Chapters: 1. Why Don't Men Obey God? |
13 JESUS
REVEALS MY COMPANION
At school the next morning, one of my friends cursed when he
learned that I had accepted Jesus. He had ridden many, many
miles with me in my father's car, and since I worked for my
father, Dad had provided the gasoline for our pleasure rides. I
also had often supplied this young man with refreshments. But in
spite of these past kindnesses, he gave me a real talking to that
morning and used some strong language in my direction: "You
won't last two weeks," he chided. "That is all--two weeks!"
But Jesus helped me to deny myself again. By God's grace, I
didn't retaliate or feel sorry for myself when my friend cursed
and reprimanded me. The Holy Spirit kept me from becoming upset
and saying, "Now look here, you can't say that about me!" I
simply spoke to Jesus in my heart, "By your grace, Lord, you can
take me on," and He delivered me. (And God tells me, "I will
direct thee and tell thee what to do," as I share this with you.
Praise the Lord!)
After three weeks I talked to him about Jesus for one to two
hours on the sidewalk across from the church where I had been
converted. Seven years later, when I told him how wonderful
these many months and years had been and how Jesus had helped me
last past the two weeks which he predicted I could last, he said,
"You have will-power, that is all."
"Will-power?" I exclaimed. "Brother, it takes more than
`will-power' to live this life. It takes the divine power of
Jesus."
113 Seventeen years later, then, at the death of his father, I
had opportunity to again talk to him about Jesus. I was trying
to share with him how marvelous it had been to try to to walk
with God these seventeen years, what wonderful adventures He had
given me. He said to me as we sat together that day: "Who knows
but what someday you may lead me to Jesus." Isn't it precious
that after seventeen years this man who first ridiculed me could
begin to see that there was something more to this transformation
than the eye could see; that God had done a true miracle within
this unworthy servant?
This would never have come about if I had failed that first
test at school the day after my conversion. If I had begun to
argue or strike back when he was upset with me, I would have lost
his confidence forever. There never would have been occasion for
the exchange of thoughts in three weeks, the discussion after
seven years, or the sweet conversation in the seventeenth year.
These all hinged upon my response to the first test just hours
after my conversion.
Now the secret of Jesus helping me through that vindictive
attack Monday morning following my conversion was in my hearing
the voice of the Holy Spirit the night before, just minutes after
getting up from the altar. If the Lord had not helped me to obey
that first guidance of Jesus, I would not have had the joy, the
glory of God within me, to withstand the fury from my friend a
few hours later. My strength to stand was dependent upon my
obedience the night before, when God tripled the joy I had at
salvation and brought me into a land of such inner delight that I
never wanted to miss another leading of the Lord.
I have found that very few persons actually obey what the
Lord wants them to do. And when we fail to obey the leading of
the Holy Spirit, then we lose the precious abiding with God which
we so very much cherish. For many, the joy they once knew at
conversion seems to vanish for no specific reason. However, all
too often this joy is lost through disobedience,
114 for joy continues to flow into every heart which obeys the Holy
Spirit consistently. The Word tells us that "the joy
of the Lord is our strength." This indicates that we are only as
strong as the joy we have in our daily walk with Jesus.
Now joy does not come from within us. Joy is a gift from
God as we obey the Holy Spirit. Joy is not on our part:
obedience to the leading of the Lord is on our part, and joy is
the remuneration. Always the joy of the Lord is as we humble
ourselves in obedience through self-denial.
God is seeking simply an obedient people. He is trying to
find men and women who will do what He wants them to do; but He
has had a difficult time finding them down through the ages.
There are many who are willing to try to obey the written
commandments as found in the scriptures; but this so subtly leads
to a legalistic Christianity--a fulfilling of a minimum degree
of service or adhering to a certain set of beliefs. God is
seeking a people who will not only obey His written Word, but who
will also actually walk with Him day by day, moment by moment,
listening to and doing what the voice of the Holy Spirit says.
The person who hears and heeds this still, small voice will
many times experience a river of joy pouring into the interior life,
because joy flows from God freely into the obedient heart.
As I review this sentence, the Holy Spirit operates more in
my heart on "heeding" than on "hearing." This tells me that God
has already commanded us many things which we could have heard,
but we have not done what He required us to do. We have not
"heeded;" thus, our subsequent "hearing" is dull and insensitive.
