John Schieferstein

I thank God for the moment my feet crossed the threshold of the Apostolic Faith Church, where I heard the story of victory.

At the age of twenty-three, I had a fine home of my own and a good business. Two years later, I was rated as one of the largest retail advertisers in the State of Iowa. For years I belonged to a church, was confirmed, and thought all was right, but it was just a huge delusion. When the church had a social, they would have a bar, and the elders of the church would hand out the drinks. I would go to church on Sunday morning, and that night I would get drunk. Though I was a hypocrite of the highest order, the preacher in that church said I was all right. Still, when I would go and take communion, my heart would condemn me. I knew I was not right with God. Eventually, I grew disillusioned with this way of living, and I gave up church for a long time. I went into the world and told myself, “You are going to be dead a long time and you might as well have a good time while you are alive.”

Then things fell apart for a time. I went to the wall—went bankrupt—and in the hour of grief, without money, I didn’t know what to do. My associates scoffed at me and called me a fool because of my failure. I had some diamonds, and I put them in hock with a pawnbroker, got three hundred dollars for them, and went to Boston, Massachusetts.

I became sick of sin.

After a time, I connected with one of the largest shoe businesses on the Atlantic Seaboard and became a traveling salesman for the western region. When I started out, the manager said, “If you run short of money, wire us, telephone us, or draw a draft, and we will honor the draft. We want our traveling men to stop at the best hotels.” I left Boston to spend the other fellow’s money. I traveled for years and for hundreds of thousands of miles.

That life appealed to me. When I first came to Portland, Oregon, I rolled into the city on the velvet cushions, riding like a prince. I wore the diamonds and the fine clothes, lived off the fat of the land. The money I made, I made easy. I never worked hard, never had to soil my hands. I loved sin and all it had to offer. Every dollar that I made, everything that I accumulated, I offered upon the altar of pleasure, looking for a good time. The night life of our American cities appealed to me: the grills, the clubs, the lodges, the best of meals, the finest of liquors. But that kind of life has a thorn. It has a sting. I became sick of sin. I found myself haunted by the devil; and though I had everything, I realized I was nothing but a debauched, drunken outcast.

After years of travel, following a three-month drunk, this man without character—without principle, health, virtue, and without home, wife, or child—was brought to bay. I found myself in Portland, Oregon, lying in the finest hotel in the city, but turning and tossing in despair, not knowing what to do. In that sinful condition, a businessman I had known in Chicago took me to the Apostolic Faith Mission hall. I went out of courtesy to him and his wife, but there I heard the shout of victory. A former dope fiend and drunkard testified that God could deliver. I had vowed many times that I would never take another drink. I would grit my teeth and say that I would be a man, but I always failed and sank down once again in the mire of defeat. I would ask, “Why was I ever born this way?” But that night, I found a people who had power to pray the prayer of faith and cast out the devil.

The question was, would I pay the price and meet that challenge?

I looked at the glowing faces of those Christian people and said, “Surely, God is in this place.” They told me that prayer could change my life. Never had I received an answer to prayer. Yet, they said God was real; they said He would deliver; they said He would make me a man! God’s Spirit stirred my heart, and I wondered if that could be true. I was a million miles from God—yes, ten million miles from God! Could I be a man again? Could I be clean again?
The minister said, “If you will pay the price and mean business, God will deliver you.” The question was, would I pay the price and meet that challenge?

Would I surrender to God? My life was at stake that night. I carried the curse of a disease that no doctor could heal. The grave loomed up before me.
At the close of the meeting, I raised my hand and asked them to pray for me. I went forward to the little pine bench that was their altar of prayer. When I first began to pray, God showed me my crooked past and brought to my mind all the men I had wronged. I told Him, “I will pay back every dollar I have stolen, every dollar I have gotten through fraud.” I prayed, “My God, have mercy!” God had mercy and gave the victory. He broke every fetter. He forgave every sin, and He set me free. In the books in Heaven, my name was written down. The drink demon, the cigarettes, the lying, the uncleanness went out. Jesus came in. He filled me with His grace. Oh, the power of God! He brought victory. Victory! Aye, more than victory! Peace that flows like a river!

The next day, I could walk the streets without that old tiger haunting me and dogging my steps for whiskey and beer. The power of God filled every fiber of my body, down in the deepest crevice of my nature. I could walk with a conqueror’s tread. I didn’t want the whiskey; I didn’t want anything sinful. I had God. Through and through my soul, the holy power streamed as the glory of God vibrated through my life.

I am praising God for victory and power.

God began to talk to me about my restitutions. I quit the road, and He showed me a boiler shop where I could get a job and go to work—and work hard. It meant blistered hands for a man who had only pushed fountain pens and lead pencils; it meant cowhide gloves and overalls for a man who had never worn them. I said, “God, I will take the job.” I began swinging the sledge hammer for eight hours a day. God gave me power and strength as I worked in that old boiler shop. As I ran those irons back into the fire, God would come down in that place. I could feel Him! I knew there was a God down in the boiler shop—He made Heaven real to me.

Eight years of work, eight years of toil, hundreds of letter, and a great deal of money, is what it cost me to make my restitutions. God demanded that I hunt up all the men I had wronged. I solicited the services of Dunn and Bradstreet to find the men that I had wronged many years before, and I paid back that which I owed. One of the biggest trust men in the United States wrote back to me and said, “I envy you. You have found the thing so few of us have ever found.” Oh, I thank God that He gave victory to this traveling man! He has given me the mastery over sin.

Almost forty years tell the story. I am not a drunkard today, for I have been healed, delivered, and saved by His Blood. I am praising God for victory and power.

John W. Schieferstein was saved in 1910 at the Apostolic Faith Church at Front and Burnside. After his conversion until his death in 1951, he was an active participant in the church, and made several trans-continental evangelistic trips with teams of Gospel workers. He is remembered for his enthusiastic and eloquent testimony, which he loved to give whenever he had an opportunity.