Chapters: 1. Why Don't Men Obey God? |
12 FIRST OBEDIENCE I thought I was going to be translated. I hadn't any word from God yet. All He had sent into me was His 'peace and joy.' I had no order but to rejoice and look to Him. Taking the keys, I drove the family home, stopped at the door, let them out, and drove the car out through the old barnyard to the garage. When I walked back through the lot toward the house I looked up at the sky filled with stars and said, "Lord, I am a new man. I am different. Everything is different!" I was very happy in Jesus and not expecting anything unusual to take place. But the moment my left hand touched the yard gate, the Voice that had been silent for almost twelve years suddenly revealed within me, "Go to Austin Holloway's for prayer." I came through the kitchen door greatly excited: "Daddy! The Lord has just spoken to me and told me to go to Austin Holloways's for prayer!" (Mr. Holloway was my basketball coach, and I had never been in his home before.) Dad said, "Wonderful! The car is nearly empty of gas, Son. You take the car to the bulk plant, put gas in, and Mother and I will be ready to go with you as soon as you return." I didn't realize it at the time, but when my hand touched the old iron gate and God spoke to me, "Self" was meeting head-on with "denial." I could not continue with my plans to relax, rest, and go to sleep--I was supposed to go on a journey of obedience. In less than ten minutes after conversion, "Self" was meeting up with "denial." Now 105 most Christians don't get to go that long without denying Self.
God tells me in my heart that two seconds after
most conversions, self-denial will begin.
When one is converted, when his sins are covered with the
precious blood of Jesus and 'the joy of the Lord' fills his heart,
the Holy Spirit will nearly always impress the new convert to stand
and witness for Jesus. God wants him to say, "Praise the Lord for
saving me! I want you to pray for my mother and dad to be saved."
He will ask newborn lambs to testify: "Oh, the Lord's joy is so
wonderful!" He seldom asks us to say much, but He wants us to
witness for Christ.
As soon as the prompting of the Holy Spirit begins in the
soul, Satan and the flesh are right there to tell you, "Don't do
it! People will think you are crazy. Your friends will think
you are aiming to put on a show. They'll think you are trying to
be somebody." The devil will attempt to throw fear into your
heart and body by causing your legs to tremble and your voice to
shake. He will try to tell you that you won't have any friends
left and that you are foolish and should just be quiet. "Nobody
cares what you have to say anyway." he will insinuate. In this
battle of self-denial he will try to tell you many things to
prevent you from being partaker in the experience of obedience.
In most cases, Self succumbs to the pressures of Satan, and
the flesh wins the battle. Not many people are successful in
their first opportunity of self-denial. The flesh wants to be
respected by everyone and applauded by all; it wishes to be seen
as discreet, orderly, and above ridicule. But as soon as you are
willing to resist this pull of the earth, immediately you will
have a little blessing. A little lift always follows self-
denial. There is always a little vineyard or a small oasis after
Self is denied to do what God has wished.
However, this victory in Jesus is only occasionally known.
The devil doesn't want it to be known, for the life which begins
at conversion to deny Self has a great advantage over
106 the life which fails in this first assignment. Overcoming grace
is supplied to a self-denied heart, as well as strength to resist
temptation. Until a new convert learns the absolute necessity of
obedience through denying the desires of the flesh and the mind,
it is likely that he will suffer numerous setbacks and
backslidings. On the other hand, the life which learns the
secret of self-denial soon after conversion experiences the
divine joy of Jesus within, which enables it for the coming
attacks of Satan and the trials of earth.
Self-denial is more urgent to Christianity than I can tell
you. It is like breathing to the body: If I do not breath, I
die.
My first breath had come after ten o'clock that evening, and
my second breath came when God revealed what I should do and I
started getting ready to do it. All the breaths of obedience
which I have taken since that first night have been dependent
upon those first two. Thus, my entire walk with God these many
years pivots upon my willingness to deny what Self wanted ten
minutes after Jesus had saved me.
