My mother's childhood was so sweet, I understand.  She lived 
        across from her Grandfather and Grandmother Dickson and, oh,  how 
        they  did love her.  She looks back and remembers, "It  was  love 
        always.  I wasn't pampered.  It just seemed that what they  said, 
        I believed."
        
             Often her folks would be gone and would leave her at Grandpa 
        and Grandma Dickson's.  When she began to be sleepy, she would go 
        up  to  her  grandfather and say, "Pap, this  pillow  is  getting 
        heavy."  Then he would get up, fix the pillow on the round of the 
        rocker and rock her to sleep.
        
               "They  lived  what they preached,"  Mother  has  told  me.  
             "Grandpa was an old Civil War Veteran, leaving his family to 
             go   help  free  the  precious  slaves.   The  only   things 
             Grandmother  had  when  he went to war were  her  cows,  her 
             chickens, and what she could raise.  The only money she  had 
             she earned by knitting socks or stockings for other  people.  
             Her  folks,  the  Butlers, came  through  as  pioneers  from 
             Virginia  in  an old ox cart.  Grandmother was  about  three 
             years  old  when they arrived here in  Indiana.   They  were 
             truly godly people."
        
             Loran  O.  Dickson,  my  mother's father,  grew  up  in  his 
        father's blacksmith and wood shop.  He was a skilled mechanic and 
        could make almost anything in iron or wood, but everything had to 
        be just right.  He would work on one job all day to make sure  it 
        was  absolutely correct, even if he made only fifty cents on  it.  
        He was not one to put work out merely to make money, but a man to 
        do the job accurately and precisely.
        
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             I  remember waking early in the mornings to the sound of  my 
        Grandfather Dickson pounding on his anvil.  I would ask my mother 
        if  I could go down and watch him work, and sometimes  she  would 
        let  me go.  I observed him as he put the steel into the  intense 
        heat of the coals.  If he left the iron in long enough, and if it 
        got  red enough, he could do something with it.  I would see  him 
        take the iron or the steel from the forge, lay it over the anvil, 
        then  begin to pound it and shape it.  Whatever shape was  needed 
        from that metal, round or square, he could form it on the anvil.
        
             God  is  likewise wanting to fashion our lives  into  unique 
        patterns of His loveliness, but first He must find us surrendered 
        to the fire of His purpose.  There is much refining to be done in 
        us,  and,  as in my grandfather's forge, it  requires  the  fire.  
        Sometimes it is the fire of His love as we wait in secret.  Often 
        it  is  the fire of affliction.  Occasionally it is the  fire  of 
        persecution.  But God places us in the fire that we might be made 
        malleable to His higher purposes.
        
             I heard a pastor once tell a story of a godly blacksmith who 
        was  afflicted much of the time.  People would ask him, "Why  are 
        you  so afflicted?  Why are you so tried?  If God loves you,  and 
        you love God so much, why are you so tested?"
        
             And he replied, "When I reach in with my tongs and take  out 
        that red-hot steel, I can tell when I put it across the anvil and 
        strike  it the first time whether it is going to take temper  and 
        bend.   If  it won't take temper, I scrap it.  God is  trying  to 
        temper me so that I will bend easily to His purpose and won't end 
        on the scrap heap."
        
             Most people will not take the temper; they won't accept  the 
        bending; they refuse to be smitten.  Few are willing to bend from 
        self-desires to the purpose of God.  Many persons who begin  with 
        Jesus at conversion are unwilling to press on into obedience that 
        they might be shaped according to His will.  They get out of  the 
        hand  of God by going their own way, making their own plans,  and 
        arranging  their  own lives.  Few throughout the  centuries  have 
        learned the mystery
        
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        of God's divine hand molding and shaping the lives of His beloved 
        ones.
        
             Oh,  how God wants to take out of us the many  things  which 
        hinder  Him.   There is so much in a man when he  thinks  he  can 
        still do something in himself. God has revealed to me that we can 
        do  nothing but fail.  Therefore, He must refine out of  us  many 
        wrong attitudes and considerable self-reliance before we begin to 
        discover  that  we are only full of failure.   Until  we  are 
        willing  to  be  nothing, God can shape us very  little,  if  any 
                
             Grandfather  Dickson died in 1941 when I was twenty five.  I 
        cannot reminisce long about him without weeping, for he was a man 
        tall in nobility.  He was a man of great meekness.  Most persons, 
        unless  they  have been thoroughly cleansed by  the  Spirit,  can 
        sometimes  become jealous or angry and rage when they  don't  get 
        their  way.   But my grandfather underwent great  suffering,  and 
        passed through situations which would break you heart if I  would 
        share  them; yet, he did not complain or murmur.  As a boy I  can 
        remember  hauling gravel, shucking corn, and building fence  with 
        him  while on the farm. Not once did he become angry with  me  or 
        get after me.
        
