From Prison to Pastor | This Is My Story

in 1975 I was 18 years of age I was a graduate of New Mexico Military Institute and Roswell New Mexico started using drugs in junior high and by the time I was a sophomore in high school I was on the verge of failing and my dad beat me spanked me grounded me I mean all the disciplines a parent could do and I wasn't getting it and he didn't know what to do and so I told him my dad I need discipline I think I need to go to a military academy and a frustrated dad said just pick one anywhere in America I'll send you immediately next year and so I ended up Roswell New Mexico you know area 51 and Military Academy my junior and senior high school and I discovered that when you don't have any money and you're in the land of aliens you're not you don't use drugs you don't mix your drugs and your aliens that's a that'd be a really bad trip but I got back to Dallas and what I discovered was you just stay with me you gotta keep your brain in gear you'll miss something and I discovered that you can control a person through their controlled environment but until a person has a heart change nothing changes destiny does not change because somebody else is in charge of you destiny change when something happens inside of you that creates a lordship inside of your heart and by the time January of 75 came around a few months after I graduated high school I weighed 133 pounds I was a speed freak you'd call ooh meth addict today and I was out of control my life was then a straight self-destructive pathway nosedive and I got a call from my natural father and it came over to the apartment where I lived he was drunk as he'd been most of my life and my daddy's a great big Cajun man from southern Louisiana and he sat down with bloodshot eyes and looked at me and said Maury I want to talk to you about the road that you're on of the life that you're living and he he began to confront me was selling drugs to his truck driver friends and all the stuff I was doing and I said they're like so many people do when they're a corrective figure thing they're I'm hearing what they're saying but I'm not listening I hear the volume but I'm paying no attention I'm just saying hey let's get this over with let's just get it over with because I got a life to live and you're in the way and my dad realized I wasn't getting it and even though he was not a good father he was a father and he did something I didn't know he would do he said Mario I want to talk to you for a moment about God and I did something I didn't know I would do I that upset dad wait a minute you don't know me very well and you haven't been around very much in my life so let me tell you something about your son that you don't know I don't believe there is a God I remember thinking there was a God he'd have done better than a daddy like you you've been married six times only to fail in married six times you climbed your weight at the top of the business world only to drink your way to the bottom again and again and again how many Friday nights did my little brother and I sit on the front porch with our suitcase because daddy was going to come get us this weekend and you didn't show up and mom would come out when the Sun went down and say boys come in your daddy's not gonna make it because you couldn't get past the local bar to come pick up your own kids you say Marty how can you be raised in the south and not believe in God number one one raised in church my stepdad had a lake house and that's where we were every weekend aren't God with sports and recreation didn't learn at home didn't learn it in the public school system that was teaching the theory of evolution as if it was a scientific fact which it's not and what I didn't learn at school I didn't learn at home I didn't learn at church because nobody invited kids like me to come to their church I was the eat drink and be merry guy you only have one life to live do it what I didn't know at 18 years of age is how quickly life can change I never dreamed that the next morning in the middle of a crime I would commit a brutal and horrible inexcusable murder in 24 hours after that after a high-speed chase in a car wreck I'd be arrested and taken to their big city jail when they took me out of the car I was shackled down pretty heavy and the police officers were around me and as I was going in one of the officers had gotten a photo a family photograph out of my apartment the night before and he's looking at it and he realized that he knew my stepdad Bob Davis who adopted me when I'm six and he was the dad that really raised me and he said are you Bob Davis his son I said yes sir he said sit down I'll pick up the phone he knew I was gonna be on the news in about ten minutes cuz all the cameras were out there and and so I called my dad and it was probably five thirty five o'clock or something in a January morning and I woke him up I said dad this is Maureen so what do you want and I mean you know you knew it's like what I said daddy I'm in jail and you could just hear the total frustration in his voice he said what are you in jail for and I know he thought it was fighting brawling racing something not as critical as what I'd done and I said daddy I'm in jail for murder and I'm guilty I didn't know the heart of a dad at that point I didn't know what the long silence was about what I didn't know is that long silence on the other line came from the heart of a father that broke and he said don't say anything to him I would be there as quick as you can wasn't but just a few hours after that that Dallas's number-one attorney Dennis Brewer shows up shows up dennis is the father of a girl I went to school with my elementary years Susan I knew the brewer family I knew it Dennis's reputation he was a