For many years I had a lovely office in Downtown Dallas. It had much space, dark green plush carpet, a big conference table, nice leather chairs, and lovely western art on the walls. I had a great secretary who took shorthand, and two different young male assistants.
However, since I lived in the Denton area, the commute could be quite burdensome, especially on hot August days. Occasionally I stopped at a Shell Station in Denton for gas. I usually used a large Buick sedan for the commute.
On one August afternoon I was in my GMC Suburban from the ranch on the way home. Since it held 40 gallons, I did not need to stop for gas very often. On this one afternoon it had plenty of gas, but as I passed that shell station the Suburban on its own volition just changed lanes and pulled into the back of the gas station and parked itself not at a gas pump, but in the back of the little Shell building………all on its own. It was in control, not me.
I sat there for a few minutes, wondering what in the world this was all about. Such had never happened before. I knew that they sold bread there in the little building, so I decided to just go in and get a loaf of bread. I selected a loaf from the rack and got in line to pay for it.
In those days it was just before we were able to pay at the pump. It was still necessary to go in and pay the cashier.
The cashier, who I had seen a few times before, was a quite attractive red-haired young lady. As it came my time to pay, she looked up and when she saw me she just brightened up with a big show of emotion. She said: “Oh, you came!” To which I replied: “Was I supposed to come?” She then said that she had been concentrating all afternoon intently that I would come. So, I replied: “Why me?” She then said that she had noticed the fancy Platinum American Express Card that I paid for my gas with. She said that no one else had one like that; to which I asked: “Why did you care?”
She then related how she had spent two semesters at the University of Texas at Austin but had fled away from there to Denton to get away from the drug crowd that she had fallen in with. She said that she had now decided to go back down there and join her old crowd. She said that she needed to lease a car to get back there but found that she could not unless she had a credit card. She wanted to ask me if I would loan her my American Express Card so that she could lease a car.
I told her that I understood, but that I did not think that going back to Austin to rejoin a drug crowd was a very wholesome thing to be doing.
At that point she hung her head and haltingly said that she agreed. She then said: “I know what I should be doing. I should be going to Dallas Baptist University and getting a nursing degree.”
Bing!!!
She had no idea that I was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Dallas Baptist University. I asked her if she lived near there, and she said that she lived in walking distance in an apartment. I got her address and told her to meet me at 8:00 o’clock the next morning in front of her apartment.
The next morning I took her down all the way to Dallas Baptist University. We walked straight into the President’s office. He was a very powerful man. He had been Chief of Staff to the President of the United States in the White House. He had been Senior Vice President of one of America’s largest oil companies and was still on the Board of Trustees for Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Organization. He was a man of experience and action.
I told him that his girl needed to be enrolled there and that she did not have much money. He did not ask us to go around to the different departments and wait in line to get her enrolled. He had a senior person from each office come straight there to us…..from the Registrar’s office, the Financial Aids office, from the Academic Deans’ office, the Student Residence’s office, and all the others.
In less than an hour this young lady was enrolled in Dallas Baptist University, had financial aid help, and had her first semester’s class schedule.
Two years later I saw her again at a university function. She was doing great. She was a member of two Christian Service organizations and making good grades. Later I learned that she had graduated with honors and was engaged to a fine young man.
You can say that it was my imagination that my Suburban took control of itself and pulled into that Shell station and parked itself behind that little building. But I swear to you that it did it all on its own to my total astonishment.
It certainly is confirming when God intervenes obviously and physically into things according to his purposes.
I would usually take our medical teams to the east coast of Honduras. There are so many really poor villages of people there along the coast and inland from there. However, we went two times into the Province of Yoro in the central highlands, and the town of Yoro with teams sponsored by First Baptist Church of Carrollton, Texas. This is an extremely poor area of Honduras.
At Yoro there is a strange thing that happens every year, and sometimes two to four times a year. Fish fall from the sky. The locals call it, lluvia de pesces.
When I first heard of it, of course I did not believe it. How could such happen. But I met so many people from there, including my eventual evangelist lady, Onelia, that had gathered the fish in baskets and had sea food that they only get to eat that one or a few more times a year. They consider it a gift from God, and so many of these people are so desperately poor that they really need the protein, especially at that time of the summer.
This has been happening for generations. They say that in the mid 1800’s a Catholic missionary named Manuel de Jesús Subirana came to Yoro to minister to the people. He was so distressed over their poverty and lack of food that he fasted and prayed for three days and three nights. The people say that immediately after that the fish started falling and have done so ever since. A team from National Geographic actually got to be there and record it in the 1970’s. And on our second trip to Yoro I missed it by only two weeks.
There is a mountain range just to the west of Yoro. Onelia said that when the clouds got extremely black coming over those mountains she would ask the priest if it was time. He would say that they need to be even more black. Finally, he would say: “Get your baskets, it is time”. And after those clouds have passed, they would go out to this field and fill their baskets with fish.
Having an engineering degree and having taken all those science courses, I really wanted an explanation; so I set out to find the answer. Sometimes the fish are small and silver colored like sardines, but more often they are much larger. I got Onelia and some of the other people there to draw me pictures of exactly what the larger fish looked like.
I have had some great times with my father catching big sail fish in the Pacific fairly near shore in southern Mexico. Every time we went out, we would pass large schools of bonito schooling right on top of the water.
Those pictures that they drew looked exactly like the bonito, which are related to tuna fish.
Almost every afternoon, cold air would drift out from the mountains there and water spouts would drop down and just “play around” over the water. Sometimes we would have to wait until they went back up into the clouds before we could get back with our boat to where we were staying. I just know that sometimes those bonito were sucked up and carried over the mountains to Yoro. But you say, how could a storm be that strong?
On the afternoon that our medical team was coming back from the mountain where we had ministered to the Indians that had never seen a white man, I saw what it looks like. From our eclectic caravan of cars and trucks, we saw a storm coming toward us from the west. I have seen lots of weather, but I have never seen clouds that incredibly black and lightning that intense. Sometimes in Texas storm clouds will look dark blue, but these were absolutely black. I did not hear of any fish coming down that day, but I could see how a storm that intense could keep fish up there and carry them east.
So I thought that I was so smart for figuring out how this happened. Then I saw the pictures from National Geographic, the New York Times, and the History Channel and others that had recorded those fish. And I knew that I was not correct, for there were all kinds of fish and different colors. I have no “rational” or “practical” explanation. Some of those pictures showed fish with no eyes. They had to have come from some cavern or underground river to have no eyes. And why do those fish fall every year just in that spot……most in just one field adjacent to Yoro at La Unión. Maybe the people are correct. Maybe God is sending them protein as was promised to the missionary, Manuel de Jesús Subirana, so many, many years ago.
Of course, the people there consider it a direct gift from God, and I would not dispute them. They really need the protein. Sometimes the fish fall in town, but almost without exception, for several generations the fish fall in a particular field next to a suburb of Yoro called, La Unión. They even have a festival and parade in little La Unión every year where they elect a “Miss Falling Fish” as queen…..Senorita Lluvia de Peces…….or, Miss Fish Rain. She rides in a float dressed as a mermaid.
Fish That Have Fallen onto a Street in Yoro
Since I know some of you still won’t believe this, here is an article from the New York Times from last summer: Every Year the Sky ‘Rains Fish’ By KIRK SEMPLE JULY 16, 2017, THE NEW YORK TIMES YORO, Honduras — “Things don’t come easy in La Unión, a small community on the periphery of Yoro, a farming town in north-central Honduras.”
(Click on this site and read more of it, or paste it in your browser)
Like I wrote before, here in the U.S. which has so many churches and Christian media, evidently God does not need to show his Spirit Power so much. However, you get far enough away to places with little Christian influence, and one gets to see actual manifestations of God’s Spirit Power.
General Curtis Lemay was by far the most important person responsible for the US winning WWII. We knew that we had to destroy Germany’s production capacity to ever defeat them, but we were bombing them and losing large numbers of bombers and men and destroying practically nothing. As leader if one of our major bomber units, Lemay was very distressed about this. God waked him in the middle of one night and put into his mind the amazing innovation of how to bomb effectively. When he told his men how they were going to now bomb, they thought they would all be killed. Many wrote home saying: “Mama, I ain’t coming home”. I explain the details in my new book.
Lemay told them that he would be flying the lead plane. His innovation was so effective that the whole 8th Army Airforce adopted it withing two weeks and we eventually destroyed Germany’s ability to make war.
At that point we had put almost no bombs on Japan. We now had the B-29, but it really needed two more years of testing to fly into combat. Because of the horrific jet stream winds over the Japanese islands and bombing from above 25,000 feet, we were hitting almost nothing. That was when the military leaders in Washington sent Lemay there to make “effective bombing happen”.
