Books: Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag
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S. O. Susag >> Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag
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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 passed 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 pronounced 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 passed 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 grass 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 grass in the road ditch; it was very dusty.
Some days after this, as I was on my way to town going north, I passed 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 Saturday, 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."
Then I got a text. I looked at my watch and it was eleven o'clock. I knew
the pastor had to be home at 12:30, but I forgot all about it, and not a
person moved, not even the little children, while I preached. When I quit I
thought it would be around 12:10 or 12:15, but on looking at my watch it
was 3:15 in the afternoon. I had preached for four hours and fifteen
minutes and the pastor and audience declared there must be something wrong
with our watches! It seemed as if we must have been pretty close to the
third heaven!
* * * * *
On one occasion while I was in Europe I visited at my wife's request, a
cousin of hers who had been ill and confined to her bed for twenty-one
years. She had become bedfast when she was nineteen. When I first visited
her, as she did not understand anything about divine healing, she got quite
peeved at the instructions I gave her. However her father, my wife's uncle,
got gloriously saved. Two weeks later I got a letter from the woman asking
me to come again and I went. Then she repented and turned to the Lord. I
prayed for her and the Lord raised her up.
* * * * *
Once in a city called Stavanger, Norway, I was asked to come and pray for a
sister who was in the last stages of tuberculosis of the lungs. As some of
the people over there teach that it is witchcraft to heal by the word of
God and prayer, a mob had gathered to stone me, and the folks called me and
asked me not to anoint and pray for fear the people might do me bodily
harm. I told them that I was not any better than the apostles or any other
of God's ministers, and if that was to be my lot I would be willing to die
for the gospel's sake.
I anointed and prayed for the woman and the Lord raised her up to the great
astonishment of the people and no bodily harm came to me.
I met her twin sister several years later who said she had been well ever
since, healthy and strong.
* * * * *
In 1916 while in Denmark I contracted tuberculosis of the throat and head.
I got so weak that while holding a meeting in company with Brother Carl
Forsberg out from Pandrup, Denmark, one evening before the service started
I was suffering so intensely that I went out into the cow barn, sat down on
a milk stool coughing and spitting, praying and weeping until I was so weak
that I was unable to get up when I tried to do so. Time for meeting came,
and the folks did not know what had become of me, so a Brother Madson, a
big strong man, went out to look for me. When he found me he picked me up
and carried me in, laid me on the lounge and the saints prayed for me, and
I got strength to get up and preach. We closed the services that evening.
Brother Forsberg returned to Sweden and I to my headquarters at Hjoring. I
went to a specialist and asked him to write me a permit so that I could
return to America. After he had examined me he said that he could not give
me the permit as I would not be permitted to go aboard ship in the
condition I was in. He said, "You would not live until you got there if you
did start." I told him that I would like to be with my folks when I leave
this world. He replied, "I don't blame you but it can't be done."
Then I got a letter from Brother and Sister Johnson of Jotta, Sweden,
saying that "Brother Forsberg had come home saying that it looked as though
the Lord was through with Brother Susag, he was no near gone. Wife and I
agreed in prayer and the Lord says He is going to heal you and that you are
going to preach to us here many times."
The following Sunday we had services in Hjoring at eleven o'clock, although
I did not seem to be able to stand up, but I thought I might just as well
go to heaven from the pulpit as to go from the bed, if I was going to die
anyway. After I had been speaking about fifteen minutes I quit, as the pain
got so intense in my throat I could hardly speak above a whisper, and the
audience could not hear me. I went up stairs in the chapel where I had my
room, and I lay down on the bed suffering intensely.
Outside my door was a tree and a little bird hopped onto a branch and began
to sing. (I do not know the name of the bird, but the species was like the
birds that used to come to our grove at home in Minnesota and sing. But I
had never before heard one in my travels in Europe). I turned to the bird
and said, "Did my heavenly Father send you from Minnesota to Denmark to
sing for me when I was so troubled?" And the more I would speak to him the
more he would flap his wings and sing and sing until I could forget my pain
and had to laugh aloud. It was nearly four o'clock and that was the time
for the next service. I got up and got ready for the service, and when I
came into the pulpil to preach, to my surprise, I was perfectly healed and
could speak as loud as ever without pain.
