A
MAN OF MINISTRY AND EVANGELISM
From Childhood To Conversion
"No man that warreth entangleth
himself with the affairs of this life, that he may
please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”
II Timothy 2:4
On October 11, 1907, a mighty warrior was given to the church, and placed in
the loving Christian care of Albert and Helen Hendley. Jesse M. Hendley
was born in Montgomery, Alabama, but soon brought to Atlanta, Georgia by his
parents. Little Jess spent most of his preschool years on Formwalt
Street, which was near the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.
During those early years of Dr. Jess'
life, his father, who was a bio-vocational pastor, moved the family to Decatur,
Georgia, where they lived, as Brother Jess fondly remembers, on 5th Street in a
big two-story house. His father worked as a telegraph operator and
provided both a warm spiritual and material home atmosphere for his family.
Dr. Hendley speaks with great admiration
for his dad, and remembers him as a man of words. Though not formally
trained for the ministry, he kept new words before him as he prepared to
preach. Mom was a loving, caring Christian who gave young Jess his first
Bible and a Bible Story Book for Children. With these two books as his basic
reading material, Brother Jess says, "I couldn't get enough.”
The love for words passed on from dad, and
his mom seeing to it that he had proper materials in hand, caused Jess to skip
a lot of play with the rest of the boys in his neighborhood. Jess
says, “I was all boy, but I was so fascinated with the Bible and the book that
mom had given me, I just sat and read. I loved them In fact, I cannot
remember a time in my life when I did not love the Bible.”
At twelve, Jess joined the church and was baptized. But, he had not come to a
saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In these growing up years, he attended the
Decatur grammar schools. He graduated from Tech High School and went on
to Georgia Tech for one year. Mom wanted him to become a Civil Engineer
and work in South America. This was the trend of the time for young men
to take their degrees and go work in South America. South America was
just then opening up for development. But Jess soon found out Civil
Engineering was not what he was cut out for. The love and fascination for
words brought him back to the study of God's Word. Georgia Tech did not
get him, South America did not get him, God's plan was still on track even
though Jess, yet, did not know Christ.
The sad day came when mom was told she had
cancer. She struggled with this horrible disease for a short time.
At her death, Jess Hendley came face to face with the truth. He was lost;
very religious, but lost. This truth had to be dealt with
immediately. His living a moral life and caring for the body religion
which he had preached to the young men at the Y.M.C.A., where he was director,
just didn't seem to fill the emptiness of lost ness and loneliness Jess
felt. He had been good, but he had not experienced the grace of
God. He says with sadness, "from twelve to twenty without Christ.”
One day, shortly after his mother's death,
sitting on the porch of his home, he began reading the Book of Revelation at
Chapter 19, verse 11. He saw sin and the judgment of sin by the sinless
judge. After that, he saw his problem. He had religion, but did not have
Christ. He immediately invited Jesus into his heart.
Christ came in and took over his fife, and
he has walked with him ever since. In that moment, the glory of Christ’s
return was so great, so wonderful, that Jess says, “When Christ comes the
second time for the rapture of the Church, I do not know how it could be more
glorious. For six months I hardly knew whether I was in Heaven or on
earth, and that spiritual experience is still with me today. Praise the
Lord!”
Revelation 19: 11 not only brought peace
to his life, but also a hunger to know
prophecy that he had never known before. This passage had called him to
repentance and played a major role in calling him to that part of ministry that
would make him known as a renowned teacher of this part of God's plan for the
ages. He has brought prophecy and evangelism together in this century as
no other preacher of the Gospel has been able to do. He continues today
preaching revivals with this method of the combination and still many people
are won to Christ.
Life
With Louise
At twenty, Jess Hendley met the two most
important people in his life. The Lord Jesus Christ and Louise
West. While directing bodybuilding at the Y.M.C.A. in Atlanta, Georgia, a
friend dared him to have a double date. Louise West was his friend's date
and they were supposed to meet at her house. Well, Jess says, "I
beat my friend to Louise's house, and as I walked through the door into the
living room, there she sat." He suddenly had a change of heart and a
change of plans for his life, which, up to this time, had not included a
wife. Louise was sitting, listening to a popular song of the day, “It
Ain't Gonna Rain No More." Jess, right then and there, made up his
mind he was going to try hard to make that song come true for Louise.
When his friend arrived, he persuaded him to switch dates. That switch,
for sure, changed Jess Hendley's plan for life. It would include his
beloved Louise. This was the first and only girl he ever dated.
After four years of courting, they were married. Dr. Jess has nothing but
praise for this lovely lady who served Christ with him for over 60 years.
She loved her preacher husband, her children and grandchildren.
