[00:00:00] I thought it good to show the signs and wonders that the High God has wrought toward me.
[00:00:05] How great are His signs and how mighty are His wonders.
[00:00:09] His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.
[00:00:16] That's from Daniel chapter 4.
[00:00:19] And as I read this text, I thought it would be good to make known some of the Lord's doings and deeds in my life and ministry.
[00:00:27] I have gone to many parts of the world to evangelize, and one of the unique places God has sent me was to the Dutch-French island of St. Martin.
[00:00:37] This island has to be a model for the world, how two different countries, nationalities, languages, currencies, and traditions can flow together in harmony on one island.
[00:00:49] On one side of the island is St. Martin, the Dutch spelling, and the capital is Philipsburg.
[00:00:55] On the other side is St. Martin, the French spelling, and its capital is Mirigold.
[00:01:02] I was there ministering on both sides of the island in a time of outreach to the Lord's work,
[00:01:08] and I had prepared and delivered what God has been doing in a tremendous open-air rally there on the carnival grounds at Philipsburg.
[00:01:18] A huge crowd gathered there in the open air.
[00:01:21] He was truly going out where the sinners are, and the Lord wonderfully manifested His power,
[00:01:28] and many people responded for salvation. Praise God for that.
[00:01:32] So I'll just share with you some of the incidents of how God has blessed in my going to these many different places in the world.
[00:01:41] And as I have ministered in both the Dutch and French West Indies, it's unusual indeed all the historical cultural backgrounds of the peoples of the West Indian islands.
[00:01:52] It's been my joy through the years to minister in the Spanish West Indies, the French West Indies, the Dutch West Indies, and the British West Indies.
[00:02:04] I have spent months, or actually almost years, living among these people and preaching to them in mass evangelism meetings.
[00:02:13] I know them so very well. They're a special breed of people, very dear.
[00:02:18] And I've had strong and satisfying results as I've ministered up and down all those islands,
[00:02:25] from Haiti on the north clear down to Tobago on the south.
[00:02:29] And as you hear what I'm showing today, how mighty His wonders, I want to convey to you that I love the Savior.
[00:02:37] I love Jesus. And I'm glad I'm a Christian.
[00:02:41] I hope your heart is also filled with gratitude that you have accepted the same Christ I have.
[00:02:48] And you know what it means everything when you know Jesus is your Savior and Lord.
[00:02:53] And that's why I want to give you this brief testimony.
[00:02:58] I want to share with you a part of my life story, you might call it.
[00:03:03] Now, my earliest unforgettable impression of the gospel was when I was 11 years of age.
[00:03:10] That was the same age when I was kidnapped by an evil man and taken many hundreds of miles away from my family.
[00:03:18] That experience was overwhelming.
[00:03:21] Well, there at age 11, I had the opportunity to witness the gospel from a group of Christians who had special meetings there, open air meetings on my dad's farm.
[00:03:35] Now, night after night, I would go over and listen to those meetings.
[00:03:40] And never did I go because I was so timid and shy.
[00:03:44] Rather, I'd stand on the outer edges watching and listening all the time.
[00:03:49] It was a totally new realm of life for me to be exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:03:56] Because my family was total non-Christian.
[00:03:59] And for this new world that I was a part of, I observed how a strong evangelistic service would be night after night.
[00:04:07] Little did I realize at 11 years of age that I was destined by God to follow this same path of life, to be an evangelist and travel to the nations.
[00:04:18] But back to that scene there, I was there each night, a freckle-faced, barefoot boy, listening to the inspiring songs about Jesus, about the blood and all the other great gospel hymns.
[00:04:32] And when the evangelist would proclaim the truth of the gospel, he would declare what Jesus had done in his death, his burial, his resurrection.
[00:04:43] Now, these were subjects that I had no knowledge of whatsoever, but I was really interested.
[00:04:49] And for the first time in my life, I had a brief understanding of what it means for Jesus and his saving power.
[00:04:56] Now, the highlight of each of those meetings was the altar service.
[00:05:00] When that evangelist would extend the invitation for the unsaved to come forward, to receive Christ, what tense drama it was, night after night.
[00:05:10] Because I lived in that farm community, I knew most of those people who were there in attendance, and I knew their ungodly lives.
[00:05:19] I was standing there in the shadows, just watching, as the Holy Spirit was convicting sinners deeply.
[00:05:25] And then seeing many of these same people going forward to accept the Savior.
[00:05:31] Oh, hallelujah!
[00:05:31] That still stirs my memory and my heart to the very depths of my being, and what it was way back then, and how it continued through all these years.
[00:05:42] To see sinners coming forward to be born again by the Spirit of God.
[00:05:47] By the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit, God has permitted me to see this happen with tens of thousands of precious souls all over the world where God has sent me.
[00:05:57] I was so attracted by the gospel, the pure gospel.
[00:06:02] And I was also blessed by the clean lives of the people who were Christians.
[00:06:06] It really appealed to me greatly.
[00:06:09] I'm sure I was able to see the contrast readily because of the impurities of most of my gossip family.
[00:06:16] My dad, his three brothers and four sisters, practiced sinful living.
[00:06:22] And my own dad's drinking had been a lifelong problem for our family.
[00:06:26] His infidelity to the marriage vows had brought great heartache to my mother.
[00:06:31] And I remember those incidents.
[00:06:33] And I recall one particular time when I was 16 years of age.
