Paul
Chappell emailed me the link for this message, preached at his annual Spiritual
Leadership Conference in June of 2013. It came along with the subject heading
"I missed you at the conference" and an invitation to download his
e-book "America Tomorrow." I downloaded the book (but have not yet
looked at it) and listened to about 3/4 of the message which was delivered in what
he called a "session."
The
message begins early on with a sound bite from the most recent Democratic
National Convention where it was voted (but was more like railroaded down the
throats of the participants) that there would be no mention of God at the
Convention. Chappell uses that as an appeal to his patriotic Baptist delegates
that America is in trouble
spiritually and suggests that this message is intended to give us direction as
to how to help America
in her time of trouble.
Some
observations I have concerning the message:
It
was certainly not expositional.
Men
like Brother Chappell insist that expositional preaching is the only kind of
Scriptural preaching but they often break away from it when they want to say
what they want to say.
He
pushed the concept of prayer and revival
This
was first and foremost and gave the rest of his message a sense of legitimacy
because he did the spiritual thing first. However I have come to question
whether it is Baptist to believe in revivals (in the sense that most of us
think of them) at all. The revivals all cited in the past were clearly without
Baptist involvement and were promoted, reported and participated in by all but
Baptists. Even quasi-Baptist Charles Spurgeon did not participate in the
revival work of D.L. Moody and clearly had the opportunity to so.
Chappell
mentions a group of Baptists in the later part of the 1800s as the catalyst of
the revival that happened afterwards. I would mention that by then Baptists,
both North and South, were so influenced by Protestantism as to hardly count as
a Baptist movement.
Chappell's
comments in this point are nothing short of Protestantism and Universalism. His
appeals for men to stop criticizing and to start getting along and sets himself
up so that those points he will bring following can hardly be challenged
without the challenger being guilty of quenching revival.
Chappell
proceeds from there to give a number of points I commend:
- We
must preach clearly biblical messages
- We
must become men of integrity and report crimes rather than cover them up
He then
makes the claim that, though the size of a church does not matter, the only
thing that will save America
is soul winning.
A
number of things come to mind from this segment of the message
First
when did saving America
It
certainly was not the priority of Jesus. It was not the priority of any of the
Apostles. It does not appear to be the priority of any Baptist prior to the
American Revolution, which was manifestly Protestant.
Second
this is a complete reversal of his first claim that America
Chappell
wisely begins by claiming dependence upon the Lord but eventually ends up where
religion always does; with man being the ultimate savior.
Thirdly
Chappell becomes what he had insisted would prevent revival
He
embarks on a number of snide, rude and obnoxious remarks against those whose
ministries do not reach the number of souls his does. He has fat jokes, jokes
about proselytizing and etc. While he does not announce the number of people in
attendance at his church he is sure to tell us how many people from his church
go door knocking and how many doors were knocked the previous year, using that
to make his mocking of others seem legitimate.
He also
claims that, though they do not publish the attendance of his church, the vast
majority of people who attend were saved through his church ministry. I would
like to see hard statistics on that.
Marvin McKenzie
In the field