But Dr. Hendley says, "Louise loved
God and loved those preachers who preached His word". She often
prepared meals for ministers and their wives just so these men of God could be
together with their wives and their fellow laborers in the ministry.
After dinner, the ladies would finish the chores of the meal while these
preachers would go to the study where Bibles were opened and passages
discussed. Minds were strengthened; ministries were strengthened, and
sermon material came in abundance. It always ended with these warriors of
the cross on their knees.
Listening to Dr. Hendley as he preaches
and often recounts these experiences with
Louise, he will begin to encourage men, and men of God. Love your wives;
give them the time they deserve. Watch your home and your children, lest
you lose them. If you lose these precious gifts from God, you often lose
your place of ministry. So as he preaches, Louise lives on in her Godly
influence. Her influence is deeply cherished and appreciated. She
is remembered and still loved by so many that had their lives touched by this
Godly saint.
Proverbs 31:31 describes the character
Louise Hendley is loved and known for. In the words of our Lord, Give her
of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.”
The
Man And His Ministry
The
Call to the Ministry
When asked about his call Dr. Hendley
quickly replies, the Bible is the secret to the whole experience.” After his
conversion, he began rising each morning one hour earlier than anyone else in
the Hendley household. For that hour, he would sit with Bible in hand at
a kitchen table and study the Word of God.
Upon leaving for work on the west side of
Atlanta, he would catch the trolley, and for the duration of the forty-five
minute ride from Decatur, he would study. The Bible and R. A. Torrey’s,
Gist of the Lesson, were his study material. Upon arriving at the plant where
he worked as a draftsman he waited for the lunch hour when he could find a
secluded place in the warehouse and continue to study.
Study
and Seminary
A Godly preacher once said to this young
convert, “What you learn from the Bible, teach it.” This has been the
secret of his ministry. He says, "All I have done all my life is study and
preach and teach the Bible." Out of this diligence in study, there
began to be such a difference in Jess Hendley. His church family readily
noticed the change and asked if he would teach a Sunday School class. He
claimed to be just a novice
and felt the need to be taught himself. Soon thereafter, a friend invited
him to a Thursday night Bible study. It was there the first great
influence came into his life. It was R.D. Kilgore who taught that Bible
class. This man took Jess under his wing. They would sit for hours after these
classes and talk. Jess says, "I pulled all I could out of his brain
and I owe R. D. Kilgore a debt.”
The Sunday school class was accepted and
soon afterward he was asked to take a Friday night Bible class.
Remembering how R. D. Kilgore had advised him, he just studied the Word and gave
the people what God had given him. This led to his first invitation to
preach. He began preaching and soon afterward received his first call to
the pastorate. He refused three calls and on the third call began
praying. He spent a whole night in prayer and he and Louise together
surrendered their lives to the ministry
They had only been married six months and
Louise had always said she would never marry a preacher. But both their
commitments held unshakable to God and to each other as they labored together
for over 60 years.
After these studies with R. D. Kilgore,
his study really intensified. Jess was given a copy of Huddleston’s Greek
Grammar by a pastor friend who took him through the first twelve chapters and
then moved off the field leaving Jess to complete the other
twenty chapters on his own. He pressed on and memorized these
chapters, and thus was introduced to Greek. He had longed for this day, when
years before he had learned the scriptures were written in their original form
in Hebrew and Greek. His hunger for learning God's Word never diminished; nor
his thirsting after God quenched in the learning process. He had heard of
a Greek scholar who taught at Oglethorpe University, Dr. Nicollasin. Dr.
Nicollasin saw the eagerness to learn in this young preacher, Jess Hendley, and
began to give him special training. This prepared Dr. Jess for a year of study
at Columbia, a Presbyterian Bible College in Decatur, Ga., then on to
Louisville, Ky., where he attended seminary. All of his Louisville days were
spent commuting back and forth from his pastorate at Colonial Hills Baptist
Church in East Point, Ga. to the seminary. He came home to family and
church every two weeks. The amazing part of that time of his ministry was
this continuous revival that was in progress at the church. Dr. Jess says
with deep appreciation, “While other men borrowed money for their training,
Colonial Hills paid for mine. I shall never forget it.”
When the young preacher, Jess Hendley,
came to the seminary at Louisville, He asked the senior Greek professor, Dr.
Davis, if he could sit in on his class. Dr. Davis asked if he had ever
had "Baby Greek," or Junior Greek. Of course, Jess replied no,
and told him he had received personal tutoring with Dr. Nicollasin. He
was permitted to stay in the class but was still not promised a grade.
But he says, “Dr. Davis saw my hunger and willingness to learn." He did
his work with the class and Dr. Davis gave him his grade at the end of the
year.
