Prison Stay Leaves Bike Club Leader a Changed Man

“Well, I’d been on about a three-day cocaine high/binge there, (i.e.) a little place on the north side of Dayton.  And they came up the stairs and I’m waking up kind of groggy. It was on.”

Ever since Dave Spurgeon was a teen, he lived life on his own terms. Growing up with loving, Christian parents, he had no interest in their faith or God. 

“We’re talkin’ late 60s.  We’re talking about, you know, rock music coming into vogue and war protesters and just a rebellious spirit.  I still wanted to do things they didn’t approve of, you know, on Friday night after the football game and so we clashed.”

After high school, Dave joined the Army, looking for adventure. But he got tired of taking orders, so after three years, he got out and pursued the life he really wanted. 
 
“I saw the movie Easy Rider as a senior in high school.  That stuck with me. I just wanted to have fun. And I didn’t want to be told what to do.  Those two things motivated me.”

So Dave started hanging out at the local watering hole.   He also found a use for the fighting skills he learned in the Army.

“I spent a lot of time sticking up for the little guy, for lack of a better way to put it, and earned a reputation as a fist fighter. And so it wasn’t long before I was courted by a little local club.”

Dave hadn’t given much thought to joining a motorcycle club, but the idea called to something deep inside him, and he accepted the invitation.  

“The concept was brotherhood.  I had a desire to be part of something that meant something. But this idea of brotherhood and we’re like-minded and we’re going to, you know, support each other, that appealed to me.”

Attached to that idea was a lifestyle that Dave gradually embraced.
 
“More drinking and more drugs and more carelessness and more recklessness and more funerals. And you just get to the place where, you know – ‘Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse,’ you know.”

Dave later joined an international motorcycle club called “The Outlaws.” He rose to second in command in the U.S., slipping deeper into a culture of violence, crime, and drug abuse. 
 
“We formed our own society, we formed our own rules, we had our own standards. And we took care of one another.  The higher I rose in the rank, the less people I had tell me what to do.”

In the midst of it all, his mother never gave up on her son, and never stopped praying for him. 

“I told my mother once, I said, ‘Mom, you got to quit talkin’ to me about Jesus or I’m not gonna come around.’ And what she did was, she went over my head. … she purposed in her heart to talk to the Lord about me.”  

Early one morning, Dave’s fifteen years of living by his own rules came to a head.

“There was a loud noise banging against the front door of my house.  And it was a battering ram at the hands of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Federal Agency there… and they came in like the 4th infantry.  Things changed for me that day.”

Dave was arrested on federal drug and weapons charges, and faced up to 37 years in prison.  While in jail awaiting trial, he got into a fight that landed him in solitary confinement.  He was denied access to everything – except the church service.
 
“So I went just to get out of the cell.  My reluctance to going to church didn’t have anything to do with not believing in God.  I just didn’t believe God would have anything to do with me. Because I made a decision at 18 years old to turn my back on him.”

The message wouldn’t let him rest. 

”’A person dies in their sin, they end up in a lake of fire.’  And I’m thinkin’, ‘Thanks for cheering me up, chaplain.  I’m looking at all these years in prison. Now you’re here telling me I’m going to burn forever too. Thanks a lot!’   And thank God that’s not all. Because he said Christ was crucified for our sins. And the Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved... I’m thinkin’ ‘Really, me? Are you kidding?’”

Later he asked the chaplain for a Bible and started reading.   Alone in his cell, he prayed.
“And I said something like this:  ‘God, I am going to prison, you and me both know I deserve it. The Bible says I’m going to Hell, and you and me both know I deserve it.’ And I said, ‘But that Bible says your Son went to the cross so that I could be forgiven.’ I said, ‘God, if you’ll have me, if you’ll have somebody like me, I’ll have you.’”

A few minutes later, Dave wrote his mother a letter. 

“I said, ‘I am sorry for the disgrace and all the heartache, but thanks for prayin’. And if I never see you outside of a federal prison visiting room, I’ll see you in heaven, Mom. Thanks for prayin’.  I asked Christ to forgive me today.’”

Dave pled guilty to all charges and his sentence was reduced to five years probation with 1000 hours community service.  As part of the terms, Dave was required to share his story with at-risk youth.   He loved it so much that when his probation was up, he decided to go into ministry.  Now he’s married to Susan and serving as a fulltime evangelist. 

“I started with no skill, not marketable, not legitimate, everything I was good at was basically illegal. And the Lord took me up on my offer and I surrendered to serve Him and He’s letting me.”

As a follower of Jesus Christ, Dave now knows true brotherhood.

“I was looking for something - something to dedicate my life to.  And He has met the need, the fulfillment, like we of spoke earlier, that everybody basically has. There’s a place that only God can fill.  The Lord has been good to me.  That’s it.  The Lord Jesus Christ has been good to me.”