When the Light Goes Out

Theme: The Gospel of Your Salvation
“Him you also trusted, after you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation…” (Ephesians 1:13)
Date: October 19, 2003 - Sunday 9:30 A.M. Bible Class - (During a Gospel Meeting October 17 Through 19, 2003, at the Northeast church of Christ, Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Speaker: Mack Lyon, Speaker on the In Search of the Lord’s Way Television Program
Main Scripture: 1 John 1:1-5

We’re enjoying being with you. You’re a very friendly, hospitable and kind people. You say kind things about the preaching, and I think that some of that’s exaggeration, but we do appreciate it very much, and your encouragement. And I want to say again, I appreciate very much your support of the SEARCH program. Yours is a generous support, and we appreciate that so very much, because one of the broadcasts that we have here in this area is due totally to the support of this congregation. And so, we’re very grateful.

I’m going to read you a passage from the book of 1 John, chapter 1, beginning at verse 1: “That Which was from the beginning, Which we have heard, Which we have seen with our eyes, Which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

² (For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that Eternal Life, Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

³ That Which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

⁴ And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

⁵ This then is the Message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light , and in Him is no darkness at all . ”

Now, with the reading of His Word, let’s bow for prayer: “Holy Father, we’re so thankful to You for the revelation of Your Word to us, and Your Will, by which we can live. We believe that this is the best Way that man has ever been taught to live this life with each other here upon this earth. And we pray Your blessings upon the Word as we study it this morning, and that we may be encouraged and inspired to not only study it, but to learn it and then put it into practice in our own lives. We pray Your blessings on our study, and Your presence with us, not only in this Bible study but in the worship this morning. In Jesus’ lovely Name, Amen.”

When I was fourteen years old, I was the only member of the church in our family. My father was a Methodist, my mother was Southern Baptist. My mother was very insistent that her children be brought up in the teachings of the Lord.

We lived out in the country, down in southeast Oklahoma, in the backwoods, way out to the end of the road, right down on the riverside. Nobody ever came by our house. If they came that far down the road, they were coming to our house, or else they were lost and on the wrong road, one or the other. That [road] was a dead end.

What I’m saying to you is that we lived far out in the country. We did not have access to a lot of the things that other people did have. But my Dad did go onto town and buy a battery-powered radio and a wind-charger to keep the battery charged.

On Sunday nights, I, being the only member of the body of Christ in the household, would sit up and listen to a preacher by the name of W. L. Oliphant, who preached in Dallas, Texas. Now, it isn’t so far to Dallas now, but that was a long ways in those days from where I was. In the eyes of a child, that was a long, long way, almost like being in another country, you know. And I was absolutely amazed at a number of things about that broadcast! Number one was that W. L. Oliphantwas such a powerful preacher! Oh, my! What an eloquent man he was on radio! He had a thirty-minute radio program in Dallas every Sunday night, and I just…I couldn’t believe that there were people that were that vocal about the Word of the Lord and with that kind of skill to communicate. Another thing that amazed me was, that here I am, waaaaaaaaaaay off from Dallas, Texas, out here at the end of the road, and I can listen to him preach the Gospel!

One Sunday night—I believe it was in August of that year when I was fourteen years old—I was listening to Brother Oliphant. When he went off the air, I turned the radio off, and I knelt down by the side of my mother’s rocking chair, and I prayed a prayer in which I committed my life to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember so well saying to the Lord that, “If He would just let me live to be an adult….”

Somehow or other, I had this in my mind that I would never live to be an adult. I suppose the psychologists would tell me that maybe I’d seen and witnessed the death of some of my pets on the farm, or maybe some of the livestock on the farm, and I had a horror of it; or maybe it was because of the death of my grandfather, or somebody. I’m sure that they could explain that, but I just didn’t think I would live to be an adult, and so I promised the Lord that if I could live to be an adult, I wanted to preach His Gospel! Not only would I commit myself to preaching His Gospel, but I would preach it by radio.

