A Sermon from the late Elder George E. Vandeman.
Preached around 1954 after Elder Vandeman's return to
the US.
Subject: The London Campaign of the Early 1950's
For a little while this afternoon I would like to share with you some very inspiring things that have come into my life these past 2 to 3 years. I think that I have learned more than I was able to teach anyone else in all this experience that I will relate to you this afternoon.
I'm sure I am more of a humble man than I was when I started and I think that that's the way God deals with all of us.
About three and a half years ago our brethren suggested that we go over to the great city of London.
Now London is not just a city, its an amalgamation of peoples that combine to number more than the countries of Norway and Sweden put together, all in one city,
When we realise that in New York city, a city that we thought to be the world's largest, is not the world's largest, and yet there in New York city, I'm told that with a live telecast that reaches out about 60 to 70 miles in every direction, as many as 60 million people can hear at any one time, -- in a radius of 60 to 70 miles!
We think of these wide open spaces here in the west. Sister White said that the message would come with great power to the west, and then it would return with great power to the east. We all long for the day when those giant metropolitan areas back there in the east will hear this message again.
But not only do you have great metropolitan areas here in this country, but in some of these other lands you have cities with their throbbing millions that present one of the greatest challenges to this cause that I'm happy to find our brethren facing realistically. One of them is London with 11 million people (that was the population in the early 1950's!) and 600 square miles. They say, jokingly, with the statistics that its proved that there more people who live in apartments above the 25th floor in New York city than reside in the state of Nevada. And then you realise that in the city of London there's no apartments above 7 or 8 floors (back then in the early 1950's before the tower blocks came), most of them 2 or 3 floors high, you can believe when I say that the city of London spreads out over 600 square miles.
I look out at these cars, about 30 cars out here. 30 cars coming to a meeting in London would mean a crowd of a thousand people (in those days). No parking problems because there's so few cars to be had, which means that most people travel by the underground's as they call them, in the most efficient system in the world. They are round trains speeding through these tubes down 6 and 7 stories underground. That's where these people kept their lives and their sanity during the war; that was where they swarmed by the tens of thousands, way down in those “catacombs”. And as I stood there watching them coming back and forth and milling to their work and back home again, commuting; watching their faces I found them the most lovable people you would ever want to meet. Our own people in the British Isles are faithful people. You sit in church, and you look down the rows of heads, and those heads don't move from the time you start your sermon to the time you close. I had to learn to preach all over again when I came home again to, -- to restless America!
Even children would sit there without a flicker for a full hour, and it spoils you, -- it spoils you a little bit.
Well I merely want to share a testimony to the solidarity of those wonderful people who have met hell, fire and brimstone, and life never to be forgotten during those terrible days of the war when great sections of the city were blotted out overnight, --when our evangelists would go out to an auditorium to hold their meeting and find it demolished before they got there.
One woman that we baptised in the city of London, a very lovely lady with an entirely new face by plastic surgery, found in the debris, she thought she was going and that she had gone, but somehow she was rescued, and we are thankful that she has been rescued into the faith.
Well, we couldn't talk about doomsday and the prophecies that have to do with the time of destruction; we simply couldn't talk about those things. They were not interested. They had seen life far more realistic than any statistic that I might bring. But the thing that won them, and I am beginning to realise that that's the very thing that will win people here in this nation is love and the power of the Gospel to save men where they need it most. We are sick and tired of hearing about the atomic bomb, -- let's hear about Jesus, and I feel that that's the power that is going to save people, and lead them to the kingdom. True, we need to know what's coming. We need to understand. We need to recognise the things of the time in which we are living, but I have learned some very interesting things about winning hearts in these last days.
Well we must not spend time on by-lines, for I told the folks last night over at the academy that if I didn't watch myself I could go on for five hours, but I'm not going to do that you understand, because we are out here in this fresh breeze and we don't want to stay here all afternoon.
Billy Graham went to London with a Christ-centred message flavoured with adventism. Brother (?), he gets his information from your paper. He told me in his own words; he said, “I read the Signs of the Times every week.” And I'm sure he gets other information from those papers too because I think I don't know when I have heard a finer sermon on Old Testament grace and Sanctuary service than I did from him in London, and I'm sure he got it from Patriarchs and Prophets, and Prophets and Kings, because I think we sat there and could just take line for line and hear those great words that come from the Spirit of Prophecy.
Well, we are thankful for the work that he's doing. His backers of course don't like us very much because they are among our friends who feel that we are on the wrong track, and they sincerely dislike us. But I think that he has recognised a truth in what we believe. He talks the law all of the time. With that long finger of his he points out that you have got to keep the Ten Commandments! Some day I hope he will realise that one of the ten is the fourth and that he will come to the place where he will expose the superficial arguments regarding Sunday-keeping.
