People come up to me and say: “Why should I make a decision about God? I’m happy doing what I’m doing. You call it sin — I call it fun. Live and let live.” If they don’t say it in these words, the thought’s there unspoken, in their faces. There’s pleasure in sin — but only for a season. Deep down there is a gnawing, dull dissatisfaction.
I sat down with a 69-year-old business executive in a large Eastern city recently who told me, “I have fifty million dollars and everything I could ever want — and I am the most miserable man in this city.” One of the biggest names in Hollywood, a tall, strapping, swash-buckling type, revealed the same thing in different words. His life, he admitted, was lonely and empty.
These are two prominent people who have discovered that wealth and fame aren’t enough in life. Millions more feel the same way. Telling lies and dodging the facts cannot shield them from the real truth — that because their consciences are black with acts against God, they can find no inner peace. To cleanse out this dirt, they need the injection of a driving spiritual force in their lives.
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Jim Vaus came out of World War II a master of electronics. Within a few years he was in the employ of big gamblers on the West Coast, drawing down huge fees for his craftmanship at wire tapping and communications.
One night Jim dropped in on one of our meetings in Los Angeles to kill time before he was to take off by plane for a very important deal in St. Louis. Outwardly indifferent, he stood at the rear of the hall. When the call came for those in the audience to come forward and make a decision for Christ, a quiet man next to big Jim tapped him on the shoulder.
“Will you go forward with me?” Jim whirled on him. “Lay off me or I’ll knock your head off.” The other man didn’t retreat. “You can do anything you like to me,” he said gently, “but that won’t right things between you and God.”
Something clicked inside of Jim Vaus at that moment. His face twisted with emotion, he started walking to the front of the hall. Jim then made a decision to break clean with his old life and contacts. Today, he is one of the Lord’s hardest workers.
Jim Vaus found out later that the plane he didn’t catch that night of decision was met in St. Louis by gunmen who had instructions to kill him. This is a spectacular example of what God can do with a person. Hundreds of men and women are reborn, less dramatically at every meeting.
“But, Billy,” some people say, “What do you mean by being born again?”
To be born again means that the Divine Life has entered the human soul. God’s objective then is to have that person start life anew, living in the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. The two conditions of this rebirth are repentance toward God and faith toward Christ.
At our meetings emphasizing the family and home, whole families have come forward to make their decision together. Once a husband and wife, who had parted, came to the meeting separately. He started forward at the end. So did she. Startled, they met face to face, then joined hands with tears in their eyes.
We hold these meetings over periods of four to eight weeks in cities and towns, usually where we have received a joint invitation from the churches in the community. The effectiveness of our meetings, we have found, depends on working with local churches and ministers and giving them the responsibility of following up our efforts with a program of their own.
The results so far have been heartening — for which we give God the glory. Our continuing prayer in these days is that we can remain in a position of usefulness to God and play a part in calling the world back to Him before it is too late.
If you are a disbeliever, a skeptic or just indifferent, I know what you’re going through. I’ve gone through it all myself. If you feel that you are just naturally weak, let me assure you that many persons who once were weak, today are the strongest workers for God. The Scripture says that strength comes from weakness.
When I wandered into my first revival meeting back in 1934 in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was a gangling kid of 16 with a consuming ambition to be a major league ball player. The last thing I wanted to be was a preacher. From our worldly crowd, two of us, Grady Wilson and I, went to the meeting to see what the shouting was about.
The first night I hid behind a stout lady’s big hat. I recall vividly the smell of pine shavings in my nostrils … also the strange stirrings that churned up inside me to know more about Christ. Although my family had reared me in a fine religious background, I had shrugged much of it off during this particular period of teenage restlessness.
The second night I sat up closer and battled with the questions everyone asks. Was it sissified to embrace Christ? Could you be religious and still have fun? Who would be looking if I were to go forward at the end of the meeting? Why couldn’t I make a decision without walking all the way to the front?
All these questions are rooted in man’s pride and egotism. God didn’t come through to me as a real Presence until I publicly made the decision to be a living, breathing worker for God. Not an evangelist, though, I said to myself. Months later, after some of the most exhaustive prayer sessions I have ever had, I decided to make religion my career.
To earn enough money to pay my way through Bible school, I spent one summer selling brushes. This experience taught me that regardless of whether I offered brushes or faith in God, without personal convictions and enthusiasm I was wasting my time.
Being jilted at 18 made a terrific impact on me. The fact that the girl in question said she didn’t think I would amount to anything helped light a fire under me. After a long session of self-analysis, I decided I did want to amount to something — not for myself but for God.
While attending the Florida Bible Institute, I began to practice preaching in a nearby woods. Almost daily I would slip into the swampland, lay my notes on a stump and offer my sermon to the birds, alligators, frogs and all who would listen.
Then came the question that nags many who start out doing God’s work. “How do I know God wants me to do this?” The only way I knew I could get an answer was through prayer. “God,” I said, “If you want me to preach, help me locate a pulpit.”
That same day a man came up to me, said he had heard me preaching and asked if I would give a sermon at a gospel meeting that night down the road. This — my first real answer to prayer — started my career for the Lord.
Today when a cynic asks me — “How does giving your life to God pay off?” or, “If I change, what will God do for me?” — I can answer by telling him what He has done for me.
He forgave my sins; He gave me peace of mind; He took away my fear of death. He stirred up creative powers within me that I never realized existed. But more important than what I received from God are the efforts I have since been able to make for Him.
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