Testimonies of how faith in Jesus Christ brings peace and freedom.

Chapter One

J. Fred Pinckard

MISTER, I'LL SEE YOU IN GLORY

It was June, 1985. My telephone rang. I could tell the lady on the phone was crying. It was Liz Carlton, a lady in my Sunday School Class. She said, “Fred, my father-in-law is in the hospital dying of cancer and he is lost.” I said, “Liz, I’ll see him today or tomorrow.” After I hung up the phone I thought, he may not be here tomorrow. I told my wife, Amy, and we prayed that God would do whatever He needed to do to save seventy-nine year old Carmack Carlton.

Late that afternoon I drove from the farm to the hospital. Liz’s husband, Friday, met me at the door. He said, “Fred, I don’t believe he can stay awake to listen to you.” I replied, “Friday, let me try.” He agreed and introduced me to his dad. I pulled a chair up next to his bed and began to share Jesus with him. He was so weak, but as soon as I mentioned ‘Jesus’ his little eyes lit up and he listened to every word I said. Just as soon as I gave him an opportunity, he asked Jesus to come into his heart, forgive his sins, and record his name in the Lamb’s Book Of Life.

I didn’t linger with Carmack after he accepted the Lord for I knew he was tired and weak. I just squeezed his hand and he squeezed mine back with all the strength he had, as if to say, thank you, thank you. His son had moved over to the door to stop someone from coming into the room. I walked over to the door and said, “Friday, you have a new brother in Christ.” Well, you can imagine the joy that flooded his soul. He said. “Fred, I’d like for you to meet Dad’s doctor, Dr. Coleman.” Dr. Coleman said, “I know Mr. Pinckard. His team was just in our church in a Lay-Led Revival.” Dr. Coleman is a beautiful Christian who loves his patients. He has a beautiful Christian family.

I went back to see Carmack about two days later. He had gained strength, and boy he wanted to talk about being saved! They said everyone that came into that room he would tell how wonderful it was to be saved and on your way to heaven. As quickly as I walked into the room, he said, “Where have you been?” I have never met anyone so excited about being born again. Man, that was just about all he wanted to talk about. He told one of his daughters that he was sorry he didn’t get saved sooner. He said, “I would have been a better father.”

I visited Carmack again just two days before he died. As I started to walk out of the room, Carmack said, “I have something I want to share with you.” He said “I lived a happy life, but I would not trade five minutes since I have been saved for all the rest.” What a testimony to the transforming power of Jesus!

In an earlier experience, I guess it was 1975, another couple from this same class had a fourteen-year-old daughter in the hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I went to the hospital to visit this family. Just as I parked my car a man came staggering up to me and I really thought he might be drinking. But it was not alcohol – it was cancer that was causing him to stagger. He said, “Mister, would you help me find my car? I’ve got cancer, so a friend of mine from Crossville brought me down here to see my doctor and I can’t find his car.” I told him I’d be glad to help him. Then I added, “But after we find your car, I have something I want to share with you.” He said, “That will be fine.” So he took one row and I took another as we began to look for the car. About that time his friend called from the other end of the parking lot and said he knew where the car was parked.

I went back to where the man was standing, and in a few moments time I led him to the Lord. I then went back to my car and got a tract to give him. That done, I headed on up to the hospital. I had walked about fifty yards from him when he hollered at me. I looked back and he was still standing where he had been when I led him to the Lord. As soon as he spoke, I could tell he was crying. He was holding his right hand straight up in the air pointing toward heaven. He said, “Mister, if I never see you again down here, I’ll see you in glory.”

Before 1970 I would not have been able to share Jesus with either of these men. I would like to share with you now what happened to change my life so I could. I would like to also share with you the testimonies of other men and women in whose lives God has done far greater things than He has through my own. Some of what you read here will be from testimonies given in Lay-Led Revivals during the past fifteen years. The following one was shared in such a Lay-Led Revival:

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I’m Fred Pinckard, a chicken farmer from Cleveland, Tennessee. In 1968 my wife came back from town one day and said, “Daddy. I just met a lady that used to go to Concord Baptist Church with us in Chattanooga. She said they just had a revival that turned the church around.” I asked, “What kind of revival did they have?” She said, “They had a Lay-Led Revival.” So I asked, “What is a Lay-Led Revival?” She told me, “It is a revival where men like you share what the Lord has done in their lives and go out and witness to lost people.”

She was so excited about that revival. I went over and told my pastor and deacons about it. My pastor said, “Would they come to our church?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “How about writing them and find out.” This was in 1968. About two years later that team was in our little church.

We were running about one hundred in Sunday School at that time. They wrote that we would not have to pay them anything to come but we would have to keep them in our homes and feed them while they were with us. We had a hard time finding twenty people that wanted to take a stranger into their home, so Amy and I ended up with three of them in our home. Donald Adcox from Hendersonville, North Carolina coordinated the revival. In 1968 he was president of Baptist Laymen’s Witnessing Foundation of North Carolina.

