Rating: 
(Nashville: B and H Publishing Group, 2013)
341 pgs
I love reading biographies. I do this in part because of the testimony of Proverbs 13:20, which assures us that if we spend time around wise people, we’ll pick up their wisdom. I do this with biographies. By reading one, I spend time with great men and women of God. My prayer is always that something will rub off on me!
Ron Dunn is one of those people worth spending time around. He died in 2001 and so his books and recorded sermons have to suffice. I’ve heard about Dunn for years, but I had never taken time to read about him or familiarize myself with his teaching. I am so glad I finally did.
Ron Owens wrote this book. It is the officially authorized book by Dunn’s widow, Kaye. Owens interviewed many family members and friends of Dunn and throughout the book he inserts comments and reflections from them. Owens knew Dunnn personally. Owens wrote a great biography on Manley Beasley, who was a mentor to Dunn, as well. Owens not only tells the story, but he weaves in the person’s own words through their sermons and books. I was especially impacted by hearing Dunn’s own words from his sermons and books.
Dunn was born on October 24, 1936 in Poteau, Oklahoma. He was a Midwestern man who deeply reflected his roots. He was converted at age seven and called into Christian ministry at age 15. He loved to preach and was gifted with fresh insights into Scripture and his down to earth way of explaining deep spiritual truths.
Throughout Dunn’s life, he knew and impacted many Christian leaders. Those who contributed reflections on his life in this book are like a “Who’s Who” of today’s most prominent leaders. It was, however, when he became the pastor of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Texas that God began to use Dunn powerfully in revival (31). For the first four years, Dunn served admirably as the church’s pastor. However, in 1970, he was preaching a revival meeting in Colorado. God began to bring revival to that church and it changed Dunn. He returned to his church and immediately announced that he could no longer keep pastoring the way he had been. With deep honesty and humility, as well as boldness, Dunn announced that his church desperately needed revival. He told his parishioners that if they did not want to change their ways or to repent of their sin, they were welcome to leave the church and find another one where they could remain comfortable living as they always had. He stated in a sermon: “. . . it costs too much to lose the presence of God, while it costs but a six-cent stamp for us to move your letter . . .” (45). God began to revive Dunn’s church. The next five years were filled with the powerful working of God. People who were driving by the church would feel compelled to pull into the parking lot and enter the church to see what was happening.
Dunn left the church as pastor in 1975 and began an itinerant speaking ministry. He would travel widely preaching around the world until his death in 2001. At Thanksgiving in 1975, Ronnie Dunn, the Dunn’s oldest son, committed suicide. He was bi-polar and after three years of struggle, succumbed to the disease (75). This tragic event caused Ron Dunn to enter into a ten-year struggle with clinical depression. Dunn, who had believed that with faith, he could overcome any problem, discovered that many of the simplistic answers he had originally believed required much deeper thought and understanding. Even as he suffered greatly, his preaching reached a depth it never had before. Dunn also was bold for his time, admitting to people that he was clinically depressed. Like many leaders before him, such as Charles Spurgeon, Abraham Lincoln, and Churchill, his depression drove him to his greatest work.
I especially enjoyed the excerpts from his sermons on some the most difficult issues in life. The following are some of those thoughts:
In his sermon, “Surprise, It’s God!” he noted: “Good and evil run on parallel tracks, and often arrive at the same time” (72).
“The transformation God wants to work in my life doesn’t happen in a single moment, but rather it takes place gradually over a period of time, usually when we are alone and in the dark. Now I’ve no problem with thirty-second experiences at the altar, but thirty-second experiences will not transform you” (81).
Dunn had a powerful sermon based on Jacob’s struggle with the angel. Here are some quotes:
“Why do I find it easier to say ‘no’ to the devil when he tempts me than to say ‘yes’ to God when He’s wrestling with me?”
“The angel was not asking for information. That angel was looking for a confession” (85).
“’What is your name?’ The most terrifying experience in life is facing yourself-what you are.” (86).
Dunn pointed out that Jacob’s encounter with the angel is the only place where blessing comes through struggle.
He also has a great insight from Matthew 13 and Jesus’ parable on the tares. He notes that the tares are left in the ground with the wheat for the sake of the wheat. He notes that life is like this. We all have tares that God has allowed to remain in our life and they are so intertwined with the good things in our life that to remove them would cause us to miss out on God’s blessings (91).
