Telling The TRUTH
101913 Telling The Truth 28 Minute Program
[music] You're listening to "Telling the Truth" from Triple T. Christian Youth Ministries, "Telling the Truth to and Through Teenagers." Here is Triple T. Founder and President George Dumes. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God's divine design incorporates rest after work." Genesis 2.2, New King James Version says, "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done." Somebody has said, "If it was good enough for God, then it should be good enough for us." Do you believe that? God does have a plan for each one of us, and He wants us to discipline ourselves, to develop our way to work and our way to rest. And when we work, we need to do it diligently. We need to do it enthusiastically. We need to do it with an objective in mind to share the good news of the saving power of Jesus Christ with people in need. Then we need to understand that God wants us, following work, to rest. Are you doing this? Are you remembering what the Bible calls the Sabbath day to keep it holy? The Lord's day is a day when we can worship Him, and when we can also invite people to come to hear about Him, or when we can go to people who need to know Him. God can make you usable, and He can use you if you're willing to follow His formula. God does not make mistakes. He tells us what to do, how to do it, and why. So, when you follow God's way, wonderful things will happen. It's up to you. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made, Genesis 2-3, New King James Version. Have you ever heard anybody say, "Oh, I just don't have enough hours in the day." There aren't enough minutes in the hours, but God has worked it all out so that everyone equally, everywhere in the world, gets 60 seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour, and 24 hours in every day, 7 days in every week. Six days should be enough to try to accomplish all we want to for God's glory. And on the seventh day, let's stop. We haven't created a universe like God did, but He stopped after doing all of that. And so it comes time for us to rest a while, and then to get ready to go, to hit it hard, to move ahead to share the gospel of Christ with people when we're ready. Yes, God wants to make us usable and He wants to use us, but one of the ways He can do that is for us to listen to what He has to say, to obey His teachings. So work and then rest, and watch God take those days of work and multiply them in the hearts and lives of people. Yes, time is fleeting, and it seems like it's so short, but God knows what we should do with what we have, so let's do it. The people I know who accomplish the most in their lives are those who pay attention to what God has to say. He says work, and then rest. Listen to Exodus 29, New King James Version. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work." There's work to be done, there's a world to be won, but we need to work out the time frame so that we are doing what we need to do, when we need to do it, with whom we need to do it, and then when we have done it, we need to stop and thank God for what has been accomplished. Rest, and be ready to go again. When the rest is over, God wants each one of us to pace ourselves and to plan our work and work our plan. That's the greatest formula for success I've ever heard, next to a place for everything and everything in its place. That last part is even more difficult than the first, but God does have a plan, and He wants us to follow His plan, and He wants us to labor six days to do the work that's before us. The most important work we need to do is to take the gospel to people, first read God's Word, then pray, then fellowship with other believers, and go to take the plan of salvation to people who need the Lord. Listen to Exodus 20, 10, New King James Version. "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates." That's pretty explicit, isn't it? God says rest. Just stop for a while. And when you do, you accomplish far more than if you ignore the resting order from the Lord. My dad worked in a shipyard during World War II, and every Monday morning they would have to correct the mistakes that were made on Sunday because the men were so tired and they were not supposed to be working seven days a week. But they had to because that was the order that was given and took all day Monday almost every Monday to correct the things that were messed up on Sunday. And as Dad said so often, if they had just stopped for a day, we wouldn't have had to do so much work over and it's much more difficult to do it over than to do it right the first time. So pace yourself, do it God's way, and watch Him bless you abundantly when you do what He wants you to do the way He wants you to do it. Know this, when you get in tune with the Lord, wonderful things can happen. There are things that you can accomplish that are absolutely magnificent when you do it God's way. The Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to impart wisdom through Proverbs. In Proverbs 16, 26, New King James is no exception. Listen, the person who labors, labors for himself for his hungry mouth drives him on. One of the things that is so fascinating to me is how practical the Bible is time after time after time. And there are times when we look around us and say, "What's wrong with our world?" And then we understand people are not listening to the Word of God, they're not doing things that God says to do. And as a result of that, we have chaos and we have difficulties everywhere. But when we understand that working is a very important part of living, then we get what God is telling us. That we need to be driven to do the things that