[00:06:37] My dad had been away for a few days living with another woman.
[00:06:41] When he returned to our home, my mother was very upset.
[00:06:45] And she wanted to talk with him about his way of life.
[00:06:48] But my dad was under the influence of alcohol.
[00:06:52] And he had no desire to talk.
[00:06:54] Rather, he wanted to sleep off his drunk.
[00:06:57] And when he laid down on the front porch for his sleep, my mother thoroughly agitated by his behavior.
[00:07:04] She took a pitcher of ice water and poured it on him in very hasty action.
[00:07:10] While my dad, spraying from where he was lying, immediately grabbed his gun and came after my mother.
[00:07:17] He was threatening to kill her then and there.
[00:07:21] And he said,
[00:07:26] And I was like,
[00:07:30] And when I came for him.
[00:07:34] And when my dad saw I had knocked the gun from him, he was thoroughly angered at me.
[00:07:39] So he turned on me.
[00:07:41] And I had the bitter memory, the sad memory of having to fight with my own dad when I was 16 years of age.
[00:07:48] Well, I'm talking about ungodly type of lifestyle that I was exposed to.
[00:07:53] Now, my dad, an alcoholic.
[00:07:56] Oh, the curse of drinking.
[00:07:58] I know when the deceitful liquor advertisers display their fancy ads,
[00:08:03] they always depict the person drinking as highly sophisticated.
[00:08:07] That holding a glass of whiskey or a beer in hand is the mark of attainment in life.
[00:08:13] They never depict the awful dregs of alcoholism and what it does to human families.
[00:08:19] My dad's own sister, my Aunt Anne, she was married to a wealthy businessman.
[00:08:25] But she became an alcoholic.
[00:08:27] And it was her life of drink that brought her to a horrible death.
[00:08:31] The story was that one night at a drinking party,
[00:08:34] a man took my aunt outside.
[00:08:38] He killed her, cut her body up in pieces,
[00:08:41] dumped it into a garbage can where they found her butchered up body the next morning.
[00:08:46] The clever brewery industry never presents that side of the picture when they appeal for people to drink.
[00:08:54] So my lovely Aunt Anne was viciously murdered by the hands of another drunkard.
[00:09:00] And her murderer has never been apprehended even to this day.
[00:09:04] And then there's my dad's older brother, Uncle Omer.
[00:09:07] He practiced a life of crime that had him in and out of jail and prison for many years.
[00:09:12] I can never forget the deep impressions made upon my boy's mind when I went with my dad to visit my uncles behind bars.
[00:09:22] I purposed then and there I'd never want to spend a day of my life in jail or prison.
[00:09:27] I thought it was the worst terrible life you could have as I observed in those brief visits.
[00:09:32] And also another time I accompanied an aunt to visit her husband, also an uncle who was incarcerated.
[00:09:40] So what a sad story it was.
[00:09:43] The life of the Gossess who in the main part was a victim of the drinking lifestyle
[00:09:50] that created crime, immorality, gambling and fighting.
[00:09:54] And how glad I am that Jesus saved my soul from sin and hell.
[00:09:59] And he kept me with a desire to live for him.
[00:10:03] That's why the purity of the gospel so attracted to me as a boy.
[00:10:07] I had witnessed the impurities of the Gossess for all of my lifetime.
[00:10:11] And seeing people who were clean living, clean talking, free from contaminating influences,
[00:10:18] it really turned me on to Jesus Christ and his gospel.
[00:10:21] I made it one of my main songs, a song I learned in Sunday school.
[00:10:26] Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
[00:10:29] All his wonderful passion and purity.
[00:10:33] Oh, thou spirit divine, all my nature refined.
[00:10:36] Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
[00:10:39] How I praise God for the privilege it was back in my boyhood at age 11,
[00:10:46] being exposed to the gospel through especially those open air meetings on my dad's farm.
[00:10:51] I was anxious to accept Jesus as my personal Savior and Lord.
[00:10:55] However, I had been taught by some misguided person that it mattered not whether a child made a decision for Jesus before age or not.
[00:11:04] I'd heard the theory that if one died before age 12, he would automatically go to heaven.
[00:11:10] So I put off accepting the Lord until I crossed that deadline of my 12th birthday.
[00:11:16] And as soon as I had opportunity to go to a gospel service after that 12th birthday,
[00:11:22] I readily accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord.
[00:11:26] Thank God for that.
[00:11:28] And I want to share with you today who do not know Christ,
[00:11:32] that consider the fact you need salvation.
[00:11:35] Hear the ABCs, the gospel.
[00:11:38] All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
[00:11:41] Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
[00:11:44] And Jesus said,
[00:11:46] Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
[00:11:50] Oh, my beloved friend, if you're bound by sin, by drinking, by infidelity, any of these curses upon mankind,
[00:11:58] please forsake your sin and come to Christ now.
[00:12:01] And now let me pray with you.
[00:12:03] Father, I pray for every listening friend who does not have peace with you,
[00:12:08] that this be the day of their salvation.
[00:12:10] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:12:13] Michael Dale will give you information about my book that I know will minister to you greatly.
[00:12:18] But just now, join me, please, as we together say,
[00:12:22] Praise the Lord.
[00:12:23] Praise the Lord.
[00:12:25] Praise the Lord.
[00:12:27] Praise the Lord.
[00:12:29] Praise the Lord.
[00:12:42] Hallelujah.