womanizer a drug user a pillhead a major drinker and corrupt and he was just that guy and but he was the racehorse Haynes and the Johnnie Cochran of Dallas Texas for criminals and I looked I got so excited said my dad's got Dennis Brewer I'm gonna get out of here and did his talk to me about five minutes and does something I never expected her to do he pulls a Bible out of his briefcase and begins to talk to me about God it tells me how he had gone home with a pistol drunk and was shooting his gun off in the house and his wife said we can't live here anymore because the kids were upstairs none of them weren't but she left him and his wife leaving and brought him to a place that he went to a little Pentecostal assembly God Church in Irving Texas pastored by Don George that only had 50 to 150 people in it on a Sunday night he what made his way to an altar prayer and had a divine encounter with Jesus Christ where Christ set him free and delivered him and changed his life and then God filled him with the spirit and then God healed his wife of breast cancer to Full Gospel visiting meeting so during the charismatic revolution my attorney got all the way into what God was doing and he was then excited and he's so excited he told me all that God did he said Lori I serve a god that can do anything are you ready to pray doesn't know are you ready to get me out of jail he said no I said why not he said oh you're not ready yet subsequently I was transferred to the Dallas County Jail that was there in that jail that sobriety Center and I'm not talking about withdrawal I'm not talking about detox those thing I don't my sobriety of the soul something far beyond the physical went to wake a young man up one morning and when he didn't wake up just as I pull the blanket off his head I noticed the blood under his bed sometime in the middle of the night four feet away with seven other inmates in the cell with him that young man committed suicide because he couldn't take anymore they cut a middle-aged man down at the cell across the day room it was five eight men cells and a room with tables in the middle for lunch breakfast supper and he had a note in his prison pocket and the guard pulled it out and I only remember the last paragraph to his wife and his children said I'm sorry for all the pain that I've caused you you'll be better off without me I can't take it anymore I came to the place I thought when is that mean when do I write that note when do I try to escape and get shot window I lose a fight I can't afford it loot lose window when I come and I came to the end of myself and I mean the the bitter end I saw my attorney every time I saw em are you ready to pray I said yeah he said we need before you go to bed and I say your prayers I'd never prayed I the first prayer I prayed I looked up at a concrete ceiling and I said God if you're up there and you come down here and prove yourself for me I will serve you for the rest of my life and can I tell you when I prayed that prayer God did amazing things you said what did you pray the name of Jesus didn't know him she pray in faith didn't know anything about faith you know God's Amazing Grace is so far beyond what we understand God met me where I was and preachers begin to come talk to me and but placed in my cell area was a young man by the name of Tommy Joe Wilson who was a backslidden assembly God boy could rededicate his life to Christ been refilled with the spirit and so he comes in our 40 man's cell that fluctuates between 35 and 40 and he comes in and he's a happy guy he's got some joy in his life and he's smiling and and you know whether you like what he says or not the truth of the matter is there's something about a happy person and in an unhappy room you take all the women out of here and you take all the kids out of here and just that man men by nature just look like they're mad about half the time just don't know what the problem with is it's like you know you just you know used to frustrated old guy and and and but you take the healthy guys out and now you got the perverts and the murders and the rapists and the deviants it's a fairly violent vicious unhappy place and here's this one guy smiling hey man you want to study the Bible it's like no not really but I'd like to hang around you because you know you're not trying to stab me or rape me or kill me or steal my stuff I mean you know just nice to have a safe place somewhere and some people don't understand the power of joy a happy person is a light shining in the darkness things went wrong after that the psychiatrists that evaluated me doctor Greeks and who later appeared on the aldo program shared testimony according what my attorney tells me he gave me the worst psychological report in the history of any inmate in Dallas Texas said I was a homicidal maniac and would kill people the rest of my life no cure I said on a table and I thought am I crazy am I one of these people you see walking down the road talking to herself they're living in an alternative reality I've never got what time he said he put his hand on my shoulder and he said Mari everything's gonna be all right just those little words gave me the ability to go on another day and my attorney said I've asked the district attorney to plea bargain for 50 years a capital murder case cost the state about three million dollars but a plea bargain would not cost anything in 50 years is more than you're gonna be able to do and I said on the table but I'll be sixty eight years old I won't live that long in here and then the district attorney rejected that and he said his goal was to put me to death and if he could in the electric chair and I said on the table again and every time those things happen Tommy put his hand on my shoulder and said Maury