A Man after God's Own Heart

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Pastor Wayne F. Dailey
November 3, 1929 – November 13, 2011

Pastor Wayne F. Dailey passed from this life and went on to his eternal reward early Sunday morning, November 13, 2011. He was truly a man after God's own heart.

We prepared this testimonial — excerpts from Pastor Dailey's preaching that exemplify his heart and life — with the prayer that you will desire to emulate his walk with the Lord, as the Apostle Paul desired of his life when he wrote in I Corinthians 11:1 — Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

The following are excerpts from Brother Dailey's preaching over the years.

From Brother Dailey's Personal Testimony

My greatest memory of church as a little boy is one time when I attended Vacation Bible School. For art work, we made an 8 ½ by 11-inch white plaque. We made letters that spelled out the words Jesus Saves, using a half-inch strip of red crepe paper, and pasted the letters on white paper. Though I was just a little boy, I never forgot those words: JESUS SAVES.

When we were young, and before we had gotten saved, we had an opportunity to purchase a house, and were busy working on it. Though it needed a lot more work, we moved in. Lacking funds to finish the work, we were trying to get a mortgage, but we couldn't find a bank that would help us. They told us we were too young and that I was in the draft age. (Even though I had been discharged from the Navy, I was eligible for draft because it was the time of the Korean War.)

We were disappointed that our request for a mortgage was turned down, but we didn't give up. Then we got some further bad news: I was being called up for the draft and would have to go to war — but then we found out my wife was pregnant, and that changed my draft status.

One night we were in bed talking about the house. We were wondering why it was so hard to get the needed funds. Then I remembered my grandmother praying at the dinner table, asking in Jesus' Name. I went ahead and prayed, "God, if You will help us get a mortgage to finish our house, we will start going to church and will get our lives straightened out. God, I ask in Jesus' name, Amen."

One day while I was at work, I felt to stop at the bank one more time. The manager asked me to be seated, and I asked him to reconsider my application for a mortgage.

He looked at me for a moment and said to me, "You really want that loan don't you!" I answered, "Yes, I do." And he said, "I am going to give you the loan."

I could hardly wait to get home and tell my wife about it. We just knew that God had answered our prayer. Soon the papers were signed, and we started to remodel the house.

From Brought into a Relationship

I remember when I first got saved, I didn't know much about the Bible, but God soon gave me a hunger for His Word. When I went out of that church that night, I reached into my shirt pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes I had in there, and I threw them away. I gave up smoking right then and there and have never smoked another cigarette — and that was over 50 years ago!

I got a little New Testament and put it in the pocket where I had kept my cigarettes. I had been in the habit of reaching into my pocket to get another cigarette, but now I had the Word of God in that pocket!

I'd sit down to eat lunch at work and reach into my pocket to get my New Testament to read. I'm sure glad that when I found Jesus, that nasty habit of smoking ended right then and there. I thank God I have believed in Jesus and have found salvation. And I thank God for every day since then that I have had a Bible.

Don't leave your Bible lying on the shelf. Open its pages daily to read and feast your soul on it.

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When I learned to pray, it was like a whole new realm of life opened up to me. I realized that I could truly reach out and touch God, that I could reach out and fellowship with Him, that He is really there waiting for me.

And it gets better and better, richer and richer as the years go by. The next thing you know, you find that you've grown in the Lord, and you're surprised what He has done for you.

With your heart serve the Lord from deep within. You want His love. You don't want to get rid of that.

From The Call of God

One day, God began to deal in my life and call me into the ministry. I thought it was strange, as I never had experienced such dealings before. The more I got from God, the more I seemed to want. The more I got, the more it tasted like honey to my soul.

I was in a service one night where a preacher's wife testified of how God had dealt with her and her husband, calling them apart to the ministry. I just knew God was talking directly to me! It seemed so real to me as she testified. I went home, and that night my wife and I lay on our bed praising the Lord. And the Lord began to move. I felt a supernatural love come into me, a love I had never felt in all my life. As I lay there trying to tell God just how much I loved Him, I rolled over to the front of the bed, and a vision appeared before my eyes: I saw a multitude of people holding their hands up, crying to the Lord for help. The Spirit of the Lord plainly spoke, "Whom shall I send?" In an automatic response from my heart, I said, "Lord, send me!"

The next day I went to work. When I entered my store, I went to the back room and began to pray, but I just couldn't be content. My mind was on God's dealings in my life, and though I tried to pray, I was miserable in my soul. I didn't have any peace as I searched and searched in prayer. I left the store and drove up a big mountain where I parked my car and walked into the woods. There I sat on a log for a long time, praying and seeking God. I still couldn't make connections — something was missing. I just couldn't get to the bottom of what was troubling me. I knew God was dealing with me, so I stayed on that mountain for quite a long time, seeking Him.

