June 19, 2000
Smith wants Reality of Hell Sunday
___By William Perkins Jr.
___Mississippi Baptist Record
___ORLANDO--Southern Baptist churches will be asked to observe Reality of Hell Sunday annually on the first day of the new church year, evangelist Bailey Smith announced June 14 in the convention sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.
___"I have asked the cooperation of our (North American Mission Board) to make what God has laid on my heart a reality," said Smith, a former SBC president.
___Within the SBC, the new church year traditionally begins the first Sunday of October.
BAILEY SMITH
___"We are calling that day Reality of Hell Sunday and requesting every pastor and every evangelist to preach on the scriptural doctrine of hell and offer an evangelistic invitation," he said.
___Smith's sermon, titled "Wasted Sacrifices," related the lives of several of the Bible's towering figures to Southern Baptists of today.
___Modern Baptists, he said, are not following the trail of sacrificial living handed down by their forebears.
___"Somehow the faith of Abraham is connected to a faithless young seminarian who will not go to the Northwest because the retirement package is too small. Somehow the courage of Daniel is connected to the effeminate pastor of the First Baptist Church who agrees to leave out the name of Jesus in his prayer at the Rotary Club because it might offend someone," Smith said.
___"Somehow the example of Joseph is incomplete--this wise man who ran from the clutches of a solicitous woman--when connected to celebrity preachers who can't keep their pants zipped.
___"Why then the boldness of Amos? Why the tears of Jeremiah? Why the tenacity of Nehemiah ... I say, Why?
___"Their sacrifice will not be wasted if we preach the message they preached, hate the evil they hated, love the people they loved and show the courage they showed," Smith said.
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