need to be done simply to feed ourselves and our families to take care of the necessities of life. One of those necessities is spiritually growing in Christ to the degree that you and I want to share our faith in the Lord Jesus with people who need to know Him. Because if you don't, if I don't, who will? It becomes our responsibility as well as our opportunity to take the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to people who need the Lord. To be diligent is the opposite of being slothful. Proverbs 18-9, New King James says, "He who is slothful in His work is a brother to Him who is a great destroyer." You see, when you're not diligent, when you're slothful, lazy, irresponsible, lackadaisical, it's bad news. And someday you are going to regret that as is everyone. But you can switch from being slothful to being diligent. The beginning point is to pray. God help me be all I can be, all I should be, all I need to be to glorify you. To be helpful wherever I go with whomever I am involved. God will make you usable and He will use you if you are willing to go to Him for the guidance, for the direction, for the helpfulness that He will make available to you. So don't be slothful in your presentation of the gospel. Be careful, be diligent, and take the gospel to people who need the Lord. Make sure you know the plan of salvation. We have God's ABCs. We would like to send your way so that you can give them to people. They are all scripture. They are all based on the plan of salvation that God has provided. So, write for yours and then share them. Again, the number to call is Erykod 812-867-2418. Listen to Proverbs 21-8, New King James Version. The way of a guilty man is perverse. But, as for the pure, his work is right. What a vast difference. Guilty man is perverse. Pure man, his work is right. God wants us to be pure in our thoughts and our actions and our responsibilities. Not guilty because of doing things that were wrong or not doing things that we should have done that we knew we ought to have done. So, don't be perverse. You don't have to be guilty if you do right and get the job done that's before you. Be pure. Be righteous. Be holy. And know that your work will be right. There is work to be done. There are folk to be one. And we have said this so often. God depends on people just like you and me to accomplish his purpose. So, will you first pray diligently and ask God to make you usable and then to use you to work with others to share the gospel with those who need the Lord. Pray together. Read God's Word together and then do what the Lord Jesus Christ tells us to do. What Jesus said to do about the gospel is to go. Go to everybody, everywhere, beginning where you are right now, this very day. Every Saturday at 7.27 p.m. you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T. 13,000 US-41 North at Boone Building Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. [music] Together toward tomorrow, praylude. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. To them are the called according to his purpose, Romans 828. The editor tomorrow is a look at who did what, when and where in youth of angeism in America. But this is far more than a history book. Since the past is prelude to the future, this can be a guide to keep evangelizing youth. Because somehow God chose us to be involved firsthand in reaching teenagers from the time we were teenagers ourselves. These are background notes about our heritage. Indicators of ways God prepared us to be involved in interdenominational Bible-based ministry, sharing principles, learned and applied. My dad, William Lawson Dooms, grew up in the Presbyterian Church. His parents, James Nathaniel Dooms, a farmer and Maggie Gaines Dooms, a backsmiths daughter, had been Cumberland Presbyterians in Catoya, Lyon County, Kentucky. They moved to Mount Carmel, Illinois and were sent there by the Scott County Milling Company. My mother, Mildred Laveta Jones Dooms and her sister Hazel Catherine, were converted to Christ at a special meeting in the Christian Church. Her father, Homer Alexander Jones, was the oldest of six siblings, raised by a praying Methodist mother and not so all enthusiastic about church stuff father. Grandad Jones married Lydia, Lotten Hampton in Evansville, Indiana. Her mother was a shouting Nazarene and her uncle, George Grosshardt, was a pilgrim holiness evangelist and church planter. Grandad's brother Herman married the evangelist daughter. Their sister Hazel became very active with the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. Grandad was working at a furniture factory and was genuinely converted as he knelt on a gangplank between two buildings. He and my grandmother were baptized together in the Ohio River and became active at 12th Avenue General Baptist Church. Grandad Jones taught a Sunday school class of boys, at many, were led to the Lord and five became ministers. Grandad also served as Sunday school superintendent. Later, while working for the New York Central Railroad in Evansville, he was transferred to Mount Carmel, Illinois to work for the Big Four Roundhouse. He soon became a leader in 2nd Street Baptist Church. Shortly before I was born, my parents, Lawson and Mildred Jones-Dohms, decided to be faithful to attend these at 2nd Street Baptist. The personal pastor, the Reverend Leroy Preach Blackburn and his wife Audrey, reached out to my parents. When I was two weeks old, my parents took me to church and I continued being there virtually every Sunday and Wednesday and about any other time the doors were open. There are no happenstances in God's scheme of things. My dad often said God enjoys playing checkers with his favorite