Writing a testimony is a very personal thing. I did not fully realize just
how personal it could become until after I was committed to write it. One is
not only writing of those things in his life that are obvious to those
around him, but also must include the baring of his thoughts and prejudices
hidden within the mental and emotional make-up of his personality. These
thoughts and prejudices could just as well remain hidden and be kept secret
except if this were done there would be no real testimony. So with this
obvious conclusion, I resolved that, regardless of the very personal nature
of my testimony, I would in no way allow this to hinder the necessary details.
plentiful woods and streams in this mountainous part of Northern California.
My home would not have been considered Christian although my mother, and sometimes my father, went to "meetings" held generally in the school house.
These meetings were very infrequent. I would hasten to say at this point however, that my mother in her last thirty years lived a fine Christian life, and no doubt her prayers had much to do with the change in my life.
When [I was] about eighteen years of age I started working in a local sawmill where I operated a steam engine called a "donkey," [which was] used to drag logs and stack them.
Loggers today are family men and respected in any community. but this was not so for a large part of the men I found myself among. A large percentage of them were single men who went from one job to another with their bedrolls on their backs staying in "bunk houses" while working. It was into one of these bunk houses that I went as a boy from a home. While not called Christian, nevertheless, [I] was secluded from much [that] I was to encounter in this new environment. It was not long until I took on the color of those I lived with. I became very profane and I, too, referred to the preachers as "sky pilots" and the Bible as "the joke book." Like the rest of them I didn't want my "pie in the sky when I die," I wanted it now. I did not know then that in the years to come my neighbors would refer to me as
"that profane Mr. Dunn." I became anti-Christian and I did not believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I thought Christians were weak people who
needed a crutch and Christianity was that crutch.
As I look back to those years I now realize that my rejection of the Bible,as being the Word of God, was in no way based upon any personal study or investigation, as one might suppose. It was based entirely on what others told me; who themselves had at no time made a personal study of the Bible. This sounds strange but, nevertheless, it is quite common for people to have influencing opinions based on very little or no investigation of this matter. I was no exception! I would venture to say that this attitude of men, concerning the Bible, is more true of this book than any other in the world; this alone should be cause for serious thought.
Because of the death of my father and older brother, within the space of one year, I moved the family into town. My life was abruptly changed and my responsibilities were altered and increased because of these events. I accepted a job with the railroad where I worked for some time, also returning to logging in the woods in the summer months.
It was at the age of twenty three that I met the young lady who later became my wife. Like myself, she had not been raised in a Christian home. So it was that we began our married life together during the early year thirties.
We didn't have any Christian friends and avoided anything to do with church.
As the years went by I became a businessman and prospered. We began attending night clubs and having cocktail parties in our home. We chose our friends carefully from among those we considered to be moderate drinkers. I learned later that there were those who avoided me because of my excess profanity.
Having always been very conscious of my lack of education, it was during these years that I began trying to educate myself. I developed a liking for philosophy and the classics in literature. It was only natural that I should try the Bible, at least out of curiosity. I found it hard going! Having mastered the ability to get through the other books I read, it was very frustrating to me that I could not understand the Bible. 1 had at times actually thrown it down in disgust and would vow never to pick it up again. Nevertheless. I tried many times to read it, but it was a closed book to me. Since I found no problem in understanding and enjoying what may be
considered heavy reading in secular literature, it appealed to my logic and reason to conclude that the problem of my not understanding the Bible could not be on my part. Surely the problem must be on the part of the Bible. It is interesting to me now that I was very careful that none of my acquaintances knew or suspected I was trying to read the Bible.
I was now forty-six years old (1954). Our two sons were married and gone from our home and the pattern of our lives had really changed very little over the years. Perhaps I was more settled than ever in my convictions concerning the Bible. My business connections and enterprises had changed many times - all according to my plans. I was now hiring several men in an
enterprise that was prospering. There were those who tried to approach me with a Christian witness from time to time, but my resistance discouraged
them until they seldom spoke to me about such things. So you can see the change in my conduct that I am now about to relate was not prompted by any Christian influence up to that time.
