My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck: write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart: and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path.
Proverbs 3:1-6
Life Is A Series Of Circumstances And Choices!
I was born on February 12, 1934 – right in the midst of the Great Depression – in a home of mostly European descent. Dad’s side was 100% German and mom’s side was English dating back to the days of George Washington on Grandpas’ side and French Canadian and Indian on Grandma’s side.
Dad was a city boy. Mom was a country girl who moved to the city to attend nurses training and remained in the city after graduation, marrying my dad in the city. When I was born, Mom and Dad lived in a one-bedroom apartment and
money was extremely tight, but fortunately Dad had a job working for the New York Central Railroad.
I can still remember dad coming home from work in New York City and telling about people who had
lost all their life savings due to the depression, jumping off high buildings. I remember December 7
th, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and how we huddled around that large wooden cabinet that housed a tube radio.
Life was very serious in those days and money extremely hard to come by. My Christmas presents each year in those days was underwear and socks and we did not have an automobile. Everywhere we went we either walked or took a trolley or bus.
Mother walked to the nearest grocery store over a mile away pulling groceries in a little wagon, while I walked miles to school. There were no school buses in those days.
I never received an allowance of any kind for the work I did around the house and I started
washing floors for neighbors at age eight for a quarter a floor. At age 12 I started delivering newspapers after school and on Saturdays for an income of less than $5 a week.
Growing up as a child, most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from a neighbor’s boy whose family had more income than my family. From age 12 on,
I paid for my own haircuts and for anything else I desired. I was brought up learning to be extremely frugal.
From age 16 until graduation from high school
I delivered prescriptions by bicycle from a local pharmacy for
$16 per week. The day after graduation, I began working for the New York Central Railroad for
$75 a week, and a year later was sent greetings from Uncle Sam to serve in the Korean War – income:
$99.00 per month.
My Spiritual Foundation
“For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. – But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.”
I Corinthians 3:11, 10
At home,
I really didn’t have a good spiritual foundation on which to build my life. Mom and Dad sent me off to Sunday School each Sunday to what I later learned was a very liberal Protestant church — a church where
I never was told of my need to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour.
However, my parents, in an effort to mold my life and character did see that I attended faithfully Cub Scout meetings, and later Boy Scouts, and DeMolay. In fact dad was a leader in my Cub Scout pack.
Cub Scouts and
Boy Scouts instill honor and integrity into boys that helps build their character and ensure they are prepared for life.
DeMolay was an organization dedicated to preparing young men to lead – personal responsibility and leadership skills so vitally needed in society.
Dad was also a member of the auxiliary police and
when sirens sounded during World War II for a possible enemy air attack, Dad had to go out and patrol the streets to make sure no one had any lights on that would guide enemy planes to a possible destination to bomb. In school we had drills often to prepare for an enemy attack.
It wasn’t until I was 23 years old — having left home, served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, worked a number of years for the New York Central Railroad, and was married — that
I became a Christian at a Billy Graham Crusade Rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on May 29, 1957.
As I look back,
that spiritual experience totally changed the direction of my life and has been the guiding force in my life for the past 55 years.
If it hadn’t been for Christ coming into my life, I would no doubt have continued with my railroad job.
Dad worked for the railroad his entire adult life (as did my uncle) and what a Dad did in those days was what usually the son did for their entire life.
But my encounter with Christ at age 23 caused me to become dissatisfied with my railroad job and not many years later (with a wife and a 3-year-old daughter, and pulling an 8x12 “U-Haul” behind the car), off
I went to prepare for Christian ministry. After four years of schooling I became a pastor and ministered as a pastor for many years.
My first church grew from 17 members to 150 members in two years. My second church grew from 35 members to over 300 members in three years. My third church grew from just my family of six (I started that ministry) to over
600 members in six years.
During those years I had a heavy burden
to fulfill God’s Great Commission to take the Gospel message to others as found in Acts 1:8. And yes, God’s blessing was surely on my various pastorates as
folks were coming to Christ in almost every church service and the baptistery was in use almost every Sunday evening service.
But God Had A New Assignment For Me
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28
In January of 1976, after four years of schooling to prepare for the ministry and after many years of pastoring various churches, ministering to the spiritual needs of the people God brought me into contact with, I was told I had a cancer in my colon.
My response was “Why Lord? I don't understand!"
My life had been
totally dedicated to serving my Lord for all those years and God’s blessing had been so abundant on my life and ministries during those years. Why was He allowing me to have
a potentially life-threatening illness that could end the ministry He had called me to, along with my life? My mind wouldn’t stop questioning God.
I knew the Scripture that said
“all things work together for good to them that love God.” But how could cancer fit into that verse.
I was a Christian. I had dedicated my life to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ many years earlier. I had faithfully served him for many years and brought thousands into His kingdom. How could a cancer diagnosis
“work together for good” in my life?
How God Used A Cancer To Start A Ministry
My life experiences — being
brought up during difficult financial times, being raised by a
Registered Nurse mom, a world war, my association with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and DeMolay, my time in the United States Navy, an
encounter with Jesus,
pastoring various churches for many years and then
experiencing cancer — all had an influence in preparing me for this new ministry to which God was calling me.
Mother’s bad experience going the medical route with her colon cancer before me caused me to seek an alternative way of dealing with my cancer. In answer to my prayers to God for an alternative,
I was led to seek the advice of an Evangelist in Texas by the name of Lester Roloff. For years, brother Roloff had been trying to get Christians to change their diets and return to God’s Original Diet as found in Genesis 1:29.
