Discovering how Jesus Christ literally brings new life through the witness of ordinary people.

Chapter Nine

Charles Baird

WHO WOULD YOU BRING WITH YOU?

Charles Baird is a retired banker from Adairville, Kentucky. His wife, Thelma, was a schoolteacher. They are completely sold out on telling lost people about Jesus, not only in lay revivals but through the Bill Glass prison ministry and the Gideon ministry.

Only God knows the number of people Charles and Thelma have led to the Lord in this country and around the world. Charles shared the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival:

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I was saved as a young boy. God taught me so much through Training Union in my church. Then He allowed me to teach Sunday School for thirty years. I became a deacon. I was deeply involved in everything my church had to offer. I really thought I was doing what was pleasing to the Lord. I could stand in my Sunday School Class and tell them what you had to do to be saved. But I didn’t witness to them one on one and give an invitation. The devil had put into me that I had no right to enter into another person’s private world. As Fred shared with you, I am a banker. I would like to share with you how God changed the direction of my life.

God came to me on a normal banking day and said, “If you should die tonight, who would you bring to heaven with you?” I had been so active in church, but I had never won anyone to the Lord. He said to me, “If Jesus would die for you, why wouldn’t you be telling others the good news?” He let me see myself as if I had gone to the bar and the Book of Life and been opened and there was not anything written on my side. He said, “You have missed why I have you on this earth.” He said, “You don’t want to stand here empty handed anymore. You are not dead, you see. I haven’t called you home. You know what I want. Why won’t you be about my business?” At this point, I said yes, to God. I didn’t know what it meant because I had never been brought to this place in my life before.

Two weeks from that time, a man walked into my little bank and said, “I want to buy this outfit. I want to sit at your desk. I want to bring my family here. I want to raise them here.” He wanted to wreck my plans. I wanted to throw him out, but God spoke and said, “Were you honest when you said yes?” I said, “Yes, Sir, I intended to be.” “If you will get rid of this little outfit, you can do more for me.” Again, I had no choice. I had to make the man a proposition. The man took my little bank and set me in the street. I turned to my God and said, “What are we going to do?” There was no answer this time. It was just like He had hung up the phone.

The devil began to talk to me. God gave you that bank, you didn’t deserve it to start with. You got emotional and gave it away. I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. But God didn’t leave me there, He gave me the faith I needed. I said, “Lord, what are we going to do?” He still didn’t answer. I held on and I sought for answers. I began to ask. I began to inquire, but you know in God’s wisdom, He made me wait for six months before He picked up the phone again. It just like to have killed me. I couldn’t figure it out. But, oh, my, what a wonderful thing God was doing for me. I though I had done something for God. I thought I had made a little sacrifice. Of course, I had not done anything. God had just permitted me to get in position to let me have some joy. When I finally got humble enough to ask for a crumb off God’s table so that I could know I was with God, then He would hear me again. You know, He doesn’t take the haughty; He takes the humble.

Then he took me to Carolina and He let me see a layman (Bert Starnes) that was so excited about seeing a man accept Jesus that he vibrated. You could just talk to him and feel it. I said, “This is what I’ve been looking for. Can I do that?” He said, “Why God expects everyone of us to do that. You not only can do it, God expects you to.” I said, “Yes, but I don’t know how. How can I get involved?” I wanted to, oh, so badly. But how?

Uncle Bert Starnes invited me to a Lay-Led Revival in Indiana. There for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to lead a man to the Lord. We were in a trailer. We had looked all day trying to find this man. He was not at home, but his wife invited us in. She talked to us a few minutes, then she said, “You know, my husband has been out since early this morning. You know he is a truck driver. When he has been out on the road and is tired like this, he is usually not in a very good mood. When he comes back here and finds you two men sitting in this trailer, I’m afraid he is not going to be very happy. At this point, I was ready to leave. Then the light in the door closed completely out. There was this big truck driver coming home. I was looking for a back door but there was not one.

I introduced myself and he was very kind to me. We sat down and started talking. I had found a very bitter man. At ten years of age, he had attended a tent revival. He felt the tug of the Lord to accept Jesus, but he felt led to go home and talk to his dad about it. His dad was an alcoholic. His dad said, “Don’t you go back any more. They are conning you and I don’t want you to go back anymore. He said, “I listened to my father. I didn’t go back, I haven’t been back and I’m condemned to hell. My father condemned me to hell.” I said, “No, sir, you are living, Jesus loves you, Jesus wants you.” I would bring him to a place where I would say, “You know what you need to do. Won’t you pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart?” He would violently say, “No, No, No.”

Here were his three sons sitting there hearing everything that was being said. I said, “Fellow, you say you are going to hell. What about these boys?” He said, “It’s one thing for me to go to hell, but I don’t want these boys to go.” I said, “Fellow, I don’t have anything to do with it. But a father that would violently refuse Jesus could influence these boys and they may never accept Jesus. Would you take a chance like that?” He thought a minute and he said, “No, I want that Jesus.” He already knew what to do. He dropped on his knees. I didn’t have to lead him in any prayer. He asked Jesus in a beautiful way to come into his life. He got up and he said, “Man, from ten years of age to thirty-five, no one has come to me. No one has told me about the love of Jesus. I had grown in hate toward my father so bad, I didn’t know what to do. I substituted hate for love. I want to thank you for coming and telling me about the love of Jesus.”

He grabbed my hand, and I think you can still see the creases in my hand now, where that two hundred and fifty-pound truck driver said thank you. God revealed to me if He should call me home at that very moment, my gracious Jesus would let me talk about this for the rest of eternity. Now, I didn’t do anything, but Jesus let me be present when it happened. I can see Him letting two, three or five hundred years go by and saying, “Charles, don’t you want to tell about that truck driver, one more time?”

But He was not through with me. There were so many others out there that no one has told about Jesus. God has brought me to the place that I realize that He has really got a purpose and mission for every minute of my life. From time to time I allow myself to become slack and slow down a little bit. I don’t feel that we have time to do that. Today is the day of salvation for somebody and if we become slack, they may not even hear about Jesus.

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Charles Baird’s daughter, Mae Ann Baird, was a schoolteacher in Nashville, Tennessee, and she also worked in the Baptist Book Store. Tim Woodall, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, had just retired from working on the Alaska pipeline. Tom was from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, but on this day, he was in the Baptist Book Store in Nashville, Tennessee. He shared with Mae Ann that he had just retired and went on to say he would sure like to get involved with a group of men and women that were telling people about Jesus. Mae Ann suggested he write he Dad. (So he did.)

Charles mailed the letter on to me. Amy sent Tom our Lay-Led Revival schedule and I wrote him a letter and explained the requirements for being a member of this team. Shortly after that, Tom and is wife became active members of this team. Oh, how we grew to love and appreciate these two.

