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crsschk
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Joined: 2003/6/11
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Santa Clara, CA

 The Power of God in a Redeemed Life ~ Pearl P. Poe

THE POWER OF GOD IN A REDEEMED LIFE

And My Cancer Experience
By Pearl P. Poe

DEDICATION

Lovingly dedicated to my precious mother, who has prayed for me so faithfully, and to my dear children whom I want to meet in heaven.

INTRODUCTION

Many of my friends have requested me to put into print some of God's dealings with me. I am doing so only that such incidents might be to the glory of God and to encourage some souls to go through with Jesus.

CHAPTER ONE

When I was but a lad of eight years, my father had a long siege of sickness -- typhoid fever -- and passed away in October. The morning before he passed away in the evening, he called us to his bedside. First, my mother; then, one by one each of us children: my older brother, the second brother, my oldest sister, then myself. When I came to the bedside of my dying father, I thought my heart would break. He put his hand on my head and said, "Dear Lord Jesus, Put Your hand on my boy." Then he asked me to be kind and to help mother, and to never use liquor nor gamble, but to be a good boy and to meet him in heaven. I told him I would try. He talked to my two younger brothers, then placed his hands on my baby sister who was soon to meet him.

I spent much of that day sitting on a stairstep at the foot of the bed. My father was a kind, loving father. Often through the day he would say, "Farewell." That evening, a number of our relatives gathered in; among them were his father and mother and his brother and wife, Aunt Elizabeth. My father and my aunt were good singers. Father asked my aunt to sing, and she began, "Meet Me at the Cross Roads, Angels, Meet Me There." My father said, "They are already here." There came a beautiful expression on his countenance. My aunt could not sing for weeping, and father began to sing, "O Happy Day When Jesus Washed My Sins Away." When he finished, he said, "Jesus is the Lily of the Valley and fairer than ten thousand to my soul. Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many shall strive but few shall enter," and he left us to be with the redeemed.

There were sad days ahead. We children were young. My brother next older than I was sick most of the winter with pneumonia and the grip. My older sister had typhoid fever when my father did. It left her bedfast with inflammatory rheumatism. My oldest brother quit school to work at home. Part of the time I helped him work in the timber to make props for the coal mines.

We were very poor and had a mortgage on our little farm, besides a large doctor bill and funeral expenses to be paid.

I went to school only part of the time. We had three three-month terms with a two-week vacation between fall and winter, and winter and spring terms.

One bitter cold morning I went to school. At noon it was 20 degrees below zero and getting colder. A blizzard came up in the afternoon. With the snow that was on the ground blowing and more snow falling, it was soon a blinding storm. In those days, big boys attended the winter term. They were all farmers. The parents had come from over the ocean as well as some of these boys. I was the only child in the school that was not of their nationality.

Those big boys thought it would be a big trick to hide my cap and mittens and neck scarf that day. Soon their fathers began coming to the schoolhouse with sleds and sleighs to get the children and the teacher. School was dismissed. I had no father to come for me. Big brother was away working.

The other children all ran out and were on their way home. I could not find my cap and mittens and scarf. The teacher told me I should have put them up. I told her kindly that had, but that someone had hidden them. She took hold of me, shook me, and led me to the door and closed and locked it. I had one and one-half miles to go facing a northwest blizzard -- no cap, no mittens, and no scarf. The snow was piling in drifts. My little coat had no high collar, and the sleeves were too short. My mother had made it for me the winter before. I soon felt my face and neck and ears were freezing. I rubbed them with my freezing hands to try to get them warm. Wading through deep drifts made it slow going. I thought I would freeze to death.

As I thought of the awful thing those boys had done, I felt hatred and anger stirring in my heart. I felt revengeful and my anger increased. I struck my freezing fist in the palm of the other hand a few times, which caused circulation of the blood. I would hold my hands over my ears and face. Finally, I became very weary, but I knew that if I stopped, I would freeze. So I fought the angry wind and blinding snow and drifts until I reached home with face, ears, and hands all frosted.