Once again he became very, very distressed. They were flying that long distance and losing so many planes from technical problems and hitting almost nothing. Lemay knew how desperately critical it was to destroy Japan’s ability to make war; for It was being estimated that we would lose at least one million men upon the planned invasion of Japan’s home islands.
Yet, again God waked him in the middle of the night and put into his mind what to do. The Japanese AA shells all had fuses put into them at their factories set for 25,000 feet. It would take them at least two weeks to change them to a lower altitude. Lemay calculated that they did not have AA guns of any quantity to shoot at lower altitudes. They called him “Iron Pants”. He walked into their briefing room and the “ten shun” was called out for them to jump to attention. And when he told them that they would be bombing Tokyo at 5,000 feet and all their defensive guns and gun crews removed to allow for more incendiary bombs, they all wrote home once again: “Mama I ain’t coming home”.
Within three weeks Lemay’s B-29s had destroyed the war making potential in 66 major Japanese cities. The atomic bomb got the credit for ending that war, but I can assure you that the destruction of those 66 cities had very much to do with it. Lemay then went on to found the Strategic Air Command that was the real reason that we won the “Cold War” against the Russians.
Now, here is what I really wanted to tell you: Through an amazing set of circumstances, years later, I became General Lemay’s hunting partner and bunk mate. In my new book I describe how unusual it was that we became so very bonded together. He told me things that I doubt that he had ever told most anybody.
General Lemay in Dark Hunting Suit Ready to HuntGen. Lemay with Pheasants He Has Just KilledOur Hunting Group with Me on the Left and Gen. Lemay on the Right
So, with all of that background, here is just one of them…………. You have heard how General Douglas McArthur was brought back to the US by Truman. It was a very unpopular move to many people across the country. McArthur had spoken before a joint session of Congress and had spoken at a “moving” convocation of the Cadets at West Point where his closing words were: “In the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point. Always there echos and re-echos – Duty – Honor – County. Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and the Corps. I bid you farewell!”
General McArthur with His Famous Corn-cob Pipe
McArthur was now retired and living in a suite in the Waldorf in NYC. He was such a special and unusual man. If he called you and asked to see you, you just had to go, even if you were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which Lemay was. McArthur did not want see the President or any other general……….just Curtis Lemay. I asked the General what he wanted, and he said: “It only took a few minutes, Ron”. McArthur said: “Lemay, I want you to promise me on your mother’s grave, that you will never let our boys fight those people in their jungles or their rice patties.”
That was just before the Vietnam war. Most of us had never heard of Vietnam and for sure did not know where it was. When the conflict broke out, General Lemay said that he tried to keep that promise. He told the Joint Chiefs and the President: “Look, those people only have one real town and one port where everything has to come through. In one night I can wipe them both out and you won’t have a war”.
After 28,000 US servicemen had died, we finally bombed that town and port. The North Vietnamese were in Paris in two weeks suing for peace. We won the war, but just walked away.
This was one incredible woman. She was born in Missouri but wound up with her husband and two young children in Sherman, Texas. At the very worst part of the great depression, her husband just left her and the children. She figured that if they were not going to starve, she had better get a job.
She went downtown and walked around the square. She picked out the store that she liked best and went in and asked to see the manager. She made it into his office and presented her case. The manager said: “Let me see if I have got this right, lady. There are a host of people outside desperately wanting a job. So, you walked around the square and picked out my store to come and work for.” Mary said: “That is correct.”
The manger explained that he didn’t need any more employees and that besides, he had a list of job applicants a “mile long”. However, Mary was quite insistent, and finally proposed to work for no salary, only on commission. The manger was so taken-aback by this that he just agreed. So, she went down to work.
On that very first day, Mary observed that most everything in the store had a price that ended in 95 or 98 or 99 cents. She knew that women in those days most all mended their own clothing and were always needing another spool of thread. So, she put the tree with spools of thread up by the cash register, and had the women take their change in spools of thread which were priced in those days at one cent per spool.
The manager was so impressed that he hired her to a regular job before the day was over.
She then moved her children down to Dallas and studied to be a CPA. She became the bookkeeper/accountant for a prominent furniture store. At that store she observed that women would come in and buy a whole complement of furniture, but that they had no idea about what colors in their home would look best with the furniture, and especially what accessories would dress-up the room to go best with the furniture. Those thoughts never left her.
She eventually got a job with a fellow who was selling such accessories on the “party plan”. In “nothing flat” she had 500 women in her pyramid group. When the owner refused to pay the money and bonuses she had earned under the plan since it was so large, she left and formed her own company.
She named it Home Interiors and Gifts. She then needed a loan to furnish the capital to grow her company. She went around to most all the banks in downtown Dallas with no success. Finally, one banker was so intrigued with her, that he made her the loan. Later, when she was putting millions of dollars into that bank’s coffers, was he ever glad that he had decided to have faith in Mary Crowley. She stayed very loyal to that bank.
She not only recruited a multitude of ladies to work for her direct selling company, she was so influential with her powerful personality, that she influenced those ladies to totally remake their lives for the better and become close to God. Those ladies’ husbands loved her too since she insisted that her ladies take special care of their husbands in all ways.
Mary was especially noted for her “sayings” that she would give her ladies to inspire them. The company even had a little book of her sayings printed. It has a powder blue cover with gold writing on the cover.
Incredible Mary Crowley
Mary would tell those ladies, all across America, as she pointed at them: “Ladies, you be somebody; God didn’t have time to make a nobody!!!”
She trained her friend Mary Kay Ash how to do direct selling. Mary Kay concentrated on selling cosmetics and skin care products. They made an unwritten deal with each other that Mary Crowley would never sell cosmetics, and Mary Kay would never sell home interior products.
As a reward, Mary Kay would have her best producers get one of her pink Cadillacs for a year. However, Mary Crowley more concentrated on “mink”. To her mink represented success and “having arrived”. Over and over she would tell her ladies……..”Think Mink!” She became famous for it.
Mary had special philanthropies that she gave too, such as her Cancer Research Center, but on top of all that, she gave away approximately 8 million dollars every year to various other special causes, like putting certain young people through Dallas Baptist University with a full scholarship.
Mary just didn’t fool with the trivial. One of her famous sayings had to do with problems that would keep most folks up at night worrying about them. Mary would say: “I am not going to worry about that tonight. I am going to turn that over to Jesus to handle and just go on to sleep. He is going to be up all night anyway!”
She was particularly interested in Dallas Baptist University and its high academics set into a Christian context. That is where we first met, as Trustees of the University. I can’t really describe it, but we became so closely bonded together. It was out of the ordinary and most unusual. When she went off that board, having served her allotted terms, I am sure that is why I was asked to be Chairman of the Board of Trustees, when I was way too young for that job. Whatever Mary wanted, she usually got.
On quite a few occasions, Mary Crowley and Mary Kay Ash would have me to lunch at some big prominent luncheon spot in Dallas. They would have some specific project that they would want me to handle. But on those occasions, there would be 50 or 60 other women in there having lunch. They would all be watching these two famous and well known ladies sitting on both sides of this young man and earnestly talking to him. It was quite obvious that they would really like to know what those two well known ladies were telling him.
Mary Kay Ash on the left
Mary was so important to that company. When a big group of her ladies would be having a meeting somewhere in America it was imperative that she be there. No substitute would do. As a result, they had two Fan Jet Falcon’s and a compliment of pilots to be sure that she got there. The 2nd Falcon was just in case the first one may have some problem to keep it from flying that day. Mary was quite low-key as respects showing off, but her people insisted on those jet Falcon planes.
One of Mary’s Fan Jet FalconsInterior of Falcon
Late in her career she built herself a new house in one of Dallas’ “Silk Stocking” areas along Inwood road. I went there many times, but the first time, her house-warming occasion, was most impressive. “Everyone” was there. I distinctly remember visiting with Tom Landry (coach of the Dallas Cowboy’s) and his wife. Mary took me on a tour of it. I have seen some big closets. I have a big closet, but I have never seen one like the one in her bedroom. It was so long, that when you looked down it, past all that plethora of fur coats, it was like the two sides came together in the far distance.
Out back of the house on a little island in the creek she had built a private chapel. What I remember most about it was the high-backed chairs that Billy Graham had given her for it. They had come from a nunnery in Europe where the nuns would kneel in the seat of the chairs for their morning and evening prayers.
So, folks, I have gone through all this about Mary to just relate one little story concerning the theme of my new book.