If you have ever seen a picture of a typical Indian Chief, that’s exactly what Tom looked like. He was a handsome man. We had a high school student by the name of Mark Bryant that was working with the team when Tom joined. Mark really walked with the Lord and the young people really loved him. When Mark stood in the pulpit to speak, he was shy and would drop hi s head. Mark and Tom became dear friends. Tom spoke to Mark and said, “Mark, we Indians believe if you are telling the truth, you will keep your head up and look us right in the eye.” Mark never did drop his head again. The Lord called Mark to be a pastor. After he finished college, he served as a pastor in North Dakota. Today, he is a student at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Tom worked with us for several years until he was not able to travel any more. He and his wife would often drive over seven or eight hundred miles, one way, just to help in a revival.

When you think of all the people Tom could have talked to in Nashville, and God let his path cross Mae Ann’s, this is just one of the many times God has sent someone special along to be a blessing to the team.

I thank God for Tom and his wife, Bushy, and for how they touched each of our lives. My! How they loved the Lord, their family and their church. But most of all, I thank Him for their love and desire to see lost people saved. Tom continued to share Jesus at home and in the hospital when he could no longer be with this team.

Thelma Baird is the wife of the banker, Charles Baird. She is a gracious lady and a precious Christian. Thelma share the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival in Georgia:

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Thelma Baird After I finished college, I went to Adairille, Kentucky to teach school. It was there that I met my husband, Charles Baird. Of course, I have said many times I already had him picked out when I went there, but I tried not to let him know that.

When we brought our first little girl home from the hospital, we said, “Now Lord, you have given us this little baby. Now, would you take out of our lives anything and everything that would keep this little girl from knowing you as her Lord and Savior. Then would you put into our lives anything that needs to be there to help this little girl to be your child.” As we often say, we know that we were honored and blessed by the Lord for the children, for both of our daughters. But more, I think, for Charles and me to walk this pathway. When I think back about it, we missed the mark so far and yet God honored it because we were at least attempting to do what we thought He wanted us to do.

We just never missed a service in our church. We took our girls. Every time the church was open, we were there. For about twenty years in my church, I was working with pre-school children, beginners, four and five-year-olds in those days and then with nursery children. I know God gave me those boys and girls to work with. I enjoyed it and loved it through the years.

God moved Charles out of the bank and out into the highways and hedges where Jesus told us to go. At that time, I didn’t think I could join Charles in this. I was Nursery Coordinator in my church and I felt this was where God wanted me.

Would you believe that God had to take me all the way to Liverpool, England to show me a new direction for my life. On a busy sidewalk there in Liverpool, I witnessed to a lady and she asked Jesus into her heart. Now I had done just about everything you could do to be involved in church, and yet in 1971 for the first time, I saw this dear lady come to acknowledge Jesus Christ as her Savior. She said, “I don’t know how you could have come all the way across the ocean to me at the time of my great need.” I said, “Well, you will never know and I will never understand why God had to bring me all this distance to show me what it was all about and what I should do.”

The Lord laid that on me so heavy that I knew there were going to have to be some changes made in what Thelma was doing. I prayed, and God showed me that if the nominating committee wanted me to be Nursery Coordinator, that I was going to ask for a year’s leave of absence. Well, I’ve been on that leave of absence for fifteen years. You see, God had someone else to serve as Nursery Coordinator. I know now that I thought at that time, no one else could do that. We get so self-righteous in what we are doing that we get to thinking nobody else can do these things. We really hang onto them and stick to them and don’t give anyone else a chance, do we?

Matthew 9:38-39: “Then saith He unto His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into his harvest’.” I thought that meant everybody else. That didn’t mean me. So, see, I was holding out on the Lord in not wanting to do this. But that is what the scripture says and I had heard this all my life. I believed the Bible, yet I didn’t think that meant me. But God, through the working of His Holy Spirit, helps me to be a witness for Him. God has filled our lives fuller than ever before. Although we thought we were walking with Jesus, it was not a walk like this!

Just these few days in your church, how we have been blessed! If you were to think with me that if you were to be in eight to twelve of these a year, well, you know you would just get blessed all the time. But not only here in these places, but in our community, our own home and in our own church. In all the places that we are, we find that the witness of what Christ is doing in our lives becomes such a part of us that we can feel free to share it anywhere. Whether it is at the beauty shop, the grocery, as the Holy Spirit directs you and as you are living the abundant life in the Spirit, He will just give you the freedom and you will find yourself sharing where you never thought you would share. That is exactly what God told us to do.

Jesus was a bold witness and He also gave us a bold plan. I think that is where we get our bold mission plan, from Matthew 28:19-20. You could all recite it, but Jesus said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” I thought the “go ye” meant somebody else, but that means Thelma. That means each one of us in this church because, I dare say, there are some people that you personally can witness to that probably no one else would have the opportunity to. So, tomorrow, we have the opportunity to go out with you. We learn from you and we just get the best blessing when we are teamed up with you all. I see two or three of you that I have had the opportunity to go with already this week. It just gives us a bond of love and fellowship and when you see somebody saved, man, there is not anything greater than that!

Yet you and I look for so many other things in this world, but they are going to fade away. I thank you for letting me share this little bit of my life. I pray something I’ve said that came out of my life and out of my heart, would help you to see what it is that Jesus wants you to do. Someone has said that Jesus is more interested in our availability than He is our ability. Jesus just wants us to be available and share Him with this lost world.

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Chapter 10

GOD PROVIDED THE WAY

We were in a lay revival at Antioch Baptist Church, Johnson City, Tennessee. Ray and Shannee Long were not members of that church, just visitors. Yet they came and went visiting with us every day of the revival. They later joined the church. These two are such beautiful Christians and God used each of them to really touch lives in New York. They stayed in the home of the pastor and his wife, and the pastor’s wife said she knew God sent Shannee to New York just to minister to her.

Shannee shared the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival:

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My family and I were visiting Antioch Baptist Church in Johnson City when the lay team came. We were looking for a church home. We participated in the lay revival and were much blessed by it. On the last Sunday of the revival we just came home praising the Lord for what happened. My daughter fell in love with the Caywoods and wanted to go home with them.

The next Lay-Led Revival was to be in New York. My daughter said, “Mama, we’ve got to go to New York.” I just knew the Lord wanted us to go and I wanted to go, but I said, “Honey, I don’t see how we can go. I really don’t.”

Later that afternoon a dear friend of ours in the Lord came visiting, Chris Warwick. We got to sharing with Chris. I mean you can’t help it after something so exciting happens in your life and your church fellowship. You see God working in such a miraculous way. You just bubble over with it. So, we were telling Chris all about it. We want to go to New York but we don’t see how we can. My husband, Ray, could get off for the four days of the Lay Revival but he couldn’t get off for the four extra days it would take to drive up there and back. Chris says, “I’ll fly you.” We said, “You have got to be kidding.”

Chris had just graduated from Moody’s Missionary Pilot Program in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Elizabethton is just seven miles from Johnson City. Chris had done some repair work for a man who owned a plane. His pay was to be the use of that plane for two weeks. He had to go to another northern state to speak in a church. He said, “I’ll drop you off on Wednesday and pick you up on Sunday afternoon.” We praise the Lord for this divine appointment.

While we were in New York we got to know and love a beautiful young couple. He was a deacon. They were fairly new Christians. They both came from large families. None of their families were saved and they were really burdened for their families. I went visiting with her and we visited two of her sisters. We presented the plan of salvation and they were both saved. It was like picking fruit. God just had them ready. She had another sister she wanted me to witness to that was lost. Again, we shared and presented the plan of salvation to this sister and she was gloriously saved.

