TESTIMONY OF THE CALL OF GOD
Barbara A. Massie
It took the river of God to change my life. As far as I was concerned I was serving God
the best way I knew how. I was serving God and doing what I could in every way that God would give me strength and talent,
I would serve God. But in the midst of service sometimes God calls a halt, and right in the midst of serving God you suddenly
find dryness.
The children of Israel come out from the land of Egypt, but right in the midst of doing
what they thought they were supposed to do, they found themselves in the midst of a desert. And that was alright for the first
month. But God never intended that they would go back there for forty years wandering. And sometimes in the will of God when
God brings us out from one experience and on our way into another we sometimes find ourselves in an arid desert. Sometimes
our experience, through no fault of our own that we can put our finger on anyway (not that anybody's perfect), but we sometimes
find ourselves in an arid desert where we thought there would be streams and rivers.
And in my experience, after I had gone through all my training as a nurse and gotten
to the top of the professional world, then God said, "Come out from there," and I went into Bible school. Before I went into
Bible school in south Wales, I heard the principal preach on a message and it was that: knowledge is power. And I believed
it! And in the will of God (don't forget it), I left my profession and I left everything and went into school.
And after twelve months my heart was broken. I got a lot of head knowledge. I got a whole
lot of knowledge of the Word that I hadn't before. (But deep down in my heart...) For I was passing through a wilderness way.
Many things God had sent into my life to break my heart, and God will break your heart if He's going to use you. If you're
heart's never been broken, if you've never known brokenness in your life you'll never be bread. For bread (corn), the Bible
says, has got to be broken! For bruised corn is used to feed human kind. And before you can be bread for those that are hungry
and water for them that are thirsty, there's got to be brokenness in your life.
Now the way that God took me will not necessarily be the way God will take you. For everything
that I started I finished. I started to be a preacher's daughter and we didn't have finances to go to high school so I did
it the hard way. I did it myself later. I went through nursing and all of that! But to break my heart I didn't finish school.
Now this is not for you to stop halfway; don't think that at all, but let me tell you what happened.
I had a deep hunger in my heart for the spiritual things of God. It seems to relate,
I couldn't put a finger on what I wanted. I know now what it was that I wanted. It's alright because it's history and I know
now. And I got what I wanted! But then I didn't know. And God closed the door down in south Wales because I was working as
well as in school (I was doing a professional job on weekends - Fridays and Saturdays) and I kept myself rolling that way
and that door closed. And I thought that it was the leading of the Spirit that I could not go back there. And I wanted to
go back! But this is how God lead. And I went down on my knees before the Lord and I couldn't get any answer. So I turned
back to my profession. And for six months, I couldn't explain it, I always wanted to weep and cry before the Lord.
And we'd get into the prayer meetings and we'd start praying. It wouldn't be just praying
but I'd feel a renting down here and I'd start to cry and cry and my father would say, For goodness sakes don't cry like that
the folks will think we're being hard on you or something! He was the apostle for the area but he didn't understand what this
was. And I was in this strange experience, and you know, I wasn't the weepy kind. I would have been ashamed to let anybody
see me weep. If I fell, even as a child, I wouldn't cry; maybe afterward when there wasn't anybody there, but I wouldn't cry
for anybody. No matter how bad I felt I wouldn't cry. That's a stubborn Scot for you! God did something different and I couldn't
stop it. And sometimes in the services the tears would be rolling down my cheek - and I got past being ashamed, I couldn't
stop it!
And then, God arranged that I would go back to the school in the spring to be in what
we called a reunion for the old students. And I went back there. I was the only one of the second year that came back, the
others didn't bother, and I was the farthest away. And it coincided with the coming of the men who had been around this area,
you know Fred Poole and others. And for the first time, I knew what it was to have individual ministry. Up to that time there
had been prophetic word in the church, but never directed to a personal need. And I didn't even know that God was opening
the heavens and speaking (that's why I know the hunger of lives that are seeking the Word of God).
