HEAVEN IS REAL

March 2-6, 1983, we were in a Lay-Led Revival at Fortified Hills Baptist Church, Smyrna, Georgia.  Thursday morning an eighty-two-year-old man came hobbling in on a walking cane.  I said to myself, “Fred, you will have to put two team members with him, one to help him get about and the other to do the witnessing.”  When they came back from visitation, they said, “Fred, you don’t need two men with him!  He is the youngest man in the church!”

You see, he was walking with a cane but he had a burning desire to see people saved.  He worked with children, ages 7-12.  He had the fastest growing Sunday School department in his church.  My, how he loved children!  His name was Arthur King but everyone called him ‘King Arthur’.  Two months after we were in his church, he and his wife, Ossie, drove all the way to Steeleville, Illinois to help us in a Lay Revival at First Baptist Church.

King Arthur and Ossie have helped us in many Lay-Led Revivals since we were in his church.  This is one of the testimonies he shared: 

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I had three boys.  Two of them went to the Pacific during World War II.  One was in the Navy.  One was in the Marines.  Both of them had a rough time.  The second oldest was in the Marines.  He came home with a bullet hole in his shoulder.  He went to work with the East Coast Railroad as a conductor on a freight train.  He got a cinder in his eye one time.  They got it out and they thought that was all there was to it.  Before the end of the year, the eye was still giving him trouble, so they sent him to New York to a specialist.  It was cancer.  His eye had to be removed.  The doctor said if he didn’t have cancer in the other eye by the end of the year, he would have it made.  That was August.  The next August he and I went to the doctor and the doctor said, “Well, you have got it made, because there is no sign of cancer.”  First of October he was gone.  He had cancer of the liver.

Toward the end, he was in the hospital.  His wife was expecting.  She was so upset she could not go to the hospital, so his mother and I sat up with him day and night.  One afternoon about three o’clock he said, “Go call Mama and tell her to come up here.  I want to tell you something.”  She came, and we pulled two chairs up close to the bed.  He said, “I’m a lot better off than you are because I’m going to heaven tonight.  The Lord’s got a great building project going on in heaven. The Bible says, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may be also.”  He said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to be in the Lord’s carpenter crew.”  When he was in boot camp he was in the Marine band and he played a trumpet.  He said, “Maybe the Lord will let me play my trumpet in a heavenly band.”  He talked forever about heaven.

He then turned to me and said,” I’ve got a little boy and maybe I’ve got two.  I won’t ever get to see the second one, but I’m counting on you to see they grow up to be good men, Christians.”  That was an awful load to put on a granddaddy, but it has been accomplished. 

He talked to us until about 8:00 p.m.  Then he went to sleep.  Ten minutes later he went to Heaven.  It was so peaceful and he had such great assurance.  He just simply went home to be with the Lord.

I’m eighty-four years old.  I’m not going to be here much longer.  I’ve been studying the brochure on heaven lately.  Have you seen a brochure on heaven, the New Testament?  I’m finding out everything I can about heaven because it’s not going to be too long before I’m there.  It’s getting right exciting.  But before I go, I want to tell everybody I can about Jesus.

Tonight I’m going to tell you how beautiful it is to see somebody go the heaven.  You say, “King Arthur, you say it’s beautiful to see somebody die?”  No, I didn’t say that.  I said it is beautiful to see somebody go to heaven.

I was about eleven years old.  We had been living on a farm and Dad moved us to town.  He went into the Feed-Seed & Fertilizer Store business.  One day he came home and said, “Mother, there is an old slave that has been living with his sister and his sister died yesterday.  There isn’t anybody to take care of him.”

Back in those days, nobody had carports or garages.  Everybody had a barn and a horse lot, because everybody drove a horse and buggy.  “If I fix up that old harness room out there in the barn for Dairy Shepherd, would you feed him?”  She said, “Why sure,” because Mother was always helping somebody.