             He  was  one  of those rare men who was willing  to  go  the 
        second  mile. I can recall that after his hip had  been  crushed, 
        the doctors didn't know until too late how seriously he had  been 
        hurt.  The hip joint healed imperfectly and afterwards pained him 
        severely  at almost every step.  Yet, when Joyce Lee,  our  first 
        daughter,  was born and my wife was recuperating in her  parents' 
        home, Grandfather Dickson came to Taylor University to stay  with 
        me  and assist me.  We lived in a little apartment upstairs,  and 
        he climbed those steps through much pain in that injured hip with 
        very little said about it.
        
             You see, my weeping is because of pleasant memories of a man 
        very rare in the earth.  I have seldom seen his like in all of my 
        travels.  My father said of Loran O. Dickson and his
        
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        brother, Tom--because of the gracious spirit in their lives--that 
        they  stood head and shoulders above other men in the  community.  
        He has told me many times, "I wish I had been more  understanding 
        of  my  father-in-law.  He was a bigger, greater man than  I  was 
        able to esteem at that time."
        
             It  was  his  sister, Aunt Libb, who was  such  a  gracious, 
        gentle,  compassionate woman.  She and her husband, Uncle  Billy, 
        loved  me  very much from the time I was first  born.   I  recall 
        Uncle Billy putting on a record of an old hymn:  "How tedious and 
        tasteless  the  hours."  The memory of this song  lingers  in  my 
        heart over the years--
        
                    "How tedious and tasteless the hours
                     When Jesus no longer I see:
                     Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers
                     Have all lost their sweetness to me.
                     The mid-summer sun shines but dim,
                     The fields strive in vain to look gay;
                     But when I am happy in Him,
                     December's as pleasant as May." 
                                         -Words by John Newton, 1725-1807
        
             He  would sit in the old chair as this precious  hymn  would 
        play  and tears would course from his kind eyes, over  his  round 
        cheeks, and drop into his lap.
        
             As  I  mentioned  earlier,  my  mother's  mother,  Elizabeth 
        Dickson,  was  an  equally unique  and  gifted  individual.   Her 
        parents  came from near Cincinnati, Ohio.  Her father`s  parents, 
        the Clarks, were religious people.  My great-grandfather Clark, a 
        genuine  and humble person, did daily work on the  farm.   Great-
        grandmother  Clark was an orphan girl.  Her mother died when  she 
        was  a baby, so she was passed from one home to another until  my 
        great-grandfather married her.  She was a step-mother to his  six 
        children.   Elizabeth  often felt that  Grandfather  Clark's  six 
        children loved Grandmother Clark as much as the children of their 
        own marriage.  Great tenderness was in her life.
        
             Elizabeth  Clark Dickson was gifted in caring for the  sick.  
        She not only cared for her own family, she was called into
        
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        different homes around the community to help in time of sickness.  
        In fact, families would often ask for "Lizzie" before they  would 
        call  a doctor, so confident were they of her skills.  "She  just 
        seemed  to  know what to do," it was said of her.  She  was  with 
        many  women when they gave birth to their children.  "I  used  to 
        wonder where she had gone when I got up in the morning,"   Mother 
        tells me.  "I would get up and find her gone, only to discover  a 
        little  later that a tiny baby had come to live  at  `so-and-so's 
        house'."
        
             Lizzie  had  the ability to go into a home and  simply  take 
        over  all  the responsibilities.  It didn't seem  to  upset  her.  
        Years  later, when my father was her son-in-law, he  often  said, 
        "If Grandma was there, everything was alright.  I didn't have any 
        worries when she was present.  She was just like my own  mother."  
        Elizabeth was a woman of faith, of integrity, of service--a woman 
        of sharing. 
        
             Her   last   activity  before  her  mortal   sickness   was, 
        appropriately, in service to others. While sweeping the church on 
        a Wednesday evening in preparation for worship, she  unexpectedly 
        had a severe gall bladder attack.  Thursday they took her to  the 
        hospital,  but at first her fever was much too high for  surgery.  
        When they were finally able to operate, there was little that the 
        physicians could do, for her gall bladder had burst.
        
