Saving Souls

RR: Glad to see you guys.  How come you have all this snow for me when I come back from Africa?  Ninety-five degrees where I was.

Father, thank You for this day.  Thank You for a safe trip home.  Thank You for this class.  Thank You for more than just academic learning.  Thank You for an impartation, and thank You for healing that person who has a pain on the left lower part of your back, in Jesus’ name, amen.  God bless you.  You can be seated.

I’ll give you all a full report, not in class, but I’ll give you a full report next Friday in Homecoming chapel, complete with a video.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  You’ll see it with your own eyes.

I’ll give you just a little touch.  One night, just in one night’s crusade, there were thirty cripples that walked.  One night, in one night, twelve blind people were healed, I mean, total blindness, absolutely fabulous.  Huge crowds.  I’ll show you in chapel next Friday.

The guys are just getting home.  We’ll get it all edited together and have it in Homecoming chapel.  So Homecoming chapel, I’m your preacher, but I won’t preach.  I’ll let the video preach for me.

Okay, this morning we’ve got to get right to it, a video first this morning.  You all remember the little video I showed you a few weeks ago, a little boy in Florida named Tommy Scarborough?  Remember that?  I’m going to show you another one like that.

Here’s a guy who’s about my same age now.  His name is Gary Pridemore, and he was healed in one of the services of my dad’s in 1950 something in Oakland, California.  And it’s quite an interesting story.  Gary’s still living, served in Vietnam.  As a matter of fact, lost a leg in Vietnam in the service to our country in the Army.  And he’s still living in Northern California.  So if you’ll dim the lights and roll the video, this is quite a testimony.

ROLL-IN – Gary Pridemore, Oakland, California

WOMAN: Gary has evidently had this trouble, leg paresis or a softening of the joint bone, since he was born.  We’ve had a number of doctors with him and they had difficulty finding the trouble until the child was finally crawling.  And he was put in the hospital in traction and sleeping on a board.

Then he was sent home and was confined to the bed.  Since then he has been put on crutches and was in a strap.

OR: How long has he been on crutches?

W: Sixteen months.

OR: And he was put in a strap.

W: Yes, to keep the right leg up because most of the difficulty was in the right hip.  And there have been a number of X-rays taken and checks at intervals, and he’s been very, very bad off, but the doctor says that he thinks it has reached its peak, but for us to trust in God.

OR: Your doctor told you to trust in God?

W: He said to trust in God.

OR: Well, you know, there are a lot of good doctors who will tell you once they’ve done what they can, there’s a higher power who can do it.  Isn’t that a wonderful way to feel?

W: The bone in the right hip has flattened a great deal, and the doctor said if he didn’t come out of it, he would probably develop arthritis at an early age or be a cripple

OR: And be a cripple the rest of his life.  Well, now, Gary, are you glad that you’re here?

G: Yes.

OR: Well, what do you think is going to happen?

G: I’ll be healed.

OR: You think you’ll be healed?

G: Yes.

OR: Why do you think that, Hon?

G: Because God will help me.

OR: Because God will help you?

G: Yes.

OR: Oh, that’s good.  CROWD RESPONDING

Now, audience, how many of you have children?  Let me see your hands.  Sure you do.  And I want you to help me pray for little Gary Pridemore tonight.  And if this child is healed, it will be a miracle.  There’s no doubt about that.  And I’m hoping that other children will be healed while he’s healed right here.  Are you ready, audience?

Brother DeWeese, take those, please.  Brother DeWeese, I believe I’ll have you put him on my knee.  Mrs. Black, you take his crutches, please.

What do you say now, Gary?

Max von Sydow.  He’s a great, great actor.  And he also played the part of Jesus in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told, if you ever saw that movie.  He’s a great, great actor.

And he played this minister.  And he comes in with this horrible judgmental attitude, and he preaches curses on them.  He tells you you’ve got to throw away everything.  He doesn’t come in with the love of God.

And as you follow this story all through his life, from his young early twenties when he comes as a missionary until the later years of his life, you see the transformation in him, realizing that if he had just shown the love of God instead of trying to cast the devil out everybody that he saw, he would have had a lot more success.

And this is true of many of us.  You know, there can be a zealousness.  There’s something happened on campus the other day that was bad.  There’s a song that was written that we’ve been singing in our chapel services called “Carry the Cross.”  And a couple of students came up and said, you know, “We decided we’re going to forgive you because you wrote that,” because they had gotten in their minds all screwed up what the Bible says.

And they have thought that they’re some kind of great theologian.  And these couple of students didn’t have any idea what the difference was between split beans and coffee.  And occasionally we get some students who are so holy and high and mighty above everybody else that they think they’re a spiritual guru, you know.  And they had to be stopped and corrected because that was not what was intended.

You know, Jesus himself said we are to pick up our cross and follow Him.  But there are people like that.  And I’m illustrating this because this novel so profoundly affected my life when I read it twenty-five years ago that I don’t ever want to be that type of individual who comes in with a judgmental attitude.

Yes, we have rules and we have regulations at ORU.

Paul then stood up and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.”  Now Paul was extremely smart.  He knew how to endear himself to people.  He didn’t come in criticizing them.  He didn’t come in, saying, “You have all these stupid statues around town.  You need to cut them all down.”  Do you know anybody like that?

He said, “No, I see in every way you’re very religious, for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.  Now what you’re worshipping as something unknown, I’m going to tell you the true identity.”  And he used that transition as a way to preach the gospel.

Instead of coming in knocking them, kicking them, saying, “You bunch of stupid idiots, don’t you know you need to get rid of all these idols?”  Well, that wouldn’t have worked very well because they wouldn’t have listened to him.

Many years ago a great author by the name of James Mitchner wrote a book called Hawaii.  Some of you may have read some of James Mitchner’s novels.  I’ve read most of the novels that he wrote in his lifetime.  He’s dead now.  And it’s the story of European missionaries going to Hawaii back in the 1800’s and their dogmatic judgmental attitude of the way they tried to force religion on the people.  And it’s a true story, but it’s a fictional novel.  The gist of the story is true, but it’s fictionalized so that there are all kinds of characters in it.

And the lead minister in the movie that they made some years later was played by the great actor—what’s his name?—von something.  He’s either German or Dutch, can’t think of his name.

Now Jewish tradition teaches that there was a tradition in Israel that the man of the house, the father, the husband, at mealtime—because in those days they didn’t sit at tables, chairs, like we do today.  They sat on the floor, and the food was served in the middle of them.  And I’m sure you’ve seen it portrayed in movies and things like that.  And the master of the house, the father of the house, the husband, they always had what they called a lap dog.  And the father would take the scraps from the meal and feed it to the little dog.

Well, this woman was not a Jew, but she knew this was a custom, a tradition in Israel.  And she said, “Everything you say is true.  But even the little dogs—yes, I’m a dog, I live like a wild animal, but even the little dogs in Israel get to eat from the masters’ table.”

And Jesus was waiting for her to say something like that.  And that’s when He said, “Woman, great is your faith.  So be it done to you,” and He healed the little girl.

I remember when I was a boy, I traveled a lot with my father.  And he was conducting a crusade in Northern Florida, and there was a woman who came into the prayer line one night, African-American woman.  And she had a little boy that was about my age, and the little boy had been born without a hip socket.  And he walked with his crutches, you know, like this.

And they handed my father the prayer card.  My father always had, for people to be in the prayer line, he had them fill out a prayer card so when they came for prayer, he could look at the card and read and see what the problem was.

And he read it, and he put his hand on the little boy’s hip, and it was indented because he had been born without a hip socket.  And it just tore your heart out to see this little child like this.