Isaac Davis

God’s great salvation changed me completely—made a new creature out of me. I was reared in a Christian home, and I thank God for the day conviction came on my heart. I was running from one place of amusement to another. My heart was restless and I couldn’t stay home, so I would stay downtown with the boys. I would go to a pool room to shoot pool, gamble, play cards, dance—do everything a young man could do to enjoy himself. But I was miserable. I didn’t know what was happening to me.

There was a little church beside our home, and that year some revival meetings were planned. My mother was the preacher who was to hold the meetings.

One afternoon, on my way home from downtown, God spoke to my heart and said, “You might as well give up.” So I went to where they were holding the revival meetings, and I prayed, but I didn’t get saved. A minister came from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, for the latter part of the week, and it was then that I finally got saved. I thank God for such wonderful salvation!

I thank God for such wonderful salvation!

I heard them preach about sanctification from John 17, but I did not know what they were talking about. I went home and read about it in my Bible, and then I began seeking for that experience. God sanctified my wholly, taking the root of sin—the carnal nature—out of my heart. I thank God for the joy I felt! I had never felt anything like that before.

After that, they talked about getting the baptism of the Holy Ghost—putting on the whole armor of God. I prayed and prayed, and it seemed I wasn’t going to get it. There were special meetings about forty miles away, and I went there for a week and prayed earnestly. Then came Sunday, a hot day, but I could think only of getting my baptism. My mother prayed that night. All I remember that she said was, “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). That night I was the first one at the altar and promised God, “If You will baptize me, I will be willing to preach the Gospel the rest of my life.” It seemed the Heavens opened and the Holy Ghost filled my soul. That was many years ago, and since that day, I have been on my way rejoicing in the God of my salvation, doing to the best of my ability what the Lord has called me to do.