Doug Van Pelt

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

Prior to getting "called" to reach out to the area tramps, God had called Rees Howells to pray and fast about a convention, which squared him up with an addiction he didn't know he had -- food! He had never fasted before, so it was a real challenge for him.

"When midday came he was on his knees in his bedroom, but there was no prayer that next hour. 'I didn't know such a lust was in me,' he said afterwards. 'My agitation was the proof of the grip it had on me. If the thing had no power over me, why did I argue about it?' At one o'clock his mother called him, and he told her he wasn't taking lunch. But she called again, as a mother would, and urged, 'It won't take you long to have it.' The goodly aroma from downstairs was too much for him, and down he came. But after the meal, when he returned to his room, he couldn't get back into the presence of God. He came face to face with disobedience to the Holy Ghost. 'I felt I was like the man in the garden of Eden,' he said. 'I went up the mountain and walked miles, cursing that 'old man' within me. I felt that if God were to take lunch from me to the end of my days, He would be justified in doing it. To some people there might seem nothing in it, but once you are God's channel, on no account can you disobey Him or bring in your own ideas. I wept many tears, and it almost seemed as if He would never allow me to come back into His presence, till He said, 'I will forgive you, but you are not to go unpunished. You hold up your hands while you pray from 6 to 9 o'clock.' (Ex. 17:11, 12; 1 Tim. 2:8)

"The closer a person is to God, the more terrible is the least sin seen to be."

I can relate to the feeling of remorse from disobeying the Holy Spirit. I believe God told me once that He created me to cry. I don't really know what that means, but I do remember almost every intance in my life when I cried. These experiences are now emotional imprints on my memory. One such experience was while retelling a friend of mine how I felt God had told me not to watch any of the Faces of Death movies. Perhaps it was to thwart an unhealthy fascination with death. I don't know, but I truly sensed that this was a "word from the Lord" for me. It was all totally private. Anyway, one day the temptation and curiosity got the best of me and I rented a Faces of Death video. Later on, when I was telling a friend about this, I couldn't help but start balling, realizing that I had disobeyed the Holy Spirit of God, Who had given me the precious gift of hearing His voice, and there I go not heeding it. Oh, the pain I felt. It was embarrassing enough to cry in front of a friend, but the sorrow was real and deep.

So, I can relate to that. I can't say I relate to the punishment that he felt God doled out on him. I'll give Rees Howells some slack and say that perhaps God did tell him this. Just because it's kind of foreign to me doesn't mean it wasn't God (this is a lesson all of us could learn). It just seems weird...

The passage Rees Howells references in Exodus is the story of Moses and the Israelites getting victory as long as Moses held up his hands. 1 Timothy 2:8 is the verse that says:

"I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing."

He had something else very interesting to say about this lesson:
"He didn't take dinner for many days after that, but spent the hour with God. As he said later, 'The moment I got victory in it, it wasn't a very big thing to do; it was merely a steppingstone to His next call to me. It is while you still want a thing that you can't get your mind off it. When you have risen above it, He may give it back to you; but then you are out of its grip.'"

This reminds me of a phenomenon that was picked up in the recent documentary, Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music? It's where young people get saved, and they give up rock music, and in the movie it was funny to see the common theme of giving up listening to Led Zeppelin in particular. This happens a lot, I believe, for a very simple reason: God wants to remove the hook that this music has inside a person. He is a jealous God and He wants His people to love Him and be free from bondage. The love of music, especially exceptionally great and powerful rock music, can be a powerful force. While it's not inherently evil (as some foolish and narrow-minded preachers might imply), it can get in the way of a person's relationship with God. It might be in the wrong place or hold the wrong place in our hearts (perhaps we worship it). Once it has been extracted, then God may give it back. This happens to a lot of believers as they mature. They end up buying back some of those Zeppelin albums they may have burned. It's kind of funny, but it probably serves a great purpose in a person's maturity in the faith.

As God showed Rees the spiritual discipline of fasting, it came in handy when he began reaching out to the tramps. As was now apparently his custom, he endeavored to not live above the people he was ministering to. Tramps only got two meals a day, and so he too lived on two meals of bread and cheese and soup. It was hard to maintain this while living with a motherly mother at home, but he argued with her about the four young men in Babylon, "who, after their days of abstinence, looked 'fairer and fatter' than the rest." She started spiking his soups with as much nutrition as she could!

Isn't the love of a mother great?

Rees' team took tramps and bought them a new suit, fed them, and got them a job, and gave them a place to live until they drew their first paycheck. Many came to faith through this.

"'After many months in this school of faith,' said Rees, 'the Holy Ghost put such love in our hearts towards these people that we would rather be without ourselves than allow them to be in want.'"

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at May 4, 2006 09:22 AM