At the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas in the late 1970’s there was this monster, prestigious dinner to honor a famous dignitary. All manner of people were there, including the President of the United States. As part of the program, toward the end, Mary was to speak for a short time, W. Clement Stone, who founded and was President of the Combined Insurance Companies of America and the founder of the Positive Mental Attitude Movement, was to speak for a short time, then the President was to speak, and finally Mary was to give a prayer to finish off the evening.
In order to accommodate all the dignitaries at the head table, they had constructed five levels behind it. Each level had continuous tables for eating with chairs behind them. By the time you got to the fifth level it was really high. I estimated at least over a full story in height.
I was placed in the next to the top level.
Mary now had cancer again. Most people there knew that this was probably the last time they would ever be seeing her in a public setting. The night before the dinner Mary called me. She knew that this was probably the last time she would ever be able to greet all the people there who would want to come up to see her. She also knew how tough and protective that her son could be…….that as soon as she was finished, he would just grab her and whisk her out.
She told me that the moment she finished her prayer, she wanted me to be standing right there beside her to shield her and make sure that she would be able to greet all those dear well-wishers. Mary said: “Ronald, you be right there beside me when I finish!!! Do you understand???”
So, the evening progressed. However, there was one near tragedy. Most of us had heard W. Clement Stone’s standard life story speech several times. But now he was really “up in years”. When he got up there in front of that mike he was speaking again as he had done so many, many times. He just started into his standard speech. We all knew that it lasted nearly an hour. No one wanted to wait an hour to hear the President. I was just cringing. The Master of Ceremonies for the evening didn’t know what to do. There was only one person there who could gracefully salvage the evening,…… Mary Crowley. Bless her heart, she slipped up there, put her arm around old Clement and led him back to his chair. I thought I could hear a sigh of relief across that whole vast audience.
But I had my problem. How was I going to be able to get down from my perch to be standing beside Mary just as she finished her prayer? Particularly how was I ever going to be able to get past all those Secret Service guys who were guarding the President. To come down those stairs while she was praying was going to look so out of place, which is exactly what those guys would be looking for.
The plan that I devised was to step up to the top level and walk behind all those people eating on the top level and go all the way down to the end and get down those end stairs someway. Ringing in my head were Mary’s words: “Ronald, you be there!!!”
So just as she started her prayer, I stepped up to the top level and started along behind the people there. I looked down and saw how very far it was to the concrete way down below. I remember thinking, there should be some kind of railing here. This is dangerous.
I hadn’t gotten but a very short distance when for some strange reason this big fellow just lurched back in his chair. I wasn’t expecting or anticipating such. He just toppled me off. I was headed down, head first, toward that distant concrete.
I don’t expect you to believe what happened next. I can’t even believe it. But so help me God, it is absolutely true. I just floated all the way down. I landed prone on my back as lightly as a feather. I have never ever felt such an absolutely peaceful feeling in my whole life as while I was floating down……..no broken neck, no broken leg!.
Now I was on the same level as the speaker’s rostrum. I walked around that built up structure, past two Secret Service guys, trying to look like I belonged there as best as I could. I was not stopped, and just as Mary finished her prayer, I was standing by her side.
Folks, please believe me. That floating descent was no accident!!!
As I mentioned elsewhere in this book, I was good friends with Bunker Hunt. He was a most interesting man. He really kept his thoughts quite simple. He was also very self-effacing. Even when he was considered one of the world’s richest men, being with him, you would never have guessed it if you did not know about it.
He had one trait that was very important even “consuming” to him. He wanted to know for sure what had happened in history and what was happening now. He like many of us, heard all kinds of rumors and conspiracy theories. Bunker wanted to know absolutely for sure which or if any of these were really true.
My first contact with him was just after my return from Russia that I have written about in this book. As I mentioned, few Americans had spent time in Russia after the Communists took over. In those early 1970’s when I was there, Russia was probably at what would have been considered the peak of its “meanness” and program to achieve world dominance.
Bunker had me spend almost 4 hours with him and his wife and his fine son one evening. He had me show all the colored slides that I had taken there and tell him about every story concerning the events of the time I was there. I asked him: “Why do you want to know all this?” And he answered: “Ronald, I want to know all about them and I don’t want to go myself!” So, I went through it all for him.
Since he wanted to know all the “for sure answers” he would pay large amounts of money to people who he thought may have the real answers to come and brief him. Many of them, most people may have never heard of, but he would find them. However, especially when some of them were fairly famous and important, it would occur to him at the last minute that it was going to be rather awkward for them to be speaking just to him. So, at those occasions he would invite a handful of folks to come and hear the briefing with him. I was one of the ones he would call.
To make this “come alive” for you and make this more real for you, let me give you just one example: FDR was a most unusual and interesting man. Many think that he was a Socialist or at least had those leanings. Surely some of his policies and attempted policies would lead one to believe that. But whatever his Marxist “leanings” were; he for sure had an extremely conservative side to him also. One reason that I know that was that during most all of his tenure in the White House he kept this very conservative retired army general right there with him.
This general, long dead now, had a daughter who was still living. Some of the things that she knew about, like what we now call the “deep state” so consumed her that she never married. But her father had confided everything that he knew to her. Bunker paid her to come and brief him and he asked me to be there.
I shall never forget some of the things she told us at that briefing. Here is just one………. Right at the end of Roosevelt’s tenure, shortly before he died, he attended the Yalta Conference.
There were four major conferences during WWII. Yalta was the one where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met there in the Crimea and decided that they would demand the unconditional surrender of Germany, and they made plans for what the world would look like after the war…..how it would be split up.
The general’s daughter said that the morning after the President had gotten back from the Yalta conference he walked past the general’s desk and threw this file down on the general’s desk. It was the full file from the Yalta conference.
He said: “General, see if we can live with this.”
The general shot back: “Mr. President, tell me what you think, first.”
Roosevelt said: “General, I was so sick, I don’t even know what happened there. Just let me know if we can live with it!”
The general went over the whole file that night and reported back first thing the next morning.
He said: “Mr. President, we absolutely cannot live with this!!!”
So Roosevelt said: “Well go see if you can undo it.” And he added: “I will give you personal letters from me.”
The general went straight to London and met with Churchill.
Churchill was quite cordial. Churchill told him that he could change anything there but one. Churchill was adamant that he wanted to keep Hong Kong for Britain.
However, you did not just go to Moscow and walk in and see Stalin. It did not matter if you had a letter from the President of the US. The general went to Moscow and tried to get an audience with Stalin several times with no success.
But the general had heard that Stalin would work and stay-up most all night and then sleep much of the day. The general never could explain to his daughter or even to himself why he had taken his old army uniform with all its medals and ribbons with him all the way to Moscow.
He put that uniform on, took the personal letter from Roosevelt, and showed-up at the door of the Kremlin at 3:00 in the morning. At that hour there was no one there with much authority. The officer that was there read the Russian copy of the letter and just took the general straight through to Stalin.
Stalin just burst out laughing. He said: “You are a man after my own heart! You know how to ‘operate’ and get things done!”
Of course, the general got nowhere with Stalin, though he really tried. Stalin now had the promise of the east half of Germany and most all of eastern Europe. He was not about to give any of that up.
Before we left, Bunker had one more question for this lady, and I shall never forget her answer.
At that time the KGB had taken over Nicaragua and was on the verge of taking over the rest of Central America and then Mexico. The liberal groups in New York were helping them. Bunker asked her: “Why are ‘those people’ helping the Communists; they are business people. They like to make money. That is not good for their businesses at all.” Bunker was not prejudiced in the least, but he really meant Jewish businessmen in New York.
And the general’s daughter answered: “Bunker, you just don’t realize how totally seductive it is to think you can achieve absolute power.”
I was also friends with Bunker’s father……Mr. H.L. Hunt. He was so dear, and bigger that life, and just “something else”. Have you ever known of anyone that was married to three different women at the same time.
I used to go up to his office and sit with him for as long as 2 hours at a time. He would pull that brown paper sack out of his desk (which you have probably heard about) and have lunch right there. It was usually just dried apricots and pecans. It was just him and me, though a few times Bill Harris showed up briefly.
Be patient with me while I tell you about Bill Harris.
I first met him at Baylor. He was on our famous Debate Team with me. Every Spring the Team would have an annual party where the freshman debaters who qualified were inducted into the Debate fraternity, Phi Kappa Delta. On two Springs the annual party was held at our home at Rainbow Lake. Everyone went fishing and had a big meal and a great time.
The Baylor debate coach, Professor Capps and his wife were famous all over America. Baylor and Notre Dame were considered by far the best two teams in the country. Baylor debaters had a big advantage, for at the debate tournaments when teams from other schools drew Baylor as an opponent, they felt frightened and at a disadvantage.