I did not go back to school until the spring term. The big boys were then at home helping on the farm. I had hatred in my heart and a deep desire to get even. Oh, what a sin, and I just a little boy. I began to do things to get even and would fight the boys of my age and older. My younger brother was now in school and we would team up. How true to the Word! Man perisheth not alone in his sin -- always affecting someone else. I was punished in school for the things I did, but it only seemed to agitate the evil hatred.

One night it came a hard rain, but by morning the sky was clear and the day was beautiful. As my brother and I were going to school, we passed a home where there were twelve children in the family. The girls had gone on. Tommy was my age. He came out to go with us to school. He wore a white waist with a wide collar, knee trousers, and a little cap. He looked so neat.

When we came near a wagon that crossed the creek which was swollen from the rain, I said, "Tommy, you can't walk that banister like I can," and I looked at my brother. He knew I was up to something. I climbed up on the banister and started across. When in the middle, I pretended to have lost my balance, and jumped to the floor of the bridge. Then came Tommy, walking the banister. Just as he came even with me, I pushed him into the creek, which was swollen from the rain. I said, "Tommy," I hurriedly found a limb from a tree that had lodged against the bridge and reached it to him. We had a hard time pulling him out. How ashamed I am as I think of it now. Tommy was covered with mud, and had lost his cap in the creek. He went back home, crying.

That day at school, I got even with another boy and for punishment I had to stay an hour after school. On my way home, I had to pass Tommy's house. A long shed and large barn stood near the road.

Just as I was coming alongside the barn, Tommy's mother stepped out in front of me with one hand behind her. I thought she had a club and was going to punish me, and I knew I needed it.

She asked me what Tommy had done to me to cause me to do as I had done. I told her, "Nothing," and was backing up in my steps, watching the chance to pass her. But since the road was narrow, she could easily keep it blocked. Just as I was going to make a run to pass her, she drew her hand from behind her. She did not have a club, but a big piece of apple pie. She offered it to me, but I began to cry. I told her I could not eat it; that I did not want it. She had touched my heart; it was broken. I was no longer afraid of her.

She hugged me and placed a kiss on my forehead. I asked her to forgive me. She then said, "I know why you did it. Those mean boys hid your cap and mittens and scarf, and you were trying to get even." She was right, and dealt with me with wisdom from God. I loved her. She had returned good for evil. I left her to go home, a different boy.

On my way home, by the roadside, there were four weeping willows with branches reaching the ground. I crawled under one of them and wept for a long time. I often say that we wept together, and I seldom see a weeping willow that it does not remind me of that evening in my boyhood. After weeping for some time there, I went on home, still sobbing.

It was my job to milk the cows. It was late -- getting dusk. I did not know that good woman was following me, but as I went to the back of our house, she went to the front. I picked up the milk pails and went to the cow lot. While I was milking, she told my mother all I had done and what she did, and how broken up I was, and asked mother not to say anything to me. When I came in with the pails of milk, she had gone home.

Mother placed some supper on the kitchen table for me, and asked me to eat, but I told her that I didn't want any supper. I went on to bed with my mind made up that I would never hold a grudge. From then on, I loved those people.

After I became a young man, I gave my heart to God. He called me to preach and I answered His call. After I had been preaching for twelve years, mother and I were talking one day. I mentioned the night I came home and did not eat, and told her why. She told me that she could hear me sobbing in the night, but that that good woman had followed me home and told her all about it. I am now a servant of Jesus and an evangelist, but I, no doubt, would be in hell if that woman had not dealt wisely with me.


([i]Read ahead[/i] [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=762] Pearl P. Poe[/url])


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Mike Balog

 2007/11/26 15:51Profile
crsschk
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Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 The Power of God in a Redeemed Life ~ Pearl P. Poe

THE POWER OF GOD IN A REDEEMED LIFE ~ Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

In the spring after father's passing away in the fall, we had a very sad experience. Before father had taken sick, he was having a well drilled. They had drilled down fifty-five feet and struck rock. Father took sick and was in bed when the man that was drilling the well returned with a churn drill, but the churning and noise seemed to bother my father. So the man moved his rig to another place after having put twelve-inch tile in the hole they had drilled. He promised to come back later to finish it. The well was safely covered.

