J. Harold Smith

 

 

The life of Dr. J. Harold Smith has impacted many people far beyond his years of  ministry.  Dr. James Rushing said he felt that Dr. J. Harold Smith was the greatest living example of a man who was filled with grace and truth.

J. Harold Smith was saved eight days after graduating from college, where he was training to be a brain surgeon.  Someone led him to the Lord while he sat on his sister’s back porch.  God immediately began to do a great work in his life. By the time midnight had come he had led his first six people to the Lord.

The following Sunday he was baptized, along with twenty-eight of his friends that he had personally won to Christ that week.  One week later, J. Harold Smith preached in his grandfather’s church and had fifty-five saved.

Dr. Smith is best remembered for his famous sermon entitled God’s Three Deadlines.  Just through the preaching of that one sermon, Dr. J. Harold Smith saw over one-and-a-half million people make a public profession of faith.

Through his preaching on other subjects, there were approximately another million-and-a-half professions of faith, making a total of three million salvations during his ministry.  Dr. Smith was certainly an example of a man who had phenomenal fruit that remained.

At one point over nine hundred pastors in the United States of America had come from the ministry of Dr. J. Harold Smith.

Dr. Smith was an expert on many things, including being the author of one of the best books ever written on the subject of fasting.  There was a singular aspect of his life beyond his great preaching that was most exquisite, and that was his relationship with his wife Myrtice.

J. Harold first saw Myrtice when she was just a little girl when he was at his uncle’s store.  He looked out the window and said, “Who’s that girl, the little one?”  His buddy said, “That’s the girl from the family that moved down the road from y’all.”  J. Harold said, “I’m gonna marry that girl.”

He said they came in the store and the girl, Myrtice, wanted some candy.  They got a brown paper bag and filled it full of candy.  She told J. Harold, “I just have a nickel.”  He told her, “We’ve got a sale today.”

By the fifth grade they were sweethearts, and every day after school they walked home together.  One day the teacher said to J. Harold, “J. Harold, when school is out in the evening, I want you to come and dust my erasers out for me.”  He told Myrtice, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.  I can’t walk home with you.  I’ve gotta stay and dust these erasers for the teacher.”

The next day Myrtice wrote in a little letter, “J. Harold, I will walk real slow.”  He dusted off those erasers quickly and walked as fast as he could to catch up with Myrtice.  Of course, they were eventually married and spent decades together, serving the Lord as a great team.

J. Harold often said that Myrtice was the only sweetheart he ever had.  As he sat by her bedside, shortly before she went home to be with the Lord, she said, “J. Harold, I’m going real soon.”  J. Harold said, “No, Myrtice, no, no, no.”  She said, “Now J. Harold, I’m sicker than you think I am.”  She said, “You remember the letter I wrote you?”

When she said that he thought, “Man of all the hundreds of letters that she’s written me . . .”  She said, “You know, the one in the fifth grade.”  Big tears welled up in J. Harold’s eyes as she reminded him of the fifth-grade letter.  She look at him and said, “J. Harold, I’m going soon, but I’ll walk real slow.”

As J. Harold told this story to some preacher friends, he said, “I’ve been walking as fast as I can for two years now.”  His desire was to see his Lord Jesus Christ and to be with his wife once again.  What a tremendous testimony and challenge for us to walk quickly, getting things done that we should get done for the Lord before it’s time to go home.