Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag Part 1

Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag.

by S. O. Susag.

FOREWORD

This book of a few of my experiences is written to show how the pioneer ministers worked, and how the Lord worked with them through his Holy Spirit. One outstanding fact in those days, when even though their training was limited, was their burning pa.s.sion for souls shown in labors, fasting and prayer, and a heaven-born conviction and zeal for the truth. The Holy Spirit had revealed to them an unshaken faith in the Word of G.o.d; a faith that would not waver in the most trying and, to man, surprisingly unreasonable cases. My prayers are that this book will bring faith and encouragement to many a soul who is seeking G.o.d for help when all other help has failed.

I should not have waited so long before doing this writing, for because of that waiting the incidents are not written in the order which they should have been, and so many have been forgotten. Since many have indicated an interest in my experiences, may this book as it goes forth in Jesus' name bring honor and glory to G.o.d.

--The Author Year 1948

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

Ever since this book was first published for the author, S. O. Susag, by the Standard Printing Company, Guthrie, Oklahoma, in the year of 1948, it has been in steady demand. These many testimonies of outstanding answers to prayer have been an inspiration of faith to many people, and they will continue to be an encouragement to every earnest and honest seeker for an increase of faith in G.o.d's precious promises. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." Hebrews 13:8.

In contemplation of printing this fourth edition, the undersigned publisher contacted S. O. Susag's daughter, Mrs. Art Rustand (Goldie Susag), and requested further information about her late father. In February, 1976, she relayed the following notes of interest to the reader:

"My father was born in Steinkjer, Norway, on March 28, 1862. He came from Norway to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was in the store business for a while. In 1892, they moved to Paynesville, Minnesota, where they engaged in farming. After they moved to the farm he was converted, and in the year of 1895 he received his call from G.o.d to the ministry of the Word. He traveled as a missionary to the Scandinavian countries for many years. He also served as pastor in Grand Forks, N. D., and as an evangelist for years. In fact, at the time of his death, which was in Culbertson, Montana, when he was 90 years of age, he was traveling around holding services. His death was attributed to his age. He was up and around until three days prior to his pa.s.sing. At the time of his death he made his home with his second wife in Medicine Lake, Montana. He died on July 8, 1952, and was buried beside his first wife (my mother) at the Church of G.o.d Cemetery near Wendell, Minnesota."

--Lawrence D. Pruitt Guthrie, Oklahoma, March 8, 1976

"And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them and not forsake them." (Isa. 42:16). This Scripture seems to fit into my life's experiences.

I was born in Norway. My parents were Lutherans. When I was two years of age an incident occurred which I have never forgotten. It was this: My Grandmother on my mother's side--a very G.o.dly woman--used to visit us at least once a month.

On the occasion to which I refer, as she was about to leave us, Grandmother said to my mother, "Ellen, I would like to speak to you 'under four eyes'

(that is to say, privately). Does the child understand anything that is said?" Her reply was, "No, he doesn't understand." Then Grandmother proceeded to say, "I have been wondering what would be the best way to pa.s.s out of this world without being a trouble to anyone, and the Lord has shown me that someday I shall lie down as usual to go to sleep and wake up in glory and this may be the last time that I shall see you; so now, my daughter, I feel constrained to urge you to seek the Lord." Again she said, "I am sure the Lord has shown me that I shall go that way." Four years later she went to glory just that way.

My parents had not given their hearts to G.o.d, yet they taught us to live right. The only religious services we ever attended were those held once a month in a country chapel. Other Sundays we would sing together in our home and father would read a sermon to us out of a book.

We would then repeat the Lord's prayer and sing another song.

One afternoon, when I was two and a half years old, a number of we children were invited to a neighbor's for lunch and play. As we pa.s.sed the pantry window on our way in, we saw a number of dishes filled with nice red berries. One youngster suggested that we help ourselves to the berries, and this we did. After a few mouthfuls I began to scream and ran home. Mother, hearing my screams, rushed out to meet me and, picking me up in her arms, asked me where I was hurt. I couldn't tell her but kept screaming. Finally mother began to chide and shaking me, said, "Tell me where you are hurt."

Still I could not speak, then mother fell upon her knees and cried, "Lord, my child is dying in my arms and I cannot find what is the matter with him." I was then able to speak and tell her the cause of my trouble.

Putting my hand over my heart I said that I was having pain there and not in my stomach. Mother questioned me as to whether the lady had given us the berries, and I told her, "No," that we had helped ourselves to them. She said, "I will tell you how to get rid of your pain: Go and tell the lady what you have done and giving her your hand ask her to forgive you, and I am sure the pain will leave you." Mother went with me and when I confessed to the lady she took me up in her arms and wept with me. After confessing the pain all disappeared.

When I was about eleven years of age it seemed that a voice was continually speaking to me and saying, "You ought to be a better boy; I want you for a preacher." I did not understand at the time that it was the Holy Ghost speaking to me. Mother often wept over me and said, "Child, O child, what shall I do with you! You make me more trouble than all the other eight children put together."

