A friend of mine has died. His name was Bruce (not Bruce Delay however). Bruce introduced me to the Church in Marshall teachings, but had never been to CiM himself. Bruce had terminal hepatitis, which I had known for about 9 years or so.
The story behind how we met and how I was introduced to CiM teachings through him is very inspirational. To this day I maintain God wanted me at CiM, but I sinned in staying longer than I was supposed to.
In honour of my friend Bruce. I will tell that story here.
He moved to my city to be near his son. Before leaving for here he was given some tapes from the Church in Marshall in Cincinnati. The tapes were preaching the Merismos from Heb 12. It was the 1st time he heard that message. He listened to the tapes all the way to here. They inspired him so much he stopped at the nondenominational church off the highway at this city. They told him to go to a different church and weren’t interested in the message of Heb 12. I forget the name of the other church now, I was baptized there (doh!). But it is near the University and there he attended a Bible class taught by a man named Vince and Vince happened to be teaching out of Hebrews 12. So Bruce met Vince and they became friends. Later, a friend from grade school met Bruce at the YMCA, and they became friends. I had just left the Air Force and was gonna be a monk. My friend conspired with Bruce and Vince to have me come over and talk some Bible sense into me (LoL). None of what they had to say moved me, but got to meet some nice people.
Meanwhile, I had decided to play Dungeons and Dragons one last time with other friends, I think in my friend’s basement. It started well, but after about 2 hours of playing, I began to get sick. My stomach began to ache. It got so bad, I had to stop the game and go home.
At my dad’s it got worse. Anyway, after 2 days and nites, the pain became unbearable. On the 2nd nite of no sleep, I decided to pray for help.
I prayed something like this:
“Dear God, please help me, this pain is so bad I would rather die. Please take this pain away. I will do anything you want, if you take away this pain. Lord, I prefer death, over this pain, if healing is not available.”
Please understand, I had never heard of healing, never seen it either. In short, I cried out to God in pain, not faith, but with hope, and in earnestness.
Praise God for God! He heard me! After praying, I felt led to go read a Church bulletin that was sitting in my room. I rarely, if ever, had read those things, and usually they would get tossed in the garbage.
In it, it said, something to the effect of: Catholic Charismatic Conference, place —-, time —-, and so on.
Anyway, I prayed to God, “If you want me to go to this; if it is your will, I will go. Please, just take away the pain.”
Within a few minutes. The pain was gone.
That Friday nite, I went to the conference. There, I saw Vince. That nite, I saw people worship God in a way I had never seen before. They worshiped with a different style of music as well. It was contemporary, which I did not know at the time.
Near the end of the nite, I spoke to God, “Lord, why do you want me here? I learned a new style of worship, is this what you wanted?”. I seemed to get a response of: “wait until tomorrow, come back again”.
The next day at the conference, I met up with Bruce. He decided to take some conference classes with me. One class we went to, was called: The Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In this class, the teacher read a bunch of scriptures that seemed gibberish to me. He just read a list of verses without explaining them. None of them in any way enlightened me, or explained what was going on. I don’t remember any of them. After this, he asked for the raising of hands of those who wanted the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I raised my hand, and then left it up for a question, which was, “What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?”. He answered with, “It’s when you ask the Holy Spirit to be in your life.”.
Now, I had been taught as a Catholic, that you received the Holy Spirit at confirmation. (Remember, this IS a Catholic Charismatic Conference.) So when he gathered the dozen or so who raised their hands to receive this, I declined.
He then asked the rest of us, “How many of you, who have the Holy Spirit, would like a gift of the Holy Spirit.” I raised my hands with about a dozen others. They all wanted the gift of tongues. I asked for the gift of prophecy, because I had enjoyed reading about the Old Testament prophets.
Now, I had never heard of tongues, nor had heard them. No one had ever shown me other tongues in the Bible, nor had anyone ever told me about them.
The teacher then took us aside, into another corner. Then he asked the remaining people to pray for these 2 groups when the time came. One group wanted the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the other group, which I was in, wanted a gift of the Holy Spirit. Of which everyone asked for tongues except me.
He then proceeded to give a small instruction in the receiving of tongues. He said he would pray for us and lay his hands on us, there were 2 other ladies who would do the same, but he would lead. He then instructed us saying: that after he would lay hands on us, we may feel in our spirit the Holy Spirit moving and we would need to open our mouth and speak as the Holy Spirit would guide or lead us to.
After this, having finished instructing us, and being moved by God, he came straight to me, purposefully, and laid hands on me. Upon doing so, enormous amounts of power and energy came through him into me. He said to me, “Let it out, let it out.” I opened my mouth, and let this power within me, manifest in language through my voice. I began to shout in an unknown language, the power in my body was enormous. After a minute or so, he proceeded to pray for others. I, on the other hand, was completely baffled by what was happening within me. In a couple minutes, I toned down my volume, but it was difficult, due to the enormous energy in me, and the lack of spiritual discipline, and in ignorance of the situation. I continued to speak in other tongues, but wondered in English, “What is this, how can I be thinking in English, trying to understand what this power is and yet be speaking in another language.”
