Three Angels in Amsterdam
Whom Shall I Send?
Walter Beuttler

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Isaiah 6:8

Tonight, God has a problem.  Ordinarily we take our problems to God, but tonight God is taking His problem to us for God has a problem, and only you and I have the answer.  We’re going to take a look at this verse first, then we’ll go elsewhere and then we’ll come back to it.

The Lord had so impressed me with this verse.  Now I had been teaching Isaiah for many years and never saw it until the Lord began to unveil it.  That, of course, is the work of the Spirit.  What I noticed for the first time is that we have here a mission’s committee meeting of the Godhead.  We all know that we have an intimation at least of the Trinity.  Nothing is said about it, but there is a plurality here, and it is our general teaching that this is somewhat a reference to the Trinity.  It doesn’t say how many “us” there are, but at least there is a plurality.

But for the first time, I noticed the implication underneath this: the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost had a mission’s committee meeting.  I assume it is safe to say that the Father was the Chairman.  I think it was the Father who said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Now this mission’s committee of the Godhead had a problem.  The problem was to find the right kind of a man for the work that had to be done at least to me that’s obvious, They had a problem.  Apparently (I would even say obviously, but I’ll be cautious), They had surveyed the field.  I would almost like to say that They had considered some possible candidates, and after going over the whole list, so to speak (you must understand me here), They could not find their man.  It would appear that the Father, perhaps with the shrug of the shoulders, so to speak, said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us.  Who is there?”

Now what struck me so is this: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? “  The Father, the Chairman did not say,  “Whom shall I send?”  He was not looking for ministerial tourist.  He said, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”  Ah!  “Who will perform Our will?  Who will seek to do Our pleasure?  Who will build Our kingdom?  Who will go where We want them to go?”  That’s God’s problem.

One of the head men of Springfield said to me in my home one day, “Brother Beuttler, we have on average, one application a day for ministers who want endorsement to go overseas for preaching.”  And they have endorsed very few.  I think there are less than 20 that are endorsed.  “Many of them are simply interested in seeing the world, taking pictures, preaching a little bit to give their trip a little justification somehow, but you go on the field, and you find they are the headaches of the missionaries.”  Un huh.  That was God’s problem then; it is God’s problem now, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us,” not for themselves.

I arrived in East Africa one day and they said, “Brother Beuttler, where is your shot gun?”

I said, “Shot gun!  I couldn’t hit a barn if I stood in front of one.”

They said, “Where are your cameras?”

“Cameras!  I don’t take any cameras.  The Lord hasn’t called me to shoot pictures, but to teach His Word.”

They said, “Boy, that’s unusual.  These fellows that come over here come loaded down with equipment.  ‘Where can I shoot some game?’  That’s uppermost in their mind.”

Now not everyone does that, be sure of that.  We’re not over generalizing now, but quite a few.  And that is God’s problem.  God needs people.  God is surveying the field and still saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us.”  Before we come to that I’d like to point out to you from the Word specifically what God is looking for: then as now, now as then.

“The Lord looked down from heaven upon Lima to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.”  Psalms 14:2

God is still looking down from heaven to see where he can find people who will understand the desire of the heart of God for men and women to seek Him.  God looks down from heaven.  His eyes rove over the earth to see if he can find anyone anywhere that will understand the desire of the heart of God to seek Him.

“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.”  Isaiah 59:16

Here we could easily use an hour, but I won’t do it.  God is still looking over the field to see where He can find someone to be an intercessor in the interests of the kingdom of God.  Students, intercession in the Spirit is a ministry, a very important ministry, which is being lost by the Pentecostal people.  Intercession is becoming an unknown thing among many of God’s people.  That is true.  They much rather watch “I Love Lucy” than to give themselves to intercession in the Spirit of God.  And yet an intercessory ministry is of tremendous value.

