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| It Pays to Listen to Listen to Voice from Above |
The Herald-Journal of Greene County, an hour-and-a-half drive out
Interstate 20 from Atlanta, recently carried what I consider to be
one of the all-time news stories. Maybe THE all-time news story.
Keep in mind, the Herald-Journal is no National Enquirer. It doesn't
carry stories about Hitler being alive and well on Neptune or stories
about a woman giving birth to a duck, although the story I referred
to earlier, to me, is even a bigger eye-popper.
I'll give the article's headline first: "The Lord Speaks to Pep
Stone Warning Him Not to Go to Hay Field Where Over $30,000 in
Machinery was Stolen in the Early Morning."
Long headline, I realize, but the reader got all the facts in a hurry.
Local citizen Pep Stone, the article stated, has been in the hay
business in Greene County since 1948.
He awakened one recent morning at two o'clock. It was raining. Pep
Stone had a hayfield he hadn't covered the day before.
He decided he'd better go to the field and cover it. The article
quoted Pep: "I was still in bed, fixing to put on my overalls, when
a voice came to me and said, 'Don't go, you will get hurt.'" Pep
went back to bed. When he awakened again, he and a friend drove
to the hayfield 10 miles away.
At the gate they found the lock had been shot away.
"My eyes got big and my heart skipped fast when I realized that
someone had stolen my tractor and hay baler. I had paid $30,000
for this equipment," Pep was quoted further.
Tough break, but Pep put it all in perspective.
"I am living today," he said, "because of my religious belief. It
was a voice that spoke loud and clear. I honestly believe if I
had gone down to the hayfield, I would have been killed. I can
buy some more equipment," he went on, "but I can't replace my life."
A friend who knows Pep well told me "Pep's in church every time
the door opens. If he says the Lord spoke to him, I'm not going
to doubt it one bit."
Obviously the Herald-Journal didn't, either. Refer to the headline
and realize it didn't say, "Pep Stone says the Lord Spoke to Him...."
It said, "The Lord Speaks to Pep Stone...."
There is a huge difference.
Most newspapers would have used the first headline, casting some
degree of doubt of the Lord's personal warning. Did the Lord
actually speak to Pep or did Pep just say the Lord did? Not the
Herald-Journal. It took Pep's word and told us in something close
to 36-point type that the Lord did indeed get in touch with a
Greene County man and save the man from harm's way, and that's
what I call a major league news story.
Do you realize the news of the Lord speaking to a mortal is bigger
than news that Hitler is alive and well, a woman has given birth
to a duck or that Elvis is running a car wash on the outskirts of
Little Rock? Of course it is. It says to atheists they'd better
make an immediate turnaround. It says maybe Jimmy Swaggart
wasn't just making all that stuff up about his conversation with
the Lord.
It says a marquee in front of a local church I rode past was
absolutely correct: "Draw nigh with God and God will draw nigh
with you." It also says there's a small town out there with a
newspaper that has cast away the cynical nature of most other
newspapers so that if a God-fearing local citizen says the Lord
spoke to him, who is the local newspaper to cast any doubt as
to the veracity of his words? Most other newspapers could use a
little of that, too. Verily, verily, double-verily.
-- Lewis Grizzard |
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