On our way home, my friend started crying. She said, “You know, Shannee, I have prayed for my sisters. I have told my sisters about the Lord. I have told them what He has done in my life, but I never asked them the important question—do you want my Jesus? Do you want to be saved?” She never asked. She lived the life before them and they saw Jesus in her. They were so ready but she never asked them if they would like to invite Jesus into their hearts. She never really presented the plan of salvation and asked if they wanted to be saved.

Maybe there is somebody in your life like that. You have lived the life of Christ before them but you have never presented the plan of salvation and asked if they would accept Jesus as their personal Savior.

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Chapter Eleven

Roy Gilleland

STUDY GOD’S WORD

Roy Gilleland was a pioneer in our state in witnessing one on one. He even developed a tract that could be used in witnessing to the lost. This man not only knows God’s Word by he has a burden for this lost and dying world. He hangs our revival schedule in his prayer closet and bathes each revival in prayer. We know before we go that we are going to have revival because of Roy and other men of God are praying for us. Roy shared the following testimony in a lay revival. I think it was in 1977:

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I had been a Sunday School teacher for five years. I came to realize that I needed to give more time to the scripture. I was a businessman in Greenwood, South Carolina. I decided I was going to have to get my priorities straight. I said I was going to give at least two hours a day to the study of the Bible. It didn’t make any difference what happened, I was committed to this. If I had to do with less sleep, I would just do it. I know this doesn’t hit many people right. It didn’t hit me just right either.

I went to work at seven o’clock in the morning. This meant that I got up at five. Sometimes I had to go to work at six. This meant I would get up at four. I was going to give two hours a day to the study of God’s Word, it made no matter what. I thank the Lord that He gave me that and made me do it, and I’m glorifying Him, you understand.

I am not a very religious person. I really am not. And I needed this study of the scripture. I realized I was not living up to what the Lord wanted me to live up to. I knew I was not bringing the word to the people on Sunday. What I would do, is, on Saturday night after I was tired and worn out, I would pick up the quarterly and read it....then try to teach the quarterly on Sunday morning. Now I knew that was not what the Lord wanted. The Lord puts no premium on ignorance or laziness. This is exactly the way I was – lazy and ignorant.

I began to get up at four o’clock, five o’clock. I’m half-way retired now, so I may sleep until five-thirty or six. But the first thing I do is get up and I get in God’s Word. It has revolutionized my life. It has done everything because God has spoken to me through His Word. Now it has become so important, and I found out God communicates so well. He is alive and He does speak. Now I have to carry with me a pencil and paper because I know He is going to say something worth while.

If you are going to teach next Sunday, you start studying this Sunday. If you are in a certain book, then read the whole book. For instance, when we were in James, the first thing I did was read the whole book of James. I didn’t look at the quarterly. I didn’t want to be confused by what people were saying. I’m not talking about the quarterly or anything, I’m just talking about “first read the Bible.”

It is amazing what God will do and how He will bless it. My Dad didn’t finish the fifth grade. He was a railroad conductor for the Seaboard Railroad. I went to a seminary and studied Greek for three years. My Dad had a better understanding of the scripture than I did. I learned more under my Dad than anyone. He just had a Bible and he read that and it was amazing what the Lord told him. Now was the lord telling him right? Yeah! Because I learned in my study of Greek, that my dad already knew what I had to dig for. I honestly believe if we want to revolutionize the life of our church, it is really in the hands of an expository preacher like your pastor and in the hands of the Sunday School teachers, not teaching quarterlies, using the quarterlies as a resource, but teaching the Bible.

If you expect to harvest next Sunday, you had better start planting this Sunday. My prayer is that Sunday School teachers will accept this responsibility of getting into God’s Word.

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Chapter 12

Ernie Dyess

YOU, PLUS GOD MAKE A MAJORITY

We were in a Lay Revival in Camden, Alabama in 1975. Shortly after that, Ernie and Rachel Dyess began to work with us in lay revivals. Ernie taught school for several years and then began working for a paper mill. These are two beautiful Christians. Ernie shared the following testimony in a lay-led revival.

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This lay team came to my church in April, 1975. I never will forget there was a doctor, Dr. Ernest Forster, from Dayton, Tennessee. He could only be in Camden for one night. He drove three hundred and fifty miles and I knew this; I could not understand, a man as busy as a doctor, as busy as I knew these other laymen were. I could not understand why in the world they would come all the way to Camden to share in the love of the Lord. I could not understand the commitment of these men until God touched my heart during this lay-led revival.

When Fred gave the invitation on Sunday morning for total commitment, I responded to that invitation. It was the next week that I began to understand the full meaning of total commitment. The following Sunday, I stood before my church and told them I wanted to make the Lord first in my life. I wanted Him to be Lord of my life. I wanted to give back to Him, my job, my home, my family, everything. I wanted to be a witnessing Christian for my Lord.

I want to share with you two experiences the doctor from Dayton shared with us. He said he was saved as a young boy, but when he went away to college, he got away from the Lord. After he came back to Dayton, one night a nurse came to him and said, “Doctor, you know the little girl you are going to operate on tomorrow?” He said, “Yes.” “Well, she is hysterical because she is afraid if she dies in the morning, she will go to hell,” the nurse said. My first thought was to get a minister, but it was too late at night.

I went down to talk to her. She asked me the same question. “If I die tomorrow, will I go to hell?” I said, “No, honey, if you trust in Jesus, you will be all right.” After she got this thing settled and was satisfied, I walked away from there with the best feeling in my heart I had ever had. He said, “All this time people had been needing me and been at the point of dying and I had never told them about the Lord. He said, “Now I began to look for opportunities.”

The doctor said, “One morning, they brought a young boy in about eighteen year old. His head had been cut, he had been on drugs that blew his mind and he had just gone wild. A policeman had brought him in. He said, “I patched him up the best I could. I tried to talk to him but I couldn’t.” They took him back down to the jail and put him in a padded cell. After working that day, late that night, I started home, but first I had to go to the jail. I went, and by this time, he had settled down. I put my arms around him and told him I loved him and Jesus loved him. I found out he came from a good family. He had just gotten with the wrong crowd. When I told him about the love of the Lord and all we had to do was by simple and humble faith accept Him, that is exactly what he did. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. But that was not the end of the story. About a month later, a young man came to my office. He said, “You don’t know me, but I want you to know I was outside of that cell door that night. I want you to know I too gave my heart to the Lord.”

The first summer I (Ernie) was at Auburn, I took a zoology course. I had a professor who was an atheist. He said God’s Word was not so. It was just written by individuals to please people. He said we were here by evolution. I had been brought up to respect authority and got to thinking maybe he is right. I used to witness to my roommate and try to get him to accept Christ. I would say to him, “You need to accept Jesus as your Savior because eternity is a long, long time. We can enjoy it, or we can suffer in it.” I told him if Christ came that day, I knew he would take me home. I knew I was saved, but this professor had brought doubts into my life. Then God came to me in a beautiful way and gave me the assurance again that I was saved.

