My Testimony

I don't know just what I'll say or what I'll do, but I'd like to testify just a little bit, and just talk with you just a little bit. The fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts, the sixth verse.

Acts 15:6-21: “And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.”


Okay, I just want to comment a little bit tonight, and see if the Lord will give us a thought tonight.

First of all, I want to say again that I'm thankful to be here. I feel privileged to be here, and have a part in the kingdom of God, and have a part with you, and with the different ones that are trying to do something for Jesus. When I say that, you know, I can't find really adequate words for expression. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart and the bottom of my soul. I'm thankful that I'm numbered with the Christians, with the people of God. I'm so very grateful. How many of you are grateful that you are a Christian? I'm grateful. I'm so thankful.

I have been going through some things that some of you are partially aware of, and some of you are not. I've made a lot of statements since I've been here that maybe you didn't understand. Some of them that you do. But, I've really been under a great tremendous strain since I've been here. Even my wife, as I've said before, isn't aware of the strenuous task that it has been. Only God knows what we've been through with. The financial strain and stress has been beyond endurance, as far as my ability, because I'm not smart, not intelligent, not strong, but through the grace of God, we've survived, and we've managed, and it's been a great miracle that God has performed that we were able to hold up under it and meet it, and thus far, to His glory and not by my ability, or to merit anything, we have not had one repossession of that which God has given us. Through all the crisis or anything else.

Now brethren, that is tremendous for a little old bald headed country boy that doesn't know the alphabet real good. Now, it's wonderful. I think that is tremendous. It has to be God. God picks out the foolish things so He can get the glory for it, and that's a tremendous thing when millionaires have had repossessions. I understand that they said that men that were exceedingly rich and millionaires lost their possessions, and they took their goods back. You remember the vision I had where they were losing their big, fine homes and all these things? Through it all, the Lord blessed us in ours.

Now, God has been very gracious to me. But, I made the statement also that just having to pay the bills, though that was unbearable, that would have been the easiest part of it, for through it, I've tried to labor some with my hands, tired to help pay tremendous radio bills, publication of literature, and giving thousands of dollars to others through the grace of God. Then, besides that, I've tried to keep my own little family, take care of them, keep peace, and counsel with people night and day, both here and abroad. Being pressed out of measure, as Paul said, I had to depend on God. And, having fought the devil continually under physical strain, my body breaking from being out on the field because I'm trying to help others.

I remember when Brother Branham one time was under such a tremendous load that he had to start wearing thick glasses. His eyes almost went out on him. He counseled and prayed with people so much.

They said of Jesus and the apostles that they had no leisure, inasmuch as to eat. I've seen the time when I didn't have time to eat. Night and day, bedding people down, coming in from different places. I have had blood to issue forth from my body for numbers of years because of the stress and strain. I've had my nerves to break like a web across my head and ring like a bell for years. Not days, weeks or months. Night and day. I've laid upon my bed day and night without any relief hardly at all. Months and months at a time. Years.

I've fought the devil, and been pressed in such a way until my tongue would swell out of my mouth. My tongue was so deeply indented until it looked like you had taken an impression for dentures. That is the truth. My head has been in such a condition that sores broke out all over it and continued to stay day after day and week after week, and they would heal up and come right back. I've had my inwards to start turning into corruption until the secretions of my head and body were rotten; in my nostrils, in my head, and in my body. I've been in such a condition that the pigments of my skin in different places disappeared. The soreness was so bad until it was like there was something wedged inside of my chest. I've been in such a condition that anything that I took a bite of would hurt so bad from the time I went to swallow, all the way down, until I could hardly bear it. Then, if I would take a bite of anything at night and lay down, I would almost die before morning. Horrible, horrible. So horrible that I don't have words of expression.

I have had pains of every description. I've been preaching to you when my heart would be hurting so bad, and pains would be locked up in here until I could not breathe, and at any time, expecting to go out. My body has hurt everywhere. There is not one place in my body that I know of, from my hands, my toes, my fingers, my head, my ears, my eyes, my neck, my chest, every part of my body has hurt. All of a sudden, just in my finger it would be like somebody driving a nail through the bone. If it had lasted very long, I would have went into spasms, but I didn't stop. I didn't let up. I kept going. As I said here not too long ago, I had to roll myself off of the bed onto my knees. I couldn't get up. But I would roll myself off on my knees, and stay there in prayer until I got the strength to get up. All kinds of afflictions, folks.

At the same time, I was trying to carry the financial load, trying to help physically. Satan had stirred up every brother he could against me locally, stirred my family up against me in my own home, and brethren in the islands, stirred them up against me, and those that eat my bread lifted up their heel against me. Night and day, they came against me and said things about me, found fault, and tried to tear down, and hoped that what I had done would crumble. They went to each other, and devoured me through their conversations and resented me, as Jesus said, They hated me without a cause. I had not done anything to them. When I needed somebody to stand by me, they would turn away from me and leave me under tremendous loads, and I would have to go to God, and beg God to help me, and He would.

During the time of these experiences, and these different things that occurred to me, I sat in your meetings, in the men's meetings, and on top of all the problems, my nerves collapsed. My nerve energy left, and my nerves collapsed. I could not keep my sanity. There was no possible way. Now, you people that think you have nerve trouble, who get what they call the jitters, and get upset and lose your temper, that's not nerve trouble. Because your head jerks a little bit, and you feel uncomfortable around people, that's not nerve trouble. That's just a little condition of the mind. But when your nerves collapse, you can't focus your mind anymore. You don't have any control over your body. You don't have any control over yourself anymore. You don't know where your thoughts are going, or where your mind is going. It's pitiful. It's a very pitiful thing. So much so that a person would sit down and pity himself. They are afraid to speak, and afraid to think because they know that whatever comes out isn't going to make sense.