people. He moves them wherever he wishes. Jump some off the board who have finished the race or messed up and kings those he trusts. This is our personal look at the exciting story of youth of Angelism. Many are incidents we have experienced. Vignettes along life's pathway, encounters with special people, many of whom became world changers for God's glory. Some we met long before their ministries became quite so significant. Others were already personal heroes heard about or read about. The book together toward tomorrow is a continuing story of youth of Angelism in America decade by decade from 1931 and projecting toward 2020 and beyond. The first two known youth of Angelism, Percy Crawford and Clifford Lewis began their ministries in 1931. Crawford, a Wheaton College grad, the Young People's Church of the Air, Clifford Lewis, a graduate of the very first class of Bob Jones College, the Young People's Fellowship Clubs. It's a delightful journey, though unknown to each other when these men began their ministries very far apart. Crawford in Pennsylvania and Lewis in Florida, their paths would intersect again and again, especially in Kansas City. A major result was the impact these two men had on Al and Vidy Metzger, who ultimately developed the largest local youth of angels of ministry in the world, Kansas City Youth for Christ during the Metzger's 50-year ministry together. God used Clifford Lewis during Labor Day weekend 1940 to challenge Al and Vidy with Romans 12, 1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove as that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. They dedicated their lives to the Lord Jesus. Their friendship grew, and early in 1943, Al asked Vidy to marry him. They spent Sunday afternoons listening to Percy Crawford via radio. By now, Al was president of the youth group at Central Bible Church where Dr. Walter L. Wilson was pastor. Al booked Percy Crawford and his quartet for a one-night youth meeting, 500 people packed the auditorium, and 42 youth responded to the invitation. On Saturday, June 19, 1943, Al and Vidy launched Singspiration, the forerunner of what would soon be Kansas City Youth for Christ. Al and Vidy were married one week later. In his book Singing I Go, George Beverly Shea tells about a train ride back to Chicago from Kansas City where he and Tori Johnson and Doug Fisher ministered together early in 1944. Bev challenged Tori one more time to do something to reach youth in Chicago as Jack Wurtson was doing in New York City. Tori finally said yes, and Chicago land youth for Christ began May 27, 1944. Billy Graham was the first speaker. Bev Shea sang. In Charlotte, North Carolina, 16-year-old Billy Graham had accepted Christ in 1934. In a few months, he began attending the Young People's Fellowship Club in Charlotte with his new friends, Grady and T.W. Wilson. He enrolled in Bob Jones College, transferred to Florida Bible College and graduated from Wheaton in 1943. Tori invited Al and Vidy in July 1944 to go to an only Indiana for a meeting that would become Youth for Christ International. Al was put on the board, and for several years he served as Vice President of Christ International for the mid-central area, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, and at times Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming were included. In September 1946, Al and Vidy brought Billy with Cliff Barrows to Kansas City for a special banquet. The setting was Linwood Presbyterian Church where Dick Halverson was assistant pastor. Halverson later became chaplain of the U.S. Senate. My mother attended Moody Founders Week in Chicago in February 1948 and brought me a copy of Youth for Christ magazine. The following May, I attended the Fifth Anniversary Rally of Indianapolis Youth for Christ. Roger Mallsbury had founded an Indianapolis Youth for Christ in May 1943. Visiting my friend Ivan Peterson, while he was attending Bible College in St. Louis, in October 1948, Pete and I attended St. Louis Youth for Christ, where Richard Harvey was director that he had begun in February 1944. In the fall of 1948, my pastor, Charlie Patterson, appointed me to serve on the organizing committee of Mount Carmel, Illinois Youth for Christ. Mary Greer was asked to serve by her pastor, who was also her father, the Reverend J.C. Greer. Mary and I had begun dating in September and were planning the first Youth for Christ rally for December 1948. The rallies continued in 1949 until I graduated from Mount Carmel High School. I was also speaking on Echoes of Grace, a live radio broadcast every Saturday morning my senior year. Then after a year at Greenville, Illinois College, and marriage graduation from high school, her Southern Baptist father became my father-in-law on June 18, 1950, when he married Mary and me. As director of Youth for Christ in my hometown, I was thrilled to receive a letter from Al Metzger asking for prayer for the Kansas City area-wide crusade with Merv Rossell being planned for the summer of 1950. Mary and I moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where I transferred to Bob Jones University in August 1950. Every weekend, we traveled the winding road to Hendersonville, North Carolina, where I served as associate director of Youth for Christ, and Mary played an old-fashioned pump organ for the rallies in Henderson County Courthouse. It was there that we met Moody grad Ed Reese, as he was headed for Japan with Kenny Joseph, who had founded Henderson Land Youth for Christ while a student at Bob Jones. During my senior year at Bob Jones University in 1954, it was our privilege to meet Al Metzger and other YFC leaders personally when they stopped by our gospel