‍Opening Remarks

Welcome

Thanks so much for coming. To make it easy on a couple of you, I would like all of you to stand. Those of you who are sitting with your backs to me, please swivel your chair in my direction. I would like to see your eyes instead of your backs. You can be seated again. Thank you so much, and thanks again for coming today. We are glad that you have arranged your schedule to be here early enough for this time together. You are at the heart of the international Apostolic Faith Mission of Portland, Oregon. Therefore, as our pulse goes right here in this room, so goes the pulse of the entire organization. We cannot overstate the importance of each one of you and the importance of all of us walking together in harmony. To the extent that we do, we can expect our congregations to do the same. Let’s expect God to give us a wonderful camp meeting. The anticipation is very high for so many who are coming for their first  time, and we know that the Lord is going to send His blessings down. I personally look at it as reinforcements coming, and I’m looking forward to reinforcements.

You Will Have Experiences

“Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not” (2 Corinthians 4:1).

Introduction

The first chapters of 2 Corinthians can be divided into three parts. Paul speaks of the ministry of the Spirit, of reconciliation, and of suffering. 

He speaks of the ministry of the Spirit when he says, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but     the spirit giveth life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). In context, the people demanded letters of recommendation from Paul. Paul’s reply paraphrased was, “you are my letters of recommendation. You have experienced the changing power of the Spirit of God, so I do not need to give you a letter of recommendation. You are our epistle.” That’s the ministry of the Spirit.

He speaks of the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:18: “God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

Finally, he speaks of a ministry of suffering, as some outlines call it, in 2 Corinthians 6:4, “But in all things approving ourselves as the minister of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings.” This is where we want to spend our devotional time this morning. I would like to call this session “A Ministry for Today Comprised of a Variety of Experiences.” Since we will not easily remember all of that, I’ll summarize it for you in four words: You will have experiences. I think you can remember that and so can I. There is not one of us who will go through life without some extraordinarily challenging experiences. We may not see it on                                the surface, and we may not see it in the expressions on one another’s faces, but we will all have experiences.

Marriage Experiences

Learning

Marriage brings new experiences. After Debbie and I married, one new experience for us was when she was expecting our daughter. It was not very long ago, but back then we did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl. Now parents know that way ahead of time. But since I did not know how this birthing process worked, I remember asking Debbie as she was approaching countdown time how we were going to know when this baby was going to be born. I asked her, “Do you start running a fever and get sick for a week or two?” On the farm, they did not teach us that stuff.

Of course, that was not it at all, and soon she had a couple of nights where she had contractions. One night she must have had a really hard one. I immediately said, “This is it!” And it was it, but it was only about midnight when it hit her, so I had a pencil and paper, and every time she had a contraction, I wrote down the time, in the dark. I knew I needed to get some sleep, that I was in for a long day. By the way, she saved that piece of paper where those contractions were timed out. Eventually we went to the hospital and Alicia was born. So that was a new experience.

About sixteen years later, when we moved to Eureka, I dropped Alicia off at a new high school for her junior year. It was a painful experience to watch and know that it was hard for Alicia. However, those were the best years of her Christian development. There are painful experiences and there are learning experiences.

Funny

One incident that Debbie reminded me of this week was when my office chair at home, which has a swivel mechanism underneath, began to wobble. I knew I needed a new chair, but you know how it is—you don’t get a new chair because you think the old one still works. However, one morning the chair really wobbled and all this grey dust—the bearing must have ground out—piled onto the chair mat. It was a mess. So I got a rag and some Pledge and cleaned it all up. Then I took the chair out to the garage and got a folding chair and set it there. After I arrived back at the headquarters office, Debbie called me kind of laughing and crying and out of breath. She had gone to the office to sit at the computer and stepped on that mat and her feet went right out from under her. I had to decide how to respond. I could have said, “Oh, that’s too bad,” or I could confess. I confessed and she was not as happy then as she is right now.

My favorite incident lately was when we were on vacation at the Honolulu Coffee Company on Maui. Debbie likes to mill around the shops, and I like to go to that coffee place because they serve the cappuccino, which is very good by the way, in a mug. It just tastes much better in a mug rather than in a cup. I did my usual thing and sat there and read for an hour-and-a half, and finally Debbie came back to the table. There was another cup on the table, and I was not paying attention when she came up and picked up that cup and took a swig of it. She said, “This is gross.” I told her that it may well be gross, but that cup was there when I sat down. So, there are learning experiences and there are funny experiences.

Challenging

There are various experiences in marriage and our commitment to our marriage is validated or proven by the experiences we pass through. I believe that is what Paul is saying here with respect to the ministry, “in all things approving ourselves, as the ministers of God,” or as pastors of God, or as spouses of pastors. Our experiences will prove and validate our commitment. I am not talking about fun experiences. Any commitment to God is not validated when all is going well. It is validated when we are faced with challenges. It is then that we will find out what we are made of. That’s when it will be disclosed. Hopefully, we grow from our experiences, and learn and progress as the Lord helps us. I do not think most of us have experienced what Paul experienced in the fourth chapter when he says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed”(2 Corinthians 4:8). These words are a reflection of some of the experiences that Paul encountered, so I suppose it is all right at times if we feel troubled, perplexed, persecuted, even cast down, provided that we never digress to distress, despair, forsaken, or destroyed. Our experiences will challenge us. They certainly will.

My Pastor Experiences

I look back and recall my first experience with pastors. There was a man by the name of Rev. Tom May, from Westside Christian Church in Roseburg. As a result of my mother’s interest in church, he came out to the farm to visit us and see if he could gain more converts. Try as he might, he got no one but Mom. That was what he started with and that was what he ended with, but I respect him for trying. I do remember that one day when I knew he was coming out, I ran downstairs and hid in the basement. I did not want to see him.

Another pastor lived across from a house that I and my two buddies rented for a time before I was saved. We pulled a prank on him because he had called the police on us once. He should have called the army on us, because we toilet papered his house. That was kind of the worst thing you could do thirty–five years ago, but not too serious by today’s standards. When I was saved thirty-two years ago, I made restitution to that man. I cannot recall his name, but I wrote to him and told him that I was saved and apologized for being a part of that prank. He wrote back a nice enough note, as far as that goes, but that was another experience with pastors.

