Download Vic Votaw Three Hours From Hell

Three Hours From Hell
As Transcribed from a Recorded Message
Given by Reverend Vic Votaw,
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Make our boast of nobody but God! I’m Brother Vic Votaw, but to remember my name,
everyone always calls me Brother V. So if forget my name, just go, there’s Brother V
over there.
I’m a missionary evangelist to Asia. Asia makes up two thirds of the world’s population.
I work in mainland China, in the underground Church movements 50% of my time. I
speak Chinese fluently. “Speaks a phrase in Chinese.”
You don’t speak Chinese here, well; you have an illiterate church, Brother! Most of the
people in the world speak Chinese, but then they’re all Chinese! China has one billion,
three hundred million people. America has about two hundred, sixty million people. If
you think the traffic is getting bad here, just the bicycles alone in China are unbelievable.
Just think of souls, One Billion, Three Hundred Million Souls!
In China, I can be locked up for up to ten years for working with an underground church
movement. China is a Communist Nation. Every week about 30 churches, we call them
“house churches” are destroyed and pastors are beat up and taken to jail. Sometimes they
are never seen again. China lies through their teeth. They’ll say, “we don’t persecute the
Christians.” They believe this because, they have what they call the “Three-Self Church,”
run by the Communist Party. So the Communist Government will put certain churches in
certain cities. Then they will say, “See, we have a Christian Church” and yet the pastor
belongs to the Communist Party, he’s not even a pastor, he’s just a Communist! I’ve
preached in them. One time, I was asked to come. I think they just wanted to monitor
what I was doing and the pastor got up and said, in Chinese “Communism number one,
Chinese culture number two and Religion number three.” When I got up to preach, as I’d
been asked to come up to say something, I said, “Jesus Number ONE!” A M E N !
Well, I got to speak for about ten minutes, and I was removed from the platform and put
in a car with a Communist Soldier. In the vehicle, they were driving me back to the hotel,
and the Chinese girl and the Communist Leader who was driving shotgun, was saying
“Jigamushu lie jeli dallushow mowfan” (Chinese spelled out as it sounded or pronounced
from the sounds on the tape) What, he was saying, was “this minister came to China to
start trouble.” And she said, “Bo Whey” which means not true. “Jigamushu Lie Jelly, go
su wo man won de su da i” and the word for Love is the fourth tone, the word for Love is
i. “He came to teach us about the love of Jesus.” “Rugu wo men vitsu shong I jesu con ju
fu, Jungu da lu pace suge Jungu da lu u fu chi” What she was saying was…”If we have
the love of Jesus in our hearts, in China, we can all love one another and be blessed of
God.”
Well, to make a long story short. They put a Communist soldier by my room, and every
day, for the several days, I was in that city. Whenever I’d come out he was there. He had
a green uniform with red stars on his shoulder and hat. I’d come outside and he’d look at
me, and we would exchange greetings in Chinese. They were always flabbergasted to
hear me speak in Chinese, because they can’t understand how anyone or especially a non
native, would have learned to speak Chinese.
So one night, at twelve o’clock midnight, someone was knocking at the door of my hotel
room. I told my wife, I said, “O Shurmu” That’s what I called her. Shurmu means a wife
of a minister. Please open the door and the Chinese girl who was driving the van was
standing there. This was the lady who had been debating with the Communist leader
while we were driving back to the hotel. She said, “O minister, I came tonight, even
though I could possibly be hurt over this, to be baptized in Jesus Name.” I said to my
wife, well, wait a minute how are we going to baptize her. In China, it’s against the law
to baptize people. My wife said “let’s fill the bathtub up.” I don’t know if you ever
baptized anyone in a bathtub before, but it works, folks. We filled the bathtub up and
immersed or put her down in Jesus name and she came up speaking in tongues and
dancing all over the room. Hallelujah!
Praise God, we serve a great God, do you know that! His arms are not short, his ears are
not too heavy, there’s nothing our God can’t do! Nobody can stop this church! He said
“Upon this rock I will build my church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
I want you to know tonight that I’m not ashamed of it either. I’m not ashamed of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the Power of God unto Salvation to everyone that believes,
Amen! Oh, Hallelujah!!!
And I’ll tell you another thing before I read my text. One of my favorite verses in the
Bible is Romans 5 and verse one. “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with
God.” I used to wake up every morning and say, “he loves me, he loves me not, he loves
me, he loves me not...” God rebuked me, and told me “never say that again, don’t ever
think that again.” Well, Lord maybe I failed you yesterday or made a mistake. God said,
“It Doesn’t matter. From now on, when you wake up, start every morning by saying, He
Loves Me, He Loves Me, God Loves Me...”
What does this do, for me? This gives me the Peace of God. Even some apostolic people
never have the peace of God because they live under this guilt complex all the time. It’s
not what we do, folks, it’s what he does. It’s what he’s already done. Oh, Hallelujah!
God said through Paul in, Phillipians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath
begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ. It’s not us doing it, it’s
him. Let us give him all the praise and Glory, Amen!
In Chinese we have four tones in Mandarin. Any word you say, you have four tones. The
tones are sounded out. When I first got to China I would say “Jamai Ju uoo.” This means
“Praise the Lord." But when I first went overseas, I got up in front of some Chinese
people, when I’d first learned Chinese and I was saying Jamai Joo, first tone with a
shorter oo sound. The difference is Jo o or Ju Uoo or a longer OOOO sound. They were
all laughing. I asked someone why they were laughing and he said, “you keep saying
Praise the Pig, Praise the Pig.”
A Chinese woman, no matter how old they are, even if they are 99 years old. A married
woman in China is called a “Tae Tae.” But you never would address her as a Tae Tae.
Now you could say it to her husband, when she is not there, you could say, where’s your
Tae Tae. But when she’s present, you would never address her as a Tae Tae, because they
prefer to be addressed as a “Sal-Jae” which means little woman or little lady. So no
matter how old a Chinese lady may be you better address them as a little lady. So one
day, Sal means little, I went to ask a question of this girl, and I said “Sal-Jae, awhey ega
when when,” which means I want to ask you a question. But I hit the wrong tone, and
instead what I’d said, meant “I want to give you one kiss.” She put her hands over her
mouth. So they didn’t know why the missionary was asking for a kiss. So you have to be
very, very careful.
Turn in your Bible to Book of Luke Chapter 19 verse 10. (Book of Luke spoken or
interpreted in Chinese) One day when I was in California somebody showed me a
picture. They have one of the biggest planetariums in the United States. They had taken a
picture of the galaxies. They ran off the picture to show the Milky Way and galaxies
going out from it. They only looked like stars to me, but they were actually dots all over
the paper. A man said to me “do you know which dot is Earth.” I said there’s no way to
tell, there a thousand dots and how would I know which one is Earth, they all look the
same. He pointed to one of the little dots and said, “that’s Earth.” I began to think, why
would God leave billions of galaxies to come down to a teeny planet called Earth and get
crucified? Why would he do that? Luke 19:10 tells us. “For the Son of Man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost.”
