Heroes of Faith - Billy Sunday



Who is Billy Sunday? He is one of the Heroes of Faith and in this post I will share some interesting things about his life as well as quotes.

Billy Sunday was born on November 19, 1862 in Ames Iowa. Sadly his father William Ashley Sunday died just three days after Billy was born due to pnemonia. Therefore Billy Sunday grew up without his father. Billy began to play baseball for the Chicago White Stockings at the age of 21 years. Things did not go so well as he struck out the first 13 times at bat. Three years later, Billy Sunday came to know the Lord in Chicago through the witnessing of a woman named Mrs Clarke.  At the age of 26 he married the love of his life - Helen Thompson and they had four children though only two survived.
Billy Sunday left his professional baseball career to become an evangelist. He held his first evangelistic service in Iowa in 1886 and he would continue this work for some 40 years. He would invite people to make a decision for Christ and as they came forward make that commitment they would also shake Mr Sunday's hand - they would walk up the "sawdust trail".  He consistantly preached against dancing, gambling and the use of alcohol - calling it "demon rum"  and warned people of the dangers of hell with fire and brimstone type preaching. He kept up with the news of the day hoping to see positive changes but he is quoted as saying "It's just like putting a new frame around an old picture-the picture is unchanged."
Billy Sunday passed away on November 6, 1935 after suffering a heart attack.  Only two weeks earlier, he had preached at the funeral service of a dear long time friend. It is estimated that he preached to 80,000,000 people during his life as an evangelist.
I would like to share twelve of Billy Sunday's notable quotes:
1) Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile
2) The backslider likes the preaching that wouldn't hit the side of a house, while the real disciple is delighted when the truth brings him to his knees.
3) The Bible will always be full of things you cannot understand, as long as you will not live according to those you can understand
4)The reason you don't like the Bible, you old sinner, is because it knows all about you.
5)  Listen, I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot, I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist, I've butt it as long as I've got a head, and I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old, fistless, footless, and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition
6) One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.
7)  Hell is the highest reward the devil can offer you for being a servant of his.
8) The rivers of America will run with blood filled to their banks before we will submit to them taking the Bible out of our schools
9) I believe that a long step toward public morality will have been taken when sins are called by their right names.
10) Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.
11) Try praising your wife, even if it does frighten her at first.
12) I believe the Bible is the word of God from cover to cover.

What a great inspiration it is to read about this hero of faith - Billy Sunday.

Heroes of Faith - John Wesley

Hebrews 12: 1-2 says  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God

I believe that we can learn much from the Heroes of Faith who have gone before us.  John Wesley is just one of those heroes and in this post I want to share a little bit about him. John Wesley was born in England on June 28, 1703 to his parents Samuel and Susanna Wesley. He was the fifteenth child in the family. He is a brother to Charles Wesley who also would be in the group of the Heroes of Faith.

John Wesley spent much time preaching. He was married to a widow named Mary Vazeille when he was 48 years old. The marriage was a heartbreaking one and he had no children. This wife left John Wesley after years of unhappiness and sorrow  in the marriage. This shows us how God uses broken people. God often uses people with hardships in their lives and sends them out to proclaim the gospel. John Wesley travelled on horseback, preaching two or three times a day, preaching some 40,000 sermons during his life as a preacher. John Wesley finished his life strong and when he lay dying on March 2,1791 he said these words: "The best of all is, God is with us."  Then he lifted his arm in victory and he raised his voice and with a loud voice he again spoke the same words -  ‘The best of all is, God is with us"  and so he passed into the presence of the Lord into Heaven.  He died at the age of 88 years.

I want to post ten of John Wesley's well known quotes - many of which have a direct Biblical message bound up with in them:
1)  Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.

2)  Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can

3) By salvation I mean not barely according to the vulgar notion deliverance from hell or going to heaven but a present deliverance from sin a restoration of the soul to its primitive health its original purity a recovery of the divine nature the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness in justice mercy and truth.

4)  Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.

5) Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing

6) When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart.

7) My ground is the Bible. Yea, I am a Bible-bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small.

8) Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.

9) Justifying faith implies, not only a divine evidence or conviction that ''God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself',' but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that He loved me and gave Himself for me.

10) I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor deluded rebels in America”