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Personal Testimony of Monica Farrell Part 2

 You know, I told you I'd got the habit of talking to God, chatting to God.
And then when I'd go to chat to God, I'd say to myself,
well I can't talk to God, because I'm not a Catholic and I'm not a Protestant.
And I used to say, well if I'm not down there and I said to God,
well God you want me to be a Protestant?
If God said, yes I do, I'd say, not in your life, I'm not going to talk about persecution.
I want nothing to do with it.
So until I'm ready to do what God tells me to do,
I'm just a hypocrite if I talk to him.
And you know, I believe the devil was doing this.
If I'd only had sense enough to say to the Lord,
well Lord look at the mess I'm in.
I want to do what you want me to do, but I haven't got the courage.
If I'd brought my fears and dreads to God, he would have made a way out for me.
But instead of that, the devil drove away between me and God and I was afraid to pray.
One thing that I didn't want to pray, I desperately wanted to pray.
But I was afraid to pray.
And for more than a year I went round like this.
And I was getting hard and super serious, cold and carty.
But you know, I didn't want anyone to know what was going on.
I was utterly miserable.
And sometimes a little voice would say to me,
suppose if you died, I'd say don't listen to it, take it away, I don't want to listen to that.
And I pushed this out of my mind.
Well one day, there was a crowd and I went to see what the crowd,
I was passing along through a slummy part of Dublin.
And I saw this crowd converge in the street and it was a pouring wet Saturday afternoon.
And I went to see what the crowd had gathered for.
And here was a bishop on parade.
And it was a pouring wet day and he was dressed up in a big raincoat
and a huge tall silk hat and somebody holding a huge umbrella over his head.
And all the poor old women, most of them poor old women,
kneeling down on the muddy, slushy street for the honour and dory of kissing this man's ring.
And adoring him, stroking his coat and looking up at him,
kissing the tail of his coat and looking up at him as much as he could say.
Isn't he wonderful.
And he just faced his heart to be damned.
And he was holding his hand out as far as he could, the poor old things enough.
They weren't very clean and I suppose he was frightened of what he might get off them.
And he was holding his hand as far away from them as he could
to give them the honour and dory of kissing his ring.
And I looked at him and I thought, now this man is supposed to be a follower of Peter.
I may say that when I was a child, my grandmother had been a Protestant
and her Bible was in our home.
And my brother, who afterwards became a priest,
used to often read grandmother's Bible to us on a Sunday afternoon, us little ones.
And sometimes he'd read out of a Bible history.
So I was quite familiar with several stories in the Bible,
especially in the New Testament.
And I knew the story of Peter in the house of Cornelius.
And I said, now this man came to be a follower of Peter.
And Peter wouldn't let a Roman officer kneel down in the comfort of his own home.
And this man was letting these poor old women kneel down on the muddy, slushy street.
They can't go home and have a nice hot bath and change their clothes.
They happened about to get into and they hadn't many clothes to change into.
If they got out of the skirt, they wouldn't go the other way back in.
There was that many tips and holes in it, you know.
So I thought that was a hypocrite.
He's going to hell if I know anything.
And then I thought about the other bishops.
They're all going to hell.
And then I thought about the Pope.
And I said, oh, he's worse than them all.
He's getting more out of it than all the others put together.
He sure is going to hell.
Then I thought about the priests and I thought about my own brothers.
Two brothers in the priesthood.
And I had another brother that had died being prepared for the priesthood.
And I said, oh, well, Joe and Frank, they're sincere.
But a lot of the others won't be sincere.
Then I thought about the people.
Ach, there's a pack of fools who let them pull the wool over their eyes like this.
And then this little boy that used to talk to me sometimes said,
what about you, Monica?
Where are you going?
I said, I wasn't talking about myself.
I was talking about the others.
But this little boy wouldn't be silent this day.
And this little boy said, where are you going?
And I thought, well, anyway, where am I going?
To the very same hell that I'm sending all these people to.
Now, what satisfaction will it give me to go to hell
and find it full of priests and bishops and say to them,
oh, I knew you'd all be down here like a hypocrite.
And they'd say to me, what about you, then?
You're such a smart aleck.
Why didn't you find your way somewhere else?
And I thought, well, just excuse us, you know.
Just then, the words came into my mind.
I knew the Lord Jesus was pleasant.
I didn't hear any voice saying them.
But I remembered that the Lord Jesus had said,
fear not then, but till the body.
