Testimony, Scott Hayes

Well, if you've been wondering each time Gary makes that announcement, who that guy was that thought he should tell his testimony tonight. You know, I've been thinking for the last year, when Mr. Hall was here at our conference last year, I was sitting toward the back and I could count eight people that were saved in 1974 in that series of meetings. Now, you know what, we all need a little encouragement once in a while.

Wouldn't that be an encouragement to our brother if we would have a testimony meeting and a few of us that were saved in 1974 could get up? There's one of them smiling back there right now, I see her. You know, 1974 was a great year for the Gospel in this place. I thought Laverne was going to go first, that would be in chronological order.

He was saved on Tuesday, the second Tuesday starting the second week. And I remember hearing at home as an unsaved young man that Laverne had gotten saved. It seemed like everybody was surprised.

Laverne was married, had two kids I believe, just little girls. And everybody was surprised that Laverne had gotten saved. I wasn't surprised.

Coming to those meetings right from the very beginning, it was like, not from a spiritual aspect, just from a normal, something's going to happen here. Something's going to happen. I believe now looking back, the Spirit of God was working here and there were some prepared hearts.

But you know, my story really started a year earlier that when Gaius Goff, in 1974 it was Albert Hall, a brother, and Gaius Goff were in those meetings. But the year before, Gaius Goff was here with Robert Orr. And I came to those series of meetings with a completely different attitude.

I came as a totally concerned, I was a senior in high school, 17 years old. And I remember Robert Orr asking me if I wanted to be saved at the beginning of those meetings. And I told him, no.

I said, I have no desire to be saved. I know how to get saved. And if I want to be saved, I'll get saved.

Now, I can assure you I came to regret that statement many times. But you know, I went on a little while through those meetings that way, but that really was the time when my uncle was killed when a tree fell on him. And that changed my thinking completely.

From that time on, I knew. I believed God was speaking to me. I had a soul that needed to be saved.

I finished those series of meetings. A few were saved, but I really thought I had missed my opportunity. I didn't get saved during those series of meetings.

But for the next year, you know, it was never very far from my mind that I needed, I wanted to be saved. And, you know, when I heard there was another series starting here in January of 74, I thought maybe God is giving me another chance. And, you know, right from the very beginning, it just seemed like, I remember even in that first week sitting, of course the edition wasn't here, sitting clear back, you kids sit in the front, that's great.

We would have never done that. I would have stood with my back against the wall rather than sat in the front as a 17-year-old. We were proud.

We were arrogant. But, you know, we had to come down. But I remember sitting clear in the back.

I remember sitting on folding chairs back here and being glad I was sitting on a folding chair because I was trembling, knowing I was going to hell. And I'm glad I'm not sitting on those other chairs or you'd be able to feel me trembling here. And then Mr. Hall, I remember him sitting up there and says, I feel like getting off of this platform and coming back there and preaching to the back two rows.

I'm sure some of you remember him saying that. And I just, I trembled all the words. I thought, please don't do that.

You know, and so those meetings went on. And probably about the day Laverne got saved or within a couple of days, I was going over to Hawkeye. I come across the road.

And here was a semi. A semi had gone in the ditch, crashed, a load of hogs. And here it was laying upside down in the ditch.

You could still see the driver in that cab of that truck. Here's all these dead hogs. And I remember just standing there for quite a while, just looking at this scene and thinking, I wish I could have been born a hog.

The hogs are just dead. They were going to the packing plant anyway. It's all over for the hogs.

And that driver, I had no idea who he was. The driver is now into eternity. But I knew if that would have been me, I was lost.

I would have been in hell. You know, the Friday night, the first Friday night, I ended up at a basketball game. I think Sid's going to follow me here in a bit.

Sid played basketball. And so I had nothing better to do. I usually go to his games for entertainment.

And that Friday night, I went to the basketball game, not because I really wanted to, but I didn't want to admit that I wanted to be saved. I would have rather been here in this hall. And I remember thinking, at that ballgame, there's 400 or 500 people here.

Not one of them cares that I'm going to lose my soul and perish for all eternity. They don't even care. And eight miles down the road, there's those brethren, and they're preaching the gospel.

That's where I should be. You know, the next Friday night rolled around, and it still had to be a decision, but I decided I'm going to the meeting. You know, I remember coming here that night, and I couldn't tell you what was said, but I was going out the door down to get my coat in the basement, and Gaius asked me at the door, he says, Would you like to talk to us, talk to one of the preachers sometime? And I guess I finally was getting my pride down a little bit.

I says, I guess I could do that. And before I could get my coat on, Gaius Dixcoff's brother was down there, and he says, Will you talk to him tonight? And I says, I guess I could talk to him tonight. I came back upstairs later, and I remember talking to Mr. Hall back in that Sunday school room.

And you know, maybe I had thought in this little thing in my mind, that when I do that, that when I let people know that I'm not so proud, that I need this salvation, that was a real problem for me. There was all kinds of us unsaved... Oh, it's going to take too long. I've got to keep moving.

I thought maybe I'd get saved talking to Mr. Hall back there. I remember not being able to read the verses in my Bible because of the tears in my eyes, and I hadn't cried for a long time. I can cry pretty easy tonight, but I couldn't back then.

And guess what? I couldn't get saved there. And Mr. Hall finally says, You might as well go home. He gave me a list of verses.

I went home the next morning. It was Saturday, February 2nd, and I just stayed in bed. We didn't do that very easy.

We didn't sleep in, but my parents were wise enough. They left me. I had my Bible.

I had those verses. I had those tracts. And guess what? It was getting almost noon.

Almost noon on a Saturday morning, and I'm still in bed. And you know what? It only takes a moment to get saved. At noon, it's over.

I'm not going to put up with this any longer. At noon, I'll never go back to another gospel meeting. I'll just have to go to hell.

I might as well be the worst sinner out there. I can't get this salvation. You know, one thing that always seemed to be a problem for me is it easy.

It can't be this easy to get saved. It's such a big thing. How can it be so easy? You know, I was reading God's Way of Salvation, and there's one of those little chapters in God's Way of Salvation, that little booklet, and it talks about salvation is not easy.

It's just that the work is already finished. And you know what? I didn't get saved reading that at that time, but it was like that obstacle was taken out of the way. I didn't have that thought anymore.

And it was almost noon, and I had thought before, I had started even the year before my uncle was killed, I started questioning, how do we know the Bible is true? How do we know there's a God? How do we know we have a soul? And I went back to that type of thinking. And I said, how do I really know that I'm going to hell anyway? How do I know that? And I thought, the Bible tells me I'm going to hell. And then my next thought was, the same Bible that tells me that I'm going to hell, the same Word of God tells me that Christ died for my sins.

And right there at 10 minutes to 12, I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gotten saved before noon. But you know, I got saved right there. Simply accepted.

Simply trusted God's Word, that that's what it said. The same Bible that condemned me told me that Christ died for my sins. Just take 30 more seconds to tell you, there was a stout conference that year.

I'm sure that must have been an exceptional conference in 1974 with all those new converts. And as they were breaking bread right here, me and Sid had to go down and get the ice cream for lunch. I don't know why they thought we should enjoy that job.

We had to go down to the store and get the ice cream to leave early. But anyway, I remember sitting right smack in the middle of that, just as clear as the day I got saved, sitting right up there in the balcony, looking down here on all the Christians breaking bread and thinking, you know, that's where I belong. That's my place.

Right there. Those people there. Thank you.