Finally, in the afternoon I went back down to the store and called my wife on the phone. I told her I was having difficulty keeping my mind on work. As I told her what had happened to me, she said the same thing had been happening to her! The Spirit of God was saying to her, "You're going to preach the gospel. You're going to heal the sick. You're going to cast out devils." This had been going over and over in her mind all day. When I said I thought it must be God calling us into the ministry, it brought peace to both of us. Right on the spur of the moment we seemed to have clear understanding that it was God dealing with us about His call upon our lives.

We fixed His calling in our minds and kept praying and seeking God about it as time went on. Finally, the Lord sent a man of God to our house to stay overnight. We had been praying and seeking the Lord, wondering what God was going to do next, and God spoke through this man to confirm what He had been dealing with us about.

God gave us instructions about preparing ourselves for His call and told us how long it would take. He said, "It might take a day, a week, a month, or even a year!" There certainly wasn't anything definite about that! So I began to pray for understanding, and He quickened to me that the time element was up to us. It was going to be governed by what we did in response to Him, completely determined by our own action to His call upon our lives.

Well, I took that message to heart. As God began to tell me what to do, I started right out to respond and do it. I didn't make up excuses: "Next year, Lord! I can't, Lord! I lack finances, Lord! I lack the ability, Lord . . ."

No! I just responded unto God, letting Him lead me day by day. I tell you, it didn't take God very long to lead us out of business and into the ministry, where we have been ever since.

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Right after God called me, He showed me a vision. There I was with a yoke around my neck. From this yoke went strings in every direction, tied to every conceivable thing, that kept me from doing what God wanted me to do.

Finally, a hand placed a big pair of shears in my hand. The Lord said, "If you cut the strings, I'll break the yoke." As I began to cut those strings, the vision ended.

I had more irons in the fire than you could shake a stick at. I had two businesses and went to work from early in the morning until eleven or twelve at night, just to keep up with the demand. How do you stop something that puts such demands upon your life?

One of the first things I cut was the telephone — going to all my business clients and telling them I was going out of business. I said I wouldn't be servicing them any longer. There were a few who tried to insist that I was still going to do their work. As far as they were concerned, I should let someone else go and preach the gospel. "No," I said, "I'm going to obey God."

As I began to cut strings, I found out I had a lot of them. So many people owed me money. I began to pray and seek God, and He dealt with people to pay what they owed me. This helped me get myself to the place where I could write them off. It took a little season to get all those strings cut, to sell all the inventory, and to get the business transferred where I could apply myself to the call of God; but, finally, the day came when I said, "God did it! The old yoke is broken. I'm free to do what He wants me to do."

In obedience to His call, I gave up everything — my home, my business — and went forward with God. And through the years He has been faithful to supply. He not only broke the yoke — He also opened the door for me to pastor a small church.

From a Vision Given to Brother Dailey Many Years Ago

This vision came to me after Sister Dailey and I knew we had been called into the ministry. It was a striking vision. It was real. It was given to us when we were so on fire for God in our hearts, wondering what God wanted us to do.

We were in what appeared to be our 1950 Chevrolet: a little, shiny black car. We were on this real straight and narrow road. I was in the back seat, right behind the driver, and Sister Dailey was beside me. Now, nobody that you could see was driving this car, but somebody was! We couldn't see them. It wasn't like you couldn't see over the seat. It was that they were invisible! You couldn't see who was driving — but, then, I never did see the Holy Ghost, did you? That was one of those times when you'd look and have to say that it was supernatural.

Sister Dailey and I both had our elbows up on the back of the front seat, looking earnestly down that road. I was talking to Sister Dailey and saying over and over: "Sister Dailey, look at that road! Look how straight it is! Look how narrow it is! Look, Sister Dailey! As far as you can see there's not one turn in this road!"

I kept remarking, as we drove down this road, at how straight and how narrow it was. We went down that road, it seems, for a long ways with the invisible Holy Ghost leading us. He was driving; we were just sitting in the back seat. We were being taken down this straight and narrow road. We weren't just shown the road and told where to go — we were being taken. He was personally taking us down that straight and narrow road.

We went for a long ways — and, suddenly, we were out of the car and in the most beautiful valley you would ever want to be in! I often have said that if you were a real sheep, that would be like going to heaven. It wasn't a steep hill but just sloped from one side to the other. The grass was so green! This was a beautiful vision in color. I've never seen another vision with such beautiful color to it. It was so real — and, then, supernaturally real.