Our "heeding" today assists or sharpens our "hearing"
tomorrow. We "hear" as we have "heeded." And "heeding"
intimates a following. "Heeding" is applying or carrying out
what we have heard, and we never "heed" God's wish without first
relinquishing what we are doing or have planned to do. Self-
denial precedes "heeding."
115 It is difficult for the "natural man" to receive spiritual
things. It is only as we permit the Holy Spirit to have His way
with us--as we deny Self, die out to Self, and are inwardly crucified
--that we are made sensitive to spiritual things. As Self is slain,
we are then more able, through the Holy Spirit's guidance, to
receive revelation that God has for us: revelation to the mind,
as well as to the inner heart.
Now Self will oppose this spiritual death; the mortal will
oppose it. In order that the Holy Spirit can so crucify us, we
must resist the devil and deny Self. It will be only by the
blood of Jesus purging us and cleansing us that we will be able,
through the Holy Spirit, to discern what God is revealing to us.
He wants to first slay the inner man so that he can teach us
how to discern His will. This comes slowly. It comes by prayer
and it comes by waiting and then still more waiting. It comes
always by doing all that God wants us to do while we are waiting.
The great difficulty is that Self wants to get busy doing
something; Self wants to go; Self wants to be planning something.
All this is an enemy to hearing God and heeding what the Holy
Spirit wants to relate to us.
The very core of our nature will resist and rebel against
God having His way with us. The earth within us will
oppose and resist God who made us and Jesus who died to purchase
us. The main parts of our inner make-up war against it. They
neither want to comply with the divine will nor come down in
humility and brokenness, where this is found.
This spirit that is within us, this great power of the earth
which is so contrary to what God wants, we acquired in the Fall.
It is this power in the earth, in the fabric of the mortal and
the flesh, which battles to pull us upward from the lowlands of
brokenness and surrender (where the mysteries of God's
revelations are learned) to set us in the high places of man's
knowledge. For this reason, most people have been trying to
acquire insights of divine truth by means of knowledge, books,
and the intellect.
116 Through the ages, however, God has been seeking a people who
would simply wait upon Him until He could slay them, refine them,
indwell them, and instruct them how His Holy Spirit operates; how
He guides and checks. Very few people have been willing to pay
the price and wait upon God long enough for Him to reveal
Himself. This comes in time: God's time, not our time.
Man has always wanted things his way, at his time, and by
his methods. It doesn't work this way. It must be the reverse.
It must be that we die and are slain so that it will be God's
will, God's way, God's time, whether that is a short time or a
long time (and I have the revelation that it is "a long time").
Man is impatient. We are all impatient unless we are slain and
die out daily. It is our nature to want spiritual growth to be
rapid; we covet divine revelations right away. Therefore, we
must die out to these impatient tendencies and simply trust for
God to help us know how to proceed.
Jesus said, "I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of
Heaven and earth, that thou has hid these things from the wise
and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Now the wise
and prudent have been trying to theorize and speculate about
spiritual secrets. But Jesus has plainly said that the Father
reveals unto babes. They are the lowly ones, the ones way
down in the low-lands of humility and brokenness, obedience, and
yieldedness.
Divine guidances do not come for any advantage of our own;
they come only for the praise and glory of Jesus. These
mysteries of God are not found in books or in reading material.
They are revealed little by little to those who are walking with
God and waiting upon Him, who are trying in their hearts to be
faithful and pressing to obey the Holy Spirit. I want to greatly
emphasize that the things of God are not given to those
seeking to know how to be led of the Holy Spirit --they
are given at God's pleasure to those
117 who are losing their lives for Jesus, who are loving God for
Himself alone.
Here is one of the secrets of the universe. God is
trying to find people who will give all to Him and just let Him
be all to them. If we are willing to lose all because
He gave all, lose that He might be all, then He
will reveal Himself to us in time. (And God is telling me now,
"I guide thee and direct thee and tell thee what to do." Right
now!)
These spiritual guidances--these wonderful, most delightful
things of God--are not given because we are worthy, because we
know so much, or because we are seeking. They are given to those
who are willing to lose all for Jesus' sake and lose it for life.
They are given to those who are not trying to get anything. Most
people are trying to get somewhere, to something, for self-
advantage. And this, you see, is not the right spirit. We are
to come to the end of Self, losing all for Jesus so that He can
have full, complete guidance of our lives. We, then, become mere
servants: not trying to become somebody, but remaining like
children.