At one of those parties, everyone headed straight for the lake and piled into the several little boats there to bass fish. Poor Mrs. Capps was too slow. She did not get a seat in one of the boats. She had to fish off of the floating pier where one would expect little to no success. She put on this huge, ugly old fishing plug and cast it out just into the open water off the pier.
Mirabile Dictu, she hauled in the largest bass that was caught in that lake all year. Was she ever a proud lady.
Anyway, Bill Harris came to those parties.
He was a nice looking, fine Christian young man. He was not like the other guys. He had this amazing knack of injecting himself into any place or situation that he desired. So, he said to himself: “Instead of just getting a job like the other guys, I think I will go where the ‘power’ is.” Well, the most powerful man in America at that time was Lyndon B. Johnson………the powerful Leader of the United States Senate.
Bill Harris went up to Washington and actually become an assistant to Johnson. I think he was officially listed as a member of the Senate Office Staff, but he was close to Johnson.
Then after Bill was pretty much finished with Johnson, and Johnson had decided to be on the Ticket with Kennedy as Vice President, Bill Harris said to himself: “What shall I do now? I have been where the power is. I think I will now go were the money is.”
The richest man in America at that time was H.L. Hunt, so Harris came back to Texas. He had a few tasks to finish first, but he did actually become a personal assistant to Mr. Hunt.
He did all kinds of things for Mr. Hunt, even taking care of Hassie sometimes. OK, be patient with me again. I had better tell you about Hassie.
Do you know what the Oedipus Complex is? That is a term that Sigmund Freud gave to us to describe the event when an oldest child will develop a monstrous competition with their same sex parent. Mr. H.L.’s oldest son was named Hassie. When he came back from the war, he did act a little strange sometimes. He probably had what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Upon his return, he went into the oil business, too. He was really brilliant and good at it. He was finding way more oil than his father over in Mississippi. They developed a monstrous Oedipus Complex with each other. They say that the two of them would actually wrestle on the floor in the office.
Well, Mr. H.L. was not in the habit of ever losing. And he for sure did not lose this battle.
Hassie was being treated at Green Oaks Psychiatric Hospital in Dallas, but it did not seem to slow down his oil finding ability or his business acumen.
Do you know what a lobotomy is? That was a new procedure at the time where they would sever the nerves between the two front lobes of one’s brain from the rest of the brain. It was done to only the worst psychiatric patients…….the very worst and most dangerous. The person would then revert to the mentality of a 3 to no more than a 4 year old. I don’t think it is even done now
I don’t know exactly how much Mr. H.L. knew about it, but he had heard that it would make a person more tractable and manageable. Hassie did display some violent tendencies. His father had him sent to a State of Texas mental hospital. They didn’t know what to do to help him.
His father then had Hassie taken to the Mayo Clinic. Mr. Hunt expressed that it was his “hardest decision ever”. They gave Hassie what they described as only a partial lobotomy. When Green Oaks heard that it was being planned they just had a fit, trying to stop it, but to no avail. So now Hassie was somewhat incapacitated for life and required supervision 24/7 for the rest of his life but had no more “violent tendencies”.
It is my opinion that Mr. H.L. had a severe guilt complex about it for the rest of his life. When I would be sitting with him in his office, it seemed like no more than any 15-minute period would go by that he would not mumble something to himself about Hassie. I heard him mumble many times: “You know Hassie never was the same after he came back from the war.”
After Mr. H.L.’s first wife died, Miss Ruth became his wife and moved into the big house with her son, Ray Hunt, Helen, June, and Swanee……all later becoming incredibly successful. She did acknowledge that Mr. H. L. was their father. Miss Ruth was such a lovely lady. She would come up to my home at the ranch to have dinner. After dinner she dearly loved to sit in front of our big fireplace and listen to music.
Toward the end of his business career, Bunker Hunt (the son with Mr. H.L.’s first wife) became closer and closer to the Lord. When they were making the Jesus Film in Israel they found that it was going to take way more money than they had anticipated. Dr. Bill Bright came to see Bunker. I am not sure if Paul Eshelman was with him or not. Anyway, Bunker gave them one million dollars to finish the film.
Later, he would host weekend conferences across the country to help Campus Crusade raise money for evangelism and to finance teams to show the Jesus film all across the world. I attended many of those and saw a most curious thing at one in California.
Bunker became famous for accumulating all that silver as you have heard. People started saying that he and Herbert were trying to corner the silver market. The US Government and the “Deep State” allowed other countries to sue Bunker over it. They would have never allowed that to happen to someone more “liberal”.
To my knowledge and from what his nephews told me, it was never his plan to corner the silver market. He was just buying silver in massive amounts because he thought it was a good investment and a hedge against where the dollar will for sure someday have to go when the “big resent” happens. You know that we can most probably never come close to repaying all the debt that our country is accumulating.
Anyway, at the Christian Conference in California, an interesting young man showed up. He was driving a big new Rolls Royce and had a “trophy girlfriend” with him……not all that compatible with a Christian Conference to raise money for evangelism.
What was so curious was that Bunker would be earnestly talking with us about something and just walk over to the young man and put his arm around his shoulders. He would never say anything to the young man or stop conversing with us. And after awhile he would just walk away.
I made it a point to visit with the young man and get to know him. He had driven all the way down from Seattle where he lived.
At that particular time, silver had just about reached its peak. Bunker looked so smart and prescient. Also, on Wall Street and at other financial centers of the world, so many people were so very curious and wanting to know……..who or what entity was buying all this silver for Bunker. They had to be making a killing with all the commissions.
This was the man. This explained Bunker’s unusual, unconscious affection and feeling of closeness to him. The young man told me that very early on, when no one was interested in silver, he was one of the only individuals who had become bullish on it. He had only read about Bunker and his wealth, but he flew down to Dallas and walked into Bunker’s office and gave him his “pitch” on silver, and Bunker bought it. This young man was the one who had made all those silver purchases for the Hunts.
In the years after that, I would give Bunker reports on the millions of people who were finding God and getting saved into Heaven through seeing the Jesus film……..as I am sure others were telling him also.
On one occasion I told him that it had to be the most important thing that he had ever done in his whole life, for sure, for sure. I told him that he would meet literally millions of Christians in Heaven that would be so grateful to him in my opinion.
Do you know what he said? He said: “Ron, I am so glad for all those results, but to be perfectly honest, at that point in my life, giving that piece of money was like flipping a dime to the shoe-shine boy.” Wow! God works in mysterious ways.
On our very first trip to Honduras this grizzly old dude showed up and went with us. That trip was sponsored by Baptist Church in Hurst, Texas, since I would get a church to sponsor each of those medical teams that I took down there. This old dude had been the only medical doctor in a small town in Oklahoma for many, many years. His wife had died and he had retired, but he was convinced that God wanted him to be a medical missionary to Honduras.
He had already been down there to attempt this but could not get permission to practice medicine without having to go completely through their medical school. At his age, he did not think he should do that. However, when he heard that this church was sponsoring a 60 person medical team to go there, he decided that he could at least use that opportunity and go with us.
We were staying in a town on the east coast in the compound that had once been the headquarters for United Fruit. They still shipped their bananas out of that town, but no longer used this compound which was now converted into a hotel there on a lovely beach with most of the rooms being in the large houses where the officials of United Fruit hadonce lived. So it was that old Dr. Motes roomed with me and a few other guys. Right away I noticed that he had a12-string guitar with him, and I asked him if he could really play that thing. He said sure, and every morning he would play and sing praise music for us, whether we wanted it or not.
He was very effective as a doctor there and could speak some Spanish.
The pastor of that church in Hurst, Texas had been a pastor for many years in Honolulu. He took an old building that was abandoned and donated by the Salvation Army there and built it into the largest, most thriving church in Honolulu. I had originally encouraged him to go Hawaii since the population was mostly Buddhist, and supported him financially for years until his church got big enough.
He was not a typical pastor. Many pastors talk about sawing the limb off and expecting God to catch them, but very few actually do it. This guy would really do it. Anyway, one day he was going across the country to meet the new President of Honduras and his Pentecostal wife in the capitol city of Tegucigalpa . Mutual friends had arranged the introduction.
I asked him to see if he could arrange with the President for permission for Dr. Motes to practice medicine there. Sure enough, he came back with full written permission for Dr. Motes to practice there as a medical missionary. Dr. Motes just stayed. He did no even come back with us. However, before we left I took him aside and said: “Look dude, any one of these pretty young ladies would love to marry you for the security they so desperately want and need down here. When we come back next year I want to see you married to one of them.
