W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
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he did not well understand English.<br />
Now, while the wagon ran those eight miles I had nothing to do but preach to him. <strong>Rest</strong> assured I did my best.<br />
Before we reached the camp, I saw that the lightning had struck him. Before we dismounted I asked him if he<br />
would attend all of the meetings. He responded in the affirmative. I found him all the time sitting directly in<br />
front of me and giving the most profound attention.<br />
Arriving on Thursday I spent all of my time until Sunday night preaching on sanctification, especially in view of<br />
getting our forces armed and equipped for the oncoming campaign, as I was satisfied that a great multitude were<br />
coming from all parts of that vast wild west. By Sunday we had many tenters on the ground and a vast multitude<br />
of people not only filling the great auditorium but overflowing it. On Sunday night I preached directly to the<br />
unconverted, using as the text, Psa. 9:17, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell with all the nations that forget<br />
God.” The immense audience listened as if the archangel of the final judgment morn had descended and was<br />
sounding his mighty trumpet and calling the nations to the flaming Tribunal of the omniscient Judge of the quick<br />
and the dead.<br />
As that was my first message that I had directed to the unconverted, I took plenty of time, knowing that the great<br />
majority of those people had become exceedingly wicked in that wild country.<br />
While dispensing the living Word, I warned them to flee the wrath to come, at the same time revealing the<br />
appalling horrors of a bottomless Hell, amid penal fires unquenchable. The blessed Spirit wonderfully helped<br />
me to portray the eternity of woe most certainly awaiting the unconverted.<br />
As the moments fled away and conviction settled down on that lost multitude like a nightmare from the eternal<br />
world, groans, sighs, heaves and sobs became distinctly audible. The tide of conviction rising higher and higher,<br />
they began to weep aloud in different places through that great auditorium. The scene intensifies as conviction<br />
comes like an incorrigible paralysis on the people and they begin to fall from their seats, losing the physical<br />
power of locomotion. The moans increase on all sides till they rise like the roar of many waters, so drowning my<br />
voice that I am constrained to open the altar quickly a multitude rush to it and crowd it to overflowing. Looking<br />
round I see an altar out in the auditorium where the people have fallen and seem unable to get away. I look in<br />
the other direction and see another altar and the dear saints pressing the battle. In still a third direction I see<br />
another altar, and oh, how the Christians are toiling to lead the penitents to the Lamb of God that taketh away<br />
the sin of the world! They are actually peregrinating the crowd like the resurrection angels, when the Lord shall<br />
descend to catch away <strong>His</strong> waiting Bride.<br />
The first one to rush to the altar when I gave the invitation was that German who had carried me to the camp.<br />
Oh, how he prayed to God, for Christ's sake, to forgive his sins and give him a new heart. About ten o'clock he<br />
came through bright as a meridian sunburst and shouting all over the tabernacle. Forgetting that he was in an<br />
English-speaking audience, he fell to exhorting in German and singing songs.<br />
Wonderful was the work of the Lord that memorable Sunday night, when many passed out of darkness into<br />
light, while others were fording the Jordan and entering Beulah Land.<br />
At eleven o'clock I proceeded to dismiss the congregation although I knew many would linger until they found<br />
the Lord. When I was about to pronounce the benediction, this joyful, newly-born German begged me most<br />
importunately not to dismiss, saying, “You see I have got it, but here are my wife and sister at the altar and I<br />
want you to hold on till they get it.” I told him to rest easy for God would surely give it to them, and so He did<br />
in <strong>His</strong> own good time. The meeting proved a glorious victory; before it was over this German had not only been<br />
converted, but sanctified. At the conclusion of the encampment, when Brother Adams invited people to join the<br />
Church, this German, accompanied by his wife and sister, was among the first, they having forgotten all about<br />
the oath sworn in Germany at the knee of the priest, solemnly obligating themselves to stick to the Catholic<br />
Church and die in it.<br />
This illustrates the great mistake there is in fighting churches. That is not our business. We have all we can do to<br />
fill our regular contract to fight the devil and sin. Holiness people make two mistakes – they fight fireflies<br />
instead of devils, and doctors instead of diseases. Let us take warning and make these mistakes no more. I had to<br />
convince that German that I had no fight with his Church, but only wanted his soul saved. A fight with his