everything's gonna be all right I didn't know how to say it but he was critical to my endurance one day I stopped an older inmate by the name of Richard Salisbury from molesting a young grandma it didn't get physical but it's one of those face-to-face almost physical confrontations and I went to bed that night not forgotten about it it was cold I just had a blanket a plastic mattress in little thin blank and I wrapped up Cocoon myself to try to get warm and just as I was going to sleep I felt the shank hit my throat and Richard was gonna kill me and I heard Tommy say if you killed him you have to kill me too I felt what he said about this man that makes him willing to put his life on the line for somebody like me I certainly don't deserve that I've never heard my dad say I love you to my mother those weren't phrases we used in our family so I didn't know how to express love but I loved him as a brother and he went to trial this man that was a light and encouraged or a family member in my heart when he came back from a trial he had a big smile on his face I thought they'd let him go they've let him you know we came out I grabbed it I said what'd the judge say he said I'm going to prison for 75 years it was like a fist went through my gut I went and did something I'd not done I laid down on my bunk and I just broke I just began to cry because his life was over and as I laid there I realized that that's what they did to him your life is over too all hope left me at that moment and I realized I'm not ever gonna walk outside and see the Sun come up in the morning I am never gonna walk outside again and see the Sun and the stars in the moon at night I'm never gonna hear another wave crash on the ocean I'm never going to feel another raindrop I'm never gonna feel another snowflake I'm and then something happened inside of me and I grew up and I realized my mother is never going to put her arms around my neck and say son I love you my daddy is never gonna put his hands on my shoulder and say Mari I'm proud of you and it dawned on me those things were important to me as I laid there crying he walked in and I've never forgotten what happened I looked at him I said how do you handle it and he said something I have never gotten he said Mario I'd rather be in this jail with Jesus Christ then back out there living like we were for the devil and when he said those words something happened inside of me I didn't know I don't know what to call it you say the scales fell off the heart opened up you ears to hear whatever you want to call it I knew there was a God and I knew he knew who God was and I said Tommy tell me about your God and he took a Bible and opened it to the Gospel of John that is written so that men might believe and he began to walk me through the Word of God for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but should have everlasting life then he took me to Corinthians and he said I have a God right here that says he'll make all of the old things pass away and all things new he'll make you a brand new creation I thought that's my only hope because if any of the old is left my future is over with and then he took me to a friend that sticks closer than a brother a God that is with you always even to the end of the age then he took me to where God would make a way where there was no way a God that would open a door that no man could shut and I had Jesus Christ walked off the pages of the Word of God in my life I had an amazing transformational experience I had no compassion I had no empathy I had no shame I had no guilt I was only living for me but when I got saved I got a new heart a heart of stone was taken out people said man what did good to get rid I didn't have guilt till after I got saved then I learned about grace and mercy I had a radical experience and I have people all the time say could you just act normal it's like nope 80% of Christians never bring anybody to Jesus Christ and you think you're gonna hear well done I'm not living like that this man saved me I'm telling me I'm telling it I want other people to experience what I experienced because it's the only hope for our society see when Adam lost his fatherhood he his sons lost their Brotherhood and when the young men lost their Brotherhood we lost our neighborhoods and it all starts with a relationship with God that changes our destiny I love Christians because they've been told you can't say this can't say that and at some point tonight I'll say something and you're gonna pucker and you know how you do that cheap hooker you know that cheap hooker and we'll know who you are cause it'd be a little crease in your chair when we leave tonight pastor rod do we need to check your chair I get radically saved I know nothing about the Bible I've never read the Bible I don't know anything about it pastor Don George our pastor came in gave me a Bible and gave me the greatest sermon ever he said read this book and do what it says it doesn't get any deeper if everybody in the church read the Bible and did what it said forgave loved paid their tithe Witness let their light shine did their work is under the Lord love their wives wives respect your husband's train your children in the way they should go if we did don't spare the rod because you don't want to hate your children you want to spank them regularly so you know you love them I mean a lot of stuff in the mouth if you do the Word of God we change the world and I meet Christians in church and they say all brother Davis I just can't get into the word the Bible is boring the Bible is not boring you have to be boring to say that you're boring and I said they didn't love you the way you read you you take all of you remember STUV all you sanitize it you don't read it the way it's written you