to fill their minds and flow out of their lives.  They are not experiencing regular change and conformity to Christ through the power of the Word.  Their lives are almost totally barren of personal convictions, codes of conduct and moral values that flow out of the study and application of biblical principles.

The Lord Jesus told the church that she was to be salt to a world that has no seasoning and light to a world that is in terrible darkness.  Both of these are change agents and both bring a stark contrast to what is there.  We cannot change the world, nor make a profound moral influence on the society around us, if the principles of the Bible are not trickling down through our lives, formulating values, convictions and codes of behavior that visibility affect the way we live. The world expects and should expect to see a way of living that squares with scripture.

It is imperative that as Christians we allow what we know and believe to trickle down and transform the way we live our lives.  We have to get our theology out of the ivory towers of scholasticism.  It has to leave the four walls of our local church.  It has to go beyond pulpit pounding and Sunday School discussions.  We cannot live it in that secret place of daily devotion. It has to become an inseparable part of who we are.  It has to make its way into the market place, the factory and into the homes of our friends and neighbors that do not know Jesus.  If it does not, the Church collectively and the Christian individually will be as the salt that lost its savor and the light that was hidden under a basket.   We will have only a form of godliness that is empty of power.

One of the beautiful sights in northern Israel is snow-covered Mt. Hermon.  The snow that falls on the majestic head of Mt. Hermon melts and works its way down the crevices of that old mountain, forming streams, creeks, and rivers that empty into the Sea of Galilee.  From the Sea of Galilee, the country of Israel pumps millions of gallons of water as far away as the plains of Jordan around the Dead Sea.  The water transforms that barren wilderness into lush gardens filled with date palms, banana trees and beautiful flowers.  One could literally say that the snow that fell on Mt. Hermon grew an orchid near the shores of the Dead Sea.

The wonderful truths that are found in God’s Word should be working their way down through the soul of our being and out into our lives in such a way as to change the moral landscape all around us.  I believe good theology and real Christianity has a trickle-down effect.

A Serious Saintliness

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Ministry

–April of 2000

A Serious Saintliness

Henry Drummond, while preaching in chapel at Harvard many years ago, said, “Gentlemen, don’t touch Christianity unless you mean business.” Drummond’s voice seems very much out of vogue in modern day religion, but he was right on target then and now. The common admonition of our day is to “lighten up” and not take religion too seriously. J.I. Packer has compared the modern route in religion to something similar to the “hot tub experience.” “The hot tub experience,” says Packer, “is sensuous, relaxing, sloppy, laid back—not in any way demanding…but very, very nice, even to the point of being great fun.” Packer concludes that many today want Christianity to be just like that and take great pains to make it so.

Somehow a system of belief that culminated on a rugged cross has been reconfigured into a well-marketed program of “let us help you feel better about yourself and teach you how to enjoy life to the full.” This hedonistic spin on Christianity is in direct contradiction to what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. The yearning for happiness, rather than holiness, found so widely among Christians professing a superior degree of sanctity is sufficient proof that such sanctity doesn’t exist. John Wesley said of the members of one of the early Methodist societies, that he doubted that they had been made perfect in love because they came to church to enjoy religion instead of to learn how they could become holy.

Real saints are serious about real holiness. I don’t mean a couple of trips to an altar or the regular verbalization that “I’m sanctified.” I mean real sanctity. Holy people seek to be separate from all that stains their world or dirties their lives. They are free from all sinful thoughts, impure motives and questionable activities. Through the power of Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, they have found true inner goodness and authentic clean living.

A call to real sanctity needs to be taken up with great intensity in our day. All the praying, sacrificing and pleading with God will not bring revival until we take seriously the call to holiness. If we choose to fill our minds with pornography, violence, immorality, hatred, promiscuity and self centeredness and call it entertainment, then we can be certain that God will not hear our prayers. We cannot expect a divine visitation if we are unethical in business, corrupt in our speech and careless in our commitments. Let no one be fooled. True Christianity makes serious demands on out lives. It is impossible to have a heart in one condition and produce fruit of an opposite condition. A holy heart will affect our actions, just as our actions reflect our heart.

Saints are serious about obedience. The apostle said, “For this is the love of god, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1John 5:3) Someone has high rightly said that it is impossible for a man who loves God to say, “No, Lord,” because if Christ is truly our Lord, we cannot refuse him. Jesus said it this way in Luke 6:46, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” In the salvation process God radically and immediately reorients our lives to Christ so that He is truly Lord of our lives.

Saints are serious about servanthood. Paul reminds us again that “our life is not our own,” but it is “hid with Christ in God.” We are told that “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord.” It is only in the context of servanthood that our lives can become something beautiful for God and resourceful for others.