We must not delay when God leads. There is injury in delay
when the Holy Spirit prompts us to obey. When God does not
speak, waiting is golden as well as silence, because there are
gold mines of His love in waiting. I probably never would have
had the victory if I would have failed to tell my father what God
had revealed to my heart. It was late at night and Self could
have reasoned: "Now they'll think this is foolish. It will be
nearly eleven-thirty by the time you can get to your coach's
home." But I had to deny what Self thought in order to tell my
parents what God had commanded me to do.
Most parents would have said, "Now wait a minute, Son; wait
just a minute. Look at that clock. That clock says that it is
late and people ought to be in bed at this hour." They could
have told me, "We are tired, Son. We have been through two
church services today, and tonight's meeting was a long one. We
must get to bed. You wait until it is more convenient."
Instead, they said, "We are glad. We will go
107 with you." Their hearts were saying, "Our son has heard from
God! He is going on his first mission. We want to go with him!"
(Glory to God! I feel the power of God going through my arms and
my body as I share this with you.)
I headed for the bulk plant, still dressed in my Sunday
clothes. We had two trucks at the bulk plant for delivering
gasoline, and you know how greasy and dirty they can be. I had
to walk between both of them to get the gas for the car. How I
ever squeezed between two dusty, oily trucks and never got a
smudge on me is a mystery. I am still marvelling at this, for I
know that the Lord had to help me. When you can't do something
in yourself, God can do it for you. I didn't have time to
change, I just had time to obey; so the Lord helped me not to get
my clothes soiled.
When I returned to the farm, not only were my mother and
father ready, they had called three of my best friends and the
evangelistic singer to go along. All seven of us started in that
old 1931 Chevrolet sedan for Austin Holloway's. We were going
fine until we got about to the iron bridge east of Parker, a
little distance from the home which God has now provided us.
Until then I was still enjoying the happiness and deep peace I
received at conversion. Never before had I known anything like
this sweet wonder of Jesus; but I was totally unprepared for what
was about to take place within my soul.
At that point along our journey, the joy of obedience
suddenly flooded my soul! The joy I had at the altar when Jesus
saved me was instantly multiplied! Jesus has revealed to my
heart since then that He tripled the joy which I had at
conversion. It became three times greater because I obeyed the
Holy Spirit. The glory of Heaven was so within me that I
couldn't contain it. I began to praise the Lord and shout.
I had always been calm, reserved, and very quiet. I didn't
want to shout. I never wanted to say "amen" or get happy. I
wanted to be a quiet, dignified Christian. In fact, I had always
been opposed to excitement in the church. After the
108 age of fifteen or sixteen, if anyone became happy or said
"glory!", I was rather offended.
When I said "yes" to my first obedience, nonetheless, God
tumbled a boundless joy into my soul. It simply fell into my
heart without warning. Oh! It was great joy! The first joy
when Jesus redeemed me was so marvelous. But what was I to do
with a joy three times greater? All I could do was shout,
"Glory! Hallelujah! Praise God!" Everyone in that car looked at
me surprised. Howard M. said, "I have never seen you like this."
To them I seemed like a different fellow than they had ever
known. To be truthful, I wasn't the same fellow, because at that
iron gate some minutes before, God had told me, "This is what I
want you to do." I couldn't go to bed, lie down, or sleep. I
had to deny what Self wanted and get started on God's assignment
immediately.
And the joy which God poured through my soul was so
tremendous that I never wanted to miss another leading of the
Holy Spirit. The inner delight of His presence was so sweet that
I wanted more of this heavenly blessing. I discovered the path
of obedience to be the King's Highway. I never wanted to get off
on a side road or take a detour. I wanted to stay right in the
middle of God's will. ( I know it is only by God's grace and
help that I can do this. I need your prayers always.)
The lights of the little farm home near Stony Creek were
still shining as we pulled into the yard. I got out of the car,
went to the door, and knocked. Before long the door opened and I
was looking into the face of my teacher and coach.
It had been only two hours since I had last seen Mr.
Holloway at church that night. He had come down the crowded
aisle of the church, while Tom B. and I were standing undecided
at the altar, put his arms around both of us, and said, "Boys,
don't let the school stand in the way. This is the right step to
take and I am for you."
