Truth Magazine

By Irvin Himmel

Solomon said, “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children. . .” (Prov. 13:22). The subject of this sketch left a rich moral and spiritual heritage to his three sons, his six grandchildren, and his six great grandchildren.

The earthly pilgrimage of Aaron Dicus began at Festus, 1Viissouri (near St. Louis) on May 30, 1888. His family moved to Indiana when he was quite young. In the state of Indiana he grew to manhood, received his training, and entered his chosen work.

Seventy Years A Christian

He obeyed the gospel in the fall of 1908, becoming a member of the Normal congregation in Grant County, Indiana. A. W. Harvey was preaching in a meeting, but it was J. S. Johns who did the baptizing. The twenty-year old Dicus was the first person Johns ever baptized.

In 1910, Dicus married Bertha Jane Quick. Her father, David Quick, who lived at Swayzee in Grant County, was a Christian and gave encouragement to young Dicus to preach. His first sermon was delivered in 1913. He held his first meeting in 1915. He filled regular appointments at Cloverdale, Crawfordsville, Traders Point, Bloomington, Bedford, and Indianapolis, all in Indiana. Most of the preaching was done in those days by men who traveled in circuit to keep appointments with various congregations. Dicus held meetings in many places in Indiana and Illinois.

In 1912, he received his B.S. degree from Marion Normal at Marion, Indiana. Later he received the A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University at Bloomington. He taught in high schools in Indiana and Illinois; including seven years in Indianapolis. He then was elected to teach science in the University at Bloomington.

In January, 1930, he moved to Cookeville, Tennessee, to become professor and head of the department of physics at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute. He continued at T.P.I. for twenty years. At one time he was President of the Tennessee Academy of Science, a member of the Southern Association of Physicists, and a member of Sigma Psi, a national scientific honorary society.

During his years at T.P.I., Discus continued to preach by appointment, holding many meetings in the summers. He commuted to Chattanooga regularly in the late 1930’s. Preaching the gospel was a work he loved.

In January, 1950, he moved to Temple Terrace, Florida, to become the dean of Florida Christian College. He set up an academic program that helped the college to gain admittance to the Southern Association in a relatively short time. The young school was then in its fourth year, and that was the first year of the presidency of James R. Cope. Dicus brought valuable experience and academic qualifications needed in a young struggling college.

After the move to Temple Terrace, Dicus’ wife passed away. In 1953, he married Flora Braden. The following year they moved to Winter Haven, FLorida. Later they moved to Miami, then in 1957 they returned to Temple Terrace.

Gospel Preacher

Aaron Dicus served the following congregations by preaching on a regular basis: Lincoln Street, Bloomington, Inc., 1922-25; Ridgedale, Chattanooga, Tenn., 1937-39; Brooksville, Fla., 1950; Waters Ave., Tampa, Fla., 195152; Winter Haven, Fla., 1954-55; Southwest, Miami, Fla., 1955-57.

The church began meeting in Temple Terrace in September of 1950. Dicus and his first wife were among the few in the original membership. They attended the Wednesday evening services (and on Sundays if someone else happened to be preaching at Brooksville). They were active in the planning of the Temple Terrace congregation. Services were conducted in the Community Building. In 1951, Dicus designed and supervised the construction of the building in which the church still meets. He did much of the work with his own hands. A few years later he supervised the construction of the class room building behind the auditorium.

In his early years as a preacher, Brother Dicus was influenced by E.M. Zerr. There was no foolishness about Zerr. He was a self-made scholar who knew the Bible well. Samuel Piety also had a strong influence on Dicus. Piety had been a lawyer but decided to devote his life to preaching. He was somewhat like the prophet Amos-blunt and to the point. J. S. Johns, J. C. Roady, and A. W. Harvey were among the other preachers who touched his life. Then there were the Sommers. Dicus was well acquainted with Daniel Sommer and his wife Kate. He preached at the old North Indianapolis church and was a guest in the Sommer home. He had high regard for Daniel’s son, Chester. According to Dicus, it was Chester who wrote the “Rough Draft,” an outline and plea for unity, which became a center of controversy even in the Sommer family. Dicus had no respect for Allen Sommer.

