Asphalt In My Blood

Asphalt In My Blood

Bro. Bennie, our Pastor, told me several years ago that I must have asphalt in my blood. After a few more years and a lot more miles, I am coming to the conclusion that he is probably correct. We do love life on the road.

Kelly Jo and I have had opportunities to settle down at times through the years. Have we ever seriously thought about it? Yes, but not often and not for long. Although there have been fleeting moments when we were sorely tempted and have come very near doing it.

Why keep going? 

Well, the answer is two fold. First and foremost, we believe that we are walking in God's plan for our lives, at this present time, to the best of our ability. That is most important.

Secondly, somewhere along the way, while growing up, Kelly Jo and I caught a bug that all the rest of our immediate families escaped. We love to go, we love to travel, we love the road and we can not help ourselves! We are willing to spend everything and do anything to keep moving along.

Maybe be heard too many lonesome train whistles blowing when we were small. 

Maybe we saw too many cowboys ride over the next hill just to see what was in the next valley.

Maybe we read one too many books where the young man goes west and never comes back.

Maybe we heard "Ramblin' Man", "Rambling Fever" and "The Running Kind" about 500 too many times growing up.

Maybe we breathed too much diesel exhaust.

Maybe we did get too close to the road when they were paving and we inhaled the blacktop dust.

Maybe we watched and read too much Charles Kuralt!

Yep, Charles Kuralt Is To Blame

Who is Charles Kuralt, you ask?

Mr. Charles Kuralt was a reporter and host for CBS for many, many years. His best known and best loved work was the short segments he produced for the CBS Evening News and later for the CBS Sunday Morning program. 

Some of my early memories are of Mr. Kuralt and his small crew reporting in from small town America every week as they traveled the back roads of the USA in a motorhome.

Maybe that is where I caught the traveling fever. Maybe the lonesome trains, wondering cowpokes, diesel fumes and asphalt are not really to blame after all. Maybe it is the fault of a man I never met.

Mr. Kuralt was a paradoxical man and died before many of his personal imperfections or weaknesses became known. Although he celebrated all that was good and moral in rural America, it seems he did not embody those traits in his private life.

Yet, he influenced millions of people with his wholesome curiosity and gentle manner.

It was said by people that knew him well that Mr. Kuralt never said an unkind word about anyone. He chose to see the good in people even though good was not all there was to see. I choose to do that with Mr. Kuralt as well.

Charles Kuralt was only 62 years old when he died on July 4, 1997. He will always be remembered best for his stories from small town America.

His On The Road with Charles Kuralt stories affected me more than I could possibly know at the time. In the 80's and 90's I found and read all of his books. We have eaten in restaurants where he has eaten, we have driven roads where he has driven and we have felt many of the same feelings he felt out on the open road in this great nation of ours.

A few years ago I discovered that some of his old stories are posted online. I ran across this one about the Chandler Family from Prairie, Missouri. Amazing!

Thanksgiving with the Chandler Family from Prairie Missouri with Charles Kuralt 1978

Start with Alex and Mary Chandler and see if you can resist a hankering to find some more clips. I could not resist the tears as this family prays over their Thanksgiving meal as they celebrate Mr. and Mrs. Chandler's 50th anniversary. Let me know what you think.

Thank you for reading.

Davy

35 Years Old - Ali Elizabeth Boggs

35 years ago today, in the evening, our second daughter, Ali Elizabeth was born. Kelly Jo had spent most of six weeks in the hospital trying to prevent Ali from being born, but on May 23rd she could not be stopped any longer.

We were blessed to hold her and love on her for a few hours and receive her love in return. In the early hours of the next day, as we were holding her, she slipped into eternity.

There are times, that I let my mind wander. What would Ali look like? What would her singing voice sound like? Would she sing the high part that we are always wishing for?

What about her personality? Would she shine in a crowd or shy away? Would she be a "Daddy's girl" like Odie was? I can imagine her loving Odie so much and almost idolizing her Mom. Would she be a piano player like Kelly Jo?

My imagination would go on and on IF I would let it and soon the hurt would start pounding away at my heart. The questions are fun for a moment, but they are better off in small doses. It is better to stick with the things that I know.

I was holding Ali when her undeveloped lungs could sustain her no longer. I carried Ali in her little coffin to the grave myself. I let her down in the ground with my own hands.

