Headline; God captures another sinner

I was the sinner and if one ever needed capturing and brought to God's mercy seat it was me. How blessed are those raised in a Christian home that knew and followed after Jesus the Christ from the time of their youth. Alas, I was not nor was my dear wife. Always a loner, I never joined anything and rarely anyone. Soft hearted, I put a hard veneer over myself to try and protect myself from the world. It didn't work though and I was just wounded by my bitter spirit even more. My home was dysfunctional to say the least. I idolized my father until as a teen I came in one day and found him with the neighbor's wife. I was about 12 or so and didn't really understand. He may have asked my mother's  forgiveness but never mine. He's forgiven now and died a Christian, but I despised him for years and we had no real relationship. His sin cost me a father and I made my shell thicker and harder. Sin makes big foul waves that wash over many lives. Truly one sinner destroys much good. But even before I was saved I realized that I was no better than him and it was no relief for there was no where to escape to. 

SALVATION,  THE GREAT MYSTERY

God saved me but I don't know how except I had one uncle that prayed for me constantly. He told me this after I had become a Christian. All of a sudden my name came up on God's calendar and I began to change,  rather be changed.  It was the early fall of 1977. I don't know what day or even what month I was saved, but saved I certainly was. I no longer her recognized the man I had been.  He was a total stranger to me. 

A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST

All of a sudden I was a new man that didn't want to do the same things as before. I couldn't stand to be alone with me because there was nothing in me that I liked. The adversary filled my mind with garbage thoughts and God's conviction was very strong and went on for weeks even after I asked Him to save and forgive me. He was doing a very thorough job on me.  As I drove to work He would remind me of past deeds and I'd  have to pull over,  pray and weep for awhile before I could continue. This went on for days on end. Some of it was the condemnation of the adversary no doubt but it did cause me to be in continual prayer and in search of the face of God. 

Deuteronomy 7:22 KJVS
And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

Those beasts I was certainly aware of. I was going to need a lot of healing and deliverance. I can look back and see that I needed setting free from a spirit of fear and all kinds of other things and unclean spirits.  Even as a child I was in a home that understood nothing about God, I was tormented but no one there could help me.  

I was saved but still very troubled.  We were going to a little country  church and I'd ask brothers there if they'd ever experienced any of the things I was going through. They all said no and just went back to discussing other things. This just discouraged me and gave the enemy ammunition. Being a new Christian alone is difficult. All I can say is Jesus was there to lift me up and keep me. One morning, perhaps in October, I was watching a religious program on TV that had Shirley Boone on as a guest. She described an experience she had with God. Shirley and Pat were going through hard times caused by the Hollywood lifestyle. She thought herself to be very close to God but then found their troubles to be overwhelming. She went to the bedroom to pour her heart out to God in prayer and after awhile noticed that she had been speaking in some language she'd never learned for the past twenty minutes.

BAPTISM NO.  1,  THE HOLY GHOST AND FIRE! 

I'd  never heard of such a thing and so just went on to work. I came home early that day and was working in the attic of a room I was  building. I began to pray and weep before God for help, since no man,  not even the church pastor could help me or even knew what to say or do. He'd  even told me about how the enemy had been attacking him. As I prayed I thought of Shirley Boone and her experience. I was so ignorant of God's ways I thought  "well, I can see God doing something special for a movie star's wife". As I sat and wept a thought drifted through my spirit, "if God did that for that woman, maybe He'd do it for you too".  

I didn't know what that thing was  but in childlike faith I began to make up words, baby talk and anything at all and speak it. In a minute or two I didn't have to make it up! I had ignorantly asked God to baptize me with the Holy Ghost and fire and He had. 

Luke 11:13 KJVS
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

He also gave me the gift of tongues. "what is this"? I didn't know anything about it but started reading all the old and new testament scriptures that I could find on the subject. There are a lot of them. Outside of any church there in the wilderness God had visited a poor ignorant sinner,  saved and filled him with His blessed Holy Spirit -  and fire! From darkness to His marvellous light. 

