by Stan Hayes
“Send a great revival to my soul
Send a great revival to my soul
Let the Holy Spirit come and take control…
And send a great revival to my soul!
“Sing it with me!”
Primed to get on with the hysteria, the sweaty congregation picked up the tune with vigor; and two beats into it, in prances- there’s no other word for it- Sheppard Peters, stage right, a spotlight intensifyng the sky-blue of what I must say was a nicely-fitted Palm Beach suit.
“Send a great revival to my soul
Send a great revival to my soul
Let the Holy Spirit come and take control…
And send a great revival to my soul!”
Thrusting his right hand over his head, head bowed, Peters posed for a dramatic five-second delay. Then the fun began: “ ‘Come to me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give ye rest.’ That’s his promise to us. It comes to us, across the centuries and across the seas, as shining and strong today as when he shared it with the multitudes by the Sea of Galilee. Welcome. Welcome to this revival, and to life everlasting. I am Brother Sheppard Peters. I’m blessed to lead Jehovah’s Tabernacle. You’ve just seen our Minister of Music, Brother Paul Pulaski, whose life story is one of triumph over incredible challenges, and I’m sure that some of you have noticed the presence of Brother Ted Bell among you during the past few weeks. Ted is what we call the Tabernacle’s advance man; he’s the first to arrive at our revival locations, and is our liaison with host groups such as the Bisque Council of Churches. But there’s much more to Ted’s story as well, and you’ll hear more about this amazing man of God as the revival progresses. But, on the eve of the anniversary of the triumph of our Lord over the grave, let us raise a prayer of thanks to God for sending his Son to lead us to our individual victories over the nightmare of eternal damnation- of death without salvation.”
Peters has the gift of all really good orators- even though I know the trick, it’s easy to catch myself feeling that he’s talking directly to me, telling me the old, old story for the first time, reminding me how much I don’t want to die, how all of us poor bastards have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23, how I can’t earn my way to heaven and don’t really deserve to go, but since God is so good, I get to go anyway, Romans 6:23, but that the soul who sins shall die, Ezekiel 18:4, and I must confess my sins, for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, John 3:16, and that if I’ll just say to him Lord Jesus, I know I’m a sinner and I don’t deserve eternal life. But I believe You died and rose from the grave to make a place in heaven just for me. Come into my life, Lord Jesus, forgive my sins, and save me. Take control of my life;, I trust my salvation to You alone.
What a deal, huh? Everybody, as far as I could tell, went for it on the spot. It caught them off guard, I guess, because orthodox Bisque soul-saving awaited the invitation hymn, a wheezy “Just As I Am” or the like, after the parson had carried on for half an hour, or, on a good day, considerably more.
Well, if that was all, could we just sing the damn song and get our soggy Heaven-bound butts the hell out of this sweatbox? Back in ’54 the station, in a rare burst of enlightened capitalism that involved actually spending some money, sent me to Atlanta for a crash course in salesmanship. Out of the two days of that secular revival of backslidden bullshitters, One thing stayed with me: don’t sell past the close. When they’ve said yes, in other words, shut up and show ’em where to sign. It looked like that was what old Sky-blue was about to do. Which tells you how much I know about soul-saving writ large. Sheppard Peters had a great deal left to do tonight. Now that they were yet once again gathered into the flock, the woollies were to be congratulated on coming quietly. Not like the miscreants who would now stand before them on the stage’s slick-varnished yellow pine.
He stood center stage, gazing out over the multitude, bible at the ready, and waited for silence. “Reading from the Gospel of Mark; ‘So they came to the other side of the lake, into the country of the Gerasenes. As he stepped ashore, a man possessed by an unclean spirit came up to him from among the tombs where he had his dwelling. He could no longer be controlled; even chains were useless; he had often been fettered and chained up, but he had snapped the chains and broken the fetters. No one was strong enough to master him. And so, unceasingly, day and night, he would cry aloud among the tombs and on the hill-sides and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus in the distance, he ran and flung himself down before him, shouting loudly, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In God's name do not torment me. (For Jesus was already saying to him, “Out, unclean spirit, come out of this man!”)’ Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘My name is Legion,’ he said, ‘there are so many of us.’ And he begged hard that Jesus would not send them out of the country. Now there happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hill-side, and the spirits begged him, ‘Send us among the pigs and let us go into them.’ He gave them leave; and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs; and the herd, of about two thousand, rushed over the edge into the lake and were drowned.”
