Raymond Crawford

As a young man, I left my home in Los Angeles and came to the city of Portland. Here I heard men and women testify to the power of transforming grace in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In one of their meetings God spoke to my heart. I was full of ambition, with every promise of the world before me, but God knew how to deal with me. He cornered me up until I could not see any way out but the way of the Cross.

The invitation to pray was given. I resisted God to the very last. Someone laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Won’t you come to God tonight?” The whole place seemed to turn black before my eyes. At that moment, it seemed everything and everybody vanished from my presence—the old associates, the job, and the friends. I said, “Yes, Lord, I will settle it, and I will do it tonight.”

“Yes, Lord, I will settle it, and I will do it tonight.”

I walked up the aisle, knelt at the end of the altar, and cried out to God for mercy. My heart was wrung within me as I saw myself weighed in the balance and found wanting. I began to see a life behind me that was not very pleasant to look upon.

I was called a respectable young man, held in esteem by my friends and associates, and trusted by my employers, but I saw the deeds I had done. The wages I made didn’t pay the bills that a life of sin brought on, so I had tapped the till for a considerable sum of money.

That night I said to God, “If You will save me, I will go back and straighten up my past life.” Satan whispered, “You will go to jail if you make that confession.” The man I worked for was an atheist and had no regard for God, man, or religion. But I thought I would rather go to Heaven by the way of the penitentiary than go to Hell free.

Down on my knees I settled it. God saved me. The next day I wrote letters to straighten up old accounts, enclosing money that I never had intended to pay back. The recipients wrote that they freely forgave me, and commended me for the stand I had taken.

I was working for one of the largest firms in the city. When I went back among my old associates, my life was so completely changed that they came around and wanted to know what had happened to me. God had taken out the appetite for cigarettes, the desire to gamble, and the love of the theaters and dances.

On many occasions the hand of the Lord protected me from death.

I have tested this Gospel in many ways. I was an airplane pilot in the early days of airplanes. On many occasions the hand of the Lord protected me from death. Nine pilots with whom I was associated died through crashes, but God in His mercy has spared my life, and I praise Him for it.

On one occasion, I was flying a plane in Tulsa and it went into a tailspin. I fell four hundred feet to the ground. I was taken out of the wreckage and rushed to the hospital, not expected to live until I arrived there. My ankle was broken and my shoulder was dislocated. I had internal injuries along with bruises and abrasions all over my body. Three doctors and nurses worked on my leg to set the bones. The small anklebone was broken, the end of the large bone fractured, and the ligaments torn loose. They put the leg in a plaster cast and the doctor said that the slightest jar would deform my foot for life. He said that it would be six or eight weeks before the cast could be removed, and then I would have to walk with crutches and hobble around for an indefinite period of time. But he did not know my Physician.

Within ten days I was out of the hospital and the cast was cut from my leg. I prayed, “Lord, if You have permitted this for Your glory, You will heal me.” The Lord gave me the passage of Scripture where Jesus said of the blind man, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest.” My soul began to cleave to that verse. I said, “Lord, You are going to heal me as surely as Your Word is true, for You promised that the works of God should be made manifest.” That was what I based my faith upon: God was going to manifest His works before that wicked city and those unbelievers with whom I came into contact every day.

“God has healed me!”

God came down in power and healed me instantly in the hotel room where I was sitting. I got up, put those crutches aside and began to walk on the leg that had been broken. That morning when I had put my foot on the floor, I could not bear an ounce of weight upon it. Now tears began to flow down my cheeks, and I said, “God has healed me!” I walked for a solid hour, praising God.

I went down into the lobby the next morning without the use of a cane or crutches. People wanted to know what had happened. I had the chance to witness that the God of Heaven had healed me. I also had the opportunity to let all the doctors and nurses of the hospital know. They knew what a dangerous condition my leg had been in, and I walked before them all, just a week and a half after the accident. They looked on with amazement.

I often think of the testimony of a prominent physician at the time I had the accident in Tulsa. The day following the accident, when the doctor came to see me he said, “There is some satisfaction in working on someone who is clean internally, externally, and eternally.” I said, “Thank God for that! God has made me clean.”

I thank God for His watchful care over my soul and my life. God saved me when I was young, and I thank Him for it. He spared me from many dangers and pitfalls that might have overtaken me and undermined me mentally, physically, and spiritually.

The late Raymond R. Crawford was the General Overseer of the Apostolic Faith Churches from 1936 to 1965.