Sure enough, before we left the States I heard that he had gotten married, so I was anxious to meet his new bride. Blanca was not that young, maybe a little past middle age, but she was lovely. So, I asked Dr. Motes to tell me all about it. He said: “Well Ronald, after you left I sat down and wrote out a long list of everything I needed a new wifeto be……..Like she should speak English, she should have a medical background, she should be dedicated to the Lord, she should have a heart for service, and many more things.” And I said: “So you just married her when she showed-up.” Dr. Motes said: “I had to. She fit ever single item on the list. I knew God had sent her.”
So every medical team trip I took down there after that, Dr. Motes and Blanca would come and be part of the team all the time we were there, no matter where they might be have been working across the country.
The Truck The Southern Baptists had an old bob-tail truck on the east coast of Honduras. A Baptist missionary at Progresso, a suburb of San Pedro Sula kept it. I was allowed to use it on most every medical trip that I took to that area of the country.
The truck was quite old with faded blue paint and with wooden rails around the back where my people could stand as we went along. It was pre-1973 with an old-fashion ignition system, sine most all vehicles post=1973 have a computerized ignition system.
I want to tell you about one afternoon. The medical team was scheduled to be in a certain remote village for the next two days. Two of the doctors and some nurses and a few other folks wanted to go visit the place on the afternoon before. They wanted to decide where we should locate the different parts of the clinic in the school where we were to be and move the desks and benches aside to be all prepared for the next morning.
I was supposed to be at a screening of the Jesus Film at a new Garifina church where the young missionary to the black Garifinas was to show the Jesus Film that night in Spanish, which I had brought with us. However, I needed to take the group on to that village and try to get back for the last of the film. I commandeered a local fellow who knew the location of the village, and we all piled into the old bob-tail truck and started up the highway. As I have mentioned, there was one narrow new blacktop highway that ran along to coast all the way from Tela to La Ceiba down near Nicaragua. After about 25 miles on the pavement, we turned off onto a dirt road. We went at least 15 miles and forded two rather large rivers before finally arriving at the village.
There were many houses and shacks scattered around the village, but very little infrastructure there. There was just the one dirt road through it, and a few buildings that went on down to the school.
We finished our tasks at the school, and just as we were going back through the little group of buildings, the truck suddenly just died. I tried the ignition, and nothing. Quite a crowd of people gathered around us and one of them raised the hood. These people are used to old vehicles so they proceeded to do the first thing that one should do. They proceeded to take the cables off the battery and scrape the inside of the cable clamps and the battery posts. They put them back on, clamped the cables down and I was very hopeful. I got back in the truck, tried the ignition…….and nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a grinding sound.
Here we were with dark coming on soon, so many miles from help, and no way to contact anyone from that remote site. Even if they had a phone somewhere in the village there was no way to get a call back to our folks. The phones down there at that time were so awkward, almost to the point of impossible. We were about 30 miles from San Pedro Sula, which has the highest rate of murders of any town on the planet, even those in the Middle East. You can check that on the internet…..not a good place for all those folks to spend the night. Really, that truck needed to start, but it was just dead.
I explained all that to the Lord, but I am sure that he already knew. But what happened next I will never forget. I went back and looked under the hood. I know quite a bit about cars and trucks, but I am just lost as a master mechanic. At that precise moment it was like a force just took hold of me. I cannot explain it. There were all kinds of old wires in that engine compartment and at least 30 or 40 black electrical tape covered connections. But my eyes suddenly became just riveted on one piece of old, black, dry electrical tape. I reached down and took hold of it and it just came off loose in my fingers. And there where it had been were two wires that had been twisted together, but were now just loose and apart.
A big noisy “aahhh” went up from the crowd. I had no idea what those wires went to, but I twisted them back together. I went back into the cab, tried the ignition, and that old truck fired up as smooth as could be. Much later I figured that the wires must have gone to the coil that that makes the spark plugs spark, and would be necessary for the truck to run. However at the time I had no idea, nor could I have known that they were pulled apart……..under that piece of old black tape.
We got on back to Tela just before 9:00 PM.
You can say that I was just lucky, but, folks, I personally consider that specific, divine intervention! It proved to me, once again, that God’s Spirit Power and His Powerful Angels are really there and available when they are really, really needed. How could I possibly have known which one of all those pieces of black tape needed to be pulled off.
45 minutes north of my house is a large kid’s prison. It is for youth ages 12 through 19. Most are ages 15 through 17. It is called the Gainesville State School, but believe me, it is a very secure prison. It is complete with the high inward curving electric fence and razor wire. Every vehicle coming out is scanned underneath with mirrors on poles to make sure no one is escaping in the undercarriage.
The worst of the worst are sent there. It is under the auspices of The Texas Youth Commission, an agency of the Government of Texas.
This prison is rather unique in that each youth is confined to his own individual room. In almost every case it is the first time these youth have stopped “running on the streets” and been confined to a room where they can think about their life and where it may be headed.
For the past 20 years I have had the privilege of presenting the Gospel to each youth that comes into that facility. In most cases, I see them two at a time in private, glassed-in rooms. When presented properly in a high- quality fashion after much prayer by several people, almost every one makes a decision to accept Christ and have God in their life.
If you ever wondered whether there really is a God out there, if you could be with me and see those kinds of boys just change right there in front of your eyes and pray with tears in their eyes, you would know that there had to be something there other than just my words to cause such a change. It amazes me every single time.
Seeing them two at a time seems better than singly, since making a decision about God in front of a peer tends to cement the decision and make it more meaningful.
I usually see between 10 and 12 each week, though more on some weeks. If I have to be gone, like out of the country, I must “double-up” on the days until I have caught-up with all who have come into the prison while I was gone.
I follow up with a letter to each boy. I include several stories with each letter. They love the stories, especially ones with an emotional message. In the Appendix of this book I have included a long list of the stories that they like best.
Some of these prison boys have experienced things that I will never experience, but from whom I have learned much. Some of them claim to be Devil Worshipers, but it is usually to gain attention from their peers. However, I have met a few there who have delved deep into “the real thing”. And what is interesting to me is that, without exception, every one of them as renounced Devil worship. When I have asked them to explain it to me, they all say pretty much the same thing. They say the Devil is powerful, and it is logical to assume that if you give yourself over to worshiping Him, he will take care of you on this earth. No. They say that the farther you go with the Devil, the more bad things happen to you. When they finally realized this, it caused them to flee from the whole thing.
I have literally thousands of letters from these youth, mostly thanking me for introducing them to the real God and telling me how their life has changed. Also, I thought it would be helpful to you for me to include in the Appendix approximately the same words that I share with these youth that God uses to convict them and guide them to make the decision to accept Christ. Without being dramatic, I honestly believe that God showed me just the right words.
If you have someone that you want to help make that same decision, I encourage you to try those same words that are in the Appendix. Of course, God does all the saving, but it can be such a privilege to be the one saying the words. (Approximately the same words shared with each youth over the past 20 yeas is included here.)
Approximately the Same Words Shared with the Prison Boys:
It is really boring in here for you guys; would you like me to stretch your brain a little?
OK, ?
What if the sun were 1/2 the distance to the earth than it is now? It could have been.
Yes. It would be about 850 degrees F. out there. Everything would be burned up.
But the sun could have been any distance…… so close that we are burned up, or so far away that we all would be frozen to death. Just a small fraction of its present distance either way and we would all be dead. Makes you wonder how it got in that perfect spot.
If we are going to stretch your brain we are going to have to make it a little harder!
What if the moon were 1/2 as close to the earth as it is now? It is not hot or cold; it is going around the earth like a big rock.
Yes, it would look a little larger, and it would look a lot brighter at night.
What else does the moon do for us right now?
When the moon goes over the ocean (and 75% of the earth is ocean), it pulls the water up a little. When the moon goes down, the water goes back down. This makes the tides in the ocean. Without the tides we would have no currents in the ocean. Without them both, the scientists tell us that almost no rain would fall upon the earth. They help with evaporation and get the clouds over to us.
But if the moon were 1/2 as close as now, the tides would cover the highest mountains on earth twice a day. A 2,000 foot wall of water would sweep across us twice a day. It would wipe away all buildings, trees, people, everything. Soon, even all the land would be washed away.
So the moon is just the perfect distance to keep us alive with rain, but not kill us with the tides. But it could have been any distance.
Are you staying with me? Shall we continue?
It is a little over 24,000 miles around the whole earth. Yet, it takes 24 hours for the earth to make one revolution. When you divide 24 hours into 24,000 miles, you find that we must be traveling 1,000 miles per hour at this very moment…..about the speed of a rifle bullet. It does not feel like it does it? But we are. When you get up about 35,000 feet in a plane and hit that jet stream where the air that is going with us sheers against the other air that is not, then you know it!
