Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, May 22nd. Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Today we’ll revisit a conversation with a man whose life was centered on The Great Commission and The Great Commandment. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. I’ve had the opportunity in recent days to be involved in a project with our friends at the Moody Bible Institute. A program that they’ve started airing called, Today in the Word.
Recently we introduced listeners to one of the sermons that is in the Moody archives—a sermon from A.W. Tozer. Now I’ll bet most listeners have never heard a sermon by A. W. Tozer. They probably read his books but never heard him preach. It occurred to be as I was introducing that sermon there will be a whole generation of our children who may remember the name Bill Bright, may have heard about it and may know he was founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ but a generation that will say I don’t know that I have ever heard him.
You and I had the opportunity to sit down with him a little more than six years ago now right before he went home. He died in the summer of 2003. We chatted with him about his 81 year legacy beginning with his candy making business out in Los Angeles. His decision to turn away from making candies and instead turn his attention to being a fisher of men.
Dennis: Right. Making spiritual movements around the world. Bill Bright was frankly not known by the multitudes and the masses even when he was alive. He was a behind the scenes leader for the most part. He didn’t have a television show or radio broadcast that was heard by tens of millions of people. He was used greatly in the church and in nation after nation around the world because he believed in leading people to Christ, sharing your faith with them, and discipling them and building into them. Then releasing them to reach their community, their state, their nation and then the nations of the world.
We had the chance to go to Orlando as you said and interview him. It really is one of the highlights of all the interviews you and I have had a chance to do over the years.
Bob: You remember he was on oxygen. He had pulmonary fibrosis and so his breathing ability was diminished but his mind was alert and sharp. He was focused. It was a great conversation and we want our listeners to hear a portion of the conversation today.
Dennis: By all measures of this world, you have lived, not a storybook life, but certainly a successful life. You undoubtedly have a definition of what a successful life looks like. Would you mind sharing that?
Bill: Successful Christian life, and that's summum bonum – that's more important than any other – is the crucified life. Paul writes in Galatians 2:20 – "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live with the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." So the success of the Christian life belongs to those who know the reality of being crucified with Christ.
Dennis: Putting to death the flesh.
Bill: Putting death to flesh – and out of that relationship, where Christ is all – He is Lord, He is Master, He is Savior, He is King – comes joy and rejoicing and full of glory. So that's success – being dead to self and alive to Christ.
Dennis: As a man, as a husband, and as a father – do you have any regrets?
Bill: I shared one with you – my failure to witness to Coach Red Sanders.
Dennis: The coach at UCLA back in the early 1950s?
Bill: Yes. That was an experience I've lived with all these years, because I disobeyed God.
Dennis: Any others?
Bill: I, obviously, am far from a perfect husband or father or anything, but I don't have any regrets. I look back on a life that's been rich and full, even the defeats, even the times of heartache and sorrow, God has used for His glory. It's like Joseph said of his imprisonment and his problems as a result of being sold into slavery by his brothers – "What you intended for evil, God used for good." And I've found that even in my mistakes, if my spirit is right, my heart is pure, my motives are pure, God turns my mistakes to blessings.
Dennis: Looking back over your life, you've done a lot of courageous things. Obviously, God at work in you, but what would you say, looking back over 81 years, was the most courageous act you've ever performed?
Bill: Well, there are many thoughts that come to mind – leaving my business career and surrendering everything, where we signed a contract to be slaves of Jesus, putting everything in His hands – all that we owned or ever would own – that was simply an act of obedience, so I don't think it was that courageous, because I was doing what He told me to do.
Moving to UCLA to start the ministry – I was the only one on staff, Vonette was teaching school, and she joined me the second year. I think, for example, when God led us to start Expo 72. We'd never done anything like this and a good percentage of the staff leaders objected and some resigned. Another time, when 13 men marched into my office, men who were like my sons whom I love to this day, every one of them, and God never allowed me to resent them, but they came into my office and demanded I resign. They were taking over the movement. To this day, when I have met them on different occasions, I give them a big hug and mean it. I say, "I love you," and mean it. That was something that God used to be a blessing. Incidentally, six of those men left. They were going to take the whole movement, and 750 people joined the staff that summer, and it was like God pruned so He could give fruit.
Dennis: Are you curious how you answered me before?
Bill: Yes.
Dennis: When I asked you that before you said, when I was in the 8th grade I rode a horse in front of my dad. It was some kind of bronco horse in some kind of rodeo setting but you got on a horse and you said that riding that horse in front of my father was the most courageous thing I had done.
Bill: Isn’t that amazing. Of course my father was a horseman, a cattleman. He was the best of the best. He had that unusual ability he’d walk into a corral of horses and they’d tremble. I’d go in and they’d attack me. The animals understand. I was taught to ride broncs in my youth. Matter of fact the first picture I have of me was a picture of me riding a horse. I must have been a year old.
