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In a recent letter received from Sister Hanley, she states, "In February (1993) we will mark our 20th year on the air. How I praise Him for opening this blessed avenue of witness to my people, and to peoples of every nation." God has used Irene Hanley to win multitudes of souls to Him. Her physical condition, at present, is not good. I quote again from her letter, "Many years ago I was struck across the lower back with a cane by a Jewess who became angry that I was witnessing to her son. The blow broke several vertebrae and I had to have surgery to fuse them together. I didn't know it at the time, but the doctor informed my family that I would probably, as my bones aged, one day end up in a wheelchair, It seems that time is upon me. The falls I've taken due to muscle weakness in my legs since the light stroke I suffered this past August, seem to have taken a toll on me. It is becoming more and more difficult for me to walk, even with the aid of a walker. The doctor has put a brace on my left leg and I may have to have one on my right leg, as it, too, is growing weaker. Please keep us in your daily prayers. We refuse to allow Satan to triumph! We have a big God and in Him we trust!"
"Ask, and It Shall Be Given You"
A few years ago during the summer months, I walked out to our garden and faced the fact that it was dying from lack of rain. Also, our pasture on which our cow grazed, was in an awful condition for the same reason, no rain for many weeks. The Scripture, "Ask, and it shall be given you," Matthew 7:7, flashed through my mind. I prayed, "Now Lord, Thou did say to ask and it would be given. You see how our garden is dying from lack of rain, and our old milk cow needs grass. According to Thy Word, I'm believing You to send rain before this day is over." I just took God at His Word and He gave me faith to believe, even though the sun was shining and not a hint of rain anywhere. Later, a friend called and I testified to her that I was believing God for rain before the day was over. When my husband came home for lunch, the sun was still shining, but I said, God has promised to send rain today." He gave me a questionable look but I held onto my faith. Later that afternoon, I walked over to my neighbor's and while I was there, clouds began to gather. I told her, "I must get home for God assured my heart He was going to send rain today." As I walked back to my house, a few drops began to fall, and then it broke loose. Oh, how I rejoiced for the abundant shower God sent. How it revived our garden and our pasture, but much more important, did it revive my faith in the wonderful promises of God. In Isaiah 58:11, God promises to make us like a spring of water, whose waters fail not, if we will pray and fast. Amen!
Georgia D. McCain
Don't Get Too Attached to Her for She Is Going To Die
My wife and I were married June 29, 1963. Our first child weighed eight and one-half pounds when she was born. When the second daughter was born, she only weighed three pounds, and one of her lungs was collapsed. We were told, "Don't get too attached to her for she is going to die." When we went to the hospital to see her, the nurses did not want to bring her out to see us for they were waiting for her to die. My dad and Brother William Owens went to the hospital and anointed her and prayed for her and God healed her. In about a week, the hospital allowed us to take her home.
She will soon be graduating from Bible school (1992) and plans to be a teacher. Thank the good Lord for all He has done.
David Poorman
Pennsylvania
Experience of Charles C. Waterman, Conductor
Since I have been saved, it seems strange that more people do not come to themselves.
I was born in Eugene, Indiana, 1870, but left home when 18 years of age to work for steam railroads. I was considered a moral young man; I had never used tobacco nor ever expected to use it. My mother was a Christian. She brought me up in a church and I went with my sisters, sang in the choir--but had no salvation. I had never been "born again." Consequently, when I got out with the world, and the railroad men, I began to be like them. I was soon using tobacco and profanity, then drinking and gambling. Habits began to fasten themselves upon me, but I would argue with myself I could quit them if I wanted to.
At the age of twenty-five, I married and lived pretty decently when my wife was around. But when she would go for a little visit, I was in for a time. I grew worse and worse. (Let me say right here, every one of you are getting worse every day, or you are getting better; you are not standing still.)
My mother and sister never wrote me without speaking to me about my soul. But I went on with my crowd and my habits. When two boys had been born into our home, I began to talk about quitting tobacco and would say to my wife, "I am going to quit now and my boys will never know or remember that I used tobacco." I would stop for a few days, then sneak and use it on the sly. Satan had a chain around my neck and I could not get away. For twenty-five years he was my master. I would go to the limit in sin.
We moved to the state of Washington, and there my wife got a good case of old-time religion--laid aside her jewelry--even to her wedding ring-worldly attire, secular music, and every weight that would hinder her from running a victorious Christian race. I snorted, fumed, and acted worse than ever--but she kept me out of hell.
I would often get ashamed of myself as I remembered my raising, my nice family--and think I would surely do better.