In the spring, in May, he returned to see if the well had any water, but the hole was dry. He left it uncovered.

My baby sister, now two years old, would often go to the barn to play in the hallway and in the cob bin. A neighbor woman came to see my mother about some sewing that day. My sister had been asleep. Upon waking, Mother played with her a few moments, then went about her work. Soon she heard my sister crying. Mother, thinking she was in the barn, hurried there only to find the cries were behind her and coming from the well. Sister had fallen into it. There were no phones in our neighborhood in those days. My older sister got out of bed, dressed, and crawled one-half mile to tell my oldest brother. My brother Albert, who was sick in bed, arose and staggered down the road to tell neighbors. As he came in sight of the schoolhouse, I saw him staggering and reeling. I ran to meet him and he told me what had happened. I ran from house to house to get help.

One man made a hook and took a small rope and let it down. My little sister took hold of the rope and they pulled her up to within a few feet of the top, then her little hands gave way and she slid back to the bottom. This was repeated several times.

As others gathered, someone told her to hook the hook in the band of her waistline, but she could not as her hands were up. Another said, "This hook is dangerous. We should dig her out." So men went to work and dug furiously and fast. A windlass was needed. There was one four miles away and it was soon brought. But about 8:00 that evening my sister's breathing became heavy, and then silent. She had asked us ever so many times to help her while she was breathing her last.

We heard horses' hoofs beating the ground as they came running up the road. A man had heard about it and brought a special spotlight, the first one we had ever seen. He had borrowed it from a policeman. They flashed the light down the now much shallower well, only about twenty or twenty-five feet, let the hook and rope down, hooked it in her dress, and brought her little lifeless body out of that dark hole. The doctor was there and pronounced her dead.

I know now that it was God who spoke to me about two hours before this. I was running for help when something said, "Your sister will die." I told my mother. We laid our little sister away beside our father in the country graveyard. The shock and strain almost took my precious mother. She was in peril of life for two years.

We children worked hard to make a living. We older boys would work in the timber, then my brother older than I would haul the timber that we had prepared to the mines and get part cash, the rest being traded in for groceries. This kept me out of school much of the time.

Finally, we sold the little farm that was home and, listening to poor counsel, rented a large farm. We boys were not used to farming on a large scale. We worked hard, very hard, but with floods and too much rain, crops were small. In two years we were $1800 in debt. We moved from there and my oldest brother and I tended 120 acres with horses. The place was sold, and we had to move again. There was a drought and we went in debt again.

The year that I was 14, I hired out to a farmer for $20 a month. While there I received my first call of God.

One night I had a dream. I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I saw my father and little sister at a distance. I cannot describe heaven nor its atmosphere; it is beyond words. While there I saw the fruits of every kind for the saints, but there was no place for me. I saw Jesus. He was standing, and as I approached Him, I knew him. He looked so tenderly at me, and said, "Pearl, what are you doing up here?" I answered, "Lord, I have died and come here to spend eternity." He looked so sad and said, "You didn't prepare to come here. There is no place for you." I said, "Lord, I will work for you. I will do anything to get to stay here." Jesus said, "The time to work for Me was on earth while in that life. There is nothing anyone can do after death to stay here. Depart from Me into hell fire."

I started falling. I thought, as I fell, If ever I light on earth, I will serve the Lord. But to my horror and fright, I saw myself falling, head first, into hell. I could hear the shrieks and screams of the lost. I was near to the fire when I awoke. I got out of bed and promised God that I would join the church the first chance I had. The next morning when I got up, the woman, where I was working, asked what was the matter; I was so pale. I told her my vision or dream.