He tells another story of a class where
they were studying the Book of Romans in Greek. The professor was a man
who was both tall and large. All the class in deference to him would
stand when he came into the room.
He would walk to the front of the class,
mumble a prayer that no one could understand, say "Amen," and ask
every one to be seated. One young man gathered his courage one day and
asked, “Sir, would you please pray louder. We can't understand
you." The reply was, "Son, I wasn't talking to you.”
Radio
and Pastoring
Dr. Hendley went on radio in 1931. Someone
interested in his ministry gave him enough money to begin that program.
It was supposed to last for six weeks. For over sixty-two years now, he
has never left that wonderful medium of outreach. Today, at 86, he is
still preaching on one of the Atlanta stations.
December of 1932, he accepted his first
pastorate. It was a small church in Lilburn, Ga., called Liberty Baptist
Church. This church today is the thriving First Baptist Church of
Lilburn.
April of 1933, he left Liberty to become
pastor of a small mission church that had
Sunday school rooms divided by cardboard partitions. This was Colonial
Hills Baptist Church of East Point, Georgia. As Brother Jess talks of his
fourteen-year pastorate there, he describes it as a fourteen year-long revival.
After a mass resignation of almost all the leadership of the church, God began
to pour out Holy Ghost revival. God was all over the place. People were
continually being converted. Men and women would weep and pray over their
lost husbands or wives, children, grandparents, parents. He says with
passion, "People believed God; they feared Him.” They believed the Bible
and welcomed the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.” Colonial Hills
grew from that mission church to one of the larger churches in the Atlanta
area.
After leaving
the Colonial Hills pastorate, he went into evangelism full time. Some of
this ministry had already begun.
In 1938, the first big tent crusade was
held at the Moreland School grounds. It lasted for several weeks with
many souls coming to know Christ. But Jess says we grew tired and I
decided to close the meeting. One night, after announcing the close, Brother Jess went home and God kept him
awake most of the night. He announced on his radio program the next day
that the meeting would continue, and the tent was full that night. It
grew until they moved it to the old Ponce de Leon Ball Park, where the Atlanta
Crackers played. Earl Mann, owner of the Crackers, estimated crowds to be
in excess of seven thousand. The first night at the ballpark, over 60 people
came to make professions of faith in Christ.
In 1939, a defunct Billy Sunday Club group
in Athens, Georgia decided to get back in the work. They pitched a tent
across from the University of Georgia and called Brother Jess to conduct this
crusade. For six weeks, he preached night after night. 1,600 people were
saved by God's grace. It was reported that people were getting saved in
the streets. Crime was significantly reduced. Businessmen who came
to town to conduct business were meeting and talking about Christ and the work
that God was doing in Athens. Even today, as Dr. Jess receives
correspondence from people who have supported his ministry, they still speak of
that wonderful time of harvest in Athens.
Through the years other meetings have been
held in Atlanta on Ashby Street. In Gainesville, Georgia, a doctor was
said to be driving by the big tent and thought it was a circus in town until he
heard that familiar radio voice of Jess Hendley. Crusades were also held
in Cartersville, Rome and Albany, Georgia.
There were other meetings in India, The
Holy Land and Indonesia. At breakfast one morning, Dr. Jerry Vines asked
Dr. Hendley a question that I am sure has crossed the minds of many pastors and
evangelists. "Jess, what has happened to evangelism?" After
much thought, Jess replied, "Jerry, the Holy Spirit has been
grieved.
We have grieved Him. We had our chance at
God's great blessings, but we grieved the Holy Spirit and He now has moved on
to other countries that are experiencing great revivals." It is at
Jacksonville First Baptist Church, where Dr. Jerry Vines pastors, along with
Dr. Homer Lindsey, that Jess Hendley preached a weeks meeting and five hundred
decisions were made for Christ. It was written in their church history
that this was the greatest revival the church had ever experienced.
There are many across this country who
place Dr. Jess Hendley among the great preachers of this century. In
evangelism, there is none better. In prophecy, no one more learned. In
deep feeling for the sheep, no man has greater compassion. And yet when asked
what he would like to accomplish at age 86, the reply is, “My desire for souls
would burn more intensely and I want to write a book on what God is like.”
There are other ministries Dr. Hendley has
been involved in other than the ones previously mentioned. From 1958 to
1960, he pastored Woodlawn Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia and then pastored
Hillside Baptist Church in Atlanta from 1960 to 1972. He still preaches
twenty-five to 30 meetings a year at age 86. How does he do it? His
answer is always, "I walk with God, in the Bible and prayer.” His
expressed desire is that the church would become burdened for lost souls and walk
daily in the presence of God.
