THE GOLDEN AFTERNOON sunlight played through the leaves of the trees that surrounded the western side of Margherita Island, situated in the middle of the Danube River. On this beautiful island, we felt safe from the constant scrutiny we had felt in Budapest. The natural setting and the lovely trees shielded our eyes for a little while from the tragedy of communism and the severe and abject poverty which hangs like a pall over so many communist lands. Margherita Island was a wonderfully bright spot in which to be considering things eternal.

I was walking with Dr. Tobady, a Baptist minister and with Prof. Tweedie, a Christian psychologist from Boston. Dr. Tobady was obviously out of step with the official communist government of Hungary, and in this relatively safe place it was natural that my conversation with him should be directed toward his opinions and feelings about God and godly things.

At this time I was the guest of the Prof. of Anatomy at the University of Budapest, and was also enrolled at the University of Vienna as a medical student in post graduate surgery. As a result of contact made there, Prof. Kiss invited me to be his guest at the University of Budapest. He was one of the few individuals who was able to save his students during the Students’ Uprising and Rebellion in 1956, just four short years before. And the evidence of that rebellion, and of the war and destruction that occurred, surrounded us everywhere.

Approximately a year later, after I had returned to the United States and was busily engaged in setting up my practice, Prof. Kiss notified me that Dr. Tobady had been executed for his religious beliefs. This disturbed my Church of Christ complacency so much because here was a Baptist who had now become a latter-day martyr. Here was a Baptist whom I had learned to love because of Jesus Christ, a man who had lost his life because of his unwillingness to deny my Jesus. I recalled many times the last phrase he ever uttered to me, as I left him to board the train for Vienna. Grasping my hand, he said, "Brother, when you return to America, don’t forget that there are people like us here behind the iron curtain."

Up until this time I was, from my present standpoint, a nominal Christian, although I was born in the church, as it were. My maternal grandfather was an elder and evangelist in the Church of Christ. My father was an elder, and the Hollywood Church of Christ started in our home, when I was a young man. I was baptized at the age of 13 at the Siskiyou Church of Christ in Los Angeles and was devoted to the church in all its programs and activities throughout the years.

I was a deacon for the 9th and Lime congregation in Long Beach, and latei~7deacon for Broadway and Walnut in Santa Ana. The Palmdale Church of Christ started in my home. We had Wednesday night prayer meetings before and during completion of the building in which the congregation is now meeting. I was one of the original elders, and arranged the financing and signed the notes for the building.

My three brothers and their families are all members of the Church of Christ and my younger brother, Jack, is an elder. I attended Pepperdine College, and while there, planted all the shrubs around the Church of Christ building on Vermont Avenue, every one of the trees, and the grass.

God had selected for me a wonderful wife, the daughter of a Church of Christ preacher and elder, and this wife He provided for me has been a tremendous helpmeet in my study of the Holy Scriptures through the years.

With this background and with a host of friends and relatives with the same background, everything should have been fine. But the shock of losing a friend who was executed for his faith in God, forced me to acknowledge, to myself at least, that I really did not know if I could lose my life with courage in a similar situation. Matthew 10:39 began to take on another dimension, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Here was a man who was willing to die rather than deny Christ, and he was not a member of the Church of Christ, but a Baptist! This disturbed me no little bit.

One day in 1963 as I walked in late to our Adult Sunday School Class, the teacher was reading, "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."

He paused there and asked the question, "Just what is the ‘that’ which is perfect ?"

I answered that it must be Jesus Christ, although I had never done a serious study on the subject and really didn’t know. To my surprise, the teacher took great exception to this and stated flatly that the "that" which is "perfect" is the Bible - the perfect Law of Liberty, the perfect Word - and the "that" which "is in part" were the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I entered into some vigorous defense of the answer that it had to be Jesus when He would come for the second time. The discussion precipitated such heat and anxiety on the part of some of the members and particularly the teacher of the class, that I thought maybe I had better not step into such a buzz saw again, and decided to study the matter more thoroughly in private.