Now, radio was the “new thing.” That was the means of communication in that day, you see. I remember the first radio program I ever heard. I don’t know whether you… Why, nobody here is that old. But then, you grew up with radio; but I remember hearing my first radio program. I remember the first time I ever heard one. My Dad was a Jack Dempsey [a boxer] fan—I don’t why, but he was. Jack Dempsey was going to fight Max Bare, the German. It was going to be broadcast on the radio. Well, we didn’t have a radio! But we got in our Model-T Ford, and we drove over the hills and valleys until we came to the neighbor’s house. They did have a radio, and they were going to listen to the fight.

Well, there was so much static and interference, and screeching and scrawling, and once in a while we could hear the bell ring, and we’d get to know what round they were in. Then, the next day my Dad could read in the newspaper who won. We didn’t know when we went home that night who had won.

My Dad said that it [the radio] would never be perfected—it would never work, but it did work. And we bought one of those things. It came to be a very, very good way to spread the Gospel. I believe, then, that God gave us radio for the purpose of spreading His Gospel.

And then, I can remember, also, the first television program that I ever saw. I believe you can remember your first television program, the first one you ever saw. Well, some of you can. Now, some of these young folks can’t, because it was here when they came into this world. But I remember the first one. We went to California to visit some of our relatives out there that had prospered a little bit more than we had. We got out there, and they had one of these gizmos that sat upon the table, and you could see what was going on, as well as hear, like on radio, and they called it a “television.” We sat up every night till midnight watching Championship Wrestling with Gorgeous George! That’s the first introduction I had to television. And I knew for sure that wrestling was NOT the reason God gave us television! There had to be another purpose for it.

We went back home. In the town where we lived, in Aida, Oklahoma, they were building a new television station, and I said to the elders, “We need to be a leader! in preaching the Gospel on this new television station.”

They first said, “We’re just a small church. We can’t do that.”

But you know, one of the great challenges, and one of the great blessings we get in the body of Christ is by doing…what…we…can’t…do! “We’re just a small group, and we can’t,” you know. Oh, we’ve hidden behind that old excuse so long that it’s timeworn. We CAN do some things, because God…is…able…to…make…us…ABLE…to…DO…THINGS that need to be done!!...IF we have the faith to rely on Him and look to Him. He will provide all things necessary to the work that He’s given us to do.

Anyway, we were the second paid program on that station. The first paid program came on the first day that station went on the air, and then we came on that night, and we had the second paid program on that station. The church grew from, oh, 175 people—about that—to around 500, because people heard the Gospel, and they heard it on radio and television.

Now comes along Internet, and that’s an added benefit. I don’t have time to go into that, but we now are coming to use Internet as one of the chief means of communicating the Gospel. What an open door there is there for us, and we’re going to be there also in the SEARCH Program!

Now, I’ve told you all of that so that you know that my commitment to God is to preach His Word! But, not just to preach His Word in the Sunday morning assembly.

When I was still in high school, at age 17, I preached my first sermon. That will be 64 years come the 12^th day of next month [Brother Lyon preached his first sermon on November 12, 1939]. Less than a month from now, I will have been preaching 64 years. I preached on Sunday night, and then I preached somewhere else every Sunday…every Sunday, beginning on that date while I was in high school, and then for a year or so thereafter.

Then I went to Freed-Hardeman [College at that time—Freed-Hardeman University now]. I came back and went into local work. The first place we could, we got some time on radio, because that was my commitment to the Lord—to preach the Gospel out where people can hear it.

Recently I was reading, preparing a program, and I came upon a statement in some book—it might have been a John MacArthur book—I sort of believe it was, but I can’t say for certain. I was researching in a number of books and reading different people, researching my program idea. I came upon this statement, and it stuck with me. I can’t go back and find it. I usually highlight everything with a yellow marker, but I can’t find it.