That’s where I have a good wife.  No man has a better one than I have.  That girl knows what it is to intercede in the Spirit.  I have heard her groan in the Holy Ghost by the hour lying on the floor in intercession for the work of God.  That’s some ministry!  And God looks around to see if anybody is there who is willing to give their bodies in intercession, even to the point of groanings that cannot be uttered, where you have to groan out.  You have no words, nothing but a groan.  What a ministry!

One summer, I left Nice, France for Rome.  Very early in the morning before daybreak, we were on top of the clouds waiting for the sun to come up.  I got such an intense Spirit of intercession.  In fact, I wanted to watch the sun come up because sometimes the whole sky, as far as the eye can see, is as red as this songbook.  And I was waiting to see that, but the intercession kind of interfered, so I watched with one eye and prayed with the other, you know, kept my eyes on the horizon.  And it got so heavy; I said to the Lord, “Lord, how is it that I have to spend so much time in intercession when I’m traveling?”  That’s one reason why I travel alone.

I was not looking for an answer, I don’t think anyway, but the Lord answered me, “Because I have so few to share the burdens.”  So that’s it!  God has to put a heavier load on the few because the many can’t be bothered.  This night, God is still looking for intercessors.  In this case, He looked in vain.  I’m giving you the essential points avoiding much elaboration so we have a chance to pray and seek the Lord a bit tonight.

“And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold.”  Isaiah 63:5

Think of it! God is looking for somebody to help, to uphold.  That reminds me of Isaiah 50:4 where the prophet spoke of Christ: “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to sustain with a word him that is weary (RSV).  What a ministry, folkses!  It isn’t all sermons, and homiletics and public speaking - that has its place of course, but here is a ministry that Jesus had, “That I might know how to uphold, undergird with a word him that is weary.”  What a ministry!  A word from the Lord for the needy at an appropriate time is a ministry.

Some years ago I was undergoing surgery for cancer for the second time, and things did not look good at all.  In fact, the doctor had given up hope and I could tell the way he and Wife were talking that there wasn’t a chance.  Later on, he admitted I was right.  Well, I lay there and I had given up hope.  I had ceased to have any will to live.  I didn’t want to live any longer.  Now that’s bad when you’re hanging in the balance.

I got a letter from one of our top men in Springfield.  He was in La Paz, Bolivia.  He never wrote me before or since.  He wrote, “Brother Beuttler, I feel impressed of the Lord to write you and to tell you what a lasting effect your ministry has had in South America.  We did not realize in Springfield what you were doing...” and so he went on.  He’s the superintendent of South America.  He said, “I want you to come back to South America as often as you can.”

When I read that letter of encouragement and commendation, hope sprang up in my heart.  It was the right word.  It wasn’t flattery.  To me, it was a life-saving word that came at the right time.  With that letter he upheld me without knowing it.  A spark got kindled in my heart.  The will to live was reborn, and when Wife walked into the room and said, “Daddy, how are you,” I said, “Elizabeth, I’m going to fly again.  I’m going to fly again.  I’m going to travel again.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Read this letter,” I answered.  Now to what extent that was crucial or not, I do not know, but I know it was a factor in giving me back the will to live and to fight for my life.  I went back to travel.  Later on, I was in trouble again, and then the Lord raised me up from the floor when I had given up all hope.  But what a word that letter was.  Students, there is a tremendous ministry, and God is looking for those who are willing to be a help, not necessarily be a big shot and have a great position.  Positions are necessary, but striving for it and conniving for it is another thing.

Now God is looking down to see if He can find anybody who is willing to be a help, willing to uphold the work of the Lord in one way or another.

“And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, but I found none.”  Ezekiel 22:30

Now I apply this principle to our present context of today.  Here God is looking for somebody to fill in a gap, to stand in the gap, to stand between man and God, to take the place of others.  You know nobody lives forever, you know that of course, and God needs people to take the place of others.  Someday Brother Spencer will not be around and somebody has to take his place, and these brethren, and mine.  I have two more round-the-world trips scheduled, one for next year, another for 1974.  By then I’ll be 70, and as far as I can foresee, it will be my last round-the-world trip.  I don’t schedule beyond that.  Would you like to take my place?  Somebody has to take the place.  I see some hands go up.  Very well!  And I’m not exaggerating at all.  I have so many openings overseas for ministry.  I have some three dozen countries on my list and I have not listed them all, and I’ll never get to all of them.  There won’t be time.  How about you?