That fall they had a protracted meeting in the Christian church. After a few nights, they asked for those who wanted to accept Jesus to come forward. I went forward with some others. The preacher asked me if I believed Jesus was the Son of God. I answered, Yes. Will you accept Him as your Savior? I said, I will. I went home that night and told my mother that I had accepted Christ as my Savior. She did not encourage or discourage me. I was baptized in a little while after and then smoked the first cigarette I had ever smoked.

I had gotten in the habit of using profanity. The next day after being baptized I went hunting with a boy. I said to him, "If you hear me cursing, tell me about it, for I am a Christian and don't want to do those things." After he had rebuked me several times, he became angry and said, "You don't have a bit more religion than I have, and if you profess, you are a hypocrite." I felt awfully bad, but he had told me the truth and made me think.

About a week later, I was coming from the Methodist church. All summer I had been walking five miles to Sunday school and then staying for church. This night on my way home, God moved me to a deep sorrow for sin. I realized that I was lost. My churchanity was not working. I kneeled down by a stump, turned my face toward heaven, put both arms up, and asked God to have mercy on me and forgive me. I promised Him that I would live for Him. Oh, the joy and the peace that flooded my soul! I knew I had been forgiven. I was not bothered about using profanity nor cigarettes. I ran the rest of the way home, and as I came in, I went to mother's room and said, "Mother, I am saved and know it." She said, "Praise the Lord."

About a week after I was saved, I was thinking of what I would be when I became a man. My ambitions were to be a carpenter, or a railroad engineer. But as plain as I ever heard anything, God said, "I want you to preach the gospel." Oh, I thought, I cannot. I have no education and I must help support my mother and the rest of the family. Right there I grieved the blessed Holy Spirit and for ten years I went without God.

Many, many times I have wished that I had answered the call at that time. But He, the blessed Holy Spirit, was grieved and I was without His guidance through my teens. I was making life's decisions without the leadings of God. Oh, how sorry I have been because I said I couldn't. Right when I needed the Holy Ghost so badly to lead me through life's untried path, decisions were made that will never be forgotten and, oh, the heartaches they have brought. Besides, I seemed to be a leader among the young folk and I might have been able to have led many of them to Christ.

I married before I was twenty. I was restless and had taken up the tobacco habit and was using profanity again. I quit going to church. I would not stay long in a place, but would always tell the men my dream. However, I never told anyone I had received a call to preach.

During this time I had a brother-in-law, my sister's husband, and we loved each other. He took sick and, after some weeks of sickness, I asked the doctor his condition. He told me that my brother-in-law could not get well. He told me the nature of the sickness -- T. B. of the lungs and bowels -- and said that he could not live long. I went to see him. At once I sat by his bed, and said, "Buddy, how are you?" He said, "I am better. I believe I will be up in a little while." I then told him what the doctor had told me. I did not want to see him die unsaved. I preached my first sermon though I was a backslider and I knew I was in sin. I told him how to repent and what to do; I quoted Scriptures to him and left him in the hands of the Lord.

A couple of days later, I returned to see him, and asked how he was making out in getting saved. I met a broad smile and here are his words, "Buddy, I did what you told me and Jesus has come. I am saved; oh, I am so happy. I was sprinkled yesterday after I was saved. It was the nearest to baptism that I could meet in my condition." Right here I want to praise my wonderful Lord for my first convert. Then my brother-in-law said to me, "You are the first person in my life that ever talked to me about getting right with God. Now Buddy, I want you to give your heart to God and do what you told me to do." I promised I would, but neglected. He passed away praising the Lord and shouting.




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Mike Balog

 2007/11/27 10:09Profile
crsschk
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Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 The Power of God in a Redeemed Life ~ Pearl P. Poe

CHAPTER THREE

In the spring just before I was twenty-four, I was working on the railroad. I bought a young cow from a neighbor. She was to be fresh in a few days. I was to give him so much for the cow, and if she brought a male calf, he was to pay me $5 and get the calf before it was a week old. She had a nice heifer calf, and I gave it to my wife. We let it have plenty of milk and fed it good. It grew fast. One day in early October, my wife went to see her folk. When I passed by my neighbor's, I saw a dressed baby beef hanging in his yard. When I got home, there was $5 and a small piece of paper, saying, "I came up and got my calf." It was then worth about $40. I became very angry and purposed to go to the road, fight the man, and kill him.