Anyway, whoever said it said truth. Here’s what he said: “In the absence of sound doctrine, God is silenced.” Now, you think about the truthfulness and the power of that statement. In the absence of sound doctrine, GOD is silenced. And, I’m afraid if we’re not mighty careful that, with all of our modern means of communication, and with all of our commitment and all that we have at our availability, if we’re not careful, we may be silencing God.

I was working at [sounds like] Hudson’s Vick Country Store in Colgate [Oklahoma?]—a country store in Colgate. I went around the building one Saturday afternoon to run an errand for them. There was a crowd gathered outside on that Saturday afternoon, and there was a charismatic preacher who was preaching on the sidewalk. There was a crowd of maybe 200 people gathered there—enough that it had blocked the traffic. Anyway, as I went along to get through them, over to where the car was so I could take the car, well, he was saying something that…well, the people were just so in laughter about it. They were just in stitches. He was a regular comedian.

I stopped to see what he was saying. And he was making fun of the “Campbellites.” Well, I didn’t know anything about Alexander Campbell, but I knew that we [members of the church of Christ] were sometimes called “Campbellites” in those days. So, I stopped long enough to see what he was saying about the Campbellites that was so funny! One thing he said was that, we were so narrow minded that [a fly? a gnat?] could sit on the bridge of our nose and kick both eyes out with but one foot. That’s pretty narrow minded.

And why are we so narrow minded? Because we believe that you have to be baptized in order to be saved! Everybody was laughing. I looked up to see who all these people were that were laughing. There were some men that I’d been seeing in church waiting on the Lord’s table—the men that I’d been seeing in church leading public prayer. And they were laughing right along with all the others.

That disturbed me!! I thought, “Why doesn’t one of these men stand up for the Truth?!? Why doesn’t somebody speak up?!? ”And he went on with his tirade against us. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I went up there, and I said, “If you think we’re so narrow minded and if you think we don’t have to be baptized, what are you going to do with Mark 16:16?” Well, he didn’t know what it said. I quoted it to him. He just laughed. He thought it was funny. And then, I said, “Well, what do you think about Acts 2:38?” He didn’t know what it said, either, so I quoted it to him. And that was funnier than the other one, and they all laughed. And I thought, “Well, I’m not doing any good here.”

[NOTE: There was a problem with the microphone. The transcriber/editor has tried to recall what Brother Lyon said during the time the microphone was out of order.]

Apparently, Brother Lyon went to the preacher of his congregation and told him what had happened. He told the preacher that he felt he hadn’t done the cause any good and asked the preacher to prepare him more fully to meet the “regular comedian” the next Saturday when that man came along. Brother Lyon told the preacher that he was going to speak up for God. The preacher told Brother Lyon that he knew what had happened. Brother Lyon did prepare and went to meet the “comedian”—the charismatic preacher—but he was not there. Brother Lyon says, “He was afraid who I might bring with me next Saturday, or some Saturday, if he was going to be there.”

[NOTE: The microphone is now adjusted, and the Bible lesson continues.]

So, the preacher said to me, “Well now, you prepared for him and he didn’t show up any more. He was not there. Now, what are you going to do?”

I said, “I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to be prepared. I’m going to prepare myself so that any time, whenever or wherever I meet a fella of his kind, I’m going to be ready for him. I won’t have go to away and study, and then come back, and he’ll be gone. I’ll be prepared.”

So he said, “Well, you preach next Sunday night at the congregation.” Well, that shocked me to death, but that’s when I preached my first sermon, and I preached there thereafter.

Forty…years…passed . I had the flu. That didn’t happen to me very many times back in those days. I had the flu, and I had to stay at home from worship. My wife went on and taught the class she was involved in, and I wrapped up in a robe and went into the den, and was going to get a program on TV. And…………………… guess…who…was…on? There he was. It wasn’t the same man, but it was his kind. It was Jimmy Swaggart, and Jimmy Swaggart, you know, in the height of his glory back in those days, he would choose a church, some kind of church, and make fun of it all through his program. He would say to the people, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can turn your TV off!”

