Stuart Hamblen was a skirt chasing, boozing, fighting, cowboy radio star in Los Angeles. He heard of the Billy Graham stir around L.A. and wanted him on his show. He attended the tent meeting one night and he thought Graham called him a fake during his message! Hamblen stomped out and two nights later he appeared at Graham’s hotel door at 4:00 a.m. drunk as a skunk. He wanted Graham to pray for him. About 5:00 p.m. he trusted Christ. His life was changed immediately. He stopped his wild, hedonist living and soon the Hollywood crowd began to shun him. He was fired from his popular radio show because he refused to accept a beer commercial. Wow, a man of principle!

John, one of his old Hollywood drinking buddies, asked him one day if “getting religion” was worth all the repercussions and Stuart told him it was. John said, “But Stuart you sure liked your booze, don’t you miss it?” He told him that he did not miss it and John said, “I don’t understand how you could give it up so easily.” Stuart replied, “It’s no secret what God can do.” His friend replied, “That’s a catchy phrase. You should write a song about it.” He did. Stu went home sat down at the piano and finished the song in 17 minutes. His new gospel song, “It is no secret what God can do” was the first song to cross over from Gospel to country to pop ballad reaching number one on all three charts!

His drinking buddy was John Wayne with whom he appeared in some of his ten movies where he had minor roles.

Hamblen wrote other Christian songs and “This Old House” written for his friend Rosemary Clooney was a big hit. It went to number two on the country field chart and remained there for 30 weeks! It was also named the “Song of the Year.” Most people totally missed the message.

When publisher William Randolph Hearst heard about some of the Hollywood crowd trusting Christ and getting involved, he sent a telegram to every editor in his newspaper syndicate: “Puff Graham.” Thus, began a wild ride for a lifetime of a preacher and the media, a media that never writes a critical word about him.

Hearst’s sons told Graham that their father attended the tent revival in disguise, in a wheelchair accompanied by his mistress, actress Marion Davies. Because of Hearst’s promotion of the meeting, it was extended five weeks. Hearst had promoted Evangelist Billy Sunday and Mary Baker Patterson Eddy in earlier years!

Other stars impacted by Graham’s meeting included the beautiful, brassy, buxom Jane Russell, Dennis Morgan, Virginia Mayo, Porter Hall, Connie Haines, Michael O’Shea, Roy Rogers, and Dale Evans.

Another “star” walked the sawdust trail: Jim Vaus, Jr., infamous wiretapper for the number one mobster in L.A., Mickey Cohen! Cohen was uneducated but coy, violent, and street smart. Wow, things were getting interesting in the old tent. Jim was an electronic genius and worked surreptitiously (and illegally) for the L.A. Police procuring evidence to convict prostitutes and crooks; later spying on Mickey Cohen. Jim discovered there was more money working for Cohen than the cops so he decided to go full time with crime.

Cohen collected celebrities like others collect baseball cards. Bob Mitchem, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and many other stars kissed his ring. Among his girlfriends were Candy Barr, Tempest Storm, and Beverly Hills. I think those were pseudonyms.

Cohen was a street thug with a second grade education from New York. He was in a reform school at age ten and ran from home at 15. At nine he was delivering illegal booze made by his brothers in a Brooklyn drug store. He worked the rackets in Cleveland and Chicago (with Al Capone, his idol) ending up working for Bugsy Siegel in Las Vegas. Siegel had been the crime boss in L.A. but moved to Vegas to build and operate the Flamingo Hotel, anticipating the gambling tsunami that was sweeping the nation. Siegel was skimming money from the New York bosses and mismanaging the Flamingo so the mob assassinated him at his girlfriend’s apartment.

After Siegel’s murder in 1947, Cohen consolidated his hold on crime in L.A. Somehow he discovered that Vaus had bugged his house for the L.A. police but he didn’t kill him; he hired him to spy on the cops!

But Jim had been converted, not simply signing a decision card; and Graham hired him and asked him to set up a meeting with Cohen. They met at Mickey’s Brentwood home for five hours. There is no doubt that each man “played” the other. Graham knew the results if he won the number one L.A. mobster to Christ and Cohen liked being identified with this newly famous preacher. Both men revealed their relationship to the public, Cohen even stated that he and Graham were going to vacation together at a Tucson dude ranch.

It didn’t hurt Cohen’s reputation to be identified with Graham since Cohen was about to go to prison for five years for income tax evasion. Only God knows how serious Cohen was considering becoming a Christian but he was reluctant to reject his Jewish roots to become a Southern Baptist! That’s a massive leap–which he should have made in my opinion.