About a year ago, after Rachael and I joined this team, Fred Pinckard shared this story. He said, “Several years ago when the theory, God is dead, was going around, a visiting professor spoke at a well known university. He stood and said, “There is no more power in the blood of Jesus Christ than there is in the water running out of the spigot out there.” God spoke to a young ministerial student and told him what to do. He was a poor boy and he knew if he obeyed God, he would probably be thrown out of school. So he said, “Lord, I’ll pray about it.” The Lord said, “That is not what I told you to do.”

So, he stood to his feet and began to sing, “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins.” He had made up his mind he would sing it through until they carried him out. So he started singing the second verse and when he did, another student stood with him, then another, another and another until the whole student body was standing. The professor reached and got his notes, never to return. Fred concluded with, “You plus God make a majority in any situation.”

You see, in my class at Auburn, there must have been fifty or sixty students present when the professor made his statement about evolution. Nobody said anything, and that includes me. I remembered that when Fred told about you and God making a majority. I resolved to go back and see that professor someday. I went back to see him this past summer. I had not seen him for twenty-five or thirty years.

I shared with him what he had said in that class. I shared with him what Christ had done in my life and I asked him, “Have you had an experience with God since then?” He reached over and he got a book and he opened it up. He wanted to show me the contents of it. He said, “We have got seventeen nationalities in this department. One of my professors recently started a Bible study group. I felt led to buy this book that my church was using in a study course. I want to show you what is in it. The first title was, “How God Created the Earth,” another title “How Christ Died for Mankind’s Sins.” You see, he had found the Lord while in the Philippines….while there, a Baptist preacher led him to the Lord. This really gave me a great peace and a great joy.

I would say to you young people as you go off to college, you are going to be exposed to many things, but you remember one thing: You plus God makes a majority in any situation.

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Chapter Thirteen

LIBERATED FROM FEAR

Phil Newcomb is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a gifted choir director but his first priority is sharing Jesus with this lost and dying world. I pray that will become the first priority of every pastor, staff member and lay person. The following testimonies were shared at an Evangelism Conference in 1985 and in a Lay-Led Revival in 1979:

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September 1978, Brother Fred Pinckard, a chicken farmer from Cleveland, Tennessee spoke at our Associational Stewardship Banquet. He and the Lay-Led Revival team had been at the Crab Orchard Baptist Church, Crab Orchard, Illinois some five or six years earlier. They invited him back, just to speak at this banquet. He began to share what God was doing through Lay-Led Revivals.

After hearing Brother Pinckard that night, I told my pastor, “I want that team to come to our church. That’s what we need. We need for our laymen to become excited like that. I need to become excited like that.” The Lay-Led Revival team came to Third Baptist Church, Marion, Illinois, September 5-9, 1979. I prayed during that entire year for a revival in our church. Believe you me, I was not disappointed.

That revival revealed before my eyes what the New Testament talked about, people boldly sharing Jesus Christ, people who shared love with one another. I hungered for that. I knew deep down in my soul, that’s what I want to see our church doing. I saw these people praying. I saw them not just speak words. I saw them audibly express their heart’s desire. I saw them spilling over to the people I took them to and whom they shared with. I was challenged in that week to do the very same thing.

We saw numerous people saved in our church that week, people who our people had prayed for for years and not seeming to have any results. Here they were, the very first time a person went to them, they were responding—not all of them—but many of them.

Toward the end of that week, I was burdened because I was afraid the people who had come were going to take the revival with them. Then I began to reflect. In the places where they went, they were sharing Jesus Christ. They were not lifting themselves up. They were lifting up Jesus Christ as the scripture says. Our people could get caught up in the same enthusiasm as they lifted up Jesus Christ, not an evangelist, not a person, but Jesus Christ.

That very next week, I began to see taking place what God had ordained in my life. Instead of waking in the morning, (and here I was on staff,) and thinking, Oh, goodness, it’s morning. I was waking, thinking: I wonder who is going to be saved today. Now that was different in my life. Because I was expecting what God was going to do in the day before it happened and was already anticipating. That was tremendous! There was a joy down in my soul, and peace that I had not had.

I knew the frustration as a staff member in our church of going to the church and doing a responsibility that the church had asked me to do -- planning, attending committee meetings and doing what needed to be done. But I knew the frustration at the end of the day. Is God satisfied? I could never come to the point down deep inside where I knew God was satisfied. I would sit at my desk and think about people I needed to go see and share Jesus with, but I would never go beyond thinking about it. There were people right around the church I needed to share Jesus with.

That week was exciting for me. Even when the team members were gone, the excitement was there. I saw our deacons, some of whom I thought were unexcitable, say “I too am excited.” I had seen something revealed before my eyes that I had not been doing. I had not been sharing Jesus Christ. I had been visiting in the name of the church. Now, I found freedom from that. I was no longer going and saying, “Come to my church.” I was going and saying, just like I had heard, “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

The next week was an experience I shall never forget. I realized that God desired to use us again and again if we would make ourselves available. I found that God would be working in my heart and my life leading me to specific people. He has already promised us to be working prior to us being there. I found great strength in the verse of scripture from Acts 1:8, “But ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit had come upon you: You shall be my witness, (now He uses the word ‘Jerusalem’, but I’m going to change the word, because it came down to where I was.) Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Marion and Williamson County, in the state of Illinois and the entire United States and all over this world.” I found power there that I had never had before.

Then I also found I had power over the battle for my mind. Satan no longer could keep me in bondage from sharing the truth of what God desires to do in other peoples’ lives if I was being yielded at every point to His will.

We (His church) are the only plan that God has to spread the plan of salvation over the face of the earth. He has no other. If it stops in us, then we have failed. It has to be a plan that reaches us, then goes beyond us, as we are willing to share.

For twelve years of my Christian walk, before encountering lay evangelism, I passed up many opportunities to witness. People would pass through my life and God’s Holy Spirit would say, “Speak my Name to them, share a witness with them.” I would always allow Satan to defeat me. I was denying the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. I was not open to allow the Spirit to empower me for the witness. That’s where I was. That week I realized that God desired to use me. When I began to realize what the possibilities were, I became elated! I realized that the witnessing was not going to leave when the lay evangelism team left our church. I began to pray excitedly about, “Lord, who is going to be saved next.”

Soon I was led to the home of a family on our bus route. There were two boys there that were lost. The oldest boy met us at the door and came out on the porch. I began to share with him. I asked if he had ever asked Jesus to come into his life as his Lord and Savior. “Have you been saved?” He said, “No, but I have wanted to.” I went through the plan of salvation and I said, “Do you want that?” He said, “Yes, I want that.” He was gloriously saved. We had just finished praying when his brother walked up in the yard.

The brother said, “What are doing here?” I said, “Your brother just invited Jesus Christ into his heart as his Lord and Savior. He has been saved tonight. Has that happened to you?” He said, “No.” I said, “Would you like for it to?” He said, “Yes.” He, too, was saved there on the front porch. I’m flying high, knowing this is still happening in our church and most of all happening in my life. We went into the house to share the news with Mom and Dad who were sitting at the kitchen table. The dad received the news with joy, the mother left the room. We shared with the dad and the boy the importance of them joining the church, being baptized and growing in the Lord.