When the small service was over, I shoveled in the dirt myself. I know where her little body is, but I also know our Ali is in Heaven. For some reason, we are still here below. We can not bring her back to us, but we can go to her by the grace of God.

Today, as with most years, we are many miles from Ohio on Ali's birthday, The last two years, 2020 and 2021, we were home on May 23. In 2020 KJo and I ordered some flowers, picked them up and went to the cemetery for a while.

Ali was one of the first graves in this section, but it has many graves 33 years later. Some of them are family. I have two Uncles, two grandparents, a first cousin and a great Uncle buried within a few feet of Ali.

My cousin Debbie and her husband Sonny mulched around the graves that year and had everything looking so nice!

We stayed a while, left the flowers and walked away. I do not look back. One day, I will see her again and I will be amazed at how beautiful she is. That is why I look forward and not behind!

2021 found us at home again on May 23.

My Mother put together some flowers and we took them to Ali's grave.

You may decorate the grave of a loved one and you may reminisce a little and shed a tear or two. May God bless you, my dear friend! This is one of the very hard things in life. But as Christians, we know that we will see them again! Hallelujah!

Edit: I am adding these three pictures taken May 24, 2022, at the cemetery. My Grandpa, Martin Boggs, who is buried a few feet away was born 100 years before on May 24, 1922.

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

No Time For Laziness

I wrote recently about going back through our Mile Markers in 2020 and 2021 and finding some good posts that I do not remember much about writing. I think some of them are worth repeating. Maybe I will remember some of them this time. This is one of them.

No Time For Laziness

I often tell my wife and daughter. There must be an easier way for a lazy man to make a living.😍

Sometimes, I think that I might slide into being lazy. Yes, that is the truth. However, there are a few things that keep me from sliding into a life of slothfulness.

Number One: I am a Christian and Christians can not be lazy. Was Christ, the son of God, Lazy? Absolutely not! What is a Christian? A Christian is Christ like. Therefore a Christian can not live a lazy life and live up to the name of Christ. It is not an option.

There may be men and women that go by the name Christian and yet they are verifiably lazy. Please take note of a lazy "Christian" and remember there is another name for that type of Christian.

1. I refuse to be lazy because I am saved, I am a Christian.

Number Two: I am 55 years old and I still live in dread of my Dad catching me being lazy. My Dad taught us to work, emphasized the importance of work and set a blazing example of work. Every time I am tempted to be lazy, I hear my Dad's voice, I understand his teaching and I think of His example.

I hear my Dad saying, "What's wrong with you? You got the dropsy? Stand up. Get your hands out of your pockets. Nobody wants to hire you with your hands in your pockets"

1. I refuse to be lazy because I am saved, I am a Christian.

2. I was raised with an emphasis on work and warned of the dangers of laziness.

Number Three: I am married to the hardest working woman that I know and definitely the hardest working evangelist wife. Her example inspires me and compels me to get up and go find something productive to do.

KJo is like the energizer bunny. She keeps going and going and going. She takes care of me, the bus, Odie and then helps me work on the barn, the house, the bus and the yard. She carries sound equipment and hooks it up too. She breaks it down, rolls up cords and I have to threaten her to keep her from carrying heavy speakers.

She buys groceries, cooks, cleans, washes laundry and then does it all over again. She helps me with the bookwork of Boggs Family Ministries and she also helps me with our personal finances. If I am not real careful, she will do the things I need to do and leave me to wallow in my laziness.

No, I can not be lazy and allow my wife to do it all. My Lord would not be happy. My Dad would not be happy. Kelly Jo would not be...Well, I am not sure that is correct. She might still be happy working and me being lazy, but  I could not live with myself.

Therefore, I must get to work. I have spent enough time on this today, I better get busy!

Thank you for dropping in.

Davy

Re-Remembering Good Things

We have many fond memories of God's blessings during the shutdown and confusion of 2020 and during our seven months at home and all that came with it in 2021. We can trace the fingerprints of God's goodness toward us every single step of the way.

I like to think about it all. I love to reminisce of His tenderness to us and rehearse for Kelly Jo and Odie the way that God brought us through. We talk about it a lot and it shows up in my preaching when I am glorifying God. It is good stuff and I think I will remember it for many years to come.

Yet, there is a paradox in my mind. There are many events and happenings of 2020 and 2021 that are fuzzy in my memories. How can this be?

