Garland, Texas - The Work of the Holy Spirit by J. Edwin Orr

Ago, I met the lady who wrote that chorus, and did you know she was blind? She was blind. She wrote "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus." There are so many young people here tonight, I thought I would take just a few moments to share with them, especially because I was a teenager when I was baptized. It meant a lot to me. I wanted to do something for the Lord, so I started to go to Christian Endeavor meetings.

First, one day I went to a friend of mine, Jim Wilkinson was his name. I said, "Jim, can you preach?" He said, "No, can you?" Well, I said, "I've read a paper in the Christian Endeavor." "I've read a paper too, but who would ask us to preach?" "Oh," I said, "we can take care of that. Let's start in the open air. I'll invite you, then you can invite me." "How do you get a crowd?" "We get a crowd all right."

Did you know that my career began as a musician? I played a ukulele, just a tiny little ukulele, but my friend Wilkinson couldn't sing in tune. He would always sing an octave lower and be flat. We never struck the same note together, but we always gathered a crowd of Irish music lovers. Then I stood on the edge of the sidewalk and preached. You say, if you never preached before, how could you preach? I'll give this as a word of advice to any aspiring young preacher: never try to preach beyond your experience.

My mother led me to Christ when I was just nine. The verse she used was, "He was wounded for our transgressions," from Isaiah. So I preached on that. It meant something to me. Then we had another musical number with the ukulele and the basso profundo, and some moved on and others joined the crowd. Then Jim took his turn to preach. We got such a blessing out of it, we decided to form a band of twenty-four young men to do this kind of work once a week. We decided not to let any girls join our group; we didn't want to be driven to distraction. So we started that way.

Well, I remember I was still a teenager when one of the fellows, as we always had prayer before we started out, and we were having prayer in my home, when one of the fellows said, "Does God really answer prayer, or is it just coincidence?" I said, "Well, why don't we try and find out?" He said, "How would you find out?" I said, "Let's keep a record." So I got a notebook, and I opened it and ruled down a line. On one side of the page, we wrote the date and the thing for which we prayed. We left a space for the answer and the date on the other page. This was a real practical test.

I still remember the first request. I said, "Fellas, there are twenty-four of us now, and my ukulele is no good. I just strike a chord and nobody hears it after that; it's so quiet. Let's pray for a banjo, mandolin, or a piano accordion, or something like that." So we wrote that down. Three days later, I had a phone call. A fellow said, "This is Bert Bradley." I said, "Do I know you?" He said, "I've just come to the city from the country. I'm a bank clerk. I'm a friend of Sydney Murray. He told me you're having open-air meetings. Could I help?" "Well, can you do anything?" "No good taking along extra baggage, you know." "Well," he said, "to tell you the truth, I'm not much good at public speaking. I can't even give my testimony without getting mixed up, but I play a band of mandolin. If that'll help you, I'll help you in your music." There was our answer to prayer.

We kept a record like that for a year, and I discovered that God had answered, not always yes. I remember once we prayed that it wouldn't rain. It came down in sheets of rain, but we were forced to take shelter in a little Presbyterian church where they had a struggling midweek service. For at least twenty young fellas to come in and help take over, that pastor was really encouraged, so we were glad it rained that night. It was all in the Lord's purpose.

The head of a big organization in London heard of what I was doing. Now, I'd been six years in business. I worked in the office of a large bakery concern. My heart was in the preaching ministry, but my stomach was in the bakery, of course. But this man heard of what I was doing and offered me a salary to do this kind of work under the auspices of their organization all over the world. I was delighted. Just think of somebody paying me for what I wanted to do! He told me he'd give me enough money to support my mother. I was the only support of the home. My mother was a widow. I told you my father was dead, my brother was dead, my sister was ill, and I was the only supporter of the home. So I went straight back to my home city and told Mother and told others that I was going to leave home to do this kind of work. They all congratulated me. One man said, "God has opened a door for you."

But the day after I gave up my job, my friend Leonard wrote me a letter to say he had to go to India and China and Japan, right around the world for missionary conferences. He was going to be away for about a year. His committee wouldn't be responsible for me while he was away, so he told me to go back to work again. I could have gotten my job back. It was much easier to give me back my job than train somebody else for it. But the more I prayed about it, the more I felt God was calling me to this work. So I told my friends that I was going to start out by faith.

"Why would you dare do this? It was during the Depression. Now, you youngsters don't know what it was like during the Depression. People were starving. There was no social security, no unemployment insurance. There were soup kitchens and bread lines. This was during the Depression." They all told me I was crazy. I still remember one man who was the exception. I remember him with gratitude. His name was Sydney Murray. He said he didn't know whether I was crazy or not. All the others thought I was. Mother said, "What's going to happen to us in the meantime?" I said, "Mother, I'll send you the usual amount of money each week." She said, "I know you'll try, but where will you get it?"