Well, I didn’t turn my TV off, but I thought, “Why…doesn’t…somebody…speak up and SAY something? Why…don’t…we…have a nationwide program that speaks UP and SAYS something?!? ” We had had—and we still had in some areas— a program called “Amazing Grace” with Ira North, an excellent program. In some places, they had access to “Herald of Truth,” but we didn’t have access to it. And so, why doesn’t somebody…? A lot of good churches in that area; a lot of good preachers in that area—much larger churches [congregations of the Lord’s church], and much better preachers than I, but…nobody’s saying anything—just as quiet as a church mouse.

That bothered me. Why…doesn’t…somebody…speak up and say something about the Gospel, the Truth?!? If we think we have the Truth , why don’t we say something about it out where it can be heard ?!?

I wrestled with that…and prayed about it…until Spring came, and I was in a meeting in March. I was staying with an elder, in their home, upstairs. I was preparing my sermon for that night. I was praying, and I prayed about this situation about TV. I went downstairs, and I said, “If you have arranged for me a place to eat at lunchtime, please cancel it, because I have some business I must take of.”

I went to the nearest TV station to our place and bought some time—a 52-week contract. It took us a good little while to get that—[from March to the] 1^st of August as a matter of fact. I signed a 52-week contract with that station for some kind of a TV program in which we preached the Gospel. I hadn’t even told the elders about it.

I went back to the congregation; we had an elder’s meeting; the elders called a meeting and had the deacons in. We had four elders and four deacons. I proposed that to them. We were in debt! We owed for our building; we owed for…oh, my. We just had… Every time we looked up we had payments on a note at the bank for something. We had a banker, who was one of the elders, and we could get a loan at the bank. We were just a small congregation—around 125 people. But I laid that out on the table and told them what I’d done. They said, “We’re for it! Let’s do it!”

“But that’s going to be $400 a WEEK, in addition to what we’re already obligated for.”

“Let’s do it!”

Now, all of them were for it, except one deacon. This one deacon was against it, but then, he was that deacon that always felt that nothing ever should be done in that church without his opposition, so….we just didn’t pay much attention to him—we went ahead and did it anyway.

That was the beginning of the SEARCH Program we started. And you know what? The time that the TV manager sold me was……….Swaggart’s time. We got Swaggart’s time and began on Sunday morning. From the beginning, it was obvious that this Program was going to go. God was in this Program. This was the Lord’s doing.

It has grown from that time until now until I can’t tell you how many stations we’re on—that fluctuates—but, you’ve got a printout over there in the foyer if you’d like. Because of people like you, who support us, we’re able to reach into the homes of millions of people every week. The last estimate that we had of our audience per week was 16 to 18 million households. And there are 2.4 people in each household. So you figure that out, now, about how many people we have access to by means of the SEARCH Program today [that’s 38,400,000 to 43,200,000 people—ed.].

Those people who measure the [television] audiences tell us that when we’re on the air at any time, on any station, and some other preacher is on over here [on another station at the same time], or there’s another religious program on another station, we always have more [people watching] than he has—sometimes we’ll have twice as many people seeing us as he has, and sometimes it’s more that twice as many.

Our Program is acceptable with the audience. We can hold an audience; we do hold an audience because of our Message and because the Lord is working through us. I, as the apostle Paul said, I am no more than the vessel—a clay pot through whom the Gospel Message, that which is glorious, is seen. So, the people are [watching and] listening.

And who’s [watching and] listening? Well, I told you last night about one of the little girls and some of the children who listen. We have a letter printed in the Newsletter that’s coming out next from a teenager, who was converted to Christ, and he wrote and told us about it. They are young people, they’re older people, they’re babes—just little infants, preschool children like I told you about last night, who see the Program.

I was boarding an airplane in Atlanta [Georgia]. I’d closed a meeting, and I was coming home the next day. I was seated in row seven, back in the cabin with most of the people—the common people. The flight attendant came to me, and she leaned over, and she said, “Mr. Lyon, if you will get your things together and come with me, I’ll move you up into first class into a more comfortable seat.”