This old slave, Dairy Shepherd, moved into this room in the barn.  He had an old chair that he would set up against the side of the barn.  He would sit in that chair and I would sit on the ground in front of him.  He was the most interesting person to listen to I had ever met.

He told me all about his old master....how he had been raised to be a house servant....how good his master was to him.  Taught him to read and do arithmetic.  Taught him how to read the Bible.  Every time he talked with me he always finished his conversation with this statement: “one of these days there is a chariot coming after me with four white horses.”  I could almost see that chariot swing down out of the sky, coming after Dairy.

One morning, getting toward Fall, my mother said, “Now before you got to school, take Dairy’s breakfast out to him.”  So I took whatever she fixed out there.  Before I got to the barn I stopped.  I don’t know why – I can’t explain it.  But I stopped and I said, “The chariot came last night for Dairy.”  I turned around and went back to the house and said to Mother, “The chariot came last night for Dairy.”  She said, “Did you see him?”  I said, “I didn’t even open the door.”  Papa said, “If you didn’t go in, how did you know he was dead?”  “I didn’t say he was dead.  I said the chariot came after him.”

I never would look at the body.  I knew Dairy had gone home to be with the Lord.  As an eleven-year-old boy, I realized from Dairy Shepherd, an old slave, that when you are a Christian, heaven is real.

This experience was to real to me.  Since that time, I had the opportunity to see several people go to heaven.  I’ve had men ask me to come to the hospital and stay with them toward the end.  It’s beautiful when you know they are going to heaven.  I didn’t want to see Dairy.  I didn’t want to think about him laying out there in the harness room.  So I never saw him because, to me, Dairy had gone to heaven.

   Jim & Arlene Caywood 

DEBBIE

        A few years ago, we really needed a young couple who could relate to young people.  God brought Jim and Arlene Caywood into our hearts and lives and made them a part of this team.  These two love the Lord, His church, and young people. 

        I really don’t like to drive, so God gave us a driver and two wonderful traveling companions.  I can’t begin to tell you of the wonderful fellowship we have enjoyed, traveling together.  Jim and Arlene have committed themselves to sharing Jesus with others.  There is an urgency in their lives to be about sharing Jesus with young people.  I heard Jim share that Debbie’s death was caused by human error, yet God took these darkest hours in their lives and made something beautiful out of it.  Jim has shared the following testimony in many Lay-Led Revivals.

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        I would like to read Romans 9:2l.  “Hath not the potter power over the clay; of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor.  If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”

        When I was fifteen years old, I was very worldly-minded and seeking to have joy and pleasure day in and day out, seven days a week.  As I share with you tonight, I primarily would like to speak to the youth that are here, because my heart is to the young people.  You adults can listen, but I really hope and pray that I can reach the hearts and lives of the young people tonight.  As a self-seeking teenager, I found my life empty.

        I was born in the back country of Cleveland, Tennessee on a little farm out on a country road where the dust was so thick you had to wipe the furniture three or four times a day to keep it looking half decent.  My father quit school when he lacked two weeks of finishing the eighth grade.  He married my mother.  He was seventeen and she was sixteen.  He started molding in a foundry.  There was a lot of love in our home.  My dad’s work became very slow in Cleveland and Dad said, “I’m going to move the family to the big city of Cleveland, Ohio.”

        I had a little talk with myself when we moved.  I said to myself, “Self, you are really going to enjoy this big city.”  My whole life was wrapped up in the joy of worldliness, seven days a week.  If I was not at the bowling alley, I was at the skating rink in the summer and ice-skating in the winter.  I was in every bowling alley in Cleveland, Ohio.  I would buy tickets and go to the movie seven days a week.  Even though I was brought up in a home with a lot of discipline and love, my mother and father did not take me to church as a young boy.

        Growing up in all that worldliness, it did not take me too long to realize the kind of life I was living was not a good example for any other young person to follow.  The Lord began to convince me of that and I began to realize my life was going nowhere.  I realized I was leading a lot of other people in the same direction. 