advertising offices, where Mary was executive secretary and I was vice president. Al was a BJU interviewing prospective staff for Youth for Christ Ministries. The Metzger's greatest contribution to the cause of Christ is their fervent youth evangelism spirit and soul-winning emphasis. It is multiplied many, many fold. Many young men and women caught the vision to evangelize youth, and they have continued to minister everywhere. When Mary and I came back to the tri-state in 1966 to direct tri-state youth for Christ, now triple to Christian Youth Ministries, we were the proud parents of our ten-month-old daughter, Tammy Lee. Seven months after we started, our son, James Lawson, was born. The ministry continues every single Saturday night, and we'll go forward, God willing, all the way to our 2,500 Saturday, December 20. The circuit writers are here. Come and join us tonight at Triple T 727. It will happen, and we are excited because this group of young people are representing the Motorcycle Sunday School Mission. They are a part of Teen Missions International, and they are a very talented group of guys and girls who use music, drama, skits, and even puppets to talk about what God has done and is doing across the world in the Motorcycle Sunday School Ministry. Following the old-fashioned style of Harsback circuit preachers of the past, like the Westlies did, the Motorcycle Sunday School Mission takes the light of the Gospel to those who are waiting to hear, using motorcycles instead of horses. Sunday School materials are used as a means to tell others of the love of the Lord Jesus. Currently, there are 125 Sunday schools in 7 different African countries, and now more than 5,000 children and adults each week are being reached through these Sunday schools. The GO, 213 Sunday schools by December 13, 2013, expanding not only to Africa, but now into Asia, and later into Central America and South America. The long-term goal is 1,000 of these Sunday schools by 2020. Triple division youth ministries is privileged to sponsor 12 of these Sunday schools across Africa, and now very, very soon, within the next month. Our very first Sunday school will happen in Indonesia and the country of Barnio. There will be two circuits of 6 each. The way this works is the students attend BMW. That's Bible Missionary Work Training Center in their country. For two years, they serve as an intern for one year, and then they're taught how to ride the motorcycle, how to accomplish all these things, and two of them are assigned a circuit as facilitators. They go to a different village every day for six days out of the week, presenting the gospel in a Sunday school out in the villages where the kids are. When they hear the roar of the motorcycle, the kids come running out of their huts, and they all gather at the Sunday school. It's a magnificent ministry, and it's reaching hundreds and hundreds of kids, and thousands more can be reached. When the motorcycle Sunday school advances and goes full speed forward. We're delighted at Triple T Christian Youth Ministries to be a part of the motorcycle Sunday school mission, Teen Missions International, and what a delight it has been to host the Youth of Vanses Misociation 40th Anniversary Convention and Youth Workers' Intensive Training. We've had people here from all over the country, and they have learned how to share Jesus from all kinds of ways and methods and means, and so we're thrilled because of what has happened, but tonight is a very special night with the Motorcycle Sunday School Circuit Writers Band. They have their own live music, and the instrumentation is different. It's mandolin and banjo and guitar, and you'll like it. So you're invited to come and join us at 7.27 p.m. tonight. We'd like you to meet these young people from across the country who are on a national tour. They'll be actually going all the way west to California during their time, and we're thrilled that they're here. And if your church would like to host them next week, we still have some open dates, and they'll be available each week night, until next week, so give us a call at area code 812-867-2418. And repeat that. Area code 812-867-2418 are better still. Come tonight and meet them and bring the possible dates for them to come to your town, to your community, to your local church, and we'll work out the details. We hope that you'll come and bring a lot of people with you, because this is a very, very special happening, and we're so delighted and thrilled that all this is taking place. Now, continue to pray for Triple T. We are endeavoring to find a thousand people that will pray every single day when we open the tabernacle on the 13th of May this year. That was the first day of a thousand days of prayer and action, going God willing to February 6, 2016. As again, the Lord willing, we will celebrate 50 years or our golden anniversary. Meanwhile, December 28, 2013, again God willing, it will be our 2,500th consecutive Saturday. What a wonderful thing God has done. What a joy it's been to reach hundreds, in fact thousands and thousands of youth with the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Christ through you can change the world. Every Saturday at 7.27 p.m. you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T, 13,000 US 41 North at Boone Building Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information, call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. For your free copy of the "Telling the Truth" newsletter, call 812-867-2418, 812-867-2418, or write Triple T, 13,000 US 41 North, Evansville, Indiana, 477-25. Tune in to "Telling the Truth" next week at this same time on this same station. [MUSIC]