know God said to Jonah Jonah you prophet you need to repent that's not what God said I'm gonna tell you what God's sake because I know God it's my friend he just last gentlemen a simple question let's not make it all theological let's make it real which the end of this fish you want to come out of that makes a pretty easy decision and if you'll read the Bible the way I read the Bible you fall in love with the word of God it never ends you know Jacob goes into the tent Enzi's with the wrong woman he wakes up with Leah now he have questions at what point did he not know we're gonna let that slide and then you get over to Rachel and Rachel's barren and Jacob and Rachel and he loves Rachel he's having kids with Leah and Rachel's barren and she's getting insecure and feminine insecurity you know I'm not giving my child my my husband child so she does what women do would you mind not women today back then and she said would you mind having relationships with this young virgin girl that I've got his hand mate and he said well maybe if that makes you feel loved and he's the guy the only guy in the Bible that said no to sex went to prison so anyway now what I just did has changed the way he read the Word of God I did did you see how that story reveals the first pimp in the Bible it was a wife pimping out her husband to the other wife yep he sold it for thirty Mandrake's anyway so I'm reading the Word of God I'm reading the Word of God and I don't think it's whoa dude Wow Wow I mean I am amazed it's the Word of God your Jesus talking like it because you see them bringing naked woman to pastor rod and she just standing there yeah he'd be doodling in the dirt too so I'm reading the Bible and I get all the way to James I'm getting there it's part of the story i'ma get recipes just give testimony I get all the way to James and and and I read James and I'll be honest with ya I'm 63 years old if I could take one book out of the Bible it'd be James don't nobody do James don't nobody like James yeah well you're you're more spiritual than anybody I know so counting all joy when you have various trials when's the last time somebody ran in you and you got out and did a little Pentecostal jig around the wreck hallelujah glory to God this is the Lord is made you ran into my car I don't have the money to fix it my insurance won't fix it and you don't have insurance and I'm not gonna be able to go to work probably gonna lose my job probably gonna lose my home thank god this is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it we're gonna have to cut your leg off because you got diabetes little flake god I've been wanting to run a wooden leg felt like I don't nobody do that count it all joy but then I got over there out of the same mouth on let's come both blessing and cursing and I had a foul mouth don't think i'm on the edge i'm not i'm saying this is the sanctified version and pastor rod met me when i was you don't have to agree with that so I get convinced had conviction where you feel like you've sinned ashamed the Lord damaged your witness and got the Spirit of God just when I read it I realized that I had a foul mouth so what found Tommy Joe I said Tommy did you know it was a sin to cuss he said yeah I grabbed you I'm so mad at you I thought you ought to tell somebody when they're doing something wrong I grabbed him and I yanked him out I said why didn't you tell me since not your biggest problem thank God I didn't get saved in the Church of the Pentecostal posse try to clean me up so I said Tommy I need to stop cussing he said let's pray I don't want to pray I want to stop cussing I pray I cuss when I prayed and I'm sure God said Jesus don't listen I mean whatever you think he said what do you want I said I want you hit me said your biggest butt you ever fight everyday I said well these we're in prison that's what you're supposed to he said no no it's not what you I said if you love Jesus you love me you'll help me so that afternoon I said something he hits me on my shoulder I don't bruise easy and every man here knows you can hit somebody you can drop it down and really unload on somebody I'm loaded on me and it hurt made me mad somebody said how do you know the difference in a man or a if you heard a man he gets mad he says he says please don't do that again true story truths that's free later that night he hits me in the same bruise and I'm talking to somebody you're been talking to somebody and you get blindsided sucker punch and I'm staggering and I catch myself and as I start heading I say Thank You Tommy thank you very much and I think you didn't have to hit me on the bruise you didn't have to hit me like that I'm just trying to cook custard I'm not trying to have broke lungs I get my bed I'm so mad I am so mad I said God I tell you what I'm not gonna cuss anymore you just watch me you don't need God to watch you you need God you know people say I've been praying I might get an answer and think about what you're praying you're probably praying the wrong thing my thing was God watch me and God said okay show me what you got I can do it through you or you could try to do it and it won't work it's Christ in you not you and you so next morning at breakfast I'm cussing I don't know why I don't know what I'm talking any I see him he starts in just as he starts to hit me on the shoulder saying bruised I said oh no I threw my arm up and when I did slipped his fist off my shoulder hit me right on the butt in the jaw hit my head on a metal thing and as I dropped down in the classic boxers knees lock hands drop your eyes flutter ease you're going out face down broke my nose again come to I'm bleeding everywhere and he says I'm sorry I said no problem now I got delivered from kasi but there's God's way in the hard