J. F. Bohrer

For twenty-five years I confessed my sins to a priest, but it never did me any good. I came out of the church the same old sinner I had been when I entered. I had never seen the inside of a Bible—never knew a word in that Book.

The time came when I turned the whole thing down and said there was nothing to religion, and I would never confess my sins to a priest again. I did not believe that God would put a man in purgatory where he could be prayed out. I got tired of sham and make-believe. I didn’t even believe there was a God. But, thank God, I know today that there is a God in Heaven. I have found reality. I found the way out of sin.

I have found reality. I found the way out of sin.

One day, the Apostolic Faith people prayed for my neighbor, a young man who had walked on crutches for fifteen years. He had tuberculosis in one of his legs, and he seemed to be nothing but skin and bones. He had never done a day’s work in his life. He was a widow’s boy. Doctors had failed but these people met him three blocks away from his home, and told him to sit down on an old log. At his mother’s request they were on their way to his home to pray for him. They anointed him with oil according to James 5:14 and prayed the prayer of faith, and God healed that boy instantly! He walked home without his crutches. In a few months the boy gained in weight until he weighed 195 pounds, the picture of health, and went to work at the hardest kind of labor. I was a miserable unbeliever, but that case stared me in the face.

Shortly after that, I came to one of these Apostolic Faith meetings with my father. At that time he was seventy-two years old and had an affliction in one of his ears. The mother of the boy who was healed said, “Go down and have those people pray for your father and God will heal him the same as He healed my boy.” It was through that case that we came to the Apostolic Faith Church.

At the close of that one meeting, we were both invited to the altar of prayer; and there, for the first time in my life, I was told that if I was willing to forsake my sins and serve the Lord with all my heart, God would save me from all my sins and give me victory over my old life.

Right there I cried for mercy and God saved me and I knew it.

They said, “You will know when you are saved.” That is what I wanted. I wanted to know, and I thank God I did know before I went out of that door. Right there I cried for mercy and God saved me and I knew it. I knew I had the witness that the Blood of Jesus was over my heart. The power of Jesus was real. I knew right there I was a child of God, born again. I used the pipe for twenty-five years, but I have never had a desire for it from that day to this.

When my father prayed, his life was changed too. That tobacco habit was gone. He had no more desire for it. He had used the pipe for sixty years. Father used to curse the same as I did, but Father and I do not swear any more. When we were saved the old habits rolled off.  Every abnormal habit left.

My health had been failing, but I have better health today than I had those days because the Lord stepped in and gave me health. I destroyed the medicine bottles and pills—a whole basket full. I know a mighty God that heals. When we are sick we call on Him, and He heals us.