Now, I wasn't an evangelist traveling around holding weeks of meetings. I'd never held a week of meetings in my life. I was just a youth speaker, you know, speaking at young people's meetings occasionally. So I started out. I gave all the money I possessed to my mother, and I started out. I arrived in Liverpool with two shillings and eight pence, which in those days was 65 cents. Now, of course, money went further in those days than now, but even so, 65 cents wouldn't take you very far. I had a bicycle, a change of clothes, and a Bible. The only friend I had within 15 miles of Liverpool was a Roman Catholic scoutmaster whom I had met at a jamboree. I was a senior scout, so I went to see him.

He said, "Where are you going to sleep at night?" I said, "In bed." He said, "Very funny. Where are you going to get your next meal?" I said, "I don't know where I'll get it, but I know where I'll put it." I wasn't feeling quite as cheerful as that. It was like whistling in the dark, you know, keeping up a brave front, as it were. There I was in a strange country, England. I'd never been in England except once for a short vacation. He said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to do evangelism." He said, "What's an evangelist?" You see, in the Roman Catholic Church, there are only four evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They talk of Matthew the Evangelist and Mark the Evangelist and so on. Well, I said, "An evangelist is one who travels with the gospel." But he said, "In the Catholic Church, when a man has a vocation for the priesthood, we send him to a theological college. I thought Protestants did the same." I said, "So they do." Then he said, "Why are you doing it differently?" I said, "I feel called."

He offered to lend me enough money to go home on the next ship to Ireland, but I said, "Frank, I don't want to borrow your money. The scripture says, 'My God shall supply all your need.' If that's true, I can depend upon it, but if it's not true, the sooner I find out, the better." So I started on my bicycle on a journey that was to take me all around the world.

When I reached Chester, an old English city with a wall around it, it began to rain heavily. So I prayed that I might reach Shrewsbury, about 40 miles south, without getting wet. Now, you'd agree that you couldn't cycle 40 miles in the rain and not get wet. I was very thin in those days, but even so, I couldn't do that. But I got to Shrewsbury without getting wet, and yet it rained all the way. Now, most American kids say, "Did you hitchhike?" Hitchhiking was unknown over there. It wasn't until the GIs went over during the war and showed the Limeys how to do it that they knew what hitchhiking was. In 1933, if you'd stood in a road in England with your thumb out like that, they would have thought you had a sore thumb. So I didn't hitchhike, but this lorry driver—truck driver, they call them lorries over there—this truck driver shouted, "Hello there!" in such a friendly way, I knew he must have made a mistake. English people don't speak to strangers. I used to think they were snooty, but they're not. They're reserved; they're shy. They just don't speak to strangers.

So I wheeled my bicycle over. I said, "Did you mistake me for someone?" "Oh, I say," he said, "I thought you were a friend of mine called Bert Cook." I said, "That's funny. I have a friend called Bert Cook too." He said, "But you're not English." I said, "No, I'm from Ireland." He said, "I knew you were a foreigner as soon as you opened your mouth." Then he said, "You wouldn't know the Bert Cook that I know because he was English." I said, "I was in England once before, just for a short holiday, and I met this Bert Cook—Herbert J. Cook was his name—in Northampton. He was studying for the Methodist ministry." He looked at me in amazement. He said, "Blimey, mate, it's the same bloke!" He said, "Where are you headed for?" I said, "London." He said, "Not tonight." I said, "No, it'll take me three days on a bicycle." "How'd you like to ride with me? You going to London?" "No, no," he said, "I'm going down the other way to Cardiff, but I could take you as far as Wellington." So I said, "Where's Wellington?" He said, "That's near Shrewsbury." I was praying that I might get to Shrewsbury without getting wet.

I still remember, as if it were yesterday, the narrow winding roads. They do have motorways now, but they didn't then. Narrow winding roads, and he was driving this big truck around the bends, and I was witnessing to him about Christ. Finally, he said, "Well, Mr. Orr,"—they're a little more formal over there; they give you your title, you know—"well, Mr. Orr," he said, "if I were to be converted right now," he said, "how do I go about it? Do you pray?" And I explained the way of salvation. We drove around another bend. He said, "If I pray right now, am I supposed to close my eyes?" I said, "Keep your eyes open, and the Lord will understand." He got converted with his eyes open.

