Minister to Minister Part 2 – Gene’s testimony

Brothers, I quit serving the Lord that day. I did nothing for the next four or five or six or seven years, and I grew in Christ. I didn’t go sell used cars. You understand that? I didn’t quit the ministry that way. I’ll quit going straight up. I superannuated. I’d like to tell you about what happened later because my testimony has always ended right here. And I’ve not even told this much before.

Now, I’m going to tell you lots of things I’ve never shared before, I think. Why don’t you cut that off, brother? Just a minute. What I’m going to tell you now are mercies beyond mercy because what happened to me was a one-in-a-million chance of happening. That was great. From here on, it was great. In the last 22 years, I’ve seen men leave the organized church, try to do it on their own. A few, I’ve never seen one of them make it. What happened to me was more than I ever deserved. I want you to know something: I left the organized church based on the knowledge I had acquired of history. I didn’t know there were any Christians in existence on this planet outside of what we fondly call out there the religious system.

I don’t know how I made it. I wanted to know the Lord. I also wanted to see the church, if I could, but if I couldn’t see it, I wanted to see it someday, and there were some things I learned in the New Testament in the study of the first-century church. And one of them was that we were going to have church planters again, or we were going to be up a creek forever. And I wanted to find one and I said to the Lord, if there is any, first of all, I said, Lord, if it takes till I’m 60 to qualify me to be one, I wish to be one if there’s not any out there and He may still be working on that prayer, because I knew it was going to take qualifications beyond anything that I knew existed. And brothers, I just would beg you to not be foolish about church life. This is not something you can go out and magically do, like starting a Baptist church. This is post-graduate work at its highest level, and there’s no way I can communicate that to you. This is the final death of the Christian.

There I am sitting at home in Tyler, Texas, going with a little group of Christians who are about to die, and their spontaneous little experience they’re having. It’s going to fade and go like hundreds do. I was determined to do two things. I was going to find people who knew the Lord Jesus Christ, and I was going to find church life on this planet if it existed. And if it didn’t, I was going to cloister myself or do whatever was necessary until I became qualified to raise one up, if that took me 60 or 70 or 80 years. I meant to see it once, and that was with no knowledge of anything. Going on out there, I found out to my amazement that this Nee fellow had also been interested in the church in the Far East. I couldn’t believe that, and I found a little book of his and read it. No, I didn’t, I read the first chapter, threw up my hands, and said, “I got to find these people, I’m headed for China.”

In the meantime, by the mercies of God, I went to a meeting of a little group of Christians who were gathered in a home in Louisville, Kentucky, not knowing what was there. And I met a lady who must have been about 72 or 73 then. Her name was Beta Sheirich. She had been a Methodist missionary to China, but had left the religious system. Are you okay with that? Are you comfortable with that? Why do you sit there and look at me, so, whatever you are, are you getting ready to put that steak out here in the middle of this place? Anybody already thinking about where the wood is? By the way, brothers, just for the record, you’re in a religious system.

Beta had left the Methodist church and written a letter home to everybody there and said, “Do not send me any more money.” And she went to Shanghai and joined a group of dear Christian women, herself, another lady named Mary Jones, and another lady named Elizabeth Pikbach, all three of whom I was to come to know very well. They all served with Nee when he was alive and free.

Beta, during World War II, had been in prison after the war by the Japanese, and had come home to Louisville, Kentucky. And I hope I can get through this without crying; I never have yet. Beta is the greatest Christian I’ve ever met. The godliest human, the most Christ-filled person I will probably ever know. A big, tall woman, single for a whole life, she came home, and the Lord had taken from her the ability to sleep. She said she never slept, and she began spending her hours praying. She had seen something wonderful happen in the Far East that she had never seen. I walked into that place; I was about 30, no, 31 maybe, and I felt like a kid.

And I was led to Beta Sheirich, who had known Watchman Nee, and I sat down in this home. There was another brother with me, and there were only the three of us there, and we sat down, and we just said, “Talk.” What?” whispered Beta, and she just began talking, and I froze. I was afraid to talk, I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe. She talked for about 30 minutes and said, “Are you listening? You don’t respond.” And I said, “Ms. Sheirich, just don’t stop for anything, just keep talking.” She just told stories and told stories and told stories of the early days in China. She knew the early days; she didn’t know the later days. And I get it was the early days that were really important to know anything about.

I found out later that God had given Beta a prayer, and that prayer that she prayed was, “Lord, send some workers to America to raise up a light.” Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been the recipient of an intercessor’s prayer, because there are not many of them. There never have been and there never will be, and here was the best of the best, and she said the Lord laid three brothers on her heart. Only two of those brothers are still on their feet, and I was one of them. That woman brought me to the Lord day and night and to the throne of God day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year without stopping, asking the Lord to raise me up as someone to be a worker in this country to raise up the experience of the body of Christ. I didn’t know that until right before she died.

I was in a meeting one day, in a prayer meeting, and I was with another young dumb brother, and we just heard someone speak on consecration, and we got down on our knees and we consecrated our lives to the Lord and to His house. Beta was sitting in the back of the room, and she told me later, and I’ll get to that story in a minute. Much later, she said, “I was never so frightened in my life as to see what you were doing because I knew God was going to answer your prayer.” She said, “Gene, I’m frightened.” At that time, I would not have understood. But, brother, if I heard you pray the way we prayed that day, I’d be frightened for you.

Well, we were not doing business with God on the level of Southern Baptist. We were doing business with God on the level of the heart of God in things that dealt with eternals, and He will hear prayers like that and do things you won’t believe He will do. He doesn’t play, and I warn you, this is desperate business. It’s not something to go out and play this game of great fervent prayer over, brother, for He still looks for hearts. Well, I had asked the Lord to do some things in my life. I asked Him to break me, I asked Him to teach me Jesus Christ, I asked Him to show me the church of the living God. I ask Him to find me an apostle, or a church planter, or something, anything. Let me see this thing, and I don’t know how God put those threads together, but He did.