The second day following, the Lord gave me another message. My text was the last clause of the second verse of Proverbs 16: "… the Lord weigheth the spirits." After I had spoken a few minutes Brother Cole spoke up and said, "Please stop a minute, Bro. Susag, do not talk so fast; we do not understand a word you say." I said, "Please pray for me." Then again, realizing I was going quite fast, I stopped, when Sister Cole said, "Do not stop now, go ahead, Bro. Susag, we can understand you well enough." I seemed to be full of the Holy Ghost which seemed to be pressing me on. When I said, "Amen" there were forty-two at the altar crying for mercy.
Listen folks, this was not because of my good preaching, for they could not understand me, but they understood when the Holy Ghost spoke. When I went to the altar to pray with the seekers a man came running on his hands and feet, barking like a dog. He was taken out to another room to be prayed for. He was helped, and the devils were cast out.
After the altar service was over I asked Brothers Reardon and Ebel to go with me to the basement. As soon as we got there I fell on my face to the floor weeping, and saying to the brothers, "I need help, I am in serious trouble. It seems as though devils were tearing my very body to pieces." Thank God for good brothers who are able to help a person in time of need. Brother Reardon said to me, "Get up quick, Bro. Susag, don't lie there and cry for the devil." But I said, "You don't know what trouble I am in." But they said to me, "There is nothing the matter with you. Get up and rebuke the devil, get up and sit on that chair and we will talk to you." Then Bro. Reardon said, "The Lord used you to break the spell in the meeting and there were seven possessed with devils at the altar. The devil became enraged at you and was determined to ruin you." Then I resisted the devil and was free.
We will soon find out when we let the Holy Ghost have His way with us there are seemingly two equally great powers in the world. But thank God, we also find that He is the Omnipotent Ruler over all things.
Brother Tubbs and I once held a meeting at Portland, North Dakota. The wife of the man with whom we stayed professed to be saved and one of the saints. Her husband, as far as I knew, made no profession but was a very fine man and one of the leading business men of the town.
One day, as we were looking through the bookcase, we found a lot of fine looking books of Russellite teaching. We asked the sister who had bought them. She told us that she had bought them—"had bought over a hundred dollars' worth of those good books." We informed her that they were unsound, that they taught erroneous doctrine and should not be read nor handed to anyone.
Our taking this stand made things look as though we would be without a place to stay. But that evening the Lord changed the situation. The two-year-old child of this couple was suddenly taken violently ill. The mother asked us to pray for the boy. Bro. Tubbs plainly told her that the Lord would not heal her boy as long as she had those books in the house. When we were just starting to go to the service that evening, the father, who was holding the child in a blanket in his arms, said to us, "Will you guarantee healing to my child if I place it in your hands? Otherwise I shall have to get a doctor before it is too late." Bro. Tubbs answered, "We can guarantee nothing," and we started for the service.
Bro. Tubbs was already outside the door of the house when the mother of the child said pleadingly, "Won't you pray?" The Holy Ghost came upon me and I said, "Yes, on one condition, if you will promise to take all those books over to the meeting place tomorrow and burn them up before the eyes of the audience, I'll pray and guarantee healing for your child." She said, "I won't do that; they are good books and cost $100." "All right," I said, and stepped out of the door. The father said, "Just a minute," and then to his wife he said, "Isn't the life of our child worth more than one hundred dollars?" She said, "But they are good books." He replied, "The ministers say they are no good. I know nothing about them, whether they are good or not, but I do know one thing that my child's life is worth more than one hundred dollars." "All right, then, I'll do it," she said.
I stepped back in the room, threw my hat on the floor, went over and laid my hands on the child and prayed the prayer of faith and the Lord healed the child instantly, and the books went up in smoke the next day.
I have seen bookcases and book shelves in many homes that need just such a purge in order that the glory of God may dwell in the home, and sometimes even in the churches.