The Prodigal Believer

At the age of 22, having just graduated from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, the Reverend Jerry Falwell returned to his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia in June of 1956.  It was there that God had given him a dream of reaching people for Christ in the town where he had grown up.  Renting space in a small store front, Rev. Falwell and his wife Macel, who played the piano, started Thomas Road Baptist Church with 35 members.  Every day, He would go from house to house in Lynchburg, knocking on doors, talking to them about Jesus, and inviting people to attend TRBC.  Just a few short weeks later, after starting the new church, Rev. Falwell began the Old-Time Gospel Hour.  It was a daily Bible radio program with a weekly television broadcast that aired locally throughout the James River valley.  Between the church and the radio and television ministry, one would think that this would be a big enough dream from God for one man to fulfill.  But the Lord had an even bigger dream for Rev. Falwell.

Eleven years after the founding of Thomas Road Baptist Church, God gave Rev. Falwell a dream of educating the students in the Lynchburg area.  So in 1967, Rev. Falwell founded Lynchburg Christian Academy which was a fully accredited Christian day school for grades kindergarten to high school.  In 1971, God expanded Rev. Falwell’s educational dream with the founding of Lynchburg Baptist College with 154 students.  In 1985, with growth in the college, the name was changed to Liberty University.   For 51 years, Dr. Jerry Falwell spent his life growing the vision and dream of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University.  During that time, he would experience great difficulty as well as great success just like any one who is called by God to fulfill a dream.  But in spite of whatever might come up or whatever distraction would try to grab his attention, Dr. Falwell always stayed focused upon the dream that God had called him to fulfill.  This dream was to build the largest Christian university in the world.

On May 15, 2007, Dr. Jerry Falwell was found lying unconscious in his office around 11:30 a.m. by members of his staff.  Staff members immediately began resuscitation efforts on him.  The responding emergency personnel continued the resuscitation in the ambulance while on the way to Lynchburg General Hospital.  At 12:40 p.m., just a little over an hour after he had collapsed, Dr. Jerry Falwell was pronounced dead.  He had gone on to be with his Lord.

At the passing of Dr.Jerry Falwell, some people began to express their feelings about what would now become of Liberty University.  How could an institution, seemingly built around the ideals, personality, and vision of one man continue to thrive and grow?  People unassociated with Liberty University began to wonder out loud whether the vision and dreams of Dr. Falwell had died with him.  There were even those pundits who expressed doubt about the University’s ability to survive financially without the charismatic personality of Dr. Falwell.  A few people even surmised that the University would stagnate and fade into obscurity now that Falwell was gone.  It seemed, from the view point of these individuals, that Dr. Falwell’s dream was over and that the growth of Liberty University was destined to decline.

But, those who really understood the foundation upon which Dr. Falwell’s dream was built knew that the dream would not die with the dreamer.  They knew that his dream was not built upon who he was nor was it built around who he had become.  Dr. Falwell’s dream came from the Lord and it was the Lord upon which it was built.  “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 (NIV).  Dr. Falwell understood that the dream God had given him was part of the foundation for other dreams and other dreamers, whom God would call in the future, to build upon.  He knew that what the Lord had given him to do was not just for the moment but it was part of God’s eternal plans just like all the other dreams that God gives.  Dr. Falwell once said, “We believe that God is going to help us build the greatest Christian school in the world.” Even the motto of Liberty University, “training Champions for Christ”, reflects that he knew he was part of something bigger than himself.  Dr. Jerry Falwell was clear on the fact that he was merely part of the foundation upon which God wanted to build for the future.

In January of 2010, two and a half years after the death of Dr. Jerry Falwell, Liberty University has become the largest Christian university in the world under the direction of his oldest son Jerry Falwell Jr.  At the end of January 2010 there were 57,371 students enrolled at Liberty University of which over 45,000 are pursuing their education through Liberty’s various online programs.  Liberty University also became debt free upon Dr. Falwell’s death due to a wise decision to take out a multimillion dollar life insurance policy with the university as the beneficiary.  Dr. Falwell knew his dream was not just for a season but that it was part of the foundation that God would use to educate Christian men and women for decades beyond the time when he would pass away.

Josephs’ dream, like Dr. Jerry Falwell’s dream, did not die when he died because it was part of the foundation of subsequent dreams that God would give to other dreamers.  The dream God gave to Joseph was part of His master plan for getting his people back to the Promised Land.  The dream that God gave to Joseph laid the foundation for Moses to lead the children of Israel back to the Promised Land.  This in turn laid the foundation for Ezra to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and then for Nehemiah to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.  Joseph’s dream was part of the foundation upon which the Disciples fulfilled their dream of reaching people in, “…Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world” Acts 1:8 (The Message).  From the foundational dreams fulfilled by Joseph, Moses, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Disciples, Paul launched his dream to reach the people of Macedonia, “That night Paul had a vision in which he saw a Macedonian standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” Acts 16:9 (GNT).