The team came in on Wednesday night. One of the men shared his testimony in the church service. It was a beautiful testimony. At the close of the service that night they asked us to meet at the church at 9:30 a.m. the next morning. They said, “We will share for thirty minutes together. Then we will go visiting. All you have to do is go with us, introduce us and pray for us. We will do the talking.”

My son, Philip, was seventeen years old at that time. He and his mother and I, along with others from our church, met with the lay team at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. After a beautiful sharing time we were paired up to go visiting.

Philip took the man he was paired with to witness to his grandfather. His grandfather was eighty-three years old, a good moral man, but he had never committed his life to the Lord. Philip didn’t want to go to heaven and his grandfather not be there. He was really burdened for his grandfather.

During the sharing time that afternoon, Neal Pyatt, a businessman from Asheville, North Carolina, got up and said, “Philip and I visited his grandfather this morning. He didn’t accept the Lord, but I am claiming him (Mr. Renner) for the Lord.” Then, the oldest deacon in our church got up with tears running down his cheeks and told about a son of his that was an alcoholic. He said, “I’m afraid he is going to get killed driving to work every day from Dalton, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee, if he doesn’t make things right with the Lord.” (Another man stood and claimed this son for the Lord.)

By this time I began to think these men were making some wild claims. For you see, I had poured whiskey out of a five- gallon jug when I was five years old. And I had been drunk on home brew when I was seven. I knew what alcohol could do. But I didn’t know the commitment of this group of men. Several of them went next door to the church and asked the lady if they could borrow her living room. The got on their knees and prayed that God would do whatever he needed to do to save Morris (the son), and then they began visiting him.

On Saturday afternoon I took a dentist to witness to my father-in-law, Philip’s grandfather. He shared his personal testimony of how God used a man with a third grade education to change his life. He shared how precious God’s word became to him and how there was now a compelling drive in his life to tell others about Jesus. He quoted a few verses of scripture and then said, “Mr. Renner, may I pray for you?” He then prayed a sinner’s prayer in my father-in-law’s name. Philip’s grandfather was gloriously saved that day. He was baptized, joined the church, and is alive and well today (1987) at ninety-nine years of age.

My mother-in-law died in 1962. As far as I know, she had read the Bible to Mr. Renner every day. My, how she could pray! There was so much love and tenderness of Jesus in her prayers. I am so sorry she didn’t live to see her husband saved, but I know she was rejoicing with the angels in heaven when he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. God used the dentist to lead my father-in-law to the Lord, but he used my mother-in-law’s life to let her husband see Jesus every day and prepare him for this decision.

I had never been involved in anything like this revival. We were really seeing the New Testament come alive. It did not seem to matter which team member you were paired with. They each just seemed to be the right one for the visit you were making. God was not only doing a work in my life but in the life of every member of our church that was involved in visiting with these men. Among the many things this revival taught me was that witnessing is better caught that taught. It didn’t seem to matter if these men were educated or uneducated. God took each of them and used them as an effective witness. No two men witnessed exactly alike, yet the method they used seemed to fit their personality. Basically, they shared their own personal testimony, then presented the plan of salvation plain and simple. They used just enough scripture for a person to know exactly what to do to be saved. Sometimes it might be only two or three verses, then again, it might be more.

Another thing that God has taught me over the ensuing years is that we really have to love the person we are witnessing to. A lost person can tell just as soon as you speak if you really care. If the lost person knows you really care, they will usually listen to whatever you have to say. I watched these men. They not only had love for one another and for us church members, but even more for those that were lost. They simply went out under the leadership of the Holy Spirit and loved people into the kingdom of God.

We had a heaven-sent revival. Over thirty people were saved, but the alcoholic (Morris) was not one of them. Wednesday night after the Sunday the revival ended, we just had a sharing time at our church. The excited folks that had been involved in the revival began to get up and share what had happened in their lives. My wife, Amy, shared about a married couple in our community that was lost and how she had been burdened for them. She and her prayer partner had taken a layman from Kentucky, Clarence Floyd, to witness to this couple. She related how Clarence shared his testimony, presented the plan of salvation, and neither of then would accept the Lord. Clarence had said all he knew to say to them when he looked over to the side. Standing next to the wall was their fourteen-year-old daughter with tears running down her cheeks. God had really touched her. Clarence looked at her and said, “Honey, do you have something to say?” She said, “I sure do. Mother and Daddy, these people didn’t just happen to be here. I’ve been praying that God would send somebody. Do you have any idea what it is like to live in a home when the most precious thing in the world to you is Jesus, and not be able to talk to your mother and daddy about it?” The daddy jumped up and ran out. The mother was gloriously saved right there.

