Week of Meetings 1970-01 Personal Testimony — Stan Ford

I don't know if I've ever been to a land where they have so many of these gadgets. I don't like drawing, and I don't often do it for years in my life. Since I've been over in America, every place I've been to they've been more or less the same.

If you tell me to draw what I want to draw, I don't enjoy it. People fund it all out of a couple of views. That's what has done, and the liberals will send you from this place to say, well, if God can save him, he can save anyone.

I've said the other day, I'm in a good house. My son loves my kids. I was brought up in a home where we learned not to keep the rest of them up. And that's just about how it was. I didn't have very much interest in this.

But we did have a foremaster who was a big portman. Well, I was a boy scout integrator. And I knew this, that the white men and the, you know, a couple of old friends were to be ranked with them while they picked up some money.

A Young Man Seeking Purpose and Adventure

Well, I went down to the fairgrounds, and I looked around, and there was Fanny the Poet, who I'd travelled with for about ten years after all. And Fanny the Poet was there. And he had some of his boy scouts at once.

He was offering them to the crowd to fight them. I'd never dropped a land. A big tall lump of land. I remember it so well. I was sixteen. Just wanting to make a mark. Wanting to earn some money. Wanting to enjoy myself.

Well, this went on. I was twenty-one. I was a mother fucker. I was like, you know. I was off the shore. I'd be all right if this was the beginning. But just prior to this, what happened? What happened?

Encountering Religious Conviction

I went into a pub one Saturday night to have a drink with some of the boys. It was a little starvation army, like you'd think. Complete with war crimes, you know. Hey, do you remember when I said I'd write a war crime story?

I told you the other day. I didn't think she would. If she did, I thought she was some gay detail or something like that. But she said I'd be very happy to sing a song. Well, you asked the men to pick one.

I didn't want to be the chairman of a religious meeting in the pub where I used to drink. I was thinking. But I leaned against the bar and said, Girl, you couldn't have been more than an 18-year-old.

I've never seen her up on that day than this. I've never seen her up on that day than this. She stood there, and she's proud. I was intriguing her. I left my point on the bar. I think some of you men will understand.

That that was the first time in my life that any big religious ever hit me. Every English day before we started the day with prayer. The men took it easy. The only ones I heard were the Independent Labour Party, I suppose.

Chester the Communist, the most nervous of socialists. And we were bored out. They gave me the red flag. Because we were bored out. They were proud of what we were. The dread of fatigue. My father's experience in the war.

He was definitely smart. But the people I heard, the people that came to my house, were all people like that. Just like that. And you know, my friends said to me one day, Dad, where are you going? Well, he said, I'm going on for a little golf ball.

A what? But after the Bible class, you know, not intrinsically, the thing we eat. The idea was to keep us all up for the golf ball meeting tonight. And my friend was late for the Bible class and he went out at the golf ball meeting early.

But he was always there for tea. Not quite going by the law of facts. And there we sat. George Harper, who is, I suppose, one of the greatest teachers in our country today. He was sitting there with about 30 or 40 young men.

He said, we're at prayer. These silly fellows with their old bags of heads. And he started the prayer. Do the stars shine? Everyone knew who I was. I didn't know anything about this. And there, in fact, for three years, they prayed for me.

And they told me that for three years, my name was mentioned every week at prayer meetings. And I didn't know anything for three years that that was not possible. And when I got there, I knew where all the family boys were.

Hearing the Word of God

And I looked and I went and leaned over the fence and said to the fellows that were working there, and there I was about 24 years of age. And I was leaning over the fence listening to the preacher say, we will commence the service here.

One evening, I was walking over the hill and they hadn't started me. So I was going up over the other hill and coming down the hill to one of the young ladies. The other young lady was, I didn't know what they were.

But I was on the stage. I was at the top of the hill. We were just walking around singing a little bit. The singing was fine. I can't remember a thing about the sermon. But one thing I did like, I used to think that, well, I'm sure I made it a bit angrier and angrier.

And I would sing, oh, let me roll out of bed. And he would sing. But I suddenly came across something like a Bible. You see, the first night when I went to the mat, the Lord gave me a book. And three years before, I answered a hymn.

And at the moment, he said, you show me. So I went with him and he said, show me. And he did that. And then he said, I said, don't take it for told that he had cried. Nobody told him. He said, you show me.

But I didn't know where it came from. He came down there and said, I'm glad that day I never cried. I said, it's here. Where is the Bible? He opened his Bible and said, you know it's in English. But what is it?

I said, look at that. What is that then? I said, I don't know. He said, I thought you were British. Well, it's the name for the general country from which they come. And then he said, that's you. Now we've got nothing more to go.

Well, I've got it actually. I'm the story of the blind Bible. Well, I said, where's the Bible? I'm not quite sure where it is. Well, I read it. I read it. But it says that Jesus had a man called Mark on him before he got to Jericho and then he went and talked to him about it.