Well, I’d put my computer upstairs—up over my head—and I’d put everything away, and I said, “I’m comfortable here. I’ll be all right here.”

She stood there a minute, and then she said, “Mr. Lyon, I said , if you’ll come with me, I’ll give you a more comfortable seat.”

Well, this not a request—this was an order. And so, I got my computer down. I went up there with her. Well, when I stood up where I could look her in the eye, there were tears coming down her cheeks. I said, “What’s the problem?”

She said, “I don’t think I could start this thing—begin this [work] every Monday morning like this—if it were not for the encouragement that I get from your program on Sunday morning.” I don’t know where she was based. I don’t know whether it was an Atlanta-based crew, or it could have been one of the other places, but I never did get to talk to her any more. I don’t know what her situation was.

When I preach in the Eastern time-zone, and they have a 5:00 [p.m. EST] class, or some kind of an early service, that kind of thing, it isn’t unusual that I can get on a plane and I can be back in Oklahoma City and sleep in my own bed [that same night].

Well, I was doing that while I was living alone after my first wife died, before I met Lois. I was doing that; I’d come into Oklahoma City, but I had to change planes in Dallas [Texas]. When I got there, the arrival [of the flight into Dallas, which was going on to Oklahoma City,] was a little bit late, so I didn’t have much time. I went right straight to my gate—departure gate. It was nearly time for them to call the flight for Oklahoma City.

There was an elderly couple sitting over here, and they were looking at me. I knew they recognized me. Finally, he got up and came to me and said, “You’re Mack Lyon, aren’t you?”

I could hardly deny that, so I said, “Yes.”

And he said, “We’re Baptist people. We live in Clinton, Oklahoma. We always watch your Program. Really appreciate it.”

And about that time, somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around and looked, and here’s a big tall fella—big as John [Phillis] is, and about John’s build. [John Phillis is the preacher for the Northeast church of Christ where Brother Lyon held the Gospel Meeting, which included this Bible class lesson.] He was in a navy blue suit and a red necktie and a white shirt, and I knew he was on business somewhere, and I turned around and looked at him, and he said, “You’re Mack Lyon, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He said, “I am in what you would call the ‘House of Representatives’ in Oklahoma, but I live in California.” (They have a different name for it out there.) And he started talking to me, and he said, “I go around on Sundays, wherever I can get some church to let me come in, and I talk about the moral conditions of our country and the need to return to the New Testament way of living. Would you like to know,” he said, “where I get the source of my information?”

And I said, “Yes, I might use it myself, you know.”

He said, “Your secretary sends it to me every week!”

I got a telephone call one day from a man who said, “I’m a Senator in the state of Alabama. Is there any way that I can get a copy of your sermons that you have on Sunday—every one of them every week?”

I said, “Well, sure! We’d be glad to put you on the mailing list and send you one every week.”

There are others that request those same things. By the way, some preachers do that. I don’t know why, but they do.

So, we put him on the mailing list. But he went on to say the reason he wanted those transcripts was that, people on the floor of the Senate in Alabama were always quoting Mack Lyon from TV. And he said, “I want to be as up-to-date as they are, and I want to know what they’re talking about. So, send me a copy [every week].” I have no idea whether the man is a member of the church [of Christ], or not.

But what I’m saying is that people, from little children to the Baptist people in Clinton, Oklahoma, to the man in the Legislature out in California, or the Senate in Alabama, or wherever, there are people who listen, and they listen carefully!

A Baptist preacher called me from California, and he said, “Brother Mack! Don’t give up! You’re making an impact!” (I don’t know why he thought I might give up.) He said, “We appointed elders in our church today! And you’re going to see more and more of that in Southern Baptist churches!” And he says, “Because of what you’re preaching on TV.”

And I found that to be true. The biggest Baptist church in Edmond, Oklahoma, appointed elders in their congregation. Furthermore, the biggest Baptist church in Edmond, Oklahoma, now baptizes for the remission of sins !