Unless we become like a little child, Jesus tells us that we
are going to miss the Kingdom. Perhaps this is the reason many have
missed the Kingdom of God: we have tried to become adults, grown-ups,
somebody who knows something. But God's Kingdom is in the lowly.
That is where He lives; that is where He walks; that is where He
reveals Himself.
To some extent, organizations, groups, and personalities
have been seeking to advance God's Kingdom. But often, in the
back of their minds lurk the questions: "How can we get what we
are wanting? How can we obtain this victory? How can we see all
these souls saved? How can we see our group benefited? How can
we see our church enlarged?" God knows all these hidden
motivations and deceptions of the heart, and He is unable to
trust His Kingdom work to such self-seeking souls.
For this reason, His revelation to my heart in 1942 was,
118 "I am in search of a people who will trust me with all their
hearts--trust me with all their hearts--totally and
wholly depend upon me and obey me in everything; a people I can
trust to come into their lives with the Kingdom of God." So you
see, God reveals Himself to the trusting heart. (And now God
says within me, "I will guide thee and direct thee and tell thee
what to do.")
God has been seeking a people who will simply trust Him
since the Garden of Eden experience. He was anticipating that
Adam and Eve would trust Him and obey Him; but they chose to
procure knowledge and insights of Good and Evil rather than
simply rest and rely wholly on God. In gaining knowledge that
they desired, they lost and we lost with them: we lost about all;
we lost unto death. The only path back to God is Jesus; and
the steps back to life in Him are taken through obedience to the
Holy Spirit.
We have been living too much on the fringes of the land that
He has promised us rather than on the center. We have been
living on the marginal rather than on the central. Only a few
ever really press into the center of God's Kingdom, on into
becoming like a child and losing all just for God Himself. The
persons are rare who are not seeking something in return for
loving and serving God.
But God would save millions of people right now if He could
find a church that would really trust Him--really trust Him.
I am sure that very few people know what real trust,
continued trust, is. We often try to work out God's Kingdom a
little bit ourselves. This is not trusting: it is our own
manipulation, our own programming, our own desires in process.
It is our own ideas in progress and we want them to live. But
our ideas don't mean a snap of the fingers unless God is in them
and leading them.
We are trying to have church with our own insights, our own
descriptions, our own programs, our own methods. But God wants
the leadership. He wants to guide us in every detail of our
endeavors. We must wait before Him that He
119 might teach us how to be led. We must first learn to trust and
die out to our own desires so that He can bring us to the place
where we can discern His will in the Word and in the Spirit. He
has given us the outlines and descriptions of the true Christian
walk in the Gospel, but we are not following all the tiny,
intricate lines. They are so simple, but we pass over them.
Church work too often can be a performance rather than
actual heeding and following. We try to lead persons to Jesus,
and this is good: but unless we have been heeding and following
ourselves, people are saved and become copies of us. If we are
not dying out, rejoicing, holy and pure in heart, our influence
causes new converts to become performers. It is wonderful to
lead persons to a knowledge of salvation, but too often they are
converted to the church, to the denomination, or to the local
fellowship and its particular religious styles rather than to the
Lord Jesus Christ. What we need to be saved TO is Jesus so that
people will wait on God until He can actually guide them and direct
them.
This has been one of the missing links in Christianity.
Men have tried to implement the plans of God by means of their
own programs and ideas. All meant well; all wanted to
do well; but few in all the ages have waited and died out
sufficiently for God to really teach them His will.
He teaches best those who are lowest in brokenness and
humility. Until we come to the absolute admission that we are
nothing and capable only of failure, we will seek to achieve, to
become knowledgeable, to become recognized. We think learning,
training, philosophies, and theologies are going to help us. Too
easily, instead of bringing us closer to Jesus, these interfere
with divine communication. They become the static of Self, the
earth, and man's knowledge. Unless the Holy Ghost leads you to
these areas, they only deflect God's revelations; they only
obstruct your view of His plans; they only dull your sensitivity
to His operations.
I cannot adequately express how lowly we must become
120 before spiritual revelation can enter the inner life. This is a
mystery. It is supernatural. The simple, lowly life in Christ
is opposed by people who don't understand. This is not to be
understood. It is to be practiced, followed, and experienced.
This is faith--a living faith. We cannot have faith other
than in the areas of the interior life. The more faith a person
has, the more willing he is to lose all. He has confidence that
in losing all, he will gain Jesus. God is seeking a people
who will trust Him; who are willing, through self-denial
deep in the interior life, to come by faith to the loss of
all things. Too often we want to instigate a little,
suggest a little, insert a portion of what we want. This is self-
assertiveness, and because of it, we as individuals and as people
have rarely come to the place where God can guide us.
