WesleyGospel Ministries

If you wanted to fill the seats with new church members,
you called Billy Graham.
If you wanted people to genuinely repent and develop prayer lives,
you called Leonard Ravenhill.
–J.B.–

Evangelists raise funds.
Revivalists raise Hell.
–Leonard Ravenhill, 51:00–

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Tyndale House, 2024).

—. The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 1999).

Dr. Norman Geisler, When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties (Baker Books, 1992)

—. When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook of Christian Evidences (Baker Books, 1990).

James Goll and Julia Loren, Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Experiences (Destiny Image, 2007).

Dr. Jack Deere, Why I Am Still Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.

—. Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God.

Dr. Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006). This is considered the top evangelical, Bible believing, “maximalist” book on defending the historical truthfulness, accuracy, and reliability of the Old Testament narratives.

Dr. Shelton Smith, Why I Still Believe the Bible (Sword of the Lord, 2000).

Dr. Raymond Barber, The Bible Is Right (Sword of the Lord, 2007).

Randall Price, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology (Zondervan, 2017). In the world of Bible scholars the “maximalists” are the people who generally take the Bible on faith value as a reliable source for the history of Israel–and assume that it’s telling the truth in good faith. This is generally the position taken by Bible scholars in the fundamentalist, Reformed, and conservative evangelical tradition. This archaeology handbook is by Zondervan and is probably evangelical and maximalist, like myself. Its the “minimalists” who are the agnostic Bible scholars: they generally doubt the historical truth of the Bible; and will only skeptically believe some aspect about it if they can find some archaeology evidence for it. This is to put more faith in archaeology than Scripture; and is essentially the position of liberal Christians on the subject of creation: they adopt theistic evolution because their priorities are flipped: they exalt the opinions of the scientific community, which is anti-Christian and atheistic in bias, above the authority of Scripture. This leads minimalists to entertain the most outrageous unbeliever speculations, such as saying none of the major figures of the Bible even existed, that every supernatural occurrence in the Bible is a myth or legend, that Christianity used to be a cult just like the Jim Jones cult, and that Christian theology is no different than a human philosophy, some man-made ideology, like Socrates would have made up.

John Blanchard, Does God Believe In Atheists? (Evangelical Press, 2011).

—. Evolution: Fact or Fiction? (Evangelical Press, 2016).

—. Dealing with Dawkins (Evangelical Press, 2015).

Ray Comfort, God Doesn’t Believe In Atheists (Bridge-Logos, 2004).

—. Nothing Created Everything (WND Books, 2009).

Such a life is that of the Atheist, the man “without God in the world.” What a thick veil is between him and the invisible world, which, with regard to him, is as though it had no being! He has not the least perception of it; not the most distant idea. He has not the least sight of God, the intellectual Sun; nor any the least attraction toward him, or desire to have any knowledge of his ways…He tastes nothing of the goodness of God or the powers of the world to come. He does not feel (as our Church speaks) the working of the Holy Spirit in his heart. –John Wesley, “On Living Without God,” 1.8

Wikipedia, “The Teleological Argument” (or the Argument from Intelligent Design).

—. “The Argument from Religious Experience.” From what I know, the Bible only advances two arguments for the existence of God: 1. The Teleological Argument (Romans 1:19-20). 2. The Religious Experience Argument (implied by every encounter with God, prophetic dream, or vision of God in Scripture, and also implied in 1 Corinthians 2:14, where it says that a “natural man,” or an atheist, is a person who knowingly and willingly “receiveth not” the gifts, and experiences, and feelings of the Spirit of God. Its not that all atheists are people who have never had any spiritual experiences, its more an issue of them resisting them (Acts 7:51), and explaining them away as hallucinations, that seems to be the problem in this case. And since this is often the case with cessationists, I have to think that such people are close to a kind of Christian atheism.)

Dr. John R. Rice, Evolution or the Bible–Which? (audio).

Kent Hovind, Lies in the Textbooks. (video presentation).

Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution. (video presentation).

Ron Rhodes, Answering the Objections of Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics (Harvest House, 2006). I like how Rhodes refers to atheistic views as “objections” to Christianity. Unlike McDowell and Geisler, Rhodes’ book title seems to imply that such perspectives are deliberate, on purpose suppressions of Biblical truth, motivated by unrighteousness and selfishness, as Paul says in Romans 1:18. Whereas the other titles seem to imply that atheists are just intellectually honest skeptics who have innocent questions about Christianity that have been left unanswered. And that if their questions would just simply be answered, then they would become Christians immediately. I think about atheism the same as the apostle Paul and John Wesley did: that atheism is primarily a motivational problem, and secondly an intellectual one. The so-called endless “questions” that atheists raise against Christianity and the Bible are not innocent; or based in some type of information gap. Their “questions” are more like an intellectual smokescreen for their personal rebellion against God. The atheist smokescreen gives off the appearance that they have plenty of legitimate reasons to question the truthfulness of Christianity. But because of the morals and self-denial required by the Christian life, the state of unbelief that atheists willingly put themselves into, is mainly created by an impenitent heart that wants to run its own life, and set its own standards. It has nothing to do with faith seeking understanding; or true spiritual curiosity seeking to know if there is such a thing as genuine Christian faith validated by the supernatural. Piles of apologetics books and videos by people like Rhodes, McDowell, and Geisler could be dropped on their desks, and most of the time the atheist will probably just throw it all away in the trashcan; and come up with some reason not to spend his time on any of it, preferring his old habits of watching porn, Fox News, ESPN, and Nat Geo. Most atheists are probably atheists by choice, because they are living in rebellion against God, and atheism has become their favorite idol to justify their rebellion: especially since they can appeal to “science” as support for their rebellion. 1 Timothy 6:20-21: “Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”

—. The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate (Harvest House Publishers, 2004).

Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask (Living Books, 1986).

Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks, When Skeptics Ask (Baker Books, 1990).

Augustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer (Kegan Paul, 1910).

Harold Horton, The Gifts of the Spirit (Gospel Publishing House, 1975).

Norman Geisler, The Big Book of Christian Apologetics.

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, chs. 17-18.

—. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.

John Sherrill, They Speak With Other Tongues.

John R. Rice, Evolution or the Bible–Which?

Sweetened possessive farce
Our saints become sparse
And its an option to be transparent
So in your soul that it’s inherent
Now that you’ve found your wings (you want to fly)
Now that I’ve done those things (you’ve said goodbye)
It would be ample if only you’d trample
What you could not choke in life
Choke, choke, choke, choke
Now that you’ve sold your soul
What was the human toll
And oh your sacrifice (your sacrifice)
And oh what my vice (you were)
And it would be ample if you’d only trample
What you could not choke in life
Choke, choke, choke, choke
I could be anyone
I could be anything except for you
Except for you
Anything except for you
No, it had to be a lie it didn’t rain twice
The clouds over my head but I’m not dead yet
I could be anyone
I could be anything except for you
Except for except for except for
–Coal Chamber, “Anything But You”–

—

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
–Ephesians 4:32 (ESV)–

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
–Mark 11:25 (ESV)–

If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
–Matthew 6:14-15 (ESV)–

Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
–Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV)–

Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
–Luke 6:37 (ESV)–

Do good to those who hate you.
–Luke 6:27 (ESV)–

The Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”…I once had a dream…
–Genesis 31:3, 10 (NIV)–

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
–Genesis 37:19-20 (NIV)–

—

June Hunt, How to Handle Your Emotions (Harvest House Publishers, 2008), ch. 5.

Beverly Flanigan, Forgiving the Unforgivable (Collier Books, 1992), ch. 3.

It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,
I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh:
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
–Acts 2:17 (KJV)–

—

It came to the place where I really wondered if I had just dreamed this.
–David Wilkerson, 1:01–

Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
–1 Corinthians 7:5 (NKJV)–

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep:
let your laughter be turned to mourning,
and your joy to heaviness.
–James 4:9 (KJV)–

Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.
–Revelation 3:16 (KJV)–

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.
–Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)–

Charles G. Finney won some 250,000 souls in a few short years, most of them in New York state and in nearby areas. Within certain limited areas the profound effect of the Finney revivals was more intense, more revolutionary than even the Moody revivals. And how did Charles G. Finney preach? Did he preach upon the love of God? Not often! Did he preach on grace? He believed in grace, but law comes before grace in the Bible, and so it came in Finney’s preaching. Did he give tender invitations? Perhaps, toward the close of each campaign, certainly not in the first part of the services. In school houses and small churches, usually, he preached. And the revival fires spread like a prairie conflagration before the wind!

How did Finney preach? He tells us again and again in his autobiography. For example, note this passage:

That night I determined that I would cry aloud against the sins of the people and bring to bear the very fires of Hell as a final consequence of their rebellion. For almost two hours I literally flailed the evildoers who sat before me. I called God to witness that the judgment was not far off for them. Concluding, I gave a few moments to the mercy of God but I did that in a stern manner. I was determined that the people should for once stand face to face with the fact of sin and Hell. That night the meeting broke and I think I never experienced such a divine demonstration.

Oh, may God give us preachers who will preach like Charles G. Finney against sin! Finney preached against cursing, against drunkenness, against covetousness, against pride. He named sins. He preached on Sodom and Gomorrah. He preached on Hell and judgment. He preached on the death of the wicked. He preached on the justice and wrath of God. Men fell unconscious in their seats, or became utterly helpless as they sobbed and prayed, and would not leave the building. The conviction was so terrible in many services that Finney could preach no longer. (After he had already preached perhaps an hour and twenty minutes or two hours on sin!) Finney’s revivals must be traced to a deep consciousness of sin brought about by the preaching of the Word of God on the sin matter by a Spirit-filled preacher. Certainly God used the Gospel of grace, but it does not take people long to be taught salvation by faith when they are deeply convicted of their sins.

–Dr. John R. Rice, Why Preach Against Sin? (Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1985), pp. 23-24. Dr. Rice was a fundamental Baptist evangelist, a colleague of Bob Jones Sr. and Jr.,
and a mentor of the young Billy Graham.–

Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience,
ch. VII: “Considerations on Dreams, Visions, Etc.”

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