A few days later, I felt led of the Lord to go back to that home and witness to this mother. She had not been willing for people to talk to her about Jesus. I called a prayer partner and I shared who I was burdened for and she said, “You know, I’ve been praying for her this morning.” (Isn’t it grand to see Jesus working in many hearts simultaneously, affirming our sense of His leading?)

We went to her house. She was outside. When we got out of the car she came to us and said, “Do you want to go in the house?” We went into the house and went right to the point of why we were there. “Your sons were saved earlier this week and you need to be saved. Has there ever come a time in your life...,” and she began to resist. “No, I’ll have no part of that.” We shared for one hour with her before she began to shake all over, and cried, “I came to this point in my life almost six years ago, when a preacher from that church came here to witness to me. Something inside of me said no, don’t you do it.” That gave me the opportunity to share with her that Satan was disguising himself as an angel of light, telling her to stay away from the truth. When she was faced with that statement, she dropped down on her knees, accepting Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

The excitement continued in my life. One day, we got a call from a lady in our church and she said, “My father-in-law is in the Veterans Hospital dying of cancer. Would you go witness to him?” I went to the hospital and witnessed to him. When I came to the point and asked, do you want Jesus Christ in your life and the promise of eternal life when death does take you? He says, “Doesn’t any man?” He was a Catholic. He had been the bartender at a club all of his life. He was in his late sixties facing death. That day, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Two weeks later, I preached his funeral.

The night Brother Pinckard spoke to us at the Stewardship Banquet, he challenged us to get just one lost person on our heart. To pray for that person every day for one year. Then, either go ourselves to witness to that person or get someone else to go.

I went home that evening and I fell on my knees in the family room. I remember weeping that night as I prayed. It was late at night and my family had already gone to bed. I was really troubled. God had already laid a lost friend on my heart. I committed my heart and my life to share the truth of the gospel that night. I felt such freedom that evening to begin to pray for boldness about sharing. I prayed that I would come to the point where I was liberated from the fear that enveloped my entire life when it came to sharing one on one. One year later when the Lay-Led Revival team came, God began to answer that prayer.

Let me close with this witnessing experience. One day, I was in a tire store. I was having tire problems and that was concerning me. While I was waiting, into the shop came a young man who I knew was a Moonie because of the trinkets that he was selling. God said, “Witness to this man, he is coming straight at you.” My response was, he is a Moonie, he is brainwashed and he will never believe a word I say. He comes to me and says, “Would you like to buy something?” All I can say to him is, “No, thank you.”

This was on Friday. I was so concerned about my car that I had not committed the day to the Lord. This was the first week after the Lay Team had been at our church and I had seen God work in such a marvelous way as I witnessed to the lost. Yet on this day, I had failed to witness to this Moonie.

I went home that night, very much convicted that I had not ministered to a person that God had brought into my life. I had let him pass by, not saying anything about my Jesus. I prayed that night that god would give me a second chance, even with another Moonie if not that one. I had already thought of the many things I could have shared with him.

The next day when I awoke, I had learned a lesson the day before, I was ready to commit the day to being available to the Lord. That day we witnessed at every house we came to on the bus route. We had a tremendous day.

That night we went to another town to visit my in-laws. After we had supper, I went next door to witness to their neighbor. Just as I began to witness to him, someone knocked at the door. My friend said, “Come in,” thinking it was my wife’s dad who always came into his house to help him without any invitation. They are real close and they watch over him all the time.

When that person came through the door, I looked up. It was like the New Testament flashed before my eyes. I saw the prayer that I had prayed the night before, because there stood the same Moonie that I had failed to witness to!. I can’t explain the excitement that came over my heart! I jumped to my feet. I know I must have scared the daylight out of him. I was so excited! God had given me a second chance to share the truth with this man.

God had truly answered my prayer. I told him, “I had the opportunity to witness to you yesterday about Jesus Christ and I didn’t take the opportunity, but I must share with you now. Do you know Jesus?” He immediately began to be repulsed by anything I shared about Jesus Christ. I took the Four Spiritual Laws tract and began to share with him. He said, “I’ve seen that book and I don’t believe it.” He headed for the door. I ran to the door and put my foot against it to keep it closed. I continued to share with him. It was almost as if I was sharing with Satan himself.

The more I shared the truth, the more he wanted to get away from it. Finally, as he continued to resist, he swung the door open, threw me aside and all I could say was, “Here, take this with you.” He took the Four Spiritual Laws tract and ran out. I shared this with my church the next day and many of them put this young man on their prayer list. That young man had his convictions pricked by the truth of the gospel that night and I pray he took that Four Spiritual Laws tract and read it. I pray he will be saved.

That opened the witness experience with my friend. He said, “Who was that man?” I told him about who he was. He said, “What did you put in his hand?” I said, “I put in his hand the Four Spiritual Laws.” He said, “Here, let me have one of those.” He said, “I’ll read that.”

I leave you with a challenge to share Jesus with the people around you.

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Chapter Fourteen

Bill Sams

GREATEST WEEK OF MY LIFE

My wife and I stayed in the home of Bill Sams and his wife, Linda, when we were in a Lay Revival at Antioch Baptist Church, Johnson City, Tennessee. God really blessed us in this home. We had a wonderful time sharing with this young couple. They had a precious little boy named Aaron.

Bill was manager of Sterchi Brothers Furniture Store there in Johnson City. Friday afternoon, he asked me to go to the store with him and witness to one of the employees. God was really with us and we saw two men saved there at the store. Today, Bill Sams does not have to take someone else to the store to witness to the lost. God has given Bill a burden for this lost world. He is not only seeing people saved in that store, but he is going out into the highways and hedges to share Jesus with the lost. Only our precious Lord knows the people Bill will be able to reach before God calls him home. Bill shared the following testimony in a lay revival in 1985:

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In January, I went to bed one night after church. Again, the Lord would not let me sleep. There were some people on my mind that I knew were lost and I was praying for them. At three o’clock I was at the kitchen still praying. I prayed that night and said, “Lord, I pray and ask that you will use me this week like never before, to see souls saved.” I finally went to bed and the Lord let me go to sleep.

Next morning, I got up and I went to my job. That afternoon there was a young man who came in that I knew. He was helping with some remodeling work we were doing. He was sitting in the office talking to me and the subject turned to Jesus Christ. This young man was twenty-three years old. I began to share the gospel and Jesus. I shared with him what Jesus wanted to do in and through his life. Five minutes later, he looked at me and said, “Bill, I want to be saved.” There in my place of business, he bowed his head and prayed the sinner’s prayer. This was on Monday. He looked at me and said, “Bill, the Lord has been dealing with me for some time. Praise God, I’m saved now.” He rejoiced, he knew it, he believed it. Then he looked at me and said, “My wife is also lost. Will you come and share with her?” I said, “Man, I would love to.”

The next day, again at work, there was a friend who was a member of our church. He came in and was making a payment on an account. I had been concerned about this man for some time. You know, the Lord will show you lost people. This friend started to leave and I said, “Come here just a minute. I want to talk to you. Come in my office just a minute.”

