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R. A. Torrey

Hol

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Reuben Archer Torrey​

Bios - Torrey
R. A. Torrey, Moody Bible Institute's second president, graduated from Yale in 1878. The following year he married Clara Smith (see photo at right) and in 1882 attended the universities of Leipzig and Erlangen Germany and studied under the renowned German scholars Franz Delitzsch and Theodor Zahn. Upon returning to the States, he declined an offer from a well-to-do Brooklyn church in favor of a pioneer home missions project of the Congregationalists in what was then the frontier town of Minneapolis. There he founded and built a church that began with only eleven members and lived in impoverished conditions. Their most frequent prayer request was for firewood.

Later he became Superintendent of the City Missionary Society (Congregationalist). Torrey soon started another church, then another. They both grew rapidly. The church held events in public places where many attended. He taught a Sunday school class based on the union lessons in a public place, and hundreds attended. In his zeal for evangelism, he attended the International Association of Christian Workers in Chicago, and was elected president. In these years he saw dramatic answers to prayer and he saw remarkable fruit in leading people to Christ.

When D. L. Moody first heard of Torrey, he exclaimed "you make my mouth water for him." He soon called him to head his new school then called the Bible Institute of the Chicago Evangelistic Society.2 Torrey accepted the challenge, and became the school's first superintendent. One of his first acts in this was position was to dedicate the Institute's first building. From 1894-1906 he also served as pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church. During his years at Moody,Torrey also conducted several worldwide evangelistic campaigns in 1902-3 and 1903-6 with Charles Alexander as his song leader and Robert Harkness at the piano.The second tour included a five-month mission in London.
 
God had several key men in place as much of Europe was about to cave into Darwinism and Higher Textual Criticism (late 1800s). DL Moody was already issuing warnings as some in Europe were denying the truth of God’s Word.

Similar to today’s social Gospel, full of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the wolves in sheep’s clothing in the 1800s were drawing the sheep to jump off the cliff into confusion and doubt. Questioning if there really was an Adam & Eve, or Noah’s ark, etc. moves a person to a dark place of doubting God’s power, love, justice. These wolves offer a way to become self reliant. We get self righteous pious Christians who virtue signal but they’re a savorless salt.

Here’s a quote from RA Torres’s book How to Obtain Fullness of Power:

“We hear a good deal these days, about ethical culture, which usually means a cultivation of the flesh until it bears the fruit of the Spirit. It cannot be done until the thorn can be made to bear figs and the brier bush grapes (Luke 6:44). We hear also a good deal about character building. That is all very well if you let the Holy Spirit do the building…we hear also about cultivating graces of character.

But we must always bear in mind that the way to cultivate true graces of character is by submitting ourselves utterly to the Spirit to do His work.”
 
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