The next morning at eight o’clock our phone rang. It was that daddy on the other end of the line. He said, “Fred, you can tell them over there at the church that I made it right with the Lord this morning at 2:00 a.m.”

Remember that the Bible says, “. . . a little child shall lead them.”

***

Uncle Bert Starnes from Asheville, North Carolina had stayed in the home of one of our deacons. That deacon stood and said, “Uncle Bert stayed in our home and he asked me if we had family devotions.” I answered, “No.” Uncle Bert then said, “If you have never heard your children pray, you have missed the greatest blessing in the world.” Then, with tears running down his face, Roy said, “Now I have heard my children pray and it is the greatest blessing in the world.”

Then a man got up that I didn’t know. He said a few words and sat down. In a few moments he got up again. I had never met Morris, the alcoholic, but when he got up the second time I knew him. I have never forgotten what he said. “The old devil tried to keep me away from here tonight, but when I drove my car into the parking lot I could feel the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.” Morris made things right with the Lord, joined the church and was baptized. I was in that church two more years and every Sunday morning I walked out and hugged that old boy because to me he was a walking miracle! Morris was later killed in a car wreck, but for the years till then he walked with the Lord.

On the Monday morning after the revival was over, we had about thirty thousand chicks hatching. We were busy-busy-busy. There were many things I needed to be doing at the office and back in the hatchery that day, but I didn’t have my mind on the hatchery. I had seen the New Testament come alive and it had touched my life. I just walked away from that business. I went around the lake, crossed the dam, walked across the green fields and into the woods. I sat on a stump. Everything was so still and quiet, with nobody there but the Lord and me. I said, “Lord, I’m tired of playing at being a Christian. I’ll go where you want me to go and do what you want me to do.”

The first thought the Lord put into my mind was, What about those devotions you were going to start in that chicken hatchery. Many times I have sat in a church service on Sunday and determined in my heart that I was going to start devotions in my company. When Monday morning came, the old devil would be sitting on my shoulder, saying, “How stupid can you be? You start devotions and most of these people would walk out of here.” I had several Japanese working for me. Japanese do most of the chick sexing in this country. Chick sexing is separating the boys from the girls when the chicks first hatch. Some of these Japanese didn’t understand English and I was really concerned about their reactions.

After I had this encounter with the Lord, I went back to the hatchery. I called all the employees together and said, “Tomorrow morning at l0 a.m. we will have devotions. I would like for all of you to be there the first day. After that, you don’t have to come unless God leads you. I explained they would only last for about ten minutes and everyone would be paid for the time.

Well, they all showed up the first day but then I didn’t see any of the Japanese for about three weeks. Then they began to come back, one at a time. Pretty soon, all that understood English were coming. I walked by where one of them was working one day and he reached out and got me by the arm, and stopped me. He said, “You’ll never know what these devotions have meant to me.” Tears were running down his cheeks.

Time passed. One day a business man here in Cleveland called me and said, “Fred, I was down at the airport in Atlanta. I ran into a Japanese down there and when he found out I was from Cleveland, he said, ‘I know a man from Cleveland named Fred Pinckard. He led my son to the Lord years ago and now my son is going around telling everyone about Jesus.’” We had so many wonderful things happen as a result of those devotions. God has used this to encourage other businessmen to start devotions in their companies.

I received a phone call one day from a lady and she said, “Mr. Pinckard, Carolyn Vinson’s twenty-two old brother has just been killed in a deer hunting accident.” Then she said, “Carolyn is asking the question, ‘why-why’ and I believe God wants you to go talk to her.” I got out of my old farm clothes, got my wife, and we drove over to Carolyn’s. Carolyn was an attractive young lady, twenty-four years old, with two lovely children. She welcomed us into her living room.

I said, “Carolyn, let me ask you a question. Was your brother a Christian?” She said, “He sure was.” I said, “Carolyn, if your brother was a Christian, we can stand on God’s Word. God’s Word says, ‘My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life.’ Again our Lord said, ‘verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.’” I said, “Carolyn, let me share one more verse with you. Our Lord was talking to Martha and He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’” I quoted each of these verses of scripture to Carolyn.

I said, “Carolyn, let me tell you about a twenty-two year old that was staying in our home, dying of leukemia. We would be walking across the yard and he (Donnie) would stop me and say, ‘Mr. Pinckard, isn’t Jesus wonderful?’ When it came time for Donnie to die, he called the doctors and the nurses in and asked them to cut off the oxygen and take the tubes away. He said, ‘I don’t want a thing in this world attached to me when I go home to my Jesus.’ I said, Carolyn, he wrote a letter to be read at his funeral,” and I gave her that letter to read. Basically, what Donnie had said in the letter was, “I’m excited about going home to my Heavenly Father.” Carolyn got her peace there that day, for she knew that her brother, too, had gone home to our dear Lord.

