I MISS HIM!

Allow me to unfold a true and tragic story of a man who walked away from God and the words above were some of his final public utterances.  Let’s take it step by step.

There were two outstanding evangelists.  Both earned attention, not only in North America and Great Britain.  Both were friends who worked side by side and often preached together on the same night.  Also, they were active in starting and guiding Youth for Christ in its early days.  One was named Charles and the other, Billy Frank.  Both had extraordinary abilities to declare the Bible in a way that was both believable and lifechanging.  You know Billy Frank, we call him simply Billy, Billy Graham.  The other is less known, Chuck, Chuck Templeton, a Canadian citizen.

One finished his life loving Jesus and being honored by the Christian people from all over the world.  The other ended his life almost alone, writing a book entitled Farewell to God:  My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.  Templeton did not just drop out as an active Christian; in his last days he spoke out against it as an agnostic who now turned his back on God in open rejection and declared it.

In Templeton’s last days in Canada, living in wealth in an exclusive high rise apartment, he agreed to meet with a Christian writer and to give his final confession.  In that interview he, in weakness of failing health, now in his eighties, was asked about how he felt about Jesus.  Much like Mahatma Gandhi he said that Jesus was in a category all by Himself, “… the most important being that ever existed.”  And with a sigh and a sob he said with a weakened voice, “I … miss … Him!”

Nietzsche, the agnostic thinker that Hitler loved to read, once said some strong words, “I charge thee, throw not away the hero in thy soul.”  But, it seems evident that this is exactly what Chuck Templeton did, and many others are in those ranks.

Thomas a’ Kempis had a dark time of deep doubt about his holding true to his confession of faith.  He wrote, “Oh, if only I knew I would hold out to the last.”  Suddenly within him there was a strong reaction.  “Look back,” it seemed to say—has He ever failed you?  “Look around”—is He overlooking your present needs?  Then, don’t you know that same God will be with you every step you take on the way Home?  “Look forward”—the same Christ who always was there for you will be there sufficient for you even then and for eternity!  It was settled in his mind.  Many of us need that reminder too!

But when we think of Templeton as well as some we have known who left the church and even rejected in practice the faith—we are brought to a strange pause, and we ask not, “What about them?” and more importantly, but “What about me?”

So, we find ourselves shocked and rocked to the core of our being—here is the statement of a former preacher, a man of the full potential of Billy Graham, facing death yet denying the Jesus he once proclaimed.  Can you grasp it?  Furthermore, once he turned away from Christ, Chuck Templeton did not financially suffer—in fact, he prospered in Canada.  He was a success in the newspaper business and an executive with the television network of Canada.  He was, humanly speaking, a success.  Leaving Christ behind did not seem to professionally limit him in any way; on the surface he had a very good life to the end. — All this also leaves us troubled for an honest, plausible explanation.

What do we say that makes sense?

Consider this.  In Scotland the respected and honored preacher Arthur John Gossip had a strikingly beautiful wife.  At the peak of her life she suddenly died leaving him and an entire city dumbfounded and distraught.  She was alive with a vivacious smile one Sunday, in the grave before the next!  In fact, all of Scotland’s Christians heard of her tragic, sudden death and grieved and asked profound questions.  People asked her husband, the preacher, “Will it destroy his faith?  Can he go on?  Will he be angry and disillusioned with God?”

The next Sunday he preached one of Scotland’s most unforgettable sermons entitled “When Life Tumbles in, What Then?”  In the recent past he’d mentioned in John 6 how that many people who started to follow Christ walked away, just like Chuck Templeton did in his life.  Gossip boldly, often on some previous occasions, presented with great drama the question Jesus asked the disciples, “Will you also walk away?” (John 6:67)  He said, “Go away to what?”  At that time, in that next Sunday morning he said, “I do not understand this life of ours, but still less can I comprehend how people in trouble and loss and bereavement can fling away … the Christian faith.  In God’s name, fling to what?  Have we not lost enough without losing that too?”  Then Gossip looked at the huge crowd and said with deep emotion, “You people in the sunshine may believe the faith, but we in the shadow must believe it.  We have nothing else!”

We all wish Chuck Templeton had come to that same conclusion.

Rabbi Harold Kushner has been a popular author and he almost seems of the same mind as Chuck Templeton as he struggles with faith.  Just as there are steps to God, there are steps away from God.  One is to limit God.  Rabbi Kushner says, “There are some things God does not control.”  Furthermore, “He is not perfect,” and “He cannot always arrange” positive things.  Chuck Templeton concluded human suffering of innocent people meant there was no loving God and He was powerless to bring an end to evil, so he lost faith in God.

People like them, may still faintly believe in God, but they say, “Don’t expect too much from Him.”   Eventually the conclusion, if God cannot control the world today, then He cannot control the future—so why pray to Him?  He is, after all, helpless to intervene.  Such people conclude God is either an unconcerned spectator of our world or He is powerless to change things.

Faith says, God cannot do anything that is contrary to His own nature or the nature of truth He has built into His universe.  God cannot make a square circle, He cannot make a rock too heavy for Him to lift.  But that does not indicate God is a victim of His own nature or is handicapped.  He is not the victim of the freedom of choice He gave to man.  He is able to accomplish His ultimate perfect will and yet remain true to His character and the principles He has built into the universe.

God is greater than our thoughts about Him or the words we use to talk about Him.  Think of it, God is far greater than the most wonderful, glorious words ever used to describe Him!  All this leads us to acknowledge that God is beyond us and leads to faith that is humble and yet grateful.  Greater minds than mine or yours came to a settled confident faith.  Why should I be unsettled?  So we return to the challenge, “If we walk away from God—where do we go?” as Gossip asked his Scottish nation.  I can tell you where we will end up in life—empty and mournfully saying like Chuck Templeton, “I miss Him!”

Finally, Jesus reminded us, not all who preach are truly converted people.  In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus says it clearly, not all preachers and pastors, evangelists and missionaries are truly indwelled by Jesus Christ!  John Wesley went from England to Georgia as a missionary/evangelist before he was truly converted to Christ.  The Apostle John, in his letter, gives us the Biblical answer, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (I John 2:19, NIV)  Jesus indicated that Judas, an original disciple, did not lose his salvation for he never had it!  (John 6:70)

We say to Chuck Templeton and all like him, “We miss you!” while you, as you remember Jesus’ love, say, “I miss Him!”