My oldest boy, when eight years of age, took double pneumonia and was given up to die. I told my wife if she wanted to do anything she could have her way, for the boy was dying. Mrs. Waterman said, "He can't die till the Lord lets him," and went out and got two people who believed in prayer. I promised them if God would heal the boy I would serve Him. God raised up that child, yet I went on in my sins.
A little later, a rosy, healthy boy, almost two years old, was stricken and died--my heart was like a stone. Mrs. Waterman bore it bravely. I was without hope--had no hope of ever seeing this darling baby again. No wonder I was sad!
I told Mrs. Waterman if I could get away from the gang and move to a new place I could live differently. So we moved here to California. But before I had been there a week, I found my gang in Pasadena. I knew just where to buy whiskey, where the poker games were played and where the haunts of vice were.
Often when she gathered the children for family prayer, I would sit upright and smoke and ridicule her prayer. But she would look at me and say, "You'll talk differently when you become a preacher."
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was lying in a bed in a rooming house in Los Angeles suffering a foretaste of the damned. I wanted to go home, but I was bound by the devil and could not. My heart, diseased from the use of whiskey and tobacco, was running away from me. (A few years before, a specialist had told me I would drop dead of heart disease if I did not quit the use of tobacco.)
I felt my time had come. I thought, "Here you are--dying and going to hell! A drunkard, a gambler, a liar, a fool. A good Christian wife, a nice home and children, your wife's prayers, your mother's prayers, and with all the light you've got, you are going to hell."
Just then I had a vision. I saw my baby boy who had died in Washington, standing up in Heaven, looking down at me and his eyes were full of pity. When he was born, one of his feet was turned sidewise-crooked. I noticed especially how pretty and straight his feet were and realized there were no imperfections in Heaven. Again I saw my home. A vision of a little girl running out to the car to look for Papa to come. Our little Faith, then three years old, always ran to meet me.
But Papa wasn't coming home. He was dying. Every nerve in me was crying for whiskey, and God opened up the hell of the Bible beneath my feet. I saw the smoke of their torment "that ascendeth forever." "Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." I raised my hand toward Heaven as high as I could possibly raise it and said, "I positively refuse to go to hell. I will not go." I had come to myself. I was sobered forever; God gave me power to take my hat and start home at once.
I phoned my wife to meet me downtown as I had some news that wouldn't keep. She had decided that day she would go to Los Angeles and walk
about the streets to see if she could find me, but before starting she had gone into the closet to pray and the Lord showed her to stay at home and leave me in His hands. As she prayed, she felt such assurance that she was heard, that she told the children, "Papa will be home today." When she heard the phone ring that morning she said, "That's Papa now," and started to meet me as I had asked her. She did not get half the way, but the Lord met me more than halfway, and always will go halfway to meet an honest soul. I told her the devil had overstepped himself and I was through, and that I wanted her to get the most godly person she knew to come and unite with her for my salvation. I had heard her read the Bible often and knew it said, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." I wanted it done if it took two, or two thousand. Yes, 1 had come to myself.
First, I went down before my wife and confessed to the bottom, and asked forgiveness, and got it. Then we decided to send for an old lady, Mrs. Headly, who had been in our home a great deal and knew of my absence at this time. Unless someone came in and missed me, they never knew I was gone. My wife told her troubles to no one but the Lord. Her mother lived within a block of us but did not know I was away. We phoned where Mrs. Headly was stopping and they told us she had gone out to the edge of town to spend the night, but we couldn't get her as the people had no phone.
So Mrs. Waterman and I got down to pray alone. In a short time, the phone rang and a woman wanted to know if everything was all right. She said that Sister Headly had made her walk four blocks to see if everything was all right at our house. Wife told her we wanted Mrs. Headly to come down right away, and although she was old and half blind, she was there in a few minutes. I said, "Sister Headly, I can't make anybody believe it, but I am trying to find God." She grabbed both my hands in hers and said, "I believe it, Brother Waterman, I believe it." (She had always called me Brother Waterman, wicked as I was.)
I got down and prayed, "Lord, I'll do anything You want me to do, and say anything You want me to say, and I'm going to serve You the rest of my life whether I ever get a blessing or not." God knows that is still my prayer tonight. I got off my knees, told my wife I had not received any witness except that I had such peace. She asked what other witness I wanted. Well, the peace and joy kept increasing until we had a regular jubilee until about two o'clock. I was up the first one in the morning and took the Bible to my wife and said, "Show me the place in here about counting the cost." She turned to Luke 14:28, "For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he hath sufficient to finish it." I was determined to build a tower that would reach to Heaven and I knew I must start the foundation right. So I sat down by the stove and counted the cost.