And after that, have no more that they can do.
But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear.
Fear him.
The Jaffa he had killed had power to cast him to hell.
Yes, yes, fear him.
And I thought, well, I've been a fool.
For more than a year now, I've known this religion of mine was wrong.
And because I was afraid, I've refused to do anything about it.
Now maybe I'll drop dead just when I want to do something about it.
Or maybe I'll go mad just when I want to think.
I've refused to use my mind for a year.
God gave me a mind and a brain.
And I deliberately refused to use it for a year.
Now maybe what I want to use is God to take it from me and I'll be mad.
When I was terrified, I was absolutely petrified.
The persecution that I'd been afraid of seemed the silliest little mole-hill on my foot.
And hell seemed just next to my foot.
I was afraid to take a step out of fear.
I stepped into hell.
I was petrified of fear.
Four thoughts came into my mind.
God, eternity, heaven, hell.
I said, now that's got nothing to do with all mechanical problems.
It doesn't matter whose way to whose wrong.
There's a God in heaven.
I have to stand before God.
There's a holy Trinity before me.
When I stand before God, He later sends me to heaven or to hell for all eternity.
I can't get to heaven if I've got any sin on my soul.
And even if I started to be good from now to the rest of my life, if I never committed another sin,
I've plenty of sins behind my back, bad enough to send me to the lowest pit in hell.
So I can't see any way of escape from hell.
I was petrified.
I thought, I'll have to get the answer to those things soon.
What will I do?
So I started from home and I thought, oh, I hope God keeps me safe once I get home.
For more than a year, I hadn't dared to pray to God.
And I started home now, and on my way home, I was thinking, what might I do?
Think about all the different religions.
Church of Adam, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Catholic.
Now I meet them at seven.
Seven-day Adventist congregations, all good gracious.
I said, I've been aging my children before I got through all those,
and they must all think they're right or they wouldn't be what they are.
There must be a shorter way to attend this.
Is it I want anyway?
Is it a religion I want?
I said, no.
I'm like somebody in a blazing house.
There's no good handing me a big pile of books like that and saying,
now if you sit down and study these books,
they'll teach you how to build a house that wouldn't catch fire.
I said, you understand, I'm in a fire.
Get me out of the place at first and talk to me about the books after.
Get me out of this.
Now this is what I want to get out.
I'm in danger.
I don't want a religion.
What do I want?
I want to know how my sins are to be forgiven.
I want to know that when I die, I'm going straight to heaven.
I want no maybes or perhapses about it.
I want to be sure, if it's possible to be sure, that you can die and go to heaven.
How to get that, that you can die and go to heaven.
I want to be sure of that.
In the meantime, I want to know how to get my sins forgiven
and how to live a kind of life here on earth just pleasing to God,
how to get power to live the kind of life that would please God.
Now where will I find that information?
And again, Marjorie rolls up this woman like a little dragon.
And I could hear her saying to me,
and that's in the Bible, Monica, and the Bible is the word of God.
She's at well and truly drummed into me.
She always punches a bone at me when she's saying anything, you know.
And I thought to myself, that's where I'm in the Bible.
I must get a Bible, read the Bible, find out what God says about going to heaven.
I'll do whatever God tells me, and then I'm sure to be on the right road.
When I stand before God on the Day of Judgment, I can look up into His face and say,
God, I did what you told me in that book to do.
And I'm sure God wouldn't send me to hell if I could honestly tell Him
because I read what He did and I followed His instructions.
Now, I went home and I knelt down to pray my first prayer.
And now I had to pray. I just couldn't do without praying.
And again, a little prayer, another thing He's turning in my life.
I said, O God, give me light and give me a Bible
and show me Thy will for me and I'll follow it, Lord, whatever it is.
And I meant every word of that.
Now, I got up from my prayer and immediately the thoughts came into my mind
to go to a Presbyterian church and ask the minister for a Bible.
I felt now that God was with me. Oh, I forgot to tell you something very important.
But I said the word light, O God, give me light.
Immediately I said the word light, a glorious light shone right down to where I was.
It had been a gloomy, wet Saturday afternoon.
And as I said that word light, so a shaft of light shone down to where I was.
Now, I never investigated. I concluded with the sun shining.
But to me, that light, this God was in that light coming right down to where I was
and saying to me, monitor, I know that you haven't laughed at this kind of light
but I've sent you this light to let you know that I've got the light for you clearly.
Don't be afraid to trust me.