God is having a committee meeting.  He’ll need somebody to take Beuttler’s place.  Now you’ll have to accept some education for that.  And there is a price tag.  You’ll go to the King’s College, if you know what I mean.  But if you are willing to get the discipline and training from God, it is amazing what God is able to do.  Somebody will have to take my place, stand in the gap.  Somebody will have to take Brother Spencer’s place, and eventually somebody will have to take your place, but we’re not that far.

God, in His committee, is wondering who is going to take the place of the men and the women, who one after the other, leave their ministry.  I am amazed how many ministers are dropping off, going home to be with the Lord right around me, men my own age.  I get to Germany every year and walk through the graveyard there.  And brother!  I read names on the tombstones of men I grew up together from my class in school, which lets me know, “Beuttler, your turn is going to come too some of these days.”  Of course it will.  Wouldn’t you like to get yourself ready to step into somebody else’s place and fill up the gap?

For overseas ministry there seems to be no end.  I wrote to Springfield recently, the Missions Department.  I said, “I am dumbfounded at the request for ministry overseas, teaching especially.”  Now there is evangelism, but as far as I’m concerned, what I see is that a great cry is for the teaching of the people that have been saved.

I had a letter from Ceylon about two months ago.  They said, “Brother Beuttler, we had Brother Cerullo over here in an evangelistic campaign with an attendance of 50,000 people.  Many were healed, many were saved, churches were formed, but we have no teachers to teach them.  Please come over and give us some more of your teaching.”  I expect to give them, at the most, two weeks come April.  I don’t have any more time.

The Australians asked me for 3 months.  I’m giving them 1 ½ weeks.  You can’t just spread around.  The opportunity is there, but you are limited.  And that is what is troubling the heart of God tonight.  This is what They must be discussing while looking down upon Elim - such a lovely group, such a wonderful Spirit.

I wouldn’t be surprised if They wonder, “I wonder if Beuttler is going to make an impression on some of them that they’ll say with Isaiah, ‘Here am I Lord, I’ll pay the price; I’ll say yes; I’ll surrender; I’ll ask no questions; if you want me, here I’ll be.’”  Why not?

Isaiah didn’t ask questions.  He didn’t say, “What’s my pay?”  He didn’t say, “Where am I supposed to go, Hong Kong or Rio de Janeiro?”  It’s not hard to get a call to Hong Kong.  It’s another thing to get a call to Sicily, and you’ll know something.  I mustn’t take time with that.  Unsanitary conditions!  I don’t know if they’re worse anywhere else in the world, at least that’s what other missionaries say.  India maybe is worse.

You come down with a miserable case of dysentery, and you’re lucky if it’s not amebic.  You ask for the restroom and they send you out into the alley where everybody walks.  “That’s the toilet, Brother Beuttler, help yourself.”  There is nothing else but the alley.  When their own goes there, nobody pays attention, but when an American comes, everybody wants to know how they operate. And all the kids run together and stand around, and the women who hang up the laundry on the flat rooftops wonder what is going on, and they have to take in the show.  That’s right Suzy!  Your modesty dies a thousand deaths, but you’ll go through with it.  You’ll go through with it all right.  You might say, “Never me,” but you’ll go through with it.

I was told, “Brother Beuttler, you’re the only American that ever stayed for one full week.  The others cleared out within 24 hours.”  I was as sick as a dog, but I stuck to it.  No wonder God has trouble finding what He needs.  It’s one thing to have a night’s stay at a hotel in Bangkok at the expense of the airline.  TWA puts you up there.  It’s another thing to be down in Colioni, Rafadali.  Whew!  Where the houses so called are cut out of the soft limestone, just a hole in there.  The outside looks a little bit like ours, inside it’s just a hole, maybe two, and everything is in there.

