Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag Part 2

One old mother in Israel, when she heard of the books being burned, said, "I've got only one book and it's a good one." She brought it to me and said, "If you say this is not good, my salvation goes too." I asked her if I might mark with a pencil in her book and she said I could. After reading it a while I laid it aside having marked it here and there. She asked me what I thought of her book. Not to discourage her, I said, "There are some good things in that book." She took it and began to find the places which I had marked, finally closed the book and said, "This book is no good; the Bible says thus and so and the book speaks to the contrary." Then she said, "Why have I been blessed many times when reading this book?" I answered, "Because you were honest and did not know any better."

We pioneer ministers had many things to meet. On getting home one time, I found that a runaway team had pulled our windmill down so that we had to have a new one. The well was 204 feet and was hard to pump. After we got the new one, a neighbor came over and said to my son, Oswald, "See, your father has been out preaching and so you are able to have a new windmill."

Yes, he had been gone seven weeks and he was eleven cents short on his expenses. The following year I was gone nine months and five days and I fared real well--I had $76.76 above my expenses that time.

Sometimes I got to thinking about little Charlie Brown, who I believe was about eleven years old at the time. When his father asked him if he got tired, he said, "Yes, I get tired of this walking preaching." So they went into a grove and prayed and his father said to him, "We will go to the next town and you preach on some street corner and if no one gets saved, we will quit and if some get saved we will keep on. What do you think of that?"

Young Charlie agreed to that and a number of souls did get saved. Now "young Charlie" is Editor in Chief of the Gospel Trumpet.

Then it was empty pocketbooks, empty stomachs and sore feet, but that did not stop the preaching. Yes, in those days it was souls we were after, and not money and honor.

I did not have a new suit for sixteen years; wife had only one new dress in eighteen years. Although we lived on a farm we could not eat b.u.t.ter. We had to sell that in order to be able to buy more necessary things.

One year wife and the children were raising twenty-two hogs while I was out preaching in the gospel field, and we had a payment of $500 to make on our home, or move. When I arrived home in the fall wife met me with tears in her eyes as she told me that the hogs were all ready for the market when the price dropped from $6.00 per hundred weight to $2.75. "And," she continued, "the only reason I can find for it is that we have not given enough." "But," I replied, "I feel that we have given enough: Our gross income has been a little over $500.00." She then brought two pencils and two pieces of paper and said to me, "Come on." We knelt down and asked the Lord to bring to our minds what we had given, and in our check-up we found we had given $252.50. Then, almost scaring me, my wife, with tears streaming down her face, lifted her hand toward heaven, and said, "Lord, we have done our duty and you will have to pay our bills."

Two days later the cattle buyer came back and said that if he could get our hogs he would have enough for two railroad carloads. I told him he could not have them at that price. He said, "They are the nicest looking hogs I ever saw and if I can get them to mix in with the others I may get top price for all." "And," he added, "I will give you the old price: Six dollars ($6.00) per hundred weight." To which I replied, "They are yours."

One of our neighbors had twenty-two hogs born the same week as ours. The day they were brought into town people said, "Susag's hogs are the nicest, but P----'s hogs will weigh 1,000 pounds more than his." They weighed them and found that our hogs weighed almost eleven hundred pounds more than P----'s. They took them off the scales twice to examine the scales to see whether they were correct, but the hogs held their weight, almost eleven hundred pounds more than the neighbor's hogs. So once more, the Lord honored his faithful, humble people. There was enough money for the $500 payment and some to spare.

Two years later we had another $500 payment to meet, and when we started to seed in the spring, I said to the twins, "Let us kneel down right here in the field and ask G.o.d to give us a large enough crop to pay the notes which will be due in the fall." That year crops, generally, were very poor, average wheat being from 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 bushels to the acre (of screenings, or Number Four, as it is called). But the Lord gave us eighteen bushels to the acre on one piece and on the other, twenty-two bushels to the acre of Number One wheat. One old lady said, "I can't understand such a thing--only a fence between."

One time I had a dream of a scene taking place in the chapel at St. Paul Park, Minn. Brother Nelson, who had just finished his sermon, was standing by the pulpit with his left elbow on the pulpit and his hand on his chin, looking at the audience. Then I saw a woman, about two-thirds down the aisle, get up and shake her fist toward Bro. Nelson. The Lord said to me, "Do you see that woman?" I answered, "Yes." "You see she is not right with me in shaking her fist at my servant?" "Yes," I said, "I can see that."