And I felt that God was going to be with me in this thing, but He hadn't forsaken me.
So I got up from my knees and then the thoughts came into my mind
to go to a Presbyterian church and ask the minister for a Bible
because Marjorie was a Presbyterian.
As it was a church in Dublin, they used to call it Timelator's Church
because it was built largely by the money donated by Timelators.
And when I was a young child, every time I passed that church, I used to feel it drawing me.
And I used to look at it and say to myself, someday I'll go to that church.
So this was the church I chose to go into.
And of course, as it happened, this was the church of the most stylish Presbyterian church
that all the big Presbyterian businessmen in Dublin went to.
But I didn't know that. I just went in there to be innocent in their souls.
Well, I saw the minister and I explained to him after the service
the situation I was in. I said, I'm supposed to be a Roman Catholic.
I don't believe the Roman Catholic religion. I don't know what's right.
But I want to get a Bible. Would you have an old Bible that you're finished with?
Or could you lend me a Bible and give it back to you after I read it?
I just want to find out what God says and I want to do what God tells me to do.
And in the meantime, any objection to me coming here,
I'm not saying I'm going to join this church, but I'd like to know what you teach.
So this minister gave me a new Bible.
The ignorant things you're saying when you don't know what you're talking about.
I picked up the Bible as a small Bible.
Oh, I'll have that written about speaking.
He said, I'm afraid you won't read. Oh, yes, I've read far bigger books than that.
Oh, he said you'll find that a lot more difficult.
And now I was sufficiently crazy. I'd been badly bitten if I wouldn't have.
I had no confidence in churches ever, but I wanted a Bible.
And so he opened up the New Testament and he said to me,
if you take my advice, read that end of that book.
He put his hand on the New Testament.
Don't bother your head about that end. He said you wouldn't understand it.
So I didn't say yes, I know to him. I said, thank you very much.
When I got along with the Bible, I said to my cousin,
there's something up this end this fellow doesn't want me to see.
And I started to read to the most high and mighty James,
by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, from Ireland.
I began to wonder if I'd found out a bit of Henry VIII or Martin Luther.
But I went on with it and I started to read in Genesis.
I read in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And you know, at this time, this monkey theory was having great vogue.
And I thought, what are they talking about?
God said to me how he made the world.
He made it. He's the only one.
So I thought it was lovely.
I read it with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph,
and I thought it was a beautiful story.
So before I went back to the minister, I thought,
I had read a bit of the New Testament because, you know,
I must admit, I've been reading that part very mostly,
very pleased about that.
And so I said, Matthew, of course you know it, so and so,
it became so and so, it became so and so, it became so and so.
And I didn't know what it meant, and I thought to myself,
well, it's not just like these ministers.
They read the lovely interesting stories and sent me after a whole lot of big acts
where I don't know what he's talking about.
But anyway, just because I was more familiar with the New Testament,
it didn't seem to have the attraction for me.
But these Old Testament stories just infatuated me.
So it made me that I never tell a person not to read any part of the Bible.
I let them find it for themselves.
But anyway, for about a year, I kept reading the Bible and going to that church
and going to Mass in the morning with my sister.
Because I worked it out like this, I thought, now, if I kick up around now
and tell them I don't believe the Roman categories,
and they'll say, well, what do you believe?
Well, I won't know what I believe.
So I'd better wait.
I've got it worked out.
I know where I stand myself before I take a stand.
And so I still kept going to Mass,
but I still kept reading my Bible all through the day,
and oh, I loved the Bible.
I spent hours reading it.
I couldn't read enough of it.
And my sister come home, you know,
and I wouldn't have her dinner ready for her.
She'd be that mad with me.
She'd say, nothing to do all morning here but get the dinner.
What were you doing?
I'd say reading a book.
And she'd go around burning all the novels.
She used to be cracking my thighs laughing.
She'd say, I still couldn't end with this novel reading.
She'd throw the novels in the back of the fire.
And I had my Bible hid away up in the window waste
where the window was, you know, behind the shopping.
And she didn't know.
Anyway, after about a year of reading the Bible and going to church,
I began to see that I couldn't keep going to Mass,
that it was all wrong,
and that once I woke up to the fact
that that piece of flour and water was still only a way for a flour and water,
I knew I couldn't keep it up.
And so I had to let them find out.
And gradually they found out that I was going to a Protestant church
and there was a terrible love with my elderly at home.
I had to jump quickly because time was getting on.