We sat down and I said, “There is something I have been wanting to ask you for a long time.” He said, “Bill, I know what you want to ask me.” He said, “You want to ask me if I am a Christian. You want to ask me if I really know Jesus Christ?” I said, “Yes, that is what I wanted to ask you.” He said, “You know, I knew that before I came in here today.” He said, “I’m not. I’ve been living a lie. I never have had Jesus in my heart.” Five minutes later, he left that store, a new creature in Christ. He prayed the sinner’s prayer and received Jesus. This was on Tuesday. These were two people who came into my place of business in two days. God sent them to me.

This is not all. The Lord had greater things in store. Tuesday night, our church goes out on visitation. We don’t call it church visitation. We call it soul winning. The young man that I had led to the Lord on Monday had asked me to visit his wife and witness to her. He told me that his wife was lost. I went with James Stephenson, a Christian brother from my church, to make this visit. James and I shared with her. She began to weep. We asked her if she would like to receive Jesus Christ as her Savior. With boldness, she said, “No.”

It puzzled me for I knew this girl was going to be saved. We had prayed and claimed it. I didn’t know what was wrong. Then the sweet Holy Spirit said, “Clear the room.” Politely I stood up and asked everyone to leave the room. We sat back down with her and began to share again. In just a few moments she said, “I want to be saved. I want to know I’m a Christian. I want to go to heaven with Jesus.” She prayed to receive Jesus Christ. She was saved that day.

There were still greater things in store for that week. The Lord had something in store for my family. My wife didn’t really know if she was a Christian. She had made a decision at a very young age in a Methodist church. Her parents were strong Christians. My wife just wasn’t sure. The previous week she had talked to me about this. I took the Bible and we studied and prayed and I thought everything was all right. But it was not. Friday night of this week, we were invited to the home of some strong Christian friends. We had fellowship and we shared. My wife is not an outgoing person. She is not one to open up and talk a lot. That night as we sat there around the fireplace talking and praising our Lord and Savior, Jesus, my wife looked at Ray and Shannee Long. She said, “Ray and Shannee, can you really know, can you really know that you are saved?”

Shannee began to witness and talk to my wife. I even tried to butt in and help but Ray took his hand and put it on my knee as if to say, “Shut up, Bill.” Shannee took my wife back to the time she had made a profession of faith as a young child. Shannee said, “There was a farmer who would be out on his farm working. Satan would come around and say, you are not a Christian. The farmer would take him out back of the barn where there had been a hole in the wall. The day the farmer was saved, he took a peg and he put the date and his name on that peg and he drove it in that hole. Every time Satan would try to bother him, he would take him behind the barn and say, “See the peg, see that date? That’s when I was saved. That’s when I drove the stake down with my Lord.”

What had happened, my wife had been trusting in her feelings. One day she felt saved and the next day she didn’t. She had put her faith and her trust in her feelings, not in Jesus Christ. That night, I saw my wife become a new creature in Christ. I saw her personally pray the prayer—Lord save me for I am a sinner.

That week was one of the greatest weeks of my life!

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Chapter Fifteen

Carlos Hammond

SIR, DO YOU KNOW JESUS

Carlos Hammond has worked with us in many Lay-Led Revivals. He really has a burden for lost people. Just as soon as he starts talking about Jesus, tears start rolling down his cheeks. God has used these tears as people are able to see that he really cares.

This testimony was given at First Baptist Church, Winter Garden, Florida:

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I was raised on a little farm in East Tennessee. There were five of us boys and one girl. I’ve often wondered how my dad fed us. We were poor by the world’s standards. My mother and dad were Christians. I was saved as a young man, but I didn’t get serious about studying God’s Word. I began to drift out of the church. I grew up and moved away.

I started operating a service station. A young lady came by that station and I spent a lot of time cleaning her windshield. It turned out that her boss was a Baptist preacher. It seemed that every time I had a date with her we would go by his house. He would always talk to me about my relationship to Jesus Christ. I knew something was missing in my life, but somehow I could not bring myself to full commitment. I married this young lady. Today, we have two beautiful children.

After we got married, I started in the used car business. My dream was to some day have a new car dealership. In 1970, that dream came true. The business grew and grew and grew. By 1973 I made more money that I had ever made. I was a deacon in my church. I was tithing. I was very involved in my church.

Things turned around and by the end of 1974, I was broke. I sold some property I had to keep the business going. By 1975 I was broke again. We closed the dealership February 12, 1975. On February 18, a man came by my place and said, “Carlos, I want you to go with me tonight. There is a laymen speaking over at the First Baptist Church in Athens that I want you to hear.” This man began to share his testimony about being a witness for our Lord. He gave an invitation that night, that if you are a Christian but you have never let Jesus be the Lord of your life, I want you to make that commitment tonight.

I stood in the back of that fellowship hall that night and I made that commitment. I said, “Lord, I’ll go anywhere you want me to go and I’ll do anything you want me to do.” My life took on a new meaning that night.

I went back and started all over in the used car business. God began to bless my business. I met a man a few days later in a revival who gave an invitation asking if we want to be a soul winner and he shared the verse of scripture, Matthew 4:19, how God would make us a soul winner. He said if you want to be a soul winner, I want you to come down here and present yourself to God. He said, “I’m not talking about going out here visiting, but I’m talking about taking God’s Word and bringing a man face to face with Jesus Christ that he might make a decision.” I didn’t know how to witness but I responded to the invitation that night. I said, “God, make me a soul winner.”

You know, as I read through God’s Word now, I never find where He asked anybody to go alone. When He sent the seventy out, He said, “I’ll go with you.” Everywhere I’ve gone to witness, Jesus has gone with me.

I would like to share a verse of scripture that came alive to me one month ago while I was at a state prison in Memphis, Tennessee. John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

We met with a group of men there at the state prison in Memphis. Two years ago, I led one of these men to the Lord when he was in the county jail back in Athens, Tennessee. I saw God begin to do a work in this man’s life. We met with sixty-two men in the prison chapel that night. Seven men gave their hearts to Jesus that night. The man I led to the Lord back in the Athens jail called me from the Memphis State Prison on Tuesday before I came down here for this revival. He said, “Carlos, I knew you were going on a Lay Revival this week and I was going to write you a letter. But last weekend we had a revival here at the prison and thirty-four men came to know the Lord.” He said, “I wanted to share this with you before you went to the Lay Revival.” I said, “Robert, I thank you for calling me.”

As we visited last month, we visited nine prisons in the state of Tennessee. One of the saddest things I saw in those prisons was the last night we were there. We met eleven men. We sat in chairs in a circle. As these men began to share their testimonies and what God had done in their lives, one of the men stood and gave his testimony and gave me the name of his ex-wife. He said, “Carlos, this woman used to talk to me when we were married and try to get me to go to church with her.” He said, “After I got in prison she got a divorce. I kept in touch with my little girl and she says Mommy don’t go to church anymore. I want you to pray for her that she will get back in church, that she will get her life straightened out with the Lord and then she could lead her new husband to the Lord.” You know, that is the love of Christ!

