Don Maxwell

I thank God I can be here today and offer a testimony for the Lord. I am glad He ever made a change in my life and made the old-time religion real. Some of the people that are sitting right here tonight came up into the eastern part of Washington to a little ranch where we were living. Down alongside a little stream I heard people get up and say God changed their lives. I was reared in a real Christian home. I believed in Heaven and I believed in Hell. I thought I was on the road to Heaven even though I didn’t have victory over sin. I tried to cover up things so my parents wouldn’t know about it. I measured my life by those around me and I thought I was doing all right.

I could see that these people had something different in their lives. I watched them for a number of days, as some of them lived right in our home. They had what they were talking about. I was going to have to confess that I was a sinner. I am so thankful they invited me to a meeting. I went to their altar to pray and God became real to me. It proved real on the job.

Since I have been at camp meeting I found that God is real and He doesn’t fail. The first Monday I was here I ran a nail into my hand. My hand began to get sore. When I was in the Army I was in the Army Medical Corps, so I knew there were a lot of good things I could do for that hand. But I did something that would perhaps make the doctor think I was losing my mind. I bound a little church paper around my hand. It was so sore I could hardly wiggle my fingers. The next morning there was no pain. It was gone. I can say the Gospel is real. I have not had many chances to prove God like that. God has given me good health. On my job I have nearly a thousand hours of sick leave accumulated. I have not been sick very much because God answers prayer.

My little granddaughter was playing on the bed and I saw she was going to fall off so I grasped her to brake the fall. She hurt her arm. We heard it snap and she began to cry. We hoped it would clear up in a little while but it didn’t. She held her arm against her side and if we tried to move it she cried. We sat around a table and prayed for this little girl, and when she left the table her arm did not hurt one bit. She played all day with her cousins and never had a trace of pain. She was perfectly well! This was just one of the fringe benefits of the Gospel. I am glad I have a Lord like that to serve.

I want to tell you about a restitution I had to make. I had been a Sunday school boy, and I shouldn’t have had any restitutions to make, but I tell this because I want you to know how well the Lord keeps books. I went down to the park one day, and while wandering through the park I saw a box of crackerjacks under the bridge, so I put it in my pocket and went on my way. I don’t think I ever thought about that again until many years later. After I came in the Gospel that thing came up before me and I saw that box of crackerjacks. Well, I just put it out of my mind. I said, “Lord, You know I don’t know who owns that concession in the park; I can’t make that restitution. How can I do anything with that?” Every time I would get down at the altar to pray, the box of crackerjacks would come before me. I just put it off until I finally made up my mind to do something about it. I wrote a letter to the Metropolitan Park Board in Tacoma, Washington, telling them what I had done. I sent them fifty cents to cover the cost of the crackerjacks.

They wrote back and sent me forty cents back saying they cost only a dime and said it was commendable to make it right. I am not sure why the Lord wanted me to do this, but it was such a good feeling to have my record clear before the Lord and my fellowman.

I am glad it is my privilege to give Him a little of my time, and I thank Him for the old-time religion. There is a purpose in my heart to go through with this Gospel and see the end of a Christian race.