I walked away from my home this Sunday morning.
My sister put it up to me.
Either I went to Mass with her or I got out.
So I chose to get out.
And I had the capacity to get my Bible, as I tell you.
And I knew this was coming,
so she packed away everything that could be packed like a chunk
and she locked them all away.
So I had no way of getting ready, nothing to hold any love within.
But I had a tissue paper hat-bag
and I was gathering a few things together in it
on top of a cupboard in the kitchen that had a cupboard in it,
like a ward or another way, I mean.
And I put it there so that it wouldn't attract attention.
And I had no intention to just walk out from home.
It's just a tissue paper hat-bag.
But as it happened, that's what I had to do
because I had to grab the few things I put together
and most of all with my Bible.
I put it packed. It was everything else.
But I tell you the honest truth.
I knew if my sister laid hands on that Bible,
she'd put it into the fire.
And at that time, I've got that Bible in that cupboard there.
That was the Bible that I struggled through.
At that time, I would honestly rather have been thrown into the fire
and let them get that Bible.
I just couldn't bear to see it burn.
No other Bible would have just taken its place
because it had talked to me and I just loved it.
And so I had to go back.
Still, if you had asked me if I was saved,
I wouldn't have known what you were talking about.
But I believe I was saved.
But I hadn't got the assurance of the Foundation.
Anyway, I went there and I knocked on the door
and my sister opened the door
and I just stopped past the downstairs in the kitchen,
locked the kitchen door
because I was afraid she'd come in and pull the chair from under me
and it was a downstairs kitchen with a flag floor
and if I hit my head on it, I'd be unconscious
and wake up in a convent and I didn't want that to happen.
So I grabbed the hat-bag and I came upstairs
and I said, well, I'm going now.
And I walked down the street and my sister looked as white as death.
She was looking after me and I looked back at her
and I said, well, sorry for her
because she didn't understand all that was going on in my mind.
And I could have run back and thrown my hands around the neck
and said, you've been a good sister to me and I won't leave you.
But I thought, no, if I do that, I'll turn my back on God.
And then I understood that verse that has puzzled me before.
If a man loses life, he finds it.
If he finds his life, he loses it.
I thought, now, I've got to choose between God and my sister.
If I go back to my sister, there's no good in me talking about the Bible.
I've got to let that be thrown in the fire.
Turn my back on God and go to hell for all eternity.
No, I said, God, I'm going with you.
And you can look after my sister.
I'll go with you, Lord, and I'll talk to you.
Now, I hadn't a penny piece
and I had no way of earning my livelihood.
I wasn't in any way qualified for earning my livelihood.
And I was going out to a great big world about which I knew nothing.
Although I was about 18 or 19 years of age,
I was more like a girl of 10 or 12 today, you know?
And I thought, well, what's going to happen to me?
I haven't even had my breakfast.
I haven't even got my best clothes on me.
And I was walking out, didn't know where I was going to sleep that night,
didn't know where I was going to get a meal, didn't know a thing.
And I couldn't beg. I wasn't made that way.
And I thought, well, what am I going to do?
Well, I said, if God owns all the world, He won't let me starve.
If I'm doing what's right in His sight, He'll look after me.
I'm not going to worry about it.
Now, my next worry was to get to church.
And time was flying on now and I wanted to go to church.
And this tissue paper has bagged in my hand.
I walked along and I was just going to cry
because I was so sad about my sister.
And I turned down the laneway to get away from her.
And I was just going to take my handkerchief out
and have a really good cry.
Just as I was about to cry, I saw the handle of a hairbrush sticking out of the tissue paper.
I had to attend to that.
And then something else fell out and I had to attend to that.
And I never did guess I'd cry.
And I thought, well, I could have kicked this thing down the street and thrown it away.
But I needed everything that was in it.
Just then I looked up and there was a big stone building there.
And I knew it was a Protestant orphanage.
I didn't know who they were or what they were, but I knew it was a Protestant orphanage.
And I was just going to pass the door
because I was frightened it was too big a place.
When the lady came to close the window and she looked so nice,
I knew now it was a lovely Christian place.
Then I thought it was a lovely, refined, ladylike place.
And I just on the spur of the moment, I beckoned her like that to come to the door.
When she came to the door, I took my Bible out of this bag
and I just said to her, would you mind keeping that passing?
I want to go to church and I have no where to put it.
She never asked me who I was, what I was, where I'd come from.