He was the fulfillment of my prayers for help regarding my cancer:
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Indeed, God used Brother Roloff to show me how a cancer diagnosis can
“...work together for good.”
By taking Brother Roloff’s advice of adopting God’s Original Genesis 1:29 diet (along with drinking lots of freshly extracted vegetable juices), within a year I was well, my cancer was gone, and I had my health back.
Then God seemed to say, as he said to Moses so many years prior:
“What is that in thine hand?”
For Moses it was a staff (a symbol of authority) –
for me it was knowledge as to how to so nourish the body that health could be restored speedily.
God had shown me through my cancer experience that we
don’t have to be sick if we will only be obedient in nourishing our bodies with the foods God designed our bodies to be nourished with in Genesis 1:29.
Through that cancer experience, God showed me that
we can recover from almost every physical and even psychological problem and even stop future illnesses if we return to nourishing our bodies with the foods God designed our bodies to be nourished with in Genesis 1:29.
Hallelujah Acres Is A Christian Ministry
Hallelujah Acres is a Christian ministry that teaches health from a biblical perspective! It had its beginning in an
11-foot wide store front on Main Street in Rogersville, Tennessee on
February 12, 1992, and has grown from a ma-and-pa ministry to a worldwide ministry that has helped millions of Christians around the world restore their health.
Since its beginning in 1992, Hallelujah Acres has been showing Christians in particular, but anyone else who would listen, how through
a simple diet and lifestyle change has the power to not only restore health, but stop future sickness, while extending one's years of ministry for Christ.
Millions through the years have adopted The Hallelujah Diet and tens of thousands have written to share with me that after doing so, they have
recovered from over 170 different physical and even psychological problems — and that they don’t get sick anymore.
Yes – “all things do work together for good!”
Why I Do What I Do?
For the past 20 years of my life, Rhonda and I have been proclaiming the Hallelujah Acres
health message. It has been our passion – it has been our life!
I believe this health message to be
an end-time message. I believe Jesus’ return is soon and Christians will need
a strong body and mind to deal with whatever trials precede His coming.
During these 20 years I have
traveled around the world sharing God’s health message on three continents. I have shared this message on
television many times, conducted more than
1,000 seminars, written more than
750 consecutive electronic Health Tips, counseled thousands, and trained up more than
10,000 Health Ministers to help us carry God’s health message to the world.
It must be
doing some good! This past February 12th I celebrated my 78th birthday. I have already
outlived both my mother and dad by 13 years. Mom and Dad ate the world’s diet and
lived in the doctor’s office and on prescription medications. I refused doctor treatments, ate God’s diet, and I still have a healthy body, a sound mind, and still live an extremely active lifestyle.
Slowing Down But Never Stopping
I have been attempting this past year to slow down on my travels and seminars while taking a little time off to smell the roses.
But I still conduct the first Saturday-of-the-month “God’s Way to Ultimate Health” seminar at Hallelujah Acres in Shelby and do an occasional seminar on the road. I also still do an occasional
television appearance or
radio interview.
I continue to write these weekly electronic Hallelujah Acres Health Tips, and am currently writing a new book. Once I am done the book, I am looking forward to spending increasingly more time in my garden, enjoying God’s great outdoors with my young bride, Rhonda (we celebrated our
20th wedding anniversary April 11, 2012).
I will continue sharing God’s health message
as long as God gives me breath!
The health of the Christian community is in a deplorable state and continues to deteriorate. Our preachers, evangelists and missionaries are
dying long before they complete their ministries because they have neglected to properly nourish their God-created physical bodies –
the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. (See I Corinthians 6:19-29)
There Is A Health Care Crises In America
There is also a health crisis throughout America! Unless our government casts out the old (and proven failed) and devastating methods of dealing with physical problems,
the cost of health care will not only continue to rise and bankrupt the individual, but our entire nation as well, while the health of the American people will continue to decline.
We need to replace the current health care system — which in reality is a “disease care” system — with God’s health care system... TRUE health care.
The current system encourages sickness and disease because it does not teach prevention. God’s health care system shows people how through
a simple diet and lifestyle change they can live free of sickness.
The American people must be made aware of the fact that there is a better way of dealing with physical problems than the world’s way –
and that is God’s way! Hallelujah Acres has the knowledge and the staff to assist in bringing God’s health message to not only America but to the entire world.
In 1988, over (almost 25 years ago), I wrote my first book, “Why Christian’s Get Sick.” In the closing chapter of that book I wrote the following words:
“I personally believe that the American people and especially Christians are thoroughly disenchanted with the present means available of dealing with sickness, health and nutrition, and are just waiting for someone to show them a better way.
“I want to and am willing and ready to do all that I can to see this happen. Will you help me? I cannot do it alone! The job is staggering, but the potential reward can be exciting. If you are interested in helping, please write me. Even a letter stating that you are standing with me in prayer would be encouraging and appreciated.”
If you think your life cannot make a difference, consider the words of this song:
Little is much when God's in it
And no one can fathom the plans He holds
Little is much when God's in it
He changes the world with the seeds we sow
Little is much, little is much – when God is in it
If God can take an unworthy sinner such as I, born during The Great Depression, raised in the school of hard knocks, and use me to help millions of Christians around the world restore their health, have you ever considered what God can do through you?
“What Is That In Thine Hand?”
Next Week, the good Lord willing and if the creeks don’t rise too high, we will be back with another Hallelujah Health Tip. Trust you will join us.