Then, of course, we came into the Apostolic Faith Church in Roseburg, where Brother Martin Girard was the pastor at that time. Sister Olive Girard was his wife. Brother Marty was a very common man—a very steady man. I suppose even though it’s only a decade or so after his passing, he’s for the most part, somewhat forgotten. He was not a man who made a huge impact on our work, though he was very involved, so I do not want to minimize that impact either. However, there was not a man who could have been a better pastor for my family at that time in Roseburg than Brother Marty Girard. He had an impact on our family. So I learned that pastors have impact. Whether you are well known, or not well known, that’s secondary. Sister Olive did as well. She had a role. She is still living. In fact, I just spoke with her on the campground two days ago. She has always been a sweet, funny lady. Brother Marty liked to tell the story how Sister Olive insisted that he have $1000.00 saved before she would marry him. A few months went by and she asked him how much money he had saved. He said $50.00, and she said, “That’s close enough!” They married. People have memories of their pastors.

My observation of watching some of my succeeding pastors, was that the congregation observes the strengths of the pastor. The pastor also observes the weaknesses of the congregation. By the way, I will say without hesitation that I felt that at every step along the way, every one of my pastors and their wives were the right ones for that period of time. Having said that, I never viewed my pastors as deity. I viewed them as common people, like Brother Marty. Like the fishermen, the call came, so they dropped their nets and did what the Lord called them to do. I thanked God for my pastors, but I have learned that just as we observe the people in our congregations and draw certain perspectives or conclusions about them, the people of our congregations observe us and draw certain conclusions about us. We have to be careful because there are more of them than there are of us.

Congregation Pastor Experiences

I observed along the way that the congregations pray for their pastors daily. I mentioned this at a Portland ministers’ meeting this week. We prayed for our pastor in our home growing up. Our children heard the names of our pastors in devotions every day. When our children were infants, we prayed for Brother Nolan and Sister Joan Roby. Then by the time Brother Ted and Sister Sharon Friesen came to Dallas, our children prayed for them each day. Over the years, first we prayed for our pastor and then for Brother Loyce Carver and then Brother Dwight Baltzell. So I think that I can draw the conclusion that most of the people in our congregations pray for us on a daily basis. Even if we forget to pray for them, because there are more of them than there are of us.

Our congregations will remember our gracious and kind acts long after we have forgotten them. Of course, they will remember the other ones too. Hopefully the kindness outnumbers the ones where we fell a bit short. But our congregations are very kind and gracious. They really are. I have said it many times over the last few years, that God’s people are the most beautiful people on the face of the earth. They do overlook our shortcomings if they have a sense that we overlook theirs.

One time I needed a shortcoming overlooked. I was visiting Richard Afdahl’s mother in the hospital. She was sick and had gotten saved but needed to have an amputation. Obviously, that was a troublesome time for her, and I had gotten to know her well by then. I remember encouraging her and telling her to let the hospital staff wait on her hand and foot. Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I wondered why I was saying it. I hoped it would go over her head, but it didn’t. We do and say the wrong things at times, but we can be thankful that our people are very kind and gracious. You will have adverse experiences. Paul does not stop with characterizing our ministry but continues by describing how we overcome when these experiences confront us.

Benefit by Adverse Experiences

Continuing in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul tells us how we overcome adverse experiences: “By pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left” (verses 6-7).

Then he says this is done in spite of the contrasting ways that we will be viewed by people. He says, “By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (verses 8-10). Sometimes you will be viewed favorably by people and at other times not.

If we have the Gospel, which we do, we have the greatest possession in all the earth and our lives should reflect that. Our reports should reflect that. The way we carry ourselves and mix with one another should reflect that. We have a victorious Gospel, a good Gospel, and we have a Gospel that many people are clamoring for, so we thank God for every experience that comes our way. We would rather be characterized by our pleasant experiences, but those experiences do not characterize us. It is the unpleasant ones that do.

My prayer for you this camp meeting is that God will add to your catalog of beneficial experiences, and that this camp meeting will be a good experience for you. The devil comes to camp meeting too. However, we can be assured that whatever comes our way does not come without passing the Lord first. When these experiences come our way, my prayer is that we will benefit by them, grow by them, and be what the Lord would have us to be.

Closing Remarks

Thanks again for coming this morning. Thanks as well for laboring faithfully wherever you labor throughout the year. We know it falls upon you to balance pastoring and work, church maintenance and family maintenance, but in one sense we do what we did before we became a pastor. Not much has changed. We were balancing all of those things before we were pastors. However, we know that it is a sacrifice for you to make the trip and come to camp meeting and we do appreciate it. It makes camp meeting for us here and we pray that it makes it for you. With that, remember that you will have experiences. And if you want to know details, look at 2 Corinthians. Let’s sing a song and be dismissed in prayer.

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Called and Established, Sister Florence Crawford

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will chew thee"

"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:"

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him, that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3).

It would seem a wonderful thing if, as we are sitting here this morning, God Almighty should call out our names individually and speak to us as He spoke to Abraham. Well, God said in His Word that in those days He spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but in these days He has spoken to us through His Son Jesus Christ. The call is just as clear and just as plain to us today as it was to that faithful old man of God in those days. God gave him a call to go out of that land and out of that country and into a land that He would show Him. He didn't just put His finger down and say, "To a certain place you will go, and at a certain place you will make your abode," as many people today have God speak to them. He had to step right out on naked faith and believe God and take Him at word. I praise God that the call of God is in our hearts to-day; that it does not only sound upon our ears, but it has to get into the very depths of our soul, down into our heart, in order that we may make the journey that God has called us to make.

I think many times of how faithful God is to speak to the heart and to the mind of people. He calls them definitely, and He calls them while they are yet sinners. All they have to do is to let that call get down into their heart; and real conviction will settle down upon the man or woman who has heard the call. That conviction will work godly sorrow for sin; and godly sorrow for sin will work repentance in the heart. Godly repentance in the heart will draw us to God where the Blood of Jesus Christ will flow over our soul, and sin will be washed away. The Spirit will answer to the Blood that we are redeemed, that we are free, that we are called and chosen of God, that we have set out for the Promised Land, that we have really purposed in our soul to make the goal at any cost.