I arrived in Shrewsbury. It was 11:00 at night. I had nowhere to stay. However, the Salvation Army over there in those days had working men's hostels where you could get a bed for a dime, something like six pence it was. I thought that'd be something in my line, much less than 65 cents now. So I stopped a policeman. You can picture an English bobby. I stopped him and I said, "Could you tell me where I could get cheap accommodation for the night?" He looked me up and down. He said, "What do you do for a living?" Now, I knew exactly what was in his mind. During the Depression, they arrested people out of work as vagrants because they were tempted to steal and so forth. They'd make them work in some kind of workhouse or something like that and then let them go again. "What do you do for a living?" Now, what could I say? I couldn't say I was a clergyman; I'd not been ordained. I'd been a bookkeeper, but I wasn't a traveling bookkeeper. So I said, "I'm an evangelist." He said, "You don't look like an evangelist to me." Well, I asked, "What's an evangelist supposed to look like?" Well, of course, everyone tries to look like Billy Graham, but in those days, we didn't have a pattern. So, I said, "What's an evangelist look like?" "Well," he said, "you're very young." I said, "I'm 21." "Well," he said, "that's young for an evangelist. How long have you been an evangelist?" I said, "Just a little while." He said, "Well, how long have you been an evangelist?" I said, "Not very long." He said, "I have reasons for asking. How long have you been an evangelist?" Well, I said, "Sir, if you must be technical, I started at 8:00 this morning." He said, "Do you have anything to show that you're genuine?"

Now, I had six letters of introduction with me. When my friends heard I was going away, although they thought I was crazy, they thought, "Well, we'll do anything we can to help." I had a letter written by an Episcopal rector, a Presbyterian minister, a Baptist minister, a Methodist minister. The last one of the six was written by an obscure friend of mine who worked in what would be called in Dallas a storefront mission. He wasn't well known. I didn't ask him for a letter; he volunteered. I was going to leave it behind, then I thought if he was nice enough to write a letter, I might as well take it with me. It was the nicest and most enthusiastic letter of all. I thought this policeman in the middle of England wouldn't know anyone in Ireland anyway, so I showed him the letter written by my obscure friend. He read it through, and then he shook hands warmly. He was a converted policeman. He was a deacon in the Shrewsbury Baptist Church, and he was a close friend of the William Phillips that wrote that letter. He took me home that night. I slept in a feather bed. Next morning, I had two eggs for breakfast.

Frank Nelson, my Roman Catholic friend, said, "Where are you going to sleep at night? Where are you going to get your next meal?" That was my first night. Something clicked. If God can take care of me one day, he can take care of me tomorrow. If the Lord takes care of me this week, he can take care of me next week, this month, next month. You see, when the disciples went to the Lord and said, "Lord, increase our faith," he didn't say, "Very well, then, I'll give you a great big ready-made faith. You can put it up on a shelf and admire it, and anytime you need some, reach for it." No, no. He looked for the smallest thing he could find, a grain of mustard seed, and he said, "If your faith is this size, you can move mountains." I learned that lesson. In other words, you use the little faith that you have, and God's way of measuring isn't like ours. You've got only a pint of faith? Use it, and you find you've got a gallon. You've only got a gallon of faith? Use it, and you find you've got a tank full. That's the way it works.

And so I roughed it. I slept under haystacks sometimes. I was telling the pastor that when I came to Texas first, I slept all night in the car in Lubbock, but at least I had a car. In those days in England, I had only a bicycle, but you can put a bicycle under a haystack too. I was cycling in Kent near London when my old bicycle broke down. I discovered I needed new handlebars, a new front fork, new back wheel, new front wheel, new three-speed gear, new crank, new pedals, new tires, new tubes, and several other new parts. So I decided to pray for a new bicycle or the money to buy one. I had to wheel that bicycle ten miles. Have you ever wheeled a bicycle for ten miles? You get all twisted to one side, and then you walk on the other side.

I was asked to spend the Christmas vacation with an Englishman at a place called Gravesend. By the time I got there, walking and wheeling, I was late for supper. They had gone out to a meeting, but they left the back door unlatched. When I let myself in, there was a note on the table: "Make yourself at home," and there was some food under a nice little cloth. Now, I was praying for a new bicycle, and the answer to prayer came so unexpectedly. A Baptist church—the Baptist pastor on the other side of the River Thames in Essex had suddenly taken ill. His deacons were in desperation trying to get another preacher to take his place two days before Christmas. Most people have made their arrangements for Christmas in advance. They called this one, that one. They said, "Sorry, we've all made arrangements." I don't know how they got my name. I certainly don't know how they got my address, but they called me long distance and asked me if I'd come and preach the Christmas sermons in that church. I told the deacon on the phone, "But you don't