Now, when that will come I don't know. Please don't anyone go away saying that I said he is ready for baptism. I'm not too sure he is even interested in baptism yet, --the way we feel, but I do know the man is thinking, and God is using him. He did our work more good than harm, and I believe that every sincere soul will be used by God, and we must recognise that God is going to work that way. But one of his leaders over there told us confidentially with a smile on his face, he said “Billy Graham sent us a telegram and said this. . .” And this is something that didn't get into the papers. If it had he would have been ruined overnight. “He sent us a telegram, to all of the Baptist churches saying, 'please pack the station with our own people. Have 3,000 waiting for me when I get there because my coming has to reach the papers if I am to succeed.
Well, sure enough, when he got there there were 3,000 Baptists at the railroad station and they were singing hymns and fortunately those cruel newspaper men, many of them communists, didn't know what was behind it, and they got down there and tears flowed down their faces as they saw 3,000 people singing hymns in that giant Waterloo Station there in London.
Well, when we reached London there was dear Brother Webster waiting for us at the boat, -- one man! That dear man waited for us and I tell you it was good to see him.
We got into London sixty miles on up the track and we found eight people waiting for us.
Well, I went into those rooms and I began to think about the tremendous challenge, and many a time I felt I couldn't get off my knees without turning to the book Evangelism where in those pages it tells prophetically what we are to expect from the great cities of the world. And it was only through confidence in those words that I was able to get off my knees again and again and again. {Ev. 25-44} For here we had a group of people, the best souls on earth, but the kind who like to say, “its never been done before.” And if it hadn't been done before, it was hard to encompass the faith to do it now. But I will give those dear people credit; they were the ones not me, that went out and hired the finest and largest theatre in the city. Now, I won't say the largest auditorium, but the largest theatre. The largest auditorium is that beautiful Royal Albert Hall that can accommodate as many as 10,000 people, but there's no personality at all; all you see is faces; you can't even see the colour of people's hair in that great congregation, and we didn't know whether it was wise to move into that kind of an auditorium to begin with or not.
So they found this magnificent Coliseum. It was a beautiful theatre, all prepared with the Queen's balcony, and the place for the royal entrance if she should come, and she does of course go to the various plays in that place. For it is what is known as a legitimate theatre, not a motion-picture house; a place for acting and plays. They call of course the motion-picture houses cinema's over there, and that was a word that we became very well acquainted with. I became quite well acquainted with all of the theatres in London; you would have been surprised if you had seen some of the places I went into before we finished. But that is the story I want to tell you here in a few moments.
But first of all, we went over to see the little Jewish chap who operated this beautiful Coliseum. We later learned that he was the key men that unlocked the freedom of our use of theatres all through the British Isles. Our brethren have been able to find theatre is other cities, in Scotland, in Wales, in Ireland, and Barnsley (England), just because of our friendship with that one man. He has spoken the word and they have given us their theatres to use.
Well over there they don't have civic halls quite like we have here; they have so few places that are representative. We have to rent a theatre and use them for meetings for a short period of time at least in order to get a foothold in a city. One in Scotland recently, on the recommendation of that man was given to us for absolutely nothing; we had it all winter long for nothing! And we can hardly believe it to this day. My last letter from the man said a thousand people per night are coming out in that little town of Dundee, Scotland where we have hardly been able to bore through the conservatism. So the work is opening up in a very encouraging way.
We went to talk with this man, his name is Harber, I will
never forget him. I could not refrain
from putting my arm around him. He is
just about the size of my middle boy, and I would usually put my arm around his
shoulder; he came up just about that high on me, and we became real friends,
real pals. But he looked at me
incredulously the first day. He said,
“Vandeman, you are asking for this theatre for six months. You will not need it after the third night,
people won't come.
Elder George Vandeman, Pastor Bradley and group during the 1952 London SDA Evangelistic Campaign. It was out of the London Campaign that the New Gallery Centre (SDA church) was established in the 1950s.
Great cathedrals seating 2,000 people, many of them with a sprinkling of 15 to 200 on a Sunday morning! Since the war there is a cynicism that has gripped England and only one person in 14 attend church in London, -- only one in fourteen make any profession of attending! Usually then, on Memorial Sunday or on Easter Sunday then of course they come out quite heavily because everybody is theoretically supposed to be a member of the Church of England. And to use the term “Protestant” in England is synonymous with the C of E. If I say, “what denomination are you?”, “Well, I'm a Protestant.” And if you are a Seventh-day Adventist or anything else, you are a dissenter you see.
We had to get into the thinking of these people and it was difficult. We were a strange, new American sect, and the fact that I was an American of course made it all the worse. And I had one of the greatest compliments that was ever paid to me though with one man. He said, “well you know we just couldn't tell whether you were an American or whether you weren't! I tell you I appreciated that! Because I don't know that we would have been received too kindly had been too pronounced.