At the age of fifteen I was confirmed and at the following preaching service I was supposed to partic.i.p.ate in taking the Lord's supper (as was the custom of the church). Before that service I went out into the woods to pray. I asked the Lord to forgive me for partaking of the Lord's supper, for to refrain from taking it would bring disgrace upon my family.

From that time on, the Lord continued to talk to me, saying, "You ought to be a better young man." It seemed as though I could not be better at home in Norway so I determined to sail for America.

I had been in America about a year and a half when I met a distant relative who was thought to be lost in this country, because his family had not heard from him for two or three years. He invited me to go into a saloon with him and have a gla.s.s of beer. We went in, and also played several games of pool.

In the meantime I took off my coat and hung it on the back of a chair. In the inside pocket of my coat I had my billfold containing about one hundred dollars, all the money I had, and also my valuable papers. When I went to reach for my money my billfold was gone. The saloon keeper seemed to know what had taken place and handed me five dollars. I had no work as there was none to be found. It was the custom in those days for the saloons to give a free lunch with a gla.s.s of beer. I went at noon every day and bought a gla.s.s of beer so I could have the free lunch that went with it. I lived that way for about two months.

During the late winter I got a job at night work, which consisted of pus.h.i.+ng loads of stone in a wheelbarrow for the building of the Stone Arch Bridge over the St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River for the Great Northern Railway Company. The planks upon which we had to walk became very slippery and on one trip the man ahead of me slipped back in the wheel of my wheelbarrow upon which I had a large stone. The force of his fall threw both stone and wheelbarrow into the river. The man behind me, seeing what was happening, flung himself face down over his wheelbarrow, and in the dark, grabbed me as I was going over the plank into the river. He caught me by one of my arms and held me until help came and I was pulled out. I was hanging from his hands about fifty to seventy-five feet above the river.

After that experience I could not make myself walk those planks anymore, so I was again out of work and so terribly discouraged. A few nights later I walked onto the Tenth Avenue bridge intending to jump off into the river to end it all. As I took hold of the railing someone from behind me called out and said, "When you jump, your troubles will begin." I looked, to see the man who had spoken but there was no one on the bridge. The way he spoke had sent a chill through me. It was after eleven o'clock at night and I seemed to realize that it was the Lord who had spoken to me.

After sometime in America I found that I was still the the same young man as before in Norway. It seemed that I was unable to do better. Thinking to improve matters, I decided to go to school and study for the ministry.

After two semesters in the college certain things happened which turned me into an infidel. I quit school, went into business and got married. Soon after I contracted tuberculosis of the lungs, and the doctor said there was no help for me, as both my lungs were like soup. During the depression of 1892 I lost all I had. In my sinful condition I called on G.o.d and He healed me.

We then moved to the farm and one afternoon a young man came to our home and asked me to attend a service with him that evening. In answer to my query as to what kind of service it was to be, he informed me that two women evangelists were conducting the meeting. I replied that I was not in favor of women preachers but I would go with him as I was not afraid the women would hurt me. As a matter of fact, it was through these women that I was partly awakened spiritually, but did not yet give up my infidelity.

One evening I was very tired and sleepy and went to bed at precisely nine o'clock. I went to sleep at once and had a dream. I dreamed that I had become a minister of the gospel and that I was traveling all over the United States and Canada, as well as in a number of European countries.

Hundreds of souls were turning to the Lord in the meetings and many healings and miracles were performed. It would take a long life to accomplish all that I saw done in my dream. I awakened and felt so refreshed and rested, that I thought it was morning and put on the light but found I had been in bed JUST TEN MINUTES! I did not sleep anymore that night but spent the time in meditating on my dream which convinced me that there must be within the human body a positive something that would continue to live forever and my infidelity vanished.

A few months later (March 12, 1895), the Lord spoke peace to my wife and me at the same time in our own home, and called us into the ministry. He brought us out of darkness through three visions and showed us the evil of all sectarian division. All this was giving us light on the beautiful Church of G.o.d without our having heard any preaching on the subject, nor did we know anyone who believed as we did.

We commenced preaching at once and our first convert was a lady who was saved in our home. (Sister Hendricks, now Myhre, who is a minister). Our first case of healing was when the Lord healed me of blood poisoning in my left arm, caused from the scratch of a rusty nail. I caught cold in it and it swelled so fast that when I got into the house I could not get my clothes off and they had to be cut off with scissors. My wife and a young brother prayed for me, but I did not get immediate relief. My entire arm turned blue and yellow and soon my sides began to turn the same way. I had read in the Bible that the sick were to be anointed with oil. The young brother anointed me accordingly, and the swelling began to go down immediately, insomuch that the next morning there was no symptom of any thing wrong whatever.

The next experience of healing was of the restoring of my hearing to my right ear. My wife had gone to services and I stayed home to take care of the children. I had laid down beside them to get them to sleep and had dropped off to sleep myself, and dreamed that I saw Jesus standing beside the bed. He said to me, "Do you know John Pederson?" "Yes," I replied, "he is my neighbor." And Jesus said, "Isn't he a blacksmith and does he not make sleighs? And," he continued, "if he were to make one for you and you were to break it, wouldn't he fix it for you?" "Why, certainly," I replied.

