CHAPTER 5
Hunted by Conviction

Now at this juncture I want to explain that God has done something new for me. I was converted as a boy of eight; there was a crisis experience of the filling of God's Holy Spirit in 1956, followed later by rewarding and fruitful pastorates in British Columbia. And for ten years I had been an evangelist. Except on very rare occasions there were always inquirers. And there were, thank God, more than a few miracles along the way - such as the one under the stars in Colombia when an 8-year-old girl put aside her crutches and walked beautifully.

God was blessing the evangelistic association, the writing ministry, our camps and our family. If you had told me that I needed to be revived I might have laughed at you.

But there was an uneasiness within too. A clutter of things little and big was gradually shorting the circuits of God's power.

Specifically, I had participated with five Christian businessmen in founding a business "for God."

But the relationship bothered me. And in the beginning the business was not especially blest.

We had a conference planned for the Chateau Lacombe in Edmonton in November nineteen seventy-one. The theme was to be "Doing Business for God." I was about to propagate an idea on which I myself was wavering. It did not augur well for the Christian Conference on Business, as we called it.

Meanwhile, the revival was convulsing the evangelical churches of Saskatoon-and spreading fast. I wrote to Pastor Boldt who was scheduled to speak at the Edmonton conference in the Chateau. Would he, I wanted to know, bring some revived people to the conference?

Before he received my letter he phoned. "I don't want to talk about finance, I want to talk about revival." I agreed. And if I had not, he later told me, he had intended to cancel his ministry at the convention.

Conviction had been building in my heart for weeks. As I had hunted moose in the wilderness near our home I had cancelled the conference a thousand times in my mind. But a thousand and one times I had decided to go ahead. My wife's observation proved more accurate than I dreamed: "Either this conference is the biggest mistake we have ever made, or God is going to do something tremendous."

In the first service of the conference Walter Boldt told the Saskatoon story to about 25 business people and pastors. My heart was broken. I wept through nearly the entire hour as he shared. I had no idea what revival was, but instinctively I wanted it. I asked God to revive me, I told Him I'd go all the way, and I asked Him to make me a revivalist. Then some of the men gathered round, laid their hands gently upon me and prayed for me. Exactly what happened I could not tell. But something surely had. Soon the three-day conference was over, but surprisingly enough, the conviction I had sensed before, was, if anything, more acute.

Revival, I was discovering, was not just a blessing: it was as we say, a whole new ball game. As my wife and I drove the 300 miles home to the Peace River Country, we discussed the conference, and especially the phenomenon of conviction, spiritual experience and then intensified conviction.

Finally, as we drove along discussing and sharing what had happened at the Chateau Lacombe I came to realize that God was angry with me - that my motives were wrong. The business we had organized was set up so that all profits would be designated for Christian work. I had participated because I would be able to designate for my work for the Lord. I was more interested in my evangelistic association than I was in God's glory. A divided heart. So I brought that before the Lord and received His forgiveness.

But the conviction did not abate. I next found myself in ministry at Yarrow in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. The church which I had helped found and had pastored for nearly three years had asked that I return for an evangelistic campaign. Mr. Jim Sellers, the gospel singer from Spokane, shared the ministry.

The meetings began slowly with not much open response, but Pastor Orlin Craig had received a promise, "The Lord whom ye seek shall come suddenly into His temple." We prayed and preached and waited.

Not that the Holy Spirit was inactive. He was talking to me. In prayer He made it very clear to me that revival was rolling in from the prairies. In fact, it soon became painfully clear that revival was everywhere in that church except in one little spot - right behind the pulpit. If it was a vision it certainly did not need any interpretation. I knew who was behind the pulpit. I was. And God was saying, "You are the hindrance to revival here."

When God talks to you like that you get down to business. I said, "Lord, I won't preach again till all is clear, I can't." And rather determinedly, I retired to pray. (I just happened to know what the problem was!)

It was the tendency to get my hands into things they ought not to be in, illicit and obsessive love for business. And I recognized that it was of the flesh. And since for years I had preached the power of the cross for Christian living I knew what I needed to do. This manifestation of self had to be crucified.

Then the Lord gave me a scripture, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God" (Romans 6:11).

But I did not like the verse. Old Agag was prancing and mincing, "Lord," I said, "this is not sin, it is just the self life." How subtle! Self is the essence of sin. The sin nature had to be dealt with. Finally, I capitulated. "Lord, it is the sin nature. It has to die." Then deliberately, I said something like this, "Almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ, I now crucify this tendency I have to get my hands into things in which they ought not to be, this illicit love of business. I crucify it by the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen."

I was not expecting an experience. But there was one just the same. A beautiful peace swept over my soul. And though my hands were folded across my chest, my arms seemed to be spread out as if on the cross with Jesus, and my hands impaled there with His. And how meaningful the scripture became, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20).

There was new power in the meetings after that. Two husbands who had resisted the claims of Christ when I was pastor, who had continued ten years in unbelief since we left, were among the inquirers.

The Holy Spirit moved deeply in the whole congregation. In a pronounced and obvious way, the Lord, whom we had sought, had come suddenly into His temple. All praise to God!

But the conviction lingered. There was more in my heart obstructing the Holy Spirit, although I did not know what it was. In fact, previously I had always scoffed at the suggestion that there might be anything in anyone's heart about which they did not know. But not anymore. "Thou. . . knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17). There are things in our hearts unknown to us.

Finally, after about six weeks had elapsed since the first work of revival in my heart. I sensed that a turning point was coming.

One night as we were driving in a nearby city I said to my wife, "Wifey, I don't know where all this ends but one thing I know, the Lord knows I love Him."

The next day I drove toward Edmonton. Before the first hundred miles had clipped by, the Holy Spirit had spoken once more, "Your problem, my son, is that you don't love me with all your heart."

If there is such an experience as being revived, it happened to me in those six weeks. But God did not stop. There have been many more probings of the Spirit since - and as I see it now. all were necessary to bring the revolution of love to my heart.

Chapter 6