Well, we opened our meetings. I am coming back to our friend Harber. This dear man, when we told him that we not only wanted it for six months, but we wanted it twice every Sunday, and finally we approached him and said that we wanted it three times on a Sunday, well he did look at me as though I was just completely crazy! He said, “you can break your contract at any time, I know your church and I don't want to embarrass you.” I said, “thank you, we will break it whenever we wish. We'll take your word for it.” Well, that dear man lived to see the day when night after night he would come to the first meeting, and when he was deeply impressed with the message he would he would telephone his wife, and have her come in for the second meeting. I believe that man is going to be in the kingdom of God.
Of course, when you hire a theatre over there you hire ushers and usherettes and everything else and of course for a religious meeting they have got to dress up, they have got to put on their finery, and so all this came with it. All of it came with it you know, the very finest of pearls and everything else. And these people came in and they would usher our folk down the isles, and they became one with us! They would stand there and weep through the messages; they would stand there and ask for counselling for their home problems, and when at last we had to leave that theatre and go to another, those dear people wanted to be with us and some of them did, although they were not hired for the other theatre.
Oh, I tell you God is going to use the most unusual ways of winning souls, and when people hear this message they are going to accept it. We need to teach it, teach it, teach it; we need to educate, educate, educate, and when people hear they accept. If they don't accept now, they think seriously and will some day, unless the turn it down, and turn away of course, and reject the Spirit of God. I believe our chief duty is to teach, teach, teach! And the more the laity, and the more the ministry teach this message, the more we are going to be baptising souls and bringing them into the faith.
Well, we opened up that first night. We didn't know just what to expect. We had put out a half million announcements, and even then just touched the edges, the fringes, of that city, -- we just touched “the hem of the garment”, but the Lord blessed, He blessed abundantly. The people came and filled the auditorium once; they came and filled the auditorium twice; they came and filled the auditorium three times, and we could easily have filled the auditorium to overflowing four times that night. One woman went to the top of the fourth balcony. She was the first one to be shut out; the last one had just been turned in and the authorities closed the door. And she said as she looked up, she said, “and all I wanted was just a little look up; all I wanted was just a little look up! Hungry souls saying, we're hungry, we want the message! Oh, dear people your heart is just wrung when you talk with these people and see their receptivity, they are so willing! If only we can find a way to teach them the message.
Well, that night the newspaper men came out 'en mass'. I don't know, I quail inside when I think of that first night. Men quoted me as saying things that I never said, by people whom I had never met, and the reports went around the world about that first night's meeting.
Almost immediately the newspaper authorities from Scandinavia sent in special newspaper correspondents to see what was going on. New York called Washington and said, “who is this man Vandeman? Is he an accredited member of your denomination? And all over the world; South Africa and all over the world they began to hear about that first night meeting before we had slept through the night. For how could a West End theatre bring more people than the most worldly show? That was their question. They couldn't understand it! They couldn't understand it!
One man stood through all three services, --a representative of the world's largest newspaper, --the Daily Express in London, Lord Beaverbrook's Paper. He was bitter at first. He thought we were there..... he said, “did you come by airplane or did you come by boat? Fortunately I came by boat. Too many men come in by airplane and get a fifty dollar a day room and then take the money from the people and enrich themselves. “Where are you living? We told him. How much do your people pay for your house? I said, “we are paying rent.” “How much?” Let's see; seven pounds a month, -- twenty one dollars a month! “Twenty one dollars a month? Its furnished isn't it?” “No, we are buying our own furniture.” “What? You, an American, would come over here and buy your own furniture?” They couldn't understand it. Every other American that had come had gone away with his pockets full, and I can't blame them for being on their guard, and these newspaper men were ready to just trim me right down, as they tried to do the same with Billy Graham until they found that he was sincere.
Well, finally that man stayed through all three services and
he came right to the platform; right to the theatre stage. He said, “Vandeman, how on earth could you
take it? Do you smoke; do you
drink? Well, I didn't intend to give him
a lesson on health reform the first night, but he asked for it. And sure enough, in the papers the next day,
“No smokes, no drinks!” And across those
millions of newspapers out all over the British Isles went our health
principles immediately!
He said, “well Vandeman, regardless of what we say about this meeting tonight; regardless of what we say tomorrow, whether its good or whether its bad, your success is assured from now on!”
Well, those men came to know more about Adventism, and they came to become very real friends. The next morning, as I told some of you folks over at San Francisco, especially some of our young people, a certain very prominent judge, a lady judge, a brilliant Scot; oh she was a wonderful character! She sat at her bench the next morning; she was a very close, personal friend of the Churchill family. “Winnie” (Winston) was her “bosom friend.” The Queen had just honoured her with a very wonderful medal just at the same time, – a lovely character! The policemen came in to sit around the court; they were tired. She asked them why they were tired. They said they had been up most of the night with a religious meeting. She wanted to know all about it.
