CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ANOTHER OUTSTANDING EXPERIENCE
I was on my way home from a meeting when the Lord spoke to me to get off the train, go to a pastor's house, and stay all night. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived. They made no effort to get supper, but appeared a little embarrassed. About bedtime the good pastor and his wife asked me to pray with them before retiring. I read one of the Psalms and we had a good season of prayer. They showed me to my room, but I did not go to sleep soon. I felt sure that it was the Lord who impressed me that those folk had nothing to eat. I prayed for the Lord to make the storekeepers in that town restless, to wake them up and tell them about the pastor and his wife being out of food. I said, "Now, Lord, make them come in the morning." I prayed until I was sure the Lord was dealing with them. I slept little that night.
The next morning, when I heard the folk stirring, I arose, went down stairs, and asked if we might have prayer, for I would have to be going before too long. I read of Elijah, and of how God commanded the ravens to feed him; of the widow who had two sticks with which to bake a cake for her son and herself, and who expected then to starve to death; of Elijah who asked for a cake first, and then how the meal failed not and Elijah stayed until God sent him to Ahab. We knelt to pray and reached clear through. The heavens opened and the power came on our souls. We wept and prayed and shouted and, while we prayed, the grocer piled food on the back porch -- a general line: flour, potatoes, beans, meat, and other things. These were brought in and immediately the other storekeeper came to the parsonage with another supply of groceries. After they had gone, the pastor told me that they didn't have a bite of food in the house the night before, and no money. How I rejoiced that I had stopped and again saw my Father work!
My train was soon to come, so I left without breakfast, but I had had a soul feast. On my way to the station, I passed the home of Brother L. V. Nash -- a sanctified Presbyterian preacher. He was a cripple. He was putting a tire on his car. I asked how he was. He replied, and then asked, "And you?" I said, "Brother Nash, I am determined to hold out to the end." He looked up at me and, smiling, said, "I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day, even to the end."
I heard my train coming, and hurried on, taking with me a new revelation. I thought of my saying that I was determined to hold out to the end; then I thought, If I were going to bed to rest, I would not take a firm grip on the head of the bed, and be afraid to move lest I should fall. I could not rest like that. My thought continued. Why, that bed is made to hold me up, and all I have to do is to let loose, relax, and trust the bed -- just commit my body to it.
Here is the spiritual application I received. God wants us to commit all to Him -- in entire sanctification we consecrate all. We are to trust Him to keep what we have committed unto Him. Wonderful peace! Soul rest! secure in Him for He has power to keep. All I need to do is to leave everything in His keeping and take nothing out of His hands. That revelation has been a great blessing to me down through the years. How can I ever praise Him enough? Though despised and forsaken by some, yet never have I become discouraged. All things shall work for our good if we stay true. As I suffer the loss of all things, I become richer in Jesus. If people could only see fully the plan of God, there would be no dark, long, lonely times. He has fixed His plans but many, even professors, will not see His plan and provisions because of their interpretations of God's Word. Thank God, the closer to Him you walk, the easier it is to see His ways. His salvation is not a straight jacket, a kind of prison. His is not a tyrant, but a wonderful Savior, changing our vile natures to become like Him. His salvation makes us free, not slaves in bondage. It is easy for human beings to put yokes on others that they themselves would not bear, and if they were to have to, they would see through some Scriptures that they refuse to see now. And it would be very clear to them that God has made a way, and has made some exceptions that they do not want to allow to the ones to whom he has spoken.
Experience is a great teacher. I am so glad the Holy Ghost can take the things of God and show them to the ones who need His help. I am comforted in Him and His Word. The Bible says, "I am the Lord, I change not." Thank God for that. But He certainly has changed some methods of worship and dispensations, yet He remains the same. I think if we could meet Jesus face to face, in person as we meet man to man, and could talk to Him about some things that some argue so much about, He would give a perfect understanding to the problems. He did when He was here. We have only a very limited amount of His teachings which were written some years after His resurrection. Did not one of the writers speak of the amount of books that could be written of all the mighty works and words of Jesus?
We take too much for granted, we do not search and compare the Scriptures enough. Let us seek to live and let live and let Jesus be the judge. Let us do our best to live to please Him.
A COUPLE OF EXPERIENCES with demon possessed people at Topeka, Kansas.
When in a meeting for Brother Ira Eisenhower, there was a man present who had once traveled with L. M. Williams and Uncle Bud Robinson. When they had their big tent, this man traveled with them as an intercessor. He was a man of much fasting and prayer. One time he attended a tent meeting. The woman who was doing the preaching said, "No one has the Holy Ghost unless they have spoken in tongues." After he and his wife got home they had their usual family prayer. He was greatly blessed and great was the power of the Lord's presence. His wife said, "You can't tell me we don't have the Holy Ghost." He said in a kind of light way, "Oh, if we had the Holy Ghost I would speak in tongues" Now folks, the Holy Spirit is a person and is easily grieved, and that man did just that. He said that almost instantly the Spirit left him and a strange spirit seized him. He began to jabber in some strange jabbering. He had fear and torment and each time he would pray, or try to, he would begin that jabber. He said that in a few days he was overtaken by temptation and went into open sin. He would try to pray, only to be tormented with that jabber. In a few days he was cursing. Seeming to have no resistance within his heart, he went on out into sin until he had broken his marriage vows. I tell you right here, if the enemy of our souls can come in, he brings seven more vile spirits than the first, and our last state is worse than the first.