No doubt his heart was throbbing when he came down to
109 us, for the church was full--more than two hundred person were
there that night--and he was a backward, quiet man. He did not
live near town and I had never seen him in that church before,
nor have I seen him there since. I seldom heard of him
testifying or never knew much about his Christianity; but he
surely obeyed God that night.
A few hours later he faced a boy nearly seventeen years of
age on his first mission for God, and told him, "I am not
surprised to see you." That was the first thing he said!--"I am
not surprised to see you. When the headlights turned in, I
thought it might be you." Think of that! I had never been there
before, yet he wasn't surprised to see me.
"Brother Austin," I spoke up; "Jesus told me to come out and
have a little prayer."
"Fine," he said. "Come on in."
We went into the living room and I prayed. I had just met
Jesus, but I tried to pray. One might have asked, "Well, what
are you going to pray?" Simply pray--praise God, start talking
to God. I imagine the prayer wasn't much to remember, but I
wasn't to worry about the quality according to men's standards.
All God told me to do was to go and have prayer, so that is what
I did.
Then I became happier. Yes. My joy didn't go down, it went
up and kept on going up! I shouted all the way home from there.
I couldn't stop it. Somehow it just came out of me. Oh, if only
we could persuade people to deny Self right away and do God's
will, the world would be turned right side up shortly. If we
could only encourage dear ones to yield themselves entirely unto
God.
I tried to tell each one in the car how wonderful God's
blessing was to my soul. I was rejoicing over how God had
guided, how He had led, how He had blessed. Believe me, when you
have the joy of salvation and obedience in your soul, you are
telling it. In fact, you will have to pray for grace to be
quiet. If 'it is joy unspeakable and full of glory,'
[First Peter 1:8] you will have to labor to be
still. When we arrived home after
110 midnight, the joy still did not stop. (Oh, it is marvelous just
to deny Self and walk with Jesus!) It didn't fade away like a
dream: it brightened.
Four of us boys slept in one room, and Richard, my oldest
brother, was my bed companion. When I lay down to rest that
night, the joy of the fellowship of the Holy Ghost was moving
within me. Do you think I could be quiet in that bed? The power
of the Spirit would lift me right out of there! Down the steps I
would go to my parents' room. I would stand by the bed and tell
them how Jesus had saved me. I would try to tell them how
wonderful He was, what wonder was taking place within my heart.
And they would simply listen. Dad was an early riser: he liked
to get up about five in the morning. Yet, here I was still
preaching to them near one o'clock in the morning.
Coming back upstairs, I would try to lie down and sleep, but
the joy would well up so great I would leap out of bed, run down
the stairs, and tell them more about Jesus, until I didn't know
what else to say. I had a lot of the Holy Spirit moving within
me, but I didn't have much knowledge to go with it. I would
preach all I could remember about the scriptures, would run out
in five or ten minutes, then go back up and try to sleep. It took
much patience for them to bear with me, I know.
After this was repeated many times, my brother, Richard
said, "If you don't be quiet, I won't get any rest tonight."
"You are right about that." I told him. "But, I can't help
it. I just can't help it!"
My folks thought I preached to them until about two or three
in the morning, when I was finally able to get to sleep. Years
later, when conversing with my brother, I asked him, "Do you
recall, Richard, that seventeen years ago tonight I started with
Jesus?"
He looked at me from his chair and nodded. "Say," he said,
"I want to make a confession to you."
"Confession?" I asked.
111 "Yes," he replied. "When you went to the altar that night,
I thought to myself, `Loran is going to the altar to be saved;
but like most saved people, he will soon become lukewarm and lose
out.' But I want to tell you, before morning came the next day,
I changed my mind about you."
He decided that we had the little end of the biggest thing
in the world--sweet as honey, rich as cream, good as gold, fine
as silver, refreshing as a stream; never tiring, never
disappointing, always better than anyone had ever dreamed; it was
beyond the orators of men to describe, colors to paint, and the
languages of earth to express; it was Jesus, the 'Pearl
of Great Price.'
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