Fresh Oil - Part 4 — Jack Hyles

A Country Preacher Overwhelmed by a Growing Church

$3 ,000 on a big day in Sunday school, but I was a country preacher. The church was too big for me. I didn't know anything about drawing up a church budget. I didn't know anything about administrating a church.

I did not know how to be an executive. We had a great budget, great crowds coming. I knew nothing about organization. It got too big. I became frustrated. I recall on New Year's Eve, 1954, the church was too big.

The Decision to Resign

I was worn out. I went to my study, and I said, Dear God, I'm going to resign tomorrow morning, New Year's Day, 1955. This is December 31st, 1954, before midnight. I said, Dear God, the church is too big for me.

I'll give it to somebody else, and I'll start another little church somewhere. I'm just not big enough to handle this big a church. I took a piece of paper, and I began to write a letter. Dear members of the Miller Road Baptist Church, I love you as I love my own life.

My heart is broken, and my eyes are filled with tears as I write this letter. But the church is too big for me. I must resign. Someone who's a bigger preacher must come and take my place, and I'll start again somewhere else and build a little church.

Praying for Fresh Oil

I laid that piece of paper on my desk, and then I laid it on the floor. I got on my knees over that paper at 11 o 'clock, New Year's Eve night, 1954. And I said, Dear God, the church is too big. I don't want to leave, but I don't know how to operate a big church.

I'm not a big preacher. I don't understand all the intricacies and organization, administration of a big church. I've got to resign. But I said, Dear God, I'll stay on my knees all night long. If you do something for me before 11 o 'clock in the morning, I won't resign.

But unless something happens and I get fresh oil, I'll have to resign tomorrow morning. I prayed from 11 to 12. I prayed from 12 to 1. About 1 .30, there was a knock on the door. I went to the door. One of my deacons, he's in heaven now, but his name was S .O. Barnett.

Big, tall fellow. His pajamas were sticking out about four inches underneath the cuff of his trousers. His eyes were filled with tears. And he said, Preacher, what's wrong? The Lord woke me up tonight and told me something's wrong about Preacher.

I called your house. They did not know where you were. I rushed to the office. Preacher, God told me something's wrong. What's wrong, Preacher? And I said, S .O., read this. He read my letter of resignation.

He said, Preacher, you can't leave us. You can't leave us. You want us all to Christ. You're the only pastor most of us have ever had. And I said, S .O., the church is too big for me. I can't stay. The church is too big.

I don't know how to operate it. Unless God gives me something I don't have, I've got to leave. He said, let's pray. We fell to our faces. He prayed. I prayed. He prayed. I prayed. He prayed. I prayed.

He prayed. I prayed. We prayed from 1, 1 .30 to 2, from 2 to 3, from 3 to 4, from 4 to 5, from 5 to 6. The next morning, about the time the sun was coming up on January 1, 1955, I cannot tell you what happened.

Receiving God's Peace and Renewed Calling

I cannot explain it to you. But the peace of God came in my soul. And God said, my son, I'll give you some fresh oil. I looked at S .O. and I said, S .O., guess what? Guess what? I said, I believe God's done it.

He said, then you're not leaving? You're not leaving? And I said, no. I took that letter of resignation and tore it into pieces and threw it on the floor. And S .O. hugged me around the neck. And he said, bless God.

And we danced a dance of joy together in praises to God. Oh, the blessings of God that came. Ladies and gentlemen, we've tried our education. And I'm not against it. I have my degrees as you have yours.

We've tried our personalities. I'm not against that. I believe God can use personalities. We've tried our special programs and attendance campaigns. And certainly, I'm not against that. But there's something most of us have never tried.

Fresh oil, fresh oil. Dear preacher brother, dear Christian friend who once knew the blessings of God upon your life, there was a day when God's presence was so obvious and God's power was so present.

It's been a long time, hasn't it? Aren't you hungry? Why don't you say today, dear Lord, take up the tangled strands that we have wrought in vain, that by the skill of thy dear hands, some beauty may remain.

Why don't you fall to your knees before you go to bed tonight or find you a pasture somewhere or a pea patch or a pine thicket or a woods or a creek bottom or a riverbed somewhere. Get on your face and say, oh God, do it again.

Accepting the Call to Hammond

Fresh oil. In the passing of years, God called me to go to the great Chicago area. I did not want to go. God said, Jack, I want you to go pastor the First Baptist Church of Hammond. I said, let me walk in the fields.

He said, no, walk in the town. But I said, there are no flowers there. He said, there are no flowers, but there's a crown. But I said, the air is thick. There's nothing but noise and din. He wept as he led me back and said, there is more, there is sin.

But I said, the sky is black and the fog is veiling the sun. He said, but souls are black and they walk in darkness undone. I beg for more time to be given. He said, my child, is it hard to decide? It will not seem hard in heaven to follow the steps of thy guide.

So I took one look at the fields and cast my eye toward the town. He said, my child, won't you yield and exchange your flowers for a crown? But I said, I'll miss the flowers and my friends will miss me, they say.

He said, my child, choose tonight. If I am to miss you, are they? So into my heart came he. Into his hand went mine. And I now walk in a path I once dreaded to see, a path that has become so divine. Well, I went to the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Chicago area.

Struggling to Serve in an Influential Northern Church

The mayor of our city attended our church. The president of the downtown bank attended the church. The owner of the biggest department store in the downtown district attended our church. An influential church, but not like me.

I was a country preacher. I was a Texas boy. And here I was up in the Chicago area, out of socket. And then troubles came. They didn't understand me and I did not understand them. And finally, one night at the Beale Rice Ranch in 1960, I went to sleep.

Wrestling with Whether to Return to Texas

Before I went to sleep or tried to sleep, before I went to sleep, I said, dear God, I'm going back to Texas. Eight different churches have contacted me asking if I would consider becoming pastor there.

And I said, before I went to bed that night, I'm going back to Texas. I wasn't made for the North. I wasn't made for the Chicago area. I'm just a country preacher from Texas. But the Holy Spirit would not let me sleep that night.

I tossed and tumbled till midnight. And finally I got out of bed and fell on my knees beside the bed. And I said, dear God, what are you trying to tell me? And the Lord seemed to say, I called you to Hammond, Indiana.

That's where I called you. And I said, but God, I don't know what to do. I'm not a big city preacher and I'm not a Northerner. And I don't understand the people. They don't understand me. All night I prayed.

I prayed till one, from one to two, from two to three, from three to four, four to five, begging God to let me go back to Texas or do something to me that would make me qualified to stay in Hammond. And I prayed.