Beloved Voice of Prophecy soloist Del Delker passed to her rest on the morning of January 31, 2018 in Porterville, California, at the age of 93. For more than five decades, whether over the airwaves, in a church or at an evangelistic meeting, her strong contralto voice unabashedly shared Christ's love with rapt audiences around the world.
Del has blessed several generations with her ministry of music. She was a consistent and humble witness to God’s love for people. Rest in peace, sister!
She expressed a concern that I hope that denomination will be able to address honestly: “She commented how she’d sung and talked about the soon coming of Jesus and was amazed it hadn’t happened.”
“SOON” didn’t happen for her in all her 93 years. Many of us, as we age, are also asking what “soon” means anymore. How do we live as faithful Adventists while we realize that somehow “soon” hasn’t meant what we were told or expected in our long lives.
I’ve been listening to a recording of Del’s this Sabbath afternoon. One of my favorite songs that she recorded says, “God loves you right now, just the way you are.” I believe she knew that there was nothing she could do to make God love her more or to hasten the Second Coming.
There is nothing I’ve read in the Bible that suggests that we can do anything to hasten the Second Coming. What comfort!
I was blessed by Del’s beautiful voice from my earliest moments of spiritual awareness. Every Sunday morning our family would listen to the Voice of Prophecy, at about the time we would sit down for pancakes and waffles!
May the Lord extend and prosper the work this dear woman was empowered to do through the grace and strength of the Master she loved so much! And may He find us faithful when He comes!
I had the privilege of living across the hall from Del Delker for a semester at EMC/Andrews University back in the 50’s. I was a new Adventist at the time so I considered it a real honor to see her up close.
Anyone approaching or thinking about the R.I.P. state…
how do you react to this quote?
If you would be a saint in heaven you must first be a saint on earth. The traits of character you cherish in life will not be changed by death or by the resurrection. You will come up from the grave with the same disposition you manifested in your home and in society. Jesus does not change the character at His coming. The work of transformation must be done now. Our daily lives are determining our destiny. Defects of character must be repented of and overcome through the grace of Christ, and a symmetrical character must be formed while in this probationary state, that we may be fitted for the mansions above.—Manuscript Releases 13:82 (1891).
Anyone else want to react that EG White writings are a disservice to Adventists?
How about this quote…?
" Everyone who believes on Christ, everyone who relies on the keeping power of a risen Saviour that has suffered the penalty pronounced upon the transgressor, everyone who resists temptation and in the midst of evil copies the pattern given in the Christ life, will through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ become a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Everyone who by faith obeys God’s commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression." IHP 146
Actually that quote brings to mind how dear Del Delker helped save my sanity.
This was at a time in my life when I had been haunted for many years by the Adventist perfectionism epitomized by that quote.
I had psychologically decompensated, finding no help from abusive pastors and therapists, and having been exorcised for 16 hours by my abusive former conference evangelist, and labeled demonic by my community; my desire to live was disappearing.
At that point, I would lie on the couch for hours in my barren trailer and play this song over and over, getting up each time to carefully set the needle back to the right groove on the vinyl record:
I’m visiting my son right now, and I told him Del Delker had passed, played this song and asked him if he remembered it.
He got that faraway look one gets when suddenly decades have been unexpectedly erased, and one finds oneself in another place and time.
Besides the many Sabbaths listening to her and the King’s Heralds, my most vivid memory is of her voice emanating from a single speaker from the top of the car, our car, from a record player inside with the needle in the groove playing Christmas songs, accompanying us house to house Ingathering in a snapping cold minus 30 in Wyoming. The cold could never stop us and Del was right there with us.
How many lives has she touched in her ministry? So many.
This screams salvation by works, salvation by what we do. This is an extremely disturbing, unbiblical description of salvation(?), Writings such as these (and there are many), are why so many Adventists have no assurance of salvation. They live in fear of not doing enough, forgetting to confess a sin, looking at themselves… instead of remembering what Jesus did for us, for our salvation, and living in the freedom and joy of the Spirit and being co-heirs with Christ.
We are not justified by works of the flesh or the law, but by faith in Christ.
I guess it’s true that some people love their bondage. Unfortunately, these same people usually want others to be in bondage too.
Somewhere above a dozen years ago I was a participant in a musical event at Sunnyside Church in Portland. It had been a long day already and there were still a few hours to go before it was over and I was searching for a comfortable place to sit quietly for a few minutes.
Pushing open the door to the Youth Room I slipped in, noticing as I did so that I was not alone in the room. It was only after sitting that I realized that the other person with me was Del. We chatted for a short while, just sharing simple things about ourselves. Toward the end of our conversation she told me an amusing anecdote from her years of singing and recording. I’m sure she’d probably told the story many times over the years but I enjoyed the retelling nonetheless, especially due to the intimacy of the telling.
When she first hit upon the idea of doing voice-over recordings, and the first of that type had been released on an album, she received a letter from a little old lady who had been faithful in contributing to the VOP over the years. In her letter this dear sister told her how much she appreciated the latest record, but that she should never sing with those other women again because, in her opinion, “those girls just don’t know how to sing!”
I just read the following response on Facebook to someone who was questioning Mrs White’s inspiration:
“May God strike you with thunder so that you realise that you a [sic] wrong”
The unquestioning religious devotion shown to this dear woman by many in our church is astounding! In fact, I think it’s more than just many in our church, to me it’s denominational.