She just said, certainly.
And off I went to church.
And I came back and when I got to church, I forgot to tell you,
I hadn't planned to go to the Presbyterian church that I'd been going to.
So I thought I'd go to the nearest Protestant place of worship.
I'd never been to this place before, but Merrion Hall, which was a brethren place,
was the nearest Protestant place of worship.
And I went there.
And there was a nice service and there was no offering taken up,
so I was very happy about that because I hadn't a penny.
But that would never have kept me away from church anyway,
because I knew God knew that I hadn't got it.
I never bothered about other people, which was a great help to me.
Well anyway, coming out into the porch, who did I bump into but our next door neighbour?
Now that morning, when I'd left home, before I'd left home finally,
I'd gone into her house and asked her would she let me use her telephone.
I'd gone in the back door.
Up to that time, I'd only said good morning or good evening to her.
All I knew about her was that she was a Protestant and that she kept the servants' registry
and that she had the telephone.
But I'd never used the telephone before, but this morning I said,
would you mind if I used the telephone?
I wanted to contact a Protestant friend around here.
And she said certainly, but when I tried to use the telephone,
there'd been a storm the night before and the wires were out of order
and they told me the exchange I couldn't get through.
So I put down the phone and I trimmed it this day and said to her,
I'm having to leave our home because I don't believe in the Roman Catholic religion any longer
and I'm having to leave home.
Oh dear, oh dear, she said.
Now she was petrified, too, because she could have got the house burned down over her head
for having me in a city.
So she said, oh dear, oh dear, that's all she said about that.
But when I went to Marion Hall, who should I bump into in the porch but this lady?
And she said, oh Miss Parralon, so pleased to see you here.
And then she pressed a half-crown into my hand and she said,
would you accept that as from the Lord?
She said, I'd love to invite you home to lunch to my house,
but living right next door to your sister would be just as much as my life was worth,
but would you accept that as from the Lord?
And she pressed a half-crown into my hand.
Now in those days, a half-crown would buy you a good dinner and a good tea.
You get a good dinner for one and six and you get a good tea for nine and still have something for the good.
And so I looked at that half-crown and I thought to myself, well isn't that wonderful?
That's the day provided for now.
And just as God has provided for this day, he'll provide for every other day, I don't have to worry.
Now God first took the fear of peacecraft over me, then he took the fear of finance over me.
Wasn't that wonderful? I can see it now.
Well I went now, I was real happy, all sort of weeping and crying was gone for me.
I was so happy. I'd been into worship God and I was so full of the joy of the Lord
that I could have just danced and sang along that road and God was just really just surviving for me
and I knew that things were going to be alright, he was going to look after me.
And I went to this house to pick up this party and I thought, well I'll get it to the table and sing
and I asked the lady would you give me some paper and sing and then I thought, well I'd better say something.
The woman would think I'm mad if I don't tell her what I'm doing.
So I told her very briefly and she said, would you like to meet the matron?
And so she introduced me to the matron and the matron said, you can't have a little lunch with us.
So I thought, well that's half turn, I'll do it for my breakfast tomorrow morning if I do that.
So I said, thank you very much.
So while I was having lunch, I told him about myself and the matron said to me, where are you going to sleep tonight?
And I hadn't looked through but I didn't want to say that to her.
Oh I said, now I'll be alright, I didn't come here to be in Houston for you.
But she said, have you any way to sleep?
Well you know I'd stopped telling lies and I hadn't kept the proof.
And when she texted me I said, well actually I haven't but I'm sure God will do something for me.
And she said, well do you know where you are now?
And I said, no.
Well you know, she said, God must have guided you, you couldn't have come to a better place.
We are the Irish Church missions to Roma Catholic.
That was the mission of the Church of Ireland to Roma Catholic.
She said, it's our business to help people like you that are leaving the Church of Rome for conscientious motive.
She said, you see those windows?
Well they're very well insured, if they smash them they won't last for a minute, we just carry on.
This house again is well insured, if they burn it down, we just build another one on the same spot and carry on.
So she said, we don't care that about them.
Where you'll spend the real stick by you to take them to him.
Now this was wonderful to me because I knew probably through the news, only a few were in the seat today.
They said to me, don't be seen coming to my home, I don't want to see the house burn down over my head.
They were terrified and you couldn't blame them for being terrified.
This Protestant lady that I used to go to see, she lived in a very nice district.