I am not ringing an alarm. I do not think there is something nefarious going on in my brain. I do think maybe that the stress of some of these times might have been weighing on me more than I realized.

Mile Markers serve as a journal for me personally and a record that we can look back and remember what has taken place in our family and in our ministry. 

I told KJo last night, "I have discovered several well written Mile Markers on a variety of topics that I have no memory of assembling in my mind, writing or posting."

I have been scrolling through months of posts from the last two years and I am finding some events that have existed around the edges of my mind. Now I can see them clearly with the help of Mile Markers. I am also finding some interesting posts that I have no memory of writing.

A post that appears on Mile Markers in the morning before most people wake up, does not suddenly spring from my fingertips to the keyboard and out to the electrical interweb. It has usually percolated in my head for hours or days and then is painstakingly written and rewritten and rewritten until it is somewhat cohesive and readable.

How could I forget writing about some of those topics? 

Rather than wallow in self doubt and sink into despair, I have been enjoying reading through 2020 and 2021 Mile Makers and refreshing my mind with events and interesting thoughts.😁

Some of the posts are pretty good. If I have trouble remembering that I wrote them, then it may also be true that many of you may not remember ever reading them. I may repost some of the Mile Markers that I am finding and hopefully they may stick this time.

Not today, I have written enough for today, but maybe soon. Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

An Example of Forgiveness

Some things are worth repeating. I have been thinking of this post for quite a while. It has been seven years since I posted it and I have referred back to it often. Praise God for His mercy, grace and forgiveness.

This is an incredible example of forgiveness and is very powerful. Having been the recipient of abundant forgiveness I wept and wept when I read this. In fact, I am overwhelmed right now by the wonderful grace and mercy I have been shown by God and by His people.  It may not affect you like it did me but each person I have read it to has teared up as well.

Thank God for His mercy and His grace. Thank God that others in my life have personified that mercy and grace to me at very specific times when I needed it so desperately. My prayer is that I may extend that kind of reach to others that I encounter along the way. I want to be a person who forgives freely and quickly. Oh,  God!  I need help with that! I want to be a gracious and forgiving man.

I hope you will take the time to read all of this. It is really not all that long and it is worth the few moments it will take. Let me know what you think in the comments.

I first read this HERE. It is part of a larger interview by Timothy Dalrymple of Tim Goeglein. Mr. Goeglein worked in both of President George W. Bush's presidential campaigns and in the White House for over seven years.
You can read the whole interview and Mr. Dalrymple's thought's HERE.
Davy

You had your own experience of sin and grace when a reporter discovered that some words in unpaid pieces you wrote for a newspaper had been taken from other sources. You describe this in your book without flinching. What happened? How does someone in the White House, especially someone as savvy as yourself, start down that road? And how did the President respond when this came to his attention?

I’m pleased to be asked about this. Proverbs is correct: Pride goes before the fall. But in the words of T. S. Eliot, “humility is endless.” 

In my time in the White House, I was becoming a very prideful person. This pride and vanity extended to plagiarizing columns for my hometown newspaper. I was not writing about politics, but about many other things that interested me. Pride takes many forms, and one of them is always wanting to be the brightest guy, the one with something interesting to say. I began plagiarizing these columns. I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was wrong. 

One morning I came to work at the White House and when I opened my email I found a reporter asking whether this was true that I had plagiarized these columns. I literally fell to the side of my desk. I prayed, “Oh God, oh God.” I knew right away that the world as I had known it was over on that day. I felt, as I say in "The Man in the Middle" that my world was collapsing. By return email, I told the reporter that it was entirely true, and I was guilty as charged. I had no one to blame but myself. 

There are, in this world, two kinds of crises. One is where it’s beyond your control, and another is where you’re directly responsible. I was directly responsible, without excuse. I inflicted, as a result of my own sin, shame and embarrassment on the President, and on my colleagues and mentors. I had violated everything I believed in, and was a hypocrite to my wife and children and family. Categorically. So I resigned from the White House that day. That was on a Friday. 

On a Monday, I came back to the White House to begin clearing out my desk and taking the pictures off the walls. I received a call from Josh Bolton, who had become a friend from the first Bush campaign when we met in Austin, Texas. Josh was now the Chief of Staff, and he said he wanted to see me. I presumed that would be the proverbial “woodshed” moment, which I thoroughly deserved. 

