A Warning From the Past

[Many years ago Alan Highers, then minister for the Getwell church in Memphis, TN, recorded the following story. Brother Highers was selected to succeed Guy N. Woods as director of the Open Forum at the Annual Lectureship of then Freed­Hardeman College (now Freed-Hardeman University), he continues to serve as Editor of the Spiritual Sword magazine. Brother Highers is now a retired Tennessee State Court of Appeals Judge].

The following incident in the life of Brother J.W. McGarvey was told by Brother Jesse P. Sewell. Although it happened more than sixty years ago; these words of warning from that grand old man are still very timely:

In January, 1902 or 1903, I was preaching for the Pearl and Bryan Streets Church in Dallas. Brother McGarvey, an old man at the time, was invited to speak at the Central Christian Church in Dallas. We had three men in the Pearl and Bryan Streets Church who had graduated from the College of the Bible in Lexington, under Brother McGarvey, and they were great admirers of him. They suggested that we invite Brother McGarvey to preach at Pearl and Bryan that night. We did so. I was just a boy of twenty-four or twenty-five then. I was sitting by the side of this great old man on the front seat, waiting for the service to begin. As we sat there talking, Brother McGarvey said to me: “Brother Sewell, I want to say something to you, if you’ll accept it in the spirit in which I mean it.” I told him I’d appreciate anything he had to say to me. He said about these words, “You are on the right road, and whatever you do, don’t let anybody persuade you that you can successfully combat error by fellowshipping it and going along with it. I have tried. I believed at the start that was the only way to do it. I’ve never held membership in a congregation that uses instrumental music. I have, however, accepted invitations to preach without distinction between churches that used it and churches that didn’t. I’ve gone along with their papers and magazines and things of that sort. During all these years I have taught the truth as the New Testament teaches it to every young preacher who has passed through the College of the Bible. Yet, I do not know of more than six of those men who are preaching the truth today.” He said, “It won’t work.”

That experience has been an inspiration to me all the days of my life since. It has helped me, when I was ever tempted to turn aside and go along with error, to remember the warning of this great old man.