way see Murdock says it this way God makes people right not bright you you're responsible to renew your mind and so you know I'm just going along you going to church and I'm reading the Bible and loving God we're having a Bible study talking to God and one night the Lord spoke to be in an audible voice this only happened to me twice in my whole life and he said you're only gonna get twenty years and it rocked my world oh wow so I wrote a letter and my mother mailed it's snail mail three days later she calls the attorney man I just got a letter from Laurie he said he's only gonna get twenty years he goes to the house gets the letter comes to the jail he catches me in the hall and we don't even get in the attorneys private area he likes me a pal why would you write a letter like this to your mother because you told your mother you were only gonna get 20 years and I don't know why I thought you got saved and you're lying to your mother you're gonna break her heart cuz they're gonna put you in prison for the rest of your life they're gonna try to put you in the electric chair why do you want to meet with you and he is screaming and hollering and finally he gets the question who told you you were gonna get 20 years I said God did he called another psychiatrist had me reevaluated we go to trial my defense is demon possession which is true though it's true I've been delivered by them when I got saved pastor George was involved in that deliverance but my jury foreman is an ex law enforcement officer a sniper in Korea coulda been possessed with the demon of work murder and God set him free and he's now selling insurance in Dallas 11 people vote at the end of the trial life sentence one man says no way God's truth comes with grace one man went from life to exactly what God said 20 years I exploded I thought man God can do anything I go to prison I'm so on fire for Jesus Christ I'm gonna win this penetentary to Jesus nobody told me Texas had 27 units and 47,000 inmates but I get into prison I get in trouble the first day and I get locked up with people that are all over six feet tall and all the way a minute 190 pounds nine five nine and a half today I was five eight when I went to prison and weighed 133 pounds I was a speed freak first they were working brutal people having heatstroke second they were working I get in trouble because they told me to chop the weeds out of the corn and I didn't know the difference in weeds and corn so I just cut all the green stuff they don't grow I got so much trouble for doing that third day I got in trouble for smarting off to the guard and but at the end of third day we're in the shower and it's gank showers 40 inmates in their time and I'm the littlest guy in there and I'm dehydrated I'm sunburned my hands have bloody blisters all over them and I'm standing there in that cold water hits and I thought oh and here the guy beside me go hey Davis I thought great why don't we finish off the third day with a pervert and shower but when you're the Chihuahua and the Doberman pin you come up barking I mean you're coming out and that's coming out of your eyes you're coming and I came out what he said calm down me and the guys been talking we like you and I turn around and everybody in the showers looking at me and I thought oh dear Jesus and he said not like that we like you you stay in so much trouble we don't hardly have to do any work at all I said well that's not going to be a problem so I became the mascot for these big mean people and you know I'm in a five foot wide and I footlong sell and Sunday comes around they said what are you going to do I said man I'm gonna go Church they said whoa you can't go to church only sissies and snitches go to church we have a reputation we're number one ho squad for a reason I said guys I told God if he saved me and proved himself to me I'd serve Him and part of serving him his faithfulness to the house you know don't forget remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy anytime you see the word holy good word there's not yours you don't get to spend your Sabbath days the way you won't - you get spin just adversity what God told you - so I went to bed my rack they slowly I guess while I was sleeping wrapped me up in toilet paper and lit it on fire so I get out I'm so mad you know I'm trying to do right these guys have tried to light me on fire I come out and you know the Big O tatted guys like lockup or also I was locked up with these crazy people and they're all you know bear sure didn't so I come out my Bible and I'm walking myself go to church we try to burn me I'm just talking trash all the way off the road I get in the back row the church and said well God we showed them he said yep when do you leave they gonna show you so I begin to consider my options first of all I repaid the sinner's prayer again just in case I've done anything between the first one the last one I mean yeah you know people say weren't you sure yeah but I wanted to be real sure because they were really gonna kill me I thought I could run all the doors are closed I thought I could fight there's 25 of them and me they're six foot tall bust one of them upside his head and then they're just gonna kill you real slow these people will torture you so I'm gonna be a witness so I come to grips with I'm probably going to die today and as I go back in I just let him see the Bible look him in the eye not afraid of you and I'm not afraid of dying God has given me a grace today for that and they gathered around the sound I thought they just stabbed me and I stepped up to the front of it and there was one of their name Jesse Fontenot and Jesse said Davis we've been talking you're the first real Christian we ever met we go to church any time he won't do it changed