December, 2000

Dear Friend:

Winston Churchill once said:

Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or thought to be sure was impossible, has happened (My Early Life, Scribners, 1930, p. 67).

The sweep of change has affected all areas of life - the home, the churches, and the government. Gone are the clean and happy days of my childhood, in that sunlit time after World War II when we were all filled with such hope.

I don't think Bush or Gore can help our country now. Bush and Gore - what a laugh! Sounds like an old-time comedy team - Burns and Allen, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Wheeler and Woolsey. In fact they would have done better in vaudeville than Wheeler and Woolsey (if you remember them, I think you'll agree). Neither Bush or Gore can do any more for America than give us a chuckle or two on Dave Letterman's show. We need stronger men in public office, men like Patrick J. Buchanan. But severe crisis will have to come before we turn to someone like him. And we desperately need in our pulpits men like Martin Luther, John Knox, and George Whitefield - or, at least, like Asahel Nettleton, W. P. Nicholson, or Duncan Campbell. I have waited decades for such prophets of truth to appear. I do not see them anywhere. And this troubles me deeply.

Leonard Ravenhill said:

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Though gloom descends across our land for lack of leadership, especially in our pulpits, these are serene and cheerful days in our home and in our congregation. My family and I wish to share the blessings of this year with you at Christmas time.

In February, my boys, my wife and I went with Rev. John S. Waldrip and his family to Florida for business and pleasure. John and I attended the national Baptist Bible Fellowship meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. We also attended the morning service at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville (SBC) and heard the pastor, Jerry Vines, give a rather weak "expository" sermon, the type which has become so popular in recent decades, but is so deadly to real preaching like that which once shook the pulpits of our land. How desperately we need stronger preaching at this hour! (Isaiah 58:1; II Timothy 4:2).

Then we travelled with the Waldrips in a van all around the State of Florida, over to Pensacola, through the Everglades, down to Key West, and up the east coast to Boca Raton, where we had a wonderfully warm visit with my cousin, Alice Rae Mealer. She is my father's sister Jean's daughter, and has always been a good friend and delightful companion. At Pensacola, we visited the Pensacola Christian Academy High School located on the campus of Pensacola Christian College. The boys are home-schooled through the videos produced there, so it was nice for them to visit their high school and meet one of their teachers in person. At Pensacola, we also went to Dr. Peter Ruckman's home and his church. I knocked on his door, but he wasn't there. A young man told me he was away preaching for Billy Vick Bartlett. There's a photo of Pastor Waldrip and me with a sign over his church door at the end of this letter. It seems ridiculous to me that Dr. Ruckman claims that the words of the KJV are inerrant and inspired and then calls Psalm 119:130 Psalms 119:130. It is singular! We also had our picture taken in front of the Daytona Beach race track. A lot more goes on at that race track than in the brain of a Ruckmanite! It shows an extreme lack of wisdom to call these people "KJV only." I cannot imagine a more foolish thing to say. It drives people away from the KJV, the best translation in the English language. I think it is much wiser to call them what they are - Ruckmanites!

Wesley and Leslie particularly enjoyed our ride on a propeller-driven air boat through the Everglades and their ride on a jet ski at Key West. The boys are now seventeen and enjoy a wild ride like that. I will be sixty this Spring, so I opted out of the jet ski ride and took a walk back to Ernest Hemingway's house for a second tour (we had all taken one earlier). I particularly enjoyed this because I consider Hemingway to be the most important novelist of the twentieth century. He understood the problem but not the answer, which is the existentialist's dilemma, and which led to his suicide in 1961. But understanding the problem (of life) is much more than most people ever do. It's a shame that he never found the answer - Christ. My favorite Hemingway story is only five pages long and can be read in less than fifteen minutes. It perfectly captures his existentialist message, and is titled, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (cf. Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Simon and Schuster, 1995, pages 29-33). Preachers ought to understand existentialism and preach to answer it, since it is the major philosophical error of our time. Hemingway wrote seventy-five percent of his stories, including For Whom the Bell Tolls, while he lived at this house in Key West.

