Iron Bell Music – Setting The Table

So there I am lying on a bed surrounded by drugs in this house full of musicians, the opposite sort-of place that you think someone would come to Jesus. The only way I know to describe it is that I encountered the presence of God while reading this book. No one was playing music in the corner. There’s no pastor. The Lord just knew it wouldn’t happen for me in a pew on a Sunday morning, so He met me in a room at 3:00 a.m.

It’s hard to explain because the presence of God is everywhere at all times, but there’s also this manifest presence of God like Moses on the mountain. I don’t know if I’d put it next to that, but I just knew He was in the room. I started having this non-verbal conversation with the Lord where He was just telling me that He was real, that everything in this book I’m reading is true, that He is good. I remember thinking to myself, “God, I want to quit all of this but I don’t know how to do it.” I felt like the Lord said, “You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll do it.”

I literally just believed God; this thought that He could do it all because He was bigger than me. I fell to my knees, with tears in my eyes; I accepted Christ and gave everything up overnight. I know it sounds crazy, and I’ve had people legitimately get mad at me for saying all of this, because they have loved ones battling addiction and it takes time. I know that. What can I do? My story is my story. It’s what happened. It’s what the Lord did. So I went from addict to worship leader one year later. Some very hard-up church hired me to be their worship leader. [Laughs]

Stephen McWhirter, Iron Bell Music

CCM: That’s such a great background for a song like “God That Saves,” I’m assuming?
SW: Yeah, when I wrote “God That Saves,” I wasn’t even trying to write a radio song. None of this was even on the table. We were just a community and I was thinking of what God had brought me from, which led to that song, not because I thought, “People will play this song on the radio.” Actually, if I thought that, I’d have probably screwed it up. [Laughs]

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