my level of living I came to a conviction that day that if I do the word and live according to the word God will I'm not changing for people I'm changing for God and if I maintain what God has changed God will make a way where there is no way and so I just got excited I will tell you two more stories now you know I've never been in church and that the chaplain of that church was a Lutheran chaplain dick caster is one of the most godly spiritual Christian loving men ever been around but he's not Pentecostal so he brings us back a couple of weeks after they're about 75 to 100 of us that have shown up over the last month and he tells us about all the things that the chapel offers Wednesday night prayer meetings all the stuff that is offered for the inmates but he has five inmates give their testimony for him I don't remember one of them was named peewee Garrett he was the wide receiver of Alvin Garrett for the Washington Redskins P we had been saved stop dealing drugs went to Bible College got a degree was ordained to ministry and sent to prison they served in secret that I mean he didn't even know he was under investigation so this guy is powerful I've never forgot the moment I look at him and he goes I've got a god that is so big I haven't had a fight in three and a half years I mean I was like a beat there what do you know about God that I don't know he said I know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit I said what's that he said it's the power of God I said do you have it he said yes I said give it to me he said you don't get it like that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord I said okay we'll get you by wait a second but I'll teach on it I teach a Sunday School class here's how you go to Sunday school I'll save you a seat Sunday morning I'd go to class they have those chairs in the Education Department where the inmates can learn to get their GEDs and the front desk is sitting right there where you are so I sit in there and there there's about 35 maybe 40 desk Macs in there but there's inmates around the walls and sitting on the floors there's probably 75 200 inmates in this little room now I've never been around Pentecostal people never heard a Pentecostal person pray because they don't do Pentecostal prayers when they just prayed over the food so normally it takes more than one of them to get together for it gets really good so he says before we get a day let's pray well I just bow my head and close my eyes I thought he'd say father help us to understand the word today but he starts screaming God in the name of Jesus moving when he said move all 75 inmates came up out of those desks they all started praying at the same time everybody's praying they moved from praying old God send it down God's in the wind God's in the fire to God send the rain God pour out your spirit God change our lives God give us grace then I begin to speak in other tongues and he gets louder and louder and louder and louder I have no idea what's going on no idea what they're doing I am I really was scared I'm scared I'm something I looked on my knuckles or white because I you know I went from praying to prayin yeah yeah y'all knew what I meant and I'm thinking God I mean I'm trying to serve you I don't know what I've did wrong but please don't anything happened to me I won't come back in there I mean I'm mine's good and then I start trying to stop praying and Pentecostal people you may get an A in spirituality but you get an F and stopping when you say Amen it means stop it does not say Amen glory to God hallelujah Lord we love you thank you pray stop you know it's like a choo-choo train shhh you know amen they finally land the plane these guys are sweating you need understand this was ten minutes of raucous loud unashamed intercession and praise something I've never been exposed to I didn't understand changing the atmosphere I didn't understand all that so I was scared he says open your Bible to Acts chapter two verse one today we're going to study about the baptism of the Spirit so I go the front of the book find out what page axes are because I don't know where anything is go to Acts chapter two when the day of Pentecost had come and I'm thinking he's going to explain to me the day of Pentecost is a feast day for the Jewish nation it's one of the few fee States they had two days back-to-back I'm looking down which is something you should never do in a Pentecostal church he doesn't do that he goes the Bible mmm says in Acts chapter 2 verse 1 that when the day of Pentecost had come they were all together and they were in one place and all of a sudden there came a noise from heaven it did not come from JCPenney it did not come from sears and roebuck but it came from the breath of an Almighty God through the portals of glory to the upper room and they carry the noise from heaven that came like the sound of a mighty rushing wind have you ever hurt the wind church and a God beside me jumps that goes I hear the wind I hear the wind I hear the wind and all of a sudden he said there appeared upon those men a cloven tongues like as of fire have you ever felt the fire Church and the guy on the backs gone I feel the fire I feel the fire there humming they're shouting they're dancing they're screaming they're responding and he gets thud he said now do you want it and I said No nothing left I'm afraid of it Wednesday night comes around and I see Tommy Joe Wilson the man that led me to Jesus I can't believe we're in the same unit I hug him I embrace him and tell him it's so good to see him then I said Tommy do you know that guy over there he said peewee Garrett he said yeah he said why do you want to know I said he spit all over me last Sunday morning he said Marty that guy has more understanding of