The next morning I went to the specialist and asked him to examine me again
to see if I could go home if I wanted to. After examining me he said, "Man,
O man, what have you done? There is not a T. B. germ about you--you can go
or stay as you please." I told him I had done nothing, but that the people
of God had been praying for me, the results of which was a great surprise
to the doctor. This is the way the Lord deals with his unworthy, humble
children that trust and obey Him.
* * * * *
I have generally observed a rule of not eating my evening meal until after
the evening service. One evening in Sweden I ate a little fish out of a can
that had been standing open for some time. After eating a little of the
fish I remembered that the can had been standing open and did not eat any
more. About a half an hour after I had retired and gone to sleep, I woke up
feeling deathly sick with ptomaine poisoning. It seemed as if I was to be
taken out of this world. All through the night Brother Forsberg, Sister
Bettie Miller and others kept praying for me and the next day my life
seemed to hang on a thread, but at five o'clock that evening we got the
victory and I was perfectly healed, and able to speak in the service that
night.
Some years afterwards while at Camp meeting at Anderson, Ind. I was
poisoned in about the same manner. A number of brethren prayed for me
without my getting any relief. Finally, Brother George Green, now pastor at
Hanford, California, a true yoke-fellow of mine who loved me dearly, broke
down and wept and had compassion on me and prayed a short prayer of faith
and rebuked the devil and the sickness, and I was healed instantly. The
Bible says of Jesus, "He had compassion on the people and healed all that
came unto him."
* * * * *
On one ocassion in 1933 I was not feeling very well. I was on my way to
California and stopped in Minneapolis where my three boys live. When they
saw that I was not well, they were determined to take me to a doctor and
have me examined. He ordered me to a hospital where five doctors took six
x-rays. After taking the x-rays, the doctors asked me, "What do you think
you have?" I said, "The same as you think." They said, "What do we think?"
"Cancer!" I said. "No," they said. I said, "Why do you lie, you said it was
cancer and a bad one." They said, "Do you understand Latin?" I said, "I
understand that much." In the evening the doctor called my son Clarence and
said to him, "Shall I tell your dad what the matter is with him, or will
you?" He answered, "It doesn't matter who tells him, as he is ready to live
or to die; we want to know the worst." The doctor said, "It is the worst.
Bring him to my office tomorrow at three o'clock." I heard the five doctors
talking the case over between themselves, stating the position of the
cancer.
On coming to the office the next day the doctor said, "I have good news for
you, Reverend, you have no cancer." I asked him, "When did you lie to me,
yesterday or today?" He said, "Neither, the picture clearly shows cancer.
They forgot to take your food test so you had to go back to the hospital to
have it taken and in the food test there was no cancer." The doctor asked,
"What did you do, once a cancer but none now?" I said, "I did like a little
story we ministers have about a little boy and his sister. They were out
playing, and at eleven o'clock Mary was hungry and went in to ask mother
for a slice of bread, but mother said, it is soon time for lunch, go out
and play now, until lunch is ready. Then Freddy went in and asked for bread
and he came out with a slice of bread with butter on it. Then Mary said,
'What did you do to get it?' 'I cried for it,' answered Freddy," so did I.
The Lord made them forget to take the food test at first in order to verify
the miracle.
* * * * *
One day I was plowing, since I had asked the boys to let me plow for the
exercise it gave me. It was about ten o'clock in the morning and I had
stopped and gotten off the gang plow to let the horses rest and stood
looking south in the field when I saw six or eight feet before me dear
Brother A. G. Ahrendt standing and smiling at me, just as real as if he
were there in the flesh. "Brother Ahrendt is leaving Grand Forks by my
orders," the Lord said to me. "If by your orders he is leaving there,
amen," I replied. I then turned to get on the plow when on the other side
of the plow there stood a lady minister and the Lord said, "Some are
contemplating getting her as the pastor and that will be the ruination of
the work in Grand Forks." (Not because there was anything wrong with her as
a minister but because she would not fit in the place). The vision
disappeared and I went to plowing.
Two or three days later I became so burdened about Grand Forks that I was
almost sick, so I wrote to Brother Ahrendt and asked if anything was wrong
or anyone sick, for I was so burdened. I expected an answer right away, but
didn't get it, so wrote again and still no answer. The next week I wrote
for the third time telling them that I was going through Grand Forks on my
way to Raab for a meeting, and would be in Grand Forks and they could
arrange a meeting for me over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday if he
wanted me. Then a letter came from Sister Ahrendt saying her husband was
away and that they were leaving Grand Forks.
