Remembering Dr. Bill Bright

       

More and more I have been asked by young Christians this question: “what kind of man was Dr. Bill Bright?” It’s been more than 10 years since he went home to ‘be with the Lord’ so I suppose it’s to be expected that younger Christians would want to inquire of those who knew him and what kind of man he was - this hero of the Christian faith.

His accomplishments are well documented: the founder of the world’s largest ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ with 26,000 full time employees and 225,000 trained volunteers in 181 countries; writer of the four spiritual laws which has been printed in some 200 languages and distributed to 2.5 billion people; commissioned the Jesus film seen by 5.2 billion people in 234 countries and in 786 languages; writer of over 100 books.

Bill Bright is and will always be one of the greatest men of God who ever walked this Earth.

So who was this man and what was it that sparked his genius?  In answering that I will not try to imply I knew him best or completely but I am honored to say I served God under his leadership and was one who he invested part of his life into. I am a disciple of Bill Bright.

Dr. Bright was 5’4-5’5 in height. He was heavy set. He once told me his weight was due to being asked to dinner so often and he never wanted to offend his host by not eating everything set before him. He was a careful and snappy dresser; he appropriately dressed for each occasion often resembling the look of a wealthy tycoon or business magnate from California. I remember once he wore white pants with a blue double breasted sports coat at a conference. He wore Allen Edmonds shoes and told his lieutenants to dress to look successful. Dr. Bright looked like someone of great importance. His manner was one of kindness and professionalism - gracious and relaxed. He was inclusive and wanted to give everyone a chance to express themselves. I remember sitting with him at a banquet table once where one of the guests dominated the discussion to which Dr. Bright took charge to change the dynamics of the discussion. He asked if we could take turns going around the table and asked each of us to share our backgrounds. I never forgot that.  If Dr. Bright had above average intelligence you would never know it as he was not a show-off in anyway. He had no great personal presence of power or inter-dynamic strength as you would think such a great leader would poses, but he did have a radiance of love on and around him that was noticeable. The projection of peace and love was Dr. Bright.

Life was never about Bill Bright. Some describe him as the most humble man they have ever meet. I found him to be completely humble all the years I knew him. Dr. Bright was not interested nor impressed by wealth, yet he did respect the skill and energy it took to amass it.

I meet Dr. Bright through History’s Handful. History’s Handful was one of dozens of ministries started by him - this one was set up for families of wealth to help fund the Great Commission. His premises was that throughout human history the world had been changed though small groups of committed resourced individuals binding themselves to a common goal. Dr. Bright’s goal was funding the Great Commission. His tool of choice was The Jesus Film. History’s Handful was a donor-lead ministry organized by Dave Hannah who had set up Athletes in Action for Dr. Bright. Dave Hannah is one of the best fundraisers of all time. It is reported that History’s Handful raised 784 million. Mr. Hannah told Dr. Bright he needed him to ‘spend some time with his key guys’ - this lead to my personal relationship with Dr. Bright.

Dr. Bright loved Jesus with a love few men could match. When he spoke his favorite subject was The Spirit Filled Life. I think I heard him give that message dozens of times. Even when he spoke about another topic it was really just tack-on for his Spirit Filled Life message which was still the core of the message. Even to the staff, that was his one message. It was his life’s message - ‘’with the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us God Built THIS MINSRTY” he would say.  He didn’t want us to forget that truth, it was and is and will always be through the Holy Spirit great things are done.

One story I must share. Once when History’s Handful had a meeting in Cancun Mexico, Dr. Bright could not attend due to his failing health. The leadership and some top donors meet in a conference room and called Dr. Bright so he could thank us and give his apologies himself. As the call developed one of the top donors said ‘Dr. Bright, we want to thank you for being such an inspirational leader for us and the body of Christ.’ To this Dr. Bright kindly listened, then gave this reply, ‘thank you for saying that, but I cannot receive that for myself. I am just a slave of Jesus Christ. You see, 50 years ago Vonette and I signed a contract with God and gave our lives to him as slaves so anything that we have done, it was due to Him doing it for us; and I know it all came from that contract’. As I listened I said to myself ‘that is it, I want to be a slave of Jesus Christ myself’. After the conference I wrote him a letter telling him that as he spoke I made up my mind to become a slave of Jesus. A few weeks later I received a letter back from him saying that I had found and now shared with him the greatest secret to life, belonging to JESUS AS A SLAVE.

Dr. Bright was a Great Commission man. That was his passion. In fact, he signed all his letters with ‘Yours for fulfilling The Great Commission”. He did this his whole life. He was the first to focus the church to this goal and his faith and focus directed a whole generation to the task. Later when he thought we were close to the goal he changed the way he signed to “Yours for fulfilling the Great Commission in every generation”. Being around him awakened a world-view of missions and a can-do attitude.