What is the mission of the church, the mandate of the believer, what are we here for?
What is the church? The church is not a physical structure. I taught in Bible school for
three years. I taught evangelism and missions. I asked my students, what is the Church,
you would have been amazed at all the different things they came up with. The church is
the “Ecclesia, the called out people of God, the Called out Assembly, that make up his
body.” There are only two places in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, wherein
the word church is even mentioned. Both times are in Matthew and he said “Upon this
rock I will build my church” He’ll build the “ecclesia” on this rock, which is Jesus. And
the gates of Hades, he uses the word Hades here, shall not prevail against it
So the purpose of God coming down to our earth is to seek and save the lost. Everybody
say “lost”. The Greek word for lost is “Apollumi.” Apollumi means something worth
finding. So, what God is saying here, when he looks at this planet called Earth, the
inhabitants of this planet are worth finding. He could’ve just said, “Adam and Eve
sinned; I might as well just blow the place up or whatever.” When you see a man who
stands out here off the highway and has a little sign to announce he needs food, you
might turn your nose up, folks, but God is saying, “He’s worth finding.” The rich are
worth finding, the poor are worth finding, and every race of people are worth finding!
How can we be the servants of God and be a racist? Because when God left these billions
of galaxies to come to this Earth, he came to seek and to save the lost. Isn’t everybody on
this planet lost? So we begin to see the mandate here. What God is saying, “I’m going to
come down, because I believe everyone is worth finding.” Now, he leaves this mission in
your hands. He asks, “Do you think everyone is worth finding?”
If you come to church and you never cry and there’s never a tear in your eye. You never
go to Calvary to see the passion of Christ. If it doesn’t cause you to weep, there’s
something wrong with you. What you’re basically saying is, “I don’t understand his
purpose” and you think that your lost loved ones are not worth finding. This means you
don’t believe your lost children are worth finding. God is not going to save your children
and your family unless he sees you travailing for them. When you travail, you’re showing
God, I believe they’re worth finding. Amen, so tonight and for a little while I want to
preach on a message of “I’m on a mission.” I want you to turn to your neighbor next to
you and say, “I’m on a Mission!”
Anybody here know, Jesus? If you do clap your hands unto God, All of you people. For
hast thou not known, hath thou not heard that the Lord, the Everlasting God, faintest not
neither is he weary, Hallelujah, Oh, Glory to God, His arm is not short, and his ear is not
weary. I want you to know Herod couldn’t kill him, death and the grave couldn’t keep
him, and the heavens can’t contain him. He’s God wrapped up in the flesh! He’s the God
that made the stars! He’s the God that made the galaxies! He’s the God that put the fish in
the seas! He’s the God who scooped out the rivers and the valleys! He’s the God who
made the mountains look like a tapestry. Clap your hands unto him. Hallelujah, Amen!
Israel was in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years. Egypt is a type of the world. Pharaoh
is a type of the devil. The devil is a doubt builder, he never lets up. But he is no match for
a faith builder. It’s the doubt builder versus the faith builder. Amen, he that cometh to
God must believe that He is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him,
Hallelujah,
When my family first came to Pentecost, my brother was a gangster and he had gone into
a night club. He came out of the night club and put his key into the ignition of his car and
his car blew up. Someone had hooked up a bomb to his carburetor and was trying to kill
him. It threw him into the back seat. He was foaming at the mouth. His skin had already
turned grey. Smoke was all over and throughout the car. A couple of people walked out
of the night club, at the same time the car blew up and tried to save him. They ran over,
opened the door and drug my brother out. They put him onto the pavement there and said,
“He’s dead.” Another person came out who knew a little bit more about medical stuff and
said, “He had felt a pulse.” They called 911 and rushed him to the closest Catholic
Hospital.
I was staying with my parents and at 3:30 in the morning the phone kept ringing, going
ring, ring, ring. I got up to answer the phone. A police officer said, “Do you have a
brother by the name of Eddie Votaw?” I said “Yes, I do.” He said, “He’s been in an
accident. Is your Mom and Dad here?” I said, “Well, they’re sleeping.” He said “I got to
talk with your Mom or your Dad?” I went into my Mom and Dad’s bedroom, which is
something I had never done all my life. I’d never gone into my Mom and Dad’s bedroom.
That was like off limits for us kids. You don’t go into Mom and Dad’s bedroom, and so, I
knocked and entered, walked in and shook my Mom, and said “There’s a police officer
on the phone and he needs to talk to you.” My Mom took the phone and she started
screaming, “NO GOD, Not MY BOY, Not MY EDDIE!!! She was told he was dying.
They’d cut open his throat to perform a tracheotomy. He had massive injuries from
smoke inhalation. His lungs were actually, literally on fire on the inside. It was causing
mucous to make him choke. He would have drowned in his own mucous.
So we rushed to the hospital. As we left my Mom said, “Call that Pentecostal Preacher,
wake him up, and tell him, I’m on my way to the hospital, my Boy is dying! Ask him if
he would please come?” There had been this Pentecostal Preacher, who had come
around our neighborhood to invite people to church. Over and over Mom, would tell the
Pentecostal preacher, “Don’t Bother Me, I’m not Pentecostal, we’re Catholic and go to a
different church.” But she said that night, “Something got a hold of me and I’ve got to
wake that Pentecostal preacher up.”
When we got to the hospital, we were Roman Catholic, and the Priest was already there.
He had already walked in and performed the last rights for my brother. My brother was
under an oxygen tent, his eyes were rolled back in his head and he was just shaking trying
to breathe. He was at the point of death. When the Priest was walking out, the Apostolic
Pentecostal Preacher walked in. He took a little bottle of Olive Oil out and put some oil
on his fingers. We wondered, what is he doing that for?” We had never seen anything like
this before. He lifted up the oxygen tent and put his hand on my brother’s head. In an
instant his breathing relaxed. I want you to know my brother tonight is an Apostolic
Minister. Hallelujah!!!
For seven years, when I came back from being in a combat support group in Vietnam, I
was on drugs. It had begun, when I went to the University of Missouri and a State
Senator’s son was on heroin. He had tried repeatedly to talk me into putting a needle in
my arm. One night, I’d said. “OK.” I rolled my sleeve up and he pushed that needle in my
arm. It was the first time I’d ever hit up. He pulled the needle out of my arm and I
thought “I don’t feel anything!” Then all of a sudden I felt a rush come through my body
and for twelve hours I felt I was walking ten feet high. I got hooked. I was shooting up
MDA which is a drug mixed with speed and cocaine and some other drugs. Later, I
started shooting heroin, until I would scratch all over my body. It had the effect of
making my body feel itchy or to itch all over. This controlled my life for Seven L o n g
Years, Amen.