And he said, there's five of them. He said, there's every one of them. So he said, there's every one of them. By looking at me and saying, he said, you show me. He never came across me. Who asked him?

The Bible Speaking to the Sinner

He couldn't tell you. If you came to my ministry when you live in the scripture you know your way about it. I think it's fine you haven't been living there. And he told me his Bible and he was aware of it.

Who told you? I've been talking to you after hours. And then suddenly he looked at me and said, you've got no more to say about it. You've had enough to acknowledge. You've got no more to say about it.

Now let me tell you something the Bible has got to say about you. It's not what you've got to say about the Bible. He called me up and said, you know Jesus, don't you? Well, I knew that. Then he told me something more.

And God, I didn't understand. He said, I need help and tell me that when you get converted you know that you can jump over the moon. I didn't feel some throw and roll after the fact. I would say, I made it my day at the far end of the tent.

Conversion and Prayer

In that very hour of the tent unknown to me two young men had been on their knees praying. I said, God, I'm a sinner. You've got to do that and you've got to do the other. He didn't say a thing that I had to do.

I didn't say, well you're leaving us and there's no one left. I said, well maybe not. Well, I did say and God said, there's no one left. I was a bit religious at that point when he woke up and drunk at night.

He'd left me a time when she'd changed in our home. And in far away my old groom hung it from my wall not even knowing who she was paying to see her husband. I'm being you which is all. I didn't live like Isaac.

Learning Christian Conduct

He didn't need to preach to a handful of people to get it through. No, but I knew so little that I was taking the literally closest girl I had in the church. Those peasants that joined the left wing were like here now.

I couldn't understand why they changed. Those peasants that joined the right wing there were some kings in Africa who were at their most. The Lord came over and he said, I knew they counted out Bible bags and over the text on it.

And I'd go along on a prayer meeting Monday night and they weren't often there. I'd go home and take a Bible reading on a Friday night and they weren't often there. You brethren, if you take ownership in a meeting room you forget that the first thing required of you is that you show me an example of the law.

You can't expect God to come and assure you. As the time went by it's not customary to go away with a boy to the camp. Now I was most interested in the other evening to look at the picture of the way on the corner there of your tent.

I saw no evidence of a camp at all. There was a lovely hogging stick along the trees and everything else. And I said, I'm going to find his son. It was a camp fire and the Sunday came and I had to get up and I said, the first Sunday was really pretty.

Leaving the Old Life Behind

I couldn't hold it back and I couldn't have any pleasure. There were so many random little typical times off when you're in the world but then you're just waiting to forget and just wondering how the other fella's going to be and wondering what you're going to do and how the evening was tied up.

Well there were the boys and another squab getting out with the waves in the morning but some of the lads had to go to find him and they were being attacked before he went in. And the hogging came in and he knew just how he was getting.

The only book I had was a magazine or a paper or something like that that I'd just bought. I decided to do the Juris Doctor thing. I was saying these two things. All of a sudden I said, where am I? You're just a man of the world.

I started with a man's name. The Juris Doctor. And he said, did you know that I was going to be around? I was coming out of the ring. And I had a shoulder and a head of bullets. I finally thought I was going to be in a fight.

And, uh, you know, we did. And, uh. This fella turned on me. Why didn't you say anything? He brought me up to the bedside up and down. I was on the train. And he called me a lousy prick. I was hungry.

Look. You're doing something you can't. These two things don't go together very well. And I don't need to tell you. I'm not going to tell you. You didn't turn out to be that. It was in time. You didn't see what was wrong with it.

Trusting God's Word and Changing Vocation

I was determined that I was going to die within the portion that I'd left to you. And finally I came to the qualification. Don't you ever do this. You have no right to take a person. God can take his word and use it.

I'm trying to leave. Clearly it's a qualification for a bookiship. And this is what I read. I know I had nothing to do with Buckingham. Now I know. I'll just jump out. If you want me to give up fighting, you find me another job today.

I didn't want to do it. I said another job anyway. I don't know. But I put God to the test. If you want me to give up fighting, you find me another job today. I got up on the knees. Suddenly felt terribly embarrassed.

Suddenly conscious. I'd been on the knees. I walked out of the park. I went down to the hill. I came down to the road. The hill. Going down on it. He pulled me down. I got up on it. You know what? I asked the lawyer.

You'll find me another job today. But I didn't need to. I just had to go. You know what I mean? I'm still job. When you put your feet in the field. Now not when I was in it. It's not when I was in it.

You wouldn't understand it. You wouldn't understand it. I thank God I didn't do that. I laid to the side. I laid to the side. I started going around the house. I was 26 years of age when I passed into business.

Sometime after I was in it. I was still a lay of the industry. I was still a business man. He told you to say it, Lloyd. He was a worker for the Lord. For the Lord's purpose. Sir, if you're not a fellow for the Lord, you're not much of a pop.

You're not in business and you're not in business for the Lord. You're not much of a business man. God doesn't look at some people and say, these are full-time workers and these are not full-time workers.