Deliverance from foreclosure - 1621 18th Street (From “A Work of Righteousness”)
1980
During the early part of 1980 I was a practicing veterinarian in McKinney, Texas and a lay speaker in the First United Church of McKinney. It had been ten years since I had sold my animal hospital, my farms and my investments at the direction of God to follow Him. While in McKinney that same hospital I sold had gone into receivership and was offered back to me by a judge. The Lord asked me, “Do you want it?” I fasted for three days in making the decision. At the end of three days the Lord asked me again, “Do you want it?” I replied back, “It is not important what I want, it is important what you want!” He finally replied back to me, “I don’t want you to have it.” That was the test, and I had passed. Six weeks later on the way to see a horse, I was driving through Lincoln Park, a small town in north Texas, and the Spirit of God spoke to me. “Go to Plano and speak to the people of Plano.”
I considered what was said and then asked, “What do I say?” The Lord answered, “Read when Paul went to Antioch and you will understand.”
Acts 11:25,26 Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul:And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
Acts 13:1 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
I understood after reading at the direction of God that I was a prophet and teacher sent to the people in Plano.
Several months later I was asked to speak to a group of people already meeting in Plano. I spoke my first message in Plano on August 3, 1980 at Meadows Elementary, a school just down the street from our current location.
Soon after I began to look for a building to house the ministry. I went to look at the site we have now. It was then owned by the Church of Christ; a 16,000 square foot building on 2 ½ acres. After the initial walk-through I said to myself, I wouldn’t have this place. But after two weeks of no sleep I asked the Lord what He wanted. It was His will for me to buy it, so I began the negotiations.
On November 24, 1980, Water of Life Church of Plano, Inc. was chartered.
1981
After negotiations with the Church of Christ we purchased the building for $380,000. We paid $50,000 down, which God provided from a group of people that joined me. The monthly payments began at about $3,800 a month.
The sanctuary would seat 440 people, the Fellowship Hall, 250-300. The building had 26 classrooms.
On January 4 the ministry moved into the building. We began with a congregation of about 85 people, which included men, women and their children. It wasn’t long after the congregation dropped to 53. Some became offended in the teaching of the truth and the power of God working so the Spirit of God drove them out.
At the end of eight months a group joined us from the Church of the Resurrection led by Eddie Boltin.
1982
January we had the first $30,000 payment due on the property and even with a small congregation it was paid, along with the continued monthly payments of $3,800.
By March we were now on twenty radio stations five days a week. The area covered stretched from New York, to Florida, to California, and from the Gulf Coast to Canada.
In June a small group of twelve traveled to Mexico to pass out bibles. While there I also spoke in several of their churches along with casting out devils and healing the sick.
I purchased some oil stock and the church was given some oil stock in a company in Oklahoma. In October the stock was valued at $123,000.
I closed my veterinary practice in December.
1983
The year began with a $100,000 payment on the property due on January 10th, but myself and the ministry had purchased the oil stock valued well over that amount several months before. It was at this point I made a great mistake. This was a major event that would teach me something about my faith. The oil company sold in November of 1982 and was to close on January 10, 1983. But on the 7th the bank in Midland Texas, where the purchaser of the oil company had a seven million-dollar line of credit, went into receivership. The oil company was unable to sell and Water of Life Ministries lost $123,000. When the oil company announced it was being sold and I was to receive the money in January, I stopped believing because I thought I already had it. I have learned from this experience not to stop believing whatever God has given you to do until it is in your hands.
I couldn’t make the payment. There wasn’t $100,000 in this group of people. As I recall I paid $52,000 toward that payment between January and April, at which time foreclosure papers were filed on the building. It would be finalized in May. The Church of Christ announced to their congregation that “these poor people are going to lose their property.”
Seven days before the foreclosure was finalized a man received a large inheritance from his grandfather’s estate in an amount well over what he was expecting. He then in turn gave Water of Life Ministries a check for $50,000. It paid the $100,000 in full.
I then went to a bank with which I did business as a professional and borrowed enough to pay off Pitman Creek Church of Christ. The banker said to me frankly, “I won’t lend any money to a church, but I will lend it to you.”
This act of God, saving the property from foreclosure, proved to me that God was with this ministry.
That miracle of money encouraged me many times over the years when I faced large television, radio, airplane charter and so forth. I made a decision when I started my ministry that I would always pay in advance and if the money wasn’t there a day or two before it was due I stood up to God and most every time my words would be, “Where is my money?”. I never failed to pay everything by the due date. I watched God come through with $50,000 to $60,000 every week, never failed. I stopped taking up offerings July 1, 1996 (that will be 17 years this Monday). This ministry has been out of debt since 1985. I never asked for money and I never told anyone my needs. A lot of days I needed the money to pay by Friday and on Wednesday might still need $20,000 or $30,000, but it was always there. God is faithful who calleth who also will do it (I Thessalonians 5:24).
A testimony I must share. Sometime in the 1990’s money was tight. I always made sure that I mailed on Friday, most of the time I mailed on Wednesdays, but now I was on Fridays. I just had great amounts that I had to mail by Friday, and every week every Friday I would just barely make it. This went on for three or four weeks and I started talking to God. I won’t tell you all that I said, but I did say, “If you don’t bring this money or if there is a Friday that I don’t have it, I will send a letter to every television station cancelling my programs! If you don’t think I will do it…!” And all of a sudden I saw with my own eyes money floating in the Spirit and I knew a change was near. A lady from Indiana called me and said that her mailbox had been run over and God said “Go put it in your neighbor’s mailbox”. She told me, “I know you have been praying and saw that money floating in the Spirit”.
God bless,
Doyle Davidson
Servant and Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ
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