Dr. Falwell, speaker to Liberty University student body, faculty and staff
Convocation in Vines Center – January 25, 2006
A little earlier before we came on the platform this morning, I asked Dr. Elmer Towns, who is seated here, “Elmer, when we co-founded Liberty University® thirty-five years ago, did you ever envision this?” He said, “No way!” God has done exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask or think. And then as Meredith was singing, I asked Dr. Towns how many Liberty graduates are now pastors somewhere out there? He is the Dean of the School of Religion and he is writing a book right now on the 100 Largest Liberty Churches, that is churches pastored by Liberty graduates. He said the number is somewhere around 10,000. I thought of what Dr. Terry Faulkenbury just did a moment ago on behalf of the church he pastors, West Cabburs Baptist Church in Concord, NC, endowing a Chair of Church Planting for Dr. Ergun Caner and the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary with $1 million, and I thought to myself: ten thousand pastors times $1 million is $10 billion. That would greatly endow the entire University. And I say that realizing we’re on live television and hoping that all 10,000 are listening. Thank you, Dr. Faulkenbury. God bless, you good friend.
Priorities, Principles, and Purpose:
These are three powerful words, especially for young men and young ladies who have given their hearts and lives to the Lord and have said, “Here am I, Lord, use me.” Priorities, you have got to have priorities in your life. In proper order. Principles. Your life must be built upon principles and purpose, you must have a vision of what it is God wants to do through you.
First priorities, Matthew 6:33 in the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Seek ye first that is the first priority, the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
The next word is principles, Proverbs 14:34: “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people (KJV).” A paraphrase of that same verse says it this way, “Living by God’s principles promotes a nation to greatness, violating those principles brings a nation to shame.” You can easily reduce that to the personal level, if in fact living by God’s principles promotes a nation to greatness, it is fair to say that living by God’s principles promotes a person, an individual to greatness.
And then the word purpose. Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
On Monday of this week, President Bush spoke to 9,000 persons in Manhattan, KS, in the field house of Kansas State University. He was there addressing the Iraqi war and other issues like the Patriot Act and the necessity of being able to eavesdrop on al-Qaeda terrorists as they telephone Americans inside the U.S. (something I greatly support) and after he had brought his message there was a question and answer period. Someone asked the question, “Mr. President, how can you sustain yourself in the midst of all the vitriolic assaults that come your way everyday as the President of the United States?” His answer was simple and profound, “Three words, Faith, Family, and Friends.” And how true that is for you and me. Faith, family, and friends, that is how we are all sustained.
When asked by young people often to tell them how to establish good priorities in life I make it very simple; it is God, it is family, and our work/ ministry in that order. Our relationship to God, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Our relationship to family, my first obligation is to my wife who last night spent the evening all night sitting with her 73-year-old sister who is critically ill. For 48 years my wife (under God), my number two priority in life. And then our children and their spouses and our grandchildren. And then my work, for me it happens to be as a pastor and a Christian educator, my ministry. But always in that order.
Why am I saying what I am saying? I want you to start this New Year aware that you lose in life a great deal more times than you win; you spend far more days in the valley than you do on the mountain top. So, you have got to learn while a creature of crisis to be a creature of dependence also. Whether you know it or not you are totally dependant for your very existence, for your life, your very existence, your one heartbeat, from eternity. The prosperity theology preachers are all very wrong. God has not promised us health and wealth. God instead has promised His sufficiency as we go on through life amidst pain and sorrow and death. Job 14:1: “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” Get that young people because the fact that you are having a tough time right now is not unique to you.
There are only three kinds of people in the world: those who are in trouble right now or freshly out of trouble or those who receive a dreaded phone call later today, because man who is born of woman is a few days and full of troubles. My premise in this message is to teach you not how to get out of trouble, but how to live in trouble. Not how to get rid of hardships, heartaches, problems, and difficulties, but how to overcome amidst them all.
Then my purpose in this message, since you and I are destined to spend much of our lives down in the valley and not up on the mountain tops, I want to instruct you on how to live successfully this year and all the years ahead, in the midst of your never ending troubles, pressures, and problems. We must learn that God is not nearly as interested in getting us out of trouble as He is in sustaining us and blessing us and providing all our needs while we are in trouble! And more than that, He wants you to learn how to bear the maximum fruit while you are in the maximum crisis. Some of God’s choicest servants, like Paul who wrote some of his greatest epistles from prison cells, some of God’s greatest preachers have been burned at the stake, stoned to death, or have died penniless, who have little of this world’s goods.
