The Rock Wall

We almost lost a good friend, a good man, Jerry Chambers, to a bad heart attack last week. Thanks to the Good Lord and good doctors, he went home after the surgery.

The scary part is that I’ve never heard that Jerry has been saved. I’ve never spoken to him about it because I’ve never had a lead from the Lord to do that.

His late mother-in-law, Rachel Benham, and her late husband, Earl, attended almost every revival in the three county area. I can’t recall the times she asked me to go to the altar and I just stood there.

I’ve read my King James version of the Bible cover-to-cover and saw not one word saying a person could or should accept the Lord. It says, “Repent.” It says a broken heart and a contrite spirit are pleasing to the Lord. So a sinner must go to the Lord on His terms so that He will choose him or her. Christ says a sinner cannot come to the Lord unless the Lord is drawing that person.

And it’s going to have to be done the Lord’s way. Jerald Jones went to the altar for years but he always held back a little because he said he wanted to be saved out in the brush and come to church and tell it. Didn’t happen that way. Bro. Jerald was saved in the altar at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church.

My sister was saved at home in bed and didn’t tell it for 2 1⁄2 years. My late cousin, Carl, was saved in his pickup driving back from Stockton on Hwy. 39.

My aunt Myrtle and Gail Bell thought they were saved, joined a Missionary Baptist Church and were baptized by the proper authority, got under conviction, were saved and joined the same church and were baptized.

I got under conviction when Bro. Virgil Wells came around the end of the seat in front of me in a meeting he and Dad were holding in an abandoned school house northeast of Jerico Springs. After that I’d lay awake checking my pulse afraid I’d die in my sleep and wake up in hell. But I wouldn’t do anything about it.

One spring day I was riding my horse north of the hay meadow going to check Dad’s cattle when a still small voice said in my left ear, “Boy, if you’re going to do anything about it, you’d better do it now.”

A revival started in about two weeks in Grace Missionary Baptist Church, on the lot where El Dorado Springs Missionary Baptist is now. I went to the altar every night the first week. On Friday night, stretched out on my face on the floor under the altar bench, I went down into a pit into total blackness for I don’t know how long​. Suddenly I was lifted up like coming up out of a well. I looked west and saw nothing in particular. I looked east and saw people praying. Then I felt complete, total peace.

I didn’t tell it for a year. Didn’t lay awake any more either.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hope you did,too.

On Wednesday we all sat down together. Best Thanksgiving in recent memory. Every cook brought a hot or cold dish, pies and ice cream. So everything was like it was supposed to be when it was supposed to be.

Cain had to get away from the pets so he found a leaf rake and cleared the deck and patio. He tells me that next trip we are going to straighten up my boat house. Hope I can walk by then.

The grandkids got along great – with the adults and with each other. I’m ready to do it again. KL