How I praise God this morning! I wouldn't exchange this marvelous Gospel that came into my soul for a million worlds like this! How I praise God this Sunday morning that my ears ever caught the sound of the real Gospel of Jesus Christ! Oh, how I love this pure Gospel! How I thank God that our feet can start to-ward the Promised Land! We can take step after step, step after step, and God is back of every purpose, every plan, every motive that lies in our hearts that is born from Heaven. Oh, what a Gospel we have!

Thank God that the Spirit of God will draw a human heart to Him and make the plan of salvation so simple and so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.

"And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us."

"Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 1:27, 32).

Do you know that it is a very easy thing to have a heart of unbelief! It is a very easy thing, even after God has done wonderful and mighty things for us, to have a little unbelief down in our hearts. We know that after Jesus Christ had risen from the dead and His disciples were gathered together in a certain place, Jesus appeared to them and upbraided them for their hardness of heart and their unbelief.

We know that the very tendency of the human heart is downward. We know that from the very time that our forefathers committed sin in the Garden of Eden, in turning their back to God Almighty, the whole human race turned downward. Gravitation is toward the earth, and we know that the power of hell is drawing and pulling downward. But we know that there is a greater power than the power of gravitation. We know that there is a greater power than that, that the power of God is greater than the powers of the devil, and hell, and the grave; because God manifested that thing when He brought forth Jesus Christ from the grave. Today, while the very tendency of the human heart and nature is to doubt God and turn from Him, there is a great power that is operating on the hearts of men and women to draw them into full confidence and faith and assurance.

The great God of Israel, who moves upon the earth today is moving upon the hearts of men and women. It makes no difference how vile and full of sin they may be; it makes no difference how much degradation has entered into the very soul of a human being; God has power sufficient to meet the whole thing and cleanse and purge and mold; and pour the ointment—the oil, the faith, and the courage—into that soul. He will put a purpose in the heart, as He did in faithful Abraham, and start him toward the Promised Land.

Today, while the very tendency of the human heart and nature is to doubt God and turn from Him, there is a great power that is operating on the hearts of men and women to draw them into full confidence and faith and assurance.

I feel like going on. I am on my way to Glory. That song has been ringing through my soul these days, and I thank God that I do not feel like going back, not taking one backward step. Ever since the day God liberated my hell-bound and hell-deserving soul, there has been something in my breast that has been propelling me on. I know that in the breast of many who sit under the sound of my voice there has been that deep determination and that faith in God that makes them want to make the goal at any cost. Many have become discouraged along the way, have been overwhelmed by the awful oppression of darkness and disappointment. Many a saint has had that experience; but I want to tell you that God's chosen are marching on, and they are going to see the end of a Christian race. Many are wavering these days, and many are finding the way too narrow and the place too strait. Some people would like to build a tabernacle for themselves; but, oh, I thank God that the narrow way is good enough for me! I know that the Son of God is going to part the clouds some of these days and catch away His waiting Bride, and I want to be one of the number. I do want to be there when Jesus comes.

I used to sing that old song, "I want to be there, I mean to be there," and I always sang, "I expect to be there, I do." Hallelujah to the Lamb that was slain, but liveth again, to intercede for us this Sunday morning! Not yesterday, not a week ago, not a month ago, not fifteen or twenty years ago, but He liveth again to intercede for us this very day!

"Who went in the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to shew you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by day."

Do you know that there is a pillar of fire by night and there is a cloud by day that is guiding the child of God? Do you know the thing that keeps the fire always in view at night and the cloudy pillar in view by day? It is the confidence in your soul in God Almighty. Faith is a marvelous thing. Without faith it is impossible to please God, but there is something that has to come before faith, and that is confidence in God.

You may ask a person, a friend, a neighbor, how far it is to a certain place; but if you haven't confidence in your heart that he will tell you the truth as far as he knows, you wouldn't waste breath asking him how far it is.

You must have confidence in His Word. We must have confidence in God Almighty in order to have faith in Him. Faith just pours into the soul when we have confidence in God.

Confidence in God is brought by Holy Ghost conviction. Conviction brings repentance and godly sorrow for sin. The very moment that you cry, "0h, God, be merciful to me a sinner," there is confidence planted in your heart by the Spirit of God. If you hold that confidence in your soul, you can move right up and on, from grace to grace, glory to glory, and experience to experience.

The trouble is that so many people get their confidence shattered. They will pray for God to do some great and marvelous thing for them, and they don't pray according to His will. They pray according to the desire of their own natural and carnal mind. While they may be saved from sin, yet there remains the root of sin—carnality in the heart. It is sometimes impossible for us to know just positively, even after the carnality has been destroyed at sanctification, even after we have been baptized with the Holy Ghost, just what God wants us to have and what He wants us to do; so our prayers are always to be in accordance with His will. That is the reason that when we pray to God, we say: "Lord, help our faith not to waver. Help us to pray in faith, believing. Nevertheless, not our will but Thine be done."

It is not necessary for us to lose faith and confidence in God just because certain prayers are not answered. God will answer enough prayers for you that are according to His will to give you enough confidence and faith in God to take you through to Glory. One answered prayer is enough.

The answer of salvation in your heart is sufficient evidence to give confidence that God is God, that He is real, when He saves that soul of yours. That is enough evidence in your heart to put living, abiding confidence in your soul to carry you through to bright Glory, even if you never knew that you would have another prayer answered while you live on this earth.

It spoils people sometimes to have too many prayers answered. They get puffed up over the thing. One man sits in this hall today who came to me with his face smiling and said, "Why, I know I have this experience because God answers my prayers." That is not the reason for confidence that you have an experience in your heart. God may be answering someone else's prayer. You don't know. Someone else may have prayed that very same prayer, and God answered his prayer instead of yours. The confidence that we have an experience in our heart is the assurance that God has wrought that experience in our heart according to the Word, according to the will of God, according to the Blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit always answers to the Blood, and no soul need be in doubt.

A man talked with me one night in Tacoma, and then went to the altar and came back. He was smiling and his face was lit up. I said, "Brother, are you saved?" He said: "I believe that if I would claim it, God saved me. But I want the kind you got." I said: "Well, you can get it. You can get the real experience that you will absolutely know about." It wasn't that my experience was any better than anybody else's, but he was not satisfied. That was the point. If he had been satisfied he could have told the thing just as sure and just as straight as I could tell it, or you could tell it, or anyone else could tell it.