Bad Health. Fanny Crosby the great hymn writer, 1,200 or more great hymns and made the hymn books and yet blind for almost all of her life, from infancy by a happening beyond her control. A victim of a quack doctor. And that can be said of thousands of others. And so if you happen to have bad health, or you don’t have a good home life back home—your family, your home is all dysfunctional—or you’re having a tough time with loneliness, and those 700 of you that just got here last week, it is a culture shock for you and you’re hurting all over, it’s so important you understand that God is with you, and that God wants you to learn how to make it no matter how much it hurts.
Three of my favorite verses in the Bible, Philippians 4:11-13. I read this last week to you. “Not that I speak in respect of want,” Paul said, “for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” And here’s the bottom line: “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengtheth me.”
Sir Winston Churchill said, “Success in life is often nothing more than going from one failure to the next with undiminished enthusiasm.” It is learning how to lose victoriously. It’s learning how to fall on your face without giving up and quitting. It’s learning how to be put down, to be the rejected one, and at the same time to preserve and win.
Let me give God’s promise to you while walking through the valley God has a promise to all of us while we walk through today’s valley, tomorrow’s valley and all the valley’s ahead. That promise is found in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, and Paul said: “And lest I should be exalted above measure (lest I should become cocky) through the abundance of the revelations (he was actually allowed into Heaven and to see things he couldn’t talk about), there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I sought the Lord thrice, three times I prayed that it might depart from me (we call this his thorn in the flesh) and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.” Another way of saying “no,” you’re going to keep that thorn in the flesh. “For my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Now listen to this. “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities” Do you? Do I? I take pleasure in infirmities. “In sickness, reproaches, in put-downs, in necessities, in persecutions, mistreatment, in distresses, emergencies and crises, for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, in my own strength, then am I strong in the indwelling strength of God’s Holy Spirit.”
Now that is a lesson you must learn. Priorities, principles and purpose. There’s nobody in the world, not your mother and father, not your pastor, not your best friends, who can keep you out of hardship and keep you out of hurt, and keep you out of rejection, and out of loneliness and pain and bad health. Only God can keep you while you are in all those things. You must seek Him and reach out to Him for His sufficiency.
Now notice God’s standard for biblical brinkmanship. I speak of biblical brinkmanship as walking on the edge every day of your life, stepping in the water and believing that God will roll it back. And if He doesn’t, it’s all a loss, you drown. When they went across the Red Sea, when they went across into the Promised Land, when they had to go across Jordan . . . All of that was with the obedience and the belief in the promise of God who said, “I will supply your every need. I will supply your every need.”
Biblical brinkmanship is walking on the edge every day of your life, where everything you have gained can be lost in a heartbeat. Where everything you have done heretofore can go down the drain in one bad decision. Living by faith. I repeat Philippians 4:13, this time from the Living Bible: “For I can do everything God asks me to do with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.”
We have a Chancellor’s meeting every two weeks upstairs in this building, where all the vice presidents, administrators, leaders and coaches all meet with the Chancellor to talk about where we are, to pray together, to challenge one another and then to cast the vision. This morning we were talking about things that God has done for us in recent days. Some that I can talk about, some that at this moment I cannot talk about but will in the next few weeks to you. Exciting things that are going on. But I told about meeting with General Dave Young and Anthony Beckles and our administrative people. My son, Jerry Jr., the Vice Chancellor. And looking at the financial position of the University at this moment, we’re now half way through our thirty-fifth year. We started with 154 students and 4 faculty. None of us, as I said earlier, not Dr. Towns and I, no one dreamed what God would do. I go back 50 years and think of that first Sunday where with 35 people I was 22 years of age and we founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church here in Lynchburg. We founded it in the Mountainview Elementary School where I spent the first 7 years of my school life, grades 1 through 7. And we had 35 people there that Sunday morning, June 21 1956. We had a few people saved, 2 or 3, we had $135 offering. Today, we must have over $200 million annually in the entire ministry to just meet our needs. Ten years from now that number will be $500 million annually. And we talked about today, how that as we look towards June 30th, the end of our fiscal year, we’re projecting a substantial bottom line which enables us to build and allow bricks and mortar expansion and endowments, and so forth and so on. And all of that is because that verse, “I can do everything God asks me to do with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.” We had to pray and trust Him all the way.