Here is one reason we have come so far short of the will of
God. We have missed so much of the marvelous privilege and
potential God would work through us because we have been
unwilling to yield all, to lose all, absolutely: not only in word
or thought, but in actuality through continued trust and
obedience.
These precious mysteries of God's Kingdom which I have just
shared with you are only a little of what God wants us to
experience of the word "heed." As I inquire of the Holy Spirit,
He tells me in my heart that this is merely a little of our
heeding His word.
During this revival, a number of young people were converted
and formed a very active Gospel Band. This group of young people
went to various churches to lead in special services. Either a
young lady or I would bring the message. I believe, to Jesus'
glory, I saw a number of souls find Jesus my first year as a
Christian.
Only a few weeks after I had been saved, I was preaching in
my home church when I felt impressed to turn around and also
direct my comments to those young people who were seated in the
choir loft behind me. I was looking into the face
121 of each one as I preached. When I came down the second section
of seats to my left, I found myself looking into the eyes of
Florence Spence, the daughter of Ora and Grace Spence. Her blue
eyes were looking straight into mine.
The instant our eyes met, an operation of the Holy Spirit
moved in my heart like a light. (And this light is in my heart
now. It is right inside of me! Praise the Lord!) In much less
time than it takes to tell it, Jesus revealed within me,
"HERE IS YOUR COMPANION."
By some marvel of God's help, the sermon was never
interrupted. Even though the Holy Spirit had never dealt with me
as He did at that point, Jesus helped me to continue preaching as
if nothing had happened. I was so greatly amazed because I had
never said so much as "How do you do, how are you?" to Florence
Spence in over ten years. She was already a graduate of Ball
State, with an equivalent of a Master's degree in Music and Art.
I was a young man still in high school. I felt so unworthy of
her. But when God revealed to my heart by the Holy Ghost that
she was to be my companion, I simply believed Him.
I marvel that a young man of seventeen, who had never been
taught about the operations of the Holy Spirit in the body, could
somehow know that God was speaking, and understand what He was
saying. No one taught me how God speaks to the heart. I never
heard anyone mention much about the workings of the Holy Spirit
within the heart and throughout the body. I believe that the
secret of my being able to understand was that the Holy Ghost had
fallen on me at birth. God had a plan for my life, and Florence
Spence was a part of that sacred plan.
At each interval along the way, at each crisis of my life,
He has revealed what I need to know by the Holy Ghost. One
incident which demonstrates this abiding care occurred when we
were with Homer and Rebecca Pumphrey. Homer and I were planning
to go for prayer, but decided to have supper first. We started
for the kitchen to prepare the evening meal,
122 but as I came through the kitchen door a burden came over me. I
said to him, "God is burdening me. I will not be able to eat."
For many years God would occasionally burden me as I sat
down to a meal. I thought He was telling me not to eat. It took
some years of instruction before I recognized that He was often
trying to reveal to me about some person or situation related to
the food on my plate. He might be speaking to me about the man
who owned the beef, the one who grew the carrots, an individual
who helped process the catsup, the person who delivered the bread
to the store. Our Heavenly Father knows all things about each
person in every place on the earth. If it is His will, He can
reveal any particular need to those servants attuned to His
voice.
I fasted many times when God was trying to send me little
S.O.S. messages about the needs of those in some way connected
to my food. He was telling me of needs in their bodies, struggles
in their lives. Sometimes persons had been called to the ministry
or the mission field, and God wanted me to pray for them to hear
the sacred call upon their lives. It took me years to discern what
all God was telling me, and I am still learning.
We have been privileged now to teach some of our brothers
and sisters in Jesus a few of the very sacred and precious
workings of the Holy Spirit. These are holy secrets and
mysteries of the Kingdom which we have learned after years of
waiting upon God; years of crying out in prayer, of doing God's
will and pressing to be true in order that the Lord could teach
me how the Holy Spirit operates within the temple of our bodies.
I am only in the kindergarten learning my ABC's.
After about an hour the food was prepared and on the table.
We had grace, and Rev. Pumphrey picked up the salmon platter to
take off two small patties. Just as he slid them off the platter
onto his plate, the Holy Ghost started right in my heart, came up
my throat, and spoke through
123 me, "Poison!--That is poison! Don't eat it!" I warned. I got
up from the table, rushed to the cabinet, and picked up the can
which had contained the salmon. "Look at this can!" I said.