As my wife and 1 started to retire on a particular evening. I suddenly asked my wife if we should pray and she replied, "Yes, if you want to." We knelt by our bedside, but we did not know how to pray. After we had retired I was very embarrassed and considered this a very stupid thing I had done and resolved never to do it again. I was very aware that throughout the entire day I had been just as profane as ever and nothing in my consciousness had changed to account for my actions that evening. The next evening we again started to retire and I was suddenly impressed to again try to pray; so we
again knelt at our bedside. This continued for many weeks and into months while I again tried to read the Bible to no success. My attitude about life had really not altered at all during this time.
In the course of my business I was calling on building contractors and it was while on one of these occasions that I called on a man whom I knew to be a Christian. As I stood talking to this man, I suddenly said "You're a Christian, aren't you? And he said he was. Now a very strange thing was resident in my life at this time: while on the one hand I was praying every
evening and trying to read the Bible, I still retained my anti-Christian attitude. When this man said he was a Christian I replied, "Tell me about it." He did not know the nature of my request was somewhat in contempt. This man began to witness to me stating Bible truths concerning Jesus Christ in a way that he seemed to be personally acquainted with Him.
Finally I interrupted him to declare that I believed Jesus Christ to have been a good man and one who led a good life and that His teachings were good but that He was just another historical figure. This Christian man never knew what he stirred in me when he said emphatically,"No! You are wrong! Jesus Christ was what He said He was or He was the vilest deceiver this world has ever known." Then he told me that Jesus Christ said of Himself ' I am the Way the Truth and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." He quoted several other Scriptures of what Christ said of Himself and then he stated again that either Jesus Christ was the Son of God, or the
worst deceiver the world has ever known.
When I drove away from that man, it was clear that I was living on the side with those who by their denial of the Lordship of Christ were consenting that He was a deceiver. It had never occurred to me until this man confronted me with it that Jesus Christ cannot be dismissed as having been a "good man" and nothing more or less than that. Jesus Christ is either
something more than a good man or something less than a good man and everyone who is confronted with Him makes a decision one way or the other,
whether they are aware of that decision or not. Anyway, I was affected enough by this man confronting me with this revelation that I decided to make every effort to determine just who Christ was.
A short time later, I was in a local bank where I had done business for over twenty years, and the man that was seated at the desk of the President I knew very well. In the course of our friendly preliminary conversation before business, he handed the Gospel of John across the desk to me and asked me if I would read it. I was a little taken back because I did not know this man was a Christian (he had been converted only a very short time). In answer to his question I said, as he still held out the book, "I came in here to talk business with you." He told me he was talking business with me, the right kind of business. I took the book with the promise that I
would read it.
Among my many un-commendable traits, I had one good one, if I told a man I would do something, I would do it. I reminded myself of this good trait very often and took much comfort and pride in it. When I arrived home I asked my wife to be sure I did not lose the little book because I had promised to read it. She changed it form dirty shirt to [a] clean one many times before I finally sat down and read it. I read it because I promised the banker I would; and that's exactly what I got out of it, a promise kept and nothing
else.
Some weeks after this again in the course of my business, I called at a job where the minister of a local church was working as a carpenter. He had a small congregation and supplemented his income by working from time to time.He knew who I was and I knew who he was and that was the extent of our acquaintance. I inquired of him as to where the boss was and during the conversation he asked me why I did not go to church. I told him I just was not a church man and that's why I did not attend. He continued to press me in the matter until finally, I agreed to go to church "some time." When I got home I was very angry with myself and told my wife that I had promised
"that preacher" that "we" would go to church sometime; thus I put her into the promise, too.
At least two months, went by, during which time I pondered all these things but more particularly the challenge as to who Jesus Christ was. I was
somewhat at a loss Just how to proceed in resolving this matter. It finally became my conclusion that I had traveled with the crowd who did not believe Him to be anymore than what I did; so in all fairness I could not go to these people, but if I was to resolve this fairly I must go among those who believed He was something more than a historical figure and find out why
they believed so. After these two months, I was no closer to a decision than at the first. I decided to take positive action and go to church and I asked my wife to accompany me. The following Sunday morning we got ready and went
to the church that "the preacher" had invited me to. I did not like anything I saw or heard, so, looking straight ahead, I endured it until it was over and vowed, on the way home very audibly to my wife, that I would never go to church again. When the next Sunday came around my determination to resolve the matter was at such a pitch that I decided to go again, but included in this decision was the conviction that my life-long stand up to this point would be justified and all my former beliefs would be vindicated.