I used to have to sneak up after that, up the back way, in the back door to see her because she was so frightened of anybody seeing me going to the home.
But she couldn't be blamed for that because they were terrified.
So anyway, this lady said, now look, I'll send one of the boys in the orphanage with you after dinner to offend the man if she can put you up well and good.
Otherwise you come back here and I'll make a shake down for you and myself a racket.
Well I went to the Fenn's home, it was a Mr and Mrs Thompson and they were lovely Christians.
And they volunteered to keep me until something would be settled for me.
The next day I went to the Presbyterian minister and told him what had happened.
And he was delighted, look he said, that's the best thing ever could have happened to you.
He said, those people are specially trained for dealing with you.
Now he said, you let them instruct you and don't try to divide yourself between the two churches.
You've got my blessing with you.
And he said, I'm only very happy that they are going to the Gathia.
And so that made me more contented then because I knew then that I'd listened to his preaching for a year and I was much more confident in him.
I still wouldn't have understood if he asked me as I said, I still wouldn't have known that kind of talk.
But I knew I was touched in God and I wanted to do right in the sight of God.
So I stayed in this home for three months and I received instruction in the Irish Church mission.
And then I was publicly received into the Church of Ireland.
I publicly renounced the errors of the Roman Church and publicly declared my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour.
And I meant all I was saying but I didn't fully comprehend it if you can understand me.
I was sincere as far as I went.
Now the mission people knew this but they were much too wise to say to me, well you were not born again.
Because that would have been a terrible, that would have only told me the other confusion the way I was.
So they said nothing.
Then I asked, would they take me in and train me as a missionary?
And this was a different thing because a person without the assurance of salvation would be no good in a mission.
So the superintendent said, well I'll tell you what we'll do.
You come and be a guest student for three months.
At the end of three months we'll know you and you'll know us and then we'll be able to talk more definitely.
So I went in as a guest student.
And no doubt they were praying that I'd come into a good place in Christ and this is exactly what happened.
One night Mr. Murray was taking us to the hundredth text.
We were doing the verse, Matthew 11, 28, 29, 30.
Now I forgot to tell you that when I was a little child, I told you I was very tiny.
And I used to dread the Day of Judgment.
And to avoid the Day of Judgment I'd made her a wonderful plan.
I used to think that I'd run to the Lord Jesus, that he'd be there and I used to picture him in long white robe.
And I used to think, well, when I was fighting I used to run to my mother and pull her skirt around me, you know.
And I used to feel so safe when my mother would put her hand in her head.
I can still remember the lovely feeling of security I'd get when my mother would put her hand in her head.
And I'd say, you're all right there now, mother won't let her touch you.
Well this gave me an idea and I thought I'd run to Jesus.
Now I knew Jesus died on the cross of Chaldees.
I knew that nobody would get to heaven if Jesus hadn't died on the cross of Chaldees.
What I did not know was that anyone could get to heaven if they put their trust in him.
I didn't know that.
But I thought, well I'd run to the Lord Jesus.
I was going to get in there well and truly before the judgment began.
I don't know how I was going to do that, but when you're five years old or six years old you can manage these things wonderfully.
And I was only then the size of the child of about three and a half, you see.
So I thought I'd run up to Jesus and I'd pull his robe and he'd stoop down and say, well little girl, what do you want?
And I was going to say, dear Lord Jesus, didn't you die on the cross of Chaldees to open the gate of heaven for us?
And he'd say, yes.
Well, even though you've died and opened the gate, I'll never get in if you don't take me in because I can't make myself clean.
I can't get rid of my sins.
Would you let me go behind your robe and would you smuggle me into heaven and God the Father won't say anything to you?
If I have to stand out there and be judged, I'll be sent to hell and I don't want to be sent to hell.
But I can't get myself into heaven.
Now, you see, I had the gospel all day when I was five or six.
If only somebody had told me but there was no one to tell me to.
However, I used to picture the Lord Jesus letting me hide behind his robes and me, you know, stepping along tiny little steps so God the Father wouldn't see me.
And he's getting over to the gate of heaven and pretending to lean up against it as if he was tired and saying to me,
now go for your life as quick as ever you can. Run for it.
And me running into heaven and setting up a chair and saying, I'm in, I'm safe.
And then listening inside the gate but listening to the angels calling out the names until my name is called out, Monica Farrell.
Monica Farrell, and everybody's saying, where is she?
And the angels saying, for the third and last time, Monica Farrell.