I came to the temple where they were ministering after we go through with our services
and I saw things happening. I saw a whole row of people, about twenty-five or thirty people, that had been seeking the baptism
of the Spirit for ten, twenty, thirty and forty years(real chronics I call them, I never thought they'd ever receive - neither
did they, that's why they didn't)! And I saw them one after the other begin to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And
I saw a row of people that were deaf, suddenly receive their healing. And I saw God beginning to move and I began to feel
deep down in my heart that this was the something that I had been trying to seek and to find. A fulfillment of what God was
saying. Not just a doctrine, not just a ritual, not just a head full of knowledge, but the working power of God cooperating
through lives; the anointing upon men and women that would break every yoke. And I looked and I couldn't put a finger on it;
I couldn't just say what it was but what they had I wanted. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You've seen it in
many lives - you've seen it!
And so I watched them. And the time came in the Bible school when we were gathered around
and God declared that He wanted them to put their hands upon us. And very unwillingly, because they said there ought to be
prayer and fasting; there ought to be preparation. But you see man doesn't know everything. And I didn't even realize it but
God had been preparing my heart for months. And God will come upon prepared hearts! And if the way is hard and barren, if
it means that sometimes you almost don't know what to do with yourself. You feel you want to be doing something but you don't
know what, you don't know where to start. It's God the Holy Spirit working upon you. Until there comes the hour when the heavens
open and everything that was in a maze and darkness suddenly becomes very clear.
And God began to speak to me there. And I went up there weeping and trying to hear. Trying
not to weep and trying to control myself so I could hear what God was saying. It happened to be Pastor Paul that was a prophet.
I saw a mantle come down upon me. I never heard anybody preach on a mantle, but I felt it come all over me and I knew that
whatever I did from then on - whether I went on with God or whether I went back I knew I'd never be the same again. I might
be ten times better, I might be a hundred times worse, because in my own way, but I couldn't be the same. And I believe that
everybody that has felt the flick of a mantle of our Great Elijah will never be the same again. If you've felt the flick of
that mantle, you can't turn back! You'll never be the same; you'll go on for God.
And I was anointed after all the struggle. God took up then what I had learned in the
Bible school. God took up all the things I found so hard to understand. I couldn't grasp a hole lot of the things and I'm
sure some of you can't either. It's hard to grasp all those things. But when the mantle of the Spirit came upon me, the Holy
Spirit led me into His word and began to show me the truth that I found so hard to grasp in my mind. And when God, the Holy
Spirit, opened up my understanding I got truth in here that I'll never forget. For when the Holy Spirit takes up a word you
hear somebody speak and suddenly the Spirit lights upon one word that they say, you'll never loose that thought! You'll never
loose that truth! And so God broke into my life.
At first it was so strange and so new that my church, my parents, my home was turned
upside down. It spread all over and God was speaking. But let me say one thing. It's the will of God, I believe, that you
separate yourself from your daily tasks and come into the Bible college if for nothing else than to separate yourself unto
God. For here it is that God can deal with you.
There was a moment that I remember in that year that I'll never forget. I was in my room
alone and I was praying. I then got up and was walking around the room and felt a strange warming come in here. I was baptized
in the Spirit when I was fourteen or fifteen. This wasn't the baptism in the Spirit it was something different. And I felt
a strange warming come in here and I couldn't understand it. I felt like I should do something, but I didn't know what to
do. So I paced my room.
And later on, maybe two or three weeks later in the Sunday morning service (where in
the old country we have communion and worship), while we were worshiping the Lord I remember getting up as my custom was to
praise the Lord. I like to praise the Lord! I began to praise the Lord in the Spirit and say the words that were coming. And
one of the young fellows said to me, sister Barbara I want to walk down the road with you today to school, I want to talk
to you. He was a recognized prophet in the church. And he said to me did you know that you have prophecy. I said brother,
I would never say, “thus saith the Lord.” How could you say, “thus saith the Lord?” What if it wasn't
the Lord? What you do wouldn't that be terrible! But he said, I'm telling you! When you got up and praised the Lord this morning,
I was just about to give a prophecy and you took it out of my mouth and gave it word for word and then you said amen and sat
down! He said that was prophecy you had! I didn't feel all too friendly toward the Welsh down there because if there's anybody
that's going to persecute you it's right where you're at.