        The thing I am sure every young person who is here tonight is aware of is that when you go to any worldly event, the moment that worldly event is over, it is so temporary that you are looking for something else the next day to give you a thrill.  When that events ends, then that thrill is over because it is not permanent.  It is a temporary joy and you have to find something else to take its place.  The more I tried to find happiness, the more I found that my life was so filled with a void.

        God began to deal with my heart in that condition.  My mother began to ask me what was wrong.  She would say, “What is bothering you?”  Well, I was ashamed to tell her that I was convicted about my way of living.  I would go to bed at night and I was afraid to go to sleep because I was afraid I would die in my sleep and I knew if I did, I would go to hell.  I was now fifteen-and-a-half years old, living it up and realizing that every night when I’d go to bed, that if I died, I would go to hell.

        I had this theory that when I would wake up the next morning, that if I could be awake and be conscious if God suddenly called and said your time has come to die, that I could suddenly get saved.  But during the night, being unconscious and asleep, I was afraid the Lord would cause that old heart to stop and I would suddenly be taken out of this world, and I knew I would go to hell.  I became more and more convicted of that and became aware of it to the point that I would lie there and feel as if I were suffocating because of the fear of death.

        We were back in Cleveland, Tennessee.  Mother finally realized my condition and took me to a little country church.  When the invitation was given, I was too bashful and timid to go to the altar.  I bowed my head and prayed this prayer.  I said, “Lord, I realize that I’m lost and if I died tonight, I know I would go to hell.  I’m not worthy to be your child, but, Lord, I love you tonight and I ask you to forgive me of my sins.  I ask you to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior.”

        Jesus Christ came into my heart in a glorious way that night.  I have never, never had any doubts that Jesus saved me.  The moment that he saved me, he gave me joy and peace in my heart that I have never been able to explain.

        I want to tell you young people here tonight, if you have never had that time in your life when you recognized that Jesus loves you and that God sent His Son to die for you, that tonight He wants to save you.  If you do not know Him as your personal Savior, I hope you will pray that prayer before you leave here tonight.  Just simply ask Jesus to come into your heart, forgive your sins and be the Lord of your life.

        In this scripture we just read, the apostle Paul is telling us something that is very important.  You have seen pictures or TV of a potter, a skilled craftsman who takes a piece of clay, a lump of clay, and places it on a round table.  And as it turns very swiftly, he takes his fingers and his hand and through his skill, he can mold that piece of clay into a beautiful vase or a beautiful vessel.  Now, in the scripture the Lord tells us that He is the potter and that He wants to shape each one of our lives into a vessel of honor.

        This is the prayer that I have prayed – that the Lord would take my life and mold me into a vessel that can bring Him honor.  When Paul was right at the point of death and he was turning his ministry over to Timothy, He said, “Timothy, in every great house there are vessels that will not honor the Lord.  There will be vessels that are very cheap.  They are made out of wood or clay that you can buy for a dollar or two.  But then there are those beautiful vessels that are made out of silver and gold.”  He said, “Timothy, we need to pray and seek to see that every person will hear about the Lord Jesus Christ and will allow the Lord to mold them into vessels that can be used to bring the Lord great honor.”  Now, He is saying that not everybody will do that, but that is His desire for our lives.

        My testimony tonight is how God bent and twisted and carved and molded me, trying to make me into a vessel that would bring Him honor.  As I share with you tonight, I want to ask you, are you allowing God to mold you into what He wants you to be?  Are you bringing honor to Him?  Are you willing to go out into the highways and hedges and witness for Him?  Do you have devotions and pray with your family?  Do you read your Bible?  Do you really pray?  Do you ever share your testimony one on one?  You see in this scripture, God says if you are an instrument of His, that you will allow Him to mold you to where you will do these things that will bring Him honor.