the word a greater anointing of the Spirit on his life than any pastor ever had that is the most spiritual man of God I've ever met in my life ice okay forget that you know anything about this Holy Spirit he said oh yeah I said you got it he said yeah I said power of God he said oh yeah I said give it to me he said you don't get it like that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God I said get your homily second hey Terence let Mauri to the Lord of the Dallas County Jail I've got to go back to myself teach about the baptism of the Spirit Terence Smith from Chicago comes down the aisle of the church big cross tattooed in his head I thought I don't want to hum when I talk I don't want to tattoo my head I just want people to quit hit me in my head we said on the back row the church he said open your Bible to Acts chapter 2 verse 1 I thought oh no oh no no I'll slap just not out of you but you know why does he begin to walk me through the word 30 to 45 minutes later faith came alive you know when faith you know when you're trying to have faith and you know when you have faith came alive I said I'm ready he said you're ready I said oh yeah I'm ready he said hey Bailey come on he wants it so here comes those people hood and they get me in the back row of the church and they are the back area of the church and they put me in the middle of the circle to pray for me and they gather hands so I can't escape this time and they start singing because they can't obviously you can't just start praying your Pentecostal you have to sing something and so they start singing and they're singing and worship of course I don't understand the atmosphere and God and heavens praising I don't know I don't know anything about the spiritual components of what they're doing and they start praying and then they start praying in tongues again and I'm watching them I'm just standing there something you know because faith is present fears not you know before I didn't have faith so fear came in now I've got faith so I'm watching them and they're praying in tongues they're in there loud they're going at it and they stop simultaneously now I'm thinking how do they do that did somebody give a signal do they have ESP you know the Pentecostals when the Spirit is moving is like the fish in the sea you see those whole whole things I don't even know what you call them a fish they're not cubbies schools there you go help me preach this sermon I need some help in my age and they'll turn simultaneously and you think how do they know to do that white birds how they all turn that's what Pentecostals like when the Spirit of God moves they move and I'm sitting there and they look at you and then they start to pray and they don't do that normally though they don't just say we're gonna lay our hands on you you're see it's fear here it is they do Pentecostal things oh Jesus pastor rod and you know it's slowly coming closer but it you know it's like ho-ho G and the other heads are almost you had your donors they just give it to me give it to you chasing hands around the circle but then that ESP thing happens again and simultaneously they all just come on you and just like that I begin to speak in other tongues and thank God for the evidence of tongues but you know what I'm gonna I don't want to minimize that but I won't tell you what was more important to me I'd already realized the majority people they go to an altar prayer you say Jesus saved me six months to a year later are no longer at that same level of commitment or even at any level of commitment for many people and I was afraid I'd backslide on this God that he sent his son listen it's changed that I had of my life I didn't want to dishonor that God and on the day God filled me with the spirit I knew my confidence was he that began a good work in me would complete it there was a seal that came into my salvation in that experience December comes around Christmas my mother has given her life to Christ and his attending the church pastor rod attended my stepdad fully committed Christian all my family's been born again my stepdad when he got my drunk dad and brought my drunk daddy to Jesus Christ God saved all the members of my family [Applause] I'm in a five foot wide a nine for long cell they give us two pieces of fresh fruit first fresh fruit we had that year I set it on side of a cardboard box on the concrete floor beside a metal bunk stuck in a concrete wall and opened my Bible to the Book of Luke chapter 2 where the angels appeared to the Shepherd's in the field declaring glory to God in the highest peace on earth goodwill towards man I didn't know at home my mother is looking at the kitchen table and she's praying because she's thinking about my chair being empty and none of our chairs have ever been empty she's crying God what am I gonna do more he's in prison and it dawned on her she had her other children and her husband and aunts and uncles and all the people that would be at the house for Christmas and I was going to be alone she began to pray for me God take care of Morey the Lord spoke to my mother it's actually in this book a story said don't worry about him it's his first Christmas away from you but it's his first Christmas with me you know I was 19 years old I didn't have a car I didn't have a present I had not touched my family since the day I went to prison he would not touch them again for eight and a half years I said in a five foot wide a nine foot long cell and the Spirit of God came in this cell I didn't think about loneliness I didn't think about lack I didn't think about separation I was in love with Jesus way down deep inside and I knew way down deep inside he was in love with me and it was in that cell that I discovered a new level of Grace and peace