I began reading the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, and came to the tentative conclusion that possibly those gifts were not, indeed, done away with.

After studying all my life on secular things, and medicine and surgery, I came face to face with the realization that it was necessary for me to begin an earnest study of God’s Word. Although I had been a Bible teacher in the past and could quote it at length, I really did not know it.

Along about this time, my wife began to discuss with me the possibility that there was something we did not understand about the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, although we had always looked down our noses at "holiness" people. If she was wondering about the Holy Spirit, I knew we had better study this out. And so the more we studied the more I realized I was a little bit out of step with some of the teachings in our Bible class. This was particularly disturbing, as I found myself branded as a premillennialist in my own home congregation. I was not a premillennialist at that time, but it seemed to be a satisfactory brand on me, and was a convenient way of bypassing any ideas outside our rigid unwritten creed.

The Necessity of Maintaining An Open Mind

In the field of medicine, things are always complicated by some fellow who becomes intensely interested in some particular aspect, bringing out new facts and making new discoveries. Anyone engaged in scientific achievement is confronted with the necessity of maintaining an open mind, because frequently we have to discard things that are proven to be inaccurate and accept things which are proven to be more accurate. It is necessary to maintain a state of mind in which one is willing to be slightly flexible on new concepts and new ideas, and to engage in individual and separate study if necessary.

Perhaps I would not have studied so hard had everything been rosy, but being branded a premillennialist because of a difference of opinion over First Corinthians just got under my hide. So, in the spring of 1963, we began a regular Saturday night Bible study and prayer meeting for those who were interested in studying the Bible with an open mind. It started with two or three families who were also members of the Church of Christ. We would study diligently all week and compare notes, having no specified leadership, no specified program of study, but studying any aspect of the Bible and freely discussing it. We called those discussions "sandpapering," and did not hesitate to knock the rough edges off each others thinking. Gradually other friends and neighbors joined us and we would all study the Bible in a completely open and frank way, trying to delve into the absolute truths that were contained therein.

My wife, June, became so impressed with the fact that the Holy Spirit was available to those who would ask of God, that she requested me to take her to a Saturday night meeting 100 miles to the north in the desert community of Ridgecrest. This is where her cousin, Robert Sewell, a nuclear physicist was employed, and where he worshipped.

At the meeting, her cousin led the singing, and then a lady by the name of Jean Stone was introduced and said that if there were any there who would like to receive the Holy Spirit, to please go into the kitchen where she would talk to them. Since very few responded, Mrs. Stone asked them to sit in the front seats.

My wife asked me if I cared if she went to the front, and in offhand, flippant manner, I said, "Oh, go enjoy yourself." So she went to the front and sat down. Bob Harvey prayed and asked the Lord Jesus to baptize those people at the front in His Holy Spirit, and then Mrs. Stone promptly went up to my wife, put her hands on her head, and commanded her to receive the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. Lo and behold, June began to speak in a strange and utterly amazing tongue which I had never heard before.

This really disturbed what I proudly called "my scientific mind." On the way home, during that 100-mile ride back to Palmdale I virtually berated and abused my beloved wife by the most awful invective I have ever used on anyone. I was satisfied in my own mind that this was purely hallucinatory and could not be Scriptural, and I was emphatic in so saying. And the most infuriating thing about the whole episode was that our entire trip back home was punctuated only by her kindness, her gentleness, her sweet defense less smile, and her words, "But honey, I know it’s true! I know it’s true! I’ve received Him into my heart."

The next morning during the church service, one of the leaders got up and announced that there would be no further discussion and no mention was to be made of the gifts of the Holy Spirit henceforth in that congregation, and that further discussion on this theme would be in defiance of the elders and would be considered heretical. Just before this my wife had passed a note across me to another one of the members of our little Saturday night prayer group, which read: "It’s true! It’s true!"

In my opinion things had gone too far. While all my instincts were to say a loud "Amen" to the elder’s statement, I knew that I was still too ignorant of the subject to pass judgment. But the thing had to be settled.

