"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me (Psalm 23:4)."

  Speaking of deliverance, I have seen God's hand because I was there.  I feel that in my testimony, I should add a few other types of miracles that causes me to know I am divinely moved by His Spirit.  It is not that I want to boast, but I love to make known God's work, and especially when I am involved.

   Once, on a certain occasion, I was in Salt Lake City, Utah, during World War II.  The ticket agent and I were arguing as to what train I should ride to Phoenix, Arizona.  I wanted to ride the one that would make connection with the streamliner out of Los Angeles, California. He wanted to sell me a ticket with no explanation to why he did not want me to go my way.  So, I eventually submitted and on my way to Phoenix, the conductor inquired as to where I was going.  On the train, the conductor gave me special favor to stop the train on the desert at a small place called Tollison.  The train was not suppose to make stops at these little places.  People ran to the train excited and some gentlemen favored me with a ride over to the State Overseer's home.  And on my arrival, all the saints were gone.  I waited until after midnight, sitting on the porch.  On the return of the saints, they came up to me excited.  They had been to Phoenix searching for me in the hospitals.  The reason for this is that the train that I was suppose to have ridden and the one that I had wanted to ride had derailed some distance out of Phoenix, killing and wounding many people.  And here I saw the hand of God in the ticket agent refusing me a ticket.  

This picture shows Bishop Grady R. Kent, after many years, visiting the lonely, wooded spot where seventeen men kidnapped and took him on May 22, 1939, to whip and leave to die, all because they did not believe in the gospel which he preached.

Another time in my life I saw the hand of God.  This was in the year 1945 at the close of Bible Training Camp.  The State Overseer of Texas, Brother Vandergriff, had scheduled me to go home with him for a revival at the Bay City Church.  Brother Earl Cowen was the pastor.  Brother Cowen was driving his car and when we got ready to leave, his niece, for some reason, became upset to the extent that she refused to ride back in the car and preferred to ride the bus; but she was unable to explain her reason.  At this point, there was a decision to be made as to who would ride in the car out of the Texas truck.  I preferred Brother Vandergriff, but he and all the others decided that I should ride in the vacant seat in the car instead of the truck.

  The last time we saw the truck was at the foot of Mont Eagle, Tennessee.  The truck and car had stopped for water.  Brother Vandergriff handed me a jar of water and all loaded up to leave again.  And looking out of the back of the truck, Brother Vandergriff waved goodbye to us as we went around.  In just a few hours, a long freight train plunged into the Texas truck, scattering it for more than a mile down the tracks, grinding and cutting the people asunder.  Five were killed and others seriously injured.  Here, again, I saw the hand of God.

  Again, I saw the hand of the Lord.  Five of us were riding across the desert from Las Vegas, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah when we developed fan belt trouble.  Soon the fan belt broke and the heat of the motor boiled away all the water at least fifty miles from any water.  Having no water in the car, we would have been stranded if it had not been for the hand of God.  I worked at making a fan belt from two old fan belts, but it was necessary to have water.  Here is what happened.  God let a black cloud hover over the desert with a downfall of rain.  However, the desert soaked up the water as fast as it fell.  But in the asphalt road, there was little potholes beat out by car wheels.  And these holes were filled with water from the rain.  I took a little patching box and jug down the highway dipping up the water.  Using this method of filling up the radiator, we were soon on our way.

         In this, again, I saw the hand of God!

Assistant Attorney General shows the Governor of Georgia the two whips which were used in whipping Bishop Grady R. Kent with 60 lashes.  The one held by the attorney is four feet long, four inches wide, and approximately one-half inch thick.

On another occasion, a mob waited for me to hang me with a rope and drag me by the neck up and down the road behind their automobile.  Yet, God delivered me safely out of their hands after preaching approximately an hour in pointing out that it was of this same kind of spirit that persecuted and killed the prophets and the apostles and saints referred to in the Bible.  It was in this place that my wife, my children, and I lived in perils of rattlesnakes in an old forsaken house which was known by the people of the community as a rattlesnake den.  Our bed was a set of springs with nothing on them except a blanket spread over them.  Several big snakes were killed during our stay.  Out of this, my family and myself were delivered unharmed, of which, I give God the glory.

  Did they handle serpents?  So have I.  Did they cast out devils?  So have I.  Did they speak with tongues?  So do I.  Were the sick healed in their ministry?  Let say that I have seen abundance of healings; the removing of cancers, tumors, Tuberculosis, ulcerated stomachs, serious growths, and the dumb to speak by touching their tongues with the finger.  I have seen invalids healed during my sermons.  Have they been touched by angels?  So have I.  Have they seen angels?  So have I.  And all of these things are no secret.  Hundreds live today who witnessed these scenes.

 Last, but not least, thousands know that in my revivals the Holy Ghost gave messages and interpretations through consecrated men and women that God had chosen me to be his light.  And on one special occasion the former General Overseer, A. J. Tomlinson, was moved by the Spirit to crawl on his hands and knees to where I was preaching, then, taking my head in his arms, laying his hands on my mouth, speaking a message in unknown tongues, saying -- while rubbing my lips with his fingers -- "Mouth, preach this message, I said, mouth, preach this message."  My subject was, 'THIS AND THAT MAN."  I have never felt the same since.  Approximately fifty people were witnesses to this scene.  Many have received the Holy Ghost in my revivals by the laying on of hands and this is no secret.  These things have happened in foreign countries as well as in America.

  This testimony does not complete the work of my ministry, but gives a portion of my experiences.  I know the sufferings of Christ and the Apostle Paul; only, I have not experienced that of a martyr.  But otherwise, I know them in the fellowship of their sufferings.

  I can truthfully say that I have experienced the same feelings through these things as the prophet Jeremiah did.  Read:  "Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore of His name.  But HIS WORD was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay.  For I heard the defaming of many, FEAR one very side.  Report, say they, and we will report it.  All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Par adventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.  But the Lord IS WITH ME as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper, their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten (Jeremiah 20:9-11)."

  Have I gloried?  Then, so did the Apostle Paul.  Have I sought my own?  Then, so did Christ.  No, a thousand times no!  God forbid!  Rather than through a knowledge of these things you might realize that I, also, bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.