They examined it, and discovered it to be partly corroded inside.
That is what God was revealing to me when I came through the
kitchen door, but I didn't know what He was telling me until He
spoke through me the revelation. This knowledge came to me by
the Holy Spirit in a similar manner as on that day years before
when He revealed to my heart, "Here is your companion."
I will never know another thing, unless the Holy Spirit is
so precious to reveal it to me. I won't be able to perceive it,
except God see fit through Jesus to reveal it. Now if I am
faithful, by God's grace, and give Him all the glory and all the
praise; if I keep broken like a child, do everything He reveals
for me to do, and keep happy about it--am appreciative and don't
run out of thanksgiving--then He can give something else, if it
is His will. But it all must come from Jesus for God's praise
and honor.
And that night, while turning to preach to the young people,
I knew that I had found my companion for life. I felt very
unworthy that He would choose my companion for me. Only He would
know the mate which the years ahead would demand. We have been
together over thirty-nine years now, but it seems like only a
little while, because of Jesus. No one will ever know how
precious my wife has been to me.
Our first time together was on April 14, 1933. That prayer
meeting night we had a heavy April shower. Since ours was the
only car at church that evening, all the young people piled into
it. I still wonder how so many got into the car, but young
people can really stack into a place if they want to.
I decided that this would be a good night to be alone with
Florence Spence. Although God had shown me the last of February
that she was to be my companion, I hadn't had the
124 courage to ask her for a date. That night I said to myself, "I
will arrange it so that she will be the last one taken home."
After delivering all the young people to their homes, including
my own brother, Richard, I was finally left alone for the first
time with the girl who was to become my wife. She was the last
girl I ever dated.
After Florence and I had gone together about six weeks, we
were returning one night from church, driving very slowly down
the street about six to seven hundred feet north of her parents'
home. Suddenly a ray of light from Heaven fell into my heart. I
saw another ray of light fall into her heart, and these two
lights leaped together like static electricity. Through a
miracle of God, we were joined together by the Holy Spirit.
Young people, it is so urgent that you find, through waiting
on God and prayer, the companion which God has selected for you.
Recently the Holy Spirit has revealed to my heart that eighty-
seven percent of all marriages in the United States are out of
divine order. They have not been led and arranged by the Holy
Spirit. The couples have married because of a physical
attraction, personality similarities, or particular interests.
Sometimes a boy has pressured a girl to marry, or vice versa.
Anyone who pressures another into marriage is bringing that
person to a life of darkness near the edge of despair.
Every major life choice--such as a companion or a vocation--
which is not made by the Spirit, will continue to produce
consequences for the remainder of that person's life. (Often
these choices are made between the ages of twelve and twenty.)
Even if one is converted after these major decisions have been
made, though Jesus will freely forgive all past sin and error,
one will still grapple with the results and suffer within the
confines of these choices which God was not permitted to make for
him. There is no way to adequately convey the seriousness of
waiting on God's specific guidance
125 concerning our vocation, our companion, our place of dwelling,
and our choice of a school or a college.
This is why so many homes are unhappy, without romance, in
constant upheaval. Most of us are so in the flesh when it comes
to the opposite sex. We have certain ideas about the companion
we wish, and we set out to get what we want. But God knows
exactly who we are, what we will be in ten or twenty years, and
precisely where He wants us in His Kingdom. We are absolutely
incapable of making an intelligent choice of our companion by
ourselves because we cannot see where God is going to want us in
the years ahead. The choice we would make of a companion, no
matter how ideal and perfect it might appear at the moment, will
not stand the tests of time and circumstances. Only God can have
the knowledge and wisdom for such a choice.
Now Satan will tell you all kinds of things to make you
anxious and fearful. He will likewise try to get you attracted
to many persons along the way to keep you from meeting the one
God has chosen for you. That is why it is so important that the
Holy Spirit be given the freedom to choose your vocation and
where you are to attend college (if you go). It could be that
unless you follow God's leading from the very beginning, you will
be late in finding your chosen mate, or you may never get there.
But if we start at the moment of conversion and simply seek
to deny what we want and follow every leading of the Holy Spirit,
He will lead us in time to everything that we need in order to be
used as He sees fit in the Kingdom. Sometimes we must wait a
long time; sometimes a very short time. It was a surprise and a
delight when Jesus revealed to my heart that our youngest
daughter and son-in-law were to be married in less than a month.
