Earlier this month, the calendar passed what would have been my dad’s 88th birthday. Dad died 12 years ago, just one month after I began serving IBSA as executive director. And because he had decades of experience with Illinois churches and with IBSA, I have wondered many times since then, “what Dad would have thought about this, or said about that.”
While I don’t have the advantage today of asking my dad specific questions about current situations, I am not without the benefit of his perspective and wisdom. Tom Adams wrote a column for the Illinois Baptist for more than 34 years, and it’s not uncommon for me to meet someone in a church today who will reach into his or her Bible and pull out a yellowed clipping of one of Dad’s columns that met a special need. We compiled several of his columns into a book titled “Speaking Out” (write me if you would like a copy) and sorted them by topic. It’s amazing to me how his wisdom continues to stand the test of time.
As a resident of the Land of Lincoln, have you ever wondered what our state’s most famous patriarch would say about the state of Illinois today? Young Abraham Lincoln was nine years old when Illinois became a state in 1818, and during his lifetime he watched our frontier land start with around 35,000 pioneers and mushroom to a state with more than two million residents.
From the Black Hawk War of 1832 through the Civil War of the 1860s, Lincoln witnessed much growth and change, as well as conflict and adversity, not only in his home state, but in our nation. But could he have imagined anything like the times we are living in now? Would his wisdom still speak to us today?
We will have an opportunity to answer those questions at this year’s IBSA Annual Meeting at First Baptist Church in Maryville. During the Wednesday evening session on Nov. 7, noted Abraham Lincoln interpreter Fritz Klein will speak to us, not from his own ideas or speculation about Lincoln, but with Lincoln’s own words.
You see, Abraham Lincoln also left a substantial written record of his wisdom and ideas, in the form of speeches, letters, and other documents. Many today would be surprised at how clearly Lincoln identified the problems of our nation and culture as spiritual, and internal, and how candidly he spoke of a return to God as the solution. His writings and speeches are replete with references to the Lord, the Bible, and to prayer. I believe that’s why his wisdom, too, continues to stand the test of time.
Of course true, lasting wisdom, whether from Tom Adams, or Abraham Lincoln, or Solomon himself, ultimately comes from God, and is tested by the Word of God. Many people mistakenly attribute the famous words, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” to Lincoln, when of course Lincoln was quoting Jesus. It is said that Lincoln’s law partner, who considered Lincoln “morally courageous but politically incorrect,” urged him not to use that quote in his now famous 1858 speech, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln responded, “The proposition is indisputably true…and I will deliver it as written…that it may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times.”
I am confident that Fritz Klein will deliver Lincoln’s own words to us faithfully that evening of the Annual Meeting, as we too look for wisdom during perilous times. My prayer is that the Lord will use Lincoln’s words of wisdom, at least those built on biblical truth, to rouse us to a new pioneering spirit for our state’s third century.
Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.