As a dying drug dealer, he mustered his courage and stepped into a church. And what a miracle took place!

By Bob Irvine

I praise God for this wonderful Gospel—a Gospel that saves a down-and-outer. I had seen people saved when I was a little boy, but I never knew that Jesus died to save a sinner like me. I was a man of the underworld, and was in a pitiful condition, dying with cancer when the Lord finally reached me.

At the age of twelve, I had left my home in Texas and gone out into the “untamed” world. I was looking for excitement. After a few years, I returned home one day and found that my mother was at the point of death. I asked, “Mother, are you going to leave me?” There was a smile on her face, and her last words to me were, “Son, prepare to meet your maker.” That sent a dagger into my heart.

After my mother’s death, I went to the high-steepled churches, wanting to become a Christian. But when I told them I had come out of the underworld, that I had lived around the gambling tables and opium dens, they all said, “There is no hope for a man like you.” Those people who professed to know God, had turned their backs on me, and that put hatred and murder in my heart. From then on, I considered the men and women of the underworld my only friends.

Lived among the cowboys

I went out to Montana and lived among the wild cowboys, and together we would shoot up the town. The saloons were open all night, and men and women would stagger through the streets until the wee hours of the morning. Sin and disease got the best of me.

After a time, I moved to Seattle, Washington. There I peddled morphine and cocaine up and down old Jackson Street. For a time, I boxed and was a prizefighter. I lived around the docks, and I could be found in the lowest dives of sin. Many times I would leave those places with my fists clenched and say, “I will do better,” but I always went right back into the same old sin.

I thank God that one day I met a man who was different from all the rest. He did not talk religion to me, but he lived it before me on the job. He was a little white man, and I’m sorry to say that I cursed him and railed on him. I wanted to kill him because he was a Christian. But he never despaired of me. He only spoke good to me, and he prayed for me. One day he asked, “Brother, are you saved?” I said, “I’m a rank sinner.” He said, “Come to church and we will pray for you, and God will do something for you.” His testimony stirred me.

Cried to God for mercy

About a month later, on a Sunday morning, I was pacing up and down in my yard, and finally I mustered up enough courage to go to his church. I went to the Apostolic Faith Mission and found that those people had the old-time religion. They had a love for lost souls, and they did not bar kind, color, or creed. They didn’t even ask me my name. I wanted what they had. After the meeting, they gathered around me and began to pray. I cried to God for mercy, and He saved me! Oh, the peace and joy and happiness of another world came into my heart.

The next day at work, when I told the old gang that God had saved me, they mocked me. I told my gambling friends that God had saved me and they cursed me. But none of that moved me from what God had done in my life.

I was dying of cancer but God healed me even though I did not ask Him to. I had restitutions to make all over the country. Many of them could have landed me behind bars for years. I had even been a draft dodger during World War I, but God went before me, and I was forgiven in every case.

Later, God sanctified me and baptized me with the Holy Ghost. I can testify that the Blood of Jesus redeems from all sin. I am a witness that God does a real work in a person’s life.