Truth Magazine

By Daniel W. Petty

Norman Vincent Peale was born in 1898 in rural Bowersville, Ohio, the son of a Methodist preacher. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio in 1920, Peale began working for a newspaper, his first interest being in journalism. In a year he had decided instead to pursue a career in the ministry. He attended Boston University from 1921 to 1924, where he received the bachelor of sacred theology and master of arts in social ethics degrees. He was ordained in the Methodist Church.

In 1927 Peale began preaching for the University Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York. He spent the next five years preaching in upstate New York, where his dynamic sermons began to attract attention. In 1932 Peale accepted the invitation to become the pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, thus changing his denominational affiliation to the Reformed Church in America (Dutch Reformed), a church known for its staunch Calvinism.

Peale enlisted the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Smiley Blanton, and eventually enlarged the staff into a religio-psychiatric clinic, the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry. This combination of religion and psychiatry has been one of Peale’s unique emphases. His experience with psychiatric counseling convinced him that the key to happiness is the cultivation of a positive attitude. His philosophy and the general tone of his preaching is epitomized in The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), one of the all-time best selling inspirational books. It combines scriptural argument with the positive mental attitude philosophy, written in a popular, readable style. After WW 11, Peale began publishing Guideposts, a weekly four-page (later monthly) spiritual newsletter for businessmen. Peale was one of the first religious leaders to recognize the power of mass media. From 1952 to 1968, he and his wife appeared on a national TV show, “What’s Your Trouble? ” Peale also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, “Confident Living,” and a bi-weekly question and answer page for Look. He has written numerous books, many of them best-sellers, including self-help books and biblical studies.

The standard biography on Peale is Norman Vincent Peale: Minister to Millions, by Arthur Gordon (Prentice-Hall, 1958).

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 389
June 18, 1987

By Steve Wolfgang

Marion G. “Pat” Robertson is probably best known now for his political aspirations as a candidate for the Presidency in 1988. In many ways, that is his natural habitat. Born March 22, 1930, the son of a former U.S. Senator from Virginia, A. Willis Robertson, Pat seemed to be on a programmed political success track: Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington and Lee University in his home town of Lexington, VA; Golden Gloves boxer; Marine Corps officer during the Korean War; graduate of Yale Law School; partner in a New York electronics firm.

But there were problems: he had failed his bar exam after law school, and his life seemed, according to his own testimony, “empty.” After a “conversion experience, ” however, he gave up what seemed a promising business career and entered Biblical Theological Seminary in Manhattan, working as a counselor during the Billy Graham campaign of 1957. Although a Baptist, Robertson preached in a Methodist church, and later became an early convert to the Neo-Pentecostal, or Charismatic, movement which was beginning to make inroads into more traditional non-Pentecostal denominations.

Often given to hyper literal interpretation of Scripture, Robertson, to his wife’s dismay, read Luke 12:33 and shortly thereafter sold virtually all their possessions, donating the proceeds to the poor. After a period as a church worker in a black ghetto in Brooklyn, Robertson found himself back in his native Virginia with an old DeSoto, $70 in cash, and intentions of taking over a small, defunct TV station “for Jesus.” With one camera and a weak UHF signal, station WYAH went on-air in 1961. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Robertson was the first of the religious broadcasters to use a talk-show format, to sign up commercial sponsors, and the first to build an entire religious network, using an entertainment format. Last year, his 24-hour CBN network, carried by 7,353 cable systems with 30 million subscribers, was the fifth largest cable-TV operation of any kind (not far behind first-place ESPN, with 36.9 million subscribers). His 700 Club runs twice daily on CBN (though Robertson has taken leave from the show to campaign), and appears on a paying basis ($20 million) on commercial stations in 185 cities, reaching a claimed 4.4 million people daily.

The cable system grossed $176 million in 1986, IRS records show $129 million in donations for 1985. In 1986, CBN passed American Airlines as the nation’s leading WATS-line user, keeping the “prayer lines” (and the money lines) open. CBN University includes the former Oral Roberts University Law School. All of this has allowed Robertson, like the other “televangelists,” to live quite comfortably (in this case, in a ministry-owned $420,000 house).

