Chapter Eight

GOD'S CALL IS WITHOUT REPENTANCE

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. - Romans 11:29.

"And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. - Jonah 3:1-3.

In 1980 I started a small business, went into debt and began to make money. I had always wanted to have a business, or so I thought. After having been set up and ready to work for several weeks I had still not had a job. That's when surprisingly enough I asked God to give my little business some work and He did for awhile. We sold our house for a $25,000.00 profit and received a lease on some mineral rights that my parents had given us for $30,000.00. With that money we bought a bigger house and more equipment for the business. Now one of our excuses for my not following through with preaching had been that we couldn't afford to just drop everything and go to seminary. After all we had children a home and responsibilities. But if we had trusted God, walked by faith, hindsight shows us that more than enough money would have been there for me to go to seminary.

In July of 1982 I knew again that I wasn't where God wanted me to be but how could I walk away from a business and a home? God solved the problem for me! In October 1982 I made five or six thousand dollars but in November 1982 I didn't make anything. The bust had come to the oilfield. By February of 1993 I had swallowed my pride and gone back to work for a company where I had previously worked. Jeanie was working again by this point as well. I decided that I would go back to college. I wanted to do something to help people and so I began studying for a masters in social sciences. By the end of the first semester I believed that I should try to become a probation and parole officer and my studies were directed to that end.

Meanwhile back in the real world I was working at a convenience store part time in maintenance and as a clerk. Our finances were becoming more and more desperate and we had been trying to sell our house for months to get rid of the huge house payment. It was getting close to Christmas and I remember praying and asking God to sell our house as a Christmas present. We moved out the day after Christmas.

The summer after I completed my degree God began speaking to me again about preaching His Word. During a one week period one passage of Scripture came to me three times. In my daily Bible reading God seemed to impress me in particular with three verses in Mark chapter 5: "And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel (Mark 5:18-20)."

Those verses in Mark seemed to stick in my mind and during the week I had the responsibility of giving a devotion at church. I decided that I would use Mark chapter five for my devotional. Again through the study and preparation for the devotion God seemed to speaking to me. Sunday morning came, and as our pastor, Henry Fletcher, stood to preach his sermon he said please "turn to Mark chapter 5." At that point I knew that it wasn't my imagination, God was trying to tell me something. But you see I had already made my plans, and my plans were to be a probation and parole officer. After all wasn' t that why I had went back to school for a year at great cost and effort? Wasn't that what I had told Jeanie, and family and friends that I was going to do? So with that in mind I looked at this passage of Scripture in Mark and told myself that even though in my heart I wanted to preach God's Word, God was saying to go on with your life and forget about preaching. And that's what I tried to do. In August 1984 I began work as a state parole officer. We moved to Enid, Oklahoma for a year and then back to Elk City. Being a parole officer was much more satisfying to me than working in the oilfield.

During this time period I began to memorize God's Word. As I drew closer to Him, He drew closer to me and I began to hear that still, small voice of God again speaking about of all things, preaching His Word! I tried to make my job a substitute. I was a parole officer evangelist so to speak and tried to reach out in many different ways for the Lord. I gave tracts to my clients, I witnessed to them, I prayed for them (and still do), I invited them to church and to special events at church and some of them actually came. I talked with Jeanie a few times about still hearing the call but she was still very resistant. During this time period our oldest son, Clark, attended youth camp at Falls Creek and he too heard God's call and made a commitment to special service. However, he somewhat followed my example and tried to back out on that commitment.

In 1990, Jeanie and I were involved in a study group called Master Life. We were both very active in church. Jeanie was teaching in the elementary department and serving on committees. I was director of the singles department and had led a study group and served as a RA Leader. I was the recording secretary for the deacon body and served on several committees.

In March 1990 in our Master Life study we came to a study on praying in faith. One night I wrote out a prayer (This is a somewhat dangerous thing to do!) asking that if God really wanted me to preach His Word to reveal that to me in black and white so that I wouldn't have any doubt. The next morning in my quiet time I turned in the Our Daily Bread devotional guide that I used for some of my quiet time reading to that morning's selection. The Scripture reading was in Luke chapter 8. Another nice warm devotional thought until I realized that Luke 8 is virtually the same as Mark chapter 5. Suddenly I realized that God was answering my prayer that I had written out the night before, "Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published through out the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him (Luke 8:38-39)."

Now I realized that God was trying to tell me something, the same thing that He had tried to tell me before. This time I was going to look into this more deeply. I got down a commentary to see what it would say about this Scripture. The commentary said, Jesus had to leave Gadara, but he left behind a preacher. I opened up the Our Daily Bread devotional guide again to read the devotional thought. That day's devotion was about a man in South America that was saved and grew in the Lord. This man started a Bible study which eventually grew into a church and he became the pastor of that church. There it was! For me it was in black and white, God had called and was calling me to preach His Word. I had a decision to make. I could go with God or I could turn away from God. There was really no choice. I knew, I really, really knew what God wanted. I shared with Jeanie what had happened and here was another surprise, she was no longer resistant to my preaching. On April 30, 1990 I made a public commitment at the First Baptist Church in Elk City, Oklahoma to preach God's Word. This time there would be no turning back.

I seemed to be following in the steps of Jonah, "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of the even to the least of them (Jonah 3:4-5)." Have you turned away from the call of God? Why not turn back, ask God to reveal His will to you in an unmistakable way and He will!