So…..what if we were only going 1/2 that fast, say 500 miles per hour? That is still fairly fast.
Well, yes, then every day would be 48 hours long. So what would that be like?
You know how hot it can get in August in your home town at about 4:00 in the afternoon, over 100 degrees F sometimes. What if on a day like that you had another 24 hours of sunshine before the night came?
It would get up above 200 degrees. All the crops would be burned up. It would catch the roof on fire….boil the water right out of the swimming pool.
And in January when that north wind whips through your town, you know how cold it can get at about 4:00 in the morning. What if, on a day like that, you had another 24 hours of darkness before the sun came up? It would get 100 degrees below zero. You would all freeze.
So…..it seems that the earth rotates at just the perfect speed for us to be alive, but not be burned up or frozen.
But it could be rotating at any speed. It happens to be rotating at just the perfect speed for you to be alive.
When we look out the window on a sunny day, the sky it looks what color. Sure, it is blue. Why is it not pink or green or black or white. It just looks blue. Let me explain it to you. The earth is surrounded by the atmosphere. And it is only 5 miles thick and then it is all gone. 5 miles is nothing out is space, like a little egg shell around the earth. When you look through those 5 miles it looks blue. When you get outside the 5 miles it looks black You have seen those pictures that the Astronauts take, always black back of them. Why does it look blue to us?
You are looking out through our atmosphere that surrounds the earth like a lovely blanket. We breath the oxygen in it and the trees breath the carbon dioxide. Actually, it looks blue because the sun is reflecting off the blue ocean and reflecting up into that atmosphere. We are called the blue planet.
But the scientists tell us that if it were just 10% thicker, its weight, plus the present atmosphere would crush us to death. You have 15 pounds of pressure on every inch of your body right now. It would not take much more to bust your bones.
But do you know what would happen if it were just 15% or 20% thinner? That is what is interesting to me.
There are thousands of meteorites that are trying strike the earth every minute. Your mom called them “shooting stars” when you were little. Right now they just barley burn up before they get to us. The friction coming through the atmosphere burns them up. A few get through, but not very many. But if that atmosphere layer were thinner, they would most all get through. They would wipe us out like bombs and bullets. Most are not much bigger than a very small pebble, but if a pebble hits you at 25,000 miles an hour, it blows your ass off, or something off.
But the atmosphere could have been any thickness. It happens to be the perfect thickness for us to be alive.
I can give you a 100 more like these, but if you solve mathematically for the probability of just these four arranged perfectly for us to be alive. You get over 150 billion to one that they could not have all happened together by accident at the same time.
If one is honest, the only answer one can honestly come to is that there has to be an Intelligence that guides all of this…..an author. You can call that God or whatever you wish, but it has to be there.
But indulge me just one more….one of my favorites:
The earth goes around the sun at a perfect angle of 23 degrees. That is what gives us our seasons. Without them, most crops would not grow.
It takes one year to go around.
The scientists tell us that if the earth ever got even two degrees off this perfect angle (either 21 or 25 degrees), vapors would move north and south from the equator and the ice caps at the poles would move all the way down to the equator…..the whole earth would turn to a block of ice.
Just two degrees…..you would think that it would wobble that much.
In fact, they think that it got off just 1/2 degree a few times in history, and that is what made the ice ages that you studied about in school.
Yes! There has to be an author…..an Intelligence that holds our life in the palm of His hand. That is the only conclusion that a truly honest scientist can draw. The mathematics are too overwhelming to say that we just adapted to these conditions. The Intelligence that is the author of this universe some of us do call God!
I have a group of friends down there in another dorm. They like to ask me tough questions. They say: “given what we have studied about the earth and the rest of the universe, we know that there has to be a God; but tell us, why did He make people? He did not have to make people.” They are just messing things up. Why didn’t he just stop with the bees and animals and the butterflies?
What would you tell them?
Here is what I told them: I said…..”Can you get a picture in your head of the one time in your life when the feelings between the people in your life were the very, very best? Maybe it was Christmas time. You were just a little guy. Your grandma had a big turkey cooking in the oven. They had all of those presents under the tree for you. It was really nice! You knew it would not stay that way. Things would get messed up. You would really wish to freeze those feelings just as they are in your ‘picture’ and keep them that way all of the time.”
I told them: “God made people to have those same feelings between Himself and them, only 1,000 even 10,000 times better…..through all of eternity.”
Then the boys said back to me: “That is great. We love that, but we have been reading the Bible and we have looked around out in the free world and we know that compared to the perfect purity and mathematical correctness of the Intelligence that runs and controls this whole universe, people have become so messed up, so dirtied up, so filthy compared to the perfect purity of the Intelligence that runs this universe….. There is no way that man can be with Him as He planned.
“Every man is too dirty to come into the presence of such purity.”
And I told them…..“that is correct. That is why God had to make a way to clean us up. He sent His only son to die for our sins as a way to cleanse us so that we could be able to spend eternity with Him.”
However, the boys had another question that I thought was really interesting. They said: “Man if God is so smart that He could make this whole universe; if he is so smart that he could make our bodies as complicated as they are………like your eyes take in light images, flip them upside down, send a chemical message to your brain, and your brain sends an electrical image to your legs and tells them to run because you saw a bear chasing you……otherwise that bear is going to eat your ass off, man”. So I said OK, dudes, I know how smart God is……….What is your question?
They wanted to know: “Well, if God is so smart that He could create the whole universe and the people in it…..why didn’t He just make all the people to be perfectly good and always make the right and perfect decisions? Then Adam and Eve would not have messed up. The Devil would have no power, for we would always make the right decisions. Then it would be like Heaven on earth…..you would not need any fences, any locks on your door, no police, no prisons.”
One boy even said, “You would not even need to wear clothes.” And I laughed and said, “Why?” And he said, “Because, no one would have any bad thoughts.” And I said, “well, that is right.”
“So, why didn’t God do it that way? He could have. Then everyone would be in Heaven with Him as He planned.”
So, how would you answer the boys? Why didn’t God do it that way? He could have.
Yes, I answered it, and here is my answer to them. I asked them: “What if you had a girlfriend, and all that she did, and all that she could do was just what your mind thought for her to do….and nothing else.”
Oh! I got some big grins. They could think of “lovey” things for this girl…..fantasy things.
Then they thought some more, and said: “No! That would not work!”
And I said: “Why?”
And they said: “Because that would be like having a robot or a machine for a girlfriend. What makes the magic and the feelings between me and my girl is that she chose me, though she could have chosen some one else………. and I chose her, though I could have chosen some one else.” That is what makes the ‘feelings’………..with no feelings there is no fun!
Oh, then the light went on in their heads!
The question was…..”Why didn’t God just make us to always make the perfect decisions?”
Because (just like with the girlfriend) He had to make us so that we could either choose Him or not choose Him, or (just like with the girlfriend) the fantastic relationship and feelings that He desires with us through all eternity could not be there. God could not get feelings back from a robot!
And the whole history of man is that he has chosen most everything but God!
I don’t know how it is in your town or where you have been “hanging out”, but it appears to me that God made people with a big, huge empty place down inside of them.
I am sure that it was His original intention for His Spirit Power to come into people and fill-up that empty place and make them feel full. But when that big place down inside is empty, it really eats on guys and drives them.
And most of your and my friends out there are not just running around; they are racing around trying to fill that empty place with something…..they think that if only they can get enough money, enough sex, the right wheels to ride on, enough good times and play, enough drugs. ……then that empty place will feel full. Some think if they can just have a wild enough good time, it will fill up the empty place. But it doesn’t. Some think if they all get together in a gang it will fill it up. But it doesn’t.
But the Living God created us and put the empty place there. Only He the Living Person of God can fill it and make you feel full!
I would like to propose to you that there are four Spiritual Laws. They exist just as sure as there is a law of gravity, but they are spiritual laws.
The First Law is ——-
That God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
The Second Law is ——
Man is sinful and separated from God. Thus he can not know and experience God’s love and the wonderful plan that He has for your life.
As we discussed earlier, God is so perfectly pure and man has become so dirty, man cannot get to God on his own merits. Jesus said no man has or will live a good enough life on his own to stand in God’s presence. However, God did not give up on us.
The Third Law is ——–
Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.
God actually invaded human history in the form of a man to bridge the gap between the Perfect God and sinful man. How his dying on the cross and shedding his blood to wash us clean enough to be in Heaven, and then rose again on the third day to conquer death for all time is the greatest mystery of the universe and the crowning , supreme gift of all time.