What had happened, God was after my brother, - - - and God had mercy on him. God
raised him out of the hospital. He walked into a Pentecostal Church and received the
Holy Ghost. Then he came looking for me. All he did was preach at me, preach at me,
and preach at me. I thought my brother had lost his mind. He’s walking around with a
Bible quoting scriptures. I thought what in the world’s going on?
He came after my wife and me. We were hippies; I had a pony tail down my back. My
wife and I decided to walk into a Pentecostal Church one night. When we walked in and
we heard them singing, I thought, man, these people are high on drugs. There’s a man,
who got up and ran around the building. Another lady started dancing. Another lady got
up and looked like she was vibrating all over. I thought, Good Lord, have mercy! Another
person looked at me and said, “This is what you’ve been looking for!” I thought,
Hallelujah, Amen, This is what I been looking for?
Then they brought me up to the front to about the third pew and I sat down. A little boy
was sitting there, drawing pictures on a piece of paper. He turned around and was
drawing pictures of a devil with horns sticking up on the top of his head. He pointed to
me and said, “You the devil!” Now, you know the crazy thing about it was he was
programmed to think that people who had beards and moustaches with pony tails were
the devil. Now this was stupid and is really something we should be careful about how
we teach our children to respect sinners? I don’t care about how folks look. It doesn’t
matter what they may do differently than you may do in your life. God said, “They’re
worth finding.” He left heaven, he came down to this Earth, and he doesn’t have an
exclusive bunch of people. If they have breath in their body, he came to seek and save the
lost! That’s his mission. Oh, Hallelujah! We must have a burden for the lost and dying.
They made an altar call, and my wife said, “I’m going down there” and I followed her.
They prayed both of us through to the Holy Ghost. I actually wrote a song about it for
her. It goes:
“It was April ninth in seventy two,
while sitting in church, I didn’t know what to do.
The preacher stood up and started preaching like fire,
I said this man I do admire.
He preached about the Christ of Calvary,
He told me if I’d come to him. He’d set me free.
So, down at the altar on my knees.
I cried, dear Lord have mercy on me.
I’d just begun to have some fun, when all of a sudden,
I started speaking in tongues!
There was a man over me weeping and crying. He walked with a limp. What had
happened, at this church where my brother came in and got the Holy Ghost, my brother
had walked into the prayer room where they used to have a big chalk board. My brother
would write on it, in big letters, “Pray for my brother, Vic Votaw!” This man who was a
prayer warrior, he prayed all the time. He comes walking in and he writes my name down
Vic Votaw, Hmmm.
For six months, every day, for 1 to 3 hours he prays for Vic Votaw. He doesn’t even
know me. But God begins to place Vic Votaw in his heart, BOOM. He fasts, he told me
I’d fasted one day a week, until I complained to God, and God said, “Now I want you to
fast two days!”
Six months later, after fasting two days a week and praying one to three hours for my
soul, he’s over me sobbing and weeping. His prayer had touched God. Right after that,
the man passes away and goes home to be with the Lord, and yet little did he know, that
night he was praying a missionary to China through to the Holy Ghost. The one with the
pony tail - the one with the beard - the hippie - the one who was on drugs. Let me tell
you, they’re all over. They’re out there tonight. We’ve got to find them. Somebody’s
been abused, somebody’s been hurt, someone’s at the point of suicide. We’ve got to go
find the lost. Hallelujah! Amen!
If this church is not reaching the lost. You have no purpose in having a church, folks.
That’s why God places his church right here. Right here in Georgetown, Texas, there’s
someone thinking about committing suicide. There was a minister friend of mine, who’s
been a Pastor in California. He was at a grocery store and one day while checking out, a
boy said, “Do you remember me?” He said “Yeah, I remember you.” The boy had been
not been coming to church. He was in his early twenties. He said, “Preacher, I need to
talk with you.” The Preacher said, “Well, it’s Saturday, you know where the church is
and you know what you need to do. Be at the church at the time of the service
tomorrow.” He proceeded out to his car and began putting his groceries in the trunk. The
kid ran after him and asked, “Can I talk with you preacher?” He says, “You know what to
do.” He pulls out and drives away. The boy goes home, takes a pistol and puts it to his
head and boom, he blew his brains out. There is someone in Georgetown. Right now, it’s
down to days, weeks, months and satan is trying to take them to Hell. We sit here with a
mission.
“How old are you?” (He stops to ask, a young person) “Are you a teenager yet?” Do you
know your generation is called “Post Modernism?” The Post Modern generation is the
first generation in America, to be raised completely without God on this soil. They are
taught by public school teachers, that there is no absolute truth. No ABSOLUTES. That’s
why any lifestyle is acceptable, because they don’t know what the truth is. Yet, the
second leading cause of the death of a teenager is by suicide. Because the devil has used
these people to remove all hope that they have in God. There is a moment when the hope
has been removed for many people in this nation. I’ll tell you what folks, today is crucial,
because America is slowly slipping away without hope. We need a revival in America.
God is sick and tired of it. God is sick and tired of same sex marriages. He’s sick and
tired of lesbians on the front page getting married. He’s sick and tired of people taking
the Ten Commandments down off the walls of our courthouses. He wants the church to
stand up and say, “Yes, I’ll get my sword and I’ll go to the battlefield to rescue the lost,
the hurting and the dying.” So it’s crucial for us now folks. The church can no longer sit
in rocking chairs and yawn with apathy.
The first Century Church won more people to Christ than any other century. The first
century church is a paradigm for the twenty first century. We’re in the twenty first
century.
When they came out of Egypt, the Red Sea was rolled back. You’ll find out in the Old
Testament when you talk about, “Genre.” Genre refers to the way the Old Testament was
written. The Old Testament was written poetically, especially the Psalms. Actually the
Psalms was their Song Book. God wanted them to sing these scripture Psalms as songs.
That’s why the Jewish people would sing the “Lord is my light.” One in every three
verses goes together. When you read the poetic books of the Bible together it is one of the
greatest pieces of literature. They discovered the more they sang the Word of God, the
more his word would go deeper down inside of them.
The moment they left Egypt, after four hundred years of bondage, God said “Clap your
hands unto me all ye people” When they clapped their hands, God isn’t up there saying,
“Give me a handclap or applause.” The clapping of the hand was sharp staccato cracking
sound of the hitting their hands together. If you do research you will find the clapping of
the hands was to be like the sound of a chain breaking. Every time a Jewish captive put
his hands together, he thought about chains breaking. If you’ve ever been delivered of a
cigarette, you ought to clap your hands. If you’ve been delivered from Alcohol, you
should clap your hands. If you’ve been delivered from drugs, you should clap your hands.
