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Preaching Prohibition
Billy Sunday
William Ashley “Billy” Sunday (1862–1935). Born on November 19, 1862, in Story County, Iowa, to a poor farming family, Billy Sunday rose from a hardscrabble childhood to become America’s most famous evangelist of the early 20th century. Orphaned at 10 after his father’s Civil War death and mother’s remarriage, he worked odd jobs before excelling as a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings (1883–1890), known for speed despite a .248 batting average. Converted in 1886 at Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission, he left baseball in 1891 to work with the YMCA and study briefly at Evanston Academy. Mentored by evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, Sunday began preaching in 1896, holding over 300 revival campaigns across the U.S., drawing millions with theatrical, plainspoken sermons on sin, salvation, and prohibition. His tabernacles, like those in New York (1917), packed thousands nightly, reportedly leading to a million conversions. He authored no major books but shaped evangelicalism, supporting World War I and opposing evolution in schools. Married to Helen “Nell” Thompson in 1888, they had four children, though three sons’ scandals marred his later years. Sunday died of a heart attack on November 6, 1935, in Chicago, saying, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist.”
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of truth and the consequences of lying. They emphasize that the United States seems to have lost sight of this, with corruption and dishonesty prevalent. The speaker also mentions the Ten Commandments and how people often break them, leading to the deterioration of society. They urge listeners to uphold the truth and live according to God's commandments. The sermon concludes with a call to be proud of one's faith and to strive for a government that upholds democratic values.
Sermon Transcription
When you compare prohibition at its worst, which is to me at its best, prohibition's a million times better. And the limbs you would fly to by recuse against each other are a thousand times worse than the limbs you'd fly from by leaving it, my friend, as it is. I may be crushed by it, but bound to it, I never will. Oh, history tells us that in free countries there's a lot to live in. America may need help. It should ask my kindest votes would be not that I ever last in this area, but that I never deserve it. There's no neutral ground in this fact. It's worth of a life and life to be here. I absolutely refuse to vote for any man, for mayor, for governor, for representative, for senator, or for president, who is hostile to and will not openly support the 18th Amendment or any other amendment to my Constitution. As I said to you the other day, prohibition interferes with my personal liberty. First of all, everywhere in the statute book interferes with the liberty of the person who wants to vote. It doesn't interfere with my liberty because I say so. The shepherd cares the people of Europe the way he looks over the people with which he is mindful. And then the rule of complaint against the shepherd should interfere with his personal liberty. As I said to you, all prohibition lets bootleggers and rum runners and moonshiners. First of all, we've had bootleggers and moonshiners for nearly a hundred and fifty-five years as far as the stripes have roved over America. We've had bootleggers, we have them now. Dr. Thurow wrote to a doctor and said, Dear doctor, I had a wart on my face and it only took time and a half. After taking 12 bottles of neuromedicine, my face is gone, but the wart is there yet. And the blues are gone, the blues are gone, the blues are gone, but the bootlegger and the moonshiner, my friend, he's clearly left on his face. And I said to you, well, they don't keep them, they repudiate them. All rights and repudiation, they get 10 commandments. They don't keep the 10 commandments. They lie, they steal, they commit adultery, they murder, and yet you know without the 10 commandments that he knows civilization. You know that society is civilization, left on morals, morals left on religion, religion left on faith in God and in Jesus Christ.
Preaching Prohibition
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William Ashley “Billy” Sunday (1862–1935). Born on November 19, 1862, in Story County, Iowa, to a poor farming family, Billy Sunday rose from a hardscrabble childhood to become America’s most famous evangelist of the early 20th century. Orphaned at 10 after his father’s Civil War death and mother’s remarriage, he worked odd jobs before excelling as a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings (1883–1890), known for speed despite a .248 batting average. Converted in 1886 at Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission, he left baseball in 1891 to work with the YMCA and study briefly at Evanston Academy. Mentored by evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, Sunday began preaching in 1896, holding over 300 revival campaigns across the U.S., drawing millions with theatrical, plainspoken sermons on sin, salvation, and prohibition. His tabernacles, like those in New York (1917), packed thousands nightly, reportedly leading to a million conversions. He authored no major books but shaped evangelicalism, supporting World War I and opposing evolution in schools. Married to Helen “Nell” Thompson in 1888, they had four children, though three sons’ scandals marred his later years. Sunday died of a heart attack on November 6, 1935, in Chicago, saying, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist.”