For all of my life I have been closely and deeply associated with the Church of Christ.

Grandmother Gantt was a staunch and devoted believer and passed her convictions on to all ten of her children - my father being one. Dad was a great person and I respected him and his life lived with conviction. When he died he was an elder of the church and had always been a good example to me. In seedtime or harvest we shut down the tractors, dropped our work, and headed to church as often as the doors were open. My mother, who died when I was just two, was his companion in life and in the Lord. When I was six, Dad married a fine Christian woman who is and always has been a fine mother to me.

Under these influences, it was natural that God should loom quite large in my life. When I was fifteen I came under the conviction of my sin, confessed faith in Jesus, and was baptized.

Not long after that I began going with a wonderful girl I had known all my life. In 1949 we were married and Wanda has been my faithful wife for these twenty years and the mother of our four children.

Just about two months after we were married I came home from work and announced that I thought I would like to become a preacher. Within a few days we were on our way to FreedHardeman College in Henderson, Tennessee.

After two years we went on to Eastern New Mexico University for a B.A. through the Chair of Religion which the church sponsored. During all this time I was preaching every Sunday and con- I firming my prejudices that I was right and everyone else was wrong! I sincerely believed it and spent a lot of time showing the "denominations" their error.

After graduation there were stints as a minister with the churches in Ephrata, Washington, Adams and Dill City, Oklahoma, and in 1957 to Muskogee, Oklahoma where we lived for three years. During this time there was little or no spiritual growth on my part. I was laboring in the flesh by my own strength, but I didn’t really know there was any other way. I knew the doctrine, K but I didn’t know the Lord. I gave those works everything I had, but that was never enough. I was simply unaware that God could or would, through His Spirit, send holy help to inflame to action and success.

Russia had long held an attraction for me, and when I learned that there had been a restoration movement there, I wanted to go. We made application but were ignored (naturally) so we began making plans to go to Finland, Russia’s next-door neighbor.

For five years we labored among the Finns and worked to produce literature and smuggle Bibles into the U.S.S.R. It was in 1965 that we were expelled from Finland for precisely this work.

Something necessary happened in Finland - to me! I was utterly broken! There was nothing to hide the hideous fact from me that I was an ignominious failure. In the church "back home" there were always responses: People moved into the neighborhood and "placed membership" frequently; faithful members would come after a sermon to confess many minute matters; and young people were always reaching the "age of accountability" and being baptized. Year-end bulletins, in which these statistics were reported, served to disguise the fact that we were really not reaching the world for Christ!

But in Finland it was plain! I had to face the crushing reality that my training had not included how to introduce anyone to Jesus. It was much later when I realized I didn’t really know Him myself!

Such a revelation as that can be shattering and I can tell you it was to me. Oh yes, I knew how to show a person that baptism was immersion and not sprinkling. I knew how to "prove" that instrumental music was wrong in the worship! I knew how to prove that the Church of Christ was the one, pure, new testament church - but I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO INTRODUCE ANYONE TO JESUS! And because I didn’t, I was fruitless - and it ate into my soul like a cancer. In those days I lived in a perpetual pit with a question that would not go away: "What’s wrong ?" One day when I was writhing in my perplexity, I received the answer I sought. The Lord Himself showed me from John 15: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch in me that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. . . Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me you can do NOTHING." In a flash I saw what was wrong. It has taken much longer to come to that abiding place in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.

When we had to return to North America, our Lord arranged everything perfectly. Within a few weeks I was the new minister of a church in suburban Memphis (Tenn.) and an enrolled student at Harding Graduate School of Religion. It should have been everything I wanted - but it wasn’t. There was a nice, large, new church building on a four and a half acre wooded plot; a beautiful city; a congregation of friendly, personable people; a brick minister’s residence on the grounds; secure salary and all the fringe benefits - but I had a gnawing restlessness within. My own soul would not be quiet.

I remember falling to my knees one day in a really wretched condition. I told the Lord that I did not have anything to hold up before Him; that I didn’t trust my baptism to save me - that I didn’t trust my years of service to save - that I didn’t trust my own righteousness to save me -but that I now looked to His grace. That glorious truth has somehow been a part of me ever since. I began to see that it is by grace that we are saved. What a moment! I began to see everybody and everything in a new and refreshing light. I began to see that I was wrong and sinful but that God saved me anyway - by grace. I began to see that those who named the name of Jesus did not have to be doctrinally and morally perfect to be in God’s favor - and in grace.

When I discovered my own fallibility and God’s grace to cover it, I saw that it covers those who disagreed with me in religion, as well.

I was soon to make another life-changing discovery. Prayer had begun to be prominent, and on a Sunday evening I had prepared to share some thoughts with the congregation on Luke 11:1-13. This is where the disciples asked the Lord to teach them to pray. Believe it or not, that was the first time in 16 years I had ever preached an entire sermon on prayer - which reveals more than I wish it did. But that night was something I will never forget. When I began to speak, there was such a sense of the presence of God that even the babies were quiet. I was aware that it was something beyond myself that had somehow enveloped me and the message. Even as I write about it now I am thrilled as I was that night. When I was finished I had made a second tremendous experiential discovery: The Holy Spirit. The text ended, "If you 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?" The people left quickly and quietly after the service but I learned all through the week that a tremendous impact had been made by the Spirit of God.