Now, you could go down through this valley with this beautiful pasture land of green grass. We were going down along this crystal clear brook. It wasn't a wide stream of water — maybe six or seven feet wide. It was water that the sheep or cattle would need if they were out there grazing in that field.

And Sister Dailey and I were kids! We were just like kids: fully grown up, yet like kids. We didn't reduce down to kid's size, but we were like kids. I had Sister Dailey by the hand, and we were headed down through this green valley. We were skipping like a couple of kids.

While we were going down through this valley, skipping along, this was God showing us the state we were in. We were very happy, thrilled in our souls. All we had been going through was fresh in our hearts and minds.

So, we skipped a long ways through that valley, and suddenly, as real as could be, Somebody took my hand! My hand was swinging down by my side, and I had a hold of Sister Dailey's hand with my other hand. Someone took my free hand and began to pick me right up off the ground, and I began to pull Sister Dailey right up with me by my other hand. I didn't let go of her — and I'm not going to let go of her, either, if I can help it!

But we started to be lifted up. It seemed to me we were being lifted up and up and up! I wondered, what was this? Then, after we were lifted way up, we suddenly began to feel we were being let down several feet. Our feet touched down and we were standing way up there, on this big Rock. There we were standing, hand in hand together, on the top of that great big Rock where we had been lifted up to. Looking at that for a few moments, looking down and seeing where we were — then we looked up right over the trees and down to that valley. Here we were, placed way up there on the Rock.

And then the vision ended. Oh, I couldn't get over what I had seen. I couldn't get over what had happened in that vision — but I couldn't figure out what it all meant, what was the Lord showing us.

You know, God has His ways of working. Our whole lifetime was in that vision — from where we stood that day, to where we'll stand one day in the future. That was all our lifetime. We've seen these experiences. We found that place which was straight and narrow, and we have been going down that way without compromise.

Many times I have questioned and wondered in my heart, "Lord, what does this mean?" If it's about our whole lifetime — about what's ahead for us, what God's plan and purpose is — the only way to find out is to take it a step at a time. As we go through the experiences, then we will look back and know what He meant.

We look back and know He put us on that straight and narrow road. We thought it was wonderful how He would lead us — but, then, we found that not everybody was happy with us, because they didn't want to walk down that road. Down through that valley we found ourselves in, I can look back and say it was a humble walk with God. There we were. God had made us so happy in His service. We were so happy and excited. We've loved this ever since God called us. We haven't had to deal with wanting to run away to do something else. No, we've had our hearts in God's work.

From The Call of God

Preparing for the call of God to many is just a slip-shod thing. They don't have any determination. There is a lack of initiative in their hearts to respond to His call, to go all the way with Him. There is that old fleshy hang-up: lack of ambition and backbone. But I was determined.

Yes, I was determined that I was going to eat that roll. I was determined to the place where I began to do something about it. When God dealt with me about getting prepared by getting into the Word, I began to respond.

At four or five each the morning, I got out of bed. Long before daylight, morning after morning, I headed for that little church and begin to seek God — and I'd stay there until I had satisfied my soul that I had my portion from God for that day. It didn't matter how long it took, I stayed there until I was satisfied.

I stood right behind the pulpit so I couldn't fall asleep if I wanted to. As I stood there, God would expound His Word to me. He taught me by the Spirit and made me to understand those things in His Word that I couldn't understand in myself. Those were precious days — but it took a diligence to obey God and get up every morning to head for the church. I got more blessings from the Lord in those days. I'd go to that old church, and when I touched the doorknob and began to open the door, the Spirit of God would come on me. I entered the church rejoicing and praising God. After two or three hours of prayer, I'd take my Bible and go chapter to chapter with the Lord.

The precious months I spent in that church changed my life. Like Ezekiel of old, I was truly eating God's Word, and it was like honey in my mouth. As I received the message of God to preach unto a lost and dying world, I began to grow spiritually. The message that I preach and teach today is the very same message God taught me by His Spirit in that church.

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Don't think we didn't have pressures or battles. After I quit work, things began to get hard and the pressures got greater and greater, until we didn't even know where our next meal was coming from.

One day the pressures got so unbearable, enough to make anybody want to give up. This was the real breaking point. We were either going to go on with God at any cost, or we were going to go back the easy way, down to Egypt's land. Yes, we had to make a decision.

It was in that hour that we made the best decision we have ever made (other than receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour). As we got down in our living room, weeping and crying out to God on our knees, we made a new consecration: "God, we don't care if we have to starve to death. Lord, we're going to stand with you and not turn back under these pressures."

As we made this firm dedication unto God, it was the turning point in our ministry. From that day on, God began to lift us up.