I was soon on the road and I could hear a wagon coming. I knew it was my neighbor. Then, for the first time in ten years, I heard the voice of God: "Pearl, what you do on earth you will have to give account of at the judgment, and what you do not do, you will not have to give account of." I turned and climbed through the fence. I would not look back. I could hear him passing, but God had spoken. I went home, picked up the milk pail, and when I came to the lot, my cow was there looking for her calf. I told her my wicked neighbor had murdered her calf. And I patted her on the neck and said, "I am sorry." She looked at me as if she wished she could speak.

I sat down to milk, and when I was about half through, I was thinking of God speaking to me again and I said, "Praise the Lord." It frightened the cow and she ran from me. I called to her and she stopped, raised her head high, and I told her to come back, for I was just praising the Lord for speaking to me. She trusted me and returned to the lot and I finished milking.

I had become discouraged, thinking that I might never be saved, but now God had spoken to me and it inspired hope. The next day I resigned my job. I told the man I worked with that I was going to move to Oskaloosa, Iowa, straighten up, and be a Christian. I moved to Oskaloosa, got work on the M. & St. L. railroad, building cars. It was not until about the first of the year that I became deeply convicted of my sinful life through another dream.

I saw a black object light near where several of us railroad men were. I said, "That is Satan." Just then I saw an angel passing through the air going southeast, and slowly I said, "The angel of the Lord. I am following Him." I seemed to go without human effort. I was soon in the center of Africa. It was noon; I saw the sun nearly overhead. I saw a rainbow with a strange color in it. I said, "This is the sign of the end of the world," and I knelt and prayed "O Lord, clean me out and fix me up for heaven." There was a great blast of fire and I was in it, but felt no harm. I awoke, went back to sleep, dreamed the same dream again, and prayed the same prayer, but this time I came back to my work on the railroad. As I returned, I asked God to deliver me, and told Him I would serve Him. I awoke again, but not to go back to sleep. I was pondering the dream in my mind and could not sleep. When I left for work that morning I took a chew of tobacco. It tasted awful. I spit it out and have never taken another chew, nor craved it, since, and that has been over 34 years. God was answering the prayer I had prayed in my dream, by cleaning me out and getting me ready for heaven.

Conviction for sin deepened. I had not been in a meeting for over five years, and I had become so discouraged during the last year that I had been tempted greatly to end my life by self-destruction, but God prevented.

I became desperate in my seeking and praying. I spoke to the man with whom I was working and told him I was quitting sin and was going to give my heart to God. He said, "You are too wicked." That only deepened the conviction. He said, "Anyone who curses like you do, won't get saved." In my desperation that night I went into a spare room, got down on my knees, and prayed, "Oh, God, I am through with the life of sin. If You never forgive me and I die and go to hell, I will go serving You." I meant it. That night at the supper table, I looked my wife in the eyes and said, "Wife, if I straighten up and live a Christian life, will you?" She smiled, tears filled her eyes, and she said, "I have been waiting a long time to hear you say that." I said, I am going to."

After supper I picked up a little old Bible that I asked for when my grandmother -- my mother's mother -- had passed away As I read it, my wife said, "Aren't you going to lodge tonight?" I answered, "Wife, I have been lying to you. I have been going to the show, not to the lodge, then stopping at the pool hall, but I am not going any more." Who was preaching to me? The Lord. He had convicted me of sin and I was through with the whole mess of it.

That night (a Saturday) a leaflet, announcing a revival meeting at the Lighthouse Mission, was placed on our porch. I said, "Wife, let's go." We did and she went forward. The old devil, the deceiver, said to me, "You have done all you can do now. Just profess it," and I did not go to the altar. The Lord showed me that if I professed, I would be a liar. I went home, but not to rest. I rolled and tossed most of the night. In the night I told the Lord that if He would just let me live until I could get to the meeting Sunday afternoon (they did not have morning service), I would go forward.

