Remembering Johnny Turner

Frank Jennings

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Feb 23, 2017
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Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas
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Matthew 22:9 KJVS
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.

It was close to Christmas and was during the "hitchhiker" phase of my life. Working in Little Rock and commuting from our western Saline County home was just another daily chore. But it was made more exciting and far less mundane by the prospect that during the journey God just might have someone waiting for an appointment with me. An appointment with one of His messengers carrying the good news. One of multitudes. Messengers with no uniform but carrying the best message ever sent to men. I don’t remember how He first impressed upon me the idea of picking up hitchhikers, but the urging was strong. When you become filled with the spirit it must needs overflow onto those nearest. The hitchers were only those that the Lord directed me to. I knew when I had to pick someone up and when I was to pass them by. You know in your knower because It's by the spirit of God. His sheep know His voice.

Isaiah 30:21 NIV
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

1 John 2:27 NIV
As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit---just as it has taught you, remain in him.

Sometimes it was me that needed delivering from the great wilderness of the highway. Once on the evening trip home I had a flat tire at Benton just before my exit. After looking at the spare and finding it had gone flat too, I stood there, wondering what to do when a car pulled up behind me on the highway shoulder. A man about my age got out, came up and kindly asked if I needed any help. I explained things and he generously offered to take me to get my spare aired up. At the station it turned out the spare had gone bad and dry rot had ruined the tire. As we stood there staring at the worthless thing, the good Samaritan announced "I've got a tire just like that at my house". My spirit lept within me and I knew for sure God had sent him. I really knew Jesus had sent a messenger to deliver me. An angel with a used tire under one wing.

He lived nearby and after a quick trip, there it was, the supernaturally supplied tire! My deliverance, waiting for me, leaning against his garage wall. A picture of that simple tire leaning against a white garage is filed under "God's deliverances" in my heart. It was like new and he sold it to me for $12. Back at my car after getting the tire mounted on the rim, I quickly had it bolted back on and then we sat down for a minute to talk. I'd been praying quietly in the spirit, tongues that is, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to fall so that my witness could be with power. So far my testimonies had fallen flat on deaf ears. Not enough power and that sense of shoving against a hopelessly heavy object, You can feel the spiritual resistance and know that without the anointing you are helpless.

John 15:5 KJVS
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Then He moved and answered my prayers and His spirit swept in! He came! Hallelujah! Suddenly my words had the "dunamis", the power and tongue of fire that first arrived on the day of Pentecost. With the anointing words take wing and fly into the heart of the hearer. He still gives a tongue of fire to his anointed messengers and the hearers can feel the warmth of God. I refuse to speak on my own, without His anointing. Without Him we are an empty puppet without a hand to fill it. Only He brings eternal fruit into the lives of men. If you don't know the anointing, are not baptized in His Holy Spirit, then your experience with Jesus is incomplete.

Acts 2:3 NIV
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

Job 29:21-24 NASB
"To me they listened and waited, And kept silent for my counsel.
[22] "After my words they did not speak again, And my speech dropped on them.
[23] "They waited for me as for the rain, And opened their mouth as for the spring rain.
[24] "I smiled on them when they did not believe, And the light of my face they did not cast down.

The old testament is filled with scriptures on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the accompanying gift of tongues. This is prayer in the spirit, prayer in the Holy Spirit or in the Holy Ghost as the KJV words it. Time after time I read explanations of this gift by those not having received it. Experts that declare God no longer does these things or that this is only a language in a known tongue. Of men and of angels Paul states.

Jude 1:20 (NKJV) But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 22:29 KJVS
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
After the anointing flowed into that car the good Samaritan soaked up the words of my witness like a dry sponge. When Jesus speaks men listen. Each of us had served the other well, though he had gotten the best end of it. Jesus kept the promise to me of "because you've given rides to these men you'll never lack transportation." A promise He spoke to me unexpectedly as I was driving one day.

It was on one evening trip home that Christmas season that I spied a man on I-30 between Little Rock and the Saline County line. I slowed, eased over to the shoulder and stopped as the tall, slim, middle aged man came over to the window. He had a few belongings and after finding he was headed for Hot Springs I offered a ride as far as I was going. I never witnessed to this man, Johnny Turner he said, but just visited and listened to his life stories. This man needed to talk more than I needed to speak. God not only tells us what and when to speak, but when to remain silent.

Ezekiel 3:26-27 NIV
I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, for they are a rebellious people.
[27] But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says.' Whoever will listen let them listen, and whoever will refuse let them refuse; for they are a rebellious people.

