ARRESTED

ARRESTED
A few days ago I began looking back over my life, wondering what, if anything, I would change if I could live my life over. I decided there is very little that I would want to change, if I could.
That is not to say that I am not aware of any mistakes that I have made, for there have been many of them. But I come under the category of a "good man", and Psalms 37:23 The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
There are many things which I still do not understand, but I have not the slightest doubt that God has been responsible for both the things which seemed to be success as well as those which seemed to be defeat. Some of my thoughts were:
Pearl and I started our ministry together in The Dalles, OR. just after our twenty-second birthdays, which are in November. Shortly thereafter, we went for further training to the Big Downtown Mission Training Home in Oakland, CA. We were taught how to pray, study God's Word, and participate in Mission Services eight times a week. We each had received the Holy Ghost baptism. We knew about the Gifts of the Spirit, but they were not active in our lives, nor in the lives of most other ministers and lay members we knew. There was no one to emulate. We sort of "moved with the herd", as the saying goes.
After a few years of Pastoring, we came to a church where there was one woman who was exercised slightly in Tongues and Interpretation. At least, she seemed to know something about it. But, since most of the other ministers were taking a dim view of such things, we were not much impressed by what she was doing. But we were not opposed to it.
William Branham produced a drastic change in the Spiritual life of many Christian people in the last half of the 40's. God got our attention, to say the least.
The Fall of 1949, I attended a conference in New Westminster, BC. I was, by then, editing the official paper of the Northwest Disrict of the United Pentecostal Church, and serving as Pastor of a church in Yakima, WA.
How well I remember, I made a statement to the effect that a lot of what was going on at that time was, to me, quite spurious and irrelevant. One of the older ministers gently said, "Now, Pastor, let's not be too harsh in our judgment. It might be the real thing, and if it is, we don't want to miss it". I was cut to the quick, not by the man, because he had been ever so gentle. But the rebuke of the Spirit was so strong that I wept inwardly, and asked God to forgive me for having pre-judged what I had known so little about.
By mid-winter of 49-50 we were hearing reports of a mighty move of the Spirit which was sweeping the land. It was breaking down barriers which had stood for decades. It was causing churches to become polarized and to split wide open. We heard glowing reports, and disparaging reports, depending on which side they came from.
In late Winter (Feb 50) some of the men of the church went to Portland to a Wings of Healing convention to see for ourselves what was going on. Was it God, or was it not God? We saw both good and bad. Much of it was, indisputably, from God. I had not personally seen anything like it in my 31 years of life. I did not feel adequate to make a decision for the congregation we were shepherding, so I asked some of the men to come to Yakima and explain it to our people. They did. Ronald Sittser, Clifford Huit and Bob Barnett came in March.
The Yakima saints had been a very Spiritually minded people. They had been influenced by such men as Gaar (sp?) Price, Parret, and others who had been mightily used of God in early Pentecost. Mattie Crawford had been the instrument God had used to start the Oneness movement here in 1923.
They immediately recognized the authenticity of the outpouring, and were ready to receive it to the fullest extent. I have often thanked God for their perception and willingness to move in the things of the Spirit.
Revelling in the Spiritual atmosphere was marred shortly for me, for our official organ had a statement in it that summer that headquarters had rejected the (so called) Latter Rain movement. They were also outlawing the teaching of a modern day Israel apart from the Jews.
We took the matter to the saints, and their decision was that we should go on with God, and if it meant that we must withdraw from the National organization-- so be it.
I thought, "Hey! that's all right for you folks-- you don't have anything to lose. But what about me? At the rate I am climbing right now in the organization, I will be on the district board in less than five years. From there-- who knows? People appreciate me, and I have the natural ability to excel." But I didn't say anything to them.
Sadly, our organization was run more on natural ability than it was by the Spirit of God. That may still be the case.
It was in this way that the Lord formed a chain of circumstances around me and accompished to "arrest" me, and re-direct my life. I knew I dare not fail to walk in what I knew to be of God, and yet my brethren were precious to me. I did not want to give them up. At one point I remember walking across Summitview Ave. with the man I had assisted in his Pastorate earlier in my life. There were three of us, but I do not remember who the third man was. I asked them why we could not continue to have fellowship even though I had been forced out of the organization. God was the same, our belief in Oneness was the same. The only element that had changed was membership in the national group.
Fellowship on those terms was never extended.
My life, in the natural, was devastated. My goals, ambitions, hopes were in ruins at my feet.
But, (and oh, I love this) out of those ruins came a learning of the Spirit that was to supersede anything I had hoped for in my natural life. Pearl and I were to learn how to know, recognize, and respond to the Spirit of the Creator in ways which would be so much more satisfying than anything we had ever known before.
We were to learn about Spirit Control in our meetings, and to watch in awe as God performed His Work in the lives of those under our ministry. Changes which are wrought by the Spirit are pure and complete, whereas the best of human efforts are but to meet with failure and dismay.
The most important agenda, for us, was to endeavor to minister by His Spirit alone.
There have been other "arrestings" through the years, but each one has helped to direct us into the ministry of His choosing for our lives.
The Lord is so good!

