The GOSPEL TRUTH
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WHO WILL RISE UP?

by JED SMOCK

 Copyright by Jed Smock 1985

Used by Permission

Confrontational Evangelism on Campus

 Chapter 3

THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A HIPPIE

During the late 1960's thousands of wayward youth journeyed from all over America to meet the devil at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco. A popular hit song beckoned them, "There's a whole generation, with a new explanation, people in motion." But, alas, the explanation was as old as Adam: "As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way" (Romans 3:10-12).

They came to California as self-righteous "flower children" claiming a new awareness and talking and singing about love; but inside they were full of cursing and bitterness. Captivated by a spirit which led them to rebel against God and His standards of home, cleanliness, purity and order they lived in the streets or "crash pads." Hair grew long, jeans became the dress code, drugs were the prescription and the message was in the music: "turn on, tune in and drop out." "Destruction and misery were in their ways," (Romans 3:16) as thousands became addicted to drugs, conceived illegitimate children, aborted babies, caught hepatitis and became possessed with evil spirits.

Turning On, Tuning In and Dropping Out

In the summer of 1967 as I drove my new Ford Mustang across the wide Golden Gate Bridge my thoughts were far from the hippie life. I looked forward to lively night life, bars catering especially to single people, sailing trips, weekends on the beach and riding little cable cars. Renting a comfortable apartment close to the University of California in Berkeley, I found a job teaching junior high school social studies. It seemed that I was well on my way to following the career of my father. However, my lifestyle and future plans were shortly to change radically.

One Sunday I decided to go to the Haight-Ashbury district to a rock concert where thousands of hippies had gathered for a "love-in." A man wearing a beard, long hair, cowboy boots, jeans and a leather jacket crept up to me and said, "Hey, man, I have something you ought to try. It will expand your mind. You will begin to see things that you have never seen before, and hear things that you have never heard before. Here, try some marijuana." Attracted by the smell, I smoked the weed. There is a proverb that says, "the eyes of man are never satisfied." I was not satisfied with a few "tokes" or a few "joints," but the very next weekend I was back at the Haight to "score my own lid."

Eventually, no longer content with marijuana, I journeyed on LSD trips and was emotionally carried about by the electronic waves of music as the rock superstars turned me into a wandering star reaching into the blackness of darkness. The Beatles sang, "All you need is love," but all I found was lust, as carnal gratification became the driving force of my life. Ungodly hippies became my constant companions in unknowing captivity as I marched through the streets shouting for peace in Vietnam and freedom to control the universities. The Scripture rightly said: "But the way of peace they have not known" (Romans 3:17).

I turned on to drugs, tuned into the hippie scene and quit my teaching position to drop out and join the "revolution."

Soon the devil began to break up his training ground at the Haight-Ashbury and on the Berkeley University campus. He directed his children to go home and sow his seed of drugs, disbelief, discontent and disillusionment in the virgin soil of cities, towns and rural areas outside of California. Thousands of hippies returned home, not with the repentant heart of a prodigal son, but to "hook" their younger brothers and sisters and old classmates who were still straight. I came back to Terre Haute, Indiana, wearing long hair and a beard, cowboy boots, jeans and a leather vest stuffed with marijuana. I crept up to old acquaintances, saying, "Hey, man, I have something you ought to try. It will expand your mind. You will begin to see and hear new sights and sounds." With lying words, I seduced many into the use of drugs.

Dropping In

Acting on the deceitful schemes of liberals to work within the system to bring about change, I put on a business suit and trimmed my beard and hair enough to be hired as professor of United States history at the University of Wisconsin. I taught a communistic interpretation of the past and presented the lie of evolution as fact.

In 1970, the year of the Kent State incident, the cry was, "Get your head together man, get your head together." I thought "Yes, I need to get my head together; I think I'll study psychology-- the psychologists seem to have the answers." So I accepted a position at Indiana State University as research assistant for the Institute of Research into Human Behavior. I studied counseling and did research into drugs. I wrote a master's thesis on the personal effects of smoking seven straight joints of marijuana. I was even given a job counseling freshman students in the dormitories. Having eyes that could not cease from sin I beguiled many unstable souls.

Out Again

Finally in 1971 I gave up on fitting into the system and returned to my Levis and long hair. My attitude, life-style and appearance had become of great concern to my parents but, since my heart had become so hardened by sin, I did not care. To me their ideas were old and belonged to the era of Victorianism. They had lived their life their way; I was going to live mine my way. Therefore, taking money which I had inherited, I gathered together a few things in a backpack, took my journey into a far country and there wasted my substance in riotous living.

Making my way to North Africa, I hitchhiked down the coast to southern Morocco and joined a band of hippies living on the beach. Within a year the Haight-Ashbury scene had become a world-wide movement as scores of thousands of American youth just like myself were roving the globe as gypsies.

Living at the beach commune, I thought, "Man, this is really it; this is where I can do my own thing-- be natural"--that was my philosophy. My standard was; if it feels good, DO IT. I became so natural that I started worshipping nature.