That man struggled under that load until they took him to the hospital for the insane. After two weeks, they examined him and said, "You are not insane." He said, "I know it. I am lost."
He went to G. C. Bevington's prayer colony in Colorado. After eight weeks of prayer and fasting, he still was not delivered. He was asked to denounce it and claim that it was of the devil. But they had told him back in that meeting that if he did, he would sin against the Holy Ghost.
He came to the meeting where I was. Here is his story:
"Brother Poe, I am in great fear and torment." I said, "Brother, the Holy Ghost is not the author of confusion, and perfect love casteth out fear."
He said, "When I was at the prayer colony, Brother Bevington said the evil spirits said to him, 'We will not come out. We were cast out of him once; now we have gotten back in and we will not let him go.' " I said, "They never will come out of you until you say that this is of the devil. Some you can demand to come out, and they will; some come out by fasting and prayer, but others will not come out until you expose them and denounce their work." That man was at the altar each night for six weeks. When he would start to pray, he would jabber. I said, "Brother, you keep still and just say 'Yes' as I pray." I would pray up to where he was to say, "Yes, this is of the devil," and he would stop.
One night he came in smiling. I said, "What happened?" He said, "I asked the blessing today without jabbering." That night I tried to get him to say that it was Satan's work. He went home sad. He said, "I believe I will get delivered. I am bound in darkness, but I can see just a little streak of light." The next night he saw more light, and the next night, while at the altar, he said, "Lord, I see this whole thing is of the devil." I was praying and he said, "Yes, Lord, I do denounce it," and it broke the devil's power and he was set free and forgiven and later was sanctified wholly. But he told me that never again could he prevail in prayer as he had done before.
During the same meeting a young man came to the parsonage to get Brother Eisenhower and me to go pray for his mother. He said she was sick. Brother Eisenhower knew her, but did not say a word to me about her. When we reached her home, the window blinds were all drawn and the doors closed. We were led through a couple of dark rooms, to a front room with a bed in it, and the room was so dark you could hardly see. Brother Eisenhower saw her sitting in a chair, and asked me to pray. Just as I got on my knees, the Lord spoke, and it was clear, "This is no place for you; get out of here." All that I had said was, "Oh, Lord." I grabbed Brother Eisenhower by the arm and said, "Brother, this is no place for us. Come on, let us get out of here." I said to her, "If you want to be prayed for, come to meeting tonight." When service began, she was there. The house was well filled with people and when we gave the invitation, the altar filled from wall to wall. Twenty-five chairs were placed behind those at the altar and they were filled, and some were at the front seats.
After a bit I heard someone gagging as if they were going to throw up. I looked, and it was that woman. I dropped on my knees right in front of her. I heard Brother Eisenhower say, "Oh, my Lord, help him." I commanded the unclean spirits to come out of her. I heard them speak to my spirit, "If we do, we will jump on you as we did on those Jews in Paul's day." I said, "You can't do it. I am under the blood and I command you to come out of her in the name of Jesus; come out! I adjure you by the living God." The woman dropped back on the floor as if I had hit her in the head with a sledge hammer, her body jerked and foam ran out of her nose and mouth for several moments. I feared she would drown from the froth. Large puddles of it lay on each side of her face on the floor. I told the folk not to touch her. Finally, she arose and testified that she was delivered of the devil and the demons, and that she was saved.
After we were home again, Brother Eisenhower asked me if I knew about that woman. I told him that I knew only what the Spirit had showed me. Then he told me the story of their experiences during fifteen years. That woman would come to their home to pray to be saved and would get to gagging and throw up and break up the meeting. If she attended the cottage prayer meetings they used to have at the parsonage, she would do the same thing. They would have to take the rug up, scrub it, and send it to the rug cleaners. He said, "I expected to see you soon covered with her vomit when you knelt in front of her."
She became possessed through reading Spiritualist, Christian Science, and Millennial Dawnism literature. Flirt with the devil and his literature and you invite imps to possess you. Any doctrine that denies any part of Jesus' teaching is dangerous. The New Testament teaching of Jesus is plain enough that, if you follow it, you will be safe. But when you turn to what seems to be an easier way, you are in reality taking the hard way. For "the way of the transgressors is hard." "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God." God in His mercy loved us enough to give His only begotten Son to save us. If we spurn Him, His mercy demands justice. He could not be a merciful and righteous God, and not have justice. We must all stand before Him in judgment. Therefore, let us not judge one another any more, but rather judge this, that we put no cause of stumbling before our weaker brother, for He is the judge of all the earth and judgment will He lay to the line and righteousness to the plumbline. Be sure to make your peace, calling, and election sure.