"Well," Jesus continued, "I made your ear in the first place and don't you think I can fix it?" "Yes," I said. Then He stepped up to me and touched my ear with two fingers and I jumped out of bed and MY HEARING WAS PERFECT! I shouted glory to G.o.d.

The youngest of our twin boys, who was nearly five years of age, was taken with double pneumonia and suddenly pa.s.sed away. My mother-in-law prepared him for burial. As I was preparing to drive to town to get a permit from the doctor to bury the little one, the Lord said to me as I was on my way to the barn to get the team, "Why do you not go back and pray again?" I immediately turned around and went to the little corpse and laying my hands on him prayed and wept, and after a little while he came to life. He was not only alive, but also perfectly well. When I knelt down to pray my family did not dare to speak to me; they thought I had lost my mind.

About three years later our baby daughter, some ten months old, was sick and I was planning to leave home on Friday expecting to be gone over Sunday. The little one grew steadily worse and at eleven o'clock on Sunday night she pa.s.sed away. There was great consternation in the family. The oldest boy fainted when his grandmother laid her out. After everything had quieted down and all had retired, except my wife who remained up, she went to the little body, held it in her arms as she knelt beside the bed until she was tired, then, laying the baby on the bed and laying her hands on it, prayed until life came back into it. When I returned Monday the child was as well as ever. In both cases grandmother prepared them for burial.

A little while after this experience the twins were out in the barn feeding the horses. Somehow in their actions one boy accidently stuck the tine of the pitchfork right into the eyeball of the other boy. Wife hearing their screams, ran out and brought them into the house. She washed the blood from the injured eye and laid the boy on the bed; then she and the twin brother laid their hands on him and prayed the prayer of faith. He went to sleep and slept untill morning, and all that remained on the eyeball was a small white spot in the center which disappeared after a day or two, and his sight was not in the least impaired.

A similar case happened at Bruce, South Dakota, while I was pastor at Brookings and White. The little three year old daughter of Brother and Sister Hi Tellinghuisen was playing in the yard with an old rusty sewing machine oil can. She fell on it, the spout striking right into the center of one eyeball. She was taken at once to a physician who ordered her to be taken without delay to a specialist to have the eyeball removed. The parents then called me over the telephone to come at once. When I arrived and saw the eye, it looked to me like a dried up prune stone. I anointed the child, but could find no words to utter in prayer. I could only groan, but the Lord witnessed to the healing. (I think this took place on Sat.u.r.day at 11 o'clock a.m. and the next day, Sunday, she was brought to the services perfectly well.) (At this writing she is teaching school).

On March the 20th, 1904, wife was taken with quick consumption. Her fever was so high that she was delirious. As long as I remained beside her praying, she would be rational but as soon as I ceased praying her mind would wander. Over a week later, on Sat.u.r.day, Brothers O. T. Ring and Carl Forsberg came to visit us. We then had agreement in prayer for the healing of my wife, and from that time on her mind was clear, yet she continued to go down. A number prayed for her but she grew weaker and weaker, until in the month of August. When the neighbors would come in to visit her, they would say to me on leaving, outside of the house, "We are sorry to say it, but we do not expect to see your wife alive again."

One day she said to me, "We have done everything we know to do except to send to Brother E. E. Byrum for an anointed handkerchief." I asked, "Do you want me to send for one?" to which she a.s.sented, and I sent for one. We received it by mail August the 23rd at 1 o'clock. I placed the handkerchief upon her and kneeling beside her laid my hands on her and prayed. She was so weak that it seemd as if she would pa.s.s away before I could remove my hands, so I soon said "Amen." She remarked, "This does not look very encouraging, does it?" I answered, "No, it does not." Then she drew one of her hands from under the covers and said, "Do you believe that any flesh is ever coming to these hands?" "Dear," I answered, "I do not know." Then she said, "I believe that it will happen." I asked, "Why do you believe it?"

She told me that a scripture had come to her while I was praying. She said that it was the one about Naaman: "His flesh came again like the flesh of a little child and he was clean." 2 Kings 5:14.

Two hours later she was perfectly well, but weak, of course.

On one occasion I received an urgent call to come to Norway Lake to pray for Mrs. John Evenson who was ill with tuberculosis. While on my way there I battled with devils, it seemed as though my buggy was full of devils, whispering to me and saying, "You are going to be arrested and put in jail." However, after driving sixteen miles, the Lord a.s.sured me that He was going to raise Sister Everson up, even if she were dead when I got there.

As I drove into the driveway I saw a number of men by the barn. It was the Constable and others. Jumping out of the buggy, I proceeded to unhook my team when Mr. Everson appeared, and said, "The hired man will take the team; come along with me." We went into the house and into the room where the sick woman was. Mr. Everson sat down in a chair beside the bed, taking his watch out, he then took his wife's hand in his to count the pulse. She was unconscious. I spoke to her two or three times but she did not hear me.

I knelt down and asked the Lord to restore her to consciousness. Then I arose and spoke to her again. After a bit she opened her eyes and I said, "Brother Susag is here. What do you want him to do for you?" She replied, "I want you to anoint me and pray for me." I immediately proceeded to do as she requested, following which she sat up in bed and asked for something to eat.