Some of you young people are staying in school by the skin of your teeth, I mean trusting God for everything. Academically, financially. And there are days when you wonder, “Can I be here next semester?” Let me challenge you, never, never, never quit. Trust God. Get alone with God. Get out somewhere, just you and the Lord and anguish before Him in prayer, seeking His face. Don’t learn the habit of quitting this early in life. Put your hand to the plow and press on. It will amaze you what God will do for you. What God will do for you when you could never believe it could happen. God’s standard is consistent, God’s standard in biblical brinkmanship and walking the edge is consistent performance in total obedience to all His commands. God demands results and not excuses. We are limited. You are limited in your service for Christ only to the degree that you are unwilling to trust God and unwilling to work hard.
Your limitations are only based on two things: Your unwillingness to trust God and your unwillingness to go the extra mile in hard work. God can do it through you. Walking the edge we all are, just don’t fall off. Trust God and stay in.
Let me give you two vintage Falwell maxims, that for 35 years I’ve been quoting to our students here. The first one:
1. You don’t determine your greatness by your talent or wealth as the world does, but rather by what it takes to discourage you and make you quit. That’s how great you are. You’re only as great as what it takes to make you quit.
2. The second one is we are continually faced with glorious opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. The most monumental obstacles, the huge barriers between us and victory can be stepping stones or they can be stumbling blocks. And whatever it is that Satan is using, the world is using to stop you, to retard your spiritual development and growth, don’t accept it. I can do everything God asks me to do with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and the power. Nothing is too hard for the Lord.
Now here are some basic principles. I’m talking about priorities, principles and purpose. Here are some basic principles of Christian service. These are things you need to learn right now. The 700 of you who are brand new students, begin internalizing these principles. Those of you who are professors of this University and who like me, you have been a Christian for decades, learn from and apply freshly these principles.
Number one, the life of faith which pleases God is lived on the dangerous, often lonely, and always painful edge. The Christian life is not easy. Whoever told you that misled you. The Christian life is not easy. It’s the only life worth living. If there were no Heaven and no Hell, if this life were all there is, I would still rather be a Christian than anything the world has to offer. But the Christian life is not easy. I’m glad for the retirement benefit. I’m glad for Heaven, a real Heaven, where real people spend a real eternity. But right now my interest is not Heaven. I’m not homesick for Heaven. If I get sick I call every doctor I know and ask advice. I’ve got things I want to do. I’m telling the Lord I need 15 years right now to reach our BHAG, our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of 25,000 students here on the campus, among other things. I need 15 more years for that. And I will be 87 if God grants that, but I want to tell you ahead of time the Lord already knows it that I’m asking for an additional 15 years, with an option to renew. I don’t plan 15 years from now to say “Thank you” and step out gracefully. I’ll be holding on to the willows then, and wanting to stay a little longer. As long as I am physically and mentally able to perform, I want to stay here and try to reach this whole world for Christ. That’s the heartache I have, the burden I have. So the life of faith which pleases God, is lived on the dangerous, often lonely and always painful edge.
I told you my wife spent the night at Lynchburg General Hospital with her very critically ill sister. Our daughter Jeannie who is a surgeon in Richmond came up from Richmond to be with her mother, and she spent the night also there. Leaving her 8-year-old son, Paul, my grandson, and her poodle dog at my house. I’m not very good at those kinds of things and I got ready to go to bed at midnight to get ready for today. I have little Paul on a little pallet right beside my bed because he wanted to be in the room with Poppy, and that blooming dog jumps up on my pillow and puts his nose against my nose and wants to talk. I don’t have any interest in talking to dogs at midnight. I said, “Be quiet now, get on with your master but don’t bug me.” He didn’t for a while but about 3 o’clock this morning he’s scratching on my head, running to the door and scratching on my head, and I interpreted that as he needed to go outside. So I took him outside and he went out on the front porch and looked back through the glass door and didn’t do anything. Came back in the house. I had strong feelings about that. But I took him back upstairs and he was smart enough not to sleep the rest of the night on my bed, but on my grandson’s bed. And then this morning about 6:00 I had to hit the floor and get busy, I had a very busy day.