From his story I found that Johnny had been an average man with a job, home and family. A wife and two young sons gave him a reason to live, work and try to do better even as our own families do for us. On an errand one day his wife and sons were on the freeway driving along behind a big rig. Apparently the truck suddenly changed lanes swerving over without even a signal. The trucker had suddenly been faced with an oncoming wrong way vehicle and had just moved out of the way. Johnny's wife never saw it coming. She and their sons were killed instantly by the head on collision. After that Johnny just traveled around. His entire world had been taken away in an instant.

He seemed clean and well groomed and said he'd wash up in roadside water and service station restrooms.
He laughed about how cold that ditch water got in the fall and winter. He was polite, quiet and had the air of being a gentleman. We drove on and I felt totally at peace with inviting and taking Johnny to my home. He wasn't your average hitcher, if there is such a thing. God will tell you through discerning of spirits what's safe and what's not for;

Proverbs 22:3 NIV
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

We arrived home and after explaining the situation to my wife she made a pot of coffee and a sandwich for him. The kids were attentive and proceeded to sing Christmas carols for our guest. They stood in front of him with their wide eyes and sang It was just Nathan and Joanna then and they were about seven and five I guess.

I had offered him some money which he politely refused, but asked if I would take him to a shelter he knew of in Hot Springs. No problem. Since everything we did was together we loaded up and drove to the shelter. We had given him a small new testament with some money inside, though he didn't know. It seemed OK to me. The kids were chirping happily and Johnny had been visibly moved when they stood in front of him and sang their little Jesus songs.

We said our goodbyes after all praying for him, and that was the last we saw of Johnny Turner. Sheep without a shepherd wandering highways and byways. Many of these lost souls are not only on the highway but in churches on Sunday, looking, though they don't know it, for the good shepherd that can give them the peace they seek. Most don't realize it's peace they're hunting since they never had any. That was my case when the prince of peace came for me.

After being entrenched in established religion for years they have not received the message of the cross into their hearts and lives. This can be due to personal resistance or to the lack of the gospel of Jesus being preached. Sadly many churches have left off preaching the blood, the cross and Jesus Christ crucified, killed and then resurrected.

Religion is trying to shove God down the craws of unwary victims and has nothing to do with the truth of the gospel or the anointing - the love of God. The anointing is not optional to go forth for and in Jesus. I refuse to speak unless the Lord is knowingly upon me. How do you know? Oh you'll know! You'll know when that anointing is present and surely know when it's not. That's why He said to settle it in your heart that God will give you what to say. Matthew 10:19-20


"Some were sent and some just went" is an old true saying. God help the victims of the just wents. These are the ones that always condemned and made me wonder why I would want anything they had. They would come and invite me to their church but never spake of why I should go. No love of God was presented to me.

Before becoming Christians my wife and I were working in our garden that was near the road. On the way to church one Sunday our neighbors drove past and as they went by their children yelled out of the car window “GO TO CHURCH”! A real endorsement for Jesus. The parents were as guilty as the children for ramrodding false religion down the throats of the needy, not to mention their I'll mannered children. I remember thinking “why would I ever go anywhere you tried to goad me into going”? Why would I even want to associate with you? This is the sort of condemnation drives souls away from the good shepherd, not toward Him. Religion and denominationalism at it's soul killing finest.

I still often think of Johnny around Christmas time, him and all the other wandering hitchers I'd picked up. I wonder if he ever met Jesus and found the peace he looked for? God knows. What would God have you do? Are the desires of your heart that He promised to give merely things that you want. No no.

The desires of your heart are the desires that He has planted in you so that you might fulfil the work He has intended for you. These desires, by design, arise at different times in life just as certain plants bloom at differing points in their seasons. The intense desire and longing for a good thing is proof of it's existence. I say again, the heart's desire for a circumstance, condition or positive great life change is faith evidence that it can come to pass. This is or can be one or more of the desires He planted in you before you were even born.

Matter of factly He spoke as I was driving one day. He said " In the type of work I have you doing I will put you with plant engineers, managers, foremen, company presidents and others in authority so that you can tell them about me. Behold, I give you the ministry of encouragement." I've seen this come to pass over and over as I move around in my work, not much different than those wandering hitchhikers. I often feel alone and not a part of things, a wayfaring stranger for Jesus' sake. But I'm not alone for He abides with me. We are strangers and sojourner in this world. This is the sometimes strange feeling we get when out in a crowd.

Isaiah 49:11 KJVS
And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 (NKJV)
18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.
19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.