How They Entered Canaan J.B. Chapman Part 1

BLJ: We will look at the testimony of Dr. J.B. Chapman, an early General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene. He was a fiery holiness preacher!


JAMES BLAINE CHAPMAN (*2 Items) 1885-1947
(Nazarene General Superintendent 1928-1947)

The incidents surrounding and including the conversion and entire sanctification of Jimmy Chapman, as he was affectionately called, are graphically described in his own words:
I sat in the back of the Fairview schoolhouse one Sunday morning listening to Rev. Albright. His attitude and the content of his preaching arrested me. I asked a man by my side, "What kind of a preacher is this?"

The man replied, "He is a holiness preacher."
"How does a holiness preacher differ from others -- Methodists, Christian and the like?" I asked.
But the man did not want to talk so much during the service, so he closed the matter by saying, "If you listen to him perhaps you can tell."

I listened, but I could not tell. There was just this about it: What he said sounded good to me. In substance he said, "We are all lost and sinful. Jesus died to redeem us and save us. He can fully do what He came to do. He can save us from all sin now and forevermore." That sounded to me like it was either true or ought to be true, and I was glad to hear it.

If one were choosing a place to send a fourteen-year-old boy that he might become a Christian and a preacher, it does not seem to me he would be likely to choose the blackjack sand hills of Oklahoma County as they were in the spring of 1899. The people were neighborly, but there was a rough element that tried to dominate the community life. It was a favorite pastime for the boys and young men to mount their horses at the close of a night religious meeting, and empty

their pistols into the air as they rode away from the place. Often the noise was like that of a sham battle, and to a newcomer there went along with it a sort of sense of abandon and wildness. But these young men were friendly, generous to a fault, and ready to accept a new recruit without asking any questions. The chances were nine out of ten that a young boy of fourteen would find his crowd in such a company as this.

I believe it was the "prevenient grace of God" that kept me out of the whirlpool of worldliness in the community and caused me to find companions and enjoyment among the religious elements of the new country.

This section of the state was known as "Old Oklahoma." It was opened to settlement in 1889, and was therefore just "ten years old" when we came there. The "claims" in the blackjacks were not the most desirable, and so were not taken by the first to enter the state; but finally someone filed on every quarter section. Many of the claimants were young men, just barely of legal age, when they came there. And now, after ten years, there were still many single men (old bachelors by this time) living on the land they had obtained from the government on condition that they make it their home and establish certain "improvements" on it.

One of these bachelor men on a neighboring claim was John Miller, whose acquaintance we soon made, and who was a devoted "holiness man." I used to go to other communities to meetings with John, and found him a very interesting man to talk with. One day John sat under the cottonwood tree down by our well and talked for an hour about God and religion and his own Christian experience. As he arose to leave, he urgently invited me to attend the camp meeting at "the Conley Place," six and one-half miles away, beginning on the first day of September.

Many people said John was "queer," and he was never more so than that day when he sat and talked to me for so long. I say, talked to me, for I think I did not say anything at all for the whole time. John had a "faraway look" in his eyes, and I could tell that when he left he felt he had fulfilled a mission that had been laid upon him -- and I felt that he had, too.

Well, the first service of the camp meeting found me on hand; but the evangelist was not there, and the service was not impressive. I was not so interested as I had thought I would be, and so missed the second day and night altogether. But on Sunday I was there, and R. L. Averill, the evangelist, preached to my full satisfaction, and on from day to day and night to night, it seemed to me that he regularly chose subjects I had been wanting to hear explained, and often it seemed to me that he was just "preaching to me." Averill is an old man now, but I still think of him as the pattern preacher, and judge other preachers by how much they re like or unlike him. I was not converted until after Averill left the meeting, but I have always accounted him my spiritual father.

One of the big factors in the meeting was the singing. There were no special singers, and no experts at all; but the worshipers sang like they meant what they sang, and the music sounded good to me. They used the old Tears and Triumphs, Number Two, and that has continued to be the pattern songbook to me. A favorite with the people was Number 100, in that old book. The title was "Wash Me Throughly." The theme was from the fifty-first psalm, and the lines went like this:

Wash me throughly, blessed Saviour;

Cleanse me from indwelling sin. Bathe me in the sacred fountain; Now complete Thy work within.
Purge me with the branch of healing; Wash me whiter than the snow.
Cleanse, O cleanse my inmost being; Through and through, let Thy blood flow.
Wash me throughly, wash me throughly! For the Master's use made meet.
Purify and make me holy,
Now, just now, Thy work complete.

It was particularly the last stanza that impressed me. I had heard of people's longing for the highest and best in the things of God. This last stanza was an announcement of attainment, which was to my ears something new:

Now I yield my all to Jesus; Now I trust the cleansing blood. Now the work is done within me: Glory, glory be to God!
After singing this last stanza they changed the chorus, and sang it:
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
For the Masters use made meet! Now He sanctifies me wholly; Now I am in Him complete.