She came the next Sunday night, and didn't stop coming till she began to ask for our visits to her home. I will never forget the first time she asked for us to come to her home. I couldn't go. Some other appointment came in, and I learned that 19 people were waiting for me. And had I learned that I think I would have changed the other plan. The second time I went there were nearly 19 people there, -- fine people from her neighbourhood; very wonderful people that she had gathered in. She said, “tell these people about the Sabbath. Tell these people everything you have told me.” And those people sat around, some of them well to do men and women, -- manufacturers, executives and others that she alone knew. She gathered them in under her supervision, and asked me to give the message.
Some of those people have been baptised since and they have come in closer and closer to the message. Well that dear woman herself took her stand and was finally baptised, and became a strength to the cause. She's actually living to realise a sole life-long ambition from the time we met her to have Winston Churchill know this message, and she started plans under operation to get us together for a series of visits and Bible studies......
(NOTE by Bro. RDV: In those meetings, which I remember so well [I was a member of the Campaign choir], I recall seeing a close relative of Winston Churchill [Randolph Churchill] who came regularly, and always sat in one of the high box seats!
Yes, our Advent message attracted well-to-do people back then! If only it would do so today, -- but then, God can still do great things, and He will under the latter rain and loud cry as the Spirit of Prophecy says! Brethren, let's pray for it!)
To continue:
(A brother Gordon in the audience now indicates something to Elder Vandeman by putting his hand around his neck)
What Brother Gordon was meaning right here just now by
putting his hand around his neck was a story I told last night about her. One of the sweetest things I think I ever....
just speak up if I make a mistake or if I leave something out. . . .
Last night we told about this good woman of the time when I
sat in her home giving her a Bible study on some of the standards of the
church; some of the closer standards regarding dress and ornamentation. That dear woman sat there with one of the
most beautiful chokers (necklace) I have ever seen on any woman. Oh, it was simply gorgeous, and not out of
place. It was just very beautiful, with
the exception that God wants us to guard against anything that will lead to
vanity.
Remember Lucifer was adorned with every precious stone, -- remember that? And as a result he fell. And we are living in the day of atonement when our dress must be, and should be, very simple and plain.
And so, I was telling her some of these things, and I was reading the scriptures. Little by little her hand went up over that beautiful choker (necklace) as she sat there a bit embarrassed. She looked at me and she said, “Brother Vandeman” in that rich Scot accent, she said, “Brother Vandeman, if God's blessed word says so I am going to take this off. Oh, it was wonderful as she opened her heart, and I wish you could have heard that prayer. I asked her to pray. I have learned that secret in soul winning that if the individual involved can say the prayer of final committal, its all the more permanent. We knelt down and I tell you I would have given anything if I could have remembered every word that she spoke. It was the most beautiful prayer that I think I have ever heard anyone pray.
But just a few days ago I received a long important-looking envelope from one of the set of London solicitors, -- London lawyers. I opened it and found that this dear soul had been killed in a car accident just a few weeks back, and there was the record of her will. She had asked me to guide and be sure that her wishes were fulfilled as the executor. And I tell you, I'm not given to display of emotion, -- maybe I'm a little too conservative, but I wept as I read those words! There in the will was her testimony for the truth of God, and the church of God! How that the sweet influence of the precious message, -- she used words like that, -- had led her to remake her plan, and after bequeathing certain amounts to certain relatives who were deserving, she gave her beautiful home and everything that was left to the South England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which I believe in the long run when all is settled will bring back into that conference far more than they ever put into that first major effort in finance, just one soul! Just one soul! Does evangelism pay? Absolutely, absolutely! Evangelism pays!
Well we'll just have to leave some of these things because
the most thrilling part is yet to be told.
Coming that very first night I spoke on the stars. I always thought that that was a yen of mine, and I wanted to use that on an opening night, and I don't know why I chose London as the trial-spot, but I did. I suppose my legs would have just smote each other, that the two of them would have quaked had I known who was in the audience. I should have known that the vanguard of the Royal Astronomical Society would have been there. And they were, and one of London's finest astronomers, --46 years with Greenwich, was present with his wife in the audience that night along with others. And I thank God that somehow all of our inadequacy was covered, and that man continued to come to the meetings, and gave his heart to the message. He was finally baptised, he and his wife.
Before he was baptised and before we knew where he was going, we though it would be fine if we asked him to stand in the pulpit with me and give a testimony as to the validity of time. The question of time, and has it been lost, and calendar problems and so on, with reference to the Sabbath truth. And so we broached him with the problem and he said he would be most happy to help us. He prepared the script. I was anxious for him to write it out for I didn't want him to say the wrong thing. I didn't know what he thought about the Sabbath as yet. But it was so grand what he had written that I said “come right with me and we are going up to the desk”, and he came to the desk that night. I will never forget it! You could have heard a pin drop as that man talked and substantiated the Sabbath truth. He gave the thrilling statistics regarding this world. That man without the use of instruments, in his own mind could sit and compute the actual “bounce” of this world, and its adjustments as it turns on its axis. He could actually compute the gravitational pull of the stars on this world, --figures 8, 10, and 12 digits long, right up here.