             The  pain was intense, but she never complained.   When  the 
        doctor  would  come to inquire of her condition, she  would  say, 
        "You  have other patients to see about.  Don't worry  about  me."  
        The doctors and nurses in that hospital concurred that she  dwelt 
        in  the  areas  of outstanding faith and nobility.   One  of  the 
        leading  surgeons  of that time remarked that he had  never  seen 
        anyone  like my grandmother Dickson, for she was  always  wanting 
        him to help somebody else rather than to attend to her.
        
             When  Elizabeth was dying my mother was beside her,  holding 
        her hand.  Grandmother had been so weak she could
        
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        hardly move her arms, but suddenly she raised her arms and  said, 
        "Oh, child!--Child, there is Jesus!"
        
             Amazed, my mother asked, "Mother, do you see Jesus?"
        
             "Oh, yes," she answered, "just as plain as I see you.  He is 
        beautiful!  Look right up there.  Jesus is here!  Oh--there is  a 
        light  in  The  Valley  of Death.  I see  Jesus,  Child!   He  is 
        wonderful.   I  can  see now why all earthly  things  don't  mean 
        anything,"   she told my mother.  "I see now why you didn't  want 
        to  work in all those organizations," (for my mother had  had  an 
        unusual  experience with God some time before this and  had  felt 
        led  to withdraw from several organizations of men).  "Oh, I  can 
        see Jesus!  He is marvelous!"
        
             While  my grandmother was dying, she was privileged  to  see 
        Jesus.   When you can see Jesus, all these earthly  things  don't 
        mean  a  snap of the fingers.  The only thing that  is  going  to 
        matter  is whether Jesus Christ has been first in your life;  and 
        He  will  mean so much more to you at death than I can  tell  you 
        now.
        
             And yet, as I say these words--even as I am speaking them--I 
        know  that  very  few will actually hear me.  When I  am  in  the 
        pulpit  and humbly striving to declare the whole counsel  of  God 
        with  all my might, somehow I have the realization that  scarcely 
        any  of  the people can hear what I am telling them.  I  will  be 
        preaching the best I know, as faithfully as I can, and while I am 
        preaching  I  can  tell that the demon powers  are  stealing  the 
        Gospel truths right out of the people's minds.
        
             When  the sermon or exhortation is ended, instead  of  being 
        contrite  in their hearts, so often the congregation talks  about 
        farms,   cars,  and  ball  games.   Instead  of  crying  out   in 
        brokenness, "Oh, Lord, I am so needy!"--they chatter about  home, 
        children,  the job, and any other thing but the will of  God  and 
        the love of Jesus.
        
             You see, beloved, my heart is broken in church after  church 
        all  across  this  country.  The people  are  precious  in  every 
        church.  They are kind and generous; they would do anything
        
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        to  help: but very few are hearing the true Christian message  of 
        self-denial,  of the cross, of trust and obedience, down deep  in 
        their  heart.   There might be one, two, or three  in  an  entire 
        congregation  who  are getting the message of  true  Christianity 
        inside the heart.
        
             If dear ones were getting the message, they would be  heart-
        broken.   They would be weeping and crying.  This is a fact.   My 
        heart  weeps  when I see how lost the world is and  how  far  the 
        church  is from God's will.  Jesus said, "Blessed are they that
        mourn, for they shall be comforted." But the professed church
        has this in reverse: after a man of God preaches, there is  often
        laughter, light conversation, and joking among ourselves instead
        of repentant tears. It seems that some are saying, "Blessed is the
        man who has a hi-ho time and is able to get the boys to laugh."
        
             Oh,  my friends!  Jesus cried out to His age and  almost  no 
        one among the church leaders heard Him.  Even the handful of  His 
        closest  followers, who observed mighty miracles day  after  day, 
        fell asleep when it came to the hour when Jesus most needed them.
        
             And Jesus witnesses to me that the professed church today is 
        spiritually three times more asleep than the apostles were in the 
        Garden  of  Gethsemane.  Think of that!--In  about  all  churches 
        today we are three times more asleep than the apostles were  when 
        Jesus needed them most.
        
             I  am so thankful that my grandmother had a heart  awake  to 
        the life of Christ so that she could see Jesus as she was leaving 
        this earth.  Praise the Lord.
        
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