You sit there eating and before you know it something wiggles between your legs-oink, oink, oink, because the pigs live there too, in the same room with everybody else.  That’s the bedroom, the kitchen, the dining room - it’s the everything, and the toilet is out in the alley.  By night you have to have a flashlight and walk like this.  (Describes walking through human dung.)  That’s the way you go to church.  That’s the way you come home.  Believe you me, you’re careful, or you’ll buy a new pair of shoes, or feel like it.

Are you ready to say, “Here am I?”  Are you ready to say, “Here am I?”  Now sometimes folk from Sicily have resented my comments, but they are true just the same, and this is no prejudice against any people.  These people are as good as gold.  They’d give the shirt off their back, but those are the conditions in the interior.  And the same goes for Calabria.  No wonder God says, “Who is there?  Whom shall I send?  Who will go?  Into whom can I put what it takes?”  It’s one thing to go as a tourist and go to Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore and Bangkok, shoot a few pictures, come home and make a big splash.  I’m not against pictures, mind you.  God asked me not to take any, but that doesn’t mean others shouldn’t.  Please do not carry this too far, but some go mainly for that and the preaching is the excuse.

I was in Germany one year ministering at a Baptist church.  It was around Christmas time and one day the Lord brought to me these words. Now these words did not come in here (stomach), these words stood without.  I cannot explain it.  I can only relate it.  I want to give you something most remarkable to show you what God is able to do with us if He has our complete submission and unquestioning cooperation.  Listen to me. It will take me 10-15 minutes, but I think it’s worth it.

Here stood the words.  I didn’t see them, but my consciousness could see the words in front of me.  Now I can’t explain that.  I couldn’t say I saw them as though I looked at them, but they were in front of me.  The words were, “Go to Amsterdam on New Year’s Day about the middle of the afternoon by air.”  This is precise, absolutely exact, nothing changed.

Here is where I was rambunctious.  I said, “Lord, I don’t want to go to Amsterdam.  I want to spend New Year’s Day with my Mother.”  I hadn’t seen her for 25 years and wanted to spend New Year’s Day with her.  Germans make a lot about New Year’s Day and Christmas Eve.

A day or so later, here were those words again, in front of me, not seeing with my eyes, but there, “Go to Amsterdam on New Year’s Day about the middle of the afternoon by air.”

I said, “Lord, I don’t want to go to Amsterdam.  I’ve never been there.  I’ve nothing to do there and I want to stay with my Mom.”  That’s terrible, isn’t it?  Well, it is.  And the Lord did it a third time.  I almost said the same thing, or thought the same thing, when I said, “Beuttler, haven’t you learned yet to obey the Lord.”

So I went to Stuttgart to go to the airlines.  I went to the Dutch Airline KLN and they told me, “Sorry, but there is no service.  We have no flight on New Year’s Day to Amsterdam.  It’s a holiday.”

I said, “Thank you.”

So I went to Swiss Air. Swiss Air said, “Sir, there is no traffic at all between Stuttgart and Amsterdam on any holiday leave alone New Year’s Day.”

I went out and stood there.  It was snowing and raining mixed, windy, miserable.  I stood out on the sidewalk and shut my eyes and said in my heart, “Father, do You know the airlines’ schedules or don’t You?”  For me it was critical.  See, I’m leaving some things out because of the time.  I have done much teaching on the Spirit, the leading of the Spirit, “Divine Guidance.”  It’s one of my standard subjects, and I should make a mistake like that?  I thought, “If I’ve made a mistake, I’m through teaching on Divine Guidance. Then I’m just not qualified.”  So I was really troubled.  I got no answer from God.

“What shall I do?” I thought, “I’m going to try the American Express.”  I will never, never forget the scene.  Let’s say this songbook was his International Airlines Guide.  That man looked, and I was in a critical place.  If I was wrong and there was no flight, I’ve had it as far as teaching others how to discern the will of God. He looked through it quietly.

He said, “You know it’s a holiday.”

I said, “I know it.”

