The Testimony of Gordon Lilly

Rev. & Mrs. Gordon Lilly

I, Gordon Lilly, will forever be grateful for the saving, sanctifying and keeping grace of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I praise God for allowing me to be born into a Christian home where Christ and His Church were first place at all times. I cannot remember a time when work took priority over the church. I grew up on a farm where the work never seemed to be done. However, that did not keep our family from attending church. The word vacation was not in my father’s vocabulary. We did, however, observe the Lord’s Day religiously. On Sunday the field work stopped, although the cows were milked morning and night and the other farm animals were fed and watered. We were in church Sunday AM and PM and back in church on Wednesday night and every other night when extended evangelistic meetings were scheduled for one to two weeks. Every time the church door was open we were there. Only Sunday afternoons were rest times.

The only thing close to entertainment was listening to the radio. My father listened to little except the radio preachers, the news and farm reports. Radio gospel messages were a constant companion while I was growing up, whether in the house or in the barn. Many mornings I awoke to Mrs. D Howard Cadle singing “Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?” There was no place to hide from God’s influence. I must admit, that on the sly, I tried to listen to the Detroit Tiger’s baseball games. It was mostly futile because the radio stations were too distant to come in clearly. Some weekday nights I was able to listen to “The Lone Ranger,” and “Sky King” before father came in from his work. When he did come in the radio dial belonged to him.

I believe every child is born with a sin nature which is the cause of the wandering of every prodigal son or daughter from the things of God. My parents made heroic efforts to keep worldly influences from drawing my heart from God. I have said, in humor, “My mother was almost omniscient in detecting and heading off the sin in me.” PTL! However, because of the indwelling sin nature, I needed to be saved and was saved as a young child. I soon discovered, by experience, what the Apostle Paul described in Romans as the inability to do all he should and the inability to refrain from all he should. He then went on to describe a victorious life in Christ lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. As a young person, I was not always victorious, nor did I love Jesus with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

I had heard the message of holiness all my life and was fully convinced of the validity of the theology. Three texts that I heard preached over and over were:

1. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

2. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification . . . .

(I Thessalonians 4:3)

3. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). This text rings in my memory. I can still hear Dr Kenneth Geiger preaching it at Prairie Street Camp in Indiana.

I was a member and traveled with the Helmsmen Quartet from Bethel College located in Mishawaka Indiana. One summer while the quartet was at the Ludlow Falls Camp in Ohio, the Holy Spirit convicted my heart of my spiritual need. The quartet was sleeping in a tent some distance from the tabernacle. Early one morning when I awoke I was under deep conviction and in the quietness of my heart I cried, “Oh God, I need you.” With that cry, the sanctifying power of God sent a deep settled peace into my soul. Previously all my spiritual striving had left me needy, but now the power of God filled and produced a victorious life which has held me steady for over 50 years. In a moment of time God made a radical change in my heart’s desires. Yes, maturity and growth were still needed and still is. By God’s grace I expect it to continue. About 20 years later I returned to Ludlow Falls Camp and was delighted to find a little prayer chapel had been built on the spot where the tent in which I was sanctified was pitched. PTL!

I am painfully aware that many who have professed the experience of sanctification have not exhibited a sanctified life. Hypocrites have always dwelt with the saints. The tares have always grown with the wheat. Only God can separate them at the end of the age. The dust had hardly settled from Pentecost when Anaias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. They came under judgment in order to keep the church pure. The failure of Anaias and Sapphira or the failure of any professed saint does not disprove the clear command of Scripture to be holy; the essence of which is loving God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. Peter’s recounting of what happened at Pentecost was that their hearts were “purified by faith” (Acts 15:9). The evidence of a drastic change in Peter between John 18 and Act 2 cannot be denied. In Peter’s own words his heart was “purified by faith.” Nothing else can explain the change of a coward’s heart into a martyr’s heart. I pray that Pentecostal purity and power will return to the church and that hearts will again be “purified by faith.” If Peter’s heart was not cleansed and changed by faith he was deceived as to what took place.

In the Holy Bible I read of a God who is Holy and commands His people to be Holy. The closing chapter of the Word warns that nothing unclean will enter the Holy City and further warns that to add or take away from the Word is to forfeit our right to the Tree of Life and our right to the Holy City. Our names will also be removed from the Holy Book where the names of the saints, the Holy Ones, are recorded.