The teacher, told me to go home and practice tongues. I did not learn what happened to me, nor did I understand, nor was I taught. Today, however, I can tell you, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Well, I went home that day. At home, I could not utter another phrase in tongues, no matter how hard I tried. Somehow, it just couldn’t or wouldn’t manifest. I began my preparations for my trip to Colorado to the monastery.
I arrived at the monastery and I loved it. It was everything I thought, I was looking for. It was very ascetic.Well, everything seemed wonderful, and I was nearly convinced that this would be my life. But, I wanted to pray and ask God for final confirmation for His will in my life. I wanted obedience to Him above all else, in my life.
I decided to do this at the top of a mountain. So I began my climb up a mountain to pray. About halfway up, I experienced something utterly fantastic and unknown to me. It was the presence of God.
As a Lutheran and Catholic, I had believed that the presence of God could not be felt on the Earth anymore. It was not like the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, nor like the manifestation of tongues. Yes, there was power, but not a channeled power to be manifested in some gift. It was God Himself present. Not visually, neither was He present to my natural ears. I could not sense Him with eyes or ears, nor with smell or taste. But I sensed Him with touch. I did not bump into Him. I felt a tangible presence in a force.
Anyway, I was dumbfounded. I was unprepared. I could sense His presence was emanating from further up the mountain, somewhere near the top, but I was only halfway there. The only thing I could think of to do, that seemed appropriate, was to take off my shoes and socks and continue on barefoot. This is what Moses was commanded to do by God when he met God on a mountain.
Onward I went, barefoot until near the top, I fell on my knees when I reached the peak of the presence of God. There, I learned that God did not want me to be a monk, that He wanted me to move to this city. I left the mountain speaking and singing in tongues. I have been able to pray in tongues, at will, ever since.
Bruce and I became room mates. Later 2 friends both received the Holy Spirit with tongues. Bruce had made an incredible impact in our lives.
Sadly Bruce later fell into universalism teachings and others alongside the manifest son’s of God movement as well as with Vince. Vince was at CiM for 1 year with me, but Bruce never had been there. For the last few years I tried to persuade with scriptures with Bruce against universalism and was even inspired by this to write a page for him on universalism:
http://www.kingdom-gospel.com/wrath.html
However I never motivated him as far as I can tell except that he regretted teaching me anything on these matters.
But he never forsook the Lord, and loved Him deeply. Paul tells us these bad doctrines won’t stop our salvation:
1 Cor 3:
3: For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
4: For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
6: I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
8: Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
10: According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11: For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12: Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13: Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14: If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15: If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
So saying I believe Bruce maintained his salvation but will suffer loss. Even perhaps loss by fire. I discuss the Once Saved Always Saved arguments here:
http://www.kingdom-gospel.com/osas.html
I also discuss the fiery judgment for unfaithul believers here (and no I do not believe in purgatory):
http://www.kingdom-gospel.com/judge1.html
Additional Info:
Someone asked mentioned Bruce’s family. So I wish to add some info here about this.
When I was 1st born again and was running around with my friend Bruce, we didn’t think much about natural family unless we could get them saved. I only knew about his son with his exwife. I knew about his dead grandfather, but not the rest of his family. I am guessing it was small, but I could be wrong. That guess comes from the fact nothing was ever mentioned or discussed, but that is poor evidence. This brings up interesting questions about that. Before he got saved Bruce was a con man. Not a pleasant fellow. When he was my roommate after he was saved and I was spirit filled, my dad was suspicious of him and used his connections to find out about him. He discovered he was a con man, but Bruce had already told me, so I told my dad he was born again now. My dad was skeptical and kept an eye on us from a far. But I have an interesting story about Bruce’s granddad. Shortly after being spirit filled I was working at a hardware store. And for a season I would know in spirit when a man was a minister. One day I was behind the counter and a man came up and ordered some wood. I felt in spirit he was a minister and asked. He said he was. I had left the catholic church and Bruce and I were church hopping at the time. The man was surprised I knew he was a minister and spoke to me at length about me. Finding out I was recently spirit filled and my roommate was named Bruce Gosey he asked me if he was related to Doc Gosey . Bruce’s granddad was a famous minister who had made some End Times charts for the Pentecostal Church I believe. This minister was a Pentecostal preacher. He invited us to his church so we went.
During worship time, I went up front to worship and about 5 people gathered around me praying and prophesying. And the Holy Ghost manifested strongly and anointed me especially my hands, they were like on fire. Later I discovered I had been given the charisma of healing. And if you read about Kenneth Hagin, his healing gift came the same way. Ever since that day, I have only had 2 headaches last more than 5 minutes. I have a success rate on headaches for believers at about 50% and unbelievers at about 75%, and myself 99%. I have participated in other healings as well but headaches seem to be an especially strong anointing in me.
Here is a link to one of Doc Gosey’s famous charts:
Posted by Doma 
Posted by Doma 
Posted by Doma 