Then the scene changed in my dream. I was sitting on a chair right between the dining room and the front room at the Workers' Home of the Scandinavian Publishing Company, and there was a minister sitting behind me leaning his hands on the back of my chair. This minister I had met once before, and the Lord said to me, "You had better look out for that man; he is not right with me. He will get you into trouble."

Some days later I received a telephone message to come to St. Paul Park, Minn. at once. I went accordingly. On my arrival I found services were going on in the Workers' Home and very soon I was sitting exactly as I saw myself sitting in my dream. All of a sudden I saw the woman I had seen in my dream coming in from the kitchen. I had never seen her before, nor had I ever heard of her, but recognized her from the dream. Then I almost got scared. What if that preacher was sitting behind me resting his hands on the back of my chair, I thought. What's up, anyhow? I did not dare to look back to see!

The brethren asked me to preach, and when I got up and faced the audience, sure enough, there sat the very minister I had seen in my dream! I spoke on the twenty-third Psalm. I'm generally long winded in the pulpit but this time I cut it short. When I closed, Bro. Nelson said, "Is that all you are going to give us?" And I said, "Yes."

"Old men shall have dreams and young men shall see visions."

When the service was over, Brother O. T. Ring came to me and said, "Please come into our room; we want to see you a little." On going into the room I found that the ministry were there, along with this minister and woman, also some of the leading workers. Brother Nelson said, "We are having a little difficulty and we felt that we should call for you. You have had a lot of experience and we thought that possibly you could be a help to us."

Then I got up and asked whether I might tell my dream. After I had told it I said, "If this fits, then you let me out." "Yes, it fits," he said.

A number of years later Brother J. S. Lane was to be the evangelist at the South Dakota State Camp Meeting. We met and introduced ourselves. Brother Lane said,

"Brother Susag, I stopped at Clinton, Iowa, and a sister said to me, are you going up to South Dakota and Minnesota? Then you'll meet a minister that I am afraid of. His name is Susag; the Lord speaks to him whether he is asleep or awake, but I have forgotten her name." I said, her name is so and so. "Yes," he said. That was about twenty years after the dream.

It was a wonderful experience the Lord gave me after the baptism of Sister Swenvorg and the wonderful healing of her eyes, and also the wonderful glory the Lord sent upon her with the persecution that came with it. That evening in the service the Lord blessed me so much I had to put both hands over my heart and had to ask the Lord to stop, as my human body could not stand any more pressure. This happened in Lukken, Denmark.

I once went to hold a meeting in Bro. William Gustafson's grove three miles north of Belgrade, Minnesota. The brother met me at the station and said he had quite a lot of business to do in town so I could stay at that station until he got through and then he would come and get me. But as quite a long time pa.s.sed and he did not come I walked over to a store and asked them if they knew Mr. Gustafson and they said they did. Then I asked if they knew whether he was still in town. To which they replied that he had gone home quite a while ago. So I had to take my grips and walk out to his place, as the meeting was set and I was to stay in his home. I held the meeting and some souls were saved, but I never said a word to Mr. Gustafson about his leaving me in town. I thought that the good Lord could speak to him better than I could. The Lord gave me grace to treat him as nicely as though nothing had happened. When the meeting ended I had to walk back to town again.

At the next year's state camp meeting he came to me and said, "Can we go over into the timber?" Of course I said, "Yes." On our way over he told me that a would-be preacher had talked to him about me, accusing me of many things but that he had found out that they were not true. Then he asked me to forgive him and he also asked the Lord to forgive him, as he had lied to me.

It is too bad that such things happen, as a finer brother than Brother Gustafson there never was.

Then Brother Gustafson told me that the Lord spoke to him telling him he should have given ten dollars to me for that meeting, but now the Lord tells him it is to be fifty, and he wrote me out a check for that amount.

A WONDERFUL INCIDENT

Father Brewster, as he was commonly called, of Hereford, Minnesota, was taken sick and was sick for some time. If I am correctly informed, he was 89 years of age. For a number of days it was thought that he was dead but the doctor said that he was still living, but he might go almost any time, and the family sent for me to come and conduct the funeral services. He had been in a coma for eight days. On arriving I found that the doctors had not yet p.r.o.nounced him dead. I went into the bedroom where he lay and stood looking at him for a few minutes, meditating on the many good times we had had together in the Lord. Finally I fell on my knees and began to pray.

Suddenly he called out in a loud voice, "Praise the Lord, Brother Susag."

He never moved a hand or a finger, all that he moved was his lips and the next day he pa.s.sed away. He had not spoken a word for eight days.

