I started out in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I did not know much. I have not learned a lot since, but I knew precious little in those days. However, I believed the Bible. I just took it and read it as it came. I started in Genesis and was having a great time, taking promises right and left, just like a boy picking apples off a tree in an orchard.
One day I was met by one of those Bible scholars and was told that those promises were not for me, that they were for the Jew. Well, that discouraged me a little bit, but I said, 'I believe I will give it another try'.
So I moved over into the New Testament and started down through Matthew, claiming promises right and left. Again, I was interrupted and duly notified that those promises were all for the Kingdom Age, not for me. I had never heard of the Kingdom Age before, but since those things were not for me, I did not want to take them.
So I moved over into the Acts of the Apostles and was daring to claim some, not all, of the blessings that flowed from Pentecost. Once again I was interrupted and told that that was a transitional period, that we were not to press these promises too literally.
Well, that left me with nothing but the Epistles and Revelation, and most of Revelation was for the future. By the time I had made allowances between groups and marginal references, and tried to look at the Bible through the spectacles of a dozen disagreeing expositors, I was afraid to put down my foot on any verse for fear some scholar would come along like a policeman and order me off private property, and tell me, 'This verse is not for you. Get going, brother, somewhere else'.
But all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. Finally, I said, 'Lord, I have heard of a man without a country. If this keeps up, I am going to be a preacher without a Bible. If You will give me a verse I can stand on, I will have to hurry, because they are just about to take it away from me'.
I got down to that one, 'Let God be true, but every man a liar,' and I have been standing on that one ever since! Brother, I tell you, I believe it is all for me, and I enjoy it.
We need that childlike enjoyment of the Word of God. Today we have gotten to the place where people are taking the Bible apart and then they are trying to put it back together. There needs to be a childlike enjoyment of God's Word and a sweetheart love for Jesus.
- Vance Havner
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