I had seen first the grace - and now the glory of God; and I had to see more. So when my family went home that night I sought a place under a large tree on the grounds and began to pray to a God that was now large and coming alive to me.

Probably only the word "wrestled" would come close to describing my prayer. I told the Lord that He had come so close that night and that I would stay before Him until He blessed me. I do not know how long I was there; I only know that there was such a spiritual encounter with the Lord of Glory that I was much in the condition of those on Pentecost who were accused of being drunk - and I wobbled when I walked!

The next day was tremendous. I had an incessant hunger for the Word. This was followed by months when I could hardly wait to be alone and read the Scriptures. They were new and living. I was no longer serving a dead form but a living, loving God, and talking with Him and reading about Him constantly. What a difference in this and (as previously) doing my "duty." I was simply filled with new life, through the Spirit.

But if I found rest in my soul, I didn’t find rest in continuing as a settled "pastor" in a well-churched city.

The Lord had implanted a dream in my heart of preaching the Gospel to the whole world through Bible correspondence courses sent out by active missionary churches - a work which I was burning to activate and direct under the leading of God. When a fellow Memphis minister came to talk to me about working with him in an "Exodus" movement to move some brethren to Toronto, Canada to fortify our small, struggling churches there, I was immediately interested. I received financial support for the venture from the largest and most prominent church in our brotherhood. After two splendid months of fellowship with that great church we were caravaning toward that vast, sprawling, splendid, Queen City of Canada - Toronto.

We began working with one of the established congregations in the city. A certain spirit of freedom prevailed with a real hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness on the part of many. God saw fit to bring into our small but unique fellowship some whose lives had been mightily changed by the working of the Holy Spirit. They were suspect by many, including me at first. But first-hand opportunity to examine their lives closely dissolved the doubts. I knew that God had marvelously moved among men, because of what He had done in my life, but I had real fears of the unknown when I heard these brothers speak. I knew all the arguments. I even had had a public debate on the work of the Holy Spirit, affirming that such manifestations of the Holy Spirit as they claimed were only intended for the days of the New Testament. But I could not argue with the new illumination the Lord gave and the power of life these brothers demonstrated. In small Prayer ‘n Share groups; in retreats; in truth-seeking Bible classes; in private, prayer-filled, scripture-and-soul-searching sessions, my mind and heart were changed and I began to seek whatever God wanted to give me. I would trust God to do His will in me, knowing He would never let a sincere seeker go wrong. I finally was willing to take off the handcuffs and let God be Sovereign.

Wanda had received that marvelous enduement with power from on high and I had begun to count the cost. I knew that if I were to receive it I would be cut off from the finest of friends and that my work as a minister in the church I knew and loved dearly would end. I was already supporting myself in "secular" work. The church" which sent me to Canada had withdrawn support because of conflicts within the Toronto church, but stated its willingness to support me in some other place. I had felt compelled to stay, though, because of my "feel" for Toronto. A new congregation had been begun in a new part of the city with the unanimous agreement of all the officers. We were anxious that the work be under the leadership of the Holy Spirit - which it has, as a marvelous growth and transformed lives attest.

But I knew that it was an unknown future if I surrendered to this call of God on my life. I looked over into the land and saw a lot of terrifying giants. But I knew that to fail to cross would mean wilderness wandering from now on. Right at that point of indecision I heard a young preacher in a church in Detroit urgently plead, "Leap or retreat." I leaped into the terrifying unknown. I determined that I must surrender all my life up to God - even if it cost me everything.

It was of bittersweet agony akin to Gethsemane that accompanied those months before the Divine encounter came. At the right moment God met me and filled me. I described the happening in my diary - which I share with you here. It is dated September 5, 1969:

That event was like walking into the throne room of heaven. I now knew that God lived and was my Father - that Jesus was my living Lord. Nor has the reality diminished. When I first had confessed Jesus and been baptized, I entered the vestibule of the palace. When the Lord revealed His grace and met me so wonderfully that night in Memphis it was like entering a larger room filled with wonderfully delightful things; but that night when the Spirit flooded my whole being, I was ushered into the throne room - into His very Presence. "Heaven came down and glory filled my soul."

Every day and every thing has been different ever since; every moment a miracle. Months have passed but the delight, joy, peace, and power have not. He ever remaineth the same. I feel as if my life has been fulfilled - no emptiness remaining.

In a practical way the gift of this heavenly language is marvelously edifying. Praying in the Spirit mysteriously removes any burdens and puts me again in touch with life, light, peace, and joy. To have lived so long slogging along through life, trying, straining, and failing; only to receive such an empowering and enabling work of God’s grace is more than my happy heart can testify to - but it is true. Whatever was lost has been found. To discover the pearls of hidden truth you must yourself dive into the waters of God’s grace and mercy. Ask Him for His Holy Spirit; He will give Him to you (Luke 11:1-13).