ARRESTED
A few days ago I began looking back over my life, wondering what, if anything, I would change if I could live my life over. I decided there is very little that I would want to change, if I could.
That is not to say that I am not aware of any mistakes that I have made, for there have been many of them. But I come under the category of a "good man", and Psalms 37:23 The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
There are many things which I still do not understand, but I have not the slightest doubt that God has been responsible for both the things which seemed to be success as well as those which seemed to be defeat. Some of my thoughts were:
Pearl and I started our ministry together in The Dalles, OR. just after our twenty-second birthdays, which are in November. Shortly thereafter, we went for further training to the Big Downtown Mission Training Home in Oakland, CA. We were taught how to pray, study God's Word, and participate in Mission Services eight times a week. We each had received the Holy Ghost baptism. We knew about the Gifts of the Spirit, but they were not active in our lives, nor in the lives of most other ministers and lay members we knew. There was no one to emulate. We sort of "moved with the herd", as the saying goes.
After a few years of Pastoring, we came to a church where there was one woman who was exercised slightly in Tongues and Interpretation. At least, she seemed to know something about it. But, since most of the other ministers were taking a dim view of such things, we were not much impressed by what she was doing. But we were not opposed to it.
William Branham produced a drastic change in the Spiritual life of many Christian people in the last half of the 40's. God got our attention, to say the least.
The Fall of 1949, I attended a conference in New Westminster, BC. I was, by then, editing the official paper of the Northwest Disrict of the United Pentecostal Church, and serving as Pastor of a church in Yakima, WA.
How well I remember, I made a statement to the effect that a lot of what was going on at that time was, to me, quite spurious and irrelevant. One of the older ministers gently said, "Now, Pastor, let's not be too harsh in our judgment. It might be the real thing, and if it is, we don't want to miss it". I was cut to the quick, not by the man, because he had been ever so gentle. But the rebuke of the Spirit was so strong that I wept inwardly, and asked God to forgive me for having pre-judged what I had known so little about.
By mid-winter of 49-50 we were hearing reports of a mighty move of the Spirit which was sweeping the land. It was breaking down barriers which had stood for decades. It was causing churches to become polarized and to split wide open. We heard glowing reports, and disparaging reports, depending on which side they came from.
In late Winter (Feb 50) some of the men of the church went to Portland to a Wings of Healing convention to see for ourselves what was going on. Was it God, or was it not God? We saw both good and bad. Much of it was, indisputably, from God. I had not personally seen anything like it in my 31 years of life. I did not feel adequate to make a decision for the congregation we were shepherding, so I asked some of the men to come to Yakima and explain it to our people. They did. Ronald Sittser, Clifford Huit and Bob Barnett came in March.
The Yakima saints had been a very Spiritually minded people. They had been influenced by such men as Gaar (sp?) Price, Parret, and others who had been mightily used of God in early Pentecost. Mattie Crawford had been the instrument God had used to start the Oneness movement here in 1923.
They immediately recognized the authenticity of the outpouring, and were ready to receive it to the fullest extent. I have often thanked God for their perception and willingness to move in the things of the Spirit.
Revelling in the Spiritual atmosphere was marred shortly for me, for our official organ had a statement in it that summer that headquarters had rejected the (so called) Latter Rain movement. They were also outlawing the teaching of a modern day Israel apart from the Jews.
We took the matter to the saints, and their decision was that we should go on with God, and if it meant that we must withdraw from the National organization-- so be it.
I thought, "Hey! that's all right for you folks-- you don't have anything to lose. But what about me? At the rate I am climbing right now in the organization, I will be on the district board in less than five years. From there-- who knows? People appreciate me, and I have the natural ability to excel." But I didn't say anything to them.
Sadly, our organization was run more on natural ability than it was by the Spirit of God. That may still be the case.
It was in this way that the Lord formed a chain of circumstances around me and accompished to "arrest" me, and re-direct my life. I knew I dare not fail to walk in what I knew to be of God, and yet my brethren were precious to me. I did not want to give them up. At one point I remember walking across Summitview Ave. with the man I had assisted in his Pastorate earlier in my life. There were three of us, but I do not remember who the third man was. I asked them why we could not continue to have fellowship even though I had been forced out of the organization. God was the same, our belief in Oneness was the same. The only element that had changed was membership in the national group.
Fellowship on those terms was never extended.
My life, in the natural, was devastated. My goals, ambitions, hopes were in ruins at my feet.
But, (and oh, I love this) out of those ruins came a learning of the Spirit that was to supersede anything I had hoped for in my natural life. Pearl and I were to learn how to know, recognize, and respond to the Spirit of the Creator in ways which would be so much more satisfying than anything we had ever known before.
We were to learn about Spirit Control in our meetings, and to watch in awe as God performed His Work in the lives of those under our ministry. Changes which are wrought by the Spirit are pure and complete, whereas the best of human efforts are but to meet with failure and dismay.
The most important agenda, for us, was to endeavor to minister by His Spirit alone.
There have been other "arrestings" through the years, but each one has helped to direct us into the ministry of His choosing for our lives.
The Lord is so good!