From Faithful to Supply

I remember when we were running a Bible school in Boston. Over and over we watched how God met our needs. When He told me to start a Bible school, He gave us the buildings and told me that He would provide the needs for that school. I proceeded to do my part in getting the buildings ready to have school and then began to watch how God would bring in the needs.

The school was a faith school. There was no charge for tuition or for meals. And God blessed, pouring out His Spirit to supply our every need, just as He said would do.

I remember when God provided potatoes for the Bible school. We went to New York to pick them up and drove home with an open trailer filled with potatoes behind the car. Every little while I would look in the rearview mirror and see the smoke flying up off the wheels. What caused the smoke fly? Because there were so many potatoes in that trailer that the back of the car nearly sat on the road! We made it home with that great blessing, and there was much rejoicing at how God had provided.

I'm talking for God — what He can do. I remember one day when the counter was filled with loaves of bread that someone had brought by — a blessing there wasn't room enough to receive: 254 loaves of bread — enough to provide our need and enough left to share with others!

From Man's Responsibility in the Home

Sister Dailey and I have been married for more than 55 years (since Dec 31, 1949). We're so much one — all those years! We're such a part of one another. In every way we're a part of one another. We love each other and cherish one another. I love her just as she is.

. . . I want my house to be ready for the coming of Jesus. Is that what you want? It's up to us men to keep our house in order. Now, this doesn't mean we're to use a ball bat to keep our house in order. It means that we are to love our wife and cherish her as the weaker vessel.

. . . Are we going to be at such odds with one another that we're pulling at the very fabric of our love? Let's be loving. Let's be kind. Let's be understanding.

Stop and realize that if we just did it God's way, it would all work so sweet. After all, God made marriage to be the sweetest thing a man could ever have in his life.

. . . What a good person my mother was to me while I was growing up. I look back at my mother and I don't find a bit of fault, even though others may look at my mother and find a lot of faults!

I guess that is one of the places we first start learning what the other sex is really like. There was my mother — she was good to me: always kind, always loving. I didn't have any problems with my mother.

Then I got married. I didn't marry my mother. My wife is a mother, but she's not my mother. And I'm not her dad, either. I think sometimes, though, that my wife mothers me some. She takes good care of me, such as keeping my clothes clean and neatly stored in my drawer. I always know right where to get things. They're always there where I know she put them.

From Prepared Through Trials

We wake up in the morning, and, for some unexplained reason, we find ourselves in a trial that we didn't ask for. Unexplained things happen: we didn't do anything; yet here we are in a trial.

All through life, trials will suddenly appear, completely unannounced. Many times they prepare us for something in the future. At other times they are sent to strengthen our faith to endure.

Back in the early days of our experience, Sister Dailey and I faced many hard faith battles. Why? because God knew what was waiting further down the road. He knew we'd need those early tests to prepare for the battles which lay ahead.

There's a misconception in the minds of many concerning the ministry. They believe the ministry is a dignified position in life where everything is just a bed of roses.

Well, it is wonderful to be in the ministry, yes, but it certainly is not a bed of roses. I've found out that the ministry is not just working for the Lord. It is standing in the midst of fierce battles; it is being concerned about the same things which Jesus is concerned about.

From Faithful to Supply

One great truth the Lord laid on my heart years ago was making me to know that above all things He is faithful. You just need to prove Him out — proving how faithful He really is. I have seen the Lord work over the years and I can truthfully say that it is true what He had told me: He is faithful. I have never seen one tinge of unfaithfulness with God.

From Living in the Pressure Cooker

I worked in a boiler room when I was in the Navy, so I know how much pressure those boilers can take. It took a lot of fire, but you could build it up to 600 pounds of pressure! That sure is a lot of pressure.

Now, did you ever think of yourself as being a steam boiler? In your experience with God, you are often exposed to great pressures. Does the pressure, at times, seem to build and build without any stopping — sometimes feeling as though you might explode if it doesn't soon let up? Why should God's people ever be under pressure? Did you ever ask that question? Have you ever wondered why it seems like you're constantly going through one trial after another?

A boiler has to be tested to see if it can go through the amount of pressure it's made to bear. When you test it, you don't test it with steam, because if it failed the test, everyone near by would be killed! Instead of using fire, you start pumping water into it until the pressure is built up to at least 300 more pounds than it is intended to take. Then you let it sit under all that pressure for a while before you consider the test to be satisfactory and you know it can take it!

We need to realize that pressures will come. We can expect them. God wants a tried people, proven to stand under all kinds of pressure.