***

I don’t guess it was three weeks after that I heard on the radio that a good friend’s daughter had just been murdered. I got my wife and we drove to the friend’s home. We drove to a beautiful part of our city to a beautiful home. I figured the place would be covered with people. In fact, I felt foolish going because I thought there would be so many people there, but God had impressed me to go, so I didn’t have a choice. There was nobody there but him and his wife!

Our friend welcomed us into his lovely home. When I was driving to my friend’s home, the old devil said, “What are you going to say in a situation like this?” I thought, What can you say in a situation like this? Then I remembered that the Bible says the Lord will give us the words to say if we are willing to go.

My friend shared with me that his daughter was a Christian. I quoted the same scriptures to him that I had quoted to Carolyn. I shared the same story about Donnie. I shared many other things with my friend. I was there for about an hour. We had a revival there. God just came into that room in such a beautiful way. When I left, my friend hugged me as I have never been hugged before and said, “You will never know what this has meant to me.”

***

It was a cold rainy night. Our doorbell rang. My wife answered the door and came back into the room, saying there was a young man at the door who needed help. His car wouldn’t start. It had flooded out on the highway. My wife said, “Give him this coat when you go out there. He’s wet and cold and has nothing on but a shirt.” There she stood with one of my good coats. I was more than glad to give it to him

because I knew the Lord had told her that was what we needed to do. He was probably about eighteen or twenty years of age.

We went out to the hatchery to get the battery cables. I began to share with him and learned that he was lost. I said, “When we get your car started, come back down here as I have something I want to share.” It was literally pouring rain. We hooked the cables up and got the car started. He was taking the cable off his car and I was taking it off mine. As I was unhooking the cable, I thought, When you get this cable off, you will never see him Amy Pinckard again. He will hand you the other end of the battery cable and he will be gone. I turned to take the other end of the cable from him and he said, “Give me the cable, I’ll bring it back to the hatchery.” I knew then that God was going to save him and He did. In fact, the Holy Spirit took control the very moment Amy was impressed to give him the coat.

I was working in our front yard in my old farm clothes. I had an old straw hat that was completely worn out, but it fit just right and I loved it. It had turned brown inside and looked awful. What I’m saying is, I really looked like a tramp. A beautiful young lady drove up in front of our house in a new Lincoln Mark IV. She wanted to know where some land was located that was for sale in my end of the county. She was in the real estate business. I told her where the land was located and she was ready to drive away.

Quickly I said, “Precious, let me ask you a question. Are you a Christian?” She said, “No.” I said, “Will you get out and sit on the cobblestone wall and give me five minutes of your time.” There was no reason for this beautiful lady to get out with this tramp, but she did, and in a few minutes time, she said, “How do I get this peace you are talking about?” Shortly after that, she bowed her head and asked Jesus to come into her heart. There are lost people everywhere who need Jesus.

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Chapter Two

Royal Ozier

REVIVAL

I met Royal Ozier at a joint meeting of the Home Mission Board and the Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention in Memphis, Tennessee. We met at Memphis State University. About a year later we were in a Lay-Led Revival at First Baptist Church in Blytheville, Arkansas. Amy and I stayed in Royal’s home. How we grew to know and love this family! Two months after the revival in his Church, Royal was helping us in lay-led revivals. God has really used Royal in such a beautiful way.

Royal had the same fears and doubts that you have if you have never witnessed to anyone. I pray you will be able to see how God used him, fears and all, when he was willing to go and share Jesus with others. I pray that this testimony will encourage you to become a witness for our dear Lord. Royal shared the following testimony at an Evangelism Conference in l983:

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If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn with me, please, to Isaiah 55:ll. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the things whereto I send it.” This verse of scripture has meant so much to me in the last few years.

Jim Gardner is my Sunday School teacher. He is a lawyer. He is a member of the Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He invited several men from our church to attend a regional meeting of the Brotherhood Commission. Jim came to me and said, “Royal, I believe the Lord would want you to go to Memphis and attend this meeting at Memphis State University.”

I attended that meeting. After listening to Fred Pinckard share what God was doing through Lay-Led Revivals around the county, I realized that we had to have a revival like that in our church. I came back home and asked my pastor if we could have a Lay-Led Revival. He agreed that we needed it.

The revival was scheduled about one year later, April 4-8, l979. My pastor asked me to serve as chairman of the Lay-Led Revival in our church. The year passed so fast, I had trouble finding homes where the team members could stay. Just to be on the safe side, I booked five rooms at the Ramada Inn. There were twenty-six team members coming and we only had six people signed up to go visiting Thursday morning.

The revival began on Wednesday night. The church was packed. I could not believe my eyes. They tell me we had a great service, but I was too worried and discouraged to enjoy it. I was almost a defeated person. Then something wonderful happened.

