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8C. Blackpool Tower and King George's Flag 
The rich man had learned from the face of that deck hand the life changing and significant difference between work and a task for God. He had learned the secret of meaningful leaven. Some four years later in Amsterdam, Holland, I came across others who were dead inside and desperately needing God's Glory. It was about midnight in the "red light" district of the city that was then notorious for drug abuse and vice. House barges, decorated in different colors, bobbed up and down along the canal side. As I strolled, prostitutes who were sitting in the shop windows opposite, were trying to entice people inside.
Captain John Morson had been visiting an American family on a houseboat. A young hippy, high on drugs, interrupted him with his stumbling entry. "He had the terrifying idea that his body was separating into different parts," John told me. "To assure him he was still in one piece I had to stand and keep on hugging him for about four hours until the drug eventually wore off!" Looking up from this cradle of humanity at its worst, we saw a glimmer of hope flickering high in the sky. From the top of a tall Salvation army building in the distance a giant neon sign blinked out in glowing red letters "GOD IS LOVE." He was!
Satan is Out
It's amazing how God touches the lives of individual people everywhere. One hot summer's day we were working on the North West coast of England in an outdoor witness. A villainous looking tough in his early twenties strolled forward and sat on the sands directly in front of us. As our team enthusiastically talked about their faith from the stand, he drank in every word. The meeting almost over, the speaker challenged those in the crowd to stretch out a hand if they meant business with God and receive a Gospel. As this young chap reached out, the words "Satan is my god" appeared on both arms. While he was reading this booklet later, another Christian of his own age went across and spoke to him. "This is wonderful!" I overheard him reply. Later I congratulated him too and he said, "Listen, these words are coming off, Satan is out! Jesus is my God."
Blackpool Tower
In 1977, a letter arrived with an American post code written by someone else converted through our summer works at the seaside in England. It read, "Morecambe was the place where in 1924 I listened to the Church Army Crusaders and heard God's call to serve Him." Toward the end of the meeting, the Captain asked the crowd, "Are you trusting Jesus?" He challenged us to respond by saying, "I AM." Hearing so many around me relying so confidently challenged me!
As I walked home along the sands that night, the words of a familiar hymn we had sung kept on running through my mind. "Who is on the Lord's side, who will serve the King? Who will be his helper, other lives to bring?" The chorus became my answer. "By thy grand redemption, by they grace divine, I am on the Lord's side, Savior I am thine." The writer of that letter, Charles Conder, at a decisive point on Morecambe's sands all those years ago began a lifelong loyalty to his Lord. This eventually took him into the ministry and in later life to San Diego, California, to be its Canon Missionary.
Lifeboat Station
A few miles down the same coast stood Blackpool's Lifeboat Station. Nick Brailsford, a slight young man, was listening to a similar open air service. After a time, he asked a team member if he could say something from the stand, and climbed the rickety wooden steps to the platform. "Listen to what these people are telling you," he urged the crowd. "A year ago, a team member handed me a leaflet called, "The Way of Salvation." Thinking little of it, I pushed it into my pocket and it was not until several weeks later that I read it. At the time I thought the bit about being unable to save oneself by being religious was rubbish! I had always felt that being a respectable church member was enough, but that leaflet shook me!" At his university church, Nick later compared the joyous, alive Christianity he found there to the stale and stilted religion of his hometown. This convinced him which one was best for him. "I have proved it isn't rubbish because I now know Christ personally," he told his listeners. "God has since led me into a full time ministry in the Church."
Golden Mile
On Blackpool's Golden Mile, other people came day after day to our stand without any apparent response. One middle-aged couple listened in regularly and obviously enjoyed the singing, but only the lady spoke of any real faith in Christ. Furthermore, her husband had an illness that made his hands shake so badly that he couldn't manage to shave himself. "I'm happy to allow my wife to be the spiritual one!" he used to say. On the last afternoon of their holidays, this couple were talking to Ken Weaver and before they left to catch their train home prayed with Ken and me. To our surprise, however, they appeared again at our evening open air meeting on the steps of the Methodist Church behind the Blackpool Tower. The husband was clean shaven this time and not shaking at all! "After you and Ken had prayed for us," he said joyfully, "I asked Christ into my life and he has healed me!"
The Holy Go!
This one individual had learned in a wonderful way that God not only heals and transforms but also gives us power to witness for Him. A bishop while taking a confirmation unearthed this secret by accident one day. Before the service, he decided to test the candidates with a few questions and asked, "Who is the third person of the Trinity?" One young person, who was obviously eager to please the bishop, yelled enthusiastically, "The Holy Go!" The old man paused in thought and then answered, "You are so right, we have the 'Holy Go' when the Holy Ghost is within us! The Holy Go is responsible for sending men and women out as his travelers to tell others of Jesus, the mighty saviour."
King George the Sixth
In a similar way, the
'Holy Go' had started me talking about God's love one day many years ago. I deliberately opened my heart's door and let Jesus come in. He changed me and I had to talk about it! It's like the American tourist in London during King George the Sixth's reign who was standing outside Buckingham Palace hoping to catch a glimpse of the king. After waiting for sometime, he turned to his neighbour in the crowd and asked,
"Will we see the King today, do you think?" Pointing toward the Palace, this person replied,
"do you see that flag? Well, when it's flying, you know that the king is in residence." Even after this American had returned home, he thought a lot about these words. One day a great truth dawned.
"Joy is the flag we fly from the castle of our lives, when Christ is the king at home! Being a Christian makes living a glorious adventure - Jesus is living in!"
"You've gotta have a glory in the things you do, an alleluia chorus in the heart of you" 
