Jack Magel

My parents were good parents. They were good to me. They had religion, but they mixed religion with the things of the world. I didn’t care for that kind of religion. I didn’t think it did anything for my parents, and I didn’t want any of it.

I had seen a lot of religion. My friends had a lot of religion, but they too mixed their religion with the things of the world. I did not care for that kind of life. I wanted to go out into sin and I did until after I was twenty-five years old. Then I was tired of it and I tried with all that was in me to be a better person, but the more I tried the worse I got.

I was almost thirty-two years old before I even heard that a person could be saved. It was my privilege to come to Oregon where I heard the Gospel for the first time in my life. I didn’t know I was committing sin. I want to thank God today for a Gospel that can get down in the heart and take out sin. It takes the Spirit of God to make room to come into a heart and life. That is what I found out when I came to this church. I thank God for His mercy and His long-suffering to me. He was so merciful to me. I listened to the testimonies and I heard that Jesus could come into my heart and sin would go out, giving me joy, peace and victory in my heart. That sounded good to me. While the testimonies were given I thought if I could have what they were talking about, I would be satisfied right down here in this present world.

When the preacher got up to speak, he said, “You must be born-again.” I did not know what he was talking about because I did not know anything about the Bible. He said, “You have to be saved. You have to repent of yours sins and turn your back on them.” He also said that when a person is born-again they are born into the family of God. That appealed to me. When he got through preaching, he asked for those who wanted to be saved to raise their hand. I did not raise my hand, because something inside held me back. But when they sang the song “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling,” something in that song just broke me up inside. I broke down and cried like a baby. That was the first time I could remember crying since I was a child. Thank God I could cry. He made me sorry for my sins. I went down to the altar and prayed. I don’t think I was there five minutes before I knew I had the old-time religion. Peace and joy flooded my soul. I thank God with all my heart.

The Lord took the bad habits out of my life. He took the desire for sin out and gave me joy, peace, and victory.  That was over forty-two years ago and I have the victory today.

The next morning out on the ranch I looked up in the sky and the world had changed. It wasn’t the world, but it was the change in my life. It was wonderful. I don’t believe I had ever seen a morning like that before. We had a group of oak trees out in the yard and they looked beautiful to me, and have looked beautiful to me ever since. I no longer got angry and kicked my cattle and horses around. Sometimes when I was working around machinery I would skin my knuckles and I would take a wrench and throw it as far as I could throw it. Then I would have to go and look for it in the old stubble field; it would take ten minutes to find it. That was the kind of temper I had. The Lord has taken that temper out and I thank Him for it. My tongue doesn’t slip any more. Salvation is wonderful and I thank God for it!