Worship Service August 4, 2024
Pat Boone, who turned 90 in June, knows who he is. Many of you, because of the age in our church, will remember him. Pat Boone is a man who loves God and loves this country. At age 90, he has just released a new song, Where Did America Go? Part of the lyrics:
“That old family Bible still holds our survival. It spells out the way we can win.”
Think about that.
“That old family Bible still holds our survival. It spells out the way we can win.”
Think about that.
“That old family Bible still holds our survival. It spells out the way we can win.”
Over the course of his lifetime, Pat Boone sold nearly 50 million records and had 38 top 40 hits. He also appeared in various Hollywood films. According to the Billboard chart, Pat Boom was the only singer that could compete in popularity with Elvis Presley during the 1950s. I did not know that. He was one of the biggest charting artists in the period from 1955 through 1995. From 1955 through 1995. Until 2010, Pat Boone held the record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the billboard charts with one or more songs each week. During the 50s and the 60s he became a teen item not as a rock and roll star but as an alternative to rock and roll. At age 23 Pat Boone began hosting the Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. His cover version of Rhythm and Blues hits had a noticeable effect on the development of the broad popularity of rock and roll. Elvis Presley was the opening act for the 1955 Pat Boone show in Brooklyn, Ohio. In the 1960s, he focused on gospel music. Later, he became a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Pat Boone claimed to be the great-great-great-great grandson of the American pioneer Daniel Boone. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. In 1953, Pat, age 19, married Shirley Lee Foley. She was also 19 and was the daughter, and I didn’t know about this guy, of country music great Red Foley and his wife Judy Martin. I guess they were pretty popular back in the 50s and the 40s. Pat Boone and his wife had 4 daughters. Shirley Boone, his wife, found a hunger relief Christian ministry that evolved into what’s now known as Mercy Corps. She passed away in 2019.
In the 1960 Boone’s marriage to Shirley nearly came to an end because of his use of alcohol and his preference for attending parties. Doesn’t sound like the Pat Boone we all know, does it? It just goes to show you the temptations of the world can weigh heavy on a person no matter how strong their faith is. Surely his wife began to focus more on her religion and eventually influenced Pat and their daughters to have a similar religious focus. An album of hymns by Pat sold 3,000,000 copies and considerably opened the market and allowed Pat to stay loyal to this genre all his life.
The thing I want to focus on with Pat Boone is he knew who he was, and he knew who he needed to become to save his marriage and to save himself. In 1964, Pat Boone spoke at a project prayer rally. He sought to flood the United States Congress with letters in support of mandatory school prayer. This was following two decisions in 1962 and in 1963 of the United States Supreme Court that struck down mandatory prayer as conflicting with the established clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. At the time, Pat said, and I quote, “what the communists want is to subvert and undermine our young people. I believe in the power of the rise of Americans. I believe in the wisdom of our constitution and the power of God. So he really went to bat to keep prayer in schools. In the 1970s, Pat Boone hosted Bible studies for celebrities such as Doris Day, Glen Ford, Ja Ja Gabor, imagine her in Bible study, and Priscilla Preston at his Beverly Hills home. Pat Boone also stood up for God against an episode of Saturday Night Live. I don’t know if any of you have ever watched Saturday Night Live. That included a sketch entitled God is a, and I won’t say the word, blank man. He described the sketch as blasphemy, stated that the Federal Communications Commission should forbid any such content, and that it should revoke the broadcast licensing of any network or whoever is responsible for the shows. That took a lot of guts to stand up against a show like Saturday Night Live, which is extremely popular. In 1997, his gospel music show was suddenly dropped by its Christian network, all because he supposedly dabbled with the devil and recorded an album of heavy metal music with big band orchestrations. It was not only the music, but Pat’s appearance on the American Music Awards show. He was dressed in black leather with fake tattoos, promoting his new album, which was called Pat Boone in a Metal Move, heavy metal songs giving a roaring big band treatment. The appearance stunned the media and the music world, sending the CD halfway up the billboard charts the next week, delighting of course Pat Boone and his record company. But the shock was too great in the music arena, who took his show, or in the gospel arena, who took his show off the air until they listened to the music and finally saw what he was doing, that it was perfectly fine, and reinstated his show two months later. That’s what happens when people jump to conclusions sometimes. Pat’s comment at the time was, the AMA Awards appearance seems to me like wearing a costume to a party, not to be taken seriously. But I guess I did it too well. He was obviously in very good physical shape and the record titled Pat Boone in a Metal Moon was a smash. I’ve never heard it, but guess what? I’m gonna look at it now.
Pat Boone has been named the Christian Ambassador of Tourism by the Israel ministry of tourism and has led 20 tours of the country over the years. Now this is a long one. He is a spokesman for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews Wings of Eagles program, which has directly enabled 300,000 Jews from Iron Curtain countries to resettle in Israel. Pat Boone has lived his life, engineered his career, utilized his talents, and celebrity with integrity.
Pat Boone is quoted as saying, As for now, I may not have much time left, realistically, But I’m still busy, healthy, singing, and swimming. And I want God to use every inch of me for his pleasure and purposes. And I’m trying, as I always have, to bring as many other people to heaven with me as I can. Despite his popularity and success, Pat Boone has never lost sight of his faith, and he knows who he is and what his mission is in life.
Do we? If we don’t practice spiritual virtues now we will forget their significance later. Physical nearsightedness and mental amnesia both are unwanted conditions. Nearsightedness causes people’s eyes to focus the parallel lights of light in front of the retina. I have nearsightedness. They can clearly see things right in front of them, but the further out they look, the more out of focus objects become. Amnesia, of course, is memory loss. Sometimes it’s selective, but usually it’s totally everything prior to a certain time or incident. It often causes people to forget their name, their family, and everything about their identity and background. These two impairments should be even less welcome on the spiritual level. Professed believers who are unfruitful become spiritually nearsighted. They focus on temporal fads and pass they pass in earthly fashions. By the time they try to look ahead to eternity, it is so out of focus for them that they can’t see it. Those with spiritual amnesia, because they see no increase in spiritual virtue in their lives, forget they were supposed to be saved from their sinful lifestyles. They don’t remember the spiritual purification that should have occurred in their lives, a reference to a deep eternal purging or cleansing. If we are not diligently pursuing spiritual virtue and moral excellence, we will have a very fuzzy view of our true condition. We may connect an outward action or emotional experience with the time we profess Christ, but we will not have a sense of assurance. 2nd Peter: 1-8 says, “for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this verse, it’s telling us that the knowledge of Jesus received at conversion comes as an illumination to those who were blind in their pagan ignorance. 2 Corinthians 4, “in whose case the God of this world was blinded has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” This verse is saying that Christians who do not carry through the moral implications of this knowledge have effectively become blind to it. Again, if we are seeing our life grow in moral virtue, we have proof of salvation and reason for assurance. If we are not seeing our life grow in virtue, we have no proof of salvation and no reason for assurance. We need to be diligent to avoid spiritual nearsightedness and spiritual amnesia in our lives. We need to pray that we would have a clear spiritual vision at all times. We need to remember the church is not an audience to be entertained. It’s an army to be empowered. So as we go through our lives working hard to avoid pitfalls that take us away from who we really are, We should not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. All things can be mended, but with intention. So go, love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world awaits in darkness for the light that is you with the help and faith of our Heavenly Father. Amen.