As a man, having been brought up from a small boy in the woods and mountains among the things of nature (I use the word advisedly), I not only observed but was a keen student of those things that I was surrounded with. I had
seen enough of "nature" to conclude that these things just did not happen by accident; there had to be an intelligence behind what I observed. I did not believe the Bible to be the Word of God but neither could I accept the theory of evolution. This left me in a state of suspension so that I erroneously called myself an agnostic.
Sunday after Sunday in sheer stubborn determination, I continued to go to church. My wife said my face looked "hard" as I sat and looked and listened. I know she must be right for I was trying to bring to nothing everything
these people stood for. Later, as I meditated upon this, I was at a loss to explain my attitude in the light of reason. Surely it would seem that I should have been trying to prove these people to be right and myself wrong; for if they were right. I could attain to eternal life and if they were wrong I could continue without hope. I did not know the Scripture that explained my attitude in the matter. It is found in I Cor. 2:14; "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." There was my answer. I was a natural or an unspiritual man,[and] as such, I could not receive spiritual things.
It is quite a paradox that the unsaved man must cross a gulf or become spiritual to be saved. God must have so intended this to be so that those
who cross over this gulf really want God, for God wants to be wanted.
Month after month I sat in church listening to the testimonies and the preaching and teachings of the Bible. All the while 1 was keeping my promise to myself that "sometime I would determine just who Jesus Christ was!" More and more the conviction would come over me that these things I had been hearing might be true.
It was during this time that as I came home one day and was driving around my circular driveway, something happened that altered all my previous
concept about a lot of things. My mind, I know, was concerned with my business and with [the] commitments of that day and I had no thought of
spiritual things, when suddenly, I was confronted with the fact that "I was a sinner." I do not minimize what occurred within the next five minutes. I had never been a man given to tears, yet I found myself weeping uncontrollably as I saw myself a very sinful man. Never before had I ever considered myself anything but an upright business and family man. Had not I marked "Merry Christmas" on grocery bills when misfortune had prevented my customers from paying? I searched out every commendable thing that I could
lay hold of that . I had ever done, but this terrible conviction continued to grip me and I wept like a small boy that had been spanked and sent to the corner. This conviction and remorse ended as suddenly as it had begun. I drove on into my carport, went into my front room, sat down and tried to understand what had happened to me.
Being aware that our emotional and mental make-up is very complex and having in my search for education not omitted studies in this direction, I first of all considered this possibility, but to no conclusion. All this while the conviction persisted that this must be, in fact had to be, spiritual. But why this emphasis on sin, my sin, for I knew my weeping to have been in sorrow, sorrow for my sin?
I went to the phone and called a Christian woman I knew to be well versed in the Bible, and very plainly and bluntly told her what had occurred. She said, "Yes, I know," just as if she really did. Then she said. "Mr. Dunn, get your Bible and turn to John 16:9 where it speaks of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit where men will be convicted of sin, because they believe
not on Me (Jesus). In my whole life I had never been so sure of the truth of a statement as I was of this one and never so sure that a particular
statement applied directly to me. This was an encounter with the supernatural, something I knew nothing about. I had lived these forty-six
years entirely in my logical senses, where I must see it, I must feel it before I would believe it.
I attended church the following Sunday with questions on many points; but with a new attitude and interest. I listened with a less critical attitude and I started asking questions, something I had not done up to this time. It
never had made sense to me what the death of a man on a cross could possible have to do with my sins. Oh, yes, I knew I was a sinner, however, not to the magnitude that it had just been revealed to me. It was a startling thing to read in the Bible that the writer knew, hundreds of years before, that men like me would think the cross foolishness. I did not know that it was
recorded in the Bible in I Cor. 1:13 "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."