He kept looking and said, “I’m afraid sir, no.” as he continued to look through the book. “Wait a minute, we have a special schedule in today.  My, you’re lucky! (Laughter)  There’s a special flight going from Stuttgart to Amsterdam non-stop on New Year’s Day at 4:10 in the afternoon.” When he said that, the Spirit of God in here (stomach) put on a glow.  Oh, a witness!  I knew that meant, “This is it, this is it.”

And I said to him, “That’s it, that’s it!  Do you have a seat?”

He said, “Well, we’ll find out.”  So he looked and said, “Sir, we have one seat.  Do you want it?”

I said, “I’ll take it right away.”

“$25.00” Finished, hallelujah! I was on my way.

I got to Amsterdam.  Just follow me, the details are necessary.  I got to Amsterdam and it was evening, night.  I stood there alone at the Shiffold Airport.  I didn’t know what to do.  I said, “Father, now what do You want?”  There was no answer. I said, “Father, this is Shiffold Airport, Amsterdam, Holland.”  I wanted to be sure He had the address.  “What do You want me to do?”  Nothing answered, not a thing.

Well, I couldn’t stand there all night.  I said, “Father, if You don’t show me what to do, I’m going into the city, look for a hotel and go to bed.”  That’s what I did.  I went down there and looked around.  There was a Park Hotel.  Now in those cities over there in Holland, Germany or Switzerland, any hotel will be tops.  Even a cheap hotel will be as clean as could be.  You run very little risk in those hotels in those countries, but that’s not true in all countries.  So I picked the Park Hotel.

Before I went to bed I said, “Father, unless You tell me what to do, tomorrow morning at 8:00 o’clock I’m taking a British European Airways flight to London.”  I had to go there anyway.  I waited before the Lord.  I got nothing.  I was up early in the morning and said, “Father, there is still time.  What do You want?”  God didn’t say, “Boo,” not a thing.

All right, I went out to the airport and got the flight.  I sat out there strapped in ready to take off.  At 8:00 o’clock there came an announcement, “Will all passengers please return to the airport lounge because a fog is settling over the airport making it too dangerous to take off.”

We had been sitting there about 15 minutes - freezing.  So we got out and went back.  The passengers grumbled.  I don’t remember what I did.  As I walked in through the doors into that big lobby, a strong Presence of God enveloped me.  I’m not exaggerating.  I’m weighing my words very carefully because God is listening in on me, you see.

Some things will be hard to explain, but there was a Presence that seemed all about me and at the same time penetrating me.  With it I got a strong spirit of intercession and worship mixed.  All I wanted to do was find a seat, and give myself to the ministry of the Spirit.  That’s what I did.

I was sitting there in a corner in a very comfortable chair with the Spirit of God rising up within in strong intercession, but it was mixed with worship.  It was a mixture.  I forgot or paid no attention to time.  I was preoccupied with this.  Then it dawned on me that I was still at the airport and wondered what time it was.  I looked at my watch and it was 12:00 o’clock noon.  I was there all that time engaged in intercession.  Time just flew.  I had no sense of time.

I thought, “Oh, I wonder if my flight’s left without me.”  I went over and looked out of the windows and saw that the fog was so thick that you could only see the barest outlines of the nearest planes.  The place was full of passengers.  Not a flight left; not a flight came in.  Everything was closed down tight because of the fog.

In front of me stood two men.  One apparently was an airport employee, judging from his uniform.  The other one appeared to be a passenger.  They looked out too and I stood right behind them.  The airport employee said to this man, “We don’t understand this fog.  There is no fog anywhere around Amsterdam except right over this airport shutting everything down.  We can’t understand it.”  That’s what he said. (Laughter)

At first I thought nothing of it.  I walked over to the desk and asked, “How is my flight?  When do we get out?”

They said, “Sir, we don’t expect any flights to leave today.  It’s getting later in the afternoon and it’s January 1.  We expect the fog to shut down the airport with nothing leaving before tomorrow morning.”

