Good day to all. Welcome to the “front porch.”
There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned gospel meeting to lift your spirits and put a little fire in your soul. All enjoyed this past weekend’s meeting – our 2nd annual winter meeting with Jerry Dickinson – and we walked away from it with a little extra hop in our steps.
Brother Jerry – who also happens to be my brother-in-law, the amazin’ blonde’s brother – is one of the great storytellers among preachers, and that is true regardless of age, pedigree, or era. During the meeting, he shared many stories, both personal stories and those from the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Our focus of study for the weekend was in the book of Daniel. Many an old preacher has made the book of Daniel his stomping-ground for sermons for years. If you want to find examples of men who stand up courageously for what they believe, regardless of the consequences, we need look no further than Daniel.
We could rehearse stories Jerry told from now until sunset, but one will have to suffice for this sitting. He told of an infidel who came through a town some years ago, and folks from all over gathered in the town’s meeting hall to hear the learned man talk. The gentleman – dressed in his sophisticated suit and looking the part of a scholar – got on a roll as he presented his case for why there is no God; and he did it by appealing to the most persuasive arguments and to the most prestigious minds that atheism has to offer. If a man were on the fence on the matter, there is little doubt he would have been convinced to throw in with the atheists before the night was over.
But one old gray-haired woman on the back row was not on the fence, and she was less than impressed with the infidel’s presentation. About halfway through, she had heard all she wanted to hear. Abruptly, she stood up at her seat up by the back wall. Softly, she began to sing that old hymn that Christians have sung through the ages: “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross …”
The speaker noted the distraction, but he ignored the woman and just raised his voice a little higher and continued his assault on this silly idea of a God. Pretty soon, though, the woman raised her voice a little; and, before you knew it, a man from a few rows in front of her stood up and began singing with her.
Still, the infidel raised his voice even more to drown out the two distractors. But he would not be able to raise his voice loud enough over the next few minutes, because one by one men and women from all over the town hall stood up until everyone in the house was on their feet; all singing along, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross.” The sound of the singing far excelled the voice of the infidel, the great hymn swallowing up his voice and his arguments like a tidal wave swallowing up the beach.
Finally, in frustration, all he could do was gather his books, throw them in his briefcase, and head out the door, never to return to that little town.
It was quite a stand for the men and women of the town; and word spread quickly throughout what an amazing thing they had done. When the story was told abroad, they did not just tell how they all believed in God and in His Son Jesus Christ. No, that was not enough. They told how – to a man – they stood up for their Lord, for their Jesus, lifting high his royal banner – just as the song they sang required.
“Stand up, stand up for Jesus,” writes songwriter George Duffield in 1851, “ye soldiers of the cross. Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army He shall lead. Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord, indeed.”
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