Phil Burnette

I praise God for a Gospel that will really make a change in one’s heart. I think about it every day—sometimes all day. I wonder how God ever got hold of this heart of mine.

My father and mother received an Apostolic Faith Church paper back in the State of Georgia. Through the influence of that paper, they prayed and God changed their hearts and made them Christians. We then moved to St. Louis and attended the Apostolic Faith Church there.

My parents taught us to pray and to say grace before every meal. They brought us children to Sunday school and church. They read the Word of God to us—not once a week, but every day. That Book spoke for itself. My folks didn’t have to explain it very much, but they would read it and let it do its work.

I praise God because I had someone to read to me out of God’s Lawbook and let me know what I had to do to get to Heaven. They believed in Heaven and they believed in Hell, too. They didn’t say, “We don’t want to scare you, so we will kind of soft pedal it and not get you all excited.” We had a cook stove that burned wood. My folks would gather us around and Mother would say, “You see that? It is red-hot, isn’t it? That is how hot it is going to be in Hell, and you will never get out, if you ever get there.”

Another thing my mother told me was that if I would pray and ask God to be merciful to me, a sinner, Jesus would come into my heart and save me and I would go to Heaven. It was so plain and clear, so clear that I didn’t have to wonder where I was going. That was straight talk, but I thank God for it. Today, there are people who say, “God is too loving to cast you into Hell.”

I am very thankful to God for that early Christian training, as that is what caused me to get serious and pray right. One day God turned the screws down on me and let me know I was headed for a lost eternity. That is what caused me to repent—that lake of fire. Yes, I believed it was there.

I almost went to Hell. I tremble today when I think about it. My back was up against the wall, and things were dark for me. I had come to the end of myself. I wasn’t very old, only twenty, but the devil had kicked me around and ruined me in just a few short years. My health was gone. Every good thing was gone. I thought I was going to die before I found God.

Jesus took out the sins and set me free, and my life was different.

I thank God that He left enough breath in me, and got me on my knees long enough to pray right. I thank Him that I wasn’t cut off forever. Just one step and I would have been gone, lost—but Jesus came down and took out the sin. When I prayed right, Jesus heard and answered. I was through with sin. I wanted to get out of my trouble.

God knew I meant business. Why? Because I told Him I was going to take back everything that I had taken that belonged to someone else. When I prayed like that, something happened in my heart. Jesus took out the sins and set me free, and my life was different. He came in and took out the hatred, sin, and everything that goes with it. He gave me the old-time religion.

It is not only what God did for me then, but it is that He keeps me every day. When I returned to work, the fellows knew that Jesus had made a change because I was praising Him for the old-time religion. I used to think it would be a hard life serving God, but when sin went out, peace came in. It was just as easy for me to do good after Jesus came in as it was for me to do wrong before.

It did not take me very long to straighten up my past life, for my father had taught us, “Thou shalt not steal.” My brothers and I used to fight, and we still had bitterness in our hearts towards each other. I had to call them around and ask them to forgive me.

I am glad that the Blood of Jesus Christ can save the “whosoever will.” The same God who saved the Indian, saves the white man and the black man. He brings us all together, so we can get along. I never used to be able to get along with my fellow man, although my father and mother told me that I had to. They used to read that Word of God and say, “If you ever get to Heaven, you will love everybody.” I used to wonder how that could be accomplished.

Salvation is no small thing. It gets right down into a man’s heart. It doesn’t break up homes—it keeps them together. I praise God for this great Gospel that can take a man out of sin and keep him day by day with a testimony in his heart. He gives me victory every day—not half-a-day, but all day. He keeps me during the night and He sends me on my way rejoicing.