Yet, some still have trouble understanding the necessity of being washed clean. Let me see if I can think of an example to make that “cleaning-up business more clear for both of us?
I know!!! The first time that I went to China , years ago, they gave me a banquet in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square just as they did for Nixon and Kissinger. It was so formal and fancy……… probably more so than going to dinner in the White House in our country. They had real linen table covers, real crystal glasses, plates painted with real gold, ivory chopsticks inlaid with gold. That dinner had 22 different entrées. Just one was a whole roast pig for each table of eight people. You would have had a great time there. You are probably a “professional eater” like I am. I hated to leave.
But the next day I had to be traveling on a train across that part of China . Suddenly, a young man came and sat beside me and wished to converse in English which he had been studying. See , China back then was still a Communist country. Everyone at that time was back of the fence there. They did not want you having a bible. They did not want any churches. The government controlled everything. Every family got only one baby. No more. So a person did not ever know they were hearing the truth, and I was probably the first outside person that he had ever met.
Any way, after a while he got his courage up and said to me: “I believe that there is a God.”
And I said: “Oh”, for I did not want to get him into any trouble. I knew he was not supposed to believe that.
Then he said: “I believe that God’s Spirit can live in a man.” And I thought, wow, you have learned a lot over here without a bible or any such thing.
Then things not really serious, for he said: “Can you and will you show me how to do that?” He wanted God’s Spirit to come live in him and fill up his empty place.
It was getting noisy where we were and there was a Communist lady in her uniform trying to listen, so we moved out between the cars on the train like in a spy movie.
And wow, God’s Spirit did come into the young man. It was an incredible thing to see as he just changed right there in front of my eyes and shed great tears of joy. I wish you could have seen it.
Of course, only God’s Spirit could have changed him like that. Certainly, just my words did not. However, what helped that Spirit get through to him was one little story that I told him. I do think that God really put the words of that story directly into my mouth so that he could understand. If you wish, I will share that same little story with you.
OK, I asked him if he had ever been “camping”. Then I said: “Oh, you wouldn’t know what that means, that doesn’t translate into Chinese.” However, he quickly said: “I have a master’s degree in English, certainly I know what going camping means…..you sleep out in the woods under the trees, you cook your food over a wood fire, you catch a wild pig and you roast him and eat him.”
So I said: “OK. Let us assume that you go camping for two whole weeks. You sleep out under the trees, you have a great time, you catch your wild pig and roast him and eat him. He is really good.”
And he said: “Oh, that would be fun, and I could get away from that dorm and all those guys where I live at college.”
Then I said: “But the whole second week that you are there, you really begin thinking how great a shower would feel and clean clothes. You start just dreaming about them.
“You stay the whole two weeks; you have a great time, but by now you are really dirty and you smell really bad, and it is time for you to go back. You start the long walk back to the dormitory where you live with your friends. You have had a grand time, but all the way back you are thinking and dreaming about how wonderful that shower and those clean clothes will feel.
“Finally, you arrive back and you see that all of your friends are getting on this bus. They are all dressed-up, fancy. You ask what is happening and they tell you—–’Oh, we have been invited to a banquet in The Great Hall of the People…..It is the chance of a lifetime for us. We have been getting ready all afternoon…..getting our hair combed just right, getting our shoes shined, and our ties on straight.’
“And you say: ‘Yes, you fellows really look great.’
“And they say: ‘Haven’t you heard!’
“And you say: ‘I haven’t heard anything. I have been out in the woods for two weeks!’
“And they say: ‘You were invited to this banquet too!’
“And you say: ‘No!’
“And they reply: ‘Yes! But it starts in just 15 minutes. We are already late leaving. Look!!! The bus is leaving right now. Jump on! You must go! It is the chance of a lifetime! You don’t have time to change or have a shower or get cleaned up. Hurry, hurry, hurry!’”
Oh! How could you go to such a beautiful banquet with all of those dressed-up people as dirty and smelly as he was. Those bad-ass Communist guards would never let you through the gate.
But the young man saw what I was trying to show him. Don’t you see. God has prepared Heaven like a great banquet for all of us—-for all of Eternity. He wants all of us to be there. But how can we be there in such purity and splendor—-as dirty and filthy as we have become? No matter how much He might love us, it just could not happen. But that is what the Forth Law is about.
Thus, The Forth Spiritual Law:
We must each one, individually receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Then we can be in Heaven with Him, and know His love here and the wonderful plan that he has for our life here.
It is not enough to just believe in Him. The Devil believes in Him, but the Devil will not be in Heaven. Jesus called such a decision “being born again”…..having our souls washed clean. He did all the “work” for us when He died on the cross. But we have to each one individually accept it like accepting a contract.
Here is a person. The dots represent all the things in his life. The chair represents the throne in his life…..who is king, who is in charge, who is boss? This person is like most people we know…..his self is on the throne. He is in charge of his own life. I don’t know whether he is doing a good job or not. He believes there a God. He prays sometimes. He even goes to church sometimes. But as far as his life is concerned; he is in charge, and God is outside.
However, Jesus said in the back of the Bible (Revelation 3:20): “Behold, I stand at the door of every man’s heart and I knock”. He will not break the door down or force His way in, but you can open the door of your heart and invite Him in. His Spirit Power can come in and change your whole life.
That is what this second person has done. He has asked God to be on the throne of his life. And the things in his life are now getting arranged around God. His self is still there, but it is not running things, not in charge, not in control anymore. He will still sin and mess-up sometimes, because he is still trapped in a human body…..but he is on a new and different road now.
Which one of these two people is you, ?
Which would you like for it to be?
If you wish to be the second person, and ask God into your life, and really be born again, you can do so right now. I would want you to very be serious, and plan for a turning in your life.
OK, I will pray for a few seconds, and then I will say some words that you can repeat after me, quietly, but out loud, straight to God, if you really mean them.
“Father God, we come before you now. And as it says in your Holy Book, if we meet here in Your Name, Your Spirit Power will be right here with us, and we know that this is true, for You do not lie. Father God, this young person wishes to come now and ask you into his heart and life. He wants his sins to be forgiven. He wants a turning in his life. He wants to be washed clean. He wants to be saved into Heaven, and he needs your Spirit Power living inside him to help him. So, he is going to come now, Father God, and quietly say these words, to You:
‘Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Right now I open the door of my heart and receive You as my Savior and my Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins, and for giving me eternal life. Now Lord, just take control of the throne of my life, and make me into the kind of person that you want me to be.
At 9:37 a.m., a third hijacked aircraft, this time American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon, just a 30-minute drive from the briefing room where Penney sat.
Almost simultaneously, another message came through the pipeline: there was another hijacked aircraft in the air and it was heading straight for Washington DC.
Heather and her group were not in the regular Air Force. They were in the Virginia Air National Guard. But they knew that they were the closest ones that could guard the Capital area. And they had taken an oath to guard the American people.
They sprang into action, but despite their professionalism, confusion swelled within the ranks. No one had anticipated such an attack, and there were no standing procedures to follow. Penney knew the hijacked aircraft would have to be intercepted and shot down before it could reach a target like the Capitol building, but there were no armed F-16s standing by for the job.
Every Fighting Falcon on the tarmac was equipped with dummy rounds and fake munitions meant to mimic real ordnance for training. It would take at least an hour to get the ammunition changed out and have missiles mounted on the aircraft’s hardpoints.
“We know we have to get airborne. We know we have to protect. I was so eager, so impatient, and yet so frustrated and angry, because we couldn’t,” Penney said.
“As I said, we’re with the DC Guard. We’re not part of our nation’s alert squadron.”
But waiting an hour wasn’t an option. The United States was under attack and the men and women of Andrews Air Force Base may have been the only thing standing between the American Capitol and what was now a 250,000-pound missile full of innocent people heading straight for it.
Penney was too junior in rank to do anything about it, but just then she saw Col. Marc “Sass” Sasseville scrambling to put on his flight suit, having just received the go-ahead from Vice President Dick Cheney to put fighters in the air and start searching for the hijacked airliner.
“Lucky, you’re coming with me,” the colonel shouted. (That was what they called Penney)
Jumping at the opportunity to get into the fight, Penney took off behind Sass, running to their respective F-16s. But the junior pilot had never had to scramble a fighter in combat conditions before.
Like any pilot, she deferred to her training, hurriedly beginning the checklist required to safely start an F-16 and get it ready to fly.
“Lucky, what are you doing? Get your butt up there and let’s go!” Sasseville shouted. So Penney jumped into the cockpit, fired up her engines, and screamed to her ground crew to yank out the wheel chocks keeping the aircraft from rolling.