Zephaniah 3:9 KJVS
For THEN A will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord , to serve him with one consent.

Jeremiah 31:2 KJVS
Thus saith the Lord , The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.

SEARCHING FOR HELP 

I've had ignorant people, allegedly Christians, infer that I was not saved and my experiences were demonic.  Thank God for faith, those words might have been devastating otherwise! Funny thing, for the 33 years I was a  confirmed sinner I never had any such things happen. I had cried out to God with all of my broken heart and my answers were from Him. Oh yes,  and the Lord told me that He wanted to start living His life in me at 33, the same age as Jesus when He was put to death on the cross. If I had been saturated in some denomination's "God doesn't" doctrine I'd have missed all of the wonderful works of God that my aging eyeballs have beheld. I needed real help from God,  not some doctrinal statement. What does the bible say? 

DANCING ON THE PIANO 

We started attending the Christian   Center, a church that was in Levy,  North Little Rock,  Arkansas.  It must have been a friend tgat tokd us about it. Mr. Gene Mullenax was pastor.  Gene was an ex Nazarene church member that was saved but had to have a lung removed due to a bleeding cyst.  He was useless for work and for nearly everything else. He'd walk ten feet and be out of breath. He did not believe in God's gifts but was about to! 

Out of sheer desperation Gene went to a Dr. A.A. Allen revival tent meeting in Little Rock to be prayed for. They were holding meetings there at night, He hated the whole idea and was unbelieving,  but when you're drowning  you'll try anything that looks like a life line. In that prayer line there was a woman in front of him holding a baby. That baby had a large growth on it's lip and Gene thought to himself "I don't care how crooked they are,  they can't con this baby into getting healed"! Here was a really honest seeker. 

When the mother and her baby came up for prayer Dr. Allen didn't even touch the child but asked the congregation, which was was mostly African American, to stretch out their hands towards the baby and pray. Gene was watching closely and in the very blink of an eye the growth was gone. Gene's turn for prayer now. After hearing the need, again Dr. Allen asked the people to pray.  Gene was a racist at that time and hated black people. But all he saw was many many black hands stretched toward him. It's hard to hate people that are praying for you!

A BUCKET OF OIL

 The first thing that happened it felt as if someone had poured a bucket of warm oil over his head. He even made a fist and turned around to hit the person that did it, but no one was there. No man that is. Next it seemed like an air hose had been placed in his chest and had blown him up like a balloon. His slumped shoulder raised up to the level of the other one. 

Shortly he went back to his doctors for an x-ray where they found that Gene somehow had gotten a brand new lung to fill the void in his chest.  God's sense of humor was apparent in that the new lung was slightly larger than his existing one. Later on the FBI was investigating fraudulent healing by Dr. Allen and so they requested Gene's x-rays. After taking them away nothing more was ever heard from them. You can't  argue,  after all, with a nice new lung! 

Gene's gone on to glory now, but my fondest memory of him is a mental picture of him dancing on the church piano and praising God one Sunday morning. If anyone had a right to be that joyful certainly it was Gene Mullenax,  ex-racist, new disciple. I can still share his wonderful testimony. 

There in that excellent church my wife and I received prayers, spiritual and emotional healing and some wonderful teaching. She was saved and then received the baptism of God's Holy Spirit. We brought my sister and she was saved and also filled with the Spirit. My brother's wife was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit at home. He was saved too. Her hippie brother,  Frankie, with hair down to his waist, was saved and later became president of a chapter of the FIBA (Full Gospel Business Men's Association). 

God has worked mightily in our family sa ING and delivering us and receives all the glory for He alone can save men's souls!

Isaiah 9:2 KJVS
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

God has done many miracles for us but none so great as delivering us from our sins and Placing our names in the Lamb's book of life.  Hallelujah!

AMEN!