I sat on the front seat and cried through the preaching. When the altar call was given, I felt I was bound; I could not go. My feet would not move. I was crying aloud now. Finally, I fell -- it seemed I was going; to hell. But between where I stood and the altar, in my falling I cried in desperation, "Oh, save me, Jesus." When I hit the altar, I was saved, reclaimed, and I knew it, for the love of God came into my soul. I had lost love for all people a while before this. Oh, I respected them, but love was gone. I went home, erected a family altar that to this day I have kept up. I told my wife, who was so glad I had gotten saved, that I supposed I would get my call to preach again. I will never forget her looks and words: "Again? I never knew you ever had a call to preach or I would never have married you." I said, "Yes, I backslid over it, but have never told anyone." And I am sure that the largest percent of backsliding today is because God has asked individuals to do something they are not willing to do and they grieve the Holy Spirit. That night as I prayed, God spoke, "Now, will you go preach for me?" I said, "I will, Lord." He said, "Would you be willing to go to Africa?" I said, "Yes, Lord, anywhere," and I meant it, and it holds good today. I will go anywhere He calls. He is my leader, my All in all.

That night I had a vision. I was standing in a beautiful yard with fruit trees to my right and tall fir trees to my left, and a beautiful house behind me. I was looking west in the evening. The lane was over-arched with limbs of elm trees. I saw a man walking slowly toward me. I recognized that it was Jesus. He said, "Follow me." We were in front of the house. We crossed the lane, went through a fence, and, after we had walked some distance, He turned and faced the place I had left. He said, "See that beautiful home?" I said, "I do." He said, "That represents the homes of America. See those fruit trees?" "Yes." "Those represent fruit-bearing Christians. See those tall fir trees?" "Yes." "Those represent preachers in America. Follow Me." We were soon in a barren land; not a living thing -- no trees, no weeds, nor grass. Jesus sat down Hindoo style, and began to pick up handfuls of black, sandy, loam soil. He said, "See how rich this soil is?" I said, "Yes." He said, "This is in the heart of Africa. I have m any millions of souls here that have never heard the gospel. You sow the seed and I will reap the harvest." I said, "I will." Then He said, "East of here England has her breweries -- the whirlpool of hell, and thousands are drowned in it each year. The Catholics and Mohammedans are pressing in on the North and West and thousands more are deceived by them and will be eternally lost."

The next morning as I was going to work, I found a picture of Africa describing exactly what the Lord had showed me in the vision. I overtook a group of the railroad men with whom I worked. I was a new creature -- happy in the Lord. They saw the change in my looks, my habits, and my talk. One asked, "What has happened to you?" I said, "The Lord Jesus has saved me and He is in my heart." One of them spoke up, "Ah, you can't get it that way -- get so good all at once you quit everything." I said, "Thank God, I did." Some said, "Oh, you will soon be back." Some gave me a day, then a week, a month, six months, a year, as time went on. But it only made me more determined to be true.

Without ever hearing a holiness sermon preached, I saw my need and became an earnest seeker. Three days after I was converted I asked some of the men to come to the service and one came. They chose a song, "The Holy Ghost Has Come," and it set my heart aflame. Several began shouting. I had never heard that before and, as they shouted, I thought of the man I had asked to the meeting, Satan took advantage of me and began to lie to me. He told me that man would tell the other men at the railroad and they would make fun of me. Satan put his disapproval on the shouting and stirred carnality in me until I was angry. I was sitting on the front seat and had made a couple of remarks that were not good. Just then the preacher, blest as he was and who could nearly have touched me with his finger, said, "Now Brother Poe, lead us in prayer." I had only been saved three days and now in a state of anger and disgust. I was in no shape to lead a congregation in prayer, but I was honest. We went to our knees. All was quiet. I started to pray, "Oh, dear Lord, if You will forgive me for being in this place, I won't be found like this again. And if You can help some poor soul here, do it for Jesus' sake, Amen." Under the anointing the man preached on the need of salvation. When the meeting was dismissed, I would not look around until I felt sure all had gone home. I felt I never wanted to see again that man that I had asked to come. Satan gave me an awful tussle. When we stepped off the Mission steps to go home, I said, "Wife, we have started, we won't quit. We will go to a certain church down town. They don't act that way down there," and they didn't; they were too dead. Now wouldn't it have pleased Satan if he could have gotten me in one of his refrigerator churches?