“Before I knew the Lord,” he said, “my name was Lustrum Grainger. I grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky, coal country, and I was able to throw anything, my friends, farther and harder than anyone else in that little town. Fuhbawl, baseball, discus- God gave me that incredible gift, and it took me to college- I’m sure most of you know Farmun University, the Baptist school just a ways up the road in South Carolina- and out of it, so fast it seemed like the blink of an eye. There’s a good man here tonight that did everything that he could to keep me at Farmun, but when a couple of scouts from professional baseball showed up, it would’ve taken the Heavenly Host and the Lord himself to make me stay. Like the Gadarene swine, I had begun my personal stampede into the lake- the lake of fire.
“My first stop was a Class D farm team, probably a lot like the one that I understand you had here until just a few years ago- the Bisque Bullets- I won’t say where it was- but I will say that I had some growing up to do when I got there, and I did it as fast as I could. I didn’t know much about women and girls- I didn’t have any sisters- and what women in a small town will do when there’s a ballplayer involved would no doubt surprise you; some of the things they did certainly surprised me. I was only a boy myself. My manager- I’ll just call him Ray- tried to keep me out of trouble, but it was hard for him because half the time he was in some kind of trouble of his own. In a small town, not nearly the size that Bisque is today, with very little money, there wasn’t much to do but play ball and get in trouble.
“Like I said, I was young, and feeling much farther away from home than I ever did at Farmun. As excited at I was to be on the field, I was sick with loneliness the rest of the time. Some of you who’ve been in situations like that probably know what it was that I did to try to lose that awful feeling, don’t you? I see some heads nodding out there, and you’re right. I learned what whiskey could give me in the way of a little dose of courage. I’d watched my teammates, none of ’em much older than me, pass the Mason jar around the locker room after games, and it seemed like they were having such a good time gettin’ likkered up that it didn’t take me long to join in.
“I hated it at first; most of you’ve probably never drunk moonshine whiskey, but that’s all there was in that little dry county in the backwoods. I’ll tell you what it tasted like to me when I first tried it. Can you imagine gasoline and Seven-Up together? That’s what it tasted like to me, but you know what? After it got down in my stomach, I didn’t care. No. I did not care what it tasted like, because it made me feel so free and easy that it could’ve been straight gasoline. It put me on top of the world for awhile, and even though it made my head hurt in the morning, it ran that old being-by-myself demon off for hours at a time. I liked it. I mean I really liked it. A lot.
“Well,” he said, “A baby-f
aced pitcher on a four-day rotation had lots of time on his hands back then. I guess they still do. As I said, I could throw real hard, and with pretty fair control, and I went fifteen and two that season, half-drunk most of the time. I was a big part of the club’s winning the pennant that year, and pretty soon I never had to buy a drink or- and I’m ashamed to say it- look for females that fancied being with a ballplayer. And I thought I was on top of the world. So I rode that hoss, as they say, and I rode it hard- hard enough so that, for my third season, I was sent to Triple-A. Again, I’m not sayin’ where- any fan could look it up, I guess, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that, by then, I was on a real short fuse. Triple-A’s right next to the big leagues, and big-leaguers who fall off the pace get sent down there all the time, either to get their stuff back or to get off the bus for good. They started hitting me my first time on the mound, and they never stopped. I’d gotten as far as I could go on a fast ball that wasn’t all that fast to these batters, and my other stuff- curve, slider, change-up- wasn’t much. I’d just made it up as I went along, because I could win- up to then- just by smokin’ a fast one by ’em.
