I recently read ‘How to Bring Men to Christ’ and found that it met me where I needed spiritual guidance. The book was written to urge God’s people to have a love for souls and to help those whom God’s Spirit has awakened to personal evangelism. Torrey continually proclaimed Christ through preaching, evangelistic meetings, as well as many thousands of personal conversations. He was a man immersed in God’s Word.

Can we communicate with the dead? A lot of people seem to think so. They go to graves, make social media posts to deceased loved ones, perform rituals, and worship ancestors.
Christians should know that direct communication with the dead is impossible. Trying to do so is sin against God (Lev. 20:6; Deut. 18:10-11; 1 Sam. 28:3). But what if I was to tell you that in a certain sense, the dead can speak, and we can listen?
How, you ask? Through the medium of reading their writings.
Old Books and Communing with the Dead
There are ways to commune with those who have gone before. We can listen to the voices of those who have passed beyond this world through their writings or recordings. There are the Scriptures, those writings directly inspired by God. But there is more that God uses. When we read the works of faithful Christians, we can fellowship with them around the unchanging Truth that challenged and shaped them. When we know their acts of faith and the overall tenor of their life, we can approach these voices of the dead and expect to be encouraged in our own life journey!
Books written by now long-dead believers may be just what we need. Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking that books written for Christians in different times aren’t for us today. Yes, there are some real issues with reading older books. You may have to deal with reading archaic language at times. There are vastly different cultural contexts represented. Denominational differences held by some writers can also be distracting. Having said this, don’t miss out on what godly writers in days past have left for us (like Richard Baxter)!
Sometimes we can allow our present life and ministry context to lull us to sleep. Some areas of our theology become dormant. Devotionally, we walk in circles. Reading sermons and books from believers of other times, especially when those writers have endured much for the sake of the Gospel, can be used of God to re-kindle our hearts.
I would like to draw your attention to two books that I have recently read that have stirred my soul about evangelism. The Lord knew I was desperately in need of this emphasis, so He led me to read some older works that have greatly helped revive me, including these two.
Words to Winners of Souls
Horatius Bonar was a Scottish preacher who lived through times of spiritual revival. He lived from 1808-1889. Bonar was well-known in his time as a preacher of God’s Word and leader in the Free Church of Scotland.
He was also a prodigious writer of books and hymns. He wrote over 140 hymns, including some more well-known titles, one of which is “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” I have seen him referred to as “the prince of Scottish hymn writers.”
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Jesus called people out for their sin and their lack of belief. He didn’t make excuses. He called on people to take responsibility. And then, Jesus took responsibility for our sin. Jesus took our sin and shame and punishment. No excuses. 

I am an expert excuse generator. It is part of my nature. Not my spiritual, redeemed nature. Excuse-making comes from my sinful, flesh nature.
We offer excuses because we do not want to take responsibility. Just consider the way that they are explained. You give an excuse. You take responsibility.
An excuse is that which you offer others to hide your sin, your shame, your insecurities, your weaknesses, your guilt. Responsibility is the mantle that you take upon yourself so that you can relieve others of the burden.
When we make excuses, we work to shift blame. We work to burden someone else. When we take responsibility, we own the blame. We carry our own burden.
Adam was the first excuse-maker. When God questioned Adam in the garden, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Adam answered,
The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.
Adam, unwilling to own responsibility for his failure to protect his wife and for his failure to obey the Lord, seeks to shift blame. Who does Adam blame? God and his wife.
Since that time, we have all imitated our first father. We are not only sinners, we are excuse-makers and blame-shifters.
Like Adam, we look for someone else to blame. We avoid mirrors and point fingers.
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The world could care less about how you define terms in your Christian circles. Just don’t take your views into the public square. If they choose to define Christian Nationalism as a nation influenced by Christians that promote Christian morality because they believe in the God of the Bible, then we will have to live with their definition, and we will have to live with any consequences that come from that definition.

One of the interesting dynamics in the debate over Christian Nationalism is that there has been no acceptable definition of what it would look like if it were implemented in our nation.  Various evangelical and reformed protagonists in this debate have framed various scenarios of Christian Nationalism from a time-capsule approach of merely returning to the Eisenhower era to the portrait approach of monarchial tyrants in high places of the civil government.  How about a Chrisitan Prince?
The worst-case fear is that religious persecution would rise again as it did in Europe just a few hundred years ago.  Some Baptists today are afraid they might be put in jail under a Presbyterian ruler; and the first amendment, the right to free speech, would cease to exist. Theonomists would be in charge, and some young children would be put to death by stoning. As a theonomist and a clergyman in the PCA who follows both sides of this debate, I am aghast at the ridiculous characterizations of proponents of Christian Nationalism, on both sides.
Listen up! It would appear now that we evangelicals do not need to define Christian Nationalism anymore.  There is no need for any more books or articles on the topic.  Our enemies in the world have done it for us.  In speaking of Christian Nationalists, Heidi Przybyla, a journalist with the popular Politico has said “that they [Christian Nationalists] believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority.”  She went on to say that Christian Nationalists believe that our “rights don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God.”  Well, there you go—a definition of Christian Nationalism without all the minutia of what one would look like in detail. We Reformed guys are into the details too much anyway.
My first reaction to this new definition of Christian Nationalism is that maybe Ms. Przybyla forgot to read the Declaration of Independence where our forefathers declared that “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Our rights do come from God and not from man.
The Creator God of America in 1776 was the Trinitarian God of the Bible. At one time America was a Christian nation.  Christian nationalism gave rise to both a robust freedom of religion and the freedom of the press—two fundamental bullworks of what has been called American exceptionalism.  American Christian Nationalism even protected the right of free speech of men who were atheists.
So, to put it simply, Christian Nationalists believe in a nation where the rights and responsibilities of the people are derived from God himself, and not simply from a Congress that has become irrelevant, or a Supreme Court gone rogue, or even a neutral Constitution that can be interpreted according to the fleeting ideas of autonomous men.
What am I trying to say to evangelical and reformed Christians?  We’re all Christian Nationalists now!  If you believe that the laws of our nation-state should reflect, at a minimum, the last six of the ten commandments of the Bible, then you are a Christian Nationalist. If you vote for any candidate for public office who shares your views, then you are a Christian Nationalist.
For example, if you believe that abortion is the unlawful taking of human life because the Bible says so, then you are a Christian Nationalist.  If you believe that homosexual marriage is sinful because the Bible says so, then you are a Christian Nationalist. If you believe that God created mankind as male and female, and the Bible forbids a multi-binary identity, then you are a Christian Nationalist.  If you believe it is your right to say publicly that “Christ is King,” then you are a Christian Nationalist.
Now, maybe you disagree with this definition.  Maybe you don’t like it.  Maybe you think it is too simple.  Well, it really does not matter what you believe, or what you like, or what you think.  We evangelicals don’t make the rules anymore nor do we have the authority to create definitions in the public square.  Write all the books you want and publish all the articles you want.  You will add nothing to the public debate.  In the mind of the world, you are no longer a contributor to the public dialogue. You are only a threat to them.
Just remember that the world controls the definitions and what is allowed to be spoken in the public conversation.  You are safe within the walls of your church sanctuary. They could care less about how you define terms in your Christian circles. Just don’t take your views into the public square. If they choose to define Christian Nationalism as a nation influenced by Christians that promote Christian morality because they believe in the God of the Bible, then we will have to live with their definition, and we will have to live with any consequences that come from that definition.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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