Bob Irvin

Thank God for His mercy to a sinner who cannot help himself. I was a terrible fallen, debauched man. I never knew that Jesus died to save a sinner like me. I was in a pitiable condition, dying with cancer, a man of the underworld. But I thank God that Jesus loves a man of that kind. I chose that way from childhood. My home was too tame for me, so I left that home in Texas when I was twelve years old, and went out in the world trying to find something to satisfy my sinful heart.

I went back to that home after a few years, when my dear old mother lay at the point of death. I knew I was the cause of many gray hairs and tears, that had helped send her to her grave. I said, “Mother, are you going to leave me?” There was a smile on her face, and her last words were, “Son, prepare to meet your mother.” That sent a dagger to my heart. After my mother’s death I went to the high-steepled churches and they turned me down. When I told them how I came out of the underworld and the awful life I lived, how I laid around the gambling tables all my life and around the opium bunks, they said, “There’s no hope for a man like you.” They turned me aside and when people that professed to know God turned me down, that put prejudice and hatred and murder in my heart. I thought I had a right to hate people.

He asked me if I was saved. I told him, “No, I am a rank sinner.”

I went out to old Montana with the wild cowboys—shot up the town. Men and women would stagger the streets until the wee hours of the morning. Sin and disease got the best of me.

I used to live on old Jackson Street in Seattle, Washington, in the dens of sin, peddling the morphine and cocaine up and down the streets. I know what sin is. I lived around those old docks, around the old haunts of sin, the club rooms, and the gambling tables. I was bound by sin, and couldn’t help myself. In the morning I would come home cursing and swearing. I cursed my wife many times. I would leave theses places and would clinch my fists and say, “Now I will do better, I will get away from the old bunch.” But I started the same old sin game.

I met many people that “pulled their skirts aside” from me, but one day I met a man different from all the rest. He never talked his religion to me, but he lived it before me on the job. That is what proved it to me—he lived it. He was a little white man. I cursed him, railed on him, and wanted to kill him; but he had something good to say to me every time I met him. He asked me if I was saved. I told him, “No, I am a rank sinner.” He said, “Come down to the Mission.” I asked him, “What mission?” He said, “The Apostolic Faith.” That was a new one to me. This went on for about a month before I got up enough courage to come among these people. One Sunday morning I paced up and down in front of my house; and somehow I said, “I am going this morning to see for myself.” I wandered into the mission and sat in the back of the hall. They sang a few songs, and the very Spirit of God was in the songs. Then they all got down to pray at once. I hadn’t seen that for twenty-eight years. I knew the way of salvation; thank God for that. I had seen it down in the South when I was a child.

I didn’t know much about praying, but I thank God, the Spirit of God came down and God saved my soul and set me free, and I rejoiced.

Then, to cap it all off, a man rose to his feet and said God saved him from all his sins and set him free! That was the thing I wanted. I said, “God, that is what I want!” No one asked me to go to the altar, but I wanted to go there. These people began to pray for me. When they gathered around me, I knew they had God in their lives. I looked up and said, “God, save me, I’m dying!” I didn’t know much about praying, but I thank God, the Spirit of God came down and God saved my soul and set me free, and I rejoiced.

The next day I went back amongst my old gang of friends, and told them God had saved me from all my sins. They turned me down; they mocked and scoffed at me; but that didn’t move the thing God put in my soul. When I was at the gambling table, when I cursed my wife, doing all kinds of meanness, they said I was all right; but when I got salvation, that was different. Thank God, I enjoy it.

The Lord healed me from cancer and made me well and strong, after the doctor’s knife failed. If God had not gone before me when I went back over my life to make restitution, I would be behind prison bars for life.‍

Brother Bob Irvin had a beautiful voice. He sat on the front row of the audience near the pulpit and would begin singing as he stood to his feet. In just a few seconds either Sister Edna Crawford or Sister Lena Wallace would find the key he was singing in and accompany him. Some of the songs he sang most were: Above the Bright Blue and The Man of Galilee. Brother Bob could not read when he was saved but God taught him to read the Word.