Then it dawned on me, “I wonder what the meaning could be of this fog.”  I dismissed it and began to rationalize.  I stood there figuring out how much money I was wasting per minute by doing nothing for the Lord at the airport.  After all, I travel with people’s gifts and you want to use that conscientiously.  Here I was doing nothing and I accused myself of wasting the people’s money by sitting around at the airport.  I think it was the devil’s trick and with that, I lost the Presence.  I became so confused.  I didn’t know what to do, whether I was coming or going - in total confusion.  Obviously I rationalized myself out of the touch of the Spirit.

So I walked around.  My seat was taken now and there was a long table like a dining table seating maybe 24 people, a dozen on each side.  I had no place else to sit down, so I walked behind the table at the corner and sat down.  I didn’t know what else to do.

As I sat there I saw a man in a black suit come up this way at the other side of the table.  He looked like a most unusual man.  The man’s bearing - he walked so erect and yet not stilted.  His face was so handsome.  His whole physical body seemed to be so, just so perfect.  I thought to myself, “Who could that man be?  I think he belongs to one of the royal families of Europe.  That’s why he walks with such a graceful, such a dignified bearing.” He walked up and sat down right across from me.

Well, I was worried about having missed God.  I shut my eyes and said in my heart, “Father, where am I?”  What I meant was, “What happened?  Where did I miss the way?  What’s wrong?  Where am I in Your will?”  For no reason that I could give you because I haven’t got any, I opened my eyes and looked at this man with his black suit.

At that moment I saw him lift a book from his lap.  I hadn’t noticed the book before.  He lifted the book from his lap and opened it as though he wanted to read.  As he opened it I saw the title of the book which said, “I’m leading you where you do not want to go.”  The man closed his book and put it back on his lap as though he had changed his mind, and I had my answer.  I know that’s strange, but folkses, it happened.  I was there.  I had my answer; “I’m leading you where you do not want to go.”

I thought, “How true.”  I didn’t want to be stuck at the airport.  I was chaffing there like the others because of the fog - nothing moving.  I didn’t want to be here.  I gave that some thought, but didn’t know what to do about it.

A male waiter came along and said, “Will you two gentlemen please leave.  We need this table to feed some passengers who had arrived at the airport.”  Their plane wasn’t leaving either.

We both got up. I started to walk this way. The man started to walk back and I stood still and looked after him. I thought, “What a man!  Who could that man be?” He looked so regal, so dignified, yet so natural, so handsome, a remarkably handsome man, a regal bearing.  I thought, “He must be one of these princes.”

You can believe what I say now or not.  Only remember one thing, “Your disbelief does not change the fact.”  Since that happened on two occasions: once to me personally, once in a public meeting where I related this, God bore witness that this man was none other than the angel of the Lord whom God had sent to the airport to bring me back into the will of God.  Now God hears what I’m saying, and God bore witness to me personally and later through a powerful utterance in tongues, interpretation.  God bore witness to a large congregation that this was indeed the angel of the Lord sent from God to the airport to bring me back into His will.

Why not?  Isn’t that in the Book?  Aren’t we saved the same yesterday, today and forever?  Didn’t the angel guide Philip on the way down to meet the Ethiopian?  I didn’t know a thing, but I know it now.

I went my way. I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me and bring me back into His will and the Presence came back, the intercession came back and the worship came back.  Oh, but I wanted to sit down in a chair and give myself to this ministry.  Now there were hundreds of people walking about that airport looking for seats.  Every seat was taken.  I don’t know how many people there were.  Amsterdam Shiffold Airport is a big airport, believe you me.  There were the people, they kept coming, but they didn’t go out and the others were waiting.

Suddenly I discovered one empty seat.  There was a little round table, an empty seat on one side and a coal black well-dressed Negro man on the opposite side.  I quickly took the seat before anybody else got it.  I think the Lord kept it open for me.  I sat down.  Right away I gave myself to the ministry of the Spirit again.

In a very few moments I was interrupted by this Negro.  I opened my eyes when I heard him say, “Sir, tell me your secret.”  Then I opened my eyes and looked at him.  I was dumbfounded.