AN EXPERIENCE I WITNESSED at White Rock, S. Dak.
I started the meeting on a Monday night. A backslidden young woman, who had graduated from Asbury College, attended the church. She had told the pastor that if they called me for the meeting, she would put on a meeting for the young folk and keep them from the revival.
I did not know what she had said, but in the first service I said, "Sometimes when God puts on a meeting Satan starts one, too. The pastor said, "That is so." After service I went home with the pastor. Next door, that young woman had her gathering of over forty young people. She gave a party which turned out to be a dance. She announced that they would have another gathering the next night and each night as long as the revival lasted.
The next morning the young woman's mother told her what I had said. Immediately she came to the parsonage. She tongue-lashed the pastor for what he sanctioned, and said, "Where is that preacher?" I arose and went into the room where they were, and said, "I am the preacher, but not the kind you said." Then I warned her of the great danger she was in. I said, "You had better to get down on your knees and repent or great will be your destruction. You have too much light for God to overlook this." She flatly refused, and told of what she was going to do. I said, "You are not going to do anything of the kind. If you continue to go on, before 6:00 p.m. God will leave you and you will be a wild maniac before the sun goes down." She continued to tell what she was going to do.
At four p.m. that afternoon she became insane and a raging maniac. She was taken to the asylum, to scream out her hellish agonies and pull her hair day after day. Some years later I was told that she was still there, screaming in her awful hellish agony.
Folk, be careful; do not grieve God or fight against Him.
It is not how much you know that determines the harvest, but what you sow.
AN INCIDENT THAT OCCURRED when I was on my first pastorate.
Some poor folk attended the church as well as some of the wealthy. Someone made a statement against large children coming to church barefooted, and against folk coming in overalls. The news reached me and I did not know how to handle the situation without offending some. I knew that if I mentioned it, I could be misunderstood, so I went to prayer and prayed, "Dear Lord, You will have to help me, for I don't know how to do. And James said that if any man lack wisdom to ask of You, for You would give it."
I was impressed to put on an old pair of striped overalls, patched with plain blue overalling, wear a faded and patched work shirt, run my fingers through my hair, tousling it, and go to church barefooted. I preached with much freedom, and did not mention clothes. The poor folk felt quite welcome, and those who had spoken against the bare feet and overalls saw their folly, and I heard no more about clothes except from one fine-spirited man of wealth who came and shook hands with me and said, "Thank God, it is not the clothes that makes the man, for God looks not on the outward appearance, but on the heart."
A MEETING IN KIRKSVILLE, MISSOURI
The pastor, Brother Gerald Patterson, asked me to help
him in a revival. I told him to pray and when the Lord showed me it was the right time, I would come. I went through the town several times. Sometimes I would stop at prayer meeting, and would be led of the Lord to say, "You are not ready yet. When you get ready, we will have a meeting."
One day, a little over a year from the time I had been asked to hold the meeting, I arrived at the service a little late on purpose. The six or seven people present had just started to pray. They soon were praying earnestly, and crying under the burden. I felt the revival spirit. After prayer meeting, I told them they were about ready for the revival; to keep praying, and I would be back as soon as I was through with the meeting at Pollack, Mo.
When I returned, Brother Patterson was in a meeting in Oklahoma. However, we began the meeting with three young women, three elderly women, and the assistant pastor present. In a few nights the church building was filled. We began to have seekers -- young married people. At the end of four weeks, on a Sunday morning, the pastor was back. He spoke to the congregation and said they should take an offering for the evangelist, for the meeting would close.
I arose, and said, "Who told you it would close? I didn't hear the Lord say it would," and laughed. He said, I just thought it would, since it has run four weeks, but -- all right -- we will continue."
At the end of the sixth week we had our largest altar service, and seekers came all through the seventh week. On that Sunday night, I told the people that I felt the revival was over, but that the Lord wanted me to stay and teach them, help them to get established. Most of them remain in the Lord to this time -- over twenty years later.
Today, people do not pray and get under the burden enough. Most evangelists do not stay long enough to have a meeting, and are doing more to kill the spirit of revival than to kindle one. Churches have called pastors to hold their meetings, and have not recognized the God-called evangelists until the evangelists have been about put out of the field of evangelism. A good place to stop and think! How much place does God and the Holy Ghost have in leading in these days?
Programs and social entertainment’s will never produce what groanings and prayer and fasting will. Why exchange old-time meetings for a few sermons? Why say we have done what we could, unless we have really fasted and prayed and wept and confessed our lack of power and have tarried as Nehemiah did? Conditions are bad now as then, but when we reach the place where we touch God, He is able to give us a revival. Amen and Amen.
Be the first to react on this!