I tell you young people, these minds are capable of infinitely more than the average man takes account of. And if we can dedicate these minds boys and girls to God, under His blessing you can become a giant intellect for Him. And I just sat and listened and watched that man work. This world, it bounces on its turn, because it is subject to the gravitational pull, and the stresses and the strains of the stars and the planets, and yet turns majestically just exactly 24 hours on its axis. And the year does not differ a measurable fraction of a second in thousands of years, proving that a majestic hand holds everything in magic balance. Oh I must not get off on to that subject or I would keep you here until nightfall. But, dear people, with that man standing there and substantiating the Sabbath question, it swept over that audience, and they believed it! All did not accept it, but I believe under the power of the latter rain his testimony is going to be worth more than mine. I might have led them into scripture, but here was one of their own, --a man who for 46 years was an astronomer at Greenwich, a very dear Christian. He is going to be writing for the Review shortly. You will read what he has to say.
Well, shortly after that he took his stand for the Sabbath and is now faithfully in the church.
Well I must hurry on. We were here for 6 to 8 months, then we stayed 12 months. Then the brethren called and said 'would you mind' --telephoned all across the ocean, came to a crisis; nobody could be found to come over right then, 'would you mind staying another year?' Of course we wouldn't mind, we were happy to; we loved the people; we loved the work; we felt we were just getting started. But where would we go? We had paid 750 dollars for that first night for the use of the auditorium alone, and that kind of expense we couldn't continue. And yet plunging into the heart of the city with that fine auditorium brought the kind of people that would pay for it. Those dear people, -- I marvel as I saw how they gave.
Well, we were to have a meeting at eight o'clock in the
Union office one morning to decide what we were to do for the next year. We knew God was going to open the way, but we
didn't know how. We walked into the
Union office, and ten minutes before that meeting opened a letter came from the
General Conference office, from the Secretary of the General Conference which
said:
'Dear brethren, we have been exercised, we have been concerned over the great cities of earth. We feel that now that there is a breakthrough in London we ought to capitalise on it and move off and establish a centre there.' Dr. Flaise had just come through. He said as he went home, “we should not build another sanitarium, another college, another academy, another institution anywhere until in the heart of some of these great cities we have an evangelistic centre.”
But where could it be found? The brethren had been laying a little money aside each year waiting for the day when China would open again. But China wasn't opening, and China isn't open, and China may never be open again, and here was this money. Souls were perishing in these great cities. That money might have been divided and sent around to the churches, and I suppose my brother, every church would have gotten twenty five dollars! Absolutely dissipated as to any strength of investment! And this letter said, 'we have decided to invest it in London, in New York, in Chicago'. Well, I'm just using illustrations, --Tokyo, Calcutta, etc. and establish centres in these cities.
Well, we stood there and wept, and then we knelt down and thanked God for what had happened and moved into the city and asked Christian real estate agents to look for us, to comb the city! That's where I got into every theatre I think that was available. I have been in their basements, into their practise rooms, their dressing rooms, and everywhere else. I have come out dirty; I have come out discouraged; I have come out happy. We just about purchased one or two, and we thanked God we didn't. But one man, a Welsh Christian, the head of a famous old real estate agency said in his heart, 'I believe God wants me to find a place for the Seventh-day Adventists', and when it was all found and done, I hope I still have that letter. In the moving I may have laid it aside. “My dear Brother Vandeman, -in the Lord,”--here, a London business man, not a Seventh-day Adventist! “We just want you to know how many prayers we have had over our finding this building for you.” And he asked one of his men to give full attention to finding a building for the Seventh-day Adventists, and that little man was a jew also. And to this day, if we don't keep sending him printed messages that we give in the meetings, or keep in touch with him, he calls us up! That boy is going to be in the Kingdom of God! We have prayed together, talked together, lived together as it were in searching the city.
And he found a building that wasn't even for sale! So you know God had His hand in it. I think you will find in the closing pages of the book Medical Ministry {MM 324} a statement that says, to the effect that the Lord has His hand over buildings that have been built at fabulous cost, and at the right time when we need it most He is going to remove His hand and those buildings will come into our hands at a mere fraction of their original cost. And that's what happened in London.
I suppose if we tried to buy that building, and buy the land, it would have cost us nearly 2 million dollars. Not only was it a beautiful building, but it was on one of the most beautiful streets in all of the world, -- Regent Street! Its London's Fifth Avenue! With one half million people passing its doors every day, -- one half million! And to think that Seventh-day Adventism goes on show to a half million people each day is something we never dreamed could take place!