As I stood to share with those men that night and read that verse of scripture, John 13:34-35, I said, “Men, more than ever in my life, I know tonight that I’m a disciple because I love you.” I saw those men sit there that night, tears running down their faces and many of them gave a testimony of how God had dealt in their lives, but they just were not willing to follow Jesus until they found themselves in that place, a prison.

Another time, we had been in India for two weeks and were on a plane on our way back home. While we were flying from India to London, one of the laymen led a little girl from India to the Lord. There was a doctor sitting right behind him that was born in India and heard everything he shared with that little girl. He had also listened as we shared experiences that happened while we were in India. He no longer lived in India. He lived in Nashville, Tennessee. I had to go to the rest room and this doctor followed me to the back of the plane. He said, “I like to be around people like you all. I like to listen to people share things like you people have been sharing.”

I said, “Sir, we have been in India for two weeks sharing Jesus and what He means in our lives.” He said, “Yes, I know. I’ve been listening.” I said, “Sir, do you know Jesus as your person Savior?” He said, “No, I’m a Hindu.” I said, “Well, Jesus died for your sins just like He did for mine. He wants to save you and come into your life. What you have seen in these men’s lives and what you have heard that these men have done is not what they have done. It is what Jesus has done in their lives.” I said, “could I take my little New Testament and show you what God’s Word says about how you can be saved and know Jesus as your person Savior?”

We sat down on one of the seats on the back of that plane and turned the light on. I took my little Testament and showed him what God’s Word said about how he could be saved. He bowed his head and gave his heart to Jesus. I’m so glad he saw Jesus in our lives and in what we said and that through the leadership of the Holy Spirit, he was saved. He is now truly my brother in Christ.

A few months ago, a man and woman came into my used car lot. When they got out of the car, I knew he was blind. I went up to where they were. The lady said, “We are interested in buying a car.” She introduced me to her husband, John. I said, “John, let me talk to you about something more important than buying a car.” He turned to face me. He was totally blind. He kept one hand on his wife’s shoulder and she led him around. I said, “John, what is your relationship with Jesus Christ.”

John began to share with me what had happened to him a few months earlier. He said, “I was working on a construction job. It was my first day on the job. I was running a jackhammer on the side of the highway. An explosion took place. They think maybe there was some dynamite that had been dumped in some rocks there. When I hit it with that jackhammer, it exploded.” He said, “I went about thirty feet in the air and when I came down, rocks just covered me.” He said, “I still had the strength to stand up and when I did, all the rocks fell off me.” He said, “I saw the sun for just a second. Then the light went out and I fell to the ground again. The next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital. I heard the doctor say there was no possible way I could live.” He said, “They put me all back together and here I am today."

I said, “John, from what you have shared with me, your physical life was spared that day. But John let me ask you this question. If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?” John said, “I don’t know.” I had a message Adrian Rogers had preached on the birthmarks of a believer. I said, “John I’d like for you to take this tape home and play it. Then I would like to talk to you again.” John came back in about ten days. I said, “John, did you play the tape?” He said, “I guess I played it a dozen times.” I said, “John, are those things in your life?” He said, “No, they are not.”

I said, “John, go in my office with me and let me take the Bible and share with you how to be saved.” He said he would and I led him into the office. I took the Bible and shared with him how to be saved. John bowed his head and invited Jesus into his heart. With tears running under those dark glasses, John said, “Would you go tell my wife the same things you told me.” I took John back to the car and shared Jesus with his wife. She bowed her head over the steering wheel and invited Jesus into her heart.

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Chapter Sixteen

Linda Bryant

WE TRULY HAVE SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE

We were in a Lay-Led Revival at Antioch Baptist Church, Johnson City, Tennessee in 1984. Linda Bryant sang in the choir at Antioch Baptist Church. She not only sang in the choir, she also visited with us as we witnessed to the lost. I had never heard anyone sing like Linda. She is so burdened for the lost; she weeps when she sings. I thank God for Linda’s singing ability, but even more for the burden she has for the lost.

I asked Linda if I could go to her home and talk to her husband about her becoming a lay team member. We had a wonderful visit and he said he had no objections to Linda working with us. What a blessing Linda has been to this team and my, how we’ve grown to love her! By the way, Linda is black.

Linda shared the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival at First Baptist Church, Dayton, Tennessee in 1985:

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I truly don’t know where to begin. I guess we would have to camp out if you want me to tell you everything God has done for me. I am so thankful today. It is not because of who I am or what I am. It’s whose I am! I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life when I was thirteen years old. I know Jesus came into my heart but I never had anyone to teach me the true way of the cross and I lost some precious years by not doing the will of God, by not serving the Lord as I should.

My husband and I relocated from Dallas, Texas to Johnson City, Tennessee. I prayed and told the Lord I would do His will if He would lead and guide me.

I went to so many churches it was pathetic. I went from drum-beaters to trumpet players. You know I’m not knocking this. I’m just letting you know I tried everything. This friend of ours where we buy gas invited us to his church. I promised him I would be there.

It was just like someone said, “Well, this is it. From the time I set my foot on the first step until I took my seat in the pew, I knew this was where the Lord wanted me. This was Antioch Baptist Church.” There were several people from the church that came to visit me. Each Sunday I was not in church, someone would visit me.

The Holy Spirit convicted me so bad that if I didn’t have a ride I would walk to prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Someone would bring me home from church. I thank God for that. It’s not through my power or my glory, it’s through the glory of God and I thank Him tonight for that.

I was so glad the Lord placed me in a church where we have a minister, his name is Kenneth Kyker, that is a God-fearing man and he preaches the Word of the Lord. I mean he really stepped on my toes every Sunday. I thank God for that.

Every weekend I would call my Mom and Dad. I was so excited. “Oh, let me tell you about Antioch!” Every weekend they would hear about our church. I would say, “Oh, Daddy, when are you coming? When are you coming?” I didn’t tell him it was a predominantly white church. I am so glad tonight that God is not a respecter of persons.

My Daddy is a pastor. My Dad finally came to visit us in Johnson City and visited our church. The Lord just really used the church and I believe it really had an effect on my father. Because when we get to heaven it is not going to be this side or that side. I thank God for that.

I was thankful for the experience that my Daddy had at our church. He could hardly wait until he got home to tell his church members about the love that he felt and the love those people showed him. The love that he knew they had for me in their hearts.

I would like to say to the lay team that they will never know how much they mean to me. About a year ago they came to my church. As we visited with them every day it was truly a blessing. It was a blessing to know you could walk so close to God, closer than I ever dreamed. I told the Lord I wanted to be closer. The team members will never know how much they mean to me with their lives and their testimonies.

I would like to share an experience that Shannee and I had when we were at Westwood Baptist Church in Cleveland. We had the opportunity of going to the jail and sharing Jesus with six or seven girls. Before we went in, we prayed and claimed God’s promises. We knew God was going to do something good. I sang and we shared Jesus with those girls and one young lady was saved. God was really moving and the Holy Spirit was convicting.

We went with the wrestler, Jim Dykes, and Charles Baird, the banker. They were downstairs witnessing to the men while we were upstairs with the ladies. We came back downstairs where the guards and jail officers were and waited for Jim and Charles. While we were waiting, we began to sing. Jim and Charles were on the inside singing “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” and we were on the outside singing the same song. The Holy Spirit was really moving.