I'll tell you, God is stirring men and women in these days to get the real experience in their soul, and the Spirit of God bears witness with their spirit that they have been born again.

It is not sufficient to know that our sins and outward things have dropped out of our life, for conviction will do that many times. You get old-time, sky-blue conviction, and I tell you that if you have been frequenting the pool room, or the saloon or such places, you will just flee from those things and will hate the very sight of them. Many a man has come under such awful conviction that he would go to the saloon and to places he never went before, just to drown the sorrow and the conviction that was in his heart, while all the time he hated the thing. So it is the real Bible experience that counts. It is not the outward effects, although the outward effects are bound to come.

People said, because I had taken off my feathers and my flowers and my jewelry, and had stopped taking my carriage to go out in the evening for pleasure and had turned it into a conveyance to carry the sick out for a ride, take food to the hungry and clothes to the naked, "Why, that woman is sanctified! " Well, I want to tell you that you can take all the outward things off; you can do all that you like, all the good works you want to do; you can consecrate your life unto death; but if the fire does not fall on the consecration, you are not sanctified. You may say just what you please. The preachers and evangelists, holiness preachers of every kind, whom I interviewed and asked to help me, every one said I was sanctified. They didn't know what they were talking about. I want to tell you that it isn't what someone else says; it is what God says.

I was as ignorant as a Hottentot. I did not know how to get the experience. I did not know how to find the thing. My soul was so hungry that I could almost scream. I felt something crying out in my soul for more of God. I was searching hither and yon and every place, but I couldn't find anyone who could help me. Many times I would throw my hands up into the air and just cry: "0h God, there is more for me. How can I get this longing in my soul satisfied?" If I had been as wise as a third of you, or a half of you people, or perhaps all of you, I would have gone down upon my knees, and God would have given it to me; but I didn't know how to find it. I consecrated my life to God. I did everything in my power. I just did everything I knew, but still the thing didn't come. But I always will believe that God wanted it to come in the very place it did, at the very time it did, and I have never ceased to praise God that He at last gave it to me.

A sinner can get just a glimpse of the Kingdom—it is afar off; but Jesus has brought the Kingdom nigh to those who are even under conviction.

I praise God today for a second, definite experience—sanctification. Oh, that holy flame that came from Heaven into my soul! I had nothing more, it seemed, to consecrate to God, but I want to tell you that God gave the thing to me when I met every condition, and had somebody to lead me a step. It seemed that I was led just a step.

The thing that shook me and wrecked my confidence was that I thought I was different from anyone on earth. I thought: You are different from anyone on earth; nobody has the thing that you are after; certainly it must be that you are getting excited, and you are wanting something more than other people have. But that was not the case at all. I wanted to come in contact with people who could lead me into that experience. I found them; and I got it.

It is the greatest thing that ever came down to this old earth, and you don't have to lower the standard of justification in order to preach sanctification. God will save from sin. He will strip you for the race. He will put a purpose in your heart; and, above everything else, He will put a hunger in your soul when He saves you.

Let us turn to Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 34 to 36.

"And the LORD heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying,"

"Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I sware to give unto your fathers, Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the LORD."

Do you see? There is the secret of the thing. You may murmur; you may complain; you may set up judgment of the way's being too narrow; you may find fault; you may do anything you like with yourself, with the Gospel, with the saints, with the preachers. That is your privilege, but I thank God that there are a few people who do not have it in their heart to do that, and are striving to make the goal.

God had given those Children of Israel wonderful experiences. He parted the Red Sea, and He did all these great and mighty things for those people. He brought the plagues upon the land at His will, and took

His children out with a mighty hand. He closed the sea upon their enemies, and they praised God for that great and wonderful deliverance that had come to them. And, still, because someone went over into that land and brought back a report that the giants were tall and the spies had seemed like grasshoppers in front of the giants, that the high walls towered up before them, they found it in their hearts to murmur. But there always has been, always will be, someone who will see straight through to the Throne of God, who will be an example to those who are weak, to those who are tossed about and have lost their confidence. God always has someone who can help point them right through, above the high walls, above the giants. It is not the high walls or the giants. It is the power of God in the Word.

"And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 11:13).

It ought to be an easy thing to serve God with all our heart and with all our soul. It seems a hard thing to some, and many can hardly find it in their heart to put their whole soul and life into the service of God. I thought, as I was in Canada a few days ago, of the mothers and their babies who are watching for the return of their loved ones from the war. Many women have given up their houses and have gone to take apartments with their little families, and they are just living daily to get a letter from the front, and their heart is anchored and settled in their loved ones who are "over there."

I thought: How like the Bride of Christ and Jesus Christ—the One to whom the children of God are married, even Jesus Christ. Their hope is anchored within the veil, and they are waiting and longing; and every word, whether it is preached from this Bible or whether it is given out in testimony from a fellow saint, praising and exalting that Christ, brings a sweetness that we love above everything on earth. We long for His coming and are just waiting and watching.

How many of the saints of God have sold their homes and have moved into little humble houses, that they could come to the Mission and worship God and praise Him, and look forward and wait, and yet occupy until He comes!

I would rather be the Bride of Christ today, with my Loved One over there, who loves me with all His heart, who cares for me, who heals me when I am sick, who feeds me when I am hungry, who clothes me when I need it, than anything else in all the world. He is my Helper; He is my Sustainer.

We have those dear to us in the flesh who are on this earth, but sometimes how they will prick us to the heart with disappointment, and many times our fellow saints will grieve us in the spirit by something that they do. But oh, there is One whom we can fly. to, even Jesus, the Lover and Redeemer of our souls! We can lift our cross once more, and press forward with a shout of victory in our soul.

0h people, I would just love to see every saint and every minister and every street worker, every hospital worker, every jail worker—they are all so precious—and the little mothers in their homes, who have no visible part in this work—oh, how I long to see all of them with their whole heart and their whole soul centered on the One, even Jesus, who is coming back to this world speedily!