We didn't work this out in our own understanding. The Holy Ghost
revealed it.
I urge every unmarried person reading this book: be
absolutely certain of God's guidance before you marry.
It would be much better to never marry than to go into a union
126 which isn't led of God. One could never tell you the sorrow and
anguish you will have if you marry out of divine order. Neither
are there words to tell the wonder of a marriage led of God.
God was also letting Florence know a little that He had
brought us together someway in His Spirit. I learned later that
even before I knew she was to be my companion, if she were in the
church facing the pulpit and I would come through the vestibule
doors at the back, she sensed my presence when I entered the
sanctuary. This is a miracle of Jesus. This doesn't always
happen.
I believe this occured because God had called me for a
specific purpose into this world. I needed a wife who could wait
for hours in a car without being upset, while God had me sharing
with dear ones about the Kingdom. One who would bear with me
when I failed to get home on time for dinner and her meals became
cold, because my schedule was at God's bidding. I needed a wife
who would understand that the things of earth were secondary
always. When meals, family, and home are upset, most wives
rather want to talk about it and let it be known that they don't
particularly appreciate it. I had to have a companion who would
say "yes" to the will of God; a wife willing to die out to her
hopes and her wishes.
It took this supernatural union because of the seriousness
of God's call upon our lives and also because of the difference
in our background and education. God had been working to keep
her in the Parker area, even though it was not easy on her at the
time. Her excellent achievements musically had made her a
favorite of Mr. Palmer, the professor of music where Florence had
earned her degree. He often took her to play for the Lions Club,
the Rotary Club, and other organizations. She didn't ask to do
it, but of all the pianists at Ball State, she was chosen.
She had excellent recommendations for a good teaching
position that previous fall, and a few people were wanting
127 to help her; but God closed the doors. As a result of her not
finding a teaching position, Florence was very, very restless.
No doubt, she was also disappointed, for she wanted to teach.
She was excellently qualified to instruct, but God had another
appointment for her instead. I would have missed her if God had
not closed the doors on her teaching opportunities.
If you remain true and faithful to God, He will be working
out the important concerns in your life. He will arrange them in
His own way, if you will wait upon Him, praise Him, and honor Him
from your heart as well as from your lips. It might not be the
easiest on you, but it will be the best for you.
Once I became acquainted with the one God had chosen for me,
I didn't want to go home at night. I didn't want to leave her,
because I had a treasure there. When you have a treasure, you
want to be near it. When God joins you with a companion, you are
simply not happy without her, for He brings you especially close
together. The more you obey, the closer you become, because you
understand one another better. You learn when to keep quiet and
when to speak. Sometimes we don't learn for a long while, but
God helps by teaching us what to say and what not to say so that
we won't make our companion appear small in the eyes of others.
He teaches us to be careful of what we do and how we live, so
that we won't hurt or hinder the ones we love, but rather help
and encourage them along the journey.
Florence and I began to anticipate marriage. One night we
were in the car outside her parents' home, right in front of the
old maple tree. She was talking to me about one of her married
girlfriends who already had a little home with furnishings.
While she was talking I was praying in my heart. I was crying
out to Jesus, for I had only a very few dollars in my pocket, and
there was my education yet to pursue.
Suddenly, as I was silently crying out to Jesus, He revealed
128 to me a home which He would someday build for us. I saw our home
as a light in my heart, far off in the future. I could never
begin to tell you exactly how it was, but it was vivid within my
heart.
"Oh, Honey!" I said. "I can see our home as a light. I can
see that if we go where God sends me, take His message, embrace
the cross, be obedient and win men and women, boys and girls to
Jesus, He is going to provide a home which will be a testimony
that God provides for His servants of today as He did for the
prophets of old. I see that you have lovely furniture, too."
One can never capture the splendor, the wonder, the
excitement of a revelation which comes from God. It is usually
so very simple and direct in content; yet it is always such a
surprise. To hear directly from Heaven is a privilege beyond the
words of earth to describe. Because of my limitations, I am not
able to convey the specific excellence of this moment in our
lives together. It was a very precious revelation to me.
We held to that promise through many dark and difficult
years, the promise which came unexpectedly and quietly in my
heart as my wife spoke about her friend's home. Approximately
nineteen years and eight months later, that home became a
reality.
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