I said to him, “What secret?”

He said, “Sir, you have a secret and I would like to know it.”

I said, “Would you tell me what secret you mean?” I didn’t know what he meant.

He said, “Sir, I have watched you all morning.  You were sitting over there in that chair in the corner for hours while I sat here watching you.  What was that light on your face?”

I wasn’t aware of a light and said, “What light?”

He said, “Sir, you were sitting over there so peaceful and there was a light on your face.  What was that light?”

I was dumbfounded.  Now I think it was something like Moses had when he came down from the mount.

He said to me, “I said to myself, ‘I wonder if that is the man who has what I am seeking.’  Sir, if you have what I am seeking, won’t you tell me the secret.”

I was still dumbfounded so I said, “But what are you seeking?” Evidently he was an educated man.

He said, “Sir, I am a businessman from East Africa, fog down like you are.  I was brought up in the Mohammedan faith, but as I grew up I became conscious of sins.  I had no peace in my heart.  I wanted my sins forgiven and true peace, but Mohammed couldn’t give it to me.  So I left the Muslim faith and tried other religions: Eastern religions, Western religions.  They all failed to give me what I want.  I gave up all religions, but I have had one prayer for many years, which I pray every day.  The prayer is, ‘Oh God, if there is a God, show me the way to true peace.’”

Then he said, “Sir, do you have the way to that peace?  Do you know the secret?  As I looked at you I thought, ‘This could be the man that has what I need.’  Sir, won’t you please tell me the secret if you have it.”

While he was speaking, the Lord put in here (spirit in stomach area) what I should say to him.  I gave him my testimony of how lonesome I was in New York, how I spent weekends crying from loneliness, because I was there for two years all by myself.  I had no friends of any kind and was afraid to strike up a friendship lest I get into something, what have you.  I told him how I found the Lord and what the Prince of Peace had done for me.  There at that busy airport, I was privileged by God to point that man to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Now then, I used the scripture twice, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”  Now remember the fog had shut down the airport tight.  They did not expect any flights to leave.  They couldn’t understand why the fog was just over the airport.  I finished and used this scripture again in closing, “Believe on the Lord J. I came to the J” when I heard from the ceiling, “Attention please, will all passengers on British European Airlines flight number so and so bound for London, go to your plane immediately.  We are leaving in 10 minutes because the fog is lifting.”  God had tied down that airport with the fog to the very moment when this man’s prayer was answered.  When it was answered, the fog lifted.  I was there and it happened.

Look at this in perspective in closing.  I was here in America at first.  This man was over in East Africa praying for years, “Oh God, if there is a God, show me the way to true peace.”  In due time, the Lord led me to Germany which I had bypassed previously.  In Germany the Lord speaks in His way, “Go to Amsterdam on New Year’s Day about the middle of the afternoon by air.”  God had brought his instrument from one continent to a second continent.  In the meantime God, in His providence, had brought that Mohammedan also to the second continent to get us together.  He knew what flight this African was taking to Amsterdam so God directs His instrument to go by air to go to the same airport.  When I flunked the thing, than God sent His angel to bring me back into the way so this man’s prayer could be answered.

The man opened up the conversation.  God let him see the glory on my face.  That’s the only explanation I have, though I wasn’t aware of it, to get this man interested and bring him in contact with me.  God had an empty seat for me in front of this man when hundreds of passengers had to stand.  He opened the conversation, and God brings to him the testimony.  When the work is done, the fog lifts, the planes went and we said goodbye.  “Goodbye brother, the Lord bless you.”  Thus did God bring to this single man the answer to his prayer in this most remarkable manner.

Students, God is engaged in a committee meeting.  He has things to be done.  He has difficult works to be performed.  He has specific objects in mind.  He needs specific individuals, not just the ordinary humdrum ecclesiastical way of doing things, but men and women led of the Spirit of God to accomplish His work.

What is God doing tonight?  Is He shrugging His shoulders saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Students, even this night God has a problem.  You have the answer.  That raises one question, “What is your answer?”