Though Robertson is becoming known as a politician – it is probably a mistake to discount his chances politically – he is undoubtedly the single biggest example of the growth of “Pray TV.”

Sources

Pat Robertson, Shout It From the Housetops (1972); Newsweek, February 17, 1986. Ed Harrell is at work on a biography of Pat Robertson.

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 384
June 18, 1987

Recently I wrote a note to several TV evangelists asking that my name be added to their mailing list to receive whatever free publications they distribute. Since then, I have been receiving fund raising letters from every evangelist I wrote. Here are a couple of samples of what I am receiving:

This touching story I’m about to tell you is true! And I believe it is the key to your miracle.

My Dear Friend,

God has given me a Word for you. . .

. . . a divinely-inspired Miracle Plan to help you receive that miracle you or your loved ones need, today.

. . . And it has to do with this button I’ve enclosed (my letter had a button taped to the card with my address) I believe this little button is the key to your miracle from God! Let me tell you about the button. . .

The letter told of the minister’s visit to Guatemala, report of the poverty afflicting their citizens, God telling him to help the children, and the following appeal for money:

This little button I’ve sent you is your symbol of hope and faith that your miracle will come to pass as you help others receive theirs. Please don’t let the devil distract you from the needs of the world and rob you of your miracle. Send this little button back with your gift of $50 to help us mend the little children’s shirts and at the same time mend broken hearts . . . and help this ministry in everything else we are doing to reach the city, the nation, and the world for Jesus!

Another letter came a day or two later and was entitled “The Rainbow’s Promise.” It read as follows:

Beloved in Christ,

As a memento (sic) of our Anniversary, I am delighted to offer, for the first time, a most appropriate gift for all of my supportive (sic) friends and partners.

It is similar to the exquisite Cross offered at Easter Time, which looks like a miniature stained-glass window. Perhaps the most popular offer in the last 10 or 15 years, we had to replenish our supply four times to meet all the requests. . .

The first time I saw it, I was reminded of a supernatural visitation experienced by my late husband when he was just a babe in Christ.

After relating the supernatural visitation, the media evangelist told me how to get my dove in the rainbow.

To receive yours, simply mark the box on the prayer form, and it will be sent in gratitude for your offering. . . A number of my friends are giving $45.00, to commemorate each ministry year. Others are giving $23.00, honoring each year I have carried the ministry forward since my husband’s passing. A few creative folks have combined those figures and sent $68.00. Some are giving smaller and some larger gifts, but regardless of the amount, each sacrifice is appreciated so much.

Inasmuch as some of our audience might be moved by the divine touch of the Spirit to respond to these requests, I have volunteered to serve as a forwarding agent. Please send cash only! That way the IRS won’t be bothering me.

Mike Willis

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 387
June 18, 1987

By Edgar J. Dye

My purpose herein is three-fold. First, to define “miracle” as used in the New Testament. Second, to demonstrate my faith in and acceptance of the miraculous as found in the New Testament. And third, to refute the modern-day miracle-worker’s claims that miracles such as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, tongue-speaking, physical healing of the body, etc., do not occur today.

Definition of Miracle

The word “miracle” in the KJV is a translation of the original word semeion (meaning, “a sign”), or dunamis (meaning, “power, powers, act of power, or mighty deed”), or teras (meaning, “wonder”). It is used in the New Testament to describe an act that is both contrary to and in addition to natural causes. So it may be defined as: “the instantaneous effects produced by the power of God in the suspension or alteration of natural law,” or “an extra-ordinary event or effect in the physical world manifesting a supernatural work of God,” and not just “an outstanding or unusual event, thing or accomplishment.” The latter we still have with us today on every hand, but not the former. Therefore, what many call miracles in our day are not, but simply natural (though unusual or outstanding, out of the ordinary) occurrences. The unusual is not necessarily miraculous. To be more specific, miracle means: “An interposition of immediate, instantaneous, supernatural power into the affairs of men which cannot be explained on the basis of any known natural laws.”

Miracles Through Human Agency A Fact of the Past

That Jesus Christ, while on earth, the apostles of Christ, and many Christians of the early New Testament church had miraculous powers and performed a variety of miracles is readily admitted by this scribe.