Dennis: Bill, you've been close to death because of your lung disease. Have you ever been afraid to die?
Bill: No.
Dennis: There's never been the fear of dying?
Bill: As a matter of fact, God has graciously given me the joy of dying. You know, face it, you can't lose when you go to be with the Lord. But Vonette and I were on this airplane out of New York flying to Washington one evening some years ago, and it rained all afternoon. The flight was delayed and delayed and delayed and finally the pilots apparently just took it in their hands and said, "We're going to fly." So within minutes after we got in the air, we were in the middle of a firestorm. I mean, a ball of fire and a tornado type wind, and the plane was like a leaf in the wind – it was awesome. The wings were just going up and down like a bird, and we knew we couldn't possibly survive.
So Vonette and I sat there in the plane, held hands, and prayed and said goodbye and thanked the Lord that we would soon be with Him, and it was very somber and yet – I can't say it was joyful because, frankly, it was frightening. The plane was just about to come apart, from our perspective. And we flew and flew and flew and just kept flying and Washington isn't that far away. By this time, it was night, and finally we landed in a little out-of-the-way airport and discovered that the lightning had struck a hole in the fuselage. I'd never heard of that before. It knocked out all the navigational instruments and the pilot was flying blind.
When we got off the plane, he was as white as a sheet, and he said, "In all my millions of miles, I've never had an experience like this." Well, I didn't know it, how serious it was – oh, I knew it was serious – but when I got to Washington, D.C., the next morning we rode the bus from that place to the airport, and I got to the desk, and the girl said, "Oh, you were on that plane that was struck by lightning, and the plane has a big hole in it." I didn't know that, of course. I'd never heard of that happening.
So then I was in Ghana – I had a summer experience where, in those days, most national airlines were not safe. The flight was delayed again and again and again. Finally, after some hours, we took off. In the meantime, I'd gone around witnessing different people – nobody seemed to be interested, and so just as we were off the pad, just barely, there was this big explosion. So I thought a tire blew out, but we came to a screeching halt and got off, and the motor had blown up, and had we been in the air, we'd be dead.
Dennis: Unbelievable.
Bill: So I've had a few of these …
Bob: … but it's not the fear of death – we're never sure how we're going to get there, whether it's going to be a bumpy ride, whether we're going to wind up with a disease that takes us, but all of us are headed to the same place.
Bill: Death is universal, we're all going to die. That's the reason it's so important to know where we're going while we're still alive.
Dennis: Bill, someday the news will go out around the world, because it will be an international news event of your home-going, and when that happens, we want to honor Christ for what He did in your life, and I’m most certain that will happen through your memorial service and all that occurs after your home-going. But I'm wondering what you would want the world to know – your final exhortation – because we're going to play a tape of a broadcast like this with you that Bob and I have done and have some of your words on it. What would be your final exhortation to the world?
Bill: I would say to all believers – love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Seek first His kingdom, obey His commandments, trust His promises, and spend the rest of your life getting to know Him so you can love Him and trust Him and obey Him without any hesitancy. Vonette and I have talked about this and concluded: My own desire was to die as I've tried to live – Galatians 2:20 – Bill Bright is crucified with Christ. And I asked her if she would bury me in an unmarked grave as a testimony of Galatians 2:20, because dead people are dead.
She didn't think it was a good idea. So we agreed that we would have on our tombstone – "Bill and Vonette Bright, slaves of Jesus" – Philippians 2:7, Jesus was a slave. God the Creator came to earth disguised as a slave. And Paul speaks of himself, Romans 1:1 – "slave" and Peter and others – so we'd have appropriate references – but Bill and Vonette Bright, slaves of Jesus, because, as you know, we signed the contract in the spring of 1951 – literally wrote out a contract and signed it to be His slaves, and it's the most liberating thing that's ever happened to us. I want that to be a testimony of the greatest privilege anyone can have – to be a slave of Jesus.
Dennis: Well, I want you to know, over a year and a half ago when the news came that it looked like you were going to be coming back to Florida, where we are here for this interview, to spend your final days and to die, I spent several hours writing you a letter of – just expressing my profound appreciation for being an employee for 33 years of Campus Crusade. I'm coming up on my 33rd year. Bill, it's a miracle you didn't fire me.
Bill: You're too young.
Dennis: But I really – I appreciate you, your life, and I wanted you to know that face-to- face. I wrote you the letter and expressed that in that letter, God used my dad in my life and some key pastors to disciple me, and I count you right up there at the top with them of men who have had a profound impact on my life.
Bill: I'm not worthy to hear that, but I was so moved when you expressed your love in that way in the letter. I treasure that.
Dennis: Well, I know you received quite a few of them, because I would run into guys who had said they had been to visit you, and I thought, "He's not going to have time to die. He's got too many people lined up to express appreciation," but I love you.