So when I got back to my home town in England, first thing I made a covenant with the
Lord. You know it's a good thing to put down a fleece, especially regarding spiritual things, especially regarding battles
or something you want to do for the Lord. It's a good thing to put down a fleece. And I said Lord if you'll let that strange
warming come back upon me when I'm amongst my friends in my home church where they love me, they wouldn't say things against
me. When I'm among my friends if you let that happen again and I'll do it. If it kills me I'll open my mouth and I'll do it!
You'll never get anywhere if you're not ready to be killed. Some of you God has been trying to kill for years and you're not
dead yet! But the funeral is coming, Hallelujah!!! Can you say, Amen! You're no use to God till you're dead.
And I was back and Sunday afternoon it was in my home church. We were praying, I'll always
remember that Sunday afternoon. And I felt this glow again. I felt this warming of the Spirit, the word within me. I looked
around and everybody was kneeling and I though, O God, you've taken me at my word now, I must do it! Don't ever lay a fleece
with God and don't obey Him! You might miss God by a mile or miss Him forever. God doesn't like disobedience! So I looked
around and I said Oh God, help me! And as the Spirit began to move within me, I opened my mouth and began to speak. And all
I did was to open my mouth and begin to speak for the Spirit gives you the utterance. And I don't remember what happened.
It wasn't stammering lips, it wasn't anything like that. When I opened my eyes everybody was on the floor. My mother was crying
and weeping at the top of her voice. Everybody was crying! I don't remember what the Lord said, but it wasn't me! It was the
invasion of the Holy Spirit!
Never settle for some preached up ministry. Never settle to go out on side lines on doctrine.
Never settle to just become a big preacher. For if you can become a vehicle of the Holy Spirit, God in one moment can do what
you couldn't do in a whole year! God can invade a place, if you will just vehicle the Spirit of God and let the word reach
the folks that are in need. Do you understand what I mean? God doesn't need our learning. He doesn't put any premium on our
ignorance, you've heard that before. A knowledge of the word is essential! And it's the word that God anoints, but there is
a walk in the Spirit that God is showing us in this day. And if you miss it, you'll miss God. If you can lay hold upon the
word of God, the anointed word, the word of the Spirit, and apply that to your life. Then let it break you and make you broken
bread to those outside, then you are invincible.
I was in a train, traveling through Texas and going toward Arizona years ago. And it
was in the fall of the year. And I saw this... I never saw anything like it before being from the old country. We thought
we were big there but when you see the extent of Canada and the United States, then you realize that you are just a few small
islands. I saw the harvest, mile upon mile, day after day. That train rolled across the fields and prairies of Texas and you
couldn't see the end of one field. Now you can in the old country, for they fence their fields around and there it is! And
I looked and thought now how ever could they get this grain in? And there was a man in the compartment talking and he was
of the old school. He said the days were when we had our own little fields and our own little back yards. The pioneers when
they headed out west, they got their own parcels of ground and they plowed and prepared it. They sowed and they reaped. But
he said this is a different day. You know we've got combines that do everything now! He said we roll that combine down there
and it goes miles along and cuts down and does everything including separating the husks and the grain. The whole thing is
done! He said we can have all of that harvest in before the snows come.
God talked to me in that railway carriage. And I thought, some of us are trying to
work with the sickle of a past experience. We're trying to work with something we used twenty years ago. Ten years ago! Five
years ago! I was baptized in the Spirit and I did this and I did that- but God is proclaiming a new day in that hour. The
sickle of a past experience, the sickle that you used ten years ago is no good for today! For facing us in this hour is an
up serge of the enemy that will not be brought down by the sickle past experience. We have to become in this hour a spiritual
combine, one that God can move through and become exactly what the people need. For as you go through life and various places,
you find that the needs are as complex as their faces. And unless you can become a vehicle, unless you can become one of those
great machines that just rolls through and does exactly what the need is there, then you're going to miss God and fail God
in this tremendous hour.
