It's Supernatural

Sid: And you know one of my big regrets is as a new believer I didn’t have people to really teach me about the supernatural about the basics of the faith.  I was often running with speaking all over the United States before I had even read the New Testament and as a result it took me a long time to find out what I know today.  Now there is someone whose name I heard in the early days and his name was Don Gossett. He had written some books that really impacted my life and we have a generation now that have not read Don’s books and need it desperately.  Don you’ve had an opportunity that few people have. You traveled with a great miracle ministry by the name of William Freeman.  You were Editor for TL Osborn; who as far as I’m concern probably has seen more miracles than anyone who ever lived.  He’s in Heaven now but I want everyone to get to know you just a little bit this week and we want to glean some of things you learned over the years that you wish you had known when you first started. But let’s take you back to when you were age 11 and you were kidnapped, this was before you were a believer in the Messiah.  Because of this horrible experience you were set free. I understand it made it easy for you to turn to Jesus, tell me about that.

Don:  Yes well it was a very unusual experience that I would never want to happen to anybody because it was all unexpected and I didn’t know for a time what was happening. Then I began to have a fear that I would never see my parents again because the man kept on driving and driving stopping for drinking and buying whiskey and so forth.  He was in very frightening when he got very intoxicated and his driving became very critically dangerous. It was then that I really submitted myself to what I call the prayer of breakthrough prayer; my breakthrough miracle prayer.  I would lay my head on the dash board and in a sincere fervent prayer of an 11 year old boy was terribly profound as far as theology, but the very expression of my heart.  So when the incident when the man passed out from his drunkenness and a woman came upon the scene and she wanted to know information about my parents and so I said at that time didn’t have a phone in your home so she said who has a phone in your area?  And I said school principal so she called him and then he notified my parents where I was and my parents drove nonstop hundreds of miles to pick me up and that was really a significant event in my young life.  When I realized it was through the driving became so dangerous I wasn’t sure that we would survive the incident possibly a very critically accident you know and could be dead.

Sid: Now your parents were not believers but so how did you become a believer at age 12?

Don:   Well it was in that I became convinced my father was unsaved man and gave some Baptist Christians permission to build an old fashion brush arbor that was kind of a forerunner before tents became prominent.  And it has been years of conducting each night and I would go over as a very timid young man 11 years old and I would just stand there out from the brush arbor so nobody could see me and I would witness the whole thing; and I saw sinners going forward for salvation I knew a lot of those people from that farm community. I thought gee my mind came and I said “That’s the greatest thing that could happen to anyone to receive Christ and with conviction in my heart.”  And I mentioned the fact that I some misleading information that it would be better that you receive before age 12 or not if you were before 12 you would be saved regardless. Which is of course isn’t accurate. Shortly after I was 12 years of age I was invited by some neighbors to come with them to what we called a revival at a Baptist Church. When the evangelist portrayed Christ dying on the cross and carried a chair across the platform like the cross and it all became quite clear to me as far as my 12 year old mind could conceive that how and why salvation is all about.  And I made a decision to go forward and receive the Savior and that was a tremendously vital experience.  I just was really delighted that I was now saved and that’s how it changed my life.

Sid: Well Don then at age seventeen you were involved in an all-night encounter with the Lord; explain.

Don: Yes I was really hungry for God was the main thing and I had this all night encounter with Him in prayer and it was in the Holy Spirit gave me a definite call to become a Preacher.  And my Dad was such a dominating influence in my life that I knew I had to tell him as soon as possible and when I heard him down stairs about 6:00 in the morning I went down to tell him. He was very opposed to the idea pointing out my shyness and my speech impediment and he said I didn’t believe I could ever be a minister because I would have problems talking to people even in a personal conversation without stuttering or stammering.

Sid: So did he talk you out of being an evangelist, obviously he didn’t.

Don:  The calling of God was so real to my heart that even though my earthly father gave me this objection I still was convinced what God had called me in.  So I went back to my room and dropped to my knees and Isaiah 41:10 opened up to me “Fear not for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God, I will help thee and strengthened thee; I will uphold thee with my right hand and my righteousness.” And I knew that God was saying if I fear not I can fulfill this calling.  And so even though with my father’s objection I moved right ahead and I went through Bible College in San Francisco and prepared for ministry. And I started preaching in a small Baptist Church.

Sid: But what did you do about your stuttering?

Don:  I fervently met God and He gave me those three scriptures that were so applicable to my situation.  The one was Exodus 4:12 “Now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”  I was young in my study of the word and I didn’t realize that was just something given to Moses by the calling of God, but I applied it to my own heart.  “Now therefore go and I’ll be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”  I applied that to my own situation that God would be with my mouth.  Then the scripture in Samuel “The Spirit of the Lord is straight by me and His word was in my tongue.”  The third scripture I began to really focus in my life was Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  I applied those scriptures and then I was filled with the Holy Spirit.  About a year I stopped stuttering and mumbling and I had a real liberty in speaking; it was not exactly the most profound speaker but I was called to being a walk with God that anyone to fulfill his calling to me.

Sid: Okay and then your folks heard about a healing evangelist by the name of William Freeman. Your mother had been struggling with a condition and even though they weren’t believers they went to the meeting; what happened?

Don:  Well it was really remarkable. William Freeman came to Portland, Oregon and I as a young Baptist I had never heard about healing for the sick. I then was assured about how he was being used by God to have very profound miracles.  So I went to his meeting and I witnessed the same and I was deeply impressed. I went back to my unsaved parents and I told them what I had seen and the experienced and I asked them to go with me and they reluctantly chose to go.  And they were also impressed by the miraculous and the supernatural for confirmation of the word. My mother then the Holy Spirit really got a hold of her heart and she went forward and was saved; what a great night it was.  She had limitation of being able to walk because of her infirmities, but I remember so well that the next she was praying for, in Jesus Name, and wonderfully set free from all the pain.  And when she came off the platform very emotional as an 18 year old boy I then ran down the aisle to meet her and embraced her and she said “Don, there’s no more pain I totally free.”  And that testimony for my dad with her of course he was so convincing and as well as all the other members of my family eventually.  And it caused my dad who I always called a wicked sinner because he was an alcoholic, he practiced infidelity unfortunately and broke my mother’s heart. And he came to Christ and thank God the whole…

Sid: Oops we’re out of time Don.