Dr. Bright was highly regarded by the church. I attended his funeral and it was a Who’s Who in Christianity. Once, I was asked to broker a meeting between Billy Graham and Dr. Bright (a story for another day); Billy Graham asked me if I could set up the meeting by saying ‘‘I would very much like to meet with my dear friend Bill one more time before we’re gone”. Little did he know it would be Dr. Bright that would be gone first. To my knowledge this was their last personal meeting.

My last meeting with Dr. Bright I will never forget. It was at Arrow Springs California the former headquarters for Campus Crusade. He was very ill and knew he had only a few months to live. He told us he was writing 20 books and filming as many messages on blue screen as strength would allow. After we spoke for 45 minutes he prayed for us a deep and touching prayer ending with his statements of love to Jesus. When I opened my eyes I saw tears running down his cheeks and his eyes will full of tears. Even to his last, Dr. Bright loved Jesus with intimacy and humbleness of heart.

Dr. Bright was an exemplary example of living a life of purity and integrity. He took great pains to be careful never to discredit the trust the Lord and man had given him. I heard him say many times that he told the Lord to kill him before he ever would bring shame on the ministry or his marriage. Dr. Bright loved his wife Vonette with the passion of a newlywed and he treated her with reverent respect. He always gave her full credit as a co-founder of Campus Crusade.

Lastly, Bill Bright was a man known most of all for his amazing faith. He counted on God for everything and the most astonishing things anyone has ever asked of God. He was an evangelist and had the gift of evangelism as strong as I have ever known it with anyone. He was a man of great vision and trusted God to take care of the little things. He would say, “its God’s ministry” and “I am less than a flea so God will have to do it”. To sum up the life, accomplishments and person of Dr. Bill Bright would be to simply say, He HAD A GREAT GOD.

Tying a bow on Human History

By Daniel J. Arnold

Bethel - The House of God

During the second week of April, four buddies and I went to Israel with our Bibles and an Israeli tour guide/driver. Unlike the usual tours, we made our own plans and went to the sites of our choice during our trip.

There were two sites I had not been able to get to on my previous six trips to Israel and they were heavy on my heart to visit — Shiloh and Bethel. I spent four weeks convincing our guide we must visit both sites on this trip. His hesitation was due to the fact both sites are located in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.

Bethel is an indescribably beautiful place that emits an overwhelming sense of importance.

This is where Abraham meet with God twice, it was the land “He would show him” and where God spoke to Him the promise:

“Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6) He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” (Genesis 15:7) Here God made a covenant with Abraham.

It was at Bethel that Jacob had his dream of a ladder or stairway to heaven and later returned to build an altar (Genesis 35:9-15). It was here that he was given the new name of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant was kept under the care of the grandson of Aaron at Bethel. Samuel held a court of justice here. It was here that Joshua led the Jews in the second battle coming into the promise land. This was and is an important place.

From its hilltop location one can see The Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem, the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We were in awe.  Coming together,  I recounted to the group how Jesus spoke of himself being the stairway between heaven and earth in John 1:15, ”I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.” (NLT)

I went on to share one of Tim Keller’s teachings in which he remarked that in Matthew 13:31-32 the mustard seed that becomes the largest of all trees is a reference to what is called axis mundi.

Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field (the Axis mundi). It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”  Bethel is where Jacob saw the axis mundi, the "Navel of the world.”¹

From Wikipedia:

The axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, columna cerului, center of the world, world tree), in religion or mythology, is the world center or the connection between Heaven and Earth. As the celestial pole and geographic pole, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet.^{[citation needed]} At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms.^[1] Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all.^[2] The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.^[3][4]

The image is mostly viewed as feminine, as it relates to center of the earth (perhaps like an umbilical providing nourishment). It may have the form of a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or a product of human manufacture (a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious.

Reflecting on the implications of Jesus’ words and Jacob’s dream while we were gazing out on the same vista as Abraham had when the promise was given, it occurred to me that we are the believers and inheritors of the promise given to Abraham and his sons and followers of Jesus, the true ladder to heaven. We were also some of a very few in human history who could testify that the Kingdom, the mustard seed, has grown to the very heights of heaven. The Heights of heaven, the end of time, the end of history, when the tree has fully come fully grown and mature touching the heavens were the prophecy and pouring out of God’s spirit spoken of by the Prophet Joel was obtained. It had come to pass on us in this generation.

With all this rushing through my mind, I felt the strong need to pray - recognizing and testifying to Heaven that God has done it! From promises spoken to Abraham to the prophetic dream of Jacob seeing the coming of Jesus, to the Jewish people being gathered from the ends of the earth to form a Nation now called Israel with its capital Jerusalem (the city of David and location of the Temple), all has come to pass.

I prayed, thanking God for each of these things. I realized that we alone, in this generation and on this date, knew it had come to pass. All others only believed God that He would do it. I was struck with the thought that, as believers in Jesus, we were some of His heirs, we were some of the stars promised that night to Abraham. We all felt that we were very blessed to be able to come to Bethel and acknowledge, on record of prayer, God’s faithfulness and completion of these promises and prophecies.