We are living in awful days. If the thought of a great war breaking out upon this country, the United States, had come three years ago, consternation would have reigned in almost every home, in every community, in every city. Now we can be on the very verge of our nation's going into war, and people simply pay no attention to it at all. Some will say, "Well, I thought it would come." Others say, "I never expected it would come." But they just go on indifferently. It may be that our sons and daughters —I mean the nation's sons and daughters, may be plunged into awful bloodshed and war; but there is not as much stir about those things as there should be, and there is a reason for that thing. I'll tell you, people's hearts and ears are getting accustomed to awful things coming upon the earth; and without knowing it, they have almost taken on that awful spirit of antichrist and are just waiting for the thing to come to pass.

Oh., how I praise my God today that it is not so with the children of God! They do not fear the calamities of the earth; but down in their heart there is a settled peace, there is a quietness, there is a rest that the world can know nothing about. We don't know how far God is going to permit these awful things to come to pass before He catches away the waiting Bride and takes them to Himself and shuts them away in the clouds—away from the awful storm and deluge that is going to sweep over this world. One thing we do know: that we must love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength; and then it will be as easy to follow wholly the Lord as it is to open our mouth to speak.

That is such a marvelous thing to me to find that there is no struggle, that there is no strain when we get into the real Gospel of Jesus Christ! There isn't a struggle at all. The struggle is over, and you are just waiting and praying and looking forward to every opportunity that you can have to consecrate deeper, to lay aside some selfish desire, to lay aside something that might hinder you from just drawing closer to the sky and getting more ready to meet the Son of Man in the air. How I praise Him this morning!

Let us turn to the 119th Psalm.

"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD."

"Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart."

Isn't that food to your soul? That was such a revelation to me! When I was in sin, dancing on the ballroom floor, God spoke out of Heaven to me—raised an infidel, cradled in "Bob Ingersoilism"—and called me to be His child. But that thing that God planted in my heart that I could wholly follow the Lord, that I could love Him with all my heart, that I could give Him my life—I didn't know how to do it; but how I did love the thought that I could give Him my whole life! It falls upon your heart that way, just sweet as honey in the honeycomb, when God has really appeared in that heart of yours and has given you an insight—a glimpse—into that Kingdom of Heaven.

A sinner can get just a glimpse of the Kingdom—it is afar off; but Jesus has brought the Kingdom nigh to those who are even under conviction. He will part the clouds just a little and give you a small glimpse of the Kingdom; and then, as you step out and on, and get deliverance and His love in your soul, and you become His own child, the Kingdom of Heaven becomes so near that you can see it. It begins to come down into that heart of yours, and God sets up His Kingdom in that soul. 0h people, that is the most wonderful thing!

We have been wishing in these past few days that we could go into afternoon meetings and into some place where we could take this old Bible and just unfold the fundamental principles, just go over everything that has been taught and preached under the sound of this Gospel. God has raised many up to be real monuments and bulwarks against the powers of hell, who are able to stand, but others are weak and sickly and lack faith. If we could only help them to get real confidence to lay hold on God! It seems that if there ever was a time in the history of the world when we need to bring all things to our remembrance, it is today; and God is already laying things up in our soul for the next camp meeting. I just wish we could go on that campground, if Jesus tarries, and scarcely eat or sleep, but just devour this Bible. If God would only give the strength so that we could be in the meetings night and day, and we could get that old Bible right down in our hearts!

The Lord draweth nigh, and we know not the day nor the hour when He shall appear, but we do know that He said, "Watch" -- and in our heart of hearts we are watching. People have been writing from far and near, begging us to come and tell the Story; and I thought: How can we ever go? There is so much to do so much to do! But the thought came to my heart: God, send me. I will go. I will weather anything; I will do anything if I can only get the Gospel out to people.

The devil is trying to rob people of their faith and their confidence; and the thing we are here for today is to encourage the saints to hold on to their faith, and not lie down; but get into the Gospel with everything that is in them, and battle the enemy to the very gates.

One time in a northern city, when we were having so much to do — working on the paper in the day-time, and attending the meetings at night—as I sat there that Sunday morning I looked over the saints who were so hungry for the Word of God, and I said, "0h God, if You will just give strength we will have afternoon meetings in this city." I thought: What if I should leave this city without having afternoon meetings, and after I would go away God would point me back and bring condemnation on my soul, and point me back to that place and say, "You could have had afternoon meetings, and you didn't have them." I said, "0h God, we will have them." We announced them, and God gave strength, and the saints were helped and blessed and built up.

I tell you, people, we have to keep in that attitude before God that we can keep the thing fresh within our hearts. We must pray according to the will of God and according to the plan of God, but we have to keep our heart open lest we should get a little tinge of condemnation. We must keep right in the place that God would have us to be in.

I'll tell you, there is one Gospel that is going to sweep over this earth and save souls; and you know it, as well as I know it. Someone has to carry the Gospel out to dying souls so that men might hear about the power of God to save, the power of God to redeem and cleanse.

Today lost humanity is running to the preachers, they are running to the pulpits, and trying to get interviews with people; and do you know that now, almost universally, these so-called ministers of the Gospel, when people come for interviews with them, are saying that it is impossible to live without sin, that Jesus was not divine, that He did not die with sufficient power to save from sin and break habits and appetites! "Do the best you can. Change your environments. Join the church. And you will be free." How many have told me that!

And on this trip up North many come to me just in that condition. I'll tell you, it stirred me to my very soul! I said, "God, if You can keep this old body of mine on my feet --" And I went deeper than that and said, "God, if You have to take me on a stretcher over this country, I will preach this Gospel."

I want to tell you, it is no little thing to stand with the Word of God in your hand and have faith, in God Almighty to see Him slay sin and condemn sin in the flesh, and have it in your power to stand before the people in testimony, in prayer, or in preaching the Word -- it matters not which.

You will have to answer to God if you don't get the Word out before the people. I'll tell you these are wonderful days! powerful days! awful days!

"Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments."

"I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments."

Do you know, a shade or a tinge of doubt never comes over the man or the woman whom God Almighty has redeemed and has given the determination to follow wholly the Lord. God's people will never be ashamed. They will come and counsel—the learned men will come and ask you questions, and there is something in your heart that can always give an answer to the hope that you have in you.

