PASTORS JACK & IRMA WILLIAMS, PENTECOSTAL MINISTERS IN HAZELTON, BC FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS. THEY GAVE THEMSEVES FREELY, WHILE HE WORKED ON THE GREEN CHAIN TO SUPPORT THE MINISTRY! - Pastor Max Solbrekken
SAME TUNE, DIFFERENT WORDS!
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
When Donna and I visited with the Reverend Jack Williams and his sister Marge in Nanaimo, B.C. on April, 2005 he was as energetic and entertaining as always. He invited us to have lunch with them and some of his friends at the Lodge where he resides.
Although he was 95 years of age, he had a hard time convincing them that he should be allowed to move in. They thought that he was far too active and fit to occupy space among them! Jack has a wonderful memory and recited several poems he used when he spoke to various senior citizen audiences. When I told him that I enjoyed the senior version of the song ‘Jesus Loves Me’, he wrote it out for me.
JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW
Jesus loves me this I know, though my hair is white as snow, Though my sight is growing dim, Still He bids me trust in Him. Though my steps are.. oh so slow, With my hand in His I”ll go. On through life, let come what may, He’ll be there to lead the way. Though I am no longer young, I have much, which He’s begun,
Let me serve Christ with a smile, Go with others the extra mile. When the night is dark and long, In my heart He puts a song, Telling me in words so clear, “Have no fear, for I am here!”
When my work on earth is done, and life’s victories have been won. He will take me home above, Then I’ll understand His love. I love Jesus, does He know, Have I ever told Him so?Jesus loves to hear me say, that I love Him every day!
Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me…the Bible tells me so!
Unfortunately, I do not know the author of this beautiful rendition of the children’s song we all love so much! The beauty and grandeur of the Gospel is that God cares for us all whether we are very young or very old or somewhere in between! Praise His holy name forever!
ANOTHER OF PASTOR JACK'S POEMS
Here is another of Jack’s beautiful poems that encourages us not to capitulate to the thought that we are no longer relevant or productive or needed in this world, after we have begun collecting our ‘old-age pension’.
We have a lot more to give to our children, grandchildren, friends and others, who desperately need the saving power of Jesus’ blood and the divine healing that He purchased for us on Pilate’s Whipping Pole and Calvary’s old rugged Cross!
NOT GROWING OLD
By John E. Roberts
They say that I am growing old; I’ve heard them tell it times untold, In language plain and bold …But I am NOT growing old!
This frail old shell in which I dwell, Is growing old, I know full well…
But I am not the shell. What if my hair is turning grey? Grey hairs are honourable they say. What if my eyesight’s growing dim? I can still see to follow Him, Who sacrificed His life for me, Upon the cross of Calvary.
What should I care if Time’s old plow, Has left its furrows on my brow. Another house, not made with hands, Awaits me in the Glory Land. What though I falter in my walk? What though my tongue refuse to talk? I still can tread the narrow way, I still can watch, and praise and pray,
My hearing may not be as keen, As in the past it may have been, Still, I can hear my Saviour say, In whispers soft, “This is the way.” The outward man, do what I can, To lengthen out this life’s short span, shall perish and return to dust, As everything in nature must. The inward man, the Scriptures say, Is growing stronger every day.
Then how can I be growing old, When safe within my Saviour’s fold? Ere long my soul shall fly away, And leave this tenement of clay; This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise, To meet the ‘everlasting prize’. I’ll meet you on the streets of gold, And prove that I’m not growing old.”
Speaking about growing old, Will Rogers stated: “Some people want to turn back their odometers, but I don’t. I want people to know why I look like this. I have traveled down a lot of roads and many of them weren’t paved!” Then he asked this question: “How did I get over the hill without seeing the top?”
HOW YOUNG ARE YOU?
On his 75 th birthday (Jan. 26, 1955) General Douglas MacCarthur made this outstanding statement: “Youth is not entirely a time of life – it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions…nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
“You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of the heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long you are young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old.”
Pastor T.B. Barrett, the founder of the Filadelfia Pentecostal Church in Oslo, was the man that God used to bring the Full Gospel Message to Norway. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God was spread far and wide in Scandinavia. During her last conversation with her husband before he died, his wife Lydia asked the great preacher: “And so, is Jesus here?” With a holy assurance he answered: “Yes, He is here!”
On the 75 th Anniversary of his Ordination, a Gospel Minister stated unequivocally: “God cannot stop loving us.”
Solbrekken World Mission Box 44220 RPO Garside Edmonton, AB T5V 1N6. Email: [email protected]; comehometojesus.ca; Facebook; Youtube; Donations can be made by e-Transfer; make your donation to [email protected]; May God bless you.