Fred and Amy Pinckard stayed in our home. When we walked into the living room after that Wednesday night service, Fred said, “Royal, what’s the problem?” He could tell from the look on my face that I was hurting. I shared everything with him. I said, “I’ve done this and I’ve done that.” Fred said, “Royal, I think I know what the problem is. You have done too much. What have you asked God to do?” That hit me like you had put a hot poker to my heart.

We just knelt in our living room that night, the four of us – Fred, Amy, my wife June and I. I was so tired. Fred prayed a very simple prayer. I’ll never forget that prayer as long as I live. He prayed, “Lord Jesus, you have heard my brother’s hurt and you have heard the problems. There is nothing else we can do, but you brought us here this week, for revival. Lord, we need at least twenty-six people to go visiting tomorrow. My brother is hurting and he needs a good night’s sleep. I pray that you will give him and June the best night’s sleep they have ever had. Amen.”

We went to bed. My wife said, “Did you hear that prayer?” I said, “Honey, I sure did, but there is one part of that prayer that will never be answered. There is no way in the world I can go to sleep tonight.” Folks, the next thing I can remember was the next morning and my wife was shaking me to get me awake.

Thursday morning, twenty-six people showed up for visitation. We matched the lay team one for one. From that session forward, we never lacked for people to go visiting. The Holy Spirit came down and just took control. We had fifty-seven people saved in that revival. We baptized over twenty-five people the first two weeks after the lay team left. My Sunday School class increased from seven to eighteen.

Thursday afternoon, things really began to happen. People were being saved and our people were beginning to get excited. I realized that I had never trusted God to perform the miracles that he could perform. I had been trying to do too much myself.

I took a paper and simply wrote the names of five people. Four of the people on my list were lost and one was out of fellowship with the Lord. I began to pray for them and I had Fred and others to pray for them. I began claiming victory. Before the month was over, I had the privilege of seeing four of these people baptized in our church. Three of those men are now in my Sunday School Class.

One Saturday afternoon, we had worked all week and I was really tired. We would come to the Church at 9:30 a.m. and get home about 9:00 p.m., or later. Fred knew that I had had a heart attack and late Saturday afternoon, he suggested we go to my home to rest for a while. I thought that was a good idea. I didn’t know how sneaky Fred was.

When we got home……just the two of us in my living room……we were just talking and sharing with one another. Fred said, “Royal, have you ever fully committed your life to the Lord? Have you ever really given Him everything you have? Your wife, your home, your family, your job, everything you have?” I said, “Yes, Fred, I think I have.” He said, “I have, too, but there is danger in that. We do it one time and forget about it. There has to be a moment by moment, day by day activity in our lives.” He said, “You know, I really feel the need right now to recommit my life to the Lord and reconfirm my commitment to Him that I’ll go anywhere He wants me to go and do anything He wants me to do.” We bowed our heads right there in my living room and Fred began to pray. I can’t explain to you what happened, but I know that something wonderful happened in my life.

Fred said something that really stirred my heart that afternoon. He said, “Royal, if you want to go with us and work in lay revivals, there are three requirements that I think you should have. First of all, you must know Jesus Christ personally. You must have the assurance of your own salvation. You must know that you have been born again and that you have eternal life. There is no way you can share Jesus with others if you don’t personally know Him. Secondly, you need to love your pastor, love your local church, and be active in your own church. Thirdly, you must be involved in witnessing in your own hometown.”

I knew I met the first two, but I did not meet the last one. I had done everything in the church you could do, but I had failed in the most important task. I never witnessed one on one. I had never once in my life sat down with a person and shared the gospel and given them an invitation and prayed with them to receive Christ. I knew if I were going to be serious about witnessing, the first place I needed to start was in my business.

I had a young man who worked in the body shop who had really been on my heart. He had really had a lot of problems in his life. A couple of days after the lay led revival, I stopped him just as he came out of the body shop and said, “There is something I need to talk with you about.” “What is it?”, he asked. I said, “We had a lay led revival at our church and some beautiful things happened. I would just like to come out and share them with you.” He said, “I would like for you to.” I said, “When could we do it? What about tonight?” He said, “That would be all right. Come by about eight o’clock.”

Whew! I had all afternoon to think about it. I got home, ate supper and my wife and I had prayer. I got into the car. I was scared to death. I was shaking all over. The closer I got to his house, the more my knees began to shake. I could hardly hold the car in the road. I couldn’t go any farther. I just pulled over to the side of the road. I prayed and said, “Lord, if you want me to go over there, you are going to have to help me. I’m scared to death.” The Holy Spirit brought this verse of scripture to my mind. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love, and a sound mind.” I said, “Lord, that is your word and it is true. That means I don’t have to be afraid because I am going as your representative. I am going with your Spirit’s anointing on me and I don’t have to be afraid.” So I began to settle down.

