Darrrell Champlin: He challenged the powers of Satan

Discovering the feature sermon here by Darrell Champlin, “Love with Shoes On” is timely – since, at this very time my husband is preparing PP presentation from the slides of our visit with the Champlin’s in 1979 while they were in Suriname.

On that visit Darrell took us with a team down river to isolated jungle villages where, according to him, the people were more primitive than Africa was. My husband would alert the villagers of our presence by playing an old beat up trumpet found for him. They came for medical help and would then hear the gospel. We slept in scary places – such as a hut were vampire bats and rats rustled about in the pitch black night. One night I got to sleep on the examination table in a medical outpost – never mind the tarantulas on the wall overhead.

Our visit with the Champlins had important spiritual implications for me. There, in the midst of constant dangers I was never afraid. As long as Darrell was nearby, I knew God was nearby too. Years later I came to recognize that “my” faith on that trip was really a vicarious faith. I had trusted in Darrell’s faith, and needed to move on in my own faith with God. So, if you’ve ever noticed me mention vicarious faith in my posts, this is where the idea came from.

Darrell and Louise told us all kinds of remarkable stories, a few are in the sermon here. You might have difficulty understanding the one in which he was called by God to challenge the power of Satan and the witchdoctors by dancing on broken glass and burning coals, as he gets quite emotional about it. But the main idea of it is that a great victory was won against Satan for God. The next morning villagers came to his home to check his feet for cuts and blisters. There were none!

It is obvious that the Champlin family’s main work was an all-and-out spiritual war with the devil. Yet, in those days, apparently most churches in America would not let him say anything about demons and such. Yet it was his main ministry!

The theme of spiritual warfare is further developed in his enthralling presentation found here:

[url=http://www.fbcbourbonnais.com/audio.asp?sort=date&dir=asc&searchCall=@all ] The Articles of Engagement for Spiritual Warfare[/url] Just scroll way down to Sept. 23, 07.

I recommend listening to it too! It will change you!

Diane

I will try to download this message Sis, but mostly wanted to say, it's Nice to see you.

Champlin squarely puts forth the Christus Victor (Jesus is Victor) idea and sets our lives in the middle of a fierce battle zone. He’s not talking from the ivory towers of academia, but from the spiritual war zones of the world. His experiences are remarkable!

I don’t think Champlin knows or cares just how politically incorrect he is. He revives military hymns such as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” reminding us that it is really about a cosmic battle in the heavenly realms – and points out its reference to judgment.

Here is a Christian who has gained much ground from Satan, and thus, is one I wish to emulate and listen to. At 75 years, he is moving forward, not merely sitting back pining about the defeats in our society.

Diane

Sister Diane,

Good to see that autograph :-).

I downloaded and listened to the message and was challenged by it and certainly appreciated the way the Pastor handled the closing of the service.

I like the "theology" of "doing the will of the Father". Brother Champlin reminded me of the old Salvation Army's attitude and philosophy of "storming the gates of hell".

Thanks for posting.

Clint

Good to see that autograph

As the song goes, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going..” ;-)

Speaking of “sparks” - I can’t let a good spark slip by. I managed to track down Bro Darrell yesterday and got a reply from him within hours – right from Surinam!
Amazing!

He now has me trying to track down some of his sermons, in response to my request for some. He does a lot of speaking, but it looks like nobody has made the messages available to the public.

I also hinted at an autobiography….
I see in this brother a message that needs to get out. We have precious few literary sources of this nature that are contemporary. Hudson Taylor, Jonathan Goforth and such are fast slipping into the dusty archives of the past. Even the biography “Bruchko” has slipped into the past.

We need contemporary stories!

Diane