As we walked back to our van we saw a Dutch tour group leader speaking to his group. After greeting them,  the leader asked us why were had come to Bethel. He was very surprised when I told him I felt the Spirit of God calling me here for the last few years. He then looked over to his group and said “I have lived in Israel for 26 years and only two years ago I found this place Bethel and understood it’s supreme importance  to God’s latter days prophetic fulfillment. I have since come here every week.”

He then showed us a Google image of the area we were standing on. He said, “If you turn it from north facing to east, look what is written into the hills.” Our Israeli tour guide, who reads Hebrew, leaned over to see what was on the paper and then exclaimed ‘God’s Name!’  God had written His name on the place we were standing.

Our new friend then said, “I knew in my spirit God would begin to call others here also to, like me, give witness to His fulfillment of all He promised here to his servants.”

From here we went to Shiloh and stood over the place where the ark sat and the Glory rested for hundreds of years. We could look up to the city Judas was from and know God had won - the glory of His presence was now in us as He had intended.

When I was I child I used to watch my mother sew. When her sewing was done she would tie a knot at the end of the thread. I felt God, having finished his sewing that He began here with Abraham, was tying a knot with our visit and prayer. I HAVE DONE IT, AS I SAID I WOULD. How many more He would call to same this place to give that witness I could not know. But it was enough to know he had begun.

Passover and the Blood Moons

April 14, during our visit to Israel, Passover began and not just any Passover in Israel but this one was under a blood moon. Why is this important? The Bible clearly states there will be an increase of signs in the heavens and nations in the last days. Yes, but what fascinates me is that the signs are falling on the key Jewish days of Passover and Tabernacles four times with a full solar eclipse on Moesds (New Year’s Dates).

Blood Moons

• ·         April 15, 2014 Passover & October 8, 2014 Tabernacles
• ·         April 4, 2015 Passover & September 28, 2015 Tabernacles
• ·         Solar Eclipse on Moeds in 2015
• ·         March 20, 2015 & September 13, 2015

The last time that happened, a tetrad of four blood moons, something really big happened in Jewish history.

•      1492 The Alhambra Decree expelling 200,000 Jews from Spain and Christopher Columbus finding the new world.
• ·         1948 Founding of the State of Israel
• ·         1967 The Six-day war

The Bible includes three mentions of blood moons:

I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Joel 2:30-31, NIV)

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. (Acts 2:20, NIV)

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, (Revelation 6:12, NIV)

These signs may have escaped the attention of some but I can tell you the Jewish Rabbis are all a buzz about them.

We also need to watch the signs in the nations. Ezekiel 38-39 warns of an alliance between Russia and Iran. Turmoil in Egypt has my attention because I believe they have a promise in Isaiah 19:25, “Blessed be Egypt, my people”. And our ‘fig tree’ Israel (see Matt 24:3-33) because it now seems like the time of 1 Thessalonians 5:3 “For when they shall say, peace and safety; then shall sudden destruction upon them.”

It is good to reread Zechariah 12:1-3 to remind us what was prophesied concerning Israel before anyone believed it could ever become a nation again.

A prophecy: The word of the Lord concerning Israel. The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: ² “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. ³ On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.

The heavens are God’s billboards. We are in a period where God is clearly speaking to planet earth and the Jewish people. Rabbi’s say a blood moon is a foreboding warning to Israel; the full solar eclipse is a warning to the world. The New York Times Bestseller list has a book on it by John Hagee, an important voice in the prophetic church, called Four Blood Moons. Something is About to Change.

Tying a knot on Human History

I am not one to be an alarmist but I do respect statistics that show those who are most aware and react quickly are most likely to survive a plane crash or a burning theater.  Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14).  However, it is sobering each time I have heard reports of dreams and near death encounters in which Jesus is said to instruct earnestly to tell and warn the church “I am returning VERY soon.”

It is also worth noting that last fall the message given throughout the prophetic church was “GLORY”.

One was very clear. Billye Brim said the Lord had given her this word, “In 2014 the church must don GLORY.” This would be the clearest sign to me that the Lord was tying a knot on the sewing of human history as He will be returning for a Glorious church and bride. Ephesians 5:25-27 “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault”.

When will be THE SECOD COMING OF JESUS? It’s when there is a Glorious Church.

If judgment is to begin, it will begin with righting the church. Be expecting the Glory of the Lord to show up this year. Do a study on the word ‘glory’ and print it out reading it over and over during your devotion time. I now hear daily of incredible results God’s servants are achieving that were unthinkable a few years ago –is this not glorious? 

The bottom line of this blog is that my visit to Israel and other items mentioned, causes me to reconsider everything and acknowledge that we may not know the hour of Jesus return but we are to be watching the signs. The signs are everywhere and I simply want to warn myself and you HIS RETURN COULD BE VERY SOON; much sooner than any of us have been thinking. “Your Savior standing ready, right at the door.”

We may be witnessing the tying up of loose strings and the tying of a bow on human history.  As the song goes ‘’He steps back into time and Earth and says gentlemen, that is quite enough’’.