Testimony: Robert Orr

Fifty-eight years ago, Labor Day weekend, I was here in La Crosse for the Bible Conference. On the way to heaven, seven days, so we have many memories of La Crosse. My parents were saved before they met one another.

My mother came to an Iowa conference from Minnesota, was introduced to my father there in Waterloo, the conference. I grew up going to the Sunday school at Western Avenue in Waterloo and remember some childhood days being impressed everyone needs to be saved. Sadly to relate, I entertained this thought for years.

Someday, someplace, somewhere I'd like to have it settled, but that doesn't stir the soul to face it. After high school days in the spring of 1950, I remember prior to that when Israel was established as a nation and listening to Sunday night gospel services, we were reminded that it wasn't fulfillment of scripture, but it was certainly reminded of people that have never been dispersed, that is, they remain their status as a people. In the spring of 1950, there were gospel meetings at Aurora, Iowa, 30 miles from our home.

Oliver Smith and Mr. Louis Brandt was having the meetings. My parents wished that I would go, but I was so interested in the last events of school. A few weeks went by and in the early month, early week of August, a man who we were helping on a neighboring farm, he looked down at his work shoe.

He was wearing a shoe that the sole was loose. I don't know why he had the shoe on, but he made the comment, I'm going to lose my sole. Immediately, it fastened in my mind, not a sole in the shoe.

You have a sole, and I had thought in my thinking, someday I may lose my sole. Robert, if you're not saved, you're lost already. Thank God I wasn't dead.

It turned my thinking, and in a few, about two weeks, Mr. William Patterson came to Waterloo for gospel meetings. He was a Scotsman, been laboring for several years in Jamaica. How he came our way, I don't know.

He had ten meetings, gospel meetings, from the Sunday straight through to the following Tuesday night in the second week. The second or third evening of the meeting, where the homely was staying, invited my parents, and of course my brother and I were along, to stop for tea. It wasn't too long and he was talking to us.

I sensed that that was all prearranged by my father's cousin, so Mr. Patterson could talk to us. I listened and I was thinking, I'm just not ready for this yet. And I remember thinking, I'll show that man I can get saved without him being around.

The thoughts we had. A few nights went by and I realized I was going to listen. This is what I needed to get settled.

And on this Monday night, the 28th, the night before he spoke on the wounds of Christ, the physical wounds that men gave to our Lord in the crucifixion, even in the judgment hall. And he showed from the scripture, the Lord received all of the five wounds that are recognized by medical science. My thought was this, he didn't deserve that.

He must have did that for others. You know, I was thinking on the right track and didn't realize it. That evening of the 28th, the meeting was over and I decided, I changed my mind.

I'm going to visit with Mr. Patterson. I said to him, how does a person know when he has believed? That was a stumbling matter to me. He didn't answer me.

Miffed me a little. We'll sit down. And he turned to the scripture that he'd read the evening before.

Christ, Isaiah 53 and 5. He was wounded for our transgressions. He went through the verse explaining transgressions and iniquities and the bruising. And I thought to myself, yes, but where's the word believing? He flipped the Bible over to 1 Peter 3 and 18.

Christ hath once suffered for sins. The just for the unjust to bring us to God. Another verse from the New Testament.

But where's the believing? The suffering of the Savior. The wounds that it bore on dark Calvary to put sin away for sinners. And friend, tonight fellow traveler to eternity, quicker than I can explain.

The thought came to my mind, this is what God is telling me. A hell bound sinner. What Christ has suffered and accomplished on the tree.

The work that saves is done. And those wonderful words of John chapter 1 and verse 12. To as many as received Him, to them give ye the right to be the children of God.

I took them as my own. I walked out of that room. It's the northwest room of the Waterloo Gospel Hall.

And I was sitting in the southwest or the northeast corner of that room in a little chair. I walked out of that room and the thought occurred to me. I've just become a believer.

I've received the Lord Jesus. August the 28th, 1950. 58 years, a month and some days on the way to heaven.

Thank God.