[1] NEW ORLEANS (BP)–“We live in an age when there is much doctrine out there, and it is not sound nor is it biblical,” said the president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists.
Jerry Drace challenged not only evangelists but Christians in all areas of vocational ministry to hold, teach and continue in sound biblical doctrine. Drace spoke during a Feb. 4 chapel service at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, site of the evangelists’ Feb. 1-3 national congress.
Using for his text the Apostle Paul’s admonishment to a young preacher, Timothy, Drace spoke to students about real revival and the great needs of the church.
“Real revival is going to begin when you young men and women who are going out into this world understand the necessity of holding to sound biblical doctrine,” said Drace, who has served as a vocational evangelist the past 24 years. In 1975, he founded the Jerry Drace Evangelistic Association, based in Humboldt, Tenn., and with his team conducts revivals, crusades and “Hope for the Home” family support conferences, all with an emphasis on pastoral care along with evangelism. He is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and holds a doctor of ministry degree from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, Calif., specializing in family issues. Team members Ken and Lois Holland, music evangelists, have ministered with Drace for 18 years.
Drace named several sources of unsound doctrine, such as those promoting homosexual lifestyles, the pro-choice abortion movement, pornography, pseudo-intellectualism and political correctness.
“We’re afraid that we are going to offend someone, but let me tell you, this Bible is very offensive. The gospel was never called to be an accommodating book,” Drace said.
“We need to be concerned with being spiritually correct in an incorrect world.”
The major concern for congregations, Drace said, should not be for the possible “wolf in sheep’s clothing creeping into our churches,” but for the “false prophets in shepherd’s robes” who “stand behind our pulpits preaching unsound doctrine.”
“We do not need a new gospel for this new age,” he said. “We need to live and preach and teach the old gospel with renewed surrender. The world is starving for it.”
Drace also emphasized the need for workers in all areas of Christian ministry to persevere in sound biblical doctrine, as Paul instructed Timothy. Explaining that God does not call people to the ministry to quit, he noted the importance of a direct call from God to do ministry.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven’t been called of God to the ministry, pack up and leave campus this afternoon,” he challenged seminary students. “Do not waste your time or your life, and do not waste the money of the Cooperative Program,” the Southern Baptist funding channel that supports SBC seminary education.
Preach with simplicity and sound biblical doctrine, Drace concluded. Too many churches seek to entertain rather than feed the membership, he said.
“We feed them a spiritual diet of cotton candy and corn dogs and wonder why they never grow up.”
Smith is a photographer and newswriter at New Orleans Seminary.