Besides this, we tried to travel, preach, carry the gospel, and help others. God was with us and God kept us as we tried to counsel night and day. I was pressed out of measure, and many times in counseling with you to help you, my nerve energy would go out, and I could not hold myself together for another five minutes, but you never knew anything about it, because I turned to faith. When there was no hope, something supernaturally took over, and that's the truth, so help me God. That's the only reason that I could survive. I could not survive as a human being. There was no possible way. The only way that I could survive was I learned that God said, Let the weak say I'm strong. And through faith, you become strong. I learned that He said it was abundantly above all that I was able to ask or think, so when He commanded me not to lean to my own understanding, I didn't. My own understanding failed me. I realized that He was to do the thinking, so I leaned on Him. The Bible tells us that we don't even know what to pray for. No need to lean to our own understanding, because the Spirit that searches the heart, it knows the mind of God, it knows the things of God, and it makes intercession between God and man with groans and moans that cannot be uttered. How many of you understand what I'm saying?

This has been horrible. Now, I knew that even with all of this, that cancer was working on me. I knew that, but I didn't complain to you. I would say, "Pray for me." I told my wife and my wife wept, though I didn't tell her this, but I told her, "Betty, I'm not against medical aid." I'm not against what the doctors can do. The medicine doeth good, the Bible said. I'm not against that. But the doctors and nurses are out of their place. The Bible says that it's good for a man not to touch a woman, and vice versa. Under those kinds of conditions, I'm not going to the hospital, though any sane, sober doctor would say I am a fool because I'm not under intensive care right now. But I said, "I'm not going." I said, "God, if I die, I die." I told Betty what to do if He didn't undertake before the morning. Now, at the same time, there was a great consolation, if you know what this means. Different ones were telling me they had already seen me dead. Different ones were telling me how that I had died. Some said I did make the resurrection. And then to help it all, I had night vision after night vision of things happening to me, and of my death. In one vision, they came after me in a casket, and I said, "Who are you looking for?" They said, "We're looking for Mr. George." I said, "Well, I'm him." So they set the casket down and I got up, and started to get in it, and I put my foot in it and started to lay down, and I thought, No. What am I doing? I don't want to do that. And I got out of the casket in the vision. There's been numbers of times death has struck, and I told the spirit of death, Satan, "I'm not going with you. I'm not through. I've got things to do, and there's no need for you to bother me. I am not going with you." And he would leave.

Now, I'm saying these things for a reason. Because of the stress and strain, for at least ten years or more (This testimony was recorded in February, 1976 - Ed.), things have been happening to me, and I wouldn't let up. I refused to let up. I saw in a vision, about twelve years ago, an evil, bewitching hand, a wretched hand came down. It came down from above and it grabbed me in here (The abdomen - Ed.) and it refused to turn me loose. Even when I came out of the vision, it still hadn't turned me loose, though I cried to God, it had a death grip. It fought fiercely, and I knew, as I said, that cancer had taken its toll during the problems I had. I said, "Lord, I'm in your hands. You've got to heal me or let me die." I said, "I'm not going to the hospital and let women put their hands all over me. I'm going to be clean. I'm going to be holy." And so it was, the Lord gave me a vision just recently while I was praying, and in the vision, He showed me that I had cancer. He showed me as He moved and took the evil cancer disease and hurled it away, snatched it away from me and took it out of my life. Within a few hours, the difference was so great that I was almost shocked. God has graciously, wonderfully healed me and delivered me in spite of all that Satan did, and I'm standing here whole and strong and healthy. I'm still fighting Satan with all that I've got, and I will continue to do it, by His grace, because I know that Satan is defeated. One of us has to be defeated, and he lost the battle. He tried to kill me, because he knew that this is the end of his kingdom. He didn't stop at anything, whether it was accusation, whether it was the law, in turning the law on me, or whatever. But he lost and I won.

I'm thankful for those that have tried to understand, that have tried to stand by me, and work with me, and help me. I'm very thankful. There is always Job's miserable comforters, but there are some that love the Lord. Some that prayed. Some that helped. And I've seen God heal. I've seen God do great things for some of you while I was in this strain, and the Lord said to me, Son, it is to manifest the life of Christ. He spoke to me as my inner parts were turning into corruption, and He said, I suffered not my Holy One to see corruption, nor His soul to remain in hell.

So then, the Lord brought me out. We sing that song, "He brought me out." He did. He brought me out.

I've said these things that it might be a testimony to some of you. If you've got problems, if you've got heartaches, if you've got sorrows, sicknesses, if you mean business with God, then God will take care of you. But, you can't be bluffing. You had better have the goods. It doesn't require any merit on your part, but it does require sincerity with God. Real genuine sincerity.

I want to say again that I appreciate all of these that are fasting and giving their time to the Lord. I appreciate it. I'm so grateful. My wife has been through such a great, tremendous strain. She's wept day after day. I've been praying for her, and she's coming out. She was sitting, laughing with the children today. I can tell that her strength is returning to her,and she has really been through a strain. It's been unbearable, and the load is still tremendous on her. But, I thank God for my wife. I thank God for her, and I want you to pray that the Lord will help us. Pray that God will help us to do what we're supposed to do.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.

Holiness Unto The Lord