Book Review

I am reading the book, "My Story and The Christian Story: A Journey By Faith Into A Far Country" (2004 by Dr. Charles Hawkins Sr.) He writes of his conversion at age nine and his call at age 17 and his ministry over the past 60 plus years (and much more) and his work in China. Below is an excerpt. This book has much information about the Church of God of Prophecy (the church he ministers in) and the World Mission Work. The book also has historical information dealing with pertinent dates in China and other parts of the world. The book is easy to read and has a strong personal appeal. Those who are interested or have labored in mission work would enjoy this read as well as those who are involved in any ministry for the Lord.

Religion

Our own life experience teaches us that we all die, unless of course, we live in denial, and even then we die. This dismal reality has to have profoundly influenced how the inhabitants of our world deal with such a somber prospect. As mentioned before, there is a universal trait among human beings that all cultures regardless of race, language or environment look to and practice some form of worship as the answer to the problem of death, with the exception of the atheist who disbelieves the existence of any higher power. However there are numerous testimonies of capitulations in the final hour prior to death.

Consider the famed Clarence Darrow, who was perhaps one of the most famous lawyers in American history. He was a brilliant intellectual, but a rank skeptic and confirmed atheist. Clarence Darrow, the legal counsel involved in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, was the one responsible for the theory of evolution being taught in public schools of America. It would be impossible to calculate the damage that has been done to the minds of millions of young people. He left a legacy in his writings against religion. But he, too, had an appointment to keep. Being intelligent, when he came to his hour of death, he invited three clergymen of different denominational backgrounds to come to his room. He said to them: “Gentlemen during my lifetime I have written and spoken many things against God and against churches, and now I wish I had not said them, for I realize that it is entirely possible that I was wrong, and so I would like to ask each of you one last favor, that each of you would intercede for me with the almighty.” Why would a person with such intelligence do such an about face just prior to his demise? There can be only one answer. Not until mortal man comes face to face with that hollow eyed skull called “death” can he fathom the finality that accompanies this enemy of all humanity. Death, that great equalizer, brings reality with him. This truth is born out repeatedly in the lives of many renowned atheists who lived in denial until reality appeared. When that great French statesman Talleyrand, came to his deathbed, King Louis asked him how he felt. He replied, “Sire, I am suffering the pangs of the damned.”