As I walked through those beautiful doors, -- brass, marble columns, soft exterior, beautiful foyer, ante-room, offices, cafeteria, youth centre, chapel, magnificent auditorium! Queen Mary's favourite, would you believe it? She would come in with her umbrella, poke folks out of the way, -- in her way, and she would come up to the front and would sit down right in her favourite seat. Oh, she was a wonderful character!
A very dear lady doctor tried her best to smuggle Queen Mary into the meetings before she died. And she would have had to have been smuggled in because you just don't go anywhere with out an avalanche of publicity, and no-one belonging to the Church of England, -- the Queen you know is the total head of the C of E in a very real sense, and they don't just slip off to an evangelistic meeting by an American evangelist, it isn't done.
But this good woman almost had her promise to do it! But of course, she passed away. God willed it otherwise. Those of that royal family are very wonderful
people, and if perhaps they have no further light, and they are taken away
before further light comes, I think they would be among the saved. They are very wonderful people!
I learned to know something about the attachment of the British people to their Crown.
Well, this building became ours. Just one or two little interesting things
about it before I tell you the thrilling news, -- the thing that to this day I
can hardly believe God did for us, for we have just started, and some of the
things that happened were such an encouragement to our people over there.
Now, laws are different of course in different countries. Here you buy a building and you buy the land on which the building stands. Not so in England. You may either buy freehold property or leasehold property, and all of the property on Regent Street belongs to the Crown, -- every one of those beautiful buildings including this one. So, we could lease the building from now until “kingdom come” but we could never buy the land. That had to be rented. And I think that the land was a little more expensive than this field out here. The land alone on which that building stood rented at 50,000 dollars a year, -- the land alone!
We were able to take that beautiful building and lease it
until the Lord comes, so its just as much as if its ours until the Lord comes,
only the land on which it stands belongs to the crown.
Naturally, the committee stood there and surveyed the situation. They said, 'we couldn't touch it!' But God has a wonderful way of working out His plans. You know, that with our building came four office buildings, -- beautiful office buildings. We took nearly the entire block, at least somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of it. And we released those buildings back to another company, until the Lord comes, for 50,000 dollars a year, and we are there for nothing, -- practically nothing! It was a miracle that those other buildings came for the same cost into our hands.
Then we had to remodel it. And over there in England every stick if wood comes from overseas; all paint is imported, so we had to have a licence for it from the government. Wartime restrictions were still in effect. We had one ounce of butter each a week when I went over there. Its better now, -- considerably better, but it did us a lot of good.
As I motored over those roads in that little four cylinder
car I said to myself, 'my, this is good enough for anybody.' It made me seasick when I first got into
it! I actually went to the Sanitarium
for two or three days. I did, I was just
sick! But you know, it did me good to
get sick. I got into that little car and
I loved it the rest of the time there.
But when I got back home, and got into my big, wide, beautiful new Ford,
why, I was lost!
You know, we come to the point where we think we have got to have everything, and if we don't, we can't carry on our work! Well, I just drop it by way of inference you know. One day we may not have a car to work with. We'll have to be satisfied. I'm sure we will be.
We went to the authorities and asked for the licence for
that remodelling. We were told that we
had to go to the Church of England. That
they had to set up a board of bishops to decide what churches got. Well, of course, we recognised what we had
come face to face with. We recognised
that we were in a trap! And trap it
was! The bishop over the telephone
couldn't have been more icily cool! “Our
churches have been waiting for a decade, do you think we can release any of
this for you?” And in 6 weeks we were
wanting to open that building, --Six
weeks!
“Well,” the brethren said, “put it off, put it off.”..... “We are going to hold to the 6 weeks and claim God's promises,” for we knew that we had to get a series of meetings in before we left. We not only wanted to buy the building, we wanted to establish it.
Three days later, after several prayer meetings, in a long important-looking envelope came the licence for all that we desired! Our Seventh-day Adventist architect on a further visit to the licensing authority asked them “how come?” They said “we don't know. A high official in this building took it upon himself to override the Church of England and give you that license anyway.”
I said to myself, 'the day of a Nicodemus placed here or there to help God's people is not past'. Experiencing such things like that made our faith just rise with a mighty bound! We knew that God had something in store!
Well, He did. We opened, -- had a glorious opening. Naturally, our friends from the previous days of evangelism came, and they brought others. They were so happy now that we were established in the heart of the city.
We opened the building, --with a lovely reading room, open all day long every day day except Sunday when it was open only during the meeting times. And we started a health centre. 12,000 business people came through that building to have their chest x-rayed during a time of 5 weeks. And as they came through of course, they watched every nook and cranny of it, and many of them came back to our services.