You put the devil under your feet. You tell him the chains have been broken.
I will say, “of the Lord he is my refuge and my fortress and in him will I trust. I will not
fear the enemy. I will not fear the terror by night. I will not fear the arrow by day. I will
not fear the destruction that waits in the noon day. For a thousand shall fall at my side
and ten thousand at my right hand. His love is unconditional, his mercy unlimited, his
power un-measurable, his word incorruptible. He knows how to make the lame walk the
deaf talk. He knows how to raise the dead, cleanse the leper, to heal the sick. Amen. He
knows how to protect the young, watch over the old.” He said, “If I was hungry I
wouldn’t tell you.” He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the sweet potatoes in the
ground. Heaven is his throne and Earth is his footstool. He wants someone to exalt him.
You say, “I don’t know how to sing a song, play an instrument, or to preach a sermon.”
He says, “That’s alright!” He wants everybody to worship him and glorify him. Exalt him
that his glory will fill this earth. His righteousness will be his foundation from generation
to generation, Amen. I want you to know, our God’s not going to get old, he’s not going
to retire, and he’s not headed to a nursing home. He’s the same yesterday, today and
forever, Hallelujah!
He says “he quickened those who we were once. Once what - What were we once Dead.” Dead in scripture, means separated from God. Here we are, separated from God,
and he knows this. He comes down, since this is his mission. “You are separated and I’m
going to bring you back.” You, who were once dead in trespasses, once walked according
to the course of this world and were by nature. By nature, what were we by nature. We
were the children of wrath. Once I was driving in the rain, and someone came around me
so fast and almost sideswiped me and my first reaction was to get really upset. Then God
got a hold of my nature. Our real nature is a corrupt nature. So we can take on a divine
nature, from him. A new nature.
Later he says, “the eyes of your understanding are being enlightened” in Ephesians 1:18.
You know, the Greek word, to see is “horeo,” doesn’t mean to see with the eye. My
wife’s aunt whenever we talk with her, she says, “I see what you’re saying.” Now she’s
not talking about with her eye. When someone says, “I see,” what they’re really saying is,
“I understand!” He said, “That the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened.”
Boom! And you would understand what the hope of your calling is.
My daughter, my youngest daughter, is named Hannah. She graduated with her
elementary degree in education. She wanted to become a school teacher. She goes to the
biggest Jewish school in St. Louis and applied for a job. The name of the school is called,
“Torah.” Now they think she’s Jewish. She’s got dark hair, olive skin, her name is
Hannah, and so they called her “Hah Nah.” Jewish people love this name. My other
children, my son’s are named Aaron and David. So, they think we’re a Jewish family. I
guess, you know, we really are, they just don’t understand that spiritually we really are,
Amen.
So, they hired my daughter to teach third grade. She has the little third graders and at that
age they begin to learn and to understand the laws and history of the Jewish people. They
learn the Mishna which is about the oral laws. When they get older still, they learn the
Talmud, which is the historical background of the Jew. They are taught to understand, the
Mishna and then the Talmud.
They are then taught the HaTor, which in Hebrew, means the books. The HaTor starts out
with the book of Beginnings, that’s what they call, the book of Genesis, the book of
Departures, Exodus, the first book of Priesthood, Leviticus, the book of Wandering,
Exodus and the second book of Priesthood Deuteronomy. In the Jewish mind, the first
five books are called the HaTor.
In Jewish life, the center of all Jewish life, is not the Mishna, not Talmud, not Torah. It
all comes down to one little especially centered thing. It’s Shema pronounced She Ma or
as it is spoken in Hebrew, “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad.”
At 8:30 in the morning these children stand and in unison repeat together, in a whisper,
“Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad.” At 3:30 pm when school let’s out they
stand up, my brethren, and say together, “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy
Echad.” When they go home and get ready to go to bed, they kneel down and say,
“Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad” When they wake up at home in the
morning, “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad.” begins their day.
You may ask, “what does that mean?” The Shema means, Hear O Israel, the Lord is our
God, the Lord is One (from Deuteronomy (Devarim) 6:4).
(Notation: According to the website, foreveryjew.com. When one recites the Shema, he should
clear his head of all exterior thought and try his best to grasp the Oneness of Hashem.
First Commandment - I am Hashem your G-d, Second Commandment - You shall have no other
gods.
Hear O Israel, Hashem is our G-d. Is like the first commandment. Hashem is One is like the
second commandment. It is known that these first two commandments embrace all 613 mitzvot of
the Torah, since all of the positive commandments are within the first two of the 10
Commandments, I am Hashem you G-d, and all the negative commandments are in the
second or last eight of the 10 Commandments. I am Hashem you G-d and You shall have no
other gods, it is also important to know at this point that those two Commandments were spoken
by Hashem or G-d himself to all of Israel, only the last eight where transmitted by Moshe Rabenu
(Moses).)
From the time a Jewish child can barely walk, Praise God, their Mom and Dad are
saying, “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad. ” When they’re dying on their
deathbed, the Rabi whispers in their ear, “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy
Echad.” When the Nazi soldiers were marching them to the gas chambers, and little
women with their hands shaking and their lips quivering, they marched to their deaths
and they were whispering , “Shema Yisroel, Adonoy Elohenu, Adonoy Echad” They were
saying you can kill us, you can persecute us, but you can’t take One God out of us. But
I’ll tell you what, H a l l e l u j a h, we got something better, not only do we believe in
One God, but we know his name. Hallelujah!
JESUS!
The first century church, Brother, was born out of the nation of Israel, during the first
seven years of the church. We are what the Jewish people would call the Goy or Goya.
The girl is a Goya and a boy is a Goy. That’s a male or female gentile. They can’t
understand how God can create this church and make it a church from all nations. The
church actually starts with the Jewish people. At Pentecost, everybody’s Jewish. Seven
years later, the first Gentile, is Italian and he receives the Holy Ghost. The first century
church, which is the first one hundred years of Christianity, is two thirds Jewish, of those
who’d been converted to Christianity. The reason why God used the Jewish people so
much was they didn’t have to have Bible studies about the Oneness of God. I’ll tell you
what, you can’t only depend on coming to church on Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday,
you’ve got to teach it in your home. It’s got to be lived in the home. It’s got to be taught
in the home! That’s why the Jewish people were always teaching their children about the
Oneness of God. He began to use the Oneness people. He opens the eyes of their
understanding. They started to cry out Yeshua HaMashiach, which is saying in Hebrew
Yeshua is Jesus in the Greek meaning “Jehovah is Salvation” and HaMashiach which
means Messiah or Christ. Jesus is our Messiah. Every Jew understands that Messiah is
going to be God. And now they start to see, Amen, and they begin to be persecuted for
their belief.
