"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message / With his own words which have won thousands for Christ

by William T. Ellis

When I was a little boy out in Iowa, at the end of the term of school it was customary for the teachers to give us little cards, with a hand in one corner holding a scroll, and in that scroll was a place to write the name: "Willie Sunday, good boy." Willie Sunday never got hump-shouldered lugging them home, I can tell you. I never carried off the champion long-distance belt for verse-quoting, either. If you ever saw an American kid, I was one.

"I Feel Sorry for the Little Lord Fauntleroy Boys With Long Curly Hair and White Stockings"

I feel sorry for the little Lord Fauntleroy boys with long curly hair and white stockings. Yank 'em off and let them go barefoot.

A friend of mine told me he was one time being driven along the banks of the Hudson and they went past a beautiful farm, and there sitting on the fence in front of a tree, in which was fastened a mirror about twelve inches square, sat a bird of paradise that was looking into the mirror, adjusting his plumage and admiring himself, and the farmer who had driven my friends out said that every time he passed those birds were doing that.

I thought, "Well, that reminds me of a whole lot of fools I'm fortunate enough to meet everywhere. They sit before the mirror of culture, and their mirror of money, and their mirror of superior education and attainments; they are married into some old families. What does God care about that?" I suppose some of you spent a whole lot of money to plant a family tree, but I warrant you keep to the back the limbs on which some of your ancestors were hanged for stealing horses.

You are mistaken in God's plan of salvation. Some people seem to think God is like a great big bookkeeper in heaven and that he has a whole lot of angels as assistants. Every time you do a good thing he writes it down on one page and every time you do a bad deed he writes it down on the opposite page, and when you die he draws a line and adds them up. If you have done more good things than bad, you go to heaven; more bad things than good, go to hell. You would be dumfounded how many people have sense about other things that haven't any sense about religion. As though that was God's plan of redemption. Your admission into heaven depends upon your acceptance of Jesus Christ; reject him and God says you will be damned.

Back in the time of Noah, I have no doubt there were a lot of good folks. There was Noah. God says: "Look here, Noah, I'm going to drown this world with a flood and I want you to go to work and make an ark." And Noah started to make it according to God's instructions and he pounded, and sawed, and drove nails and worked for 120 years, and I have often imagined the comments of the gang in an automobile going by. They say: "Look at the old fool Noah building an ark. Does he ever expect God's going to get water enough to flood that?" Along comes another crowd and one says: "That Noah bunch is getting daffy on religion. I think we'd better take them before the commission and pass upon their sanity." Along comes another crowd and they say: "Well, there's that Noah crowd. I guess we won't invite them to our card party after Lent is over." They said: "Why, they're too religious. We'll just let them alone."

Noah paid no heed to their criticism, but went on working until he got through. God gave the crowd a chance, but they didn't heed. It started to rain and it rained and rained until the rivers and creeks leaped their banks and the lowlands were flooded. Then the people began to move to the hilltops. The water began to creep up the hills. Then I can see the people hurrying off to lumber yards to buy lumber to build little rafts of their own, for they began to see that Noah wasn't such a fool after all. The hilltops became inundated and it crept to the mountains and the mountains became submerged. Until the flood came that crowd was just as well off as Noah, but when the flood struck them Noah was saved and they were lost, because Noah trusted God and they trusted in themselves. You moral men, you may be just as well off as the Christian until death knocks you down, then you are lost, because you trust in your morality. The Christian is saved because he trusts in Jesus. Do you see where you lose out?

"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." You must accept the atonement Christ made by shedding his blood or God will slam the gate of heaven in your face.