        Many people who claim to be Christians are very stubborn.  They say,  “I’ll worship the Lord if it is convenient.”  You had 496 here Sunday.  Where are they tonight?  They are just like in my church.  They are sitting at home watching TV or going out having a big time.  Why are they not here on Wednesday night?  Could it be because they are not willing to allow God to mold them into a vessel of honor?

        We had moved back to Cleveland, Tennessee.  About four years after Christ saved me, I met and married this pretty little red head.  I was twenty years of age at that time.  God blessed us with three beautiful children, two sons and a daughter.  We became active in our church.  Now I was praying, young people, “Now Lord, I want to be used of you.  I don’t want you to just be my Savior, I also want you to be Lord of my life.”  My pastor said, “Jim, are you willing to teach a Sunday School class?”  He asked my wife Arlene the same thing.  Very soon after our marriage, we were teaching Sunday School classes, without any great knowledge, but a willingness in our heart to surrender to God’s will.  We were involved in every phase of our church.  I was later ordained as a deacon.  God was blessing our lives.

        As each of our children was born, we dedicated them to the Lord.  I urge you parents if you have not done that, then dedicate your children to God.  He will bless you for it.  As they came into our lives, we gave them back to the Lord.

        A few years after our children were born, my wife was told she needed minor surgery.  She was taken to the local hospital.  When they operated, they gave her a pint of blood.  We later found out that the blood had an allergy that set up a reaction with her blood.   As the blood began to mix, fluid began to gather in her lungs.  She actually began to drown in the fluid in her lungs.  Soon the doctors were running in and out of her room.  We had never had any sickness as a family.  The doctor shared with me that Arlene was having problems breathing and they were going to have to give her oxygen.  They put her in a private room and began to stay with her around the clock. 

        As she grew progressively worse, the doctor came out and said, “Jim, we can’t seem to stop this reaction and she is growing critically ill.  You need to fly her parents here to Cleveland, Tennessee, if they are to see her alive.”

        What I am really saying to you is that God was using this to mold us again, to bring us to a place where we would say, “Lord, thy will be done in our lives.”  The doctor finally said, “Jim, we have done all that we know to do.  She is in the hands of the Lord.”

        When he told me this, I said, “Doctor, I have got to go some place to pray.  I know she is in the best hands she can be in here at the hospital and I’m going to our home to pray.”  Many of the people in our church were praying.  When I got to our home, I prayed as I had never prayed in my life.  I begged and I pleaded with God to heal Arlene’s body.  As I lay there and prayed, I felt no relief.  I began to plead and bargain with God.  I said, “Lord, if you will heal her, we will try to serve you more than we ever have.”  I was trying to live for the Lord and I wondered why this was happening to us.

        I learned a very important lesson.  It is not when you are on a mountain top hollering the loudest that you are growing.  It’s when God takes you down into the valley and you have to really pray.  As you trust Him and look to Him to guide you, that’s when real growth takes place.

        We lay there and we prayed and prayed.  Here is what I was doing.  I was saying, “Lord, you have to go heal my wife.  We have three children and I can’t work and take care of these children.  You have to heal her.”  I was trying to tell God how to do His business.  I prayed again and again.  I would read the scripture and I could not find any answers.

        Finally, just as real as if God had spoken to me audibly, He said, “Jim, you are going to have to quit telling me how to do my business and become willing to let me mold you like you promised you would in the beginning.”  You see, I had already promised the Lord that He could mold me and make me into what He wanted me to be.  Now, here I was, trying to tell Him how to do it.

        Well, now you have got to picture this.  It is easy for us to sit here in the pews and say, “Lord, I want your will to be done,” but it is hard to pray that prayer and mean it in your heart when your wife is lying in the hospital at the point of death.  I began to pray again because I realized the seriousness of what God was asking me to do.