Jesus, during His personal ministry on earth, miraculously turned water into wine (Jn. 2); fed the 5,000 (Mt. 14; Mk. 6; Lk. 9); stilled the tempest (Mt. 8; Mk. 4; Lk. 8); walked on water (Mt. 14; Mk. 6; Jn. 6); cast out demons (Mt. 8; Mk. 5; Lk. 8); and raised the dead (Lk. 7; Jn. 11).

Besides the above, He miraculously healed a variety of physical afflictions, such as blindness, dumbness, lameness, leprosy, epilepsy, dropsy, withered hands, and curved spines. In fact, without fail, He manifested and demonstrated miraculous powers in the five fields of nature (Mt. 8:26); disease (Mt. 4:23); demons (Mt. 8:16); material things (Mt. 15:15-24); death (reversed it, Jn. 11:43, “; inflicted it, Acts 5:1-11).

Also, “the signs of an apostle” (2 Cor. 12:12; Acts 5:12) were wrought among the people on every hand and in a variety of ways, such as healing the lame, the crippled and the sick (Acts 3; 14; 28:8-9); inflicting blindness (Acts 13); imparting the Holy Spirit to baptized believers (Acts 8:14-18); suffering no harm from deadly vipers (Acts 28:1-6); and raising the dead (Acts 20:9-12).

Early Christians were promised, did possess, and manifest miraculous powers (Mk. 16:17,18; 1 Cor. 12, 13, 14). One thing all these miraculous deeds had in common is the fact that they were all performed by God through human agency or human instrumentality and were in time past, not the present.

Miracles: Their Purpose

Such miracles had a very definite but limited purpose or purposes which have a direct bearing on the duration of miracles through human agency, as well as on the bogus claims of modem-day miracle-workers.

In the case of Jesus they were to establish and confirm His Messiahship and to produce faith in Him as the Son of God and Savior of sinners (Jn. 5:36; 3:2; 10:25,37,38; 14:10,11; 20:30,31; Acts 2:22; 10:38; Mt. 3:16,17; 17:5; Mk. 2:4-12). In the case of the apostles of Christ they were to establish and confirm the divine authenticity of their message of salvation, to enable them to receive and reveal God’s word to men, and in order to make believers of their hearers (Mk. 16:19,20; Heb. 2:3,4; Jn. 20:30,31; 14:26; 16:13; Acts 2:32,33; 4:16,29-33; 5:12-16; 8:6-13; 19:11-20; Phil. 1:7). Also, they were to protect them until their mission was fulfilled (Acts 28:1-6; Mk. 16:18a). In the case of the early New Testament Christians they were for the purpose of enabling them to carry on their spiritual work in the absence of an inspired apostle and before the will of God was revealed fully in written form (Rom. 1:11; 1 Cor. 12, 13, 14; Eph. 4:11-15).

Miracles were not a part of “the fruit” as such, but rather given to bear testimony to the Son of God and to “the faith of Christ,” the gospel of God, which is God’s power unto salvation to believers, both Jew and Gentile (Mk. 16:19,20; Heb. 2:3,4; Acts 10, 11, 15). Modem-day miracle-workers (?) neither recognize the divine purposes of miracles through human agency, nor do they believe Bible teaching regarding them. While New Testament miracles were used to confirm the divinely revealed spoken word, the so-called modern-day miracle-workers try to reverse the procedure by trying to use the divinely revealed and confirmed spoken word to confirm their bogus miraculous claims. The claims of such miracle-workers are totally unsubstantiated, wholly unreliable, and absolutely false because they are completely out of harmony with Bible teaching on miracles through human instrumentality!