So God raises them up until the second century when the Greeks started getting saved
and they start coming in. Justin Martyr, this theologian, takes the word Godhead, which
in the Greek, is the word “Theiotes.” The Greek mind was taught to believe in all these
different Gods. They come into Christianity, but they have a hard time believing Oneness
or God is One, and so they came up with God as being separated into three persons a
Trinity. During the first one hundred years of Christianity, nowhere in biblical teaching
or theological teaching can you ever find where the Trinity was ever taught. Amen!
You say, “What’s this mean, is God in three persons.” God has never been three persons.
This thing started with Jewish people and the One True God. He wraps himself in flesh,
he comes to live among us, but he doesn’t have divine flesh, he doesn’t have heavenly
flesh, but rather he has human flesh. It’s said, “A body hath thou prepared me.” He says
“Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.” He made himself of no reputation.
He took upon himself the form of a servant. “Form” here is the Greek word “kenoo,”
meaning to empty out. What he does at the cross, he empties himself out of a human
body. He empties himself out, how, does the flesh fall off. No, the blood runs out. The
life is in the blood. He’s poured his blood out. This is why he comes to the earth.
Hallelujah!
I hope this is not too deep for you? What he’s trying to say is “I’m pouring myself out.”
The night before the crucifixion they get into an argument and want to know who’s the
greatest? “Boy, you don’t understand this do you? You want to know who the greatest is,
bring me a bowl of water, I’ll show you who’s the greatest, it’s the one that can get down
and be a humble servant of God.” Hallelujah, that’s what it’s all about emptying
ourselves of ourselves and taking on his nature, Amen. This is a completely new nature,
totally dependent upon living in the Spirit of God. I’ll tell you what, in this lost and dying
world, they’re looking for people who walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, act like Jesus!
Amen!
I sat in a Denny’s restaurant, one morning, I heard two ladies behind me talking. They
were saying, “We need God, We need God, We need God.” I turned around and said,
“You need God, I’ll tell you where you can find God.” Two nights later they’re in the
altar where I was preaching and they were receiving the Holy Ghost. We need to stop
talking about the lost and start talking to the lost. We need to go find the lost, they’re
worth finding. Hallelujah!
Now the Bible said, “You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon
you!” Why? Why do I need power like dynamite, or as the Greek says, Dynamo?
Because he said, “I’ll make you my witnesses.” You need this power, but why, to be a
witness. The Greek word for witness actually means martyr, and so the first century
church understood walking with Jesus, could cost them their life. The believed they
would rather evangelize the world even at the cost of dying. I told a Pastor, statistically,
in the church, 70 to 90% of the converts are family and friends. When we come to the
house of God, and we weep over our family and friends, then God says it looks like they
think they’re family is worth saving.
When God sees a church travailing, burdened for the lost and the hurting, amen, then
revival comes, folks. That’s what we want. We’re not going to stop, we’re going to keep
travailing God, until the yoke of Georgetown or of your city is broken and the Spirit of
God is poured out and all of our children come back to God. Amen, until there’s joy and
singing, in the streets, Amen. Say it with me “I’m on a mission.”
In the beginning, at the University of Missouri, the professor asked me one day, “are you
a Christian? Do you believe in God?” I said, “Yes.” He was a professor of Antropology,
and said, “I don’t believe in God, I’m an atheist. I believe in Margaret Mead. If you
believe in God, when did God make man? Was it in 1604 or in 1205?” He was being
facetious. He was just mocking me. I said, “You need to study Hebrew, Sir,” because in
the Bible, it says, “in the Beginning.” The word “Beginning,” there in the Hebrew,
Beginning means “Dateless Past.” God didn’t put a date on it. If you study further and go
to Isaiah, he said, “I made all things and I made all things by myself.” If he made all
things by himself, Jesus isn’t a second person, Jesus is God, Jesus is Jehovah. He is
Yahweh. God has become Yeshuah or God has become our Salvation or as we say Jesus
from the Greek translation. He said there “in the Beginning, Re’shiyth Elohiym Bara’
‘eth Shamayim.” Shamayim is our heaven. When you wake up in the morning, to see the
blue skies overhead, you are seeing Heaven One. Tonight we’ll go out and see the stars,
Heaven Two. Beyond the stars is Heaven Three. Paul was caught up there, folks to the
Third Heaven. God’s getting ready to take us beyond the stars. But when he uses the
word Bara’ ‘eth, it means to make something out of nothing. God can’t use any
something, he’s looking for a nothing to create something new.
When Moses was a big shot in Egypt, God said “I’ll put you on the backside of the desert
for forty years and you’ll live with your Mother in Law.” You live with your Mother in
Law for forty years, friend, and you’ll be humble. Finally Moses comes and prays to
God, “No More God, I can’t take it NO more.” Alright, I think you’re ready, you’ve been
humbled.
God can take Saul, who hated Christians. He stood there, while Stephen was to be killed,
they took Stephen’s garment off of him and handed it to Paul to hold while they stoned
Stephen to death. Little did he know he was holding the garment of a martyr. The spirit of
the martyr was on that coat, because at the end of Paul’s life, he walks willingly to the
guillotine, because they are getting ready to cut his head off. He said, “I have fought a
good fight.” The same man he’d persecuted was the first person in the church, killed as a
martyr. When they took off that coat, it was already being said in Heaven, “God was
already calling Paul to be a martyr.”
God calls us to be a martyr for this message. I don’t care, I’ll look any Trinitarian right in
their eye and say, “You haven’t been baptized right.” If you haven’t been baptized into
the name of Jesus Christ, you haven’t been baptized right.” Until this church stands up,
with enough boldness to tell people, Just the Way It IS, then they’ll never understand the
truth. We’ll always paddy cake with them. We are on a mission, in everything we do, to
teach the Oneness of God and Who the One God is and his name is Jesus!
My Father in Law is eighty one years old. At nine o’clock in the morning, he gets into his
truck one day, He tells my wife he’s going out to the lake. My Mother in Law had passed
away a little over two years ago. He lives by himself and my wife goes over to his house
and cook him food. He didn’t come home for lunch, and my wife didn’t worry, because
she figured he’s probably still down at the lake watching the fish. At six o’clock, he still
hadn’t come home. My wife calls the Police Department, she says, “My father drives a
white truck, and his name is John Harmon, he’s missing.” Ok, they reassure her they’d
try to find him. My wife says, “Get in the car and we’ll drive up and down the streets to
look for him.” We’re still driving at twelve o’clock midnight, one and two o’clock, and
finally I said, “I want to go home and get some rest. We can go home, get a little sleep
and get back up at six or seven. If your Dad’s not found we can go out again and to try
and find him.” My wife gets angry…she puts her finger in my face and hysterically says,
“THAT’S MY DADDY!!!
