Four Angels? (tract)

Not to be confused with Angels?, another Jack Chick tract.

Four Angels? is a religious tract written by Jack Chick. It was originally printed in 2005, and remains an in-stock title. It is listed on their website under the subject "Basic Gospel" and also tagged as "Older Children and Adults".

The tract is based on The Parable of the Sower, with each of the soils portrayed in the life of one of the four Sawyer brothers: Frank, Bobby, Charlie, and Henry.

At the outset, the brothers are being taken by their mother to a tent revival on a Sunday night. Each one of the four brothers is assigned a guardian angel; the angel assigned to Henry notes that Henry is going to keep him "very busy". Though at the invitation all four brothers are shown kneeling and praying as to receive Christ, only Henry's prayer is portrayed as genuine.

The later lives of the Sawyer brothers are shown in subsequent scenes:

• Frank announces that he's going to be a great preacher, but the next day is shown as choosing a girl over God. He later attends church only to make people believe he loved the Lord, and his guardian angel left him years before. He is portrayed as being like the rocky soil, the Word never taking root.
• Bobby goes into business, and is told quickly that he can choose either religion or managerial success; he chooses the latter. Like Frank, Bobby attends church to impress others, and as such his guardian angel also leaves him. He is portrayed as being like the thin soil; when persecution hits he quickly folds.
• Charlie becomes a famous preacher ("The Reverend Dr. Charles Z.W. Sawyer, D.D."), but is shown as being an ecumenical preacher who doesn't preach the true Gospel. Furthermore, he is shown as having issue with lust (he is in his fourth marriage, and having an affair with his secretary on the side), causing his guardian angel to leave during his second year of Bible college. He is portrayed as being like the thorn-infested soil, caring more about fame and riches.
• Henry also becomes a preacher, but nowhere near as famous as Charlie, for he preaches the true Gospel, working in a rundown mission "on the wrong side of the tracks". Unlike his brothers, his guardian angel is still with him, and as when he was a child he keeps the angel busy rescuing him from the tough area where he works. He is portrayed as being like the soil of good ground, bearing fruit.

Invited to a family reunion, Henry refuses to attend until after dinner, taking literally the verse in I Corinthians 5:11 about not eating with one called a brother who is a fornicator. Henry tells Charlie (who he refers to as "Slick") to his face he is a fraud, quoting several Bible verses in support; Frank and Bobby take up for Charlie and refuse Henry's pleadings to accept Christ (being swayed by Charlie who says that Henry is part of the "lunatic fringe" while he has a Doctor of Divinity). The four brothers never meet again and eventually all four die.

At Judgment Frank, Bobby, and Charlie are told "I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity" while Henry is invited to "enter thou into the joy of my fold".

External Links

Four Angels?