If there is something in your heart that questions the doctrine of baptism by immersion, that questions divine healing, that questions the second coming of Jesus, that questions the ordinance of the Lord's Supper or the Washing of the Disciples' Feet, or places little significance on that wonderful commandment of Jesus Christ, and there is always something shaky and trembling about you when someone touches on that point, and you weaken and fall down, then people can feel that there is no stability in the answer that you give to them. But I want to tell you, when you wholly follow the Lord, when His commandments and His statutes are not grievous unto you —but you love them with all your heart —then you want only to know His will and you are ready to step out onto the thing. All you have to do is to let God drop some nugget of truth down where your ears can hear it, and it will lodge in your heart, and, you will say, "God, I am just here to step right out into all the fullness of God." God's people are not ashamed to-day. They can face the world; they can face men and devils; they can face any condition or circumstance, because they know in whom they have believed, and they have it wrought out in their heart.

"I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments."

The judgments of the Lord are true. The judgments of the Lord are nothing more nor less than the commandments and the statutes and ordinances. It is all summed up in one thing, and the man or the woman who has it down in his heart can praise the Lord with uprightness of heart.

"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word."

"With my whole heart have I sought thee: let me not wander from thy commandments."

That was the desire of that holy man of God who had fallen by the wayside and had gotten into trouble. God's Spirit was calling him back; and when he began to seek God, oh, how he threw his life at His feet! how he knew that sin proceeded out of the heart! that that was the seat of all sin and evil-doing; and with his whole heart he rejoiced in God when he got back. All of these things -the commandments, the judgments, the ordinances and everything of the Lord -- fell right into his heart.

Now, people, today you can get any experience you want from God. You don't have to be feeling around about this thing. You don't have to be questioning. You don't have to be wondering whether the thing is for you. This morning if you have had any ears at all to hear, you know that God's Spirit convicts of sin. You wouldn't be here this morning if the Spirit of God was not in some measure operating upon your life. You would be someplace else; but you are here this morning, and you have that to thank God for, that the Spirit of God is in some measure operating upon your heart.

You may have come here with a purpose to fight the Gospel. You might be here out of curiosity. You might be here because you are without friends, and you can't go anyplace else. It doesn't make any difference how you happened to come here. God has brought you here; and now you just let the Word sink into your heart --- and you take one step toward God. The soul that is discouraged, you who feel that you have tried and tried and you haven't been able to get anywhere, you just go back to the very foundation. Some people may be scared to death of throwing away their confidence —who haven't a speck of confidence to throw away. If they had any confidence, they wouldn't be seeking like that.

Some people come to me and say: "I know the Lord saved me, but I am not just settled. I don't just feel right about the thing, but I am afraid to go back and seek the Lord again. I am afraid I will be throwing away my confidence." Well, you haven't any confidence to throw away. If you had, you would have the thing you need.

Now, I don't want everyone who is seeking God for deeper experiences to come here and seek God for salvation. I am not talking about that, but I am talking about people who are just driven and tossed and driven by the power of the enemy, and have failed to get settled on the Rock. Now you can go down before God wherever you are—at your seat, at this altar. You know you are living without sin, you know God has done much for you; but you are just shaky in your faith and in your confidence, and in your consecration. Just now, while you go down on your knees, say "God, You just put that confidence in my soul. I will plead the Blood to flow over me just now. I will set my stake right today, and I will have that thing that is in the Word of God for me." You can get it.

If you are seeking your baptism, and you are discouraged and feel: "Well, I don't know whether I can get it or not," then just pull that buckle up just another inch or two, that girdle that God has put on you, and say "I know when God saved me. I know I have lived without sin from the day that God saved my soul. I know when He sanctified me. I know that the work stood. Now God, I am going to have my baptism at any cost. God, let the Blood flow over me. Purify my faith. Put within me that confidence and that faith that will just battle the thing right through." I believe God will do the thing for you.

The same is true in the healing of your body. The devil tries to get everybody sick, and lets everything come to discourage people. That is all he does it for. But the thing God wants us to do is just to stand like a rock. When they sent us word that this one was sick —and that one was sick—and this had happened—and that had happened—why, there wasn't a tremor in our soul. We knew that was the devil, right from the beginning. All we had to do was to hold steady and trust the Lord and look to God in confidence. I always begin to praise God for what He has done, when the devil turns up something.

I always begin to praise God for what He has done: that He has healed the sick, that He has wrought such wonderful miracles; and before I know it, the faith is just bounding in my soul. The devil is trying to rob people of their faith and their confidence; and the thing we are here for today is to encourage the saints to hold on to their faith, and not lie down; but get into the Gospel with everything that is in them, and battle the enemy to the very gates.

A Greater Than Solomon, Florence Crawford

"And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions."

"And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones and when she was came to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart."

"And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not" (I Kings 10:1-3).

The queen of Sheba is a type of the "ends of the earth" coming to the Son of man. They are coming to Christ with problems and hard questions, but Jesus can answer every question. How many have come to this camp meeting, some hundreds of miles, that they might listen to the Word of God, and ask counsel concerning the welfare of their soul. We thank God that it is possible for them to return to their homes with all their hard questions settled, and their hearts at peace with God.

You may think that the Gospel does not amount to much—that it is just a little fancy—but I thank God that it is a powerful reality. There are no people on the earth who have as much to be thankful for as the redeemed of the Lord, who have come from the different parts of the earth, and from different stations of life to receive the wonderful words of wisdom that Christ has to impart. Jesus stands ready to make intercession for every soul who will come and say, "I will pay the price. I will take the way. I will accept the Gospel of the Son of God." God will forgive them. But God demands that one make right every wrong of the past, as far as it lies in his power.

It means much to have the desire in one's heart to know the truth concerning his soul. God led one to this camp meeting this afternoon who confessed to having committed murder. For thirty years the memory of that crime had rankled in her breast; and many a night she spent with that before her, until her mind was almost gone. God has caused her to confess it out, but He has delivered her soul. Although it means to go back and meet the law, yet a merciful God forgives—even the hands that are stained with blood.

Oh, people, I worship the God of Heaven who has let the light of this glorious Gospel shine into my heart, and put a fearlessness there that will tell people of their sin and of the way of escape from sin!

"And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built,"

"And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her."

"And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom."

"Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard."

"Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom."

Many people shrink from the reproach of this Gospel. But there were some people who were so hungry, and so diseased in their bodies, that they were glad to know of a remedy. They were looking for a way out. When the doctors fail, when climates fail, when everything else fails, and one has nothing that can satisfy that longing in the heart; then one is willing to turn to the God who has power to save the soul and heal the body. Many have been brought into this Gospel through the healing of their body. They came, they saw, they heard what God was doing; and when they beheld it and heard the testimonies and the Word of God, they believed the report, and said, "The half was not told me." When they received salvation they had the same testimony.

