My heritage is one of power.  As a young man, I was seeking after power.  I was coveting these gifts.  I was so blessed as a young man to sit at the feet of some of these great men.  Tragically, as I was out west there a couple of weeks ago, I drove by the site where Bethany Bible College was.  It’s no longer there.  I’ve been here a long time now, but I would go out for years, and when I had the opportunity, I would drive over Highway 17 from Los Gatos and from the San Francisco area, come down through and drive up over 17.  As soon as you came over the hill at 17, you’d drive down, and you would see the name “Bethany Bible College” on the sign.  Then a few years later, I came over the mountain and I looked, and it said, “Bethany College.”  Anybody catch what was missing?  And a few years later, I drove over the mountain and came down, and it was gone.  Not the sign—the school.

There was one other visit prior to that.  I stopped on campus, and I stopped a few young men, introduced myself and told them that I was a student there in 1967—and it doesn’t even register.  I was just talking to some young kids last week at the college that I played at, and I was telling them, I said, “Well, I played here in 1965,” and it was like….  I could have said “1865”; it would have made the same…  “Did they play football then?”  And every—this was just prior to the sign disappearing and the college disappearing—every student that I spoke to was majoring in psychology.  Bethany was the foremost producer of pastors and missionaries in the Assemblies of God, and it doesn’t even exist anymore.  And you go to many Pentecostal churches, many Assemblies of God churches, and we haven’t been with the Assemblies of God now for a long time, probably 25 years or more—I don’t even know what it is.  We didn’t leave because of any breech over doctrine.  In fact, I told the officials as we were actually giving our credentials back, as I sat with these men, and I told them, I said, “My reason for leaving is that you’re no longer preaching the doctrine that I learned from P.C. Nelson.”  He was the one that put together the general council statement of faith.

Some of you’ve read P.C. Nelson’s book; we’ve used it here as a basic teaching over the years.  And that was one of the reasons, and there are a number of others.  The fact that they were restraining what the Holy Spirit was doing through our missionary outreach, and a couple of other items.  What I am talking about is our heritage.  For so long as a young man, God had put me in a number of great opportunities through the years to minister the gospel, and I can always remember: I was the kid, so one of my favorite verses was, “Let no man despise thy youth…” (1 Timothy 4:12).  That’s still one of my favorite verses, because I’m a firm believer you can be young on the inside, praise God!

I saw the signs and wonders.  I saw God do it through my own hands.  We’ve seen the dead raised.  I’m not talking about somebody passed out and came back to, and they say, “Oh, they raised…”  I’m not talking about that.  I’m talking about clinically, test after test, proven brain-dead, and instantly restored to wholeness, and within thirty days, back preaching the gospel again.  As an aneurism caused that blood to fill this guy’s head and twisted his spinal column, the central nervous system.  They took a quick little cutter just like you’d use on your cars or anything else, and cut a square out of his brain so that it would relieve the pressure.  I still have the X-rays in my office.  And God came into that place, hallelujah! And I could share more, and many of you’ve been here long and heard many of the stories.

We love God’s people, God’s church.  We’ve had miracles here in the last year or so—I’ve been doing this a long time now—that are greater than some testimonies that were given at Azusa street of which men made their lifetime ministry off of one healing and went around and promoted it and preached it and shared the testimony, and they always had a place to speak because they had this miracle that they could share.  People are drawn to that.  We did a teaching on it, in fact, not too long ago, and the fact that it’s legitimate that these signs are there to indicate that Jesus was sent of the Father.  They’re verifiable demonstrations that Jesus is alive from the dead, praise God!  That it’s His name and faith in His name, praise God, that’s brought about these healings, these raisings from the dead, the transformation of people’s lives, which is the greatest miracle as they become regenerated and become new creatures in Jesus Christ, and old things pass away, all things become new, hallelujah!  Our heritage.