And then the Lord Jesus saying, oh, Monica Farrell, that didn't get her.
Oh, she's well and truly in heaven. I said, well, there you go, myself.
And God the Father saying, oh, well, if you did that son, that's quite all right to say no more about that.
That's the way I had it all sorted out when I was about five or six.
But it would work as well as that. I didn't know.
As I got older, this picture faded because I thought, oh, I'm too big now.
Couldn't be hidden anywhere now.
And it sort of faded but never quite faded away.
Well, this night in the Mission House we were doing Matthew 11, 28, 29, 30.
Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart
and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is nice.
And as he was explaining the two rests of this verse, the rest of justification and the rest of sanctification,
he used as an illustration Christian and pilgrim's progress, how he read out of the little book
and how the burden got so big on his back, you know.
And then how he came to the place where he saw the empty cross and he realized Jesus had died on that cross for his sins.
And he said, well, what am I doing carrying this burden?
And immediately that thought came to him.
The burden loosened up his back and rolled away into a grave where he never saw it again.
And two shining ones came and they took away a filthy garment
and they put on a beautiful white garment.
Now he said the most beautiful white garment was a robe of Christ's righteousness
covering the guilty and health-saving sinner.
Now you can imagine how my mind shot back to when I was a little child
and when I used to picture running behind Jesus' robe.
I thought to myself, now I wasn't as daft as I thought I was.
There's something in this idea of running to Jesus.
I'm too big now to hide behind his robe, but I can hide behind Jesus himself.
And on the day of judgment I'll get behind the Lord Jesus and God will look at me through Jesus
and he'll see the righteousness of Jesus between me and him
and he won't judge my sin because of his own strong righteousness.
That's what I'll do on the day of judgment.
Now I was thinking all this and you'd think Mr. Murray was a thought reader.
There were other people around this table, but he fixed his eye on me and he said,
you know, the beauty about this robe of righteousness is you don't have to wait, you're dying to get it.
And you don't have to waste the day of judgment to get it.
You can have it right here and there.
Oh, I said that's too good to be true, Mr. Murray.
But he said if it's not too good for God to give, it's not too good for you to take.
But it wasn't too easy.
He said it wasn't easy for the Lord Jesus.
He had to go all the way to Calvary and shed the last drop of his precious blood for you.
He didn't make it easy for you, but it wasn't easy for him.
And then he said to me, I said, Mr. Murray, if I ever come to God, I must come just as I am and with my sins.
I've been trying all my life to make myself good and I only succeed in making myself worse back.
Now I said, will you show me in that book in simple language that I can understand
that if I come to God just as I am and with my sins that he'll accept me.
And he turned up John 6.37, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.
Now wouldn't you think that language was plain enough for anybody?
I thought it was very nice that I couldn't take it to me.
Then he turned to John 3 and he read,
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten from,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
He that believeth not the Son did not see life, but the wrath of God abideth him.
And we talked about all those verses and I thought it was all beautiful,
but I still couldn't take it to me.
Then he happened to say in passing, while he was looking for another portion of scripture,
he happened to quote Romans 5, therefore being justified by faith.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
No, it was Romans 8, therefore being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
No, Romans 8, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
That was the verse.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
And he said, you know condemnation means entrance to punishment.
I said, does that mean those standing are to be judged on the last day?
Yes, he said that's what that means.
Well, that's the very thing I'm after and that's what I want.
And then he turned to John 5, 24, and this was the verse that the Holy Spirit used to bring me through.
John 5, 24, the Lord Jesus speaking,
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me,
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation,
but is cast from death unto life.
And he drew two squares.
Now there are two squares there.
You were born in that square called death.
Stay there till you die and you're going to eternal death.
In this square called life stands the Lord Jesus holding out to you the gift of eternal life.
You step in there by faith and the minute you step in there,
you step into new life, eternal life.
And the Lord Jesus hands you the gift of eternal life and with his gift he gives himself to give up.
He steps into your life and he lives in you and through you eternal life.
Die there, you're only so of your outer body to enter into fuller life.
And then he said to me, he that, verily, verily, means really and truly,
I'm telling you the honest truth differently,
he that heareth my word, and he said, you've heard the word of the Lord, haven't you?
You've read it, you've heard it, yes.
Do you believe that God sent Jesus Christ into the world to die for sinners? I said yes.
Do you believe you're one of the sinners for whom he died? I said yes.
Are you satisfied with the death of Jesus Christ on your behalf? Of course I am.