We wanted to make it a health centre; we wanted to make it an evangelistic centre; we wanted to make it a music centre. A magnificent organ came with it. We didn't even know it was there when we bought the building. We thought we saw something down there in the darkness! We found it was a beautiful American Wurlitzer organ, one of the first ones to be installed in England about 24 years ago. We had it completely re-done, and its one of the nicest organs in the city today. For every noon for a period of time we had the Quiet Hour where the business people would come in and out and listen to music. And of course, the Lord gave us one of the finest pianists in the city, --Louis Ravel, a composer. He came that first night and couldn't get in. He came back the second night, and he was baptised and he is now (1954) the pianist at the New Gallery Evangelistic Centre there in the heart of London.
Well, about five weeks after we opened, a Church of England minister came into my office. Just a youngish man, -- man who was born 20 years ahead of his time. He called me George the first time he saw me. Now, I knew by that that he was unusual because that isn't done in England. We sat down and chatted for a while, and I found he was in charge of religious films for the Church of England and he suggested we hold a film mission, -- a film evangelistic mission. He said that during the war years they would go down into the air-raid shelters and they would show a film, and people would sing. They would show a religious film, and he would appeal to their hearts, to give their hearts to God, and that would be their service you see.
He wondered if we could have some time to put those in. Well, we already had, I suppose, 12 or 13 services a week at different times, and different types, but we could find several hours in the day when we could do this. He suggested that we just start for 10 days prior to Christmas time. So we chose a beautiful film that would precede the Christmas holiday as a gesture of goodwill to the public, and to get their attention on the building and our work as well.
We would open the service with singing from the screen and then we would step out on to the stage and we would have just a few brief words telling about the building and why we are here. And then turn their attention to the screen and they saw the picture, a devotional picture on the life of Christ. We would step out again and make an appeal to their hearts, --we would talk to them confidentially for just a few minutes earnestly, and then have prayer. We would sing and there would be a retiring offering as they left, and the people would put money in, and that's one of the poorest ways to take an offering. Anybody could walk by and not put anything in unless they wanted to.
And yet those people poured out their money. One person put in the equivalent of 75 dollars as he walked by. Others put in..... well you know, its all done in pounds and pence. A pound is the equivalent of nearly 2 dollars.
And those pounds came in, and I tell you it became a life-saver. For although the building became ours without much upkeep, I tell you it was tremendously expensive to keep that great institution going. And these people, --the wealth of the gentiles, was being poured in.
He (the C of E minister) had said, “I'll guarantee you a crowd if you will get the film. We need your dollars to get it from America.”
Well, we gave him a few dollars in order to get it, and we started in, and I didn't know as when he said 'I will get you people there' just who he meant. But he began to invite them. And who do you suppose he invited? The Queen mother couldn't come, but she sent her lady-in-waiting. The Archbishop of Canterbury couldn't come at his personal invitation, but he sent his personal chaplain. The Pope of Rome actually commissioned his emissary for films for England to come to the opening session, -- to a Seventh-day Adventist building!
Into that building walked men with their round collars, 2000 strong! And months later one of the bishops of the city told our Brother Hession (that's the Church of England vicar), 'Brian, if you say so, we are interested in the experiment that the Adventists are making. They seem to be breaking through. We can't do it! They are doing it!' Words to that effect. That was what was behind it. “If you say the word, I will combine with 3 other bishops and invite 6000 ministers to come to the New Gallery to see what you are doing.'
I could have gone to every one of their homes and begged them to come, and how many do you suppose would have come?
Into the meeting that first day came the film critics for every one of London's papers, -- and they are hard! Oh, they are hard! And the film critic for that great paper I mentioned to you before, -- the Daily Express, came and sat down, and he told another critic who came back 2 days later and she told me that it just broke him up! He said he had to keep his handkerchief down in his cuff because he wept through the entire service!
To think, as they wrote in their papers, in the headlines, all over the British Isles. These days, many a church has been turned into a cinema, but here for the first time in these secular days, a cinema has been turned into a church!
And one of the large newspapers sent its critic, and this critic evidently felt that the Spirit of God was getting down a little too deep into his soul. He was a little restless and he didn't stay through. He didn't see the full impact of it all. He didn't feel the full Spirit's power! And he walked out and he met me and this man Hession outside, and he said, “oh, it alright, I will give you a good write-up. I have got an appointment.” Well he didn't seem to leave too quickly. I wasn't too sure about his appointment story, but at least he didn't see what went on. And as he went back to his newspaper, his that afternoon was the only newspaper in all of London that said anything derogatory about that film, or that session, or that building. The only one! And believe it or not, -- he told us himself. His editor called him in and said, “Johnny out of step? You're fired!” He was fired because he berated a Seventh-day Adventist meeting, and he came and told us about it. He was kept with the paper, but he was no longer a film critic.