Graham refused to let go of the relationship even stating, “Mickey Cohen is not as bad as America thinks,” and added “I am praying that after he pays his debt to society he will give his heart and life to Christ. He has the makings of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time, and I mean that.” (Billy said about the same about Bill Clinton.) Informed people knew that Cohen was a loveable killer, thief, and general mobster who had been the object of eleven assassination attempts by other mobsters. Cohen told Mike Wallace on ABC that he had never killed anyone who didn’t deserve killing!

Some highly visible Christians pressed Cohen to trust Christ and change his hedonistic lifestyle and he told them “You never told me I had to give up my career. You never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what’s the matter with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all that—if that’s Christianity—count me out.”

Mickey Cohen was always out. He went to jail again for income tax evasion, got out in 1972, and died of stomach cancer in 1976. He died leaving an estate of $3,000 and a tax bill of about $500, 000. I don’t know what happened to Candy Barr.

However, Stuart Hamblen totally changed after his conversion to Christ as did Jim Vaus. Jim went on to preach until his death in 1997. No one questions Jim’s conversion because he was a changed man. Just before his conversion he had stolen $15,000 of electronic equipment and he sold his home and car to make restitution. “Restitution” a strange word not heard much anymore. Nor practiced.

It is interesting that Graham never had another meeting like the L.A. tent meeting. No doubt many people trusted Christ over his lifetime but Graham changed after the L.A. meeting. He rejected Christian fundamentalism and became a middle of the roader, working with anyone who could produce a crowd. Graham sincerely chose to do wrong that good might result.

Casting his lot with liberal, unbelieving clergy was the biggest mistake Billy Graham ever made.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

These religious jerks say they share the gospel with people while they are sharing their wives! One dude said of his non-traditional missionary work: “If I can go to the next swinger’s event and get 10 people to believe in Christ…my job is done.” One female swinger said, “I feel this is God’s plan.” Incredible! I can’t think of anything in history more abhorrent, abominable, and asinine than this. Only very evil minds could conceive the highest and the lowest endeavors to be juxtaposed in the same event: sharing wives and spreading the Gospel! Of course, the “gospel” they spread is not taught in the New Testament. In the New Testament when a man was convicted, he got converted and then he got changed. No change indicates no conversion.

Whenever people are converted to Christ (not Christianity) it changes them. II Cor. 5:17 declares, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Is that verse true or not? It was true of people who came to Christ in the New Testament and it was true of me. When I repented and trusted Christ as a teen, it changed my friends, my habits, my thoughts, my desires, my dress, my speech, my work ethic, my study habits, my entertainments, etc. While I did not experience perfection (speak to my wife, no, don’t speak to my wife) I was totally changed. When men trust Christ, there is always a change in their morals, mores, manners, and motives.

The “Christian” swingers even have their own website whose opening pitch to faithless, feckless, fellow fornicators is, “For Christian Swingers things are not easy – often other religious people judge you, out of ignorance or envy, telling you that your lifestyle and love practices are wrong.”

Well, such lifestyle and “love practices” are wrong and stupid. Any man who climbs into bed with a woman (or man!) other than his wife is irresponsible, indecent, insane and will sooner or later be infected. You name your infection since there are many out there. Need I be so quaint as to remind the barnyard lovers that Christ warned that it was adultery if we even lusted after a non-spouse. Moreover, one thing is sure, I don’t envy the swingers. Rather, I pity them.

Zipping his trousers, a swinger declared, “But the Bible teaches us ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ and there’s that verse about the first stone… but if you’re keen on keeping your privacy, well – yours, and don’t want your friends, coworkers, other PTA members, or just about anyone else to know that you don’t have a problem with faith and enjoying free love with other couples, this site can help you!”

It seems the “Judge not” verse is better known (or is it only more quoted?) than John 3:16. For sure, fornicators would rather speak of non-judging than speaking of God so loving the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life. Yep, that plays better in the barnyard. As to throwing the “stone,” he neglected to add what Jesus told the woman “taken in adultery.” He told her to “go and sin no more.” Good advice for the barnyard lovers.

Fornicators often use King David as an excuse for their immoral behavior but that dog won’t hunt. David did not have a plan to sleep with Bathsheba and every other female neighbor. He was tempted to adultery but afterward he repented, weeping copious tears, asking for forgiveness. Moreover, David paid a terrible price for his sins. Of course, sin always has a payday.

So the Bible and personal experience prove that “free love” isn’t free. The price tag is enormous: disgrace, disrepute, dishonor, disease, and death. Plus, they will live with guilt, fear, self-hatred, and apprehension while they “share the gospel.”