The first thing he asked me was, “How are your wife and boys doing?” Then he extended to me his forgiveness. I was genuinely shocked and deeply moved by this. We spent a considerable amount of time together, and before I departed his office he said, “By the way, the boss wants to see you.” 

So surely this, I thought, would be the woodshed moment, and again I completely deserved it. I expected other people to be there, but when I got to the Oval Office the only other person there was the executive assistant. I thought I must have come on the wrong day—but the President called me in. I thought: This is going to be really bad. I went in and closed the door. 

I turned to him to apologize, but barely got the words out before he looked me in the eyes and said, “Tim, I forgive you.” To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I tried again to apologize, but he wouldn’t let me. He said, “Tim, I’ve known grace and mercy in my life. I’m extending it to you. You’re forgiven." 

I said, “You should have thrown me into Pennsylvania Avenue.” Again he said, “My friend, you’re forgiven. We can talk about all of this, or we can talk about the last eight years.” 

I turned to sit on the couch in the Oval Office, but he directed me to the seat of honor beneath the portrait of Washington, where Heads of State sit. I sat there, and he and I had a conversation about two remarkable presidential campaigns, and what was at that point about seven-and-a-half years in the White House. I was by then one of the longest serving aides to the President. We embraced, and I thought this was the last time I would see George W. Bush. As I turned to head out, though, he said, “I want you to bring your wife and boys here, so I can tell them what a great job you’ve done.” 

I was stunned and speechless. The leader of the free world, the most powerful man on earth, wanted to affirm me before my wife and children. Sure enough, my wife and boys came, the President gave them a great amount of time in the Oval Office and gave them gifts. We were invited back to the White House as a family on subsequent occasions. We were there at Andrews Air Force Base for his departure. I’ve seen the President a number of times in Texas and he’s never mentioned it again. So, in my mind, George W. Bush is and was grace personified. 

So to go back to your earlier question about compassion: I was the wounded man on the side of the highway. I was totally and completely guilty and undeserving of the President’s forgiveness, and yet he gave it to me without reservation. He extended grace to me at the lowest point in my life.

Is that awesome or what? Let me know what you think. 

Davy

Same Place One Year Ago

We are having a great little revival at Amazing Grace in Atwater, California. We love being here with Pastor Jared Burris and all of his fine folks. They are super great people and wonderful long time friends.

Odie reminded me that we were here for revival and the new church dedication exactly one year ago. The dedication service was on October 25th and the week long revival closed on the 26th. HERE and HERE are pictures from the revival and you can see pictures from the dedication service HERE and HERE.

In some ways it is hard to believe that it has been a year since the dedication service. That was a wonderful day and it will always be a highlight in our lives. I was so sick that day but the Spirit of God was so amazing and He felt so close that day. It was a very memorable day and week.

Looking through those pictures I saw some that Kelly Jo took in Kings Canyon National Park. Regan Morris visited us that week and Kelly Jo and Odie took her to see a few of the big Sequoias on the way to the airport. They went early in the morning and captured the light perfectly.

This is one of the pictures below and HERE are a few more posted that week.

One of the reasons we write this blog on an almost daily basis is so we can record details of trips, revivals, meals, bus repairs and friends in a searchable format. It is amazing how many times we need to know something and we search the blog because we know we wrote about it. Looking at the pictures is an extra bonus. 

That is how this post started. I searched to see if Odie was correct in her timing and she was! The posts and pictures from one year ago took us right back to that special time. I am thankful for exciting times that create wonderful memories and for a great place to keep record of them. I hope you enjoy the memories as they happen and find their way here.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

New Blog Page - Evangelism

It is time for a little housekeeping on the blog. 

I recently added to an an existing page, created a new page and I have plans to create another in the near future. You can see the pages across the top of the blog if you are viewing on a desktop of laptop. If you are viewing on a mobile device you can click on HOME above and the pages should come up for selection. Our stats show we have quite a few visits to the pages so I try to keep them current.

I added quite a bit to the Welcome to Mile Markers page. More on that in a moment.

First, the new page. It is titled Evangelism. You can trace the origin of this new page to a series of posts I wrote in February and March of 2015. The posts were, My View Of Evangelism, Evangelism - Encouraging The Local Pastor, Evangelism - Encouraging The Local Church, and Preaching the Gospel Message to The Lost.

