By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – For 85 years H.L Davis was in church on Sundays and was surrounded in his home (as a child and adult) by other believers. He even was baptized as a boy in Mississippi, thinking he was saved because of it.
But after months of the Holy Spirit pricking his heart during worship services with Philadelphia Baptist Church Horseshoe Drive, he was convicted that he needed to truly surrender to Christ. So, Sept. 15, 2025, at age 85, he walked forward during a revival service (also, PBCHD) and confessed his sins and professed his love for Jesus.
“I hesitated, thinking I would be the only old person down front with all these young people,” Davis told the Baptist Message. “I had put it off for months, but God kept speaking to me. Finally, when He said it’s time to get up, I stepped out.”
FAITH OF OTHERS
Davis had a mother who, he said, was saved before he was born. His father regularly attended church but did not confess Christ until the age of 45 when he sent for a pastor and professed Jesus as Lord while on his deathbed in a hospital.
Davis also met his wife in church after his family had moved to Louisiana.
“There were quite a few youths in the church,” Davis said. “I met some of them. Then my cousin set me up on a blind date with one of girls who went there.”
He said his cousin kept him in the dark, not sharing her name, raising his curiosity and causing a little nervousness.
“But when she walked
out the door, I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life – and she was actually going out with me,” he exclaimed. “I never dated anyone else. After that, about six months in, I asked her to marry me and she said, ‘Yes.’”
Importantly, he added, she was a believer.
“She always went to church, and I went with her,” he explained, and they built their life together in the church.
He began a career as a small motor mechanic and worked his way up to service manager for a McCullough distributor. She even worked for a while as his secretary. They had a daughter, and she followed her mother’s example and as a Christian became a prayer warrior.
Everything was going along great, he said.
He retired and they began to travel some. His daughter married and eventually moved with her husband into a house just down the street.
Then a series of tragedies struck, beginning in 2014.
His wife was afflicted with a heart condition that made her breathing sensitive to temperatures above 69 degrees. At about the same time, his son-in-law died. His mother was diagnosed with cancer and died within two years. Then his daughter was stricken with a debilitating condition that confined her to a motorized wheelchair. She moved in with her parents and Davis became caretaker for them both. Then his daughter and wife died within months of each other in 2024.
HIS OWN FAITH
Davis confessed that because of worldly distractions (racing cars and motorbikes), he had not regularly attended church for two decades at that point (all the while thinking he was saved).
But he said that during the year before his wife’s death, he and she became regular television watchers of the Philadelphia Baptist Church Deville worship services “and Brother Philip Robertson,” pastor of the congregation which meets in two locations (Deville and Horseshoe Drive, Alexandria).
So, because of his familiarity with the congregation, in the second week of January 2025 Davis went to the Horseshoe Drive campus.
“One week, Brother Stuart Sasser (Horseshoe Drive campus pastor) brought up the fact that if you’re not sure, you’re not saved. The next week he brought it up again
that if you’re not sure, you’re lost,” he added. “I knew I was lost and kept putting it off, putting it off. Finally, during revival [in September] the evangelist, Ken Freeman, said it plain and simple, ‘You are or you’re not.’ And God said to me, ‘Go.’”
A NEW LIFE
Davis already was active with a Sunday school class on the PBC Horseshoe Drive campus. But after he was baptized two days later (during the revival by Sasser), he said it was just like Freeman had said, “I went from good to great.”
“I do my Bible reading every morning and pray every morning,” he shared. “This past week I started going out with the F.A.I.T.H outreach teams. I can’t talk to people, yet [sharing the Gospel]. But I can drive and I can pray.”
“Something else I’m interested in is the disaster relief ministry. I already talked to the coordinator about it,” Davis said. “When they go out, I’m going out. I can run a small chainsaw, and I can sharpen chains. I know the saws, and can fix them, and I can relieve one of the guys to work outside. If a storm comes up, I’m ready to go.”
Davis also has an urgent message for others his age who are hesitating about salvation.
“Make sure you are saved,” he said. “If you have any doubt, don’t put it off. Christ is calling, but you don’t know how long He will keep calling.”
Still, Davis encouraged others that “even at 85 years old, it’s not too late.
“It’s never too late!”
