[1]DALLAS (BP)–God is at work among the CEOs of the top Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, and it’s a hopeful sign for America’s spiritual future, Henry Blackaby said during the recent National Religious Broadcasters meeting, according to a March 7 report on the Internet’s Crosswalk.com news and information site.
Blackaby, author of the “Experiencing God” discipleship study, said he is currently working with an associate in reaching more than 60 CEOs of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies in America, Crosswalk.com reported, quoting Blackaby as describing them as “the top businessmen, the movers and shakers.”
In his comments at the NRB’s Dallas sessions in February, Blackaby said his work among business leaders isn’t a departure from his Bible teaching and discipleship ministry, Crosswalk.com reported. “[With] my dad being a businessman, and a godly businessman, I’ve always had a heart towards the business community.
“But I’ve never seen the activity of God this deeply in the business community as I do right now,” Blackaby said.
“When I talk to these CEOs, I tell them you’ve got to spend an unhurried time with God — do it in the morning.
“They said, ‘You don’t understand how busy we are.’ I said, ‘You don’t understand the nature of the God who wants to meet you. Have you recently told God you don’t have time?’ I said, ‘I don’t know what time you have to get up, but you get up early enough to have an unhurried time with God.'”
[2]Crosswalk.com noted that Blackaby told of a recent conference call among the top CEOs Blackaby during which one corporate leader said, “I took you seriously, and I’m getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning. It’s been the greatest time-saver I’ve ever known. Because what God says to me in the early hours shapes the direction of my day; I know what to do and what not to do. I didn’t realize that that meeting with God was the greatest time-saver.”
The executive also enthused, “I led my first employee to the Lord in my whole life because God gave me a direction and I began to see him at work.”
The last great awakening in America occurred in 1857 and 1858, Blackaby said, “and that was a layman’s businessman’s revival in Manhattan, New York, where a lay preacher from a Dutch Reformed Church began to ask businessmen to pray. Six came the first night. But in six months, 30,000 businessmen in New York were praying every lunch hour for a mighty move of God. That spread all across America.” In Portland, Ore., for example, the businesses agreed to shut down for two hours over the lunch hour just so people could pray, Blackaby said.
“Well, a million people came to faith in Christ in one year. Ratio to population, if that happened today, we’d be looking at 20 million people coming to faith in Christ in one year.
“But it began in the business community with the businessmen — churches did get involved — but it was primarily businesses,” Blackaby said.
According to the Crosswalk.com report, Blackaby also told the NRB audience, “My observation, after 40 years of ministry, is that this is the most biblically illiterate generation I’ve ever known.”
Blackaby continued, “God’s people do not know the Scriptures. And they’re not guiding their lives by the Scripture — they’re guiding it by psychology and sociology. And the world has conformed the people of God. God intended that the people of God shape the world, and right now it’s the other way around. I would say, ‘Get back to the Word of God — seriously.’ You can’t spend 15 minutes a day in the Word of God and make any difference at all.”
Blackaby counseled, “Don’t read all the books of men — read the book of God. Get a translation that’s easy to understand, and don’t get a paraphrase.”
Blackaby noted that “somehow we’ve got to get to the leaders. And the leaders in America are success-oriented. They’re personality-oriented. We’ve let the world shape the ministry. So staff goes to Disney World to find out how to do marketing. That’s an abomination to God.”
At present, he reiterated, “We stand one generation away from paganism.”
The Crosswalk.com report was filed by Michael Ireland, chief correspondent with ASSIST Communications.
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