These people are like those in Jer. 5:8, “They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.” The thought is that they were “inflamed with lust” like wild beasts or barnyard animals.

The basic problem with these people is the fear of God is absent. How could they believe in a sovereign God who is aware of everything and keeping tabs on our lives? So, basically they don’t believe in God or only believe in a very surface way–which is not saving belief.

Not believing in a holy God who holds us all accountable, they have no shame. They are like the people in Jerusalem during Jeremiah’s day. The prophet wrote in Jer. 6:15 “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.”

That’s where we are today: people living like barnyard animals without shame. The animals have no shame because they have no knowledge of God, sin, and judgment to come. Animals are not expected to live like humans and humans are not expected to live like animals. Humans have no defense and animals don’t need one. However, humans can be forgiven while animals don’t need forgiveness.

Only humans can be faithless, feckless fornicators but animals cannot be since they are doing what animals do. I have more respect for barnyard animals than I have for “Christian” swingers!

Swinging “Christians” are proof that we live in a time of ignorance, iniquity, and immorality.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

As to the feminine pictures, they are obviously extremely unlike the real Christ. He grew up in a carpenter’s home, so we know He must have felled trees and dragged them to his stepfather’s shop. He sawed logs and planed lumber. He was muscular and manly as well as magnificent.

And of course, no rational person believes the tales of those who “died” and talked to Christ and returned to earth to boast about it. Any contact with the living Savior would render anyone prostrate at His feet in shame or in awe, humility, silence, and reverence.

If He were looking for a church to attend, it would be one that closely resembled the church He established that we discern in the book of Acts. It would be a church that cared for people, taught the Scriptures, lived godly but flawed lives, and sought to carry out His last command about going into all the world and preaching the Gospel, baptizing, and making disciples.

So, we eliminate most churches rather quickly. If a church does not teach the Bible, does not baptize new converts who professed faith in Him, and is not interested in spreading His message, those churches would not be considered as possibilities.

Does anyone think Christ would feel at home in a massive church that has millions of dollars’ worth of art, statuary, furniture, jewelry, etc.? I’m afraid He would be stunned and shocked at the mumbo jumbo, the repetition, the strange doctrines, the blasphemous liturgy, and the endless and meaningless routine. He would see priests, prelates, and popes garbed in finery and living in unrestricted opulence enough to make an oriental potentate blush at the ostentation. He would react the same way to many television evangelists who are as worldly, wicked, and wealthy as many liturgical church leaders. Such leaders don’t require one to kiss their ring; only open their wallet.

If Christ visited some mainline churches, His name would seldom be mentioned and even then without New Testament connotation. He would hear well-educated clergy deliver very dull, dishonest, dissonant discourses that would never reach the heart, prick the conscience, or teach the Gospel. Being omniscient, He would know that those preachers, shortly after seminary, took ordination vows to be true to the Scripture while knowing they did not believe the Scripture. Liberal, unbelieving preachers and theologians are hypocritical apostates. If they had any character they would resign and find a real job where they could be honest.

He might even visit some of the cults where unbelievable, uncommon, and unscriptural doctrines are taught, doctrines that did not come from the Bible but from the confused, angry, hateful, mind of psychopaths.

When entering a loosey-goosey, touchy-feely “no brand” church (a “church” but one trying to hide what it is supposed to be) His appearance would embarrass many of the congregants. These modern “Christians” think their feelings and their experiences are more vital than truth. Their ministers major in patting the back and tickling the ear, but never getting under the skin. No one is ever confronted or convicted and only occasionally challenged. I am thinking not only of the ministry of reproof and rebuke but also of the message of inspiration, of encouragement, of comfort. People leave church at noon with their souls unstirred, their hearts untouched, their consciences unpricked. They leave church licking a stone rather than chewing bread. Therefore, most are also unconverted. No, He would not quickly find a church that He established.

He would eventually visit a church that is known for being true to the Bible, known for its simplicity, known for concern and love for others, known for its excitement, known for its beautiful, scripturally-based music, known for sermons that explain the Scripture without twisting passages to conform to a trendy society. That church may be a storefront in an inner city; a simple, clean, functional church in an affluent suburb; or a church that meets in a home with only a few families. And on rare occasions it might be a megachurch.

Would Christ be welcome in your church? Would He find it true to the church He established? Or, would He say “I have somewhat against thee….repent, and do the first works…so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

Christ told the local church at Laodicea, “You make me sick.” I’m afraid He would say the same thing to most churches in our day.
http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

After a few hours of explosive Internet complaints, World Vision President Richard Stearns and board Chairman Jim Bere wrote to their supporters, “We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.” We should forgive them but remember the ineptitude and irresponsibility displayed. Most of the board chose to accept homosexuality and when committed Christians refused to continue financial support, the board, feeling the heat said they saw the light. Those board members must be Junior High School kids, not mature Christians.