Is God satisfied with the death of Jesus Christ? Yes.
Do you think you've got to add something to the death of Jesus before you're acceptable?
I've been trying to add all my life and I've only succeeded in subtracting.
Well he said, when the Lord Jesus, before he was born, God said to Joseph, the angel said to Joseph,
I shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
He came to save, to seek him to save.
When he was hanging on the cross of camp, he said, it is finished.
What he came to do, he had finished, he completed, he came to save, he saved.
Now he said, you've heard, you've believed, you've received, you are saved.
Well you know, the minute he said it, I said, Jesus came to Christ.
And I thought to myself, I've been saved for years. Why didn't I rewrite it before?
And all the hymns I'd sung and all the scriptures I'd read and all the texts I'd learned
and all the conversations and facts I'd read, they all splashed me behind.
They all told me the same thing, that Jesus died for me.
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.
Then I'd let the crimson say, he washed it, why is it no rock of ages?
Check for me, let me hide myself from me.
Nothing in my hand I bring simply to my cross, I think.
I thought, I've been singing it, I've been talking it, I've been praying it.
Why didn't I see it before?
I said, Mr. Murray, have I a terrible kick skull?
So he said, not me, Jasmine.
Why didn't I see that long ago?
I said, why didn't I understand it?
I can see it now playing the piestra.
He said, because the Holy Spirit has made it clear, the Holy Spirit didn't make it clear to you before, that's why.
So I said, Mr. Murray, if I drop dead now, would I go straight to heaven?
Yes, he said, you'd be asking for the body's presence with the Lord.
But this was beautiful, this is what I wanted.
It was so lovely I wanted to hear it again.
So then, Mr. Murray, if I got run over with the motor car now, would I go to heaven?
Yes, he said, you'd go straight out.
Well, you know, I didn't know what to do.
I felt like rushing out in the middle of the street and lying down in the middle of all the tropical things
and, oh, come over me now, I'm ready to go, I don't care how soon I die.
The other thing I felt like doing was grabbing the first row mechanicers and laying their hands on them
and shake them like that, not to hurt them, but to wake them up and say, will you listen to me?
You don't have to be afraid of the devil or death or hell or purgatory or anything.
You don't have to be afraid of anything because Jesus has done it all for you.
Oh, I wanted to tell everybody.
Well, I went home to the mission house.
I don't remember putting my feet to the ground, but I went home to the mission house.
And it was late at night by the time I got home, but 10 o'clock I suppose,
I went up to the room of a woman that had been saved for 40 years.
I woke her out of her sleep, I sat her up in the bed and I told her how to get saved
and I told her how simple it was, how clear it was, how stupid it was for people not to see it.
You know, I was that boiling up and I had to sort of let it all out.
Well, they took me under the mission and from then on the Lord's been with me and that's my story now.
Dear loving Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast said I will lead the blind by a way which they do not.
I will bring them in paths that they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them and took a thing straight.
These things will I do unto them and will not forsake them.
There are many people now, Lord, both in the Roman Catholic Church and outside of us,
blindly seeking for something they don't know for us, blindly edging their way along.
Lord, we heard the archbishop of Canterbury the other night speaking and our hearts just went out to him
because he seemed like a man in a fog in a graveyard, feeling his way round
and bumping against this gravestone and bumping against that gravestone.
Have mercy upon him, dear Lord, and reveal Thyself to him.
And to all others who are really looking for reality, Lord, we'll now make them to realize that Thou hast reality
and that there's no reality apart from Thee.
We pray, dear Lord, that Thou would give them hunger and thirst for Thy word.
And we pray, dear Lord, especially for our young people who have in many cases not been guided or right by the older ones.
We pray, dear Lord, that those who are seeking to help the young to come to a saving knowledge of Christ
may have Thy help and Thy blessing.
O, may Thy Holy Spirit move through this world, convicting men, women, boys and girls of sin, of righteousness and of judgment to come.
And may they flee to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge and strength.
And, O Lord, we thank Thee and we give Thee all the praise and all the glory.
Now bless these tapes, we pray, and bless all who listen to them.
And may there be men and women and boys and girls who will flee to the Lord Jesus for mercy and forgiveness and ask Him to pen them.
Dive into that fountain open for sin and for uncleanness and grant, dear Lord, that they may be clothed in the righteous robes of Christ
and be able to say, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.
Against that day we ask that the Lord Jesus say, Amen.