        I lay back down on my face on the floor and I prayed until I doubt that I had a dry thread of clothes on me.  I said, “God, you know how much I love my wife.  Lord, if it is your will, I want you to spare her, but God, thy will be done in my life and whatever comes, give me the grace to bear it. When I get back to the hospital, I don’t know what the situation is going to be, but I give my life totally to you anew and ask you to take my wife, my children, and we totally surrender our lives to you.” 

        I felt the peace of God like I had never experienced since I had been saved.  I drove back to that hospital with peace in my heart, knowing that I was in the center of God’s will.  When I walked into the hospital room, the doctor was standing at the foot of that bed with tears streaming down his face.  He said, “Jim, I don’t know what in the world happened, but God evidently touched your wife.”  She was sitting up in that bed praising God and breathing normally.

        Tears were streaming down the doctor’s face as he shared that God had really performed a miracle.  What it really was, was our getting ourselves in the Lord’s will.  That’s what this scripture is trying to say to us.  God is asking each of us if we are willing for Him to mold us.  Are we willing to surrender our total life to Him and say, “Lord, thy will be done in my life.” We were so excited about how God blessed this situation.

        Shortly after this, our older son went on a mission trip to Buffalo, New York.  When he came back, he said, “Dad, I feel like the Lord is calling me into the ministry.”  Grant surrendered his life into full time service in the Lord’s work.  We were so excited about that decision.  My wife and I knelt in our den again and dedicated our other two children to the Lord.  Debbie was now a senior in high school.  She was going into social work.  Our youngest son, Mike, was also studying to be a music major.  The Lord was just so blessing and we were so excited about what He was doing.  

        As we knelt in our den on November 6, little did we realize what would happen ten hours later.  We had a little grocery store there in Cleveland, Tennessee.  We would open that store at 5:45 a.m.  We would start pumping gas and making money.  My daughter, Debbie, was preparing to go on her senior trip.  We had just bought her a little V.W. car and we had that thing shined and polished.  She was getting ready to go to Gatlinburg.  She and Mike got in the car and she pulled up in front of the store and she and Mike waved to me on their way to school.  I waved back.  As they pulled out from the store, I went on with operating the store and listening to that cash register.  Five minutes later from the time they pulled out from the store, it was starting to rain.   We got a phone call and someone said, “Jim, come quickly.  There has been an accident.”  I threw the phone down and ran and got Arlene and we took off up the highway. 

        I want to stop right here, church, and tell you something.  You might get very busy in this world making money.  You might get so busy you take your eyes off Jesus.  I want to tell you something.  The Lord can get your attention in just one minute.  I was very busy working in that store and enjoying watching the money come in.  But I tell you, when I got that phone call, nobody had to tell me to lock the cash register drawer or to turn the gas pump off.  We just left it.  There were people all over the place, but when I got that call, I just ran.

        Around one curve from that store, there was a little V.W. lying on its top.  Debbie was lying in the highway.  Her brother, Mike, was standing over her.  He was cut from one end to the other.  The witnesses said they were not going fast, but in that rain, the little V.W. started spinning around and around and when the front wheel ran off the edge of the pavement and hit the gravel, it flipped over and over and over.  Mike went flying over the top of the V.W. and down the highway, end over end, cutting him all over.  But he was not hurt seriously.  Debbie didn’t have a bruise or a bad cut on her body.  Michael said, “Dad, I’m all right….it’s Debbie.”  We knelt there and held a little blanket over her as the rain began to come down.  The medics were there in just seconds.  They began to try to minister to our precious daughter that we loved so dearly. 

        Debbie was a beautiful blond-headed girl.  You have heard parents talk about having a communication gap with their children.  We did not have that problem.  We loved her so much because she had been such a precious child.  She had never given us any trouble.  She was a Christian who really lived a Christian life.  We heard her crying in her room one night when she was a small child.  We went in and I said, “Debbie, what is the matter?”  She said, “Daddy, if I died I would not be ready to meet the Lord.”  She said, “I’m lost.”  I said, “Honey, do you understand what it means to be saved?”  She said, “Yes, I do.”  We prayed there with her and read the scripture and Debbie asked Jesus to come into her heart and life.  I wanted to share that with you people to say this: many mothers and fathers do not have enough knowledge of the Word of God to read the scripture and lead their children to the Lord.  We praise the Lord we had enough understanding to tell Debbie how to be saved.

