My old friend Bill Bright and I would often speak together at events sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. We had a regular procedure on such occasions. I would begin by confronting the listeners with hard truths about themselves. Many times I could be heard expounding a favorite text from Colossians: “Put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications out of your mouth. Lie not to one another.” Then, after I had put our listeners in a sober frame of mind about the ways they had failed God, Bill would get up to speak. In keeping with his more winsome nature, Bill would preach about the kindness and mercy of God, especially God’s offer of forgiveness. In other words, he delivered his good news as the counterpart to my bad news—two parts of the same whole.
The last time Bill and I did this kind of side-by-side preaching was some years ago now. But in a way, this book represents one last time for Bill and me to team up in addressing the people of God about the crucial matter of sin and holiness. You, friend, are our audience as we present time-tested and biblically based principles for repenting of sin and going on in holiness. Here you will hear tough truths about the costs of sin as well as welcome encouragement about the grace God supplies to those who honestly seek Him. You will be presented with a prescription capable of healing the harm that sin has caused in your life.
The credit for envisioning this book goes to Bill. We got together early in the summer of 2002, more than a year before his death, and were doing some reminiscing about the old days. But because Bill knew he was dying, his mind was more on the future—he wanted to accomplish as much as he could for Christ in the time left to him. So at one point Bill said, “Why don’t we write a book together?” He explained that he had for some time been worried about the number of Christians who are living with sin in their lives, seemingly accepting the situation as the way it has to be. Then Bill went on to explain why he wanted me involved in this project.
Bill was concerned that too much of Christian counseling today is not dealing with the core problem of sin. Counselors may know a lot about current psychological theories and may care about people’s emotional distress, but they too often neglect the need to take responsibility for wrongdoing. The fact that many patients go to counseling for months and years on end is a sign that some counselors are helping people grow comfortable with a sinful lifestyle instead of getting past it. While it may sound simplistic, the truth is that if people would quit with sin, they could take a shortcut to greater spiritual and emotional well-being. Bill knew I would agree with this analysis of the situation because for decades the focus of my counseling practice has been on sin.
Today there are dozens of Christian counselors in every major city of America. But to my knowledge, when I started in the 1950s, I was one of the first two Christian counselors in the country (Clyde Narrimore was the other). You could say that I lit the fire—and to be frank with you, sometimes I am sorry I did. By and large, Christian counselors are bright, well-educated people. But in most cases they have gotten caught up in secular theories of psychology based on the idea that there is no God. These theories say that we are on our own and have to fix our problems through self-effort. It is a human-focused approach instead of a God-focused approach. Bill wanted me to bring the old-fashioned but never more relevant perspective of biblical counseling to this book, and I was glad to supply it.
After getting Soul Prescription on its way, Bill was not able to join me in seeing it through to its conclusion. Nonetheless, up to a week before his death, Bill was still working on the manuscript of this book until the wee hours of the morning. Propped up in bed and breathing through an oxygen mask, he would be holding a page up to his bedside light while other pages lay scattered across his bed. For me, this image of him in his final days reveals more poignantly than anything else how important the message of holiness really was to him.
Bill died on July 19, 2003, of complications related to pulmonary fibrosis. The world lost a great light for Christ that day, and I lost a dear friend. But if Bill were here right now, I know he would join me in praying that you will find freedom from sin with the help of the biblical truths presented on these pages. Nothing resonated more with his heartbeat. Nothing resonates more with mine.
Enough of laying the groundwork for the book. Are you sick of sin? If so, begin the healing process now.
Henry Brandt, Ph.D.