Inside Story ~ United States: Powerhouse for God
By Andrew McChesney
An elderly man stopped in Delsie Knicely’s family-owned store in rural West Virginia with a request.
“I’d like to see you in church this Sabbath”, he said.
Image © Pacific Press
Delsie didn’t want to go. She had been raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and had attended Adventist schools. But she had left the church as an adult, gotten married, and opened a store selling farm produce, groceries, and chainsaws.
Still, she didn’t want to flatly reject the man, Kester Erskine, whom she had known since childhood. Kester used to drive to her parents’ farm every Sabbath and pack her and her 11 brothers and sisters into his car, including the trunk, and take them to church.
Now Kester was in the store waiting for an answer to his invitation.
“I don’t have proper clothes”, Delsie said.
Kester returned the next week, and Delsie offered another excuse.
“OK, I’ll go if I’m not sick”, she said.
That Friday, she was hospitalized with a serious blot clot. That scared her, and she resolved not to use health as an excuse to skip church.
Two weeks after the hospital stay, Kester stopped by the store with a book, “National Sunday Law”, about how the Sabbath was changed to Sunday.
Delsie read the 94-page book by Adventist pastor A. Jan Marcussen that afternoon, marking the pages as she went along. She read the book again that evening and a third time the next day. She thought, “I went to Adventist church school and academy, and I know all this. Why haven’t I been in church?”
“I couldn’t think of a good reason”, Delsie told Adventist Mission. “So, I went to church and haven’t missed a Sabbath since then”.
Today, Delsie, a spry 63-year-old with a ready smile, is a powerhouse for God. She has led many evangelistic meetings, including series during a statewide evangelistic campaign funded by a 2015 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. She also has graded thousands of Bible correspondence studies, and many people have been baptized through her influence.
Delsie said God must have a sense of humor. Ever since she claimed not to have anything to wear to church, her wardrobe has been full.
“The Lord has seen fit that I have had plenty of decent clothes since that time”, she said.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org
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That's the same book I read and learned about the Sabbath! I was not raised Adventist and when I read it, I couldn't believe how I was fooled into not recognizing the day. I became an Adventist after reading this book. God bless Jan Marcussen for writing that book and for waking up people like me who were in the dark. I love the Lord and all His ways!
Hi Delsie and Majeeda. Why don't we sell our decent clothes in our wardrobes, buy the book and bring others to Christ? Each clothe for one book. Let's do the calculations. How about the book of the year, it is very cheap.
Give somebody this book this week' National Sunday law'
God bless you.
It is always a good feeling to know that faithful members have reached out to bring wandering sheep home. In this case, the kind offer of a short booklet that would remind a person of their past recollections and knowledge.
But the story leaves me a little flummoxed. There isn't any mention of the attraction of Jesus' life that gives meaning to a doctrine, no matter how analyzed a book may have made of an issue yet still future. We can become enthused about a peculiar doctrine or set of doctrines for their painting of a portrait of the last days and the call to clarity to the issues involved, and the need to "prepare to meet our God." Yet, it can be void of the center piece, the true attraction of any doctrine.
I well recall working as a bible worker for an evangelistic ministry of the church. The evangelist having gone through 6 or so nights of identification of the beast, last day events, signs of the times, and then heading into a one day break to come back to a, as the evangelist termed it, "lighter subject." That "lighter subject" was accepting Jesus as Savior! It was there the evangelistic thrust so often seen in our church lost all of its enticing luster. We couldn't find Jesus attractive enough to hold up as supreme purpose for conviction and conversion.
I think of this SOP quote:
"Hanging upon the cross Christ was the gospel. Now we have a message, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” Will not our church members keep their eyes fixed on a crucified and risen Saviour, in whom their hopes of eternal life are centered? This is our message, our argument, our doctrine, our warning to the impenitent, our encouragement for the sorrowing, the hope for every believer. If we can awaken an interest in men's minds that will cause them to fix their eyes on Christ, we may step aside, and ask them only to continue to fix their eyes upon the Lamb of God. They thus receive their lesson. Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. He whose eyes are fixed on Jesus will leave all. He will die to selfishness. He will believe in all the Word of God, which is so gloriously and wonderfully exalted in Christ." (6BC 1113, from Manuscript 49, 1898)
Jesus has to find His way back into the center of all of our actions and pursuits in truth. Adherence, even enthusiastic embrace, to truth isn't enough to hold us when the chips are down. Isn't enough to really change us from the inside out.
Note this final comment:
"The shortness of time is frequently urged as an incentive for seeking righteousness and making Christ our friend. This should not be the great motive with us; for it savors of selfishness. Is it necessary that the terrors of the day of God should be held before us, that we may be compelled to right action through fear? It ought not to be so. Jesus is attractive. He is full of love, mercy, and compassion. He proposes to be our friend, to walk with us through all the rough pathways of life. He says to us, I am the Lord thy God; walk with Me, and I will fill thy path with light. Jesus, the Majesty of heaven, proposes to elevate to companionship with Himself those who come to Him with their burdens, their weaknesses, and their cares. He will count them as His children, and finally give them an inheritance of more value than the empires of kings, a crown of glory richer than has ever decked the brow of the most exalted earthly monarch." (ST March 17, 1887, para 6)