When he moved to Tennessee, there was a keen awareness of the differences between churches of Christ in the North and congregations in the South. After some hesitation, he placed membership with the church at Cookeville, and, as he would express it with a twinkle in his eye and a slight smile, “That made the Cookeville church all right!” During his Tennessee years he became good friends of such outstanding preachers as N. B. Hardeman and Foy E. Wallace, Jr.

Inventor, Author, Song Writer

A. W. Dicus was a man of many and varied talents. He invented a number of gadgets. He was credited with inventing and securing patent rights for the automobile turn signal in 1920. His signals were manufactured at the Dicus-Schelmier plant, of which he was co-owner, in Indianapolis. The plant closed in 1921, and in 1937 his patent (No. 1,359,341) expired. He invented an electric pencil sharpener, an automobile speed governor, and a skill saw.

He wrote and published three books-A Brief Commentary on Romans and Hebrews, Church Leadership, and a volume of Sermon Outlines. He prepared some others works in manuscript form.

He was successful as a builder. In addition to the meeting house at Temple Terrace, he built homes for himself, some apartment houses, and a building at Florida College -which served for years as the class room building but is now a dormitory for boys and known as the Dicus Building.

In his old age, somewhat as a hobby, he took up song writing. He produced about thirty hymns, writing both words and music. “Our God, He Is Alive” has become a very popular song. It is used all across this country and in foreign countries as well. It will be, in all probability, Dicus’ most remembered work.

Funeral And Family

Death came to A. W. Dicus following a gradual decline due to old age. He passed away Sept. 2, 1978, being slightly more than three months beyond his ninetieth year. A memorial service was conducted in the Temple Terrace meeting house September 5th. J. D. Evans, one of the elders, led the assembly in singing two of Dicus’ songs. This writer read the description of the new Jerusalem in Rev. 21:1-22:5. L. Griffin Copeland, another elder, made a short talk about Brother Dicus’ many accomplishments in life. Robert N. Morris, also an elder, led prayer. The worn out mortal body was laid to rest in Garden of Memories Cemetary in Tampa.

Brother Dicus is survived by his three sons-E. A., an elder and preacher at Lorain Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio; David E. of Chattanooga, Tenn.; James T. of Agoura, Calif. His wife, Flora, resides at 201 S. Greenfield Ave., Temple Terrace, Fla. 33617.

Personal Friendship

Brother Dicus had a distinct independence about him. His convictions ran deep. Sometimes he appeared stubborn. He enjoyed a good argument. He possessed one trait, however, on which many preachers seem short. He would not fall out with someone who did not see eye to eye with him.

This writer first met A. W. Dicus in 1950. 1 was a student at Florida Christian College when he came to be dean. One day I walked into his office with a problem that to me was serious. I fully expected to be treated as a statistic. Much to my surprise he was warmly interested. He was a man with a heart. He exercised the powers of his deanship to work out a solution to my academic problem.

For the past ten years he listened to me preach week after week. Seldom did he leave the meeting house without some word of encouragement. Occasionally he would call. on the phone to express appreciation for some point in a lesson. I have never had a more appreciative listener. He loved the word of God and thrilled to hear it preached. He was able to be in attendance on Sunday mornings, though feeble and nearly blind, until a few weeks before his death.

So long, friend Dicus. I hope we may meet in the heavenly city!

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, pp. 697-698
November 2, 1978

By Mackey W. Harden

The term “cover-up” is defined in the following manner; “any action or other means of concealing or preventing investigation or exposure” (Random House College Dictionary). Our society has become very familiar (especially in politics) with various attempts to prevent investigations into certain matters. The tragic ordeal of the Watergate affair still lingers in the minds of many. Congress is now in the midst of trying to unravel yet another attempt of “cover-up” (Korean scandal). When man breaks the civil laws of our country, he will pay for these crimes unless he is able in some way to conceal them and keep them from being exposed.

The Bible gives us many examples in which someone has tried to conceal something from God. As our minds wander back to the earliest days of man’s existence, we see the first attempt of a cover-up, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, which brought about the first sin. They realized immediately they had done wrong. They hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden (Gen. 3:8) .They learned quite fast that they could not cover-up something from God. Since this incident, many people down through the centuries have tried to use a cover-up when they need to hide or conceal something, whether it be from his fellow-man, or from God.