As she began to taxi down the runway, her crew chief still had his headphones plugged into the fuselage, allowing the two of them to communicate directly. He was still pulling safety pins out of the fighter as it rolled down the tarmac.
By the time her crew chief unplugged, Sass was already in the air. Penney whispered to herself, “God, don’t let me [expletive] up” and followed right behind. They had made it into the sky, and only then did the gravity of the situation begin to set in.
Other Air Defense fighters from the regular Air Force were already in action, but they were all way out over the Atlantic. They had assumed from their training that any threat to the US would be coming from that direction. That left “Lucky” and “Sass” as the only defenders of the DC area.
As they flew low over the smoldering Pentagon at over 400 mph, the senior pilot considered their options. He already knew that with no munitions on board, they were on a suicide mission. That wasn’t the part troubling him. It was the aerodynamic design of their target that gave him pause.
“We don’t train to bring down airliners,” said Sasseville later.
“If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.”
As they headed out to find Flight 93 which was now only 200 miles from DC, Col. Sasseville told Penney that he was going for the cockpit of the airliner. Penney decided in her mind that she would go for the tail. “Sass” was planning to hit his ejection button upon impact and maybe survive. However, “Lucky” was not planning on hitting her’s. She was planning to die upon impact.
As you know, Todd Beamer and his three new friends brought down Flight 93 themselves. And you have heard many times about how brave they were and how brave those firemen were to climb up into those burning buildings. But I am sending you this because you may not have heard about how brave this young blond girl was. Those firemen knew they were heading into danger, but “Lucky” knew she was going to die for sure as she streaked ahead in her Fighting Falcon!!!
On this 20th Anniversary of 9/11 I thought you would like to read the actual, verbatim transcript of Todd Beamer’s conversation with a GTE operator. He was a passenger on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. He was able to get into a pantry on the plane and get ahold of an “air phone”. He and his three companions died as they overwhelmed the terrorist hijackers and put the plane into a death dive. Otherwise it would have been crashed into our US Capitol Building. These were regular folks who turned into major heroes.
Todd: Hello… Operator…listen to me…I can’t speak very loud. – This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco.. We have a situation here….Our plane has been hijacked…..can you understand me?
Lisa: (exhaling a deep breath to herself) I understand… Can the hijackers see you talking on the phone?
Todd: No
Lisa: Can you tell me how many hijackers are on the plane? Todd: There are three that we know of.
Lisa: Can you see any weapons? What kind of weapons do they have?
Todd: Yes…. they don’t have guns….they have knives – they took over the plane with knives.
Lisa: Do you mean…like steak knives?
Todd: No, these are razor knives…like box cutters.
Lisa: Can you tell what country these people are from?
Todd: No…..I don’t know. They sound like they’re from the mid-east.
Lisa: Have they said what they want?
Todd: Someone announced from the cockpit that there was a bomb on board. He said he was the captain and to stay in our seats and stay quiet.He said that they were meeting these men’s demands and returning to the airport… It was very broken English, and… I’m telling you…it sounded fake!
Lisa: Ok sir, please give me your name.
Todd: My name is Todd Beamer.
Lisa: Ok Todd….my name is Lisa…Do you know your flight number? If you can’t remember, it’s on your ticket.
Todd: It’s United Flight 93.
Lisa: Now Todd, can you try to tell me exactly what happened?
Todd: Two of the hijackers were sitting in first class near the cockpit. A third one was sitting near the back of the coach section. The two up. front got into the cockpit somehow; there was shouting. The third hijacker said he had a bomb. It looks like a bomb. He’s got it tied to his waist with a red belt of some kind. Lisa: So is the door to the cockpit open?
Todd: No, the hijackers shut it behind them.
Lisa: Has anyone been injured?
Todd: Yes, ..they…they killed one passenger sitting in first class. There’s been lots of shouting. We don’t know if the pilots are dead or alive. A flight attendant told me that the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded.
Lisa: Where is the 3rd hijacker now Todd?
Todd: He’s near the back of the plane. They forced most of the passengers into first class. There are fourteen of us here in the back. Five are flight attendants. He hasn’t noticed that I slipped into this pantry to get the phone. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane……….oh Jesus.. Help!
Lisa: Todd….are you ok? Tell me what’s happening!
Todd: Hello…..We’re going down….I think we’re going to crash……Wait – wait a minute. No, we’re leveling off….we’re ok. I think we may be turning around…..That’s it – we changed directions. Do you hear me….we’re flying east again.
Lisa: Ok Todd…. What’s going on with the other passengers?
Todd: Everyone is… really scared. A few passengers with cell phones have made calls to relatives. A guy, Jeremy, was talking to his wife just before the hijacking started. She told him that hijackers had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center……Lisa is that true??
Lisa: Todd…..I have to tell you the truth…..it’s very bad. The World Trade Center is gone. Both of the towers have been destroyed.
Todd: Oh God —help us!
Lisa: A third plane was taken over by terrorists. It crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Our country is under attack….and I’m afraid that your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh dear God. Dear God…….Lisa, will you do something for me? Lisa: I’ll try….if I can….Yes.
Todd: I want you to call my wife and my kids for me and tell them what’s happened. Promise me you’ll call..
Lisa: I promise – I’ll call.
Todd: Our home number is 201 353-1073…….You have the same name as my wife…Lisa….We’ve been married for 10 years. She’s pregnant with our 3rd child. Tell her that I love her…….(choking up)..I’ll always love her..(clearing throat) We have two boys.. David, he’s 3 and Andrew, he’s 1…..Tell them……(choking) tell them that their daddy loves them and that he is so proud of them. (clearing throat again) Our baby is due January 12th…..I saw an ultra sound…..it was great….we still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy………Lisa?
Lisa: (barely able to speak) I’ll tell them, I promise Todd.
Todd: I’m going back to the group—if I can get back I will…
Lisa: Todd, leave this line open…are you still there?……
Lisa: (dials the phone..) Hello, FBI, my name is Lisa Jefferson, I’m a telephone supervisor for GTE. I need to report a terrorist hijacking of a United Airlines Flight 93….Yes I’ll hold.
Goodwin: Hello, this is Agent Goodwin.. I understand you have a hijacking situation?
Lisa: Yes sir, I’ve been talking with a passenger, a Todd Beamer, on Flight 93 who managed to get to an air phone unnoticed.
Goodwin: Where did this flight originate, and what was its destination?
Lisa: The flight left Newark New Jersey at 8 A.M. departing for San Francisco. The hijackers took over the plane shortly after takeoff, and several minutes later the plane changed course – it is now flying east.
Goodwin: Ms. Jefferson…I need to talk to someone aboard that plane. Can you get me thru to the planes phone?
Lisa: I still have that line open sir, I can patch you through on a conference call…hold a mo…..
Todd: Hello Lisa, Lisa are you there?
Lisa: Yes, I’m here. Todd, I made a call to the FBI, Agent Goodwin is on the line and will be talking to you as well.
Todd: The others all know that this isn’t your normal hijacking. Jeremy called his wife again on his cell phone. She told him more about the World Trade Center and all.
Goodwin: Hello Todd. This is Agent Goodwin with the FBI. We have been monitoring your flight. Your plane is on a course for Washington, DC. These terrorists sent two planes into the World Trade Center and one plane into the Pentagon. Our best guess is that they plan to fly your plane into either the White House or the United States Capital Building.
Todd: I understand…hold on……I’ll…….I’ll be back..
Lisa: Mr. Goodwin, how much time do they have before they get to Washington? Goodwin: Not long ma’am. They changed course over Cleveland; they’re approaching Pittsburgh now. Washington may be twenty minutes away.
Todd: (breathing a little heavier) The plane seems to be changing directions just a little. It’s getting pretty rough up here. The plane is flying real erratic….We’re not going to make it out of here. Listen to me….I want you to hear this….I have talked with the others….we have decided we would not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot.
Lisa: Todd, what are you going to do?
Todd: We’ve hatched a plan. Four of us are going to rush the hijacker with the bomb. After we take him out, we’ll break into the cockpit. A stewardess is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers at the controls. We’ll get them….and we’ll take them out. Lisa, …..will you do one last thing for me?
Lisa: Yes…What is it?
Todd: Would you pray with me?
They pray: Our father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive our trespassers, And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory Forever…..Amen The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… He makes me to lie down in green pastures He leads me beside the still waters He restores my soul He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…..
Todd: (softer) God help me…Jesus help me….(clears throat and louder) Are you guys ready?…….. Let’s Roll……………………
Smoke from the crash of Flight 03 seconds after is plunged straight into the earth at 550
True Texan Tales 