God has something in store for His people. Little did I know what God had in store for me when He led me into the light of this glorious Gospel. Some time previous to coming into this Gospel, God saved my soul in a miraculous way. One night He spoke to me when I was dancing in a ballroom. (My son is out preaching this Gospel, my daughter sits at this piano, and my mother sits in front of me, and they are witnesses with me of the great things God has done.) I was raised in a home of unbelief. I sat at the table with noted infidels. I heard them tear the old Bible to pieces, and say that God was but a myth and, that Jesus was not the Christ.

But God spoke out of Heaven to me in the ballroom, while the ladies' orchestra was playing, and said, "Daughter, give Me thine heart." Three times the voice spoke to me. I loved the world, the fine clothes, the jewelry—but when God spoke, I knew the voice of God. No one had to tell me it was God. I went immediately to my home. I prayed and wrestled for my salvation for days.

The enemy would sweep down upon me like a flood with all the teaching I had had contrary to the Word of God. I prayed on for days, fighting back the powers of the enemy that would say that there was no God, no Christ. But I knew that the voice that spoke to me came from God. Before God saved my soul I had longed to know Him. I loved Jesus and wanted to serve Him; but I could not do it. I did not have the power. At one time a noted infidel came to southern California, where I had been sent for my health. He heard at the hotel that I was staying there. He knew my people, and he said to me, "Will you play and sing for me?" I replied, "Yes, if I may sing what I like." He said, "You may sing whatever you like." The place was packed. I sang:

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"Jesus, Lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high!"

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"Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide,

Oh, receive my soul at last."

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I did not care what the effect was. I did not care what he said or did. My heart was reaching out for God. The handkerchiefs came out. The lecture fell flat. He tried to excuse me, but the lecture was spoiled. There is nothing back of infidelity anyway—I speak as one who knows—and they did not have power to stop that old song. When the question is asked concerning whether or not I shall be able to see the end of this Christian race, I remember how I took my stand for God before I was saved, when I had been cradled in infidelity and brought up to believe there is no God; and I surely will stand for God, now that I know Him.

When God saved me, my health was failing fast. I had never heard that Jesus Christ could heal my body. I knew. nothing of divine healing. But I knew He had saved my soul .I spent the little strength I had, in going behind the bars to tell the men there the way out of sin; or in going into the slums trying to rescue mothers' boys and girls. I vas saved, as I said; -but oh, how my heart hungered for something more! God had planted the truth of His Word in my soul. The time came, in the city of Los Angeles, when I would attend every evangelistic meeting that was held there. I would interview the evangelists and tell them that God had saved me, a proud, worldly woman, but that I was hungering for more of God. They would; say, "You are all right; you have all God has for you." I would go my way disappointed, but I hungered on.

I knew all about the old Methodist church - I was class leader in that church. I had been baptized in the Christian church. I had worshipped with the Presbyterians. I knew all about the Christian Alliance; and New Testament people. They were all in the city of Los Angeles. I was acquainted with all the leading ministers of that city; I would go to them for help and tell them I was hungering and thirsting for more of God. They would say, "You are all right," and "Be careful, do not go too far." I knew I was saved, but I was hungry for more of God.

I talked one day with a little woman and I said to her, "Is there not a people somewhere who preach the whole Word of God from Genesis to Revelation? If I could find such people I would follow them to the ends of the earth." The time came when God led this little woman to me again. She had gone her way and I had gone my way. After several years she came to my home and said, "Sister C., I have found the people!" I said, "Where are they?" She said, "I have found them, but they are down in the lower part of the city." She did not believe I would go into that part of the city to worship God. She did not know whether I had lost the hunger for more of God or not.

But the hunger was there. Disease had settled on my body and I was nothing but skin and bones. I had to wear a heavy metal plate across my body with great metal prongs in the back. I had not walked without it for eleven years. I had serious eye trouble. My son had never seen his mother without glasses. I had lung trouble, and also the heart trouble that goes with lung trouble. I had to wear chamois skin over my lungs. I know what the whole "cure" is from A to Z—Scott's Emulsion, cod liver oil, living in tent houses. I have been through the whole thing. I had running sores on my body that no doctor could help. In that hour, when doctors failed, I was in a condition to need a Gospel with power in it.

When this woman told me she had found a people in the city of Los Angeles, I did not say, "I am too proud." I said, "Take me to them!" I would have gone there if I had had to crawl on my hands and knees. I needed a Savior who could heal my body. That was eight years ago. I do not look like a famine sufferer tonight -- and I owe every ounce of flesh, every drop of pure blood in my body to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

This woman told me of a colored man preaching down on Azusa Street. She knew how I had been brought up; and how, in my married life, we looked down on anybody who even spoke to a colored person, unless he was a servant in the home. I said, "I don't care who preaches it. If they have the thing my soul is craving for, I want it."

I went down there. There were no windows in the building. It was an old barn that had been cleaned out. They had an old bench there. I went in and sat down. They sang a little but that didn't touch my heart. They prayed, yet that didn't seem to move me at all. Then they sang again. A man got up on his feet. He was about as tall as I, but he looked twice as tall. He said, "Hallelujah!" It went through my soul. He waited a minute and again he said, "Hallelujah!" I said, "God, I have heard the voice from Heaven. I have heard it at last." You say, "Is there anything in a 'Hallelujah'? "Yes, there is a lot in it when it has God's Spirit back of it.

I forgot my poor emaciated body. I forgot my suffering. I was so nervous that I would tear my hair at night, and couldn't help it. I forgot all that, but I heard the voice of the great Shepherd of the sheep. I was a sheep myself, I was a child of God. The one thing I wondered was, "How could I get it? How could I receive that wonderful blessing in my soul which I had hungered for so long?"

Again and again I would go to those meetings and then back home. I didn't tell my family there were colored people in the meeting where I was going. When they would say, "Who are they?" I answered: "Some church people who have banded together to pray for the power of God to come down. They prayed and the power fell, and now I am after the same thing." People, it was more than words—the hunger that God planted in my soul.