I looked back over my life as you would look through a telescope. God brought before me a lodge that I had belonged to for twenty-one years. I could not remember anything that I had seen or heard in it that would lead a soul to Christ or keep one out of hell. So I put all my papers, etc. in the stove. Another lodge I had belonged to eighteen years, with $3,000.00 life insurance in it. The devil said, "Go slow now, your family will starve for you will die some of these times." I did not care to listen to any more so I just put it all in the stove, too. I stripped for the race as carefully as anyone could, that was running for his life. Every weight was laid aside, every bridge was burned behind me.
I started down to the car barns to see about my job, whether I had one or not. I said, "Mommie, I guess I'll have to live it and say nothing about it to the car-men. They know me so well." I had worked for the Pacific Electric for seven years and had been "the limit," with the boys.
My wife only smiled and said nothing; she gave me no advice. She says she knew God had hold of me and did not want to spoil a good job. I started in weakness down the street, but remembered my prayer of the previous night and I looked up toward Heaven and said, "Father, tell me what to say, and I'll say it." I met a neighbor of mine that was a church member, and I began to tell her about God saving me and I got so blessed it plagued her awfully. I went down to the office and testified to all the boys, “God has saved me from sin." I did not say I had turned over a new leaf or made a resolution but, "I was converted last night." They looked at me, some with tears in their eyes and said, "We believe it." I told the boss I deserved to lose my job and would take my medicine, but I had salvation. He said, "Waterman, come to work in the morning. I have nothing against you." I testified to every person I met the rest of that day, and I have kept it up ever since. I haven't had a conversation of any length with any person, but I told them I was a Christian.
Some of the boys made fun of me, one cursed me, but apologized the next day and said he thought I was joking.
Those I had gambled with gave me three weeks to last--and put a teddy bear in my chair till I came back. And six years have rolled by and the teddy bear still has the chair so far as I know, and may keep it forever.
I have not wanted to chew or smoke since God saved me. For six years, I have been a new creature. While I used to swear and talk vulgar, I've never sworn once or said a word my daughter could not say. I've lived every day in the second verse of the Psalm, "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
The Lord helped me to memorize fifty chapters while doing my ordinary work on the car. "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee."
I have delighted to witness to the wise and the unwise so that as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel and warn every man to flee from the wrath to come. I am sure I spoke to at least ten people a day for thirty days without seeing anybody that seemed to be greatly moved or pretended to even want salvation. But I got down on my knees the first day of the next month saying. "Lord, I am going to keep on fishing whether I land anything or not." And seven days later the Lord landed a whale for me.
Frank Strong, a great big motorman, got on my car and said he was glad I had been converted. I said, "Frank, if you were really glad, you would want it, too."
He said, "Charlie, if I could get what you have I'd like to have it." I said, "If you pay the price you can get it, and if you don't want it bad enough to pay the price, you can't get it, and might just as well leave it alone and go back home."
Tears came in his eyes, and he said, "Charlie, I want it, tell me how."
He agreed to meet me as soon as I was through work and was on the spot, but smoking about the longest cigar I had ever seen. He just looked at me and took it out of his mouth and threw it away and that was his last.
I took him to our little tent where we were at camp meeting and my wife and I and Sister Schell, now in Glory, prayed together, and Frank found God. After being a slave to tobacco since a child and a very profane man, God delivered him so completely he has been a flame of fire for God ever since. In a short time he brought his wife, his children, and his aged parents to the Lord, and is still winning souls right along on his car. God bless him!
I want to add that my tobacco heart was healed the night the Lord saved me, and I have not taken a dose of medicine since. A part of the trash that went into the stove on the first day of April, 1913 was my old headache powders, heart tablets and pills.
Tonight Christ is my Healer, my Sanctifier, my coming King and wonderful Saviour.
Charles C Waterman
(This testimony is in tract form and was printed by Old Paths Tract Society, Inc., Shoals, Ind. 47581. Though Mr. Waterman has, no doubt, long gone to his reward, yet his wonderful testimony still lives on to tell the story of redeeming grace for all who will trust and obey Him. This tract used by permission.)
Two Stories on How God Supplied Water
In a very dry summer, I was helping on a farm. The springs dried up. It was a very difficult chore to haul water for the household for over a mile.
One Sunday morning, I told my aunt that God would send us water if we would pray. We went to ch
urch--I prayed for water and when we returned home the spring was full and overflowing. My aunt was amazed and had to say, "God did it."
Rev. Claude Eshelman
In Straight Paths Page 12