“By then, I’d gotten used to a better grade of liquor, and was drinking more of it than ever. And the girls were better looking than ever, more ready than ever to give their all for a night with a ballplayer. But those Triple-A batters kept on knocking me out of the box, and I drank even more and the girls thinned out. To make a long story short, I was sent down, way down- to Class B, so the Club- the major league team where I thought I’d be in 1942- could see if they could get me straightened out. But they didn’t get the chance. My draft board back there in Harlan County took me off their hands. In as much time as it takes to tell it, I was through basic training and behind the wheel of an Army truck- they called it a six-by-six, the motor drivin’ all six wheels- in Fort Ord, California.
“By now I’d drink the best part of a fifth of something a day whenever I could get it- and I could usually get it. But I was still playing baseball- one thing about the army, wartime or not, there’ll always be sports- so I stopped by Special Services one day, and the next day I was pitching for the post team. We played military teams from up and down the Pacific coast, and even though there was a sprinkling of ex-pros like me scattered through the league, I could get most of those guys out on the worst day I ever had. So I had friends, sort of, in high places, like the Post Commander, the Major who managed Special Services and the team manager, a Captain who was also the Prostesant chaplain and known, inevitably, as Charlie.
“None of that impressed the Staff Sergeant who ran the motor pool at all, because I was still on his roster as a driver until a slot in Special Services opened up. A private, more or less coming and going as I pleased, was the way I guess he saw me. And like some of the other ‘lifers’- career soldiers- I’d seen, he was there because it was the absolute best he could do, and he was proud- way too proud- of the job he had. One fine Monday morning after muster, I was sitting in the motor pool with a head as big as a basketball. The Sergeant walked into the room, saw me sitting there and started in on me in the way only Sergeants can do. I’ll spare you the language, because it was barracks blasphemy of the worst kind. But he wouldn’t let it go at that. He walked over to where I was sitting, leaning against the wall on the two back legs of a chair, kicked it from under me, and kicked me as I hit the floor.
“Well, things just sort of went black. I woke up in the stockade to find that I was charged with manslaughter. The court-martial found me guilty, and sentenced me to ten years at hard labor in the military prison at Leavenworth, out on wasteland of the Kansas prairie, and a dishonorable discharge. I hope that none of you have ever been in prison, or ever go, because it’s hell on earth, and doubly so when the guards remind you many times a day that you’re alive while better men die in battle in your place. But it led me to the gates of Heaven. I’d been there for a little over a year, trying every day to stop seeing the face of the man I’d killed.”
Yes, and I see the face of a girl whose life I changed forever, whose life will never be what it could’ve been, because I spewed new life into her before she was ready for it to be there. And then I turned my back on her, and on all of Bisque.
“One morning I woke up before sunrise. I thought I’d heard my cellmate call my name, except it was my first name. You only hear your last name in prison, so I thought I’d just been dreaming. Then I heard it again. ‘Lustrum.’
“ ‘Who is it?’ I said.
“I’ll never forget what I heard then if I live a thousand years. ‘I am Alpha and Omega,’ the voice said. It was the sweetest, and yet the strongest, voice I’d ever heard. And all of a sudden, there was light all around me, and I felt like I was floating. ‘I am the Lord your God.’ ”
Where are you, Lord? Speak to ME now. Oh, please speak to me now.
He paused. “I hadn’t had a drink in over a year, yet the walls spun slowly around me, the way they did sometimes late at night. I was still within the confines of a prison cell, but yet I knew that I was alone with the Creator. All that I could say was, ‘Yes, Lord?’
“And he answered me. ‘You bear a heavy cross, but not in my name. Put Satan behind you and it shall be lifted from you.’
“ ‘I don’t know, how, Lord,’ I said. I’d never felt so alone.
As alone as I feel right now? Has anybody felt as alone as I do right now?
“ ‘Say it and it shall be,’ said the Lord. And that’s what I did. I emptied my heart of all of the hate and the hurt that had been there for so long. And from that day, my life’s been his, to do with as he sees fit. And the Lord smiled upon me.”
I’m sayin’ it, Lord. I’m sayin’ it now. Smile on me Lord, and take this pain away.
