The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (27 page)

“I'll paint your upstairs,” I told her. “No need to pay me.” She couldn't believe it. The next morning I showed up bright and early at her front door with my painting clothes and paintbrushes, ready for work. I painted her three bedrooms and hallway in two days and had a wonderful time of it, singing and praising the Lord as I worked.

The woman's husband wasn't a Christian. When he came home from work, he couldn't believe his eyes. “You mean to tell me that
you're
the preacher?”

He was amazed. He told me that other preachers had stayed in his house and hadn't even made their beds after themselves. “And here you are,
painting
the place!”

That night he came to the meeting with his wife. The next night he came back again. The third night he gave his heart to the Lord. He had been a hardened and embittered man, and the Lord wanted to wash it out of him. His voice was humble as he told everybody in the congregation, “I know that the good Lord is
real. I know it now.
”

About a month later in the heat of the summer, the Lord put it on my heart to go to Detroit. I was near New Toledo when the Holy Spirit told me, “Don't go the expressway. Go through the business section of the city.” I wondered why the Lord wanted me to go through all that traffic, but I obeyed Him. In a few minutes I saw a man hitchhiking. The Lord said, “Pick him up.”

I opened the door and invited him to get in. He got into the car, and I felt a cold chill go through me. Then I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, “This man has murder in his heart.” I gave him a quick glance and said as brave as I could, “Mister, you have murder in your heart.”

“Yeah? So what?” He didn't even blink. “I'll kill him! And nobody's gonna stop me! I'll kill him!” He pulled a gun out of his shirt and pointed it at me.

“You hear me? I'll kill him!”

His gun didn't scare me. I just kept on driving. “Thank you, Jesus,” I said quietly.

“What?”

“I was just thanking Jesus you got into my car,” I said.

“You was—
what
?”

“Thanking Jesus. Do you know who He is?”

“Knock it off.”

“Well, He knows who
you
are, and that's what counts.”

I got it out of him that his wife had taken a lover, and that's what he was so mad about. He was on his way to kill them both.

“Do you mind if I pray for you first?” I asked quietly.

The man was stunned. I began to pray, and before I knew it the man was crying and pounding his hand against the seat. “What are you doing to me?” he gulped.

“I'm not doing anything, son. Jesus is doing it.” I tell you, God worked a miracle in that man, and he gave his heart to Jesus right there in my car. I prayed for his wife and for the lover, too. I prayed they'd see the light and come to their senses. Adultery is an ugly toy of the devil. It wasn't an easy thing for him to do, but he let me pray. When I finished praying, he gave me a hug and thanked me. “Tomorrow at this time I could have been behind bars—or dead,” he said. “Thank you.”

He was a changed man by the time we said good-bye. He felt relief and peace. He confessed he hadn't been a very good husband and that he wanted to make a new start.

When I left him a couple of hours later, I turned the car around and went back home to Bucyrus. I knew God had completed what He had wanted to do on that trip.

———

One evening in late autumn of 1963, Jackie and I were sitting in our living room in Bucyrus reading the newspaper together. It was quiet except for the purring of cars as they passed by the house and the ticking of the old Seth Thomas eight-day clock on the mantel.

“Look at this!” Jackie pointed. Holding out the section of the paper in her hands, she showed me a short article about a small Baptist church that had been dynamited by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

We prayed for the people there, and then I was quiet. I saw a look in Jackie's eyes, the look that said, “I know what you're thinking.”

“Yes, honey,” I said. “Those people will be needing help building a new church. I better get my things together.”

The next day I left for the little town in Mississippi, taking with me boxes of used clothing, canned food, and my tools and work clothes. As soon as I got there I started in to work. I hauled debris, unloaded wood, drove nails, laid concrete, painted, varnished, cleaned, hauled, and did whatever else was needed.

I worked hard, but the people were closed off to me. I realized they were scared. NAACP leader Medgar Evers had just been murdered in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. No one had been killed in the blast of this church, not like the Sixteenth Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four girls were killed attending Sunday school. The people were afraid of strangers and didn't know what would happen next.

I discovered another little church not far from the one I was helping to rebuild, and I felt led to go and visit the people there. What a difference! They welcomed me with open arms and bubbled over with the joy of the Lord. They just weren't worried about the Kluxes or about what the white man could do to them.

One old man named Jack had joined the March on Washington with Dr. King and he told me, “I believe in standing up, yes I do, I believe in being a man. I believe I has a right to be a man. But if I fill my body and my mind with hate, then I ain't a man no more. I know good and I know bad, and one thing I knows for certain—
God
is good. I knows it. And I know He loves
me
and my black skin. Ole devil try to beat the faith outa the colored Christians, and it jes make us tougher.

“I done see'd hate, Robert, and I knows what killing is. Ain't nobody who can tell me what I don't already know about hate. The young folks say it's just begun, but I say I's see'd enough. Hate don't make nothin better nohow. It makes a man sick and despiseful.”

I stayed there for a couple of weeks in Jack's shanty with him as I worked on helping to rebuild the church down the road. I was with him when I heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. “The only answer for America is Jesus,” Jack cried. “Young folk think religion is jes for the old folks; they think we's foolish. They never tasted of how the Lord can change a man's whole life—how He can bind the hurts with love.”

The whole country cried when President Kennedy was shot, and we wondered what would happen now that all the land was covered in tears.

The church held an ordination service for me. Old Jack said to me, “Just remember, Brother, at ordination we see how small we are—not how big.”

