Memory Verse: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55:7
Joe Conlee was the son of a prosperous Christian farmer in Iowa. While Joe was still young his father hoped that his boy would become a preacher of the gospel.
Joe was a brilliant student and soon earned a college degree. Then he went to another college where he came under the influence of an infidel professor who encouraged him to read the writings of Darwin, Huxley and other infidels—men who did not believe in God and treated with contempt the Holy Scriptures. On coming out of that school Joe found a battle in his soul of reason against faith. He became a “free thinker” and was soon denying the teachings of the Bible. However, instead of being free, as he thought, he was really bound tighter in the chains of Satan.
Joe was also a gifted writer and in a short time he became editor and owner of a large newspaper. This he sold for a fortune and bought another. But, alas, he lost all through drink. He gambled and went from bad to worse, going from one city to another and spending much of his time in taverns. To get a few dimes for drink he would entertain visitors by giving lectures against God. So hard a master is Satan that the once promising fellow was now reduced to a poor, wasted, ragged despised drunkard.
One day he met a kind doctor who helped him join in the gold strike up in Alaska. But before her daddy left home, Joe’s little daughter had put a Bible in his bag, quite unknown to him.
Up in Alaska Joe, with two other friends, Wally and Jimmie, stayed in a little log hut on the "40 Mile,” spending most of their time drinking. Then one day one of his chums took sick, and while searching for some medicine in his bag, Joe discovered the small Bible his little daughter had given him.
It was Christmas day and the three drunkards began reading the Bible in turns. They kept it up sang “it would pass the time.” After a few days one of the three remarked, “Haven’t you noticed a kind of change coming over us?” They had actually stopped swearing and drinking.
January came, and they started reading the Gospel of John. Then arrived the eventful day, February 14, when Wally read: “Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:1,2.
Joe’s hand brushed across his eyes. “What’s the matter, Joe? Are you crying?” asked Wally.
“Yes, go ahead,” returned Joe. “I’m thinking about my little girl. I’m not crying because of the Bible.”
Then Wally said, “For the last five days I’ve been wanting to pray and I was scared you fellows would laugh at me.”
“Well,” Joe continued, “my heart has been broken for the last week. I can hear my dear mother back in Iowa praying—though she is now in Heaven.”
“If you fellows want to pray,” joined in Jimmie, “I’ll pray with you.”
And there those three men in their lonely cabin got down on their knees to pray. Suddenly Wally Flett jumped to his feet crying, “Praise the Lord! Jesus heard me.” While he was shouting, up jumped Jimmie and Joe in similar sincere happiness. As sinners they had cried to God for mercy and He had heard their cries. They had trusted Christ for forgiveness and found salvation.
It was two o’clock in the morning when into that lonely cabin came the Son of God, the blessed Man of Calvary, and those three men were “born again” by the Spirit of God. Not long after Joe returned with his two friends from Alaska. What a day of rejoicing it was when he was reunited with his wife and daughter. Later he became the well known and honored Dr. Joseph Conlee, dean of a college.
As he told me his story of God’s saving grace, he wept and prayed. Not too long after this, he went to be with his Lord in the glory, and his last words were praise to that blessed One who had found him in that lonely cabin on the "40 Mile.”
God had done a permanent work in the hearts of all those three men, and while this was being written, Jimmie and Wally were out preaching the gospel.
Dear young reader, God can do the same for you, if you will only let Him. Do not go into sin as Joe did. How gracious God was to him, yet think of those wasted years, the lonely hours, the sorrows and heartaches he brought not only upon himself, but also to his dear wife and little daughter.
God has provided for your salvation through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the cross to put away your sins and mine. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
ML-12/16/1979