I reached the place where I didn't care what anyone would say - friends or my people - if I could only get it. That was the only thing I wanted. I had consecrated; I reconsecrated. I would go on my face in my home; and I would have gone through the floor, if possible, in order to get to where God would give me the experience that He had given those other people. And God gave it to me! At last He sanctified me! I never thought of my sick body. I never thought of the racking pains.

After God sanctified me, they told me that God would give me power for service, that God would baptize me with the Holy Ghost and fire. I tarried, and God sent the mighty enduement of power upon my life. He caused me to speak in the Chinese language. A Christian Chinese was there, and when he came and stood before me, he said, "Chinese white woman." How wonderful that was! And yet my body was not healed. I had not even asked or thought of asking God to heal my body.

The next day my daughter was taken to the dentist to have some teeth extracted. The dentist said that her mouth was in such a condition she would have to be operated on. The dentist went with her father to a specialist in that city and he examined her head. He said, "I cannot take the case at all." She hadn't breathed through her nose for four years, and she had growths in her head which he said had to be taken out. She had ulcers on her eyelids also, and her glasses had to be changed. They took her to a second specialist and he said that he would not take her case. They took her to a third. He took an X-ray of her head and refused the case.

When they brought that child home, I threw my hands into the air and said, "O God, if You could take this woman, who never spoke another language in all her life, and make her speak in the Chinese language, You can heal this child!" I took her down to the mission the next day. The prayer of faith was prayed. I took her home and laid her in her little bed. In a few minutes she was sound asleep, and she was breathing through her nose with her mouth closed - something that had not been for four long years. My heart went up in praise. The next morning I bent over her bed, and found she was breathing through her nose.

I can put you in touch with the physicians in the city of Los Angeles who refused that child's case. She had to live on predigested food. After she was prayed for she began to eat anything, and her body was perfectly healed. Her eyes were healed. Today she has a sound body because God healed her.

Friends, there is a balm in Gilead. The message of the last days is going forth and Jesus is coming soon. One greater than Solomon is here. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has power to break every fetter --- to set the drunkard free, to set the fallen woman free, to deliver the thief, to deliver the gambler -- to set them free, and make them kings and priests unto God -- the happiest people on earth.

My son said, "Why don't you ask God to heal you so that you won't have to wear glasses?" He wasn't saved - just a boy - but he knew that God had healed that child. I went down to the meeting that day. I hadn't thought about the healing of my body. I wanted to get the experience in my soul, and I had gotten it. God caused the child to remind me of getting the healing for my eyes. I was prayed for and God instantly healed my eyes.

My lungs were healed. The cough stopped. God healed my body perfectly, and I walked twenty-three blocks the night God healed my body. Oh! I thank God that I found a Friend - and His name is Jesus. Th greatest thing that ever came into my life is this salvation and the power to tell the story that Jesus Christ can save to the uttermost all who come unto Him.

I told God that if He would heal my body I would preach His Gospel as long as He gave me breath if He would make me a well, strong, woman, so that people could look at me and say, "That woman has what she is talking about." He healed me!

The Christ of Calvary is reaching for souls. It may be that you do not think you need Him. It may be that you are not in trouble. I was not in trouble except that I was a sinner, and I knew it. I found the Great Physician; the Mighty God; the everlasting Father; the Prince of Peace who came to this world to save lost and dying souls, to put peace in troubled hearts, and grant healing to sick bodies.

People, the thing that I thank God most for is that I do not have to lift up a partial Gospel. I do not have to tell people that God can save and cannot do more, when they come to me with cancers, or consumption, or tumors - as a little woman sitting in this place did only a few weeks ago. Standing over there by the post she said, "My unsaved children took me to two physicians to find out what was the matter with me. The first one said that I had three cancers, and the next one made an X-ray examination. He said that if I exerted myself just a little bit I was likely to meet instant death."

It was an easy matter to look into the face of that woman and say, "God can heal you. Jesus will heal you." And God did heal her. The prayer of faith was prayed that day. The following Thursday she came to this place and the cancers were gone. You can believe it or not, as you like. God did it! God Almighty is healing the sick.

This Gospel is preached without money and without price. That is the reason we can preach this Gospel just as God wants us to preach it. We can tell our experiences because there is no one to admonish us to sit down, and there are no people in the city of Portland who are better cared for than these people.

The foundation of the Gospel of the Son of man is faith. It is true it costs money to publish these papers. Six tons of paper were used to publish the last paper, and that costs hundreds of dollars. Our papers are translated into the Finnish, Norwegian, German, and Bohemian languages all without money and without price, and sent to anyone who wants them.

A printer came on the grounds the other day to attend to a little business with us. He saw the boxes of papers being packed, some going to Cincinnati, and some to Oakland; others to Vancouver, Tacoma, and Seattle. He said, "Do they pay for these papers?" I said, "Not one cent." God supplies every need in the publishing of our papers.

Ask the business firms we deal with if our word is not as good as our check. In all our branch missions on this Coast and in the East you will never find a collection taken. That is what Gad does for the people who have faith in Him. That is the reason we can pray for the sick. That is the reason we have power when a dope fiend, a man down in the depths of sin, or a woman of the underworld comes to us --- we can cast the devil out.

We invite you to come to our mission on the corner of Burnside. It is true it is a humble place. It might be a little hard on your pride; but "pocket it" and come. You will see a beautifully lighted hall, and mottoes on the walls; and best of all, you will hear about Jesus.

Many a mother's boy, about to commit suicide on the Burnside Bridge, is saved tonight because he saw the light flashing out on the sidewalk. During one week last winter six men who were about to commit suicide saw the sign, "Jesus, the Light of the World." They came into the hall and were saved. Hell lost six victims in one week. All winter long there are cases like that. While many in the higher walks find the same salvation, yet we do thank God that the men who are down in the depths of sin also find a ray of hope. Many are far from home and mother. Many a mother in the East has a boy who lands on old Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon; and many a time they hear the singing from the "lighthouse by the bridge" and come up into the place -- and some mother's prayer is answered.

Friends, there is a balm in Gilead. The message of the last days is going forth and Jesus is coming soon. One greater than Solomon is here. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has power to break every fetter --- to set the drunkard free, to set the fallen woman free, to deliver the thief, to deliver the gambler -- to set them free, and make them kings and priests unto God -- the happiest people on earth.