Fred Dickey

I have not forgotten the rainy winter’s night in this dear old city of Portland, when I heard the Master’s voice.

I wish I had words to tell what God has done for me. For years I gave the very best of my days to sin and the world. I wandered for nearly forty years from coast to coast, from city to city, working with the mechanics and in the steel mills.

I loved my home and I loved my family. I would rather sit by my own fireside than go to the lodge or any place else. But sin had taken my home. I didn’t have a friend left. I had no hope, no aim in life.

I caught just a few words from an Apostolic Faith street meeting about half a block away.

I left Fort Morgan, Colorado, where I had been working with the pipe and steam fitters, and landed here in the nighttime, brokenhearted and homeless. I had an old suitcase with about half a bottle of whisky in it and a few old clothes. I got a room in a cheap lodging house, and stayed around the north end of town for four or five days.

Long before, I had given up any hope of ever reaching Heaven. But God had something for me here. I walked down the street that rainy winter’s night and lit my old crooked-stemmed pipe, and then I heard something! Above the noise of the streetcars and the saloon crowds, I caught just a few words from an Apostolic Faith street meeting about half a block away.

It was dark. I was in darkness—it was dark for me even in the daytime! I stopped there to listen just for a moment. Something else happened! The Lord was beside me. God reached my heart, softened it up. Tears were streaming down my face; and from Heaven I hard another voice speaking—the voice of the Shepherd who had been trying to call this wretched man all those years.

I had an old Bible I had bought when I was about sixteen years old, and had carried for twenty-five years. I knew it was true. But there was one thing in it that I didn’t understand. I read in there that a light brighter than the noonday sun had shone around Paul when he was on his way to Damascus, and I wondered how a light could be brighter than the noonday sun. The Lord answered that question when I stopped and listened that night. He shut off the city of Portland, and a light shone around me brighter than the noonday sun. The first thing I remember saying was, “Oh, now I know what happened to the Apostle Paul!” I don’t know what the people thought who were on the sidewalk near me that night.

The Lord answered that question when I stopped and listened that night.

I don’t know how I got into the Apostolic Faith church. I was a stranger—didn’t know the city. I had never read their literature; I did not now anything about them. But the Lord saw that I got into their meeting; and at the close of that service I found myself going to the altar.

They had a wooden bench where sinners could kneel down and straighten things up with God. They didn’t know who I was. I looked just like an old tramp—didn’t even take my overcoat off. These faithful people gathered around and they prayed for me. They cast the demons out. I can tell you the Heavens opened, and I cried for mercy; and God gave me mercy.

He changed my countenance. They didn’t have to ask me whether I was saved or not. Why, all you have to do is to take a look at a man to know if he is saved! I was throwing the old pipe way, and the tobacco sack half full of tobacco. Somebody said, “Praise God, Brother, you are saved!” They could feel something; it was the Spirit of God.

I didn’t know what they were talking about. It was a big question to me; it meant eternal Hell or eternal Heaven. I didn’t want to say anything. I thought it was Heaven I had gotten into, and I didn’t want it to vanish. I didn’t want to go back into that howling wilderness of sin that I had come out of. I said, “I want to be sure,” and I took my hat and went out into the night.

God had changed my heart!

Over in that little dingy room where I had a ten-cent bed and a few old clothes, I found out something. God had changed my heart! I was a new creature in Christ Jesus. The city of Portland looked like a new city, as though someone had painted it.

Was that yesterday? Was it a few days ago? No! That was more than thirty-six years ago. I am a witness that God can save a man and keep him. It would take me a long time to tell all God has done for me; but I can say that He brought my family back, and He put the luster back into my eyes. I have never had to strive against sin anymore, and those appetites have never come back. I haven’t tasted tobacco, haven’t taken a drink of whisky, in all those years. I went back to work and proved the old-time religion on the job.

It is good to serve the Lord!