The
Legacy Of This Life Lived With God
The assessment, the fruit, the
lessons and the testimony can all be brought together
in Dr. Jess Hendley's own words as he responded to a question that was asked
him by an interviewer. "Dr. Hendley, knowing your love for
preachers, and knowing you have a great host of them as personal friends, if
you knew you were experiencing the right now, in the phrase you are so well
known for, "Let's go right now,” and God would let you make a final address
to all these men of God, what would you say to them?" Dr. Hendley's reply
was:
1. Master salvation by grace through faith
for yourself and those who hear you, and preach it constantly. In
Galatians 1:8-9, Paul pronounces a curse, an anathema, upon any preacher that
preaches any other gospel than that which he preached; which is the Gospel by
grace through faith and which he got directly from the lips of Jesus right
after his conversion. This Gospel is in Ephesians 2:8-9 where it says,
"for by grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourself, it is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." Five things
there that if I were back in the ministry, I would drill home to everybody,
particularly my soul winners.
A. Salvation is not of ourselves. We must look away totally from ourselves and
find it.
B. It is not of works. It does not originate with us. There is nothing we can
do about it.
C. It is a gift from God. All you can do with a gift is receive, thank the giver
and enjoy it.
D. It is by grace. It comes from God's smile, instead of His frown, and that's
what the cross did. The cross made it possible for God to smile on a
guilty sinner and forgive him, or hither to, he would have a frown upon judgment.
E. It is by Faith. Faith is confidence in God and the Bible. And
especially the truth that Christ on the cross wiped out my sins with His blood
and destroyed them forever.
2. Study the Bible daily, each book word
by word, especially the New Testament and especially the Gospel of John and the
Epistles of Paul. For in them, the truths of the Gospel and the church
are made clearer than any other books in the Bible.
3. I would suggest that we live constantly
with the consciousness of the presence of God in our mind; that the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit indwell us. All three of these divine beings live in our
minds. "Ye in Me, and I in you." Galatians 2:20, "I have
been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, Christ lives in
me." George Mueller said, "There came a moment where Mueller
died and Christ began to live. We carry deity with us always. Cultivate
fellowship with these three Beings.
4. Watch your mind
and thoughts. In Ezekiel 8:12, God showed Ezekiel the twenty-five elders of
Israel who dug in the wall and built chambers of imagery. Literally in
Hebrew, rooms for pictures, and filled them with abominable things.
Idols, animals, for which God was made angry. Our minds are a picture
gallery, and we hang pictures on the walls. Today, pornographic sights on
television, literature, magazines and all, people dwell on it. What they are
doing is hanging it in their minds, pictures that are evil. Yet God the Father,
Son and Spirit are dwelling there. Seeing those same things that were an
abomination unto them. God sits in our minds watching every
thought. No wonder He says, “be ye holy for I am holy.” And also, in Him,
is no darkness at all. I may preach the truth outwardly and publicly be
correct, and yet let my mind dwell on things God hates and are full of
sin. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” If a
man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and
fit for the Master's use.
5. Make your
family life your first priority, not the church. God says,
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for
it". God says, "Husbands, Fathers, bring up your children in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Many a preacher has lost his
church, and his physical well being by neglecting his wife. Many a
preacher has lost his children by neglecting to take time to teach them. A man
who loves and makes his wife happy, and keeps her happy, will have a base of
operations that cannot be destroyed. And a man who loves and teaches his
children, takes time to be with them, and teaches them the things of God, will
have them in later days come and express their great gratitude for their
teaching.
6. Live in the
light of the judgment seat of Christ. Soon we will meet Him. He has loved
us, died for us, saved us, lived with us, and used us. After the rapture,
He will go over our lives. We will be in Heaven and in our glorified
bodies so it is not a matter of salvation. It is a matter of rewards, or
loss of rewards. It is very serious, because, “The day shall declare
deeds we did in our bodies." It will be revealed in fire. The
fire will test every man’s work as to its quality. That which was
preached and done for the glory of Christ, He will reward. That which has
been done for the glory of self or any other motive, will be burned and he
shall suffer eternal loss. Soul saved, but life lost. How serious
then is life? How important to live and serve with Christ.
7. Flesh versus Faith. The flesh is
defined as everything outside the will of God. All that matters in our
lives is to do His will. Don't worry about the other fellow. Only
as our hearts are right with God will our ministries be what God wants them to
be.
In conclusion, as I look back over
sixty-six years of ministry I realize, as never before, I didn't do it, He
did. When I think of the great meetings with thousands of people and
souls streaming forward to receive Christ, I was only an instrument. How
wonderful is this statement. "It is God who worketh in you, both the
willing and the doing of His good pleasure."
Dr. Hendley went to be with his Lord, whom
he loved and served so faithfully, on November 30,
1994.
(Written
by Bobby D. Chastain December 16, 1993)