In Acts 5:1-11, we have recorded another example of an attempt to cover-up something from God. Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land they owned and kept back part of the price. They brought part of this money and gave it to the apostles. They tried to cover-up their scheme of trickery by pretending to give the full price of the land. The lie they told concerning this might have been concealed from man, but it could not be hidden from God. Peter told Ananias, “. . . why hast thou conceived this thing in throe heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God” (Acts 5:4). An attempt to cover-up things from God did not succeed in the long ago, and will not succeed now.

I would like to turn our attention now to what I consider one of the most significant cover-up attempts in the history of man-kind. In Matt. 27, we have recorded the crucifixion of our Lord. After his death on the cross, Jesus’ body was given to Joseph of Arimathaea. He took our Savior’s body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb (Matt. 27:59-60). Later on, some of the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate, and told him that Christ said He would rise again after three days. They tried to persuade Pilate to make sure the tomb was guarded very securely until the third day. They did not want Jesus’ disciples to come by night and steal his body away, and then make the claim that he had risen from the dead. “Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch” (Matt. 27:65-66). Notice if you will, the many safeguards that were used to prevent Jesus’ body from being taken from the tomb! The Pharisees were not afraid that Jesus would rise from the dead (they thought he was an imposter). They were afraid His followers would steal his body, then make it appear as though Christ had risen from the dead. Indeed they worked with great intensity to be sure that His body could not be taken.

When the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb, the soldiers on watch became very frightened (Matt. 28:1-4). Later, some of them went into the city and told the chief priests all that had transpired. The chief priests, along with the elders, gave a large amount of money to the soldiers. In return for this money, the soldiers were ordered to cover-up what had taken place. They were instructed as follows, “Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept” (Matt. 28:13). They were paid large sums of money to lie, and try to conceal the true facts concerning the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! This is without doubt one of the greatest cover-up attempts of all time. These men failed in this attempted cover-up because they were found to be tampering with the very plan of God Almighty! They realized after the resurrection of Jesus, that He was truly the Son of God. They wanted with all their might to conceal and hide this from the people.

All the steps that were taken to guard the body of Jesus were to no avail whatsoever. Jesus came forth triumphant from the grave! He had, indeed, conquered the reigns of death. In Acts 2:24, Peter says concerning Christ’s death, “Whom God bath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” Yes, Christ arose from the dead and makes it possible for all men to be made alive (1 Cor. 15:20-22).

The death, burial and resurrection of Christ is the very basis of Christianity (1 Cor. 15:1-4). If Christ had not risen from the dead, man would have no hope for eternal life. To try and cover-up such an important event as the resurrection of Jesus was but a vain and futile attempt. Yet, I guess as long as man lives there will be those who continually try to conceal things from his fellow-man and from God. Maybe someday man will learn to be honest and sincere in the sight of God, and maybe then, there will not be a need for a word such as “cover-up” to be found in our dictionaries. Let us pray to this end.

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, p. 706
November 9, 1978

By Harry L. Lewis

On May 22, 23, 25, 26 Brother John McCort met Brother James Thompson in a public discussion. It is getting more and more difficult to find any preacher who will defend what he teaches in such a discussion. This is especially true of our liberal brethren. These brethren have a rather difficult time putting into words what they really believe about some of the questions that divide us. 1, for one, believe both of these men are to be commended for their willingness to defend what they teach on these important subjects. A discussion such as this is a very good way to seek the Bible answer to these questions. The proposition which was discussed reads as follows: “It is scriptural for churches of Christ to support benevolent institutions out of the treasury which care for orphans and aged saints.” Brother Thompson affirmed and Brother McCort denied. The last two nights the word “not” was added before scriptural, and Brother McCort affirmed and Brother Thompson denied.