        As she lay there on the highway, the medics came and tried to minister to her.  Very shortly, they gave the signal over the radio system, no vital signs.  Debbie had gone home to be with the Lord.  We took Debbie on to the hospital, still hoping, but knowing all the time she had gone to be with Jesus.

        I had taught for twenty-seven years that heaven was real and we should look forward to the time that the Lord calls us home.  God put my faith to the test.  Did I really believe heaven was real?  Folks, there is no question about it, I know heaven is real.  I know the Lord loaned us Debbie for almost eighteen years.  I know she is with Jesus now.  I look forward to that day when I will see my Lord and Savior and will see my daughter again.

        Some five thousand people came by to view Debbie’s body and give us encouragement.  Some of these people stood in line two hours.  People knew Debbie’s life and how she loved the Lord.  I told our pastor that I wanted him to give an invitation for lost people to be saved.  I wanted him to give an altar call as he shared about Debbie’s life.  There were people at the altar from wall to wall, who were coming to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.  The Lord was showing us that he was using this event to bring glory to His name and for the salvation of precious souls.

        We had a young man who was trading with us in our grocery store by the name of David.  David was twenty-four years old.  He had become a very close friend of my wife.  He said, “Arlene, why would God take Debbie, a precious Christian who loved the Lord when here I am, a no-good lost man who does not know Jesus?”  Arlene said, “David, I’m glad it was Debbie instead of you.  She was ready to meet the Lord and David, as you well know, you have not been willing to accept Him.  As you say, you are lost.  You have not made that preparation and accepted Him.  God has given you another chance.”

        Those words began to convict David’s heart.  In a few days, he came back into the store and as Arlene shared with him, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  David was selling drugs.  After he was saved, David came by and said, “Arlene, I’m not selling drugs anymore….I’m selling Jesus.”

        Let me tell you why we are with you this week, why we are going out into the community with you and witnessing to the lost.  Through the event of losing Debbie, through the will of God using Arlene’s near-death illness in molding us, I’m here to say that the most important thing in our life, the very reason we are in lay evangelism, is because we love Jesus more than we love our own life.  Ask yourself tonight if you have allowed the Lord to mold you into a vessel that will bring Him honor.  Are you a witness for Him?

        Debbie was going to college to prepare to be a social worker.  She loved people.  She was known as the magic friend-maker.  Young people would come to her with their problems.  She was a counselor in a crusade we had in Cleveland and has won many people to the Lord.

        Debbie was involved in the bus ministry of our church.  She would go out on Saturday and share Jesus with young children she had met on the bus route.  She met this little family.  She came in and told us about this mother whose husband had left her with six children.  When Debbie went into that home, these children were so bashful they would run and hide.  They had never been out into the world.  Debbie would come back to church as se continued to visit this family and tell about the needs of these children.  The church bought shoes and clothes for these children.  Debbie continued to work with this family and finally got them all in church.  The little girl began to take part in the G.A.’s and the church choir.  The children began to grow in knowledge of the Lord, and one by one they came to accept Christ as their Savior.

        When Debbie died, these children didn’t have any money to buy flowers.  They borrowed money to buy flowers to put on her grave.  They really loved her because she had shown such love for them.  Shortly after that, the boys began to ask for something to do.  They were limited in so many ways.  The pastor began to think of something they could do to be a part of our church. They came up with the idea of the two older boys going around every morning and turning all the lights on in the church so it would be bright when people came in.  They would turn those lights on with such joy.  Then at night when the people would leave, they would turn them all off.  You would think they had the biggest job in the church.  The church paid them five dollars a week for taking care of those lights.  They truly did it with the joy of the Lord.  Every time I watched those boys, I saw Debbie living on in them.