Have you ever tried to stop a spoonful of Jell-O from wiggling? Jell-O can't take much, can it? Did you ever try to make a sandwich out of it? Without trials and tests, we're like a bowl of Jell-O. We wiggle and we shake and we squirm. We can't stand firm even in the smallest upsets.

From Draw Closer

All this preaching [to the unsaved] about clothes, TV, and this and that — do this and don't do that — it's all negative. It's not a message that will get anybody saved!

When we preach and teach about these things, we're teaching those who already profess salvation — teaching them how to live soberly and godly in this present world: a teaching that will take them deeper with God.

God said we ought to separate our lives from the world — and we have to preach what God has said. He also told us not to love the world nor the things which are in the world (I John 2:15,16), and He warns that in the last days men would be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God (II Timothy 3:4).

We've got to emphasize these points as much as anything else that is found in God's Word. Many of these teachings are neglected because of fear — fear to speak up because it might cause someone to leave the church.

Believe me, if we're ashamed to speak up now, Jesus will be ashamed of us in the day of His return. We must blow the trumpet now, letting God's children know that He expects them to live holy.

From Deal with It and Go On

In our relationship with the Lord, one of the great things is obedience to the teachings of Christ (see John 14:15). When we do, the reflection back to Him is that we love Him. We find ourselves being filled with love for God. The more we find this having a place in our lives, the more love we find in our hearts and our conversation and in our minds — God becomes just all in all to us.

So in finding this deep, rich, spiritual relationship, it brings us into the place where our lives are really blessed.

From The Little Foxes

Consider these little foxes — the young ones that like to snip away at the tender grapes. Think about those little foxes — those trivial little things that often can get at you and hit you so hard. Consider that little thing that eats away at your joy — that little thing that keeps you so upset all of the time, making your life miserable.

You let the same thing get in your heart time after time. That same thing bothers you and bothers you and bothers you until your joy just can't seem to climb up any more.

You need to realize that Satan would like to drain your joy to the point where you just can't serve God anymore. He wants to get you so discouraged that you don't want to serve God.

If it becomes a drudgery to serve God, you need to realize that something is happening; something is drastically wrong! Somewhere along the line you let down your guard: You let that little fox sneak in and get at you.

It's our joy that's being robbed. If something is bothering us, then we are the one who is losing the victory. It's not the one beside us who has lost the victory — it's us! Therefore, it is up to you and me to do something about restoring joy to our souls.

If those little foxes can get one of your children upset and on your nerves, they'll do it, or they'll get the children on each other's nerves! That devil is foxy. He likes to let loose his little foxes in the midst of your home so your whole day is ruined.

If you want to be spiritually-minded and be at peace in your heart, then you can't allow those little foxes to annoy you. When you are being troubled on every hand, you need to rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

From Valley of Dry Bones

A true man of God will preach unto you about the river you should enter into. He will point out to you the way of the Lord and show you how to go deeper in your experience.

You ought to turn away from the voice that denies the power of God, that denies the supernatural. Such a voice tells you there isn't such a thing as speaking in tongues or prophesying. It will tell you that God did away with all of that; He doesn't do anything like that today.

Are you going to believe the preacher who preaches the power of God, or are you going to believe the preacher who says that God's power died when Peter died? Those dry preachers can really lay it on and inform you that God isn't manifesting His power today.

You can go on in a form of godliness, hearing the negative messages, and you'll hear what God used to do and what He doesn't do any more. If you stay in that dead, negative attitude, where the blessings of God are termed "emotionalism," you are not profiting yourself in that type of an atmosphere — it will only starve you to death. You're being poisoned by negative teaching and preaching. You need to hear the positive message of God's Word: the message that He will pour out of His Spirit upon all flesh in the last days.

This is the hour wherein God is certainly fulfilling His Word. He is pouring out His Spirit upon all who will get into the stream of blessing. We have to hear the Word of the Lord. We have to stop and take the message of God more seriously. Understand that Jesus is coming soon, and we must get ourselves prepared. The hour of His coming is at hand. It is time for us to arise and trim our lamps! time to make sure that our vessels are full, and our lamps are burning brightly.

One of our members took a photograph of a boat last September because the name printed on the boat was meaningful to her. Not knowing that Brother Dailey had passed away, she brought it to church the morning of his death. After the adult Sunday School class — which stressed that we are to carry on with the Lord — she showed it to us.

Printed on the back of the boat are the words "CARRY ON" with the initials underneath: "WFD." Brother Dailey's full name is Wayne Frederick Dailey — "WFD"!

John 4:35
Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

Luke 10:2b
The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth labourers into His harvest.

"he being dead yet speaketh"
(Hebrews 11:4b)