I’m simply telling you that to say that I’m 72-years old. I don’t take any days off. I know all of my preacher friends have to take 2 days off and have a sabbatical every other year for 3 months and retire when they’re 65. That’s why they never get a blooming thing done. They’re just thinking about rest, retirement and Social Security. I’m not interested in any of that stuff. I want to find the crowd that’s working, doing something, and maybe hurting along the way but at the end of every day they look back and see that God did something special today.
Now then, number two: Our threshold of pain must be raised dramatically. I always love athletes who play hurt. I don’t have much sympathy for cry babies and “coach take me out, my leg’s hurting, my arm’s hurting.” In high school we played offense and defense, I was safety on defense and I was fullback on offense. My senior year I never came out one play. If you told the coach you needed to come out, you better have a medical statement from a doctor somewhere because you might not ever get back in again. So hurting or not hurting you pretend you’re okay. The Christian life is that way. Don’t be a cry baby in pouting and self pity all the time. Get up off of it and go do it and if you’re hurting so what. Tell the Lord about it and nobody else.
Number three, we must learn the art of spiritual brinkmanship I talked about earlier. Learn to trust God and walk on the edge.
Number four, we must learn this spiritual art without becoming weary in well doing and victimized by burnout. I had never heard that word burnout until recent years. I went through high school, college and pastored a church for years before I heard about burnout. I meet a lot of people who are burnt out. They’re not burnt out; most of them are just lazy, trifling. They want to quit, they want somebody to wait on them. Get up off of it and go do it! Learn to do the workload without becoming weary in well doing.
Number five; there are no rest stops on the King’s highway. There are no rest stops. “If I could just take a year off . . . ” You can’t do that. Do it in Heaven. You’ll have lots of time in Heaven. Right now you’ve got 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 maybe 80 or 90 years. I was sitting in the hospital room yesterday with my sister-in-law, there was an 82-year-old man there and he’s doing great, and a choir member up in West Virginia at his church and a soul winner and those kinds of people motivate me. He’s a layman, on fire for the Lord.
Life is unfair, number six, but God is always reasonable. Life is unfair but God is always reasonable. First Corinthians 10:13, the Living Bible: “But remember this,” Paul said, “the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problem before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. For he has promised this and he will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.”
Number seven. There is no acceptable excuse for quitting, none. If you learn to quit now and go back home to Momma, you’ll be a quitter the rest of your life. Determine unto God, “I will not quit.” Luke 9:62: “Jesus said unto him, no man, and no woman having put his or her hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” No quitters.
Let me give you some reasons why there is no excuse for quitting.
First of all, age is no excuse. You are never too young, you are never too old.
Physical weariness is no excuse for quitting. Everybody gets tired.
Financial limitation is no excuse. Everybody is broke every now and then, or as been. That means nothing. When I started Thomas Road Church, I was the only staff member. They paid me $65 a week, I led the choir (they didn’t know any better and it was alright), I was the pastor, I was the secretary, and I was the janitor. Sixty-five dollars a week. I knocked on a 100 doors six days a week and we went from 35 the first day to 864 the first anniversary. You don’t have to have money; you don’t need a big staff, that comes later.
Pressure is no excuse and fear is no excuse. Second Timothy 1:7: “God hath not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.” I read this in Oswald Chambers yesterday, “When we are in fear we can do nothing less than pray to God, but our Lord has the right to expect that those who name His name should have an understanding confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the reliable ones.” I want to be one of the reliable ones.
Robert Merrick McShane, died before he was thirty, said “What a man is, he is alone on his knees before God and no more.” The Bible teaches us to conquer anger with love, bitterness with forgiveness, despair with hope, depression with encouragement, rejection with acceptance, suffering with comfort, temptation with resistance, and worry with confidence. Young people, develop priorities, principles, and purpose, get on course and spend your life doing the will of God.
Let us pray: Our heavenly Father, I ask that you would work diligently in every heart of every person listening to my voice, especially these young people at Liberty University. And I ask you, Father, not to allow one loser in the crowd, not to allow one quitter in the crowd, but to raise up giants, men, women, and young people, who will do your bidding and who will never quit and who will develop biblical priorities and biblical principles and biblical purpose. And one day on the other side, hear You say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I pray this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God. Please contact me at http://home.trbc.org/ and tell us about your salvation experience so that we can rejoice with you.
