Part 7 (1/2)
To which they replied, ”You can't go, for the Lord has shown us that you are to hold a meeting for us.” The next night there were about two hundred in the congregation and some ten minutes before nine o'clock eight persons started to get ready to leave; I was still speaking, so paused and said, ”Just a minute, please: We have just come from Denmark where we preached as long as the Lord would lead, until nine or ten o'clock. Now if you have to go home you are welcome to go, but if it's simply your custom to leave a meeting at a certain time whether or not the service is over, we are going to pray the Lord to break up such a custom.” Six of the persons sat down again and two left. Sat.u.r.day night the chapel was full and Sunday night quite a number were saved. The meeting continued almost four weeks and souls were getting saved right along.
One day we had a baptizing service between two boat houses in the North sea and after I had baptized all the candidates, a fisherman, who owned one of the boat houses, came out and asked me whether I would not baptize him. On my inquiry as to his being saved, he told me this: ”I was saved three years ago but have never before met folks with whom I believed the Lord was working, but today as I witnessed this service I was convinced that the Holy Ghost was with you folks.” I baptized him and never saw him again.
After that we were not allowed to baptize from the sh.o.r.e but had to take the folks out in a boat and baptize them from a rock in the North sea.
Following that incident we were invited to a sea Captain's home, to be there at 9:30, the next morning. The house was the most finely finished house I had even been in. When we arrived in the morning we found it was full of people of the upper cla.s.s, the men with their silk hats and the women equally distinctive in their dress. Some of the company were saved and some fifteen more were saved that morning.
The lady of the house and her six sisters had a brother who was an old sea captain and was sick. We were told he was an infidel and would have nothing to do with preachers, that if any happened to come into his house he ordered them out. His seven sisters were praying earnestly for him and they felt that we could be a help to him. Their plan was to set a day when they would all go and visit him and if the weather was fine we were to come by and they would be on the porch talking to him. We were to pa.s.s along on the other side of the street and when they saw us they were to call ”Good morning” and invite us over and introduce us to their brother, he was not to know that we were preachers. The plan was successful and after talking awhile Captain Parsons invited us into the house.
On coming into the room we noticed that the walls were hung with pictures of s.h.i.+ps, thirty-eight steamers. He said he had been seaman on each one of them and captain on several. So he took us for a trip around the world.
Finally he came to the last one, a very large s.h.i.+p, but it looked, like a rusty, broken-to-pieces tin can, its masts, smokestacks and bridges had evidently been blown or swept off. We were awed by the sight and said, ”This looks bad.” ”Yes,” he said, ”that was the trying hour of my life, it was in a typhoon off the coast of Sidney, Australia. This is how it looked when we were towed in.” Then I looked at my watch and found we had been talking for two hours and feeling that it was time for us to leave I said to him, ”We are two ministers and generally when we make a call, before leaving we sing, read some Scripture and have prayer. Would you grant us that privilege here?” He said, ”I see no reason why you should not do so.”
We, accordingly, sang, read a Scripture lesson and had prayer, after which we said to our host, ”We have certainly had a pleasant visit and enjoyed the trip around the world with you immensely, and now there is one sailing trip left for you to take. For all these other trips no doubt you made suitable preparation. What about this one; are you ready to meet your Maker in peace?” ”No,” he said, ”The Lord doesn't have such bad men as me.” But we told him that was just the kind He came to save. He said, ”Boys, boys, you don't know what bad men seamen are.” We tried to talk to him, but to no avail. So we thanked him and said Goodbye. As we left he said, ”Boys, boys, come back soon.”
The next day we heard that he was poorly and the Board of Health had ordered that no one shake hands with him as his case was not yet diagnosed.
We continued to visit him, instructing him and praying with him. On one of these occasions on leaving him we both made a good mistake. We broke down and wept. Morris speaking to me in English said, ”I love this man's soul like my own father's and wouldn't lay a straw in the way of his getting saved; I would like to shake his hand, but may not.” ”As far as I am concerned,” I said, ”I wouldn't be afraid to take his hand in both mine, but for the sake of the public we cannot do it; but he is a man of understanding, we will go and explain to him and I'm sure it will be all right.” Later, as we were leaving, he said, ”Be sure to come back soon.”
The next day I was called out to an Island and Brother Morris went over alone to see him. He was up and apparently pretty well and he said to Morris, ”Young man, you had better speak English. I understand your English better than I do your Norwegian.” Now you can see that the mistake the day before was a good one. That day he got gloriously saved and the next day he was up and around happy and praising the Lord, at two o'clock in the afternoon he lay down to rest and went home to glory. On account of his salvation we were asked to speak to the students at the mission college.