What is she saying, “He’s MY family.” If you don’t care enough for your family to pray
an hour a day or fast, to not eat a day for their souls, and to walk to this altar with tears in
your eyes, then you’re saying they’re not worth very much.
We received a call from the Police Department. They called to tell us they had found him.
They had come up to him sitting in his truck. They had asked him. “Are you John
Harmon,” and he had answered, “Yes, I think, I am.” We didn’t know when Grandpa had
pulled out that morning he had begun suffering from what is called dementia. He was
smart, an Engineer, but because of life’s cycle, it had taken him to a place, when he had
put his keys into his ignition, and he couldn’t…
FIND HIS WAY HOME!!
Can you imagine the pain and the hurt? He’s driving down the streets. Is this it? Is this it?
A Police officer called my wife, “Here he is, I got him.” My wife drove out there, walked
up to her Daddy and said, “Daddy, give me your keys” and he’s never driven again. She’s
with him tonight. She’s at home with a heavy heart knowing she’s going to have to put
her Daddy in a nursing home, because we are getting ready to ship out on a missionary
journey to China. We’re going to China and Asia for four years, and she may never see
him again.
Why do missionaries give everything up? Why do we do that? Because we know what
our calling is, we know that God called us to do this.
I started my first church in New York City and got it on it’s feet. Things were going
good. Then, God spoke to me to give that church up and go to China, WHAT?!?
Everytime I, Everything -- you see, God would always say to me “what’s in your hand?”
God knows what you love the most. You know, God can understand your love for him,
by how much you give to the church. How much you are willing to sacrifice for others.
The word covenant is a beautiful word in Hebrew, Bariyth. It means, to make a deal. God
says “let’s make a deal. If you’ll open your hand and give me your best, then I’ll open
mine and give you my best.” Somebody is lost out there tonight and they can’t find their
way home. God says, “This Church is on a mission, our job is to go out there and find
them and bring them home. Let them know there is a church right here in Georgetown
which preaches the truth.” Lift your hands and praise him.
You know I taught Evangelism at Gateway College of Evangelism. I had a two hour class
once a week. During the two hours we had a ten minute break. I had eighty seven kids in
my class. Most of them had come to Bible College having never won a soul. I was
teaching from a textbook. I got tired of the textbook. I said, “I’m tired of teaching
textbooks.” I said, “For thirty minutes, of every one of my classes, for thirty minutes, I’m
not teaching.” I said, “You take out a piece of paper and write down the names of at least
five people.” “Well, what are we doing that for?” I said, “Not only are you going to write
down the names of five people, but you’re going to get out of your seat, and get down on
the floor, lay the paper on the floor and begin praying over the paper and the names of the
people on the paper.”
All of them got down on the floor and began to write their names. Pretty soon, ten
minutes later, people were crying and pretty soon people were sobbing. Our classes
always ended with people travailing. They couldn’t even go to chapel because they were
so distraught with prayer. The President of the Bible School came up to ask me, “How
come the students from your class are always late to the chapel service?” I responded, by
telling him, “Well, they are all over the floor weeping for their loved ones right now.”
At the end of the semester, they’d say Brother V, they called me Brother V, five out of
five, four out of five, but never less than three out of five, because when they had finally
gotten focused on people, Amen, when they got focused on their loved ones, and the
people they loved, Amen, and when they started praying for them, God came down and
saved them. Now if you’ll go home and write your names down, to bring them to this
altar, and you pray over your people, and I’ll show you, what God can do! Hallelujah!
The Army’s 507th Maintenance, goes to Iraq, and make a wrong turn in the desert.
Twelve Americans are killed that day. Six of them are taken captive and one little girl,
her name is Jessica Lynch, she’s twenty years old, she weighs ninety pounds. She lays
there in an Iraqi hospital guarded by the Fedayeen. Now these people over there, say
they’ll die for their God. They must think Christians are weak. I’ve got news for them I’ll
die for mine, too! But, more than die for him, he says, “Why don’t you live for me?”
Do you know what happened, here comes a Marine Recon Team --- Sempre Fi, we’re
Marines. Here comes an Army Ranger Team and a Navy Seal Team. The Marine Corp
Recon Team, Army Ranger Team, and Navy Seal Teams get into a helicopter. They were
on a Mission!
They don’t say “what is the mission about, is it dangerous, could we get hurt?” They’re
trained to be soldiers. A soldier, a real soldier, he doesn’t ask, but performs Rescue
Missions. Do you know what they’re thinking? “That little girl over there is one of us it’s
like my sister is over there! She’s an American, I’m an American. I’m going in to get her.
I’m going to do my best and I don’t care what the outcome is for me, I’m going to go in
to get her. I’m going to do my best to accomplish this Rescue Mission.”
Those helicopters came in and the Fedayeen, the fierce fighters of Allah, they all ran like
scared rabbits, folks. Those Marines and those Rangers, invaded that hospital. An Army
Ranger walked into a room, and walked up to Jessica Lynch’s bed where she was laying
crying, she’s down to only ninety pounds and probably just three days from death.
She looks up. He says to her, “Are you JESSICA LYNCH?” She looks up with tears
coming down her cheeks and says, “YES SIR, I’m one of you SIR!” Amen! He picks
her up! Can you imagine this Army Ranger and the joy he’s gotten? He walks down the
hall, I GOT HER!!! Hallelujah, I don’t know whether he said “Hallelujah,” but, Can
you imagine this Army Ranger as he’s walking down that hall shouting, “I got her, I got
her, I got h e r!!! Amen! And those soldiers felt the sheer joy of rescuing someone.
Now just think of the joy you will have as you rescue the lost and the dying? When
you rescue someone from sin! You are also on a Rescue Mission! Amen, Hallelujah!
I go to China and I baptize people in my hotel room. I also traveled five hours to a
mountain where forty two underground Chinese pastors, who could be put into jail, beat
and persecuted sitting and weeping and crying because some of them had only one page,
ONE PAGE of the Bible! I brought Bibles for them and passed Bibles out to them. They
were saying, “We have Bibles NOW!” America has all the Bibles and people in China
are begging for A Bible.
In China there are now fifty million people filled with the Holy Ghost in the underground
church movement. It is the greatest mission field in the world. You ask, Missionary why
should I sow to China, Why should I help you to go to China and support you? I’ll tell
you why! I’ll challenge you right now, if you will help reach China, you’re going to reap,
but it will be right here, because that’s how God works. God doesn’t have a Foreign
Missions or a Home Missions Department, he only has World Missions. God says, “This
church has got to have a vision for the WHOLE WORLD!” This vision goes beyond
these four walls, but when your vision is out there, all over the World, God’s going to
give you a Revival right here. Hallelujah, Amen.