I got to his house knocked on the door. He was waiting for me. The Lord already had him prepared. I began to share with him some of the marvelous things God had been doing. I shared my own personal testimony with him. I shared some scriptures with him. I took a Four Spiritual Laws tract and shared it with him. Then I said, “Would you like to be saved?” His answer was, “More than anything else in the world.”

We bowed our heads and I joined hands with him. His little boy who had been patterning his life after Dad, came over and said, “Daddy, can I hold your hand too?” He said, “Son, you sure can.” His little boy had been putting his shoes by daddy and saying, “Daddy,I want to be just like you.” We bowed our heads again and he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He gave his son a real example to follow that day.

Two days later, my phone rang and it was his wife on the phone. She said, “Mr Ozier, I don’t know how I will ever be able to thank you. We had already filed papers for a divorce and our home was breaking up.” She continued, “Now God is putting it back together again. I had been praying for five years that God would send someone. Your coming and what God did was the answer to that prayer.”

A few days later, a young man came by my office. He had heard what God did in our Lay-Led Revival and what God was doing in my life. He said, “Can I come in and talk to you?” I said, “You surely can.” I thought he had come to discuss some kind of business. He said, “I need help, I’m hurting.” He said, “I’m thirty-five years old. I have tried everything there is to try. I have made a million dollars. My life is a wreck and I don’t know where to turn next.” I said, “I don’t have any answers for you, but I know somebody who does. I know somebody who can solve any problem you have.” I began to share with that young man. I began to share the scripture with him, and it was ‘sharper than a two-edged sword’ that day, because it pierced right through his heart. Before he left my office, we knelt in front of a couch there in my office and he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. His life was really changed. He is in church today serving the Lord.

***

We were in a Lay-Led Revival in Florida. The pastor asked me to go visit a man. He said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but he may not be receptive.” We went to his home. He came to the door but he would not let us in. We stood there and talked to him through the door. He finally began to open up and talk to me. He said, “What in the world is a Ford dealer in Arkansas doing in Florida working in a revival meeting?” That was all I needed. I told him why I was there, what had happened in my life.

He began to be a little bit interested but he was so bitter. He said, “Let me tell you what I think of the church.” Folks, after a few minutes of talking to that man, I understood why he didn’t like the church. It looked like a hopeless situation. We were getting ready to leave and I was almost in the car. He was so bitter. He had so much hate bottled up inside of him.

Then he said, “Mr. Ozier, I want to tell you something before you leave. He said, “I’m not through talking yet.” He said, “I’ve had religion up to here.” I said, “Tom, I don’t blame you. I have too.” I said, “If religion was all I had to offer you, I would have stayed at home in Arkansas, but I didn’t come here to talk to you about religion.” He said, “If you didn’t come here to talk about religion, what did you come to talk about?” I said, “I came to talk to you about Jesus and there is a great difference between Jesus and religion.” He said, “But I don’t understand.” I said, “Do you have a few minutes, Tom, so we can just go in and sit down where I can talk to you about my Savior?” He said, “Yes, I do.”

We went into his living room and after about thirty minutes, I looked through the door into the kitchen and I saw his wife kneeling at the kitchen table praying. Tom was about fifty years old and he had been raised a Catholic. He was so confused about the gospel, but in about thirty minutes time, I took this blessed Bible and shared with him the scripture. I shared my testimony and many other things with him.

Then I said, “Tom, could I do something for you? I know you’re confused. I know these things are going through your mind and I haven’t done a very good job of presenting the gospel. But I would like to just kneel here by your chair and pray with you.” He said, “I wish you would.” I knelt and prayed and just as soon as I started praying, I could feel the Spirit of God moving in that room and in my life. I didn’t have to wonder what to pray for or how to pray. It seems like the words just came. I began to intercede for Tom. I said, “Lord, just please send the Holy Spirit right here right now. Open up this man’s eyes so he can see the beauty of the gospel. Let him see Jesus lifted up high, that He can come into his life and show him what the gospel is all about.”

As I concluded that prayer, I said, “Tom, would you like to be saved?” He said, “Oh, yes, I would like to be saved.” I said, “Would you like to pray the sinners prayer and receive Christ into your heart?” He said, “Oh, I would like to, Mr.Ozier, but I don’t know how to pray.” I said, “That’s all right, we will pray together.” As we began to pray, he began to ask God to come into his life and he added, “Oh, Jesus, please forgive me.” He said, “I know I have not lived a good life.” Boy, before you knew it, he began to just roll the words out himself. It was such a happy experience. His wife came in and she hugged his neck. It was so beautiful that day, just to be present when Tom was saved.

***

We were in Missouri in a Lay-Led Revival. There was a young man about fifteen years old who came to see the pastor and said, “Would somebody please go to see my Grandpa and Grandma?” Fred asked me to make that visit. Grandma was at home, but Grandpa was fishing. We made an appointment to go back that night. When we went back, we went in and sat down. They had very little of this world’s goods. I realized in talking to these people that they had never heard the gospel. They had been to church twice in their lives, once at a wedding and once at a funeral. I knew I needed to be real tender and to love them with all the love I could muster. They needed somebody to love them into the Kingdom.