As you might expect, Dunn also drew rich insights from the life of Job. He notes: “We do not live by explanation; we live by promise. Instead of asking ‘Why’ let’s change to ‘Alright Lord, what now?’ To what end, for what purpose has this happened?’” (112).
“Just because a question can’t be answered doesn’t mean it can be ignored” (119).
Dunn became a popular speaker at the Keswyk conference in Britain. He began his first sermon by declaring to the audience that there was nothing wrong with them that a miracle couldn’t cure” (147).
“The most important thing you can do for God is the next thing God tells you” (154).
“Prayer is not a substitute for work, or merely preparation for work-it is work” (158).
“Prayer is like a missile that can be fired toward any spot on Earth. It can travel undetected at the speed of thought and it hits its target every time. It can even be armed with a delayed detonation device” (158).
“Satan has no defense against this weapon. He doesn’t have an anti-prayer missile” (159).
“I don’t understand all about electricity, but I’m not going to sit around in the dark until I do” (162).
Vance Havner, one of Dunn’s mentors once claimed: “The situation is desperate, but we’re not” (163). When comforted about “losing” his dear wife, he replied: “No, I haven’t lost her; I know right where she is” (323).
“God is bigger than our theology. God makes no promises that paralyze His sovereignty. My expectations do not bind Him. My wish is not His command” (168).
“The granting of the answer to prayer is immediate, but the giving of it into our hands may be delayed” (169).
“There has never been a mighty outpouring of the Spirit in revival that did not begin in the persistent, prevailing prayers of a desperate people. Revival has never come because men put it on the calendar. It has come because God placed it in their hearts” (174).
“Either write something worth reading, or live something worth writing.” Benjamin Franklin
Stuart Briscoe described the life of most Christians like a metal bedstead: “Firm on both ends and sagging in the middle” (184).
Dunn liked to joke that many Christian’s lives looked like their passport picture. People could look at the way the Bible describes the Christian life and what it ought to look like, and then say, “I saw a picture of you in the Bible but you don’t look anything like it” (185).
“You can do the right thing at the wrong time” (187).
“Never make a Christ out of your faith” (190).
Discussing Job, Dunn pointed out that God never answered Job’s questions. Rather, He asked better questions! (200).
“In every battle there are losses, even for the victor” (209).
With God, timing is more important than time” (216).
Dunn once slept past the time he was supposed to be speaking at a church located near his hotel. The service had begun and yet the speaker was nowhere to be found. Someone was ultimately dispatched to the hotel where they found him sound asleep. Hurriedly dressing and racing to the service already under way, Dunn made his way to the pulpit. Everyone wanted to know what the groggy preacher had to say for himself. His first words were: “Whew! . . .Waking up is a terrible way to start a day!”
One of his most famous sermons was entitled, “Chained to the chariot.” In it he observed: “ If we can learn to live bound to the chariot, there is no conceivable situation in life in which God cannot give us victory. But this may require us to redefine the word ‘victory”” (274).
Owens cites an African quote: “When an old man dies, a library is burned” (288).
“Humility is not whipping yourself; it is forgetting yourself” (297).
Ron Dunn suffered for several years with chronic illness. While undergoing his final health struggle, his daughter was recovering from a serious car injury that required her leg to be amputated and his wife Kaye was diagnosed with lymphoma and had to undergo chemotherapy treatments. In many ways this great preacher suffered throughout much of his ministry. Some who knew him best claimed that Dunn was the greatest preacher they had ever heard and that he suffered more than any person they knew. Perhaps the two qualities are closely linked.
Dunn liked to joke, “I may be Dunn, but I’m not finished!” (327). Certainly his ministry continues. His Lifestyle Ministries sells CD’s of his sermons as well as his books. Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, pastored by Michael Catt, has a center dedicated to the ministry of Ron Dunn. It houses his library in an office built to replicate the one Dunn used in his home.
I enjoyed this book. I found his preaching, his illustrations and his insights into Scriptures refreshing. His preaching made me want to dig deeper into the Scriptures both for myself and my preaching. Ron Owens did a great job bringing out the essence of the man, often in his own words so that you felt like you knew him.
I would encourage people to read this book, especially if you are a preacher. It will encourage you to take whatever God has allowed in your life and use it for His glory.
by Richard Blackaby