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SEVENTY YEARS ARE JUST THE BEGINNING! #4

PREACHING ABOUT ORANGES AND COOKIES

When you go on the air to be a radio preacher, and then you and your relatives stay ON the air for exactly 70 years and two days — which is where the Voice of Prophecy is at the present moment on this Thursday — people are bound to ask you: "Brother Richards, what in the world is there to preach about for 70 years and two days?" That's getting close to old Noah's record, who preached about the flood for 120 years, so we're more than halfway there.

Well, friend, according to my dad's old diary, what we've done for sermon material is to start out with oranges and then proceed from there. And you say, "Oranges?" That's right. In his biography about Dad, Bob Edwards tells about my father's first sermon, which happened when he was really just a toddler of four. This was clear back in 1898, and Dad had been taken to St. Joseph, Missouri, to go to the funeral of his great-grandmother Sylvester. In the living room of the old homestead there was a big bowl of oranges. Beautiful, ripe, delicious oranges . . . except that no one would let little Harold have one. Well, he began to PREACH about oranges. More specifically about the wonders of the New Jerusalem: the streets of gold, the jewels, the treasures, the food. How wonderful it would be, with the Tree of Life and all the "oringins." Lots and lots of "oringins." This great tree would have "oringins" on it all the time; they would NEVER be out of season. And little boys, he probably said in his conclusion, would be freely invited to partake, to eat "oringins" until their tummies exploded. Well, as Bob tells the story, that first sermon by Pastor Richards must have been a success, because when it was over somebody gave him all the oranges!

And you know, I'm glad to say that since that first sermon, the Voice of Prophecy ministry has found other things, too, to share with you on the radio. Heaven's oranges, and a whole lot more.

There's a priceless anecdote going back many years where Dad and the quartet were heading out of Chicago at four in the morning. Back in those days they all drove together in an old Chrysler limousine which comfortably seated all six men. All at once, in the dead of night, police lights! Had they been speeding? Bob Edwards was driving, so he was on the hot seat when the officer poked his flashlight in the window. After aiming the beam at all six men in the car, he muttered to himself: "Huh. A bunch of Seventh-day Adventist preachers." "What?! How'd you know that?" Bob wanted to know. And the cop said to him, "My wife's an Adventist. Where else would I find a car with six men and not a trace of cigarette smoke?" Turns out there'd been a bank robbery scare in downtown Chicago, and so a long Mafia-looking limo was a prime target.

Well, friend, I tell that limousine story because my dad put in literally thousands of READING hours in that old, vintage black car. One of the things that made him a success in radio ministry work was that he was able to preach about common things like oranges. Those who knew him — family, friends, the quartet members who rode around with him — knew what a reader he was. Pastor Richards read his Bible through every year — just in January. The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, every single January. Then during the 11 remaining months, he'd read it again, more leisurely, more carefully and with deep study and thought. That's a good habit, isn't it?

Now Dad also read Time magazine. And Newsweek. And the Los Angeles Times. And many, many books every year. He was a voracious reader. He read Shakespeare and Milton and most of the other great poets, and often liked to end his sermons with a bit of rhyme. "A minister is really a poet," he told us once. But the Bible was his main textbook. He would sit there in the front passenger seat with the Word of God right in front of him, squinting with his one half-good eye and just read and read and read the Bible. And he told many of us this: "The Bible is a vast and infinite source of sermons." I guess he proved that in his radio career, didn't he? "If you become a Bible preacher," he said, "you are NEVER out of sermon material."

And you know, friend, I found that to be the truth too. We have a Sunday broadcast — that's 52 talks a year. And on our daily radio program, running Monday through Friday, that comes to 260 messages. But my old dad would sometimes tell his associates, "As you read your Bibles, sermons will JUMP OUT at you saying, ‘Preach ME! Preach ME!'" In fact, he would take out a pen or pencil and just write the three letters, S - E - R, short for "sermon," next to a great text that had jumped out and hit him on the head. As soon as he could, he would do a U-turn and go back and prepare a sermon on that new verse. In fact, he told us, "I'll never live long enough to preach all these sermons." And he was right. When he passed away at the age of 90, there were still some unfulfilled "S.E.R."s in his old Bible. Hopefully Lonnie and I have covered a few of them, but friend, this old Book called "Holy Bible" is such a treasure.

That's why we kind of put as our anniversary title for this week, SEVENTY YEARS ARE JUST THE BEGINNING. Here in October of 1999, we're not running dry. No way. The Word of God isn't an exhausted resource. Until Jesus comes, there's a limitless supply of good news found in this old book. And we'll be right here; I hope you will be too.

I think there's another thing which gave this ministry a 70-year legacy on these airwaves. Because our wise Father in heaven gave Dad and those helping him the discernment necessary to make sure that it was this Book called the Bible — and ONLY the Bible — that had AUTHORITY for our lives. Sure, Dad preached about oranges and got illustrations from the L.A. Times. He read great books by great people. He heard sermons from other pastors — good men from many denominations — and borrowed their best material. But only the Word of God was an AUTHORITATIVE source. When a very young Bob Edwards was first helping us to prepare some of our radio sermons, it would sometimes be a temptation to turn to a good paragraph or inspired essay from a great church leader, maybe from one of our faithful Adventist pioneers. Well, there's nothing wrong with doing that. But Dad advised Bob like this: "Never put anything on the air you cannot defend FROM THE BIBLE." These sermons had to stand SOLELY on the Word of God. If we made a point, or suggested a doctrinal interpretation, we had to be able to turn to one of the 66 books in the Bible and say, "Here's where you find this truth." That was good counsel, wasn't it?

But let me share right from my heart one additional safeguard. Because I could read my Bible, and then come here on the radio and make mistakes in my preaching. In fact, I'm sure I've done that. I don't mean to, but I'm human. Dad was human; his reasoning was that of a mere man. During the days of World War II, my own father, here behind this microphone, made some prophetic assumptions regarding Asian countries like Japan and China. Pearl Harbor was right around the corner, you see. And in his study, my father thought he could correctly apply some of Daniel's prophetic warnings to those nations. Well, friend, time has gone by, and we can look back now from the safe window of 1999 and see where things didn't go as predicted. And the point is clear: you and I, even reading our Bibles, might be wrong. We might make mistakes.

But the wonderful news is this: WE STILL HAVE JESUS! And for 70 years and two days now, we've been inviting YOU to join US in just seeking and accepting Jesus as our Savior and Friend. Listen, if you have Jesus, then you have it all. You might still make mistakes, you might sin, you might stumble and fall. You might even draw a prophecy chart that has a line or a date in the wrong place. Dad did that; bless his heart. But friend, HE HAD JESUS. In fact, later in his life, people would come up to him with their charts and their one-man interpretations of this or that hard Bible verse and ask him, "Brother Richards, what's the message?" Do you know what he told them? "Jesus only." That was it: "Jesus only."

And friend, the main purpose of the Bible IS to lead us TO . . . Jesus. Christ Himself said that, John chapter five, to the great Bible students and prophecy experts of His own day.

"You diligently study the Scriptures," He told them, "because you think that by THEM you possess eternal life." Then He adds this: "These are the Scriptures that testify about ME!"

And you know, friend, that's such a beautiful and simple message. "Jesus only!" Dad once used an interesting metaphor: "‘Feed My sheep,'" Jesus said, "not ‘Feed My giraffes.' I believe in putting the cookies on the lower shelf where even a child can get them."

So friend, after 70 years and two days here on the Voice of Prophecy, we've gone from oranges to cookies. And do you know something? I hope you're getting kind of hungry.