        We were in a Lay-Led Revival in Greenville, South Carolina.  On Saturday morning I had the opportunity to go out with two junior girls.  The first home we visited was that of a retired Navy officer.  I realized this was a well-educated man.  He shared with me that he had three teenage daughters.  We went into his home and he called all three of his daughters to come into the room and join us.  He and his daughters all sat together on the couch.  He was very gracious to listen to us.  As we began to share the gospel with them, I asked those two junior girls to kneel down in front of them and share their testimony of what Jesus meant to them.  When those two juniors completed sharing how Jesus had come into their hearts, we then prayed.  All three teenagers plus that Navy officer gave their hearts to Jesus.  God used the testimony of two junior girls to save four people.  So, we have the message and we can all share it, if we are willing to go.

        When we had our grocery store, Arlene and I met a young man named Mike.  He came by and said, “I understand you do marriage counseling.  My wife and I are in serious trouble and we are about to divorce.”  We took him to our home. We often would leave the store with someone, it didn’t matter who.  If someone came along that had a need, we would go up to the house.  We asked Mike this question.  “Mike, who rules your home?  There are only two powers or two spirits, The Spirit of God and the spirit of satan.  Which one is in your home?”  He said, “Well, I’m not a Christian so I know it is not the Spirit of the Lord.  So, I guess you would say the spirit of  satan leads my home.”  I said, “Mike, your marriage can’t work with satan leading it.  You must have the Holy Spirit of God to lead a marriage, for it to be a successful marriage.”  He said, “I guess there’s something to that.”  We had the blessed privilege that day of leading Mike to the Lord.  He was gloriously saved.  He brought his wife out later and she was saved.

        Mike was in the service and was on his way back to South Carolina.  He was driving between Cleveland, Tennessee and Knoxville, Tennessee on Interstate 75.  He had a strange accident.  He called me from Knoxville.  He said, “Jim, this is Mike that you counseled with just a few days ago.  You would not believe what has happened to me.  I was on my way back to camp and I stopped to pick up a hitchhiker just above Sweetwater.  He had a large bag with him.  It was just getting dark as I pulled back onto the Interstate.  He pulled a rifle out of that bag and ordered me to stop.  He ordered me to get in front of the headlights of the car.  I was standing there shaking, scared to death.  He told me to pull out my billfold and give him all the cash I had.  I was shaking so, I dropped my billfold.  When I reached down to pick up my billfold, he shot me.  When he shot me, it went through my right knee cap and blew the whole bone in two.”  He continued, “The flesh was torn open and I was bleeding to death.  The young man with the rifle just ran down the highway.  He was possibly on drugs.”

        Mike said, “There I lay, bleeding to death.  The first thing that came to my mind was you and me in your home praying and my trusting Jesus as my Savior.  You told me that if I would depend on God, He would lead me.  I began to think about that, lying on that highway.  I began to pray.”  I said, “God, if I pass out, I’ll bleed to death.  If I lose consciousness, I know I’m a goner.  I prayed that God would help me get in that car.”  He said, “Jim, I got up and walked to that car, tied a towel around my leg and drove to Knoxville.

        When I got to the hospital, I just pulled my car out front and crawled out and got up the steps. Some of the nurses saw me.  They carried me in and said, ‘Man, there is no way you could have walked on that leg.’  I just wanted to call you and tell you I’m just praising God because I know God answers prayer.  God not only allowed me not to pass out, but to walk on that leg and to drive all the way to Knoxville.”  He said, “Jim, I’m in a mess but I’m saved and praising God.”

        So, my thought for you tonight is that we have the message.  If little junior girls can lead people to Jesus, you and I can.  The power of prayer will accomplish all things.                                              TOP