I went back through those four posts and combined them into one page editing them to flow together a little better. I was thrilled with the good response from Pastors and others to my thoughts on evangelism and several encouraged me to bring them together in one place. Hopefully this new page accomplishes that.

I am working on a Picture page as well. We post a lot of pictures on the blog and we will do our best to continue to do so. Before boggsblogs.com we posted hundreds of pictures from 2007-2009 on our website davykellyandodie.com. We would have posted even more but the process was cumbersome and we often did not have good enough internet to get it all done. I would get everything just about in place and then I would lose the connection and all was lost.

We started the blog when we were making our second trip to Nigeria in 2009 in order to be able to communicate with folks back home a little easier and bring them up to date in a timely fashion. It turned out to be so easy that we decided to post all of our Mile Markers here. Mile Markers had been a feature on davykellyandodie.com since the beginning but it was also difficult to get things posted there with our limited connectivity.

When the blog took off davykellyandodie.com pretty much became a static information page. Eventually I will probably point that web address to this blog and the old website will go away. The main reason I have not done that sooner is I did not want to lose access to all of those pictures from the past. I have figured out how to do it and I am in the process of doing it now.

I have already transferred all the old Mile Markers from 2007-2009 onto the the bottom of the Welcome to Mile Markers page above. I do not know how many might be interested in reading all the old happenings from those years but the information is preserved and available if you want it. I know I am glad to have access to it. I thought most of that was lost.

That pretty much covers all the blog news. Please take time to peek at the new information and let us know what you think. I am also copying the Evangelism information below in this post. I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

Davy


Evangelism

I recently wrote the following about evangelizing.

I am always thrilled and amazed that Pastors keep calling and asking us into their churches to minister to their people. What an awesome privilege to preach the Word of God. It is also a privilege and honor to be entrusted with the responsibility of ministering in another man's pulpit. 

That paragraph set me to thinking. We really do love what we do. I love to preach the Word of God. We love to sing. We love to minister the love of God to people exactly where they are with the message of the Gospel. I love to share good news with folks that are constantly bombarded with bad news.

They say if you love what you do then you never really work a day in your life. I do not know who "they" are and "they" might have been making a slight exaggeration but I get the point.

I spent quite a few years in secular employment.

I have worked in various forms of construction both commercial and residential. 

I have worked in two different GM factories for a total of 8 years. In one GM factory I worked the majority of the time as a job setter and operator on high speed punch presses.

In the second GM factory I worked on various assembly lines where we made Chevy Blazers, GMC Envoys and Oldsmobile Bravadas. Most of my years there were spent in tire and wheel, final assembly and the interior trim department. 

I also worked at another small factory, tried my had at selling insurance (Became totally convinced I am NOT a salesman), as a trim carpenter and one of my favorite jobs but also lowest paying jobs was working at Kmart.

Through most of those years I also worked on the side doing residential electric work and also other construction.

My high school job was in the kitchen of a nursing home. The first few months of married life I was a laborer for a carpet layer and an electrical contractor before I was hired at GM.

I mostly enjoyed going to work. I was thankful for every day I had a place to go and do something that somebody felt was worth paying me to do. We have had some thin times when jobs were hard to find and I was especially thankful to be working no matter how low the pay was.

Many of those years I worked a lot of hours each week. Most of the time I was working two jobs or working one job and doing side work as well. For one thing, we needed the money to pay the bills and keep our family afloat. In addition to that, it was always satisfying to feel tired at the end of a long day or at the end of an 80 hour week and know that I had accomplished something useful AND I was providing for my family too.

But in the end, it was just work. These were just jobs. They provided means for us to live and to give. I was thankful to God for every day I could work. Kelly Jo and I knelt down at the couch many times early in the morning and thanked God for a job to go to while asking him to help me with specific challenges I was facing on the job at the time. But they were just jobs, a means to an end.

When the call came from Wichita asking me to leave GM and Pastor a church I thought it over about two minutes. In some ways it was the hardest decision I had ever made but I KNEW I must go. I would not have went without the Lord's direction but I sensed His direction from that first moment.

I gave that wonderful little church my very best. I may not have been a great Pastor, I will leave that determination to somebody else, but I intended to be the very best Pastor I could be. I loved it and lived it from day one. Those years were not without trial and test but the overwhelming joy of working for God in the pastorate far outweighed all of the challenges.