Sunday afternoon, when in Grand Forks, I went by invitation to Brother Lars
Olson's home and there met the four leaders of the congregation: August
Shave, Bertha Gaulke, Lars Olson and Sister Johnstone. They told me that
they had been talking of sending for me; Bro. Shave had proposed sending me
the money for carfare, but Bro. Olson said, "No, we won't do that; we will
ask the Lord to send him here and we will pay his expenses when he comes."
These prayers going up from the dear ones in Grand Forks was what made the
Lord burden my heart before I went there.
They then begged me to be their pastor, and I finally consented to come and
stay with them for a month or three months or until they could get a
pastor. I stayed with them for almost five years.
* * * * *
While holding a meeting in company with Brother Renbeck in a school house
out in the country between Kelly and Manville, N. Dakota and staying in the
home of Bro. and Sister Holman, one afternoon as I was praying the Lord
gave me a message on the judgments of God, and what would happen, even in
this world, if people reject the Word of God. The Lord said to me, "They
will close the school house." Then I asked Brother Holman if we should
close the services tonight, where shall we go if we continue them? He said,
"We surely are not going to close the services tonight; we will continue at
the school house." I said, "The school house will be closed to us tonight."
To which he answered, "Who said so?" I told him that the Lord had told me.
Brother Holman then said, "You are a good Brother, but this time you are
mistaken, for they would not dare close the school house because three of
the saints' families are the biggest taxpayers in the district."
At the beginning of the service that evening, Brother Renbeck got up and
commenced to preach on the subject, "The Church as a House." After speaking
for about ten minutes, he sat down and said, "This is not the message for
tonight." We knelt down and prayed asking the Lord to give a message, and
the Lord said, "I have given you a message." I said, "Lord, that is too
strong," but the Lord answered, "It is the message for this people."
The school house was large and it was filled. It was said that there were
two or three congressmen in the crowd. I got up and spoke for an hour and
fifteen minutes on the message the Lord had given me and when I was through
I said, "Shall we close the services now, or has anyone a place to offer so
we can continue the meeting, as I understand that the school house is
closed against us?" The clerk of the school board (who with his family were
professors of religion) went over to Bro. Holman and asked him who had told
Susag that the school house was to be closed. The Board had only met just
before meeting and decided to close. Brother Holman replied that Brother
Susag told him that afternoon that the Lord had told him that they were
going to close. The man went back to his seat. Then I said, "Is it true or
not that the school house is to be closed?" Brother Holman answered, "It is
true."
One man in the audience sat on the front edge of the bench so deeply
interested in the service that his mouth would be wide open, and after the
meeting was over he stuck a five dollar bill in my hand and said that the
meeting had been worth that to him.
A man in the audience, who was an infidel, said, "I own a store building in
Mechinoch, a few miles away, that these two preachers may have as long as
they please, if some one can furnish a stove and wood to warm up the
building." The stove and wood were promptly furnished, and we went there
accordingly, and continued our services.
I am sorry to say that many who heard the Word of God preached in that
school house rejected it and became real outlaws. The family of the school
board clerk lost their salvation and two of their sons, who had previously
professed salvation, became bootleggers.
At the store building a number of people got saved. One man sat in the back
seat every evening and left as soon as the preaching was over. I saw that
he was under conviction and one evening I got to him before he had left,
and I asked him if he did not want to get saved and he told me, "Yes."
While praying with him I felt a hand on my shoulder and a man said to me,
"Brother Susag, Brother Susag, never mind this man; there are thirty-three
at the altar and this man has not been sober in fourteen years." I said,
"If he has not been sober for fourteen years he surely needs salvation and
I will stay with him until he gets saved." And I did; and as far as I know
he remained a true Christian and lived the life.
The first revival meeting we ever had in our neighborhood was held in our
own house. The house 16 x 24, two rooms down stairs and one room upstairs.
As many as thirty-eight slept in the house; the women and children slept
upstairs and the men downstairs. There was one bed in which the children
slept and the women slept on the floor as did the men downstairs. People
were saved, sanctified and healed. It was salvation the people wanted in
those days.
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