I was in a church and a lady walked up to me and she said, “Brother V, I’m a teacher, and
I teach this little girl. She cries every day. She used to do her work and now we can’t get
her to do any work because all she does is sit and cry.” I went to the classroom with this
teacher. I asked the little girl, “How come you don’t do your work, Honey?” She said,
“Because my Daddy’s on death row and in ninety days they’re going to kill him. I love
my Daddy.”
Later at the church, the same lady walks up to me and asks, “Do you ever go to the
prisons?” I said, “Well, not really, I’ve never gone to the prisons. I’ve never even been to
a prison.” She said, “Well, would you go?” I said, “Well, I’ll pray about it.” I went home,
I’m a missionary to China, you know, my calling is overseas, Asia. I’m praying one day,
and God says, now wait a minute, you may be called to do a work in Asia, in China, but
you’re called to reach for souls. You’re telling me now that this man on Death Row is not
worth saving. God began to convict me.
I got in my car and I drove two hours to the State Penitentiary called “Pitosi,” in the State
of Missouri, outside of Saint Louis. I walk in, go through the metal detector, walk up to a
desk and they asked, “Who are you?”
I said, “I’m Pastor Vic Votaw, I want to speak with a Chaplain or the Warden.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“I want to go to Death Row.”
“You’d like to do what, Sir”
Finally, the Warden came out and asked me, “Can I help you, Reverend?”
“Oh Yeah, I’d like to go to Death Row, there’s a guy down there and it’s been requested I
come and visit him.”
He asked, “Well, are you on his visiting list?”
“No, I don’t even know him.”
He said, “Well, you can’t do that Sir, you’re not even cleared. We have no security
clearance for or anything for you. So you can’t do that at this time.”
I said, “Well, God sent me here.”
He said, “The best I can do for you, is I can go in and get a print out or a readout to give
you his number and address. Then you can get a letter into him.” He gave me the dorm he
was in and they gave me all kinds of guidelines stuff. He said, “you take all this back
with you and you write him a letter.”
So, I wrote him a letter. I told him how I was on drugs for seven years, I was a hippie and
God saved me and turned my whole life around. One day the phone rang and the
Chaplain was on the phone from the Penitentiary.
He said, “Are you Reverend Votaw?”
I said, “Yes, I am but you can call me Brother V.”
He says, “Well, you know what, this is strange, but I got a Reggie Pyle here and he’s
scheduled for execution in ninety days. He doesn’t talk to anybody, he hates everybody,
and no minister, no clergy of any kind, has even been able to talk with this guy.”
He says, “He’s read your letter and he’d like to talk to you.”
I said, “Well, put him on!”
So he gets him on the phone and Reggie says to me,” Reverend Votaw, I read your
testimony, I’m not going to live long, I’ve only got about ninety days. Is there any way
God can change my life?”
I said, “Sir, God can change your life!”
He said, “I get three collect calls, three collect calls every week,” he said, Can I call you
collect?”
I said, “You can call me collect, I’m not worried at all about the money.”
You see, when you give to the Kingdom of God, you don’t understand, when you sow to
this Kingdom, good things are going to happen to you. Amen! Because you don’t own a
thing, folks, it all belongs to God!
So, he calls me one night, it was a Saturday Night and he tells me, “he’s getting off of
Death Row.”
I thought, that was a real positive thing.
So I said, “Well, That’s Great!”
He said, “Well, no you don’t understand, the Governor of Missouri called and they’re
going to execute me on Tuesday night.”
I said, “Well, I don’t understand, I thought they were going to give you ninety days, this
has only been thirty days.’
He said, “They’re coming down to take me off Death Row and putting me in the cage.”
I said, “What is the cage?”
He said, “It’s the death cage next to the gurney. It’s a little cage right next door to the
gurney. Preacher, I ain’t got much time, is there any way you can get down here.”
I said, “I’ll be there Monday morning.”
I get in my car and drive two hours and walk in. I have five of my best students on a fast
going without food. They’re fasting and praying, all day. I say, “You go to Calvary.”
While I’m driving down there, I know I have five of my good soldiers up here, at Calvary
praying all day.
I get in and say to the Warden, “I’ve got to go down and see Reggie Pyle.”
He said, “There isn’t any way, it’s too late, this man is going to die in forty eight hours,
there is no hope for him. This man should’ve made a decision a long time ago and this is
just how it works around here.”
I said, “Well, you don’t understand, I have to get down there, and I’m not leaving.”
He said,” Well, you can stay in the lobby if that’s what you want, it’s up to you.”
I stayed in the lobby.
At three in the afternoon, the Governor calls, the Governor and the Warden are talking
and discussing this execution which was to take place the next night and the Warden said,
“I have a Preacher here.”
“Well, what kind of Preacher is he?”
He said, “Well, he’s Pentecostal.”
“Well, What Does He Want?”
“He wants to go down and see this inmate in the cage”
The Governor says, “Well, let him do it.”
The Warden comes walking out at three thirty and says, “Ok, Reverend, you got your
wish, I’m taking you down there.”
We took an elevator down, walked down a hall, and they opened this big metal door. I
walked in and there was, a MAN IN A CAGE, like a bird or an animal in a cage.
They had a red line. The guards told me to stand at the red line, so I stood at the red line
with twelve guards around me.
I said to the Warden, “Can you open that door and let me go in?”
He said, “Oh No, We don’t do that, the only time we open that cage is when we take him
to the gurney over there. We slide his food through that little opening over there.”
“You don’t understand, the Bible says, you can lay hands on the sick. Amen. You can
cast out devils and we Pentecostals believe in the Power of Laying on of hands.”
I started to preach him a little sermon about the Power of God in my hands.
The Warden started rubbing his hands through his hair and pretty soon he looked over
and he said, “Open the death cage and put this Preacher in there! I’ve never done this
before, but if he wants in the Death Cage, put him in.”
They opened the cage door and I walked in and I could feel demon spirits everywhere.
The demons had come down to take him to hell. I sat on his bed and I opened the Bible to
Acts, Chapter 2 about the day of Pentecost and I started preaching. You know what? I’m
not just preaching to the man in the cage, I’m preaching to everybody! I’m preaching to
the guards, too Amen, Hallelujah and one of the guards started crying.
He said, “What am I feeling?”
I said, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, In the last days, I’ll pour out
my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy.”
I want you to know, there is no Communist that is going to stop me. I am a man on a
Mission! There’s no Government, there’s no devil that can stop a church focused on
souls! Let me tell you something, There IS NOBODY to hard to win for God!!! There’s
nobody in Georgetown who can’t be reached, or wherever you may be, if, you are
focused on the mission.
Amen, the Reggie says to me, “I want to be baptized.”
I’m in the cage, and I said, “Did you hear that, he wants to be baptized!”