Here at Stavanger a good congregation was raised up and Brother Mortensen became pastor, he was a tailor by trade and also was the owner of a fine clothing store. They got the chapel the revival was held in, in 1911, in 1922. I went through and they expected me to remain for a three weeks meeting to preach on Church of G.o.d doctrine. I was supposed to be there on Sunday, but did not arrive until Monday. They had advertised for three services for Sunday, and between fifteen hundred and two thousand were present for each service. I was unable to remain for the three weeks meeting as I was traveling through on a special mission for the Missionary Board and the boat left the next morning. Speaking of the truth, this would have been the greatest opportunity that Norway will have for years to come and perhaps ever.
Brother Mortensen said, ”O how sad--this all happened because of a crooked preacher that Brother Susag had to take back to America.” Brother Mortensen raised up a number of congregations on the West coast, and in 1937 the old chapel at Stavanger was razed and a new and larger chapel was erected in its place.
MY WIFE HEALED OF CANCER
Some years ago my wife had a sore on her left cheek. Dr. Morgan examined it and p.r.o.nounced it cancer. She was prayed for and the third day after there was no sign of cancer.
A little later a growth started on her right side just above the hip. It grew until it was twenty-two inches long, sixteen inches by the body and fourteen inches around at the end of it. It finally developed into cancer.
She was prayed for often but seemingly was not helped, the odor from it was horrible. We went to the Anderson Camp meeting. On the day especially set apart for the healing of the sick, and seats at that particular meeting were so arranged that for each sick person there were three preachers to pray for him or her. My wife came up and sat down on the chair next to the one where I was offering prayer, and after prayer had been offered for her, I heard one of the ministers say to her, ”Sister Susag, do you believe the Lord heals you?” She answered, ”By faith I am healed.” And the minister said, ”Yes, by faith, is right.” From that time the cancer began to fall to pieces.
On the way home I asked her what it was that gave her the faith for healing. She said, ”I don't know; when I went onto the platform I wanted Brother and Sister Byrutn to pray for me, and could have gotten on their chair, but there came a young lady who looked as though she might be in the last stages of tuberculosis, to such an extent was she affected that she had to be supported by a sister, one on each side of her when she attempted to walk, and I saw she was in greater need than I was, and, too, she was a young woman. I was willing for anyone to pray for me, and if I were healed or not it would be all right.” I replied, ”that is where you gained the victory.”
This happened in the latter part of June and around the first of October there was nothing left but a red spot about the size of a dollar to show where the cancer had been. Just before we went to Anderson, a neighbor lady wanted to see the cancer and the sight of it made her so sick she was in bed for two days. And through it all my wife never once complained.
On the last evening of a meeting I was holding in Whittier, California, a man came to me telling me of a sick lady who wanted me to come and pray for her. I consented to do so but told the man I must go quickly as a brother was coming very soon to take me to Los Angeles. On arriving at the bedside of the sick woman I asked her what her trouble was. She told me she had a cancer on her left breast and side, and that having to lie on the one side all the time she became very sick and sore. I prayed the prayer of faith for her and left immediately.
One year later I received a letter from her. She wrote, ”It is just a year ago tonight since I sent for you to come and pray for me. As you prayed for me it was as though an electric shock went through me and after you left I turned over on my left side and went to sleep and slept all night and in the morning when I woke up I was perfectly healed. I have waited a year before writing, to see whether any symptoms returned, but none ever did.”
In one of my meetings while I was pastor at Grand Forks I felt impressed to speak to a young man, Tom Perkins, a World War I veteran. I went down into the audience to speak to him, and told him he ought to seek the Lord that night as something was going to happen. He said, ”Do you think so?” I said, ”No, I don't think so, I know so.” But he said, ”Not tonight.” That was Sunday, and on Wednesday afternoon as I was going down DeMeres Avenue he came out of a clothing store with a friend of his, I said, ”How do you do”
to him and pa.s.sed on in front of him, but as I was pa.s.sing him the Lord said to me, ”Go back and speak to Tom.” I at once turned back to him and said, ”Tom, listen to me; you ought to seek the Lord. Let us go back in the store and settle it with the Lord.” But he said, ”No.” I said, ”It is very important.” He said as before, ”Do you think so?” And again I answered, ”I don't think so, I know so.” He took it very nicely but refused to make any move toward seeking the Lord. Two days later, the following Friday, he went to Minneapolis and on Sunday afternoon he was crushed to death between two street cars. Would it not be well for people to heed the warnings of G.o.d's servants and His Spirit?