Detroit, 1916. Evangelist Billy Sunday began a campaign that lasted from September 1 till November 5. A full 66 days of preaching. From California, the Los Angeles Herald, Volume XLII, Number 303, 19 October 1916 gave this report:
“Billy” Sunday’s evangelistic campaign, which began In this city September 1 and closes November 5, has drawn more than a million people to the big tabernacle on the old D. A. C. grounds In Woodward avenue. During this time he has talked 13,500 persons into Detroit churches. By the time the revival closes. If the average dally number of converts continues, the total. It Is estimated, will reach more than 17.000.”1
Over one million people came to the crusades to hear this professional baseball player turned evangelist preach with a zeal and enthusiasm that rattled the rafters. Sunday prayed from his stage that held a 5,000 member choir, “Help me, Jesus, to lasso and corral the young man on his way to hell. Help me save the young girl merchandising her womanhood. Help me, Jesus, help me save all in Detroit who are rushing to hell so fast that you can’t see them for the dust.’ “2
Detroit, 1934. Sunday returned for another campaign, fully expecting similar results as the 1916 campaign. This was not to be. “By the time Sunday returned to Detroit for another crusade in 1934 … the lawlessness and excesses of that era left a bitter taste with many.
“Sunday’s 1934 campaign was a disappointment. He attracted small crowds and even smaller donations from Detroiters struggling through the depths of the Great Depression. This time he only collected $2,000 (as opposed to nights in 1916 with offerings of over $50,000).
“This town is as different from the Detroit I knew 18 years ago as sickness is from health,” he complained in the revival tent when no one heeded his call to come to the altar to be saved.”3
Chicago, November 6, 1935. Billy Sunday enters eternity. “In early 1935, he suffered a mild heart attack, and his doctor advised him to stay out of the pulpit. Sunday ignored the advice. He died on November 6, a week after preaching his last sermon on the text “What must I do to be saved?”4
Detroit, July 23, 1967. The Detroit Riots began, finding their place in history as one of the bloodiest riots in an American city to ever occur. “The Detroit Police Department’s vice squad often raided illegal drinking establishments in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, and at 3:35 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 23, they moved against a club that was hosting a party for returning Vietnam War veterans. The early-morning police activity drew a crowd of onlookers, and the situation rapidly deteriorated.
“Soon thousands of people had spilled out onto the street from nearby buildings, throwing rocks and bottles at the police, who quickly fled the scene. Looting began on 12th Street, where the club was located, and shops and businesses were ransacked.
“By dawn, the first fire broke out, and soon much of the street was ablaze. By midmorning, every policeman and fireman in Detroit was called to duty. Back on 12th Street, officers struggled to control the crowd.
“The rioting continued all week, and the U.S. Army and the National Guard were called in to quell the worst of the violence. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, some 43 people were dead, many more seriously injured and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned or ransacked.”5
In just 51 years, a once vibrant city that attended to the preaching of the Word, responding to the Gospel call, has now begun to attack itself with anger, hatred, and violence. This is what happens to a land and a people that spurn and reject the Gospel message and the Gospel preacher.
Israel showed this pattern of behavior. 2 Kings 17:13-16 says, “Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. (14) Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God. (15) And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. (16) And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.”
I imagine that every nation of the world is guilty of doing what Israel did nearly 3,000 years ago. The result of their sin was captivity in Assyria.
Though the hearts of the majority may be hardened, there are still those who will attend to the preaching of the Word. Sunday may not have had as large of crowds in 1934 as he did in 1916 but there were still people who attended and were hungry for the Lord. May we never succumb to discouragement, feeling as if we can no longer make a difference. The difference made in one is worth it.
Jude 1:22-23 reminds us, “And of some have compassion, making a difference: (23) And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”
1https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19161019.2.523&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–
2https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Great%20Men%20of%20God/sunday-demon_rum.htm
3Ibid.
4https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Billy_Sunday
5https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-23/the-12th-street-riot
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