In the sermon the preacher said, “When a man remember he not a god, then he can see God.” He was direct and plain. “Black folks standin around preaching at one another. First one preach and then the next one preach. Nobody gets nothin from nobody cept pride and bluster. That's why God calls and sends certain ones—certain ones to lead His people right, certain ones who
knows
Him. Is you one of them, Robert Sadler?”

I was five years old again with no words in me.

The preacher went on. “They's too much talk about hell and damnation and not enough about
love
and
salvation.
If folk cain't see the love of the Lord in
us,
then we's got no right to be preachin about Him.
Anybody can preach!
Why, we've heard men preachin mighty fine sermons raisin' the rooftop with their fine voices, and they ain't preachin about no God we know of. They's jes
talkin.
I'd rather hear the truth through the mouth of a mule than hear a lie through some ole fine orator, brothers.

“Show them
Jesus.
Show them bout His love, bout how He
care.
Bout how He died for the black man and
every
man. Show them bout how He makes strength out of weakness and bout how He makes beauty out of filth. Show em how He turns it all around inside a man and makes a
new
man where there was nothin but evil before. Oh, great God A'mighty! Show 'em bout Jesus!” Then he began to sing, and the congregation responded right along with him.

He took my feet from the miry clay,

“Yes, He did! Yes, He did!”

And placed them on the Rock to stay,

“Yes, He did! Yes, He did!”

I can tell the world about this,

“You shure can, Revrund!”

I can tell the nations I'm blest,

“Amen, Lord!”

Tell them that Jesus made me whole,

“Well!”

And He brought joy, joy to my soul.

Oh, my Lord, did just what He said,

“Yes, He did! Yes, He did!”

He healed the sick and raised the dead,

“Yes, He did! Yes, He did!”

It would be hard not to dance or clap in the enthusiastic and spontaneous joy that filled that little church. It was like heaven came down and partied with us that night.

———

People have come from all over the country to stay in our home in Bucyrus. Our doors have always been open to any traveler. There is enough room for at least twenty people comfortably, and often there have been more than that staying with us. Ministers began coming from all over the country to stay and take part in the meetings and to accompany me on my travels.

It would be close to impossible to put in a book the many miracles that God has done during my ministry. I have traveled to dozens of cities and towns, hundreds of churches and fellowships, and the Lord has done so many wonderful things that there wouldn't be space to tell it all. In fact, it's not easy to choose which things to tell and which to leave out, but I'll do my best to tell what I can.

I took a white minister from Aurora, Illinois, with me on one of my trips to Anderson, South Carolina, in a good used car Jackie and I were finally able to buy. As we drove along, the Holy Spirit told me to take the next exit on the highway. I did as the Lord said, and the man with me got all excited. “Hey! You took the wrong turn! This isn't the right way!”

I told him, “The Lord told me to turn off the highway here.”

“Brother, you must be mistaken. This isn't the way to Anderson!”

His protests didn't bother me much because I was used to hearing the voice of the Lord, and when I knew the Lord was speaking to me, I tried to obey immediately. I just drove along quietly, listening for the Lord to give me further instructions.

“Brother Bob! I'm telling you this is the wrong way! We won't make it on the gas—”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, smiled, and said, “There's no cause for you to get all flustrated. The Lord knows what He's doing.”

We came to the end of the road then. It was a dead end. Before us was swamp and thick, dark woods. Then the Lord said to me, “Get out of the car, and take those clothes in the back with you.”

I did as the Lord said and began unloading the boxes of used clothing. The minister with me was so disturbed I thought he was going to have a fit!

I saw a run-down shack of a house about 200 feet from the road and made my way through the weeds and brush to it. An old man, dirty and sickly, was sitting on a chair. I greeted him and said, “Would you be needing any clothing?” His eyes grew wide. He was so thin and sick-looking, I wondered how long it had been since he had eaten anything. I soon realized that he was not alone in the house. A woman came out of another room with about six small children, all thin, dirty, and sickly looking.

My minister friend was still down the road by the car fussing to himself. When I didn't return, he came looking for me and found me sitting in the dim, filthy shanty with this poor and sickly family, telling them about Jesus.

“We'll be staying here for a while,” I announced.

The minister friend was all flustrated and upset, but he set himself down and we stayed with those backwoods people for a couple of weeks. They needed to be nursed and nourished back to health. Besides that, their shack was almost falling down. We cleaned up the tiny shack and then made a clearing to get a car through to it. We fixed the roof, bathed the children, gave haircuts, clipped toenails, cooked, sewed, plastered, painted, and did some rebuilding. Each day as we worked, their health seemed to improve. They were astonished to receive the boxes of clothing and household goods. The children owned no toys, and we were able to give them three boxes of toys. It was something.

After one of the first days with them, my minister friend went walking in the woods. When he came back, his face was swollen and red, and I knew he had been crying. He hugged me and broke down in sobs.

“Oh, forgive me, brother,” he cried. “Forgive me. I have never been so touched and so blessed in all my life.” We were able to lead the entire family to Jesus. They were also a sight better appearing when it was time for us to leave. The Lord spoke to me and told me to give them my car.

“Your car? You're giving us your nice car?”

“And she run good, too,” I said, smiling.

The man was so thankful, he couldn't get over it. Now he could get work in town and they'd get back on their feet again. Thank you, Jesus!

My friend and I took a bus back to Bucyrus. He didn't complain once.

We were at a meeting in a church outside of Minneapolis, and a young man came up to me and said, “The Lord told me to offer you my camper.” He said I could have it for very little. After speaking at some churches in the area, I had one hundred dollars, which I now offered to the young man. “I'll sell it to you for one hundred dollars,” he said. So I left Minnesota driving a fancy, homemade pickup camper. It was like driving a little house around with me. I thanked God with all my heart.