“Soon after the war was over, I was paroled. I went back to Farmun, a place I thought I’d never see again, thanks to Brother Ted Bell, who’d been my coach there. By the time he found me, through my folks, he’d been made Athletic Director. At first they wouldn’t tell him where I was, they were so ashamed, but he prevailed and worked his own miracle with the War Department. I had to have a job to be paroled, so I returned to my old school, where I’d once been something of a hero, as someone far different. I went to work for the college’s custodial department. That’s right. The game-winner of ’38 was the floor-sweeper of ’46. And very happy to be there, too.”
I’ll sweep floors, Lord, or whatever else you’d have me do. Give me the work that’ll give me peace.
“And Brother Ted worked another miracle for me; after I’d been back for a few months, he got me readmitted to Farmun. I’d given him my witness while I was still in prison, and he promised me that he’d do everything he could to convince the administration to take me back. He’d said to me the day I walked out of Leavenworth, ‘Lustrum, the Lord has plans for you boy, but you must meet ’im halfway. I hope that you’re ready to do that.’
I’m ready, Lord. Show me your plan for my life.
“ ‘Yes, I am, Coach,’ which was what I still called him back then. ‘And if it’s his will that the school takes me back, I want to be a divinity student.’ So when things worked out for me to be readmitted, that’s what I became. I won’t tell you that it was easy; I wasn’t the world’s best student when I’d been there before, and studying still didn’t come naturally to me. I was up nights stoking furnaces to make up for the time I spent in class, but it was a glorious time in my life. I’d already made the decision to preach the gospel, and was preaching a guest sermon now and then around Greenville. Right after Christmas in 1949 I got the chance to preach regularly on Sunday nights at a little country church outside Spartanburg, and on a bright day in June of 1951, Dr. Brooks, Farmun’s president, handed me my sheepskin. I was thirty-three years old.
And then I had a decision to make. What kind of a preacher was I going to be? If I was going to be more than a lay preacher, I’d need to go to Seminary. That meant another three years of study, and I looked to the Lord for a sig
n, because I knew I couldn’t get through that much more school without a lot of help. I went on preaching on Sunday nights, and working at Farmun, until God gave me what I asked for.
“It was a Saturday in the middle of October. Brother Ted had driven me into Greenville to buy some groceries, and we were on our way back to Farmun when we saw a bus parked in front of the courthouse. Painted on its side, in flaming red letters a foot high, was Apostles of Redemption. Several people, one a deputy sheriff, stood at the bus’s open door. One of them was shouting at the deputy, waving his arms wildly above his head. Just then another deputy came out of the sheriff’s office and walked over to the group. He said something to the first deputy, and they took the man, still shouting, by the arms to take him inside. Then tried to break away, and the first deputy put him in a hammerlock and walked him, standing on his toes, inside the office. ‘We better find out what’s goin’ on,’ said Brother Ted, and he drove around the block so we could park in the lot beside the courthouse.
“We went inside the office, stopping at the desk just inside the door. ‘What’s going on, Larry?’ Brother Ted said to the deputy behind the desk. The man who’d been doing the waving now sat quietly on a bench across from the desk, one hand covering the side of his face.
‘Aw, this buncha nuts’re tryin’ to get their boss outa jail,’ the deputy said, ‘and they’re about ta all get locked up.’
‘Who is this boss?’ Brother Ted asked him.
“The deputy snickered. ‘Calls hisself ‘Joshua of Nazareth.’ They’s a fraud warrant out for him from up in Tennessee.’
‘Could we see him?’
‘Gee,’ the deputy said, ‘I dawno. Lemme ask th’ sheriff.’
‘Wait,’ Brother Ted said. ‘Sheriff Curtis’s in his office? Just let me go in for a minute.’
“Well, Sheriff Curtis was one of Brother Ted’s many good friends around the county, and he let us go back into the jail where the man was. And we were by no means prepared for what we saw. I remembered a picture I’d seen of John Brown, the abolitionist from back before the Civil War. This man Joshua looked like that picture come to life. Wild-eyed, wild-haired and raging at everything in sight. ‘Good day, sir,’ said Brother Ted.