Out of World Vision’s one billion dollars raised last year, 18% to 33% was federal funds. They were willing to trash their biblical convictions to keep tax dollars pouring in. They should remove all religious trappings and present themselves as the secular welfare organization that they are.

Richard was dumb enough to tell Christianity Today that their decision to accept same sex “marriage” is a “very narrow policy change” and should be seen by others as “symbolic not of compromise but of [Christian] unity.” Evidently Stearns does not know the definition of “compromise” but his supporters do. Thousands of checkbooks snapped shut when supporters were told of the pro-homosexual decision. I wonder if he still believes his statement, if he ever did. World Vision had taken the most divisive position possible and he had the gall to speak of unity! Has he been smoking those funny cigarettes?

Christ made it clear in Matt. 19 that marriage was between one man and one woman. Any other arrangement is not acceptable or approved by God. Moreover, even though World Vision flip-flopped, their decision lends support to the Perversion Lobby in their demand that everyone admire them, approve them, and acquiesce to the sin that used to be called “the sin against nature” and was not even discussed in civil company. Rather than give support to homosexuals, Stearns should be counseling any homosexual (or fornicating) employees to repent of sin, receive the Savior, and return to sensible, sane, and scriptural living.

Stearns declared this decision was not “an endorsement of same-sex marriage. We have decided we are not going to get into that debate. Nor is this a rejection of traditional marriage, which we affirm and support.” Incredible! They were not going to get involved in the homosexual debate as they jumped into the middle of it–and took the side of perversion! Furthermore, it was a rejection of traditional marriage and a ringing endorsement of perversion draped with a very thin cloak of respectability. They jumped in then they jumped out of the debate having done enormous harm.

Richard said, “We have to find a way to come together around our core beliefs to accomplish the mission that Christ has given the church. We feel positive about what we’ve done. Our motives are pure.” If traditional marriage is not a core belief than what is? Furthermore, Stearns seems to be confusing a parachurch group and the local church established by Christ. Christ’s commission, challenge, and command to His church is to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. While feeding children is commendable, it is not the primary command of Christ to His church. When masses of people turn to Christ in personal salvation, that will impact the world more than any social activity of well-intentioned people. “Building a better world for children” is one of World Vision’s purposes but coming out flatfooted for perversion was counterproductive to that purpose. Then their flip-flop showed them to be unsure, unstable, and unreliable people.

Stearns made it worse by admitting that he and his board were not pressured into making the change. No employees were asking or demanding a change and there was no legal action or any anticipated!

Stearns added, “It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.” First, same sex “marriage” is not marriage, never has been, never will be. And no legislative body or federal court can ever change that fact. Moreover, Stearns must not be aware of the fact that many studies for a century have documented the fact that most committed homosexual “couples” always keeps a night or two “out with the boys.” Total faithfulness is almost unknown in the homosexual household.

Concern for children should be a trait of all Christians as we are reminded when Christ took children upon His knee and blessed them; however, our chief obligation is to truth. Feeding children is one of the most commendable things one can do; however, never at the expense of truth. Christians have many responsibilities including helping the needy but never as the major thrust of our work which is to share the gospel with everyone.

My wife and I have given to support impoverished acquaintances, victims of earthquakes, storms, other disasters, and provided water pumps for African villages. That is separate from our tithe. But, those gifts went to people I know that are also concerned about the souls of people. None of our money went for promotion, perks, or paychecks. Our gifts went to help people and give them the Gospel. World Vision started like that in 1950 but drifted away from evangelism to international welfare to qualify for federal funds.

I maintain that no Christian should give to World Vision and similar groups. They should give to their local church (if it preaches the Word faithfully and if not, they should leave) and to a church-connected mission that will accomplish the desired purpose. While it is important to feed and clothe desperate children, their souls are most important.

Committed Christians, interested in staying true to the Scripture will not support any person, group, church, or organization that does not take a clear, critical, and compassionate (by telling the truth) position on homosexuality. Yes, let’s help the unfortunate people of the world but it must be done based upon truth. 1 John 3:18 commands, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Yes, all sincere Christians should withdraw financial support from World Vision because of this radical, reprehensible, and repulsive decision followed by their rescinded decision! And more so because of the shallow spin they put on their original decision that has now been aborted. I predict that corporate heads will roll within a few days.

Money talks and sometime it yells. World Vision heard it loud and clear.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY  Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

Copyright 2014, Don Boys, Ph.D.