Welcome to Telegrams From Heaven. Billy Sunday, an early 20th century evangelist, reminds teachers of the influence they have on their students.
We hope you enjoy it. Thanks for dropping by.
Dear All Teachers, Henry Adams said, "A teacher affects eternity, she can never tell where her influence stops." You will never know the distance and depth that your influence has touched the lives of your pupils and friends and family and peers. WB Yeats said, "Education is not the filling of a pot, but the lighting of a fire." You have lit many fires, but in a way that doesn't burn out. In Deuteronomy 32:2 the scripture says, "Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." God recognizes that you have taken his rain and showered it on so many tender souls. He notices. Well done good and faithful servant. Billy Sunday
Is Billy Sunday in Heaven?
Billy Sunday is one of America’s heroes when it comes to evangelizing. According to Christianity Today, “Until Billy Graham, no American evangelist preached to so many millions, or saw as many conversions—an estimated 300,000.”
According to the Christianity Today article, “Ever since his conversion to Christianity at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago in 1886, he had felt an increasingly strong call to preach.”
So, is Billy Sunday in Heaven? If his claims to be a Christian and his lifetime of preaching the gospel to millions for almost five decades were sincere, then Billy Sunday is currently continuing his dedicated service to Jesus Christ in heaven.
Before Sunday became an evangelist, the boy from an impoverished home and sent away with his siblings to an orphans home made a name for himself playing professional baseball in the 1880s and 1890s. He played for the Chicago White Stockings, the Pittsburg Pirates and the Pittsburg Athletics. Then he quit to pursue preaching.
He preached at the YMCA before working with a couple of traveling evangelists, and then setting out on his own preaching revivals.
He worked in partnership with his wife, Helen Amelia Thompson, who helped keep him organized.
His style was simple and straightforward. “I want to preach the gospel so plainly,” he said, “that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.”
Sunday’s sermons were filled with humorous and pointed one-liners. Probably his most famous is both humorous and pointed. “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
Sunday railed against the sins of alcohol, card playing, and many other activities popular in the 1920s. And he promised in strong words his willingness to defeat sin in every way possible.
“I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.”
The website Billy Sunday Online offers a succinct summary of Sunday’s life:
Shortly after being Saved through the outreach of the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, Sunday turned down a $400 per month baseball salary (at a time when the average worker made $480 per year) for a $84 per month ministry position. Ball teams later offered $500/month and even $2000/month, but Sunday remained committed to his ministry for God. Later in life he was offered $1,000,000 to be in the movies, but again declined in order to continue the evangelistic ministry God had called him to. He passed away after a heart attack in 1935 at age 73.
Purpose of Telegrams From Heaven
The “authors” of each Telegram From Heaven are men and women of accomplishment who lived in the ancient or recent past. Each were known for their faith. They are from around the globe, from every walk of life, and their life stories are inspiring and encouraging. We believe these stories offer powerful messages that might help change your life in some small or meaningful way, even if just to improve your walk with God.