Taking time off from my office practice, I got my Bible and sat down in our living room with the expressed determination to prove to my wife that her experience was false and could not be considered a present-day possibility. Studying from Genesis to Revelation took me three weeks and I was amazed at what I read.

Every word concerning the Holy Spirit confirmed the fact that He was available to those who would seek, and that I was being left out completely from this wonderful and grand experience by my pig-headedness and obstinacy, and I, who prided myself on being open-minded and willing to accept the Bible as it is written and to make diligent study, was now finding myself in the position of defending what I began to realize was wrong. This was an untenable position. So I began to pray fervently and vigorously to have my mind opened up to the realities and to the truth of this matter.

God answered this prayer, and as a result, we attended a prayer meeting at the home of John and Joan Baker in Claremont. These two blessed people had been filled with the Holy Spirit and at this moment had over 150 people in their home seeking a further and deeper walk with God. After the meeting we lingered to ask a few questions, and found out that this dear brother and sister had been baptized into Christ through the ministry of Jose Taylor, a Church of Christ preacher we had met at a Pepperdine Lectureship. This really touched me, and the entire evening intensified my interest.

Our prayer meetings and Bible studies continued, and the more I was convinced of the truth, the more my desire for the Holy Spirit increased; and I was just as convinced, secretly, that I was so unworthy that this wonderful thing could not possibly happen to me.

On the last Friday night in August we attended a prayer meeting at the home of J. W. and Frances Netherton in Palmdale. Just before we began, there was a knock on the door and it was John and Joan Baker from Claremont. John announced immediately upon coming into the room that God had directed them to came to Palmdale to this prayer meeting, that they had come specifically to lay hands on Dr. Nichols, and that he would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I looked at them with amazement; nevertheless, in order to humor them, I said, "Well, fine; you pray for me and we’ll see what happens."

The minute they laid their hands on me I began to have a warm feeling, an oily glow and rich love to them and to God, the like of which I had never had before in my entire life. This warm feeling began to get warmer in my abdomen and throat until I just wanted to praise God in all the fulness of the word "praise."

Since that time I have had prayers answered, miraculously answered, and would like to share one that was particularly pleasing. to my heart.

The American Red Cross telephoned me that my son Lester was on Okinawa in urgent need of funds. I was away from home at the time and only indirectly received word that the Red Cross was trying to get in touch with me. I contacted them and they were unable to give me any details except to say that my son was on Okinawa and that he had attempted to contact me. I went to the telephone and prayed, with my hand on the telephone, that I would be able to talk to Lester immediately, and then dialed the operator and asked, "Is there any way that I can talk to Okinawa?" She said, "Yes, I’ll connect you with the overseas operator in San Francisco."

Now my son is a seaman in the Navy and one would think, by man’s wisdom, to call a Navy base for him, but I was led by the Holy Spirit to tell the operator to connect me with the Red Cross office at the largest Air Force base on Okinawa. It was 3 o’clock in the morning there and about 11 a.m. our time. Within one minute, my boy was talking to me on the telephone and all arrangements were made for him to fly home immediately. We were in each others’ arms the next night.

I couldn’t help but ask how I had been able to get him on the phone so easily. He said he had had no place to stay and was tired of sitting up in the waiting room, so he had walked about a block away and gone to sleep on the lawn under a tree. About five minutes before he talked to me on the phone a man had wakened him and told him he could not sleep on the lawn, so he got up and walked back to the office to sit up the rest of the night. Just as he got inside the waiting room, he heard his name paged. Oh, how God answers prayer!

I know now that with the Holy Spirit in my heart, which gives me great courage to be a witness for Jesus Christ, I, too, would be willing to die for my belief in Him. I know now that Jesus is alive and that He gave his life for me. And I recall the bright spring sun flickering through the trees, and remember that small, squat, chunky Hungarian and his willingness to sacrifice his life as a present-day martyr before he would renounce his faith in the Lord Jesus.