Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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Reminiscing in the evening with Brother Earl and Sister Betty about some old saints we used to know, we recalled some of the sweetest old mothers in Christ that we met along the way who understood very little of the doctrine. Doctrine, valuable as it is, was not what kept them over the years from evil; rather, it was their love of the power of God. They loved to feel the power of the holy Ghost, and their love of those feelings kept them from unclean things that would have taken those feelings away.
Dear old Sister Atkinson had a gift of discerning spirits such as I have seldom seen, and she couldn't even read the Bible, so poorly could she see. But she loved the power of the holy Ghost, and when she met any spirit that did not love it, she recognized and hated it. She was a gentle soul, but she knew how to say no to the devil.
When Brother Earl, or I, or anyone else visited with little Sister Minnie Weaver, at the time over ninety years old, the power of God would often fill the house where we sat. Visiting these saints was not like visiting "old folks"; not at all! They were full of the holy Ghost and fire! They blessed us more than we blessed them. I didn't stop at their home out of sympathy; I stopped out of desire for fellowship and because I loved them.
Sister Weaver was one of the pioneers of The Church of God denomination in Henderson, NC. She spoke occasionally of the times, long before my birth, when she hand-washed clothes during the week so that she could have a dime to put into the offering plate on Sunday for the building fund. Now, however, in her last days, she was all but abandoned by that same sect, and, according to her, she could not even persuade any of her own children to take her to a Sunday or Wednesday night Church of God meeting. Why? Because her children knew she would scold the whole congregation for their worldliness and lack of spiritual joy and power. This is what she told me; I am inventing nothing.
She wanted to go to a meeting to light a fire under them and stir them up to seek God, but she could not persuade anyone in that Christian church to pick her up and take her. Not being a member, I felt that I should stay out of it. Besides, if they didn't want her company, I would take their part. And so, Sister Weaver and I often feasted to the full with Jesus, both in meetings in her home with other saints or in precious times spent reading the Bible, singing, and praying with her alone.
She lived well into her nineties, and after this precious old saint died, the South Henderson Church of God held a funeral for old Sister Weaver. Her very talented grandson, State Overseer for the Church of God in Nebraska at the time, flew in for the event, to sing and play the piano. Accolades for her faithfulness and her charitable acts over the many decades were heaped upon her by those present. I overheard an elderly man in the pew in front of me mention to a man beside him that Sister Weaver had served as a wet nurse for him when he was an infant. Many others there had also been helped by this hard-working, humble soul. In the years of her strength, she gave some of them a place to stay when they needed one; she fed some of them when they were hungry; she nursed some of them when they were sick; she cared for children when their parents could not.
I sat alone near the back of the auditorium and watched in awe as this filthy thing called Christianity used the dead body of that precious saint for its own glory-the same saint these people had all but completely ignored for years, and whom they had refused to allow in their services while she lived! It reminded me of the spectacular state funeral that Hitler held for General Erwin Rommel after he had secretly ordered him to be murdered. Sister Weaver's funeral looked so good and sounded so good! Her grandson is a gifted and an anointed musician, and a good speaker, and the other singers and speakers performed their parts well. Yet, in the midst of their solemn pageantry, visions kept coming to my mind of Sister Weaver sitting alone in her humble home behind the South Henderson cotton mill wishing in vain that just one of these people would come take her to a meeting. And the lovely music and singing could not drown the echoes of her creaky little voice that resounded in my head: "I can't get none of 'em to take me up there!"
As I sat alone in the rear of the building, it felt as if my heart would burst with grief, not for Sister Weaver (she was doing just fine) but for those precious people at the funeral, people of God who had long ago spiritually died, but who still had a reputation for life merely because the word "pentecostal" applied to them. Every beautiful note in their songs tore at my heart. Every kind word they expressed for the old saint was a knife entering the chambers of my soul. With a suffocating heaviness in my breast, I quietly withdrew through a rear door when, at the direction of the minister, the congregation bowed their heads to offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God for their dear, departed Sister Weaver, who in reality was welcome in their meeting now only because she was dead.
Somebody will answer to God for that outrage against Christ, but her story is actually a digression from what I originally intended to write, which is that those old saints were kept from evil not so much by their knowledge of the doctrine of Christ but by their deep and abiding love of the holy Ghost and fire. When a person loves the holy Ghost, he loves Jesus; and when any person loves Jesus, the Father will love him. Jesus said that it is for this reason that God loved the disciples (Jn. 14:21).
If you love to feel the power of God, if you love feeling the presence of the Spirit of God, that love will save you from evil deeds that would quench those holy feelings within you. I know that it will do so because I saw precious old saints, both men and women, who were kept by the power of God from committing sin, even though they didn't have much understanding of the doctrine. All they had going for them was that they truly loved the power of God's Spirit, and I learned from them that loving God and the feelings of His Spirit is enough.