Richard Foster may have summed it up best when he said, “The desperate need today is not fro a great number of intelligent or gifted people, but the desperate need is for deep people.” Dr. Foster, I couldn’t agree with you more.

Radical Faith

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Theology

–March of 2000

Radical Faith

When Martin Wells Knapp walked into the Hamilton County Courthouse in the summer of 1900 to record the deed to the newly-purchased property at 1810 Young Street, he told the clerk to record the deed in the name of “God the Father.”  Thus began the story of radical faith on the campus of God’s Bible School.

Radical isn’t a word that most conservative Christians are comfortable with.  Religiously, it conjures up images of wild-eyed fanatics flirting with the spiritual ragged edge.  Politically, it is connected to tree-hugging environmentalists, pro-abortionists, and other people who embrace far-left social issues.

At the turn of the century, it was a label given to differentiate between those who accepted the status quo of the mainline church and those who embraced a total dependence on God to meet all of their needs spiritually, financially, and physically while they gave themselves to the promotion of revival and world evangelism.  The term was dropped, about a half century later, as these groups started their descent into mainline respectability.  Interestingly enough, though, the term radical faith is surfacing again at the turn of this century by youth organizations and prominent evangelicals such as Chuck Colson.  It has been revived once again to distinguish between what God really wants and the status quo faith found in the average church.

Knapp and those associated with GBS in the first several decades defined Biblical faith as something radically different from what they saw in the mainline churches.  Knapp’s personal view of faith was affected by several different influences.  First, his strong conviction of what New Testament faith really required left him with the belief that most Christians have strayed too far from a New Testament or primitive faith (thus the school’s motto, “Back to the Bible”).  Secondly, he was influenced by the writings of Madame Guyon and George Mueller.  Third, he believed in a personal experience of physical healing.  Fourth, he rejoiced in a tremendous move of God among the revivalist groups of which he was a part.

Though Knapp lived only a year after he started GBS, his emphasis on total abandonment and complete trust in God affected decades of graduates.  In 1901, the Cowmans were led to go to Japan the “New Testament way,” that is with no promise of support.  G.C. Bevington came here as a student in 1902.  His colorful ministry later was compiled in the book, Remarkable Incidents and Modern Miracles through Prayer and Faith.  This same radical faith sent John F. Simpson to the Philippines, Lula Schmelzenbach to South Africa, Lillian Trasher to Egypt, Everett Phillippe to the Caribbeans, Wesley Duewel to India, and thousands of others to conquer impossible situations for God at home and abroad armed only with an unflinching faith in God, backed up by total commitment to His cause.

Oswald Chambers, who was here in the first decade, described the institution in these words: “It is a work run primarily on the faith line.”  Chambers was so impressed by this life of faith that he chose to start a school like it in England.

The modern ear doesn’t like the sound of radical faith.  The modern mind just can’t accept it.  We have developed such an impoverished view of God that our minds are no longer conditioned to expect God’s mighty intervention on our behalf.  We have put God in a box and become at ease with explaining why we shouldn’t step out on naked faith.  Those who choose to do so anyway are often stereotyped as simpletons and woefully ignorant of true spirituality.  I would readily acknowledge that there is a fine line between radical faith and foolishness, but I would also have to admit that there is a fine line between so called sensible faith and a faith so weakened by carnality that it can’t let go of self and trust God with everything.  The latter is so influenced by self that it rebels against the kind of interference God would need to make in our lives to see radical faith really operative.

Nevertheless, God is looking for men with radical faith.  When God needed a family through which to bring the Messiah, He chose a pagan from the region of Iraq; He revealed Himself to Abram, and called him to leave behind everything he knew and go to a place that he knew nothing about.  God promised to give him this new land and populate it with his descendants who would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Yet, for the next 25 years Abraham had to share that promise with a barren wife, moving about as a pilgrim on land in which he never owned more than a gravesite.  Despite the circumstances, Abraham believed God; and God responded to Abraham’s faith and brought every word of His promise to pass.

Job is another example of God’s interest in faith.  Job represents the ultimate in righteous living.  He was God’s first choice to prove to Satan that a man’s faith can be genuine and selfless, not dependent on health or wealth.  Job had to replay the original test of the Garden of Eden with the bar raised a good deal higher.  This man from Uz came through with flying colors and proved that radical faith can see God’s trustworthiness even in the dark.

I see evidences that the faith of our fathers is resurfacing boldly in a new generation—a generation much like the one a century ago that felt the need to live out a faith more daring than that of the average Christian around them.  Though we may not like the term, may God bless this generation with the works that flow from a life of radical faith.