We had prayer after we got home and nothing more was said. We had prayer the next morning before I went to work, but I went with a heavy load on my heart and mind. It became so heavy about 9:00 a.m. that I climbed up in the car for a moment of prayer. The Lord said, "Did I not cause you to weep over your sins?" I said, "Yes." "Did I not make you rejoice when I forgave you?" "Yes, Lord." Then He said, "I have a second benefit that will destroy this other feeling." I began at once to seek for light and deliverance. I got out of the car and went back to work, determined to go through with Jesus.

Going to work that morning I had not walked fast; I arrived just in time to punch my card. I did not want to meet the man I had invited to service. He worked several blocks from where I did -- he at the north end of the rip track, I pretty well to the south end. After I had had my prayer, I looked up and saw him coming about two car lengths away. I went to the far end of the car that I was working on. He came around the car. When he got to one end, I would be at the other. That happened twice. He knew I was dodging him, so he crawled under the car and came up in front of me. He said, "How are you?" I said, "Not so hot." He said, "I know what the trouble is. Old Satan tried to make you think I would tell the men and we would make fun of you. I saw it bothered you last night when they were shouting." I said, "Yes, it is all true." He said, "I came down to encourage you. Don't give up. I am not a Christian, but when I get it, that is the kind I want. I enjoyed the shouting and my wife has that kind. She has prayer in our home and gets to shouting. About that time, Satan, the old devil, went sneaking away somewhere, as I told him he had done the tempting and accusing. I could hardly wait to get home to say, "Wife, come on, let's get the children ready and go to the Mission." She said, "I thought you weren't going any more. "Well, we are. God showed me I needed something more -- the second benefit." Then I saw these words, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." I wanted to see the Lord and became an inquirer for holiness. The only answer I received was, "Brother Poe, let the Lord lead you. He will show you."

I waited a few nights. They were preaching repentance. At the close of the altar call no one had responded. I said, "May I speak a word?" The preacher said, "If it is in the will of God." I said, "I don't know about that, but I know I am forgiven, and I know I am converted, but there is such a hunger in my heart for something more, I can hardly stand it. I am going to the altar and if there are any others who feel like that, will you come, too?" I was told that about fifteen others came, but I was there for myself. After earnestly praying for God to satisfy that hunger, someone said," Ask God to sanctify you." I did not know what the word meant, but I asked the Lord to sanctify me. Then, as I was getting along quite well in prayer and felt the nearness of the Lord, someone said, "Give up all you know and all you don't know," and that confused me. Then they said, "Now you are the gift and Jesus is the altar. Get up and claim the work." I arose and said, "My heart is still hungry. I am not satisfied."

I went home to pray it out, and about three in the morning I reached a place of utter abandonment of my life to God. I arose to my feet and said, "O God, I will stay here till I die or be sanctified. Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee; it is all that I can do." My will submerged into His will. My heart was purified and cleansed -- the hunger has gone and I was filled. The Spirit said, "Read the sixth chapter of Romans." I did not know where to find it, but when I had located it, I read, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him," and I knew that my old nature was dead and cleansed. Then, "As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." I knew I had yielded. If people will get under enough conviction to truly repent and get a bedrock experience of regeneration, with a clear witness, you won't have to coax and beg and pull to get them to seek the Holy Ghost in His sanctifying power. God sanctified me ten days after my born again experience.


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Mike Balog

 2007/11/28 15:46Profile





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