Then, there is this experience I would like to share with you. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we think they ought to. Vickie is a friend of mine. She was about one of the first persons I met when we moved to Johnson City. Vickie was lost. I had prayed and prayed for Vickie. There were times when I was just plain discouraged. Sometimes I just wanted to shake her up, you know, ‘cause I just didn’t know what else to say or do. Sometimes we come to these standstills in our witnessing, and I would encourage you just to continue to pray. Sometimes we are not the one God is going to use. I remember once when we were together and Vickie’s little three-year-old daughter was in the car. She just went to praying in the car and she thanked God for her Mama and Daddy. That touched Vickie more than anything I had shared with her. Her little daughter had been coming to church with me. About two Sundays later, Vickie came to church.

I have a habit of going and getting people. When I take them to church, they will put them in one class and I’ll go get them and bring them back to my class. The pastor had taken Vickie to his class. When I got to my class, I said, “Where is Vickie?” They said, “We don’t know.” Out of that class I come and went and found Vickie and brought her back to my class. I just felt that was where the Lord wanted her.

Shannee is my Sunday School teacher. She had given us several scriptures to read. She had given Vickie Revelation 3:20 where He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.” Vickie just broke down and I told Shannee there’s no way I can sing after being in there crying with her. So I went on and did my number. During the invitation, I was praying for Vickie.

All of a sudden, I heard a voice saying, “I know Jesus has come into my heart and I know if I die today, I would go to heaven.” Without even looking, I knew it was Vickie. She had been gloriously saved. Like I said, I was so excited, I had kicked my shoes off. I ran up there with no shoes. Well, I didn’t care. I was just rejoicing, having a good time in the Lord.

Like I say, you know there are times that we want to give up. Sometimes we are just not the one. We just have to keep praying. Sometimes there is one that is sowing, one to water it, and one to reap it. But it is all to the glory of God. So, I would like to thank each and every one of you for this week I have had with you. I pray to God that each and every one of you will be able to walk in His will.

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I would like to share with you a letter Amy and I received from Linda. She sang at our Evangelism Conference here in Cleveland this year, February 10-11, 1986.

Dear Fred & Amy:

First, glory to God who saved us by His marvelous grace. I hardly know where to begin. God is so good and I thank Him for the friendship that I enjoy with you both. Thank you for your prayers, time and fellowship while I was in your grand city.

There will always be a special place in my heart for you. I pray that god will continue to richly bless you. We got a glimpse of God’s glory as your face shown with His glory. I know and believe that God is your source and what a testimony! Continue to be good stewards, living every day in the power of the Holy Spirit in God’s will and doing accordingly.

Dr. Paul would say, continue to fight the good fight, be steadfast, always look to Jesus and know that you are always in my prayers. I love you both unconditionally.

Do take care and pray for me. Remember we truly have something to celebrate. We’re alive, active and God’s our audience. However, the half hasn’t been told.

If God doesn’t grant us the chance to meet again, I promise I’ll see you both in that great Heavenly Homecoming.

Love,

Your Sister in Christ

Linda

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Chapter Seventeen

Dorothy Booth

MOTHER WILL NEVER FORGET YOU

Dorothy and Burnis Booth were two of the most beautiful Christians I have ever known. Burnis would weep like a little child when I would give him a goodbye hug after a revival was over. He was such a tender hearted and loving man. He has gone home to be with the Lord. Dorothy is still walking with Jesus every day.

Dorothy gave the following testimony in a Lay-Led Revival in 1979:

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We could hardly wait for this week to come. This is the third Lay-Led Revival we have been involved in as team members. I was reared a Presbyterian. By the grace of God, my college education was made possible through the gift of a man who asked in return that I do the same for someone else when I was able to do so. So, God gave me my education. I was saved at the age of twelve. I am probably the oldest member of this team that is in your church. Yet, it was in the early seventies before I even tried to witness to anyone.

You know Jesus has promised us that He will always be with us. I want you just to see Christ as the one I’m lifting up, because the Holy Spirit is having to speak through me. I did not know Fred’s method for selecting people to give testimonies. I thought that you knew several nights in advance. Until after he prayed in the prayer room before the service I did not know I would be one of the speakers tonight, so this is strictly from my heart.

For so many years, I kept saying to the Lord what will we do when we retire. We retired three years ago. Well, I can tell you it is like it was with Job. It’s better in the end than it was in the beginning! We really wanted to be used of the Lord in our retirement so we wrote to the Home Mission board and served a short-term assignment with them. We also wrote to the head of several departments of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Dr. Malcolm McDowell, head of the Evangelism Department, wrote Fred and suggested that the Lord might use us as a part of this Lay-Led Revival Team.

Our first Lay-Led Revival was First Baptist Church, Blytheville, Arkansas. Let me share with you a letter we received from the pastor the following week after we were there: “Sunday night, fifteen were baptized. Four others have made professions of faith and are awaiting baptism. Many others are expected to share their decisions in the weeks ahead. There were over five hundred in Sunday School Easter Sunday, and the morning worship attendance was the best in years. There were fifty or more in the balcony, which has not been used in years. Just want you to know the revival is still going on.”

Let me share a portion of another letter from a lady in that church that I visited with. She said, “My husband went to the deacons meeting last night and he said it was the best meeting they had ever had. The men were all of one accord and he felt like now they would start a visitation program as well as other programs that we have needed for a long time. One of the men that was saved while you were here went out Monday and talked to his brother’s boss who was unsaved. He brought him back to the church to see Brother Carpenter. The boss was saved yesterday afternoon. So you see, good things are still happening.”

This last letter is the one I treasure most. We visited a little Korean in her store. She was as unhappy and indifferent as any person I have ever tried to witness to or visit. In addition to having the responsibility of the business, she had a husband who was terminal with cancer and a young son of college age who had to have spinal surgery. She had more than her share of burdens. No wonder her face was long. We went over and witnessed to the daddy and son and came back to the store. It was as though a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit had burst over her. Her face was aglow. She no longer looked bored. She didn’t know what had happened over there at the house. But, we had had a glorious time in the Lord. We told her the daddy had accepted Christ. She wanted to know what time the services were. We told her and she said, “I’ll be there.” She did not miss a service and on Saturday night, she gave her heart to the Lord.

So help me, when I sat there by her Saturday night, I thought, “Am I sitting by the daughter or mother?” She looked so young, so fresh and so happy and so revived that I knew the Lord had done His work in her heart.

She cannot write English, so her college daughter has written letters since then. I do not read any of this to glorify anybody, but just to share with you what the Lord did for my Gennie and His Gennie. Her daughter says, “She want you to know she loves you and will never forget you. Thank you so much for all your prayers for my brother and my dad. Mom was baptized on Easter morning. It was such a thrill to see her commit her life to God. Afterwards, she told us she felt so good inside. We are so happy and grateful for the joy you have brought Mom."

I share this with you just to say this is what God did when Burnis and Dorothy Booth made themselves available to be witnesses for Him. He can do the same for you and I can guarantee you there is no joy in the world like it!

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