Later on, after this truth was made known to me, I was driving down a rural street in the course of my business transactions, but meditating upon those things I had been recently hearing and the answers to my questions I had been receiving, when all of a sudden a joy I could hardly contain came upon me. The Bible calls it " joy unspeakable," a joy you just cannot tell in
words. Once again I wept but this time I wept because of this great "joy unspeakable." I looked for a place to park , but not finding one I turned around in the street and drove home. When I arrived home, I was confronted with a real problem as to how to put into words what it is like to be "born of the Spirit." My wife was in the kitchen and I tried to tell her what it
was like because I knew this was what had happened to me. I found I could not put it into words, neither can any other man. The Scripture reference to this is found in the Gospel of John chapter 3:5 "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." John 18:36, "Jesus answered, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world.'" Just as a man from another nation or kingdom must receive naturalization papers or be "born again" to become a citizen of the United States, so must one be "born again" of the Spirit of God to become a citizen of a Spiritual Kingdom, which is God's Kingdom.
It was a startling thing to discover that after about six days I no longer used profanity - and that was the one thing that really had a grip on me. After I discovered this, I rushed into the kitchen and excitedly told my wife that "since that wonderful experience I had in my pickup [truck] I had not used one word of profanity." I had not at any time decided to quit as I hadn't even given it any thought. At this point, in regards to my experience of being born again, I would like to make it very clear what I have since learned. Everyone who is "born again of the Spirit" does not necessarily have the same experience as I had. My wife was not born again
in the same way I was not too many are. However, this was the way God saw fit to deal with me.
When I was a young man, we put the crops in, in the Spring of the year, and then about the time the grass began to get dry and summer began to get hot and we had no further use for the horses until fall, [so] we formed what we called a "ramuda," or string of horses. We tied each horse to the tail of the other and led them into higher country where there were streams of cold
water and green grass up to their knees. Those horses fought every step of the way; they fought when we roped them and they fought when we tied halter ropes to their tails. I did not realize then how much like those horses some people are, especially me. Oh, Yes! When the horses arrived at those lush meadows, with cold streams, they were "heads and tails up." So it is with every man who quits fighting God and allows Him to lead him into that "more abundant life" which the Bible tells us can be ours here and now.
My life was completely changed and turned around and in a few short days; so was my wife's. It was after this that we read II Cor. 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold all things become new." Truly we had become new creations! The Bible that had been such hard going for me was now an open book and I soon became a teacher of it where before I could not even understand it. A Christian woman had told me months previous to this, "Mr. Dunn, if you would pray earnestly until you were 'born again of God's Spirit,' you would be able to understand
the Bible. The same Spirit that moved upon the men who wrote the Bible would be resident within you and this would bring about a compatibility between the Bible and you and you could understand it." I remember very well my reaction to her statement. "Just conversation, nothing more than conversation." I did not believe her! I know now that what she said was
true, for in Rom. 8:16, I found what the Bible says about those who have been "born again:" "...the Spirit of God testifies with our spirits that we are the children of God."
Dear Reader; you, too, can know that you are a child of God. The Way to Salvation is so easy that many fail to find it. It involves repentance
(being sorry for past conduct), confession (confessing to having sinned),forgiveness (asking God to forgive you in the Name of Jesus Christ), and last, but not least, believing God to have kept His part. If you in sincerity came to God in this manner, the Bible says in 1 John 1:9 "If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Then in II Peter 3:9 it says, "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
God loves you and wants you for His own and all you need to do is come to Him.
My wife and I had been "born again of God's Spirit," we were saved and children of God. Nevertheless, people in the church told us that God had more for us. This is how we learned of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" and that Peter, on the day of Pentecost, had said, "that the promise was for us today." I didn't receive this news, that God had more for us, any better
than I received salvation; both were a struggle for me to accept. My first reaction was that the great majority of Christians did not believe this way. Neither my wife nor I had been asked to join the church, so we didn't and so we felt free to get a different side of the story. We would go among those people who did not agree that the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" was for them
today.
So it was that for one and a half years we went to many churches became acquainted with many ministers and asked many questions. We finally
compromised in our church going and decided to go to the "little church on the hill" in the mornings and elsewhere in the evenings. The Bible had become so interesting to me that I closed down my jobs for a period of months and I did nothing but study the Scriptures. My wife on occasions found it hard to get me to my meals. I was studying quite a lot about the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit," but as yet my wife and I had not resolved the matter. Having made friends of many ministers and Bible teachers, I inquired
of them, and, as much as I want to be kind, I also must be factual. They themselves were not in agreement as to what the Bible taught on the subject. Even ministers in the same denomination were of different opinions. I had passed up the blessing of being "born again" until forty-six years of age all without due investigation and I did not want to make this mistake again.