When the door opened for us to enter evangelism nearly four years later in January 2003, we gave that all we had too. For over twelve years we have had the awesome privilege to preach revivals all over the USA and in other countries. Pastors have invited us to their churches and allowed us the opportunity to sing and preach the everlasting Gospel to their people. We count that an amazing honor.

God has blessed us to work with some of the best men in the world. We have preached for some of the best Pastors in the world and worked right along side awesome Missionaries and tremendous Evangelists. God has done our family a great kindness by surrounding us with great Godly men.

We have watched God save people right out of their sin, sanctify, fill with the Holy Ghost, heal and encourage. We have witnessed as He changed lives, restored marriages, renewed relationships, brought children back home and revitalized congregations.

The Lord has allowed us to be a part in the lives of many wonderful saints of God. We have married them, dedicated their babies and walked beside them as they laid their loved ones in the ground. We have cried with them at the hospital, prayed them through at the jail house and shouted the victory with them in the church house.

Wow! What a marvelous, wonderful, phenomenal vocation! 

Is evangelism work? Is what we do tiring? Is it hard?

Physically, these twelve plus years have been the hardest in my life. But you know what "they" say. No, not "they", I say, IF you love what you do then you never really work a day in your life.

We love what God has given us to do that much. We really do love it. I honestly want to be faithful in evangelism. There is no sense giving our lives to something and then NOT being effective now and in the long term. May He help us to do it faithfully and to do it well.

What Does Being A Faithful and Effective Evangelist Look Like?

Our family has operated with three deliberate objectives. There are three things that we purpose to do in every revival, every camp meeting and every church where we minister in any capacity. These three things do not always happen in a particular order but when we leave a revival we sincerely want to see them accomplished. 

1. In every revival we purpose to encourage the local Pastor.

Pastoring a church is hard work. It is a difficult and often thankless task. Even though the Pastor is often surrounded by people, his job can be very lonely. We see it as part of our duties as an evangelist to come along beside him and be an encouragement.

We need Pastors. I know some folks that do not believe they need a Pastor but they are wrong about that. God gave Pastors the responsibility to teach us His Word and to shepherd our souls. God gave some Pastors! If God gave them then I need them.

I would not be in the ministry and probably would not be saved if it were not for my faithful Pastor, Bro. Bennie Sutherland. Thank God that he preached the Word of God without fear or favor and poured in the right amount of law and grace when I needed it.

Also there would not be local churches for me to preach in and for us to sing in if it were not for God called Pastors that give their lives to reach souls and keep churches afloat. So it is fair and just to say that I would not have an a ministry as an evangelist if it were not for local Pastors all over the USA. Thank God for the local Pastors.

We have some hard and fast rules when it comes to conducting ourselves properly when it concerns Pastors of churches where we are preaching. You might say it is our ethical frame work.

The Pastor is the Pastor. I am not the Pastor. I follow the Pastor's lead. Although I have a great working relationship with Pastors and I am free to "obey God" in their churches, I purpose to work within the bounds of his authority and not mine own.

We do not usurp the Pastor's authority in the services or out of church. We are under his authority and I often communicate that to the church from the pulpit. I do not only say it, we model our genuine submission to his authority in front of his folks.

We do not disrespect the local Pastor. In fact we do our best to elevate him in the eyes of his people. We constantly affirm him and his leadership in the local church.

We do not slam the local Pastor while we are there or after we leave. There may be things that I think I would do differently if I were the Pastor but I am not the Pastor and my duty is to keep my big mouth shut. We take that responsibility very seriously.

Many Pastors are bi-vocational and are not available during the day but we spend time with the local Pastor when possible and befriend him and his family. Many of them desire and even need the friendship of an evangelist and we are determined to show ourselves friendly.

Encouraging the Pastor extends to being an encouragement to his wife and his children. People have been so kind to Odie and we intend to pay that kindness forward to the kids of Pastors in every church where we minister.

This is only one facet of my vision and approach to evangelism but it is a very important part of it. Pastors are not perfect and we all know that. But God gave them to us for our own good. Encouraging them on purpose is a large part of what evangelists or at least this evangelist is called to do.

In every revival we purpose to encourage the local Pastor.