Bill: Well, you are very special to me, Dennis. I have shared with many people through the years what an inspiration and challenge you are to me – what a blessing you are, and I'm just honored to be on this program, and I believe, in spite of the way God's already used you, the best is before you, and I predict that in your lifetime your influence will be as great as anything I've been privileged to experience worldwide.
Dennis: You are very kind.
Bob: That is Dr. Bill Bright. Listening back to it it’s kind of like receiving the blessing again isn’t it?
Dennis: Yes. It was a pretty poignant moment to sit with a man you’ve worked for and worked with for more than three decades. To think about all that you’ve observed and seen and heard and learned from him. Knowing that he’s not a perfect person but he’s following the one who is. He did a pretty good job of following Jesus. He infected me with the simplicity of that devotion of being a slave of Christ. Surrendering my will to the will of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of privileges in life but who you work for is really a big deal. To have the privilege of working for a man who I would consider to be a man of God it has to be one of the great privileges of my life. That’s why we wanted to bring this interview back to our listeners to give them an opportunity to hear what it sounds like at the end of man’s life. He didn’t end up at this point with this perspective overnight. He had a faithful way of following Christ and surrendering to Christ over his lifetime and I think that’s what he was always challenging us with. Don’t quit. The best is yet before you and that’s how he ended the interview. I have to smile now because that was so typical of Bill Bright. What a statesman for Christ and believing in the next generation and speaking words of encouragement even as he was finishing his own race.
Bob: Actually as we wrapped up the interview you asked him if he would pray for both of us and before we are done we’re going to let our listeners hear how he prayed for you and for me.
In the mean time let me remind our listeners that what was one of the key themes of Dr. Bright’s life, understanding the attributes of God, has been put together in a Bible study format—volume one and volume two The Discover God Bible study. I’m thinking about summer time and parents getting together with kids throughout the summer for family devotions. You could go through one of these chapters as part of your family devotions. You can take a topic like God’s omnipotence. God is all powerful. There are about seven or eight pages on that subject that you can take your children through or you can go through in a small group setting. We’ve got information on our web site familylifetoday.com. You can go there and order directly online from us if you’d like or you can call toll free 1-800-358-6329. That’s 1-800-F as in family L as in life and then the word TODAY. Ask about the Discover God Bible studies by Bill Bright and we can make arrangements to have the studies sent to you.
We have been very encouraged this month by the FamilyLife Today listeners who have either gone online at familylifetoday.com or have called us at 1-800-FLTODAY and helped support the ministry of FamilyLife with a donation. As many of you know we have been facing a challenging spring as a lot of ministries have. We are about a million dollars behind in donations from where we were at this point last year and we have had to respond to that by having lay offs with some of our staff, salary reductions, we’ve tried to adjust our budget to fit that and we had some friends of the ministry who came forward who said they want to help. The issued a matching gift challenge. They will match every donation that you receive during the month of May on a dollar for dollar basis up to a total of $356,000. That was great news but it was also a challenge to us because it meant we had to get the word out to as many listeners as possible and ask them to help support this ministry.
Many of you have responded and we appreciate that. We still have a ways to go to take full advantage of this matching gift so we’re going to our web site familylifetoday.com or to call 1-800-FLTODAY and make as generous a donation as you’re able to make. Whatever you’re able to do whether it’s $5, $10, $50 or $100 or $1000. Every donation is being matched on a dollar for dollar basis so every donation is significant. Again our web site familylifetoday.com. You can also donate by calling 1-800-FLTODAY. Thanks in advance for your support of this ministry.
Bob: Now as I mentioned our interview with Dr. Bill Bright concluded with him praying for us and it was a rich time. We wanted you to have an opportunity to hear that prayer.
Bill: Father, Father, Holy Father, we bow in reverence before Your majesty. We are in awe of Your greatness. When we think of who You are, we realize how little we are, how small in comparison, and yet even when we were yet in our sins, You died for us. You love us.
You delight in us, and I thank You that in your sovereignty You chose Dennis and Bob to do what they're doing, and You've anointed them and given them favor and great blessing, and I ask, Holy Father, You'll keep them pure, keep their motives pure, their hearts pure, their attitudes, their desires, their actions above reproach. That they will be men of God after Your heart. There will be no sin in their lives that will hinder Your working in and through them.
That is they speak day after day to millions of people, and that number, O gracious God, I pray will increase by the millions. They will be channels of Your love, Your forgiveness, Your grace, to the multitudes of earth.
I pray for the day when their ministry will literally encircle the globe, where millions upon millions, day after day, will be drawn closer to You, will love You and trust You and obey You because of their influence.
Lord Jesus, bless their families – their families and their children's children's children yet unborn, that they may always love You, serve You, trust You, obey You, and that the legacy of these men will go on and on until You return.
Blessed Holy Father, thank You once again for these men whom You have chosen, whom You have anointed, whom You have empowered and may all glory, honor, worship, and praise go to You. We pray it in the name of the One whose name is above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bob: FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for Today. Hope for tomorrow.