Joseph understood that his big dream was not designed to run its course and then end with his death.  In the final days of his life, Joseph told his family and friends, “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” Genesis 50:24 (NJKV).  These words reveal his perspective on the big dream that God had given him.  It was clear to Joseph that he was laying the foundation for others to build their big dreams from God upon.  Joseph viewed the big dream from God as an ongoing process that even after his death he would still be a part of.  In Genesis 50: 25, Joseph makes the children of Israel swear an oath to “carry up my bones from here” (NKJV).  Joseph was saying, “I want you to promise me to take me with you when you leave Egypt for the Promised Land.”

Big Dreams are part of the foundation upon which other big dreams and other dreamers build upon. Within God’s economy, every dream He reveals is part of the foundation of previously given dreams and will add to the foundation for other dreamers to build upon.  By design, God interconnects all dreams.  Ephesians 5:20-22 says, “Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (NIV). This passage means that there are no stand alone dreams for all dreams point to the majesty and power of who God is.  Jesus Christ is the cornerstone that anchors the foundation upon which all dreams are built.

With Jesus as the “chief cornerstone” of our dreams, we must never think that our dreams are insignificant or unimportant.  We must avoid the temptation to listen to Satan, who would have us to believe that our dreams really do not matter and that no one really cares about our dreams.  Satan would attempt to tell us that our dreams are just fantasies or delusions of grandeur that we imagine to help us deal with our puny insignificant lives.  The real truth is that there is not any dream that is insignificant to God and all dreams are important to what He wants to accomplish through each dreamer.   A note in The Blackaby Study Bible reflects this truth when it states, “The Spirit of God brings us to Christ, and then unlocks the door to all spiritual realities.  Those who are unwilling to accept Him can do nothing but follow a lie.” What the writers are saying can be applied to dreams which is the Lord will “unlock” or bring the dream to reality while Satan would want us to believe a “lie” by telling us our dream is insignificant or unimportant.  In John 14:12, Jesus tells the disciples that, “The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it” (The Message).  This promise from God tells us that if we trust that our dream is from God then God will do great things in fulfilling the dream.  What the dream accomplishes will be so great that people cannot help but recognized that the dream came from God.

Outside of the annuals of the Christian faith no one knows of Edward Kimball and very few within the Christian community have ever heard of him.  At first glance, there was nothing special about Edward Kimball.  He managed a shoe store in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid 1800’s. and taught a Sunday School class at the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon in Boston.  But Kimball had a simple dream of reaching young men for Christ in the Boston area.  One  of the young men in his class and who also worked for him at the shoe store was Dwight Moody.  It was under the teaching and witnessing of shoe salesman Edward Kimball that Moody came to know the Lord.  From the world’s perspective, at the time, this was no big deal.  It was a seemingly insignificant event with no major impact on the history of the world.  But what may seem small and insignificant to the world is always of great importance to what God wants to do through the dreams of ordinary people.  Dwight L Moody went on to become one of the greatest evangelists the Christian world has ever known.  During Moody’s life, he founded the Moody Church, Moody Publishing and Moody Bible Institute.  But just as important as these institutions are, there is also the lineage of Christian leaders that were impacted by the foundation God built through Moody.  Moody influenced the great British pastor F. B. Meyer who in turn influenced the American evangelist Wilbur Chapman.  It was Wilbur Chapman that influenced Billy Sunday who became a great evangelist in the United States.  It was Billy Sunday who came and preached an evangelistic crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina that resulted in a group of men praying for the city of Charlotte.  For ten years these men regularly met and prayed together, asking God to rise up just one person who would faithfully preach the gospel.  The place where these men would meet to pray was on Frank Graham’s dairy farm and the one whom God raised up to preach the gospel was Frank’s son William.  We know him as Billy Graham, the most influential evangelist of this century who has influenced millions of people around the world to accept Jesus as his or her savior.

All the dreams that God has given from Joseph to Ezra to Nehemiah to Paul to Moody to Meyer to Chapman to Sunday to Graham to Falwell and then to you and I are all linked together.  Some dreams may seem to have a bigger impact than others but the spiritual fact is all dreams and all dreamers are equally important in what God wants to accomplish in the world.