That is one of the three things we purpose to deliberately accomplish in every revival. The second is

2. In every revival we purpose to encourage and equip the local church.

We are blessed and have been blessed for many years to be asked to minister in hundreds of churches all over the USA and in other countries. We have been in small churches and big churches, quiet churches and boisterous churches, new churches and old churches, fervent churches and cold churches, conservative churches and liberal churches. The list goes on and on.

People are different all over and churches are too. Just when we think we have seen it all, we are blown away by some other way of doing things and often that way is better than we have experienced before. 

Keep that in mind. We know how we would do it. We know how it has always been done. We know what works. But God has proven to me over and over that there are lots of things I do NOT know.

There are as many different ways of "having" church as there are churches. However there is one constant in absolutely every church we go into. That one thing is people are hurting and need encouragement from God's Word and comfort from God's Spirit. 

I am willing to concede that as I age and as I experience life and mature in the ministry I am more sensitive toward people that are hurting and even more perceptive of people that are hurting but I do not think that is all of it. I believe people are hurting now more than ever.

Trouble and hurt are as certain as life itself. As long as you are alive, your days will contain a boat load of surprises. A lot of those surprises will turn you on your head in a moment's time.

We have preached revivals when folks were in many different forms of trouble, heartache and loss. We have been there within days of funerals, marriage separations, divorce, job loss and other unspeakable tragedies. We have prayed with parents weeping over wayward children, children grieving over aging parents and men and women bound by alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling and all kinds of other addictions.

We have cried with young parents as they surrendered their new baby back into the hands of God. We understood some of that hurt because we have been those young parents and we have stood in that same place.

We have looked into eyes full of bitterness and hate of people that want desperately to forgive and to be forgiven. They have been used, abused and misused until they are so confused they use most of their energy lashing out at and hurting others instead of reaching out for help.

I know that within myself I have nothing to offer any of these hurting people. I have nothing of eternal value to give them. But I know the Word of God speaking and the Spirit of God working are exactly what hurting people need in the middle of their darkest hour. I am called to give them the Word and lead them into the presence of God. God will do the rest!

One time several years ago we were scheduled to preach a revival in a place we had been several times before. The revival had been scheduled for a year. Two weeks before the scheduled revival the Pastor's wife died suddenly. In the midst of offering condolences and comfort to my dear Pastor friend I mentioned I thought it would be best if we postponed revival. I thought my offer to cancel revival would relieve him of the burden of having to cancel me so close to revival.

I thought the last thing in the world he would want or need was a preacher and his family showing up to preach revival. His life long companion was gone. She had been a tremendous helpmate to him in ministry and I figured he would need some time to process all of the events, recover from the shock and then get back into the flow of having church.

My logical and well thought out conclusion could not have been more wrong. He immediately and forcefully let me know that he had not thought about canceling revival for one second. In fact he said that he and his church needed revival right at that moment more than they had in the history of the church.

I called my Pastor and ask him what I should do. He said, "Davy, Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted. If you have ever had a grand opportunity to fulfill that part of the ministry it is in this situation. If you go in there and help that Pastor and his people in their time of greatest need, they will never forget it and they will always love you."

He was exactly right. We went and we sang and we preached and we cried and we prayed. God gave us one of the best revivals we have ever had. It was a wonderful opportunity to exercise one of my deliberate objectives in revival and do my best to encourage the local church while I am there.

That same thing is duplicated in a dozen ways every week in every church. We walk in knowing nothing of what is going on in people's lives most of the time. But we are determined to be an instrument in the hand of God to serve that congregation heaping helpings of love and encouragement from God's Word.

That is not to say that my preaching is always exactly what every person in the church wants to hear. Sometimes I must give correction from God's Word or preach of judgement to come and even God's final wrath for the sinner. I must warn of the dangers of sin, the pull of the world and the tragedy of compromise.

But when the preaching is over I want those people to know that I love them and I am pulling for them and more importantly that God loves them and is pulling for them. I do not intend to leave them with doom and gloom as I have seen others do. No, after preaching the doom and gloom I want to point them to the light! God is your help! God is your strength! God is your salvation!

I want to encourage the local church. That is what I feel like this evangelist is called to do.

In every revival we purpose to encourage the local Pastor.

In every revival we purpose to encourage the local church.