The Age of Miracles Through Human Agency Has Ceased

The modern-day miracle-workers (?) lay claim to that which was never promised to believers in general; namely, Holy Spirit baptism, which was promised to the apostles only (Lk. 24:44-49; Acts 1:1-8,26-2:4); they have no proof of, cannot, and have never been able to, demonstrate proof of their claim of healing the sick. They also pervert New Testament teaching on tongue-speaking, which was the ability by divine aid to speak human languages which they had not learned by the natural, normal means of study (Mk. 16:17; Acts 2:4,6,8,11; 1 Cor. 14:13,27,28). The kinds of tongues spoken by modern claimants are not languages of men but some unintelligible, uninterpretable jargon or gibberish wholly unknown to and contrary to Bible teaching about tongue-speaking. Even if they claimed to mean and do only what the New Testament teaches that Christians of the apostolic period did in the performance of miracles, their claim must still be denied and refuted because the Bible teaches that the age of miracles through human agency has ceased to exist.

1 Corinthians 12 enumerates the spiritual gifts available to early Christians. 1 Corinthians 14 regulates their use when they were in force. And 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 reveals their duration or how long they were to exist and when they were to cease. We herein affirm, and offer several reasons why we affirm, that these spiritual gifts and the age of miracles through human agency have ceased.

They have ceased because the need for such gifts has ceased. The need ceased because their purposes have been fulfilled. The basic purposes of miracles in any age of Bible history, from Creation to and including the New Testament age, were to start things and to reveal and confirm the truth, God’s will and way in the matter started. Once started, revealed, and confirmed, the purposes of the miracles connected with the events were fulfilled and they ceased to function. This includes their purpose in the cases of Jesus Christ, His apostles and their message and work recorded in the New Testament, and early New Testament Christians referred to earlier.

They have ceased to exist because the means of obtaining them has ceased. There never has been more than two ways to receive the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit and miraculous gifts such as tongues and physical healing through human agency – that of directly from heaven, as in the case of the apostles and the household of Cornelius (Jn. 14:26; 16:7-14; Lk. 24:47-49; Acts 1:4-8; 2:1-4; 10:44-48; 11:1-8; 15:7-9); and that of receiving them through the medium of the laying on of the apostles’ hands (Acts 6:68; 8:14-19; 19:1-6; Rom. 1:11; 1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6).

Since spiritual gifts are not bestowed upon anyone today directly from heaven; since the baptism of the Holy Spirit was limited to the apostles of Christ; and since we have no apostles of Christ living in the flesh today to confer them on anyone, both the means and the gifts have ceased.

We affirm they have ceased to exist or to be operative today because it is a matter of New Testament prophecy (1 Cor. 13:8-13). Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 declares the enduring quality of love – the most excellent way – in contrast to the transitory nature of spiritual gifts. He declares in 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 that love never fails, but the gifts which are transitory will pass away. Whether these gifts be prophecies, tongues or miraculous knowledge, they win pass away (v. 8). Then v. 9 states why this must be: We know in part now (that is during the age of these gifts) and we prophesy in part. And v. 10 teaches that these transitory gifts which are in part will pass away when the perfect (completed thing) comes.

Then in w. 11, 12, he illustrates the meaning of this contrast. V. 11 illustrates it by referring to the time when he was a child and the time when he had become a man. The time when he was a child, speaking, feeling and thinking as a child, corresponds to the time when the church had spiritual gifts. The time of manhood, when he put away all that belonged to childhood, corresponds to the transitory spiritual gifts that were done away with when the complete revelation of God came, much like the scaffolding used to build a house is done away when the house is finished. In v. 12 he again illustrates it by referring to the contrast between seeing in a mirror and seeing face to face. The period of spiritual gifts which were in part corresponds to the imperfect reflection in a mirror, with “now” referring to the time when the church had the gifts. The completed thing (the Bible, the complete revelation of God’s will) corresponds to seeing face to face, with “then” referring to the time when the complete revelation had come.

Finally, in v. 13, he sums up this important lesson on the most excellent way of love, where he mentions “faith,” “hope,” and “love,” as the three things that abide “now,” i.e., after the gifts have passed away and that which is perfect has come. “Now” in v. 13 refers to a logical sequence, not to time. It is not temporal, but logical, meaning “in this condition of things, these things being so.”

One final proof that miracles through human agency have ceased is the fact that they are not present today and no one can demonstrate that they are! That they were at one time doesn’t prove they are presently in existence, nor that God intended for them to be!

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, pp. 365-367
June 18, 1987