Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Melody Green is President and CEO of Last Days Ministries -- a web-based interactive ministry where Melody teaches, shares insights, and gives unique commentary on current issues.

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NO COMPROMISE

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Foreword by Winkie Pratney..................................ix1. "One Day You're Up ..."..................................12. "Run to the End of the Highway"..........................173. "You're on My List of Things to Do"......................514. "Love with Me"...........................................955. "There Is a Redeemer"....................................1216. "You Put This Love in My Heart"..........................1427. "When There's Love"......................................1618. "Your Love Broke Through"................................1879. "For Him Who Has Ears to Hear"...........................21110. "Asleep in the Light"...................................23511. "Rushing Wind"..........................................26712. "I Want to Rain Upon You ..."...........................28513. "Grace by Which I Stand"................................30114. "I Want to Be More Like Jesus"..........................32315. "Unless the Lord Builds the House"......................35116. "Open Your Eyes"........................................38317. "Unless a Grain of Wheat"...............................419Epilogue: "When Trials Turn to Gold"........................451The Keith Green Legacy......................................469Memories of Keith, by Leonard Ravenhill.....................485Retrospective, by John Dawson...............................488Gratitudes..................................................490Keith Green Discography.....................................493

Chapter One

Anything can happen on the streets of Hollywood. I'd seen some pretty wild things, but never anything so bizarre as what I saw one night on Ventura Boulevard.

As Keith and I walked out of the Bla Bla Cafe, a blast of hot night air hit us in the face. It was after 2:00 a.m., but the street was still awake with activity. Four drag queens swept by us, followed by a couple in disco outfits, all headed inside for a late-night break fast. Next door the watchdogs at Bruno's Corvette Repairs were pacing inside their chain-linked fence, barking at everything that moved-including us. Keith had played three sets that night, and we were headed for home, exhausted. I was glad to see "Victor von Van," our VW with the hippie-style Indian print curtains I'd sewn, parked at the curb.

Keith had been performing at "the Bla"-as it was affectionately known to its regulars-for almost a year. It was a small showcase nightclub in the San Fernando Valley just a few blocks from Hollywood proper. The Bla spotlighted showbiz hopefuls and was frequented by agents and talent scouts from big record companies. Keith was one of those hopefuls. But tonight he'd given it his all one more time-and now we were leaving, still undiscovered.

As Keith walked around the front of the van, I opened the passenger door. That was when we spotted a figure looming toward us out of the dark. It was Harmony.

Harmony looked like a gruff mountain man with his brown, scraggly hair and beard. Here we were in 1974, but this guy struck us as someone caught in a '60s time warp. He was calm and easy. All he talked about was peace, love, and living off the land. He wasn't a close friend, but he and Keith had gotten stoned together once.

"Hey, how's it goin'?" Keith called. He shut his door and stepped back onto the sidewalk.

Sleepily I leaned my head back, knowing I was in for a wait. Inevitably most of our conversations drifted toward spiritual experiences these days. Keith and I had tried a lot of things-a lot of things. Recently we'd been curious about Jesus. We weren't Christians. Church was a dead institution to us. But Jesus did seem to be a spiritual Master of some sort, and we had a degree of respect for his life and teachings.

Sure enough, Keith and Harmony immediately began talking about the supernatural. It was just a typical conversation-for people who were into drugs and the mystical, which were a lot of the people we knew.

"I've been reading about Jesus lately," Keith was saying. "He was a pretty radical person."

Harmony's eyes seemed to brighten. Then, slowly, a strange look came over his face. His eyes got misty and distant. Very calmly he said, "I am Jesus Christ."

Keith reacted like he'd been stung by a scorpion. Without missing a beat, he shot back, "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves!" I recognized the quote as something Jesus had said. What happened next was really hard to believe.

Harmony's eyes grew wide. Then they narrowed to slits. Furrows creased across his forehead, and his bushy eyebrows knit together. A sneer came over his usually mild face, and his upper lip curled back, exposing yellow, smoke-stained teeth. Leaning toward Keith, his teeth bared, he let out a growl that started in the throat, like that of a wolf, and ended with the horrible hissing sound of a snake.

It happened in only seconds. Harmony's face relaxed. But his eyes looked confused. Embarrassed. The hiss seemed to hang in the still night air.

My skin was still tingling from the shock. Keith had obviously been rocked by it too. He looked from Harmony to me with wide eyes. This was Hollywood, but things like this only happened in the movies. I wondered what Keith was thinking.

It was as if someone or something took control of Harmony momentarily, using him for its own purposes. Then just as quickly it discarded him, leaving him to pick up the pieces in confused embarrassment. Dazed, Harmony mumbled something. But Keith quickly excused himself, jumped into Victor, and shoved the key in the ignition.

As we drove home over the dark streets, we kept looking at each other in disbelief. Keith was more animated than usual. He kept saying, "Did he really do that? I can't believe it!"

We talked about nothing else until we crawled into bed and fell asleep, sometime after 3:30 am.

The weird experience with Harmony did have one major effect on us. It brought some things into sharp focus. Namely, that there was, indeed, a very real spiritual realm-a realm full of power and possibly even danger. We were just coming to a deeper realization that there must be spiritual forces beyond our knowing. Had we heard a voice from that other side, speaking through Harmony? Or was it just the voice of the age? After all, a lot of musicians, artists, and writers-the "beautiful" people-were saying things like, "You are your own god. Everything's relative. There is no right or wrong." But we wondered: Is there a dark side and a light side to spiritual energy?

Keith and I had both been caught up in a search to find our spiritual identities for some time. We were looking for truth-whatever it was-and our search for light had taken us on many strange paths, from Buddhism to stuff like astral projection and, of course, drugs; especially psychedelics. We were convinced the truth was hidden out there somewhere like a pearl in the ocean and that when we found it, it would fill an empty spot in our hearts. It would make life really worth living. Until then every day held the potential of being the day of the great revelation.

At the time of our weird encounter with Harmony, however, we'd been slipping a bit, losing hope, even dabbling with the drugs again that we'd sworn off but kept falling back into. Our spiritual...