and fullness of joy I'll be 63 years old next week since that day I've made it my practice on Christmases to get an apple and an orange and if someone sit down and do a heart check do I still love Jesus the way I did that see I got out of prison married what I thought was the prettiest girl in the church Rob may take issue with that he married the other one God gave us triplets and God gave me friends like your pastor that while I was traveling trying to figure out what to do my wife was having triplets I think there's a picture of them up there that's my grandkids and there's one due tomorrow do we have the family picture that's my wife in the middle the two blonde haired girls and the boy on your right are the triplets identical twin girls and Gaylen and the youngest son on the left there is Dylan he's the one having the baby born tomorrow but God gave me he just restored all the years that I lost in prison pastor rod will tell you that I have traveled around the world and preached in rural and multiple continents I've opened the United States House of Congress in prayer I've been to the White House to meet with the President on multiple occasions but none that really matters when I sit down and ask myself the question if I didn't have anything if none of this had happened could I still sit with an apple on one side and an orange on the other and open the Word of God and move into the presence of God through his spirit and love him for that not for what he's done or for what he did for my life when he saved me and that would be my question to you have you experienced that kind of love have you experienced that kind of mercy that change in your heart and if God's done that are you kind of like I wasn't James there's something that God just says stop that that brings dishonor to the kingdom I'm gonna ask you two questions then I'm gonna have a simple prayer with you but I'm gonna ask everybody in here bow your head and close your eyes just bow your head and close your eyes and I'm gonna ask two questions old-fashioned altar call if you're here today and you say Maury I'm saved I am born again I've had a salvation experience however you want to phrase it I don't care what the phrase is and I know I'm right with God and if I died tonight if the trumpet of God sounded if anything happened to me I know that I would go to heaven and I have no doubt about it yeah that's about eyes closed if you have no doubt about your salvation I want you to raise your hands hold them up okay put them down head stay bowed eyes closed there were those of you in this room you couldn't raise your hands and maybe you've never let Christ come into your life like that or maybe you've allowed your Savior to be marginalized by worldliness or carnal nature conduct or sin whatever you want to call it I'm here to throw stones I'm here to share love you say Mario I need to pray I need to get some things right with God pray with me if you couldn't raise your hand the first time you'd raise your hand right now would you just raise your hand up you couldn't hold him up come on hold him up I'm looking and I'm gonna hold him up hold him up come on if you couldn't raise it hold on do me a favor help me a little bit if your hands are up would you stand up so I could see you not here to bring embarrassment to you but Jesus said if you're ashamed of me in front of men I'll be ashamed of you in front of father you if you if you need Jesus you need to stand up for Jesus that's awesome that is awesome rest of you just keep praying would it be okay pastor if I invited we come down where I could look at me now would y'all come brother would you count which I'll come to the front just come down here to the front not here to embarrass you just come just make make your statement steps right there in front Jesus [Music] I'm gonna pray a very simple prayer with you because I think the hardest thing for us is all you've got to do is ask God save me God forgive me give me a new heart the Apostle Paul said it this way if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and you confess with your mouth he has Lord you shall be saved for where the heart one believes unto righteousness with the mouth one confesses to salvation see the Spirit travels on sound and just like if you signed a contract or a credit-card bill with your ink that eat with your name on it says you're committed to pay that bill when you say it your words are inked in the spirit and so what you say is your covenant contract it's what you're agreeing to and so we're going to pray a little simple prayer and I'm gonna ask pastor rod to come back and talk to you and I don't want to take a long time but pastor it has been again a humbling experience for me to be in your pulpit I love and respect your pastor more than you know he is one of the great leaders and he's been a friend to me I cannot tell you all the things he and his wife have done for my family in critical times tonight's about Jesus and you so let's pray this prayer together and if you're serious it's going to happen but you need to pray it don't say it you're talking to God not Maury say it this way come on church temple dear Heavenly Father in Jesus name I ask forgiveness for my sins god I pray you changed my heart create in me a clean heart a new heart a heart that is flexible and tender to you I believe Jesus died for me and I confess with my mouth I receive his forgiveness and declare his lordship over my life in Jesus name

Channel: First NLR

Views: 5,126

Rating: 4.643312 out of 5

Keywords: prison, Pastor, Maury Davis, Murder, Crime, Jail, Redeption, Grace, Forgiven, Forgive, Love, Blessing, Jesus, Church, God

Id: j-S5Oiyge7E

Length: 46min 21sec (2781 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 18 2019