Those are two of the things we purpose to do in every revival, every camp meeting and every church where we are privileged to minister. The third is

3. In every revival we purpose to give the Gospel message to the lost.

As I mentioned earlier these three things that we purpose to do in every revival do not always happen in a particular order but when we leave a revival we sincerely want to see them accomplished. I earnestly desire to be an encouragement to the local Pastor AND to the local church. I want to leave them blessed in their walk with the Lord and strengthened by the Word of God.

As much as those two objectives are set firmly in our goals, there is also an abiding thirst within us to see men and women hear the Gospel, come to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of their sins and be born again into the kingdom and family of God. We are passionate about winning people to Christ.

Millions are bound by sin and satan. The chains of sin have fastened them tight and they can not break free no matter how hard they try. The fun of sin is long gone and the pain of sin has taken its place. There is no earthly remedy for sin.

But I know the cure for sin. I know how the brokenhearted can be healed. I know how the captives can find deliverance. I know who can give sight to the spiritually blind and will set at liberty them that are bruised. I know the remedy for sin.

His name is Jesus! His name is Jesus! Jesus came to earth to seek and to save that which was lost! 

I Timothy 1:14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

 15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Christ has the power to set men free. He offers deliverance, forgiveness and healing. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I have the wonderful privilege to proclaim that message from pulpits across America and other parts of the world hundreds of times each and every year. I am blessed to stand every night and proclaim with the authority of God's Word that God is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

The Gospel, the good news, must be told far and wide as often as necessary until all have heard. I intend to deliberately tell that message in every revival, camp meeting, tent revival and every church where we are called upon to minister.

I have in over 30 years of preaching watched many hundreds of people walk the opposite direction when I have given the Gospel message. Some have outright rejected the message and others have chosen to wait for a convenient time. It is disappointing to see that happen but I will do my best to give the message and leave the results up to God.

I have seen many other folks turn and repent and watched God totally and radically change their lives in response to the Gospel message. Recently I heard of a young lady that prayed for salvation in a revival last year. Her life was in quite a mess and some may have doubted if she was even serious. She is saved today. Her husband is saved today and many from their families are saved today! Praise God! I think I will preach on! 

I desperately desire to preach the Gospel message to the lost. That is what I feel this evangelist is called to do!

In every revival we purpose to encourage the local Pastor.

In every revival we purpose to encourage the local church.

In every revival we purpose to give the Gospel message to the lost.

I may never preach to 100,000 in one place. I may never walk across the largest platforms or preach in the largest churches, but if I can accomplish those three goals in the churches and cities that God has opened to me then I will be the evangelist God called me to be.

Davy

He Wouldn't Stay Dead - Easter 2015

Today's post is a special Easter post. Tune in tomorrow for a View Out The Front Window that normally appears on Sunday.

In what is becoming an Easter tradition, I am re-posting a great poem on this beautiful Resurrection Sunday. I hope you enjoy it!

I have quoted this poem in my preaching for many, many years and plan to quote it again today. It was written by a Baptist preacher named Willard G. Thomas from Georgia. I heard him quote it in person long years ago. It spoke to me then and it speaks to me every time I think of it. I love this poem. I added the last stanza when I started quoting it myself.

May God bless you on this Easter. If you are not a Christian, may you be moved by the fact that Jesus Christ died for you and then got up out of the grave for you as well. Thank God He arose!

Davy

He Wouldn’t Stay Dead

by:Willard G. Thomas

They laid His body in Joseph’s new tomb

And filled His disciples with sorrow and gloom

They did not remember what He had said

That He would die, but He wouldn’t stay dead

Mary came at the break of day

And found the stone was rolled away

She saw an angel and in terror fled

And told His disciples that He didn’t stay dead

In that cold dark tomb He would not stay

He conquered death and walked away

And now that old grave has lost it’s fear and dread

He lives again! He wouldn’t stay dead

Full atonement and pardon were made

And forever the sin debt was marked fully paid

The price was His blood as it flowed crimson red

And I’m thankful today that He didn’t stay dead!

Let’s go to our churches and cry aloud

Let’s go to the marketplace and talk to the crowd

Let’s go to the mission fields that lie up ahead

And tell the whole world that He didn’t stay dead!

Because if Jesus Christ had only died

Then the gulf between us and God would still be wide

But thank God He did what He said

He got up out of the ground, He couldn’t stay dead!

Last Stanza by Davy Boggs