I bought books for and against the Baptism in the Spirit and I listened to all those that would talk to me on the subject. After many months we finally decided that we would go back full time to the "little church on the hill," as we were sure God had more for us. So we returned.
I had received the usual warnings about those who seek gifts with the inference that a gift could be a spurious one, but I stood on Luke 11:11
where Jesus is talking to His disciples and assures them that if they "ask their earthly father for a fish they will not receive a serpent," or an "egg, they will not receive a scorpion." Then in verse thirteen it says,
"if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Here the Bible gives us complete assurance that we may ask in confidence, and that we shall receive what we ask for and not receive other than what we ask for. I also knew the teaching of the Bible well enough to know that one does not seek Salvation by "asking the Father to give them the Holy Spirit." So it was obvious that something other than Salvation was referred to in this Scripture. It was after this conclusion that I began to include in my prayers the petition to be "filled with the Spirit."
A seventeen year old young lady, a Bible school student, stopped at our church one Sunday evening and the Pastor invited her to take the evening
service, much to my disappointment as I was looking forward to hearing the Pastor preach. She did very well for a young girl and asked after her "sermon" for those people who wanted to pray to come forward. I went forward to pray, out of respect for her, but I was really very disappointed with the service. As I knelt to pray, I was under the conviction that I was
a hypocrite and that I could only have come forward for one of two reasons - one, to pray, and the other to be seen of people. I really didn't feel like praying. Where did that leave me? I was a hypocrite! ‘I'm going to get up
and go home," I thought, "I'll not be a hypocrite."At that very moment I had a compelling urge to stay there and pray all night even until daylight would come streaming in the windows of the church in the morning. The thought was
very compatible. Suddenly it occurred to me that a split second before this I was disgruntled, going to go home and was sure I was a hypocrite. I knew I was not the author of that change of mind and emotion and it awed and subdued me. It was in this condition that I prayed a very simple little prayer, "Lord, cleanse me and fill me with your Holy Spirit." There swept over me an ecstasy of joy that no man can put into words and with it poured a language from my lips that amazed me. I had never prayed to speak in a "tongue" neither did I know of anyone who ever did. For over an hour this joy and verbal expression, in another language continued.
My wife and I went home and retired, but I awakened myself and my wife, at least every thirty minutes, all night long speaking in first one language and then another. My wife would observe "You never spoke in that language before." The next morning my wife and I, with others from the church, knelt in our front room and my wife also received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I began to learn many things after this wonderful experience. I learned why Pentecostal (an experience not a denomination) people were the ones who had "bothered" me over the years. I found out why they loved each other and also
loved Christians of other denominations and why they went to "tent" meetings no matter what denomination was sponsoring them. But most of all. I learned what it is like to 'become a "fool for Christ's sake." I had walked as a
"born again" Christian for very nearly two years, during which time I had witnessed if it were convenient. Now my Christian experience had taken on a new dimension and it was no longer necessary for me to wait for a convenient opportunity for witnessing. The Scripture in Acts 1:8, where the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking, "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea. and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
[became very real to me]
Has this witness gone "unto the uttermost part of the earth?" Certainly not! Then did God retract this promise of this power that was given for this express purpose for witnessing? Retract it before the job was finished? Certainly not! In the final analysis man, not God, will have failed in getting the job done. It is said of those in Berea in Acts 17:11 "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things be so."
Dear Christian Brother, do not wait until almost too late as I did (for I was taught up to the age of forty-six years old that the Bible was not the
Word of god, and I believed this without personal investigation). God has privileged me with countless people to witness [to] in these "last days" outpourings of God's Spirit among our brethren from most denominations. My prayers are for this out-pouring to be accelerated, and that the Church of Jesus Chris will once again take up her arms and munitions that in weariness she has laid aside - for the church "wrestles not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness," Eph 6:12.
__________
By Harvey O. Dunn, born September 18, 1908, died April 29, 1986 [He was my spiritual father, mentor and friend, I am John K. Strode]