I tried as best I could to love that couple. We talked fishing. I found out that she liked to quilt and we talked about quilting and this sort of thing. I shared with her that when I was a little boy, I watched my mother quilt. I spent about two hours with this couple presenting the plan of salvation in the tender love of Jesus. I reached the point where they both said they would like to be saved. I said, “Well, let’s go over to this little love seat.” I noticed that they were reluctant to do so, but I didn’t have any idea why. I got them on the love seat, and I said, “I cannot think of anything more beautiful than for Grandma and Grandpa to join hands and both pray at the same time and both of you go into the Kingdom together.” So they did. They bowed their heads and accepted Jesus. They got up and he looked at her and she looked at him. They hugged each other. They were so happy, they cried and I cried.

The next day at church, this same young man came running up to me and said, “Oh, let me hug your neck. Let me just thank you. I want you to tell me exactly what happened.” I began to tell him. He was crying like you would not believe. I said, “What’s wrong, Son?” He said, “You don’t understand, Mr. Ozier. My Grandma and Grandpa raised me. They have not talked to each other for ten years. I have to relay all communications to them. When Grandma wants to say something to Grandpa, she goes through me, and then he goes through me. When they get mad at each other, they fuss through me. It is just terrible to live in a home like that.”

“I knew something beautiful had happened this morning because Grandma got up this morning, put on a clean dress and cooked Grandpa’s breakfast for the first time in ten years.” Folks, I want to tell you the answer to every problem we have in our home, in our work, anywhere, is Jesus.

***

I was asked by a friend of mine to visit his mother at the nursing home. I walked into her room, sat down in a chair, and began to share with her some of the beautiful things God had been doing in my life both at home and in some of the lay revivals I have attended. We had a wonderful fellowship together just sharing with one another. When I got ready to leave, I took her by the hand and had a word of prayer with her. When I closed the prayer, I kissed her on the cheek and left the room.

Now, the lady across the hall had been watching me all the time I was in that room. As I started down the hall, she called me. I went to the door of her room and she said, “Mister, I don’t have anybody to pray with me.” I sat down and shared with her many of the same things I had shared with the other lady. Then I took her by the hand and prayed with her. After we prayed, I turned loose of her hand but she would not let go of my hand. She looked up at me and said, “Mister, didn’t you forget something?” I thought well, I have shared with her, prayed with her, what did I forget? Then, it dawned on me. I kissed her on the cheek very tenderly and she let go of my hand.

***

I went to Elizabethton, Tennessee on my first Lay-Led Revival as a team member. On the airplane on the way over there, I prayed that God would let me see one person saved. Two little teenage girls ran over to the church after school was out and wanted someone to go with them to a girls’ home. This was a home for troubled girls. These two girls had a little friend there who needed help. This little girl, their friend Debbie, had never known the love of a mother and father. Her mother had given her away when she was three or four years old. She had been in all kinds of trouble. Drugs, alcohol, jail – she had seen it all. When I got there, she was cursing. She told me to put my Bible in my pocket and leave. She said there was no sense in me witnessing to her.

I said, “Just let me share a few things with you.” Why the Lord led me to share my Christian life and Christian home with a little girl who had that kind of bitterness, I don’t know, but I did. As I shared, I began to see the Holy Spirit begin to mellow her. Her attitude began to change from bitterness and hate-of-mother to one of sweetness and gentleness. Oh how she hated her mother. Finally, when it was all over and I asked her if she would like to become a Christian, she said, “I sure would, but I don’t know how.” I said, “Precious, if you will bow your head, I’ll help you through the sinner’s prayer.” We prayed and she accepted the Lord into her life. After she had been born again, I felt I should pray for her mother and her family. I prayed for her mother and she broke down and started crying. Half-way through that prayer, I could hear her saying, “Lord, help me to love my mother again. Help me to love her again.”

When we got through, she stood up and hugged my neck. She nearly wrung my neck off. She said, “Oh, God must be good, because if he sent you all the way from Arkansas to tell me about Jesus, He must love me a whole lot.” I said, “He surely does, Honey.” She hugged my neck again and said, “Will I ever hear from you again?” I said, “yes, Precious, I am going home and buy a Bible and write you a letter.”

She said, “You know, I just thought of something. My mother is supposed to be here tonight.” I said, “Would you please let me know the results of that visit?” I added, “Would you do me one more favor? When you see your mother coming, run and hug her neck. Then tell her you love her because you now love Jesus.” She said, “I will.”