I have had a number of telephone calls from men and women, who have said something to this effect: “We have a music minister who wants us to go back to a cappella congregational singing.” One of them said, “I’m meeting with a lot of opposition.” But he’s still doing it [leading a cappella singing]. He said, “One Sunday night a month we have congregational a cappella singing, and it’s because of you folks on the SEARCH Program. You’re showing the people how they can do it. It can be done.”

I had a professor in music over at OU [Oklahoma University], not that much of that [teaching] “took,” but I was in the class. He said, “You can never have good congregational singing, because so many people sing off key, or they don’t have the voice for music.” But he didn’t ever hear the Edmond church sing. And he’s not heard us sing [here at the Northeast congregation]. We can sing, and we’re sending a message with our music.

Another person called and said, “Our Music Minister is new here, and he wants us to go to a cappella music. He doesn’t like the drums and the horns and all that’s going on with the new kind of church music. He wants us to go to a cappella congregational singing, like you do on the SEARCH Program . He’s meeting some opposition, but we will sing one song in each service without the instruments.” So, you see, while some of us are going in that direction, there are some of the others who are coming back.

Now, I’m not boasting. I’m just simply telling you that there are people who are listening. And you, and I and others who help in this work are putting out some sound doctrine. If we don’t do it, we silence God. God doesn’t have a voice in things.

In a recent Gallup Poll it was learned that, 45%...only 45% of Americans, nowadays, have any confidence in organized religion—what we call “church.” Fewer than half the people! You go out and knock doors and you say, “Can we come in and study the Bible with you?” You get a “No” answer. Why? Because , less than half the people have any confidence in what we call “Christianity” today.

But, you and I know…don’t we?...that Christianity, even though it was a persecuted Way in the 1^st Century, and Jesus never won any popularity contests and didn’t go out and enroll in any, and the New Testament Christians did not do so, we do know that they were respected. The Bible says that it is a “worthy Name by which you are called,” [James 2:7]—the name “Christian.” In spite of the persecution and the opposition there was to it, the people were respected. But what we’re seeing in the religious world in America today is not respected!

And you and I have an opportunity to come in with sound doctrine and preach something that can be respected. They KNOW we’re not a fake like Swaggart and Roberts and Baker (back yonder) and Bennie Henn. There’s not a bigger show farce on TV than Bennie Henn, celebrated! as a great healer of the day. I watched a little bit of his program the other day; saw a little bit of Jimmie Swaggart this morning. They’ve been a disgrace to what’s called “Christianity” today. You don’t have to have me tell you. YOU know it! If you look at any of it at all, you KNOW what you see on television, hear on the radio and read in the press—you know that’s not Christianity like you read about it in the New Testament.

But if we keep quiet, brethren, nobody will ever know about New Testament Christianity. We…need…to give God a VOICE in America today! We…need…to call people BACK to New Testament Christianity. That is respected. If you read about it in your Bible, you can respect it and give it honor. We need to be there; and we need to be there stronger than we are.

We’d like to do some children’s programs. We’d like to do some live streaming of programs on the Internet [Audio and Video streaming is now on SEARCH web site at searchtv.org—ed.]. We’d like to have a continuous running—streaming—on television, all day long, every day for five days [a week]. We want to do that. But, of course, we have to have the support of people like you. We’re grateful for the support that you do give us as a congregation, and some of you, perhaps, as individuals.

Well, let’s see now, is my time up? It is, huh. I see there are people gathering out there in the foyer for the worship service. You have been very attentive during this Bible class.

I’ve tried not to bore you with my personal background, but I wanted you to know why we’re on TV. I’m not doing it because I thought I could do a better job that Batsell Barrett Baxter, or I could do a better job than Ira North. That’s the farthest thing from my mind. In our area, in our time, we didn’t have access to a program; and I felt some of us should be speaking up, and that’s what we’re doing today—not because I think I can do it better than anybody else. Thank you for your encouragement and support. And here comes John to shut me down for sure.