They brought me a styrofoam cup of water.
“Well, what do you want me to do with that? I said, Sir, I can’t put him in that cup.”
They responded, “Well, That’s what the Catholics do, that’s what the Lutherans Do!”
You see what the devil does, if he can’t get you one way, the next thing is to compromise
the message.
One day, somebody, a Chinese lady in Los Angeles asked me, “Are you a God Chaser?”
I said, “No, I’m a devil chaser.” I don’t get God Chasing. I don’t have to chase God. He
stands at the door and knocks. AMEN! Hallelujah! I’m a tailor made devil chaser and so
are you. You can chase the devil out of this city. You could close down every adult video
store in this town. Amen! Yes, you can!!! You got the POWER!!! You can lay hands on
the sick, you can cast out devils. Let me tell you something, when God puts you on a
mission, he gives you the power to get the job done.
I told Reggie, I can’t baptize you with this cup of water, and the inmate dropped his head.
The Warden said, “Reverend you’re going to have to leave now, you’ve been here too
long.” They opened the cage. I looked at this man and he just dropped his head, no hope
at all. He’d lost all hope.
I said, “Reggie, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The next morning, I come walking into the lobby of the Penitentiary. I’m sitting there till
twelve o’clock and the warden comes out several times.
He asks me, “How are you today, Reverend?”
“I’m doing good.”
He walks right by me and ignores me. I go eat lunch for one hour down the street. It’s
two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock, hmm, this man’s got
six hours to live. Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, quarter to nine and the Governor calls
“How’s it going down there, are you getting ready for this execution?”
The Warden says, “Yeah, but we still got this Pentecostal Preacher here in the lobby.”
“Well, what does he want now?”
“Well, he wants to baptize the inmate.”
The Governor says, “Well, let’s let him do it.”
I’m writing a book right now, I’m getting ready to publish. It’s going to be named,
“Three Hours From Hell.” At about nine o’clock they come to get me.
“Reverend, all we have is a Jacuzzi hot tub down in the hospital.”
I said, “That will work.”
They took the orange jump suit off of him and put a white outfit on him. Well, that’s
what we’re going to wear in Heaven, isn’t it, White? It talks about “White Robes” as we
were getting him ready. Amen! They have handcuffs and shackles on him and he’s
walking with great difficulty. They had about twenty five people gathered down there.
Somebody had called the news, they had this big thing there and they were filming.
They brought him down, and they took the handcuffs and shackles off of him. He said,
“This is going the my worst day of my life, I’m dying, I’m going to die in three hours.”
I said, “Reggie this will not be the worst day of your life, this will be the greatest day of
any day you’ve ever had!” We get in the water and I baptize him in the Name of JESUS
CHRIST. He comes out of the water slinging water everywhere and God filled him with
the Holy Ghost.
Just Three hours from Hell!
They came back to shackle him back up. I said, “Don’t shackle him, He’s OK, you can
trust him. He’ll walk back to the cage. This man’s got the Holy Ghost. How do you feel
now?”
He said, “I feel great, I’m ready to meet God! Thank you, Preacher!”
I said, “You know, Reggie, when they take you out of the cage, and they take you to the
gurney, they have a window and they open it up, I’ll be in the window, you can see me,
I’ll be praying for you.”
He said, “Oh, No, I don’t want you to watch it, you don’t have to see it, Preacher, Please
don’t watch it.”
“Ok, I don’t have to watch it.”
He said, “I’ll be ok, this is great!”
He walks down the hall with no shackles, what’s going on now,
“A Thunderous Clap” (Remember the hand clap representing the breaking of shackles in
Egypt) as the shackles have dropped off Reggie’s body, Hallelujah!
I said, “devil, you can’t have this one, Hallelujah, this one is on God’s side.”
Now, you ought to say, “devil, you can’t have my baby, you can’t have
my boy, you can’t have my girl, you can’t have my family or our city!!!
I’ll never get this out of my mind as long as I live, Sister. Never! I watched this man who
had three hours to live, walk back to a death cage. He’s walking down the hall, and I yell
“Reggie”
He turns around and yelled, “Preacher, it’s alright. I’ll see you on the other side.” They
told me later they’d never seen a man die like him. Five minutes to twelve, they walked
into the cage and he stands up and says,
“Ok, let’s do it.”
He walks over to the gurney and lay down across the gurney. They pulled leather straps
across him, his arms come out. They put needles in both arms and take a white sheet, and
bring it up to his chin.
They ask him, “Do you have anything to say, Sir, before you die?”
He says, “Yeah, could you tell that Preacher, thanks for coming, and telling me about the
Holy Ghost, and could you send somebody to tell my little daughter, she needs Jesus?
Later she came to one of our Churches. Five minutes later, the Angels of God take this
man who was three hours from hell to be in the presence of God. You know what, one
day, when I’m worshipping around God’s throne? A man is going to walk up to me and
say, “Thank you Preacher.” I’m going to turn around to my Pastor, the man of God who
laid his hands upon my brother, the night he was blown up and say, “Thank You,
Preacher!” We’re all somebody worth finding!
I want to tell you right now, I have two grand babies. I have a seven year old grand
daughter who sits on my lap and cries, saying, “Grandpa, don’t leave me! Don’t go to
China!” You know what it’s going to feel like in a few months, when I go to the airport
with my wife, and she looks, maybe at her Daddy for the last time, when we walk away
from four children, two grand babies, and get on an airplane and go to China for four
years!. Why would you do this? Because we said, “God, I’ll give you all. I’ll give you
all!”
So our God challenges you tonight, what will you give? I want you to call somebody’s
name out to God. Somebody you know that’s lost and can’t find their way home. Would
you cry out a name of your baby right now, of your Momma or your Daddy, of a loved
one, your brother, do you love your brother?
(Chorus begins to play, “I will give you all, I will give you all, if all is what you’ve asked
of me, I will not withhold, and if my sacrifice is less than giving you my very best, let me
remember Calvary’s cost and be willing to say, Yes!”)
Somebody can’t find their way home! Step out for someone tonight. (Other Tongues
spoken as God annoints) Let’s call out to God from where you are right now. I want to
pray with you for your family, Sister! (Grievous Weeping heard) Someone you love and
care about is worth finding. Intercede for your children, Mother. Pray to God for a
burden, for your people! For my family, Lord! I’ll stand for every one of them. Lift your
hands up to God. He’s calling you to be a warrior. God came to save every one of them.
Some of your friends are lost! They’re lost. God wants to use you. He wants to use your
life, to live for him, so he can rescue them. He wants you to go into the battlefield and
rescue them. Stand up and call upon God for them. Pray for your classmates, friends and
family, even the stranger he sends to your door…
THEY ARE ALL WORTH FINDING!
We’re on a mission!