One year when I was the evangelist at the S. Dakota State camp meeting, I mentioned one day in my sermon that I was very busy and had received enough calls since I had come to the camp meeting to keep me going for two years.

After the service Brother Geselbeck, the elder of the church, came to me and said, "Let us go down to the car," which we did. He began by saying, "I've always had confidence in you, Brother Susag, but today in something you said, I thought you went too far, so I decided to speak to you at once as I did not want to lose my confidence in you." I said, "Thank you, that's fine, brother; what was it I said?" "You said that you had received enough calls since you had been at the meeting to keep you going for two years, and this is only the third day!" "Did I say that?" I asked. "Maybe I said too much, but we will see I have the letters here in my pocket and they are addressed to Arlington, Route 1, South Dakota." So we took the letters and read them and found that if I were to hold meetings at each place as long as they stated in the letters it would have taken me twenty-six months.

Bro. Geselbeck then said, "I knew you were a busy man, but I never knew you were that busy, and I am glad that I spoke to you!" Yes, if we would all do that way when something is in question it would avoid a whole lot of misunderstanding.

I once had a cancer on my upper lip and one day I met Dr. Sandven on the street of my home town. He stopped and said to me, "You had better come over to the hospital and we will burn that thing out or else you will have something." I replied, "I've got something already." "Yes," he said, "but we may be able to burn it out yet." "Well," I said, "I believe I will wait on my own Doctor a little while yet." "All right," he said, "if you don't get rid of it, come over and we will try to help you."

A few days after this I went to Erie, North Dakota to hold a tent meeting for Sister Bertha Gaulke who was the pastor of the church there. We had prayer often, but for two nights the pain was so intense it seemed as though the roots of the cancer were going into my nose and up into my left eye. The third night I was weeping and praying and finally I went to sleep, and in my sleep the Lord said to me, "Wake up and take hold of the cancer; I have heard your prayers and it will come out." I woke up and did as the Lord directed, and out it came, roots and all!

I have had (and still do have) many dreams. The Bible says, that "... old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." (Joel 2:28).

During the time I was pastor in Grand Forks I needed a fountain pen.

Sisters Hulda and Louise Werstlein gave me five dollars to get a pen, to be my Christmas present. I sent to my son, who was agent for such things, and he got me a $7.50 Waterman pen for the five dollars. After the Minnesota State camp meeting, Sister Moon of Canbee, Minnesota asked me to take her and her two children home. On reaching Montevideo I met Brother Thomas Nelson who said he would like to have a long talk with me. I told him that he could take Sister Moon and the children and myself and we could talk then as we went back and forth, which we did, but when I arrived home my pen was gone!

I wrote to the pastor at Montevideo asking him to look in Brother Nelson's car and around in the gra.s.s where the car had stood, thinking the pen might have fallen out of his car when I took my coat out of his car and put in in mine. About a week later I got a card saying there was no pen to be found anywhere.

A few nights later I had a dream. I saw my pen. It was standing up against a small willow in a bunch of gra.s.s in the road ditch; it was very dusty.

Some days after this, as I was on my way to town going north, I pa.s.sed the road going west which I had been on when I lost my pen. The Lord said, "Why don't you go and get your pen?" I laughed to myself, but kept on driving and again the Lord said, "Why don't you get your pen; why don't you get your pen?" Finally I had to turn back, and as I did so I said to myself, "This is a trip that I'll never tell anyone about, starting out for 136 miles to look for a pen in a road ditch!"

After going a mile and three quarters I saw to my left a little willow sticking up just like the one I saw in my dream. I stopped the car and went to look, and there stood my pen just as it was in my dream.

We might ask how it got there. The only answer I can give is that I must have had my coat over the front seat of the car and the coat must have fallen down, and when I reached for it while the car was going the pen must have fallen out of my coat pocket in the dark.

A WONDERFUL INCIDENT

I had arrived home on Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday I went to the service. The pastor said, "Now I know why I haven't a message today," and turning to me he said, "You speak for me." But I said, "No, I did not bring my Bible along." "Well," someone said, "we can let you have a Bible." I said, "Soneone else must have the message." There were two other ministers there, but neither had a message. Finally wife said, "Husband, I get a number of letters and here's one that reads like this, 'Dear Sister Susag: You should have been in our service last night. We had a wonderful message and a wonderful service. Several were saved, and do you know who preached for us?

Your husband preached for us.'" Then she said, "Why don't you give us a message like that at home?" And they all said, "That's right."