Brother Thompson started out on Monday evening with the restored home argument and never stopped using it throughout the debate. He said, the church was commanded to relieve certain persons, and a home was just a systematic arrangement to carry out this command. He also said, these benevolent societies (i.e. care institutions) are just restored homes. He made the statement several times during the debate that the church could support a home but it could not be a home. Brother Thompson said these restored homes were divine institutions! The Scriptures used to show that they were divine was 2 Cor. 8-9, where Paul and the messengers were mentioned. He said this was a separate organization from the church since they administered the funds. He says this is “a Bible plan,” a “pattern.” Bother Thompson made the usual arguments on Gal. 6:10 and James 1:27, trying to show that they were church action and not individual action only.

Brother McCort began early to put pressure on Brother Thompson to show the authority for his practice of supporting the organizations he called the “home,” and at the same time show why he would oppose other organizations formed by brethren to preach the gospel. Brother McCort used a chart he called “Bait and Switch” with telling effect throughout the debate. This chart shows how many of these brethren go to great lengths to prove it is the church’s responsibility to care for the needy and just as soon as they get folks convinced that the church must do it they change it from the church to these organizations called a “home.” The bait and switch is also used in relation to the church local and the church universal. When these folks argue for these organizations they argue that each local church has responsibilities in this area and then switch to the church universal. There are no local congregations over most of these institutions in question. Brother McCort showed that God had specified which organization was to provide care for those for whom the church is to care. That organization is the local church. Brother McCort pressed for some Bible principle which would authorize some brethren to build several kinds of organizations and then label them all divine without opening the door to denominationalism.

Brother McCort drew a parallel between the use of “administered” in 2 Cor. 8:19, and the same word used in Acts 6:2-3. He showed that if the word authorized a separate organization to do benevolent work, then the same word in connection with preaching would allow the Missionary Society to do the work of preaching.

This debate is on cassette tapes and may be obtained from Brother John McCort, 5355 Mooresville Rd., Indianapolis, Indiana 46241. John also used 78 original charts that are, in my opinion, the best there are. These charts will be available from Truth Magazine Bookstore. John McCort did a fine job in this debate, both in making preparation, and in delivery of his speeches. He is to be commended for his efforts.

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, p. 699
November 2, 1978

By Pat Higgins

The book of James stresses the trial of a man’s faith and a positive way of maintaining stability. The writer tells us that at times we will be surrounded or encompassed about with trials and temptations, but even then we should regard it a wholly joyful occasion (Jas. 1:2).

How can a man possibly rejoice while undergoing trials and persecution? He can rejoice in that the testing of his faith can prove its genuineness and, therefore, bring about staying power or endurance. Anyone who has come through a period of temptation victorious over trials can rejoice in that accomplishment. More important, upon request, God will grant a man the wisdom to cope with and endure each temporary trial; and he rejoices, knowing that perseverance will be rewarded by the crown of life (1:5, 12).

However, this wisdom is granted only to him who “asks in faith, nothing wavering” (1:6), or “without any doubting” (NAS). One whose faith is “wavering” is an individual who is “divided against one’s-self,” who has “vacillation of mind.” James provides a most vivid picture of such wavering, “For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” Such a wave has no stability and is driven to and fro at the mercy of the wind. A man with internal doubt/ wavering likewise, has no stability or confidence in God to perform that which He promised; therefore, he cannot approach God in prayer with any degree of assurance (1:7). He is tossed to and fro by external pressures, indecisive and unsure of God’s care.

One of two things is true when a man’s faith wavers: (1) He doubts his own ability to cope, and/or (2) He doubts God’s faithfulness and ability to strengthen him. On either count he errs. The Apostle Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). To cope with the trials of daily living with the stability of wisdom, we see two things are required in the aforementioned verse: (1) The confidence of man, and (2) The strengthening faithfulness of God.

A man may say, “I know God will do His part, but I just can’s handle my part.” Is this not doubting God? Because He said if a man lack wisdom to endure divers temptations, he should pray for wisdom and “it shall be given him” (1:2-5). God says a man can handle it, because He will grant him the wisdom to do so. Who would dare to deny the Almighty God the power to do so. He is “. . . able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Eph. 3:20).

Wisdom is simply the practical use of knowledge, and the Lord has promised to give it to those who ask (keep on asking, continually turning to God for guidance) in faith. Should this not be cause for rejoicing?

Do you lack wisdom? Ask of God. . . in faith. . . nothing wavering… and it shall be given.

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, p. 710
November 9, 1978