Minister to Minister Part 1 – Gene’s testimony

I hope you won’t feel offended, but I think that you need to know something. You sound like preachers. Now, I want you to remember who I am. I’m a Christian who stepped outside. I’m a spy who stepped out into the cold, to pun the title of a book or something, a movie, or I don’t know what it is. I was heartsick about the whole show, but I don’t know what would have happened to me at that point if the Lord, in His mercy, and I mean in His mercy, had not accelerated the process far beyond anything I could possibly imagine at my age.

I’m about 28 now. I have been a pastor for five years, and I’ve been in evangelism for three or five years. I had something that happened to me, I suppose, that has never happened to anybody before or since, maybe things similar to it. But while I was holding these evangelistic crusades and going everywhere, John Kennedy got elected president of the United States, and just scared the living daylights out of the entire evangelical world.

By means, I am still not sure how this happened, because all I did was one day walk up to a gentleman who was speaking at the Baptist pastor’s conference in Houston, Texas. The ministerial conference every month was at the Second Baptist Church in the basement there, and said, “Hello, I’m interested in what you said.” The next thing I knew, I was getting calls. The next thing I knew, I was being asked by one of the Southern Baptists’ most wealthy laymen to do something, and this is what he asked me to do. They were putting together an organization, you won’t believe this, this is 1960, to get Christians involved in politics.

This is way back there, before anybody had ever thought this up. He wanted me to go around America and interview all of America’s leading Christian leaders, laymen, and ministers. I mean the top and also all leading Christians in government, and I was given what was at that time called a universal credit card. I doubt they still exist. That thing would do anything, and I was given two or three credit cards, and I was given carte blanche expenses.

I spent $80,000 in nine months traveling, interviewing the leaders of America. The way I was able to get to them was, he would ask outstanding Christian leaders that he knew to write to people whom they knew to get me an interview with these people. I walked into governors’ and senators’ offices like I was walking into the kitchen, and I walked into the leadership of America’s Christianity. By the way, this gentleman’s name, I’d better not say, this gentleman was from Denver, Colorado.

A lot of things happened to me that were absolutely unbelievable. I have three or four meetings I have vivid memories of. When I was home, which was very rare, Tyler, Texas, which at that time was my hometown, was having a revival. And I was spiritually distraught, and when I was home, I would meet with this little group of about 10 Christians in the living room. And we were studying a book by a man none of us had ever heard of. His name was Watchman Nee, and a book that was just getting popular was called “The Normal Christian Life.” And I began reading that book, found out I’d owned that book for two years previously to that, and tried to read it and couldn’t understand it. Now I read it, and it was as clear as it could be. I should show you my copy of that book. It’s just butchered with notes.

And now my heart, something is happening to my heart. I remember these meetings. I will skip the crusades, and I will skip the interdenominational movements that I worked with. I will skip the denominational headquarters of other organizations, of other denominations that invited me in to build evangelistic programs for them nationally. I built the Assembly of God’s evangelism program. Roy told me the other day he still uses some of my stuff in his evangelism classes. I have a hard time believing that. If you’re in the seminary, which one of you brothers is in seminary? I wouldn’t do any supplemental reading under the name Gene Edwards. I wouldn’t read those books if I were you, brother.

I remember Dr… bringing together the top leaders of the Southern Baptist to Belleview Baptist Church to do a barnstorming on evangelism. It was who’s who; there were four Southern Baptist presidents at that meeting. In fact, I think I used to have a picture of Gene Edwards standing beside four Southern Baptist Convention presidents. I bet you can’t say that. They were the luminaries of the convention, and two young men they had brought in. I was one of them; we were there for a week.

Now, without any criticism whatsoever, I just want you to know that was the most sterile thing I ever saw in my life. There were no new ideas, and those men got up and dickered over nothing. We spent one entire afternoon trying to figure out the conversion of children in the church. And I heard those people get up and talk for hours and hours on that subject, and no one ever made the suggestion that maybe what we needed to do when children came forward was to get down on our knees with them and pray with them for their redemption. That was never brought up. I don’t know how it was when I left, but little kids come up, they take your hand, shake your hand, little kid, is that what they did to you? You coming forward? Do you believe in Jesus? You want to be baptized? That’s what I did at six, and I pretty much went to hell over it.

If that pastor had taken me by the hand and knelt with me, I might have gotten saved at six and had me pray; my heart went down there to get converted. I didn’t get converted by shaking his hand. All I was, was scared that day. Nobody, nobody, nothing. The two young men walked out of there. We were really upset. I have a picture of myself on an airplane coming home from that meeting that someone took, and I wouldn’t tell you the names of the men in that picture. It was unbelievable. And I came home a Southern Baptist, knowing that there was not one original idea within the entire Southern Baptist Convention for the problems and the needs of evangelism, nothing. And I think the word sterility is a word that bounced through my head in the coming months.

I had another experience, quite remarkable, and I think I’d like to tell it in two parts. This wealthy Denver man, who had me chasing all over America, wanted to talk with the most powerful Presbyterian, I suppose, in North America or the world. And I will use his name because you can’t hide that fact. The name was Howard Hughes. He was the chairman of the board of Sun Oil Company and one of the 10 richest men in North America. Very close to being a billionaire, very devout Christian. He was trying to save the Presbyterian church. My friend Jerry wanted to have an interview with him, and he only knew one man who could get that interview, and this was a devout Christian, somebody. And he went to his brother, and he said to him, “I want to talk to Howard Hughes.” And the brother said, “I can arrange it.”

Now, I’m ashamed to tell you the story, but I have a question to ask. I’m ashamed to tell you the story. The man said, “I’ll let you talk to him, but I’ve got two lots in Winona Lake; I need to sell, I need to sell fast. I’ll swap those two lots for an interview with Howard Hughes. Jerry flew to Winona Lake and bought those two lots. I said, “Jerry, that is the most unbelievable thing I have ever heard of in my life.” And he said, “Gene, why are you shocked?” He said, “I have been a Baptist X number of years. I’ve been a millionaire for X number of years, have been a multi-millionaire for X number of years,” and he said, “I do this thing, this kind of thing with Baptists all the time now.”