It was a new day for Adventism! We had walked into those same offices and we were told the next time we went back.... “Seventh-day Adventists? Let's look in the telephone book and see if they have a telephone here in the city. And we had been there since the year “zero”! But we have patted ourselves on the back that we had an institution out at Watford. We have patted ourselves on the back that we had a little Sanitarium that rubbed people's backs, and that printed a little literature. We should have been down on the crossroads of the world, down in the heart of London, not 20 miles out by the side, for the very people who moulded public opinion didn't even know what the words 'Seventh-day Adventists” meant!
We are so satisfied. We go to a General Conference up here in San Francisco, and we go home inflated, thinking 20,000 people! The Jehovah's Witnesses had 120,000! I tell you, it stirs my blood every time I think about it. We ought to lay down our lives in service and in witnessing! And I tell you, if we were just half as earnest about sharing this message as those Jehovah Witness people are, this work would be finished overnight!
We need to get onto the crossroads of the world's thoroughfares and let people know who we are and what we are, and I am thankful that that day has finally come. We find that the name is getting into the newspapers, and into the news magazines. I thank for what has happened by your dear editor over here in 'Look' magazine and some of these other things that have been happening recently. The time has come for the truth to stand out, but oh we have been so satisfied with much less than we might have experienced, -- so satisfied!
Well, one thousand people came that first day to that service. Two services a day, six days a week. Two thousand came the next day, three thousand came the next day, and it hovered between two and three thousand until Christmas time and then ten thousand people came the next week, so we couldn't stop. And we kept the next week, the next week, the next week for five months, and the second last day, five thousand people in one day. They would queue up for a block outside and wait for one crowd to go out and another to come in, -- to a Seventh-day Adventist service!
I didn't do anything! God took it out of my hands! Any man would be a fool if he thought he did it, and the minute he thought he did it, it would stop just like that! God is going to finish this work in spite of some of us. God is going to use the unusual to finish this work if we will only launch out in faith believing He is just waiting to do it. He's not interested in our camping around this mount much longer. He wants us to move out in faith!
We wondered how we might make the impression deeper. We stopped advertising! I didn't put one penny out in advertising in the newspapers or anywhere else except a little brochure that we put out in front of the building and mailed to those who attended, from that November until I left, nearly three quarters of a year later, --why? We didn't need to. The people who came to the service were so impressed they said, 'I'm going to come back and see what all this is about'.
One person from the university, a wonderful lady, a very lovely lady, an intelligent soul, --she was a social worker. She came with a great group of people and sat down rather flippantly and wondered who these “offshoots” were! But she was so deeply impressed with the appeal to come to Christ, simple as it was, that she said “I'm coming back.” She came back, and even though she was a worker in the Church of England, we had to help that woman get off her “dope” and to help her get over her “yoga” --pagan, oriental philosophy, which by the way, as I said this morning, is coming our way in the form of our friend Doctor Norman Vincent Peale in another guise entirely.
When finally she was wrested from that terrible demon, she was a beautiful character, and I believe will be a Bible worker some day.
About three weeks after we started we wondered how much more
we could do for these people who came, --those who would never come back
again. We went out to our press and we
asked, “could you print us up little copies of “Steps To Christ” as
inexpensively as possible?
Well, they “figured and cut”, and “figured and cut”. They said, “Brother Vandeman, if you will take 20,000 we will do them for threepence. Three pennies. That's four and a half pennies our money I suppose.
Oh, they got to work and they just worked day and night, but before they got the 20,000 printed we had used them all, --all that they had given us, so we asked for another 20,000, and then we asked for another 20,000, and then another 20,000. Those people took 87,000 from the book racks! We put them behind every seat and suggested that if they wanted to deepen their experience there was a little book in front of them in the semi-darkness that they would be welcome to take with them.
And all over that great city, even motormen (bus drivers),
and conductors would be reading “Steps To Christ”. Not the motormen of course, they couldn't
drive and read too, but others did.
Now, you know that you don't need to worry about anyone who has that book. Something is going to happen someday, --someday!
Yes, we must bring it to a close, but just one or two other things.
Naturally, this man Hession was bombarded by his people. He came to me one day and said, “why George, they are calling me an Adventist! My bishop tells me that I will always be called one. He said, “there's nothing wrong with your people is there?” He said, “reassure me.” “There's no ulterior purpose for using me is there?” I said, “of course not, you know there isn't.” “Well, I just thought there wasn't, but I just wanted to hear you say so again. And as far as what you believe” he said, “I don't know but what I believe it too. I have always believed that when a man dies he sleeps until the resurrection,” -- imagine! “I have always believed that, and I have taught the second coming of Jesus Christ.” He was one of the few men who has his church full when he preaches, because he preaches the truth. He told me in so many words..... and I hope this recording will be used wisely! I'm telling you a few things here in the home church that we perhaps wouldn't want to put on in a public meeting somewhere, but he told me in his own words, he said, “there is only one man in the Church of England here in the city of London . . . . .”
[ Audio tape of Vandeman Sermon cuts off suddenly here. ]