I would go down to the beach at sunset, get in lotus position and chant: "Ommmm, Ooommmm." This was supposed to give me peace of mind and make me more sensitive and aware of my "oneness with the cosmos;" but in reality it just opened my mind to the control of more demons.

These devils began to speak to me, "Man, you're always talking about other people's hangups; you still have a few of your own-- you still wear clothes." Before long I was running those beaches stark naked. This did not bring me peace of mind, either.

"How much more natural can I become?" I thought. "I've been a good hippie."

Back home I had almost every Beatles' album. I had been to rock concerts and demonstrations all over the world. My hair was long and a beard covered my face. I had worn my faded Levis until the patches had holes in them. I had carried my army surplus backpack for so long that even without wearing it I naturally walked like hippies walk: shoulders slumped, back bent and arms swinging in an ape-like fashion.

I had turned myself to behold "wisdom, madness, and folly" by reading I Ching ; the Herman Hess novels, Siddhartha, The Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf, Demian, Allan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, Ramm Dass, Be Here Now, and Thoreau, Walden Pond. Still, I had no peace of mind. Having cast off restraints of parental influence, job responsibilities, material possessions, financial burdens and church teachings, I was more bound than ever.

My madness and folly was communicated in a letter written to my parents from Morocco: "Despite passing my twenty-ninth birthday, I still feel young-- but hardly carefree-- a state of mind I would like to reach; but I still find myself projecting into the future or regressing into the past, thus making it difficult to trip on my trip."

Turning on the Light

"The way of the transgressor is hard" (Proverbs 13:15)-- but God is rich in mercy! On Christmas day our hippie band had a beach party with excess of wine, drugs, revellings and abominable idolatries. Suddenly an Arab marched into the midst of the party, planted a rugged cross in the sand and preached about Jesus.

Although most of the children of wrath mocked him, the Word pierced my heart and I began to consider how little I knew about Christianity. Despite having a master's degree in history, five years of teaching experience and studying extensively in the fields of social science, literature psychology, philosophy, liberal theology--and even the occult--I knew almost nothing about Jesus Christ. I was headed to India to study under a guru. I was "Ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth (II Timothy 3:17).

Remembering how mother had recommended the Bible, I wrote my parents and they mailed a pocket edition of the New Testament which the Gideons had given me in the fifth grade.

Starving for the Bread of Life, I began to devour the Word. One evening, after reading the Book of John, I went down by the ocean as usual to worship the sun as it set. But I soon forgot my chant and began to meditate on John 1:3, "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made."

Suddenly I saw a light above the brightness of the sun-- I saw the Light that lighteth every man that comes into the world. Coming to myself, I arose and followed the light toward home.

During this time mother had never stopped praying for me and she had submitted her lost son to the "tender loving care" of the Lord. I returned to the United States in March of 1972 with the Word of God as a light unto my feet and a lamp unto my path. I read the Bible almost every day.

What Really Happened at the Burger King

In August 1972 I was riding my bicycle through the parking lot of a shopping center in Terre Haute, Indiana when I heard my name called out with authority. "George, George Smock!"

Stopping my bicycle I recognized an old high school friend, Clyde Swalls. The brightness of his countenance startled me. God's Word says: "A man's wisdom maketh his face shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed" (Ecclesiastes 8:1).

He had become a preacher and never had I heard anyone speak like this man. Surely he had to be sent from God for this was not the same person I had known 10 years earlier in high school. As he preached to the young crowd that gathered nightly in revelry, I was drawn to listen and my heart opened up to the truth. That night we went across the street to the Burger King, "Home of the Whopper!" Clyde opened the scriptures to me and I became convicted of my sins. That night in the Burger King, I found the King of Kings when I called upon the Lord Jesus Christ to save me.

My high school friend-- turned preacher-- then said that I should be baptized in water. Deciding that nothing prevented me from being baptized immediately, we drove into the country past the Assembly of God church where he was pastor. Beside an old covered bridge, about 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was baptized. I came shooting up out of the creek with my hands lifted toward heaven, praising and glorifying God. In that moment, looking up into heaven I beheld his glory. Returning to the shore we noticed for the first time a group of campers lined up watching us. They thought: who are those men in the water fully clothed and shouting hallelujah in the middle of the night?

Holy Rollers

A few months later I was attending a youth rally at a Pentecostal church one block away from the house where I had lived as a boy. The church grounds had been a vacant lot when I was growing up and every summer a tent meeting revival was held there. The neighborhood boys would go each night to watch the "holy rollers." One morning a few of us arose early to search around the altar for coins, because one boy had found some money which supposedly had dropped from the pockets of the Christians while they were rolling, but we found nothing. Twenty years later after searching half-way around the world, I returned to this same location; and where the tent had once stood there was now a beautiful sanctuary.

After the ministry of the Word, the spirit of the Lord drew me to my knees at the altar and in the same spot where years before I had searched around for a few coins, God gave me something better than all the silver and all the gold in the world-- the mighty baptism in the Holy Spirit. It was then that I was given power and a new boldness to be a witness into the uttermost part of the earth.

Hubert Lindsey saved the taxpayers 10 million dollars in riot control alone.-- Ronald Reagan

 

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