On March 9, my long-time friend Dr. Bill Powell died after an extended illness. He was a valiant defender of the inerrancy of the Bible, and was the editor of The Southern Baptist Journal. Bill's wife, Betty, invited me to speak at his funeral, so I flew to Bremen, Georgia to bring a eulogy at the funeral. This tribute to Bill will be printed as an appendix in my upcoming book, Battle for the Bible in the Twenty-First Century. The book will be available from our publisher in January. It is an indictment of American society and our churches. I think most of you will read it straight through in one sitting. Send $13.00 to me and request it by name. I will refund the money if you don't agree with the importance of this book after reading it.

In April we had a "Christ in the Passover" banquet at our church. My associate, Dr. Christopher Cagan (who comes from a Jewish background), performed the complete "seder" service, which Christ conducted at the Last Supper. As always, my wife and Mr. Mencia led in the preparation of this large meal.

During the first few days of July we returned to the Mount Palomar Christian Retreat grounds for another combined week in the mountains with Pastor Waldrip's church. I put John Angell James' book, The Anxious Inquirer, into modern English, and it was preached and taught at this camp with saving results. This new book is available from us for $7.00.

Our friend Dr. David Innes, a pastor in San Francisco, preached at our church Sunday morning and evening on July 23 on "The Faith Under Assault." Dr. and Mrs. Innes stayed in our home for several days and we gave them a grand tour of the Los Angeles area, including the Nixon Library and the Reagan Library. We also had a birthday party at our house for my friends of over forty years, Dr. Murphy Lum and Mr. Gene Wilkerson.

On Labor Day we had everybody at church over to our house for a Texas-style BBQ followed by an old John Wayne war movie on a large screen in the back yard. We had a great time, as we also did earlier in the year, on Memorial Day. Our big house and back yard were filled with people and I preached a sermon before the day ended. The people at our church are our "family" and we love to have them over as often as possible.

I took Ileana to Fort Worth, Texas for our 18th wedding anniversary in September. We went to the fiftieth anniversary of the Baptist Bible Fellowship. We stayed one night at the Texas Hotel, where the BBFI was founded. And then we stayed with our friends Dr. Omer and Cynthia Ritchie for several nights. Dr. Ritchie loaned me his van and Ileana and I drove up to Vernon, Texas and spent the night with Dr. Henry M. McGowan, the man who first took me to a Baptist church when I was thirteen years old. Dr. McGowan was also the best man at our wedding, so this made our brief stay with him on our anniversary especially memorable. We then drove across Texas to San Antonio and saw the Alamo again. I have been all over the world, but no monument I have ever seen compares to this small church made out of adobe mud, where brave men defended our republic and gave their lives for freedom. How we need preachers of that caliber today! After we saw the Alamo, I took Ileana on a boat ride down the San Antonio River. It was a beautiful and memorable occasion.

While my wife and I were in Texas, Rev. Jim Miller and Rev. Rick Castro spoke at our church. They are both fine men and good friends of ours. Ileana is now homeschooling the Cagans' two boys, John Samuel and David, along with our two boys.

In October Pastor John Waldrip and his wife Pam celebrated their church's twenty-fifth anniversary and their own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, plus his twenty-fifth anniversary in the ministry! We had John's father over to our house for lunch. We also had his guest speaker, Dr. Bill Monroe and his wife, over for dinner. Another speaker at these festivities, Baptist Bible Fellowship president Dr. Kenneth E. Gillming, stayed with us at our home and preached for us on Sunday night. Dr. Gillming is a charming man. We enjoyed having him stay with us.

Yours in Jesus,

R. L. Hymers, Jr.,
M.Div., D.Min., Th.D.
Philippians 4:13

"He rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:4).