There was another side that touched me. I looked around and all those little girls who were in trouble were peeking out the windows looking at Debbie. I have a question for you tonight. How many Debbies are in your community, your city, that desperately need Jesus? I have heard from Debbie. She is getting out of the home and is being reunited with her mother. They are going to start a new life together. She is seventeen. You see what God can do? Jesus is not just the best answer to our problem. He is the only answer to our problems. He can take an impossible situation and turn it into a beautiful experience. I thank God for those two little teenagers there in Elizabethton who were burdened for their friend, Debbie.

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Chapter Three

Robert Vass

NO ONE WITNESSED TO ME

We were in a Lay-Led Revival in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in April of l973. This was a city-wide crusade. Kendall Hatton, pastor of the Southern Baptist Church there in White Sulphur Springs, had gotten every church there to be a part of this revival with the exception of two churches. There were Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, black churches and white churches united in this effort. The revival services were held in a junior high school auditorium at night. Then we would go out from different churches each day and witness to the lost.

The day we met to go out from the White Sulphur Springs Baptist Church, a beautiful young lady in her early twenties stood with tears running down her cheeks and said, “Even though my husband is only thirty years of age, he is an alcoholic. I want you to pray for him.” That picture has flashed back in my mind so many times since that day Linda Vass stood there weeping for her lost husband.

Shortly after Robert Vass was saved, he and Linda were with us in a Lay-Led Revival in Florida. They stayed in our home on their way to Florida and what a blessing they were. Robert’s testimony will tell you how God used them in Florida.

Since that revival, Robert has worked with us in many Lay-Led Revivals. I can’t begin to tell you how many people Robert has led to the Lord by simply sharing with them what the Lord did for him and what He can do for them. He has not taken a drink of alcohol since he was saved. He has been chairman of the deacons in his church six times. He takes all the vacation time he can get to work with us in Lay-Led Revivals. He has called me almost every month since he has been saved to give a report on what the Lord is doing in his life. Nearly every time he calls, he tells about someone he has led to the Lord. Robert shared part of the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival and part of it in an Evangelism Conference.

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One verse of scripture I would like to share with you tonight that means a whole lot in my life, is Acts 16:31. “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.”

My father was killed when I was thirteen months old, so I didn’t know my dad. Mom raised my older brother and me the best she could. When I was twelve or fourteen years old, I took a switch away from Mom, and from that day on, she never tried to discipline me. She would tell me right from wrong, but I went ahead and did what I wanted to do. I started stealing cigarettes and beer when I was fourteen years of age. From beer, I went to something stronger.

I was not encouraged to go to church. I was never taken to church as far as I know. My only church background was that when I was fifteen years old, I liked a little blond-haired girl and she attended a Methodist church. I started going to that church, but when I found out she didn’t like me, that was the end of that.

My drinking continued. I volunteered for the service so I would only have to serve two years instead of three. Just about every day I was in the service, I drank. I had met a girl about two years before I went into the service. We were going together. We were in love. I asked her to marry me and she did. We went through service and we had one child.

When I came out of the service, I drew unemployment. I did the things I like to do—drinking, running around, going to car races, hunting, fishing. I would take my wedding band and when I got low on money, I would pawn it to get me a fifth of whiskey when I was in the service. I have been gone as long as four days at a time and my wife didn’t know where I was or who I was with. I didn’t honor those wedding vows. I did a lot of gambling. That was just about the way I was living when I came out of the service.

I got a job at Hercules, and I drank every day of my life. I would take off on a weekend. I had a fast car and sometimes I would drag race. Several of my friends had four-wheel drive vehicles. Fifteen or twenty of us would go up to this place in the mountains and party for the whole weekend. That was what I liked to do.

My wife had accepted Christ when she was twelve years old. She served the Lord in her church until she met me. She loved me so she followed me to beer joints. She never told me about Christ. I guess she knew I would not listen. Every few months she would take our boy and go to Sunday School and church. That didn’t bother me because I’d go to the beer joints at one o’clock and drink beer with people that had been in church at twelve o’clock. I thought if they’ve got what you call Christianity, I don’t want it. I’ve got the same thing they have got. I’m just as good as they are. I don’t’ have to go down to that church. I don’t have to get dressed up. So that was what my life was.

January of l973, there was a layman, Dr. Finley Baird came to the White Sulphur Springs Baptist Church. He was going to be sharing in that church over the weekend. Word got around that he used to drive a race car and I’m a race car fan. There were about seventy-five kids on the street where I lived and they were talking about this man. I thought it would be kind of nice to go listen to him talk about stock car racing, but if I’ve got to go to Church, forget it.

There was a precious woman who lived next door to us. Her husband was a deacon in the White Sulphur Springs Baptist Church. She invited and encouraged my wife to go to this revival. My wife went on Friday night. Linda came home on Friday night and said, “You should go up there and hear what that man has got to say.” I said, “Did he talk about stock car racing? I don’t want to hear a word he has got to say.” Well, she went back on Saturday night. She came back even more excited. She said, “I wish you would just go and listen to this man.”