FORMER PENTECOSTALS
TESTIMONIES OF DELIVERANCE - MINISTERS AND SHEEP

CHAPTER   13

Back to Book 15 Index>>>

After preaching the messages entitled,
“Pentecostalism - 100 years,” based on other subtitles, there was
great rejoicing at GCC, USA. The blessing continued at Bethel (the House of God).
Eleven messages fully declared the facts of Pentecostalism. This created such
impact upon the hearts and lives of believers that heard them, insomuch that
after six weeks, the saints of God are yet rejoicing with joy unspeakable and
full of glory.

Space was given them to glorify God by
their testimonies, as they looked back to their great deliverance from
Pentecostalism and such practices, even under the message. Such testimonies yet
continue and may go on for many more weeks. The following is a documentation of
a few testimonies which may edify our associates and other message believers
around the world. By extension, they are placed in this book that some
Pentecostal folks may take courage and come to light and understanding and be
delivered from that damnable system of Pentecostalism.

ROY
BARROW – MINISTER & RETIRED

PORT
AUTHORITY INSPECTOR

I greet all saints locally and worldwide, those at
G.C.C (Grace Convent Church): Pastor Kenny Mcgahee, assistant Pastor Renner,
ministers and congregation of the U.S.A., also Brother Watson, Brother Asserwathan,
Brother Alexander and all saints in India, Africa, China, Germany, Philippines,
St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Guyana and all those that are contending for E.O.D.H.
books and for another outpouring of the baptism of the Spirit, just like they
had it on the day of Pentecost according to Acts 2:1 and Joel 2:28.

I
will like to use two scriptures to form a base for my testimony:

I John 1:7 <… if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.>

There
was a light for the Bride’s day. There was a light for Luther’s
day, a light for Wesley’s day, a light for Brother Branham’s day or
Pentecostal’s day, and there is a light for the Bride’s day. We are
admonished by the scriptures to walk in the light as He is in the light.

Proverbs 4: 18 <…the
path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the
perfect day.>

For
Jesus said,

John 8:12
<…I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of life.>

John
said:

John 1:8-9 <He was not that Light, but
was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world. >

In James1: 17,

James
1:17 <Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.>

Among us tonight and I have witnessed thirty
years: there has been a good and perfect gift in operation among God’s
people in the form of His servant, Brother Dalton Bruce. No man is perfect but
God sends good and perfect gifts. I sought for a man of God way back in Tobago, the land of my nativity in 1960’s.

I
searched every radio station: Trinidad, Netherlands, Antilles, Anguilla, St. Martin, Quito, Ecuador
etc. I turned my radio upside down. I heard the greatest preachers
in the land, and around the world, great theologians and Bible scholars, but
amongst them never a man spake like Dalton Bruce, for he speaks like one having
authority.

The
scriptures said that Jesus spoke not like the scribes or the Pharisees, but He
spake like one having authority. The scriptures said: How knoweth this man letter,
having never learned. How knoweth this man, Dalton Bruce letter, the Word, the
revelation and the message, having never learned. God’s servant has never
been to college nor to university.

I believe he has the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost to speak the words of life that we have heard for the past years,
without any error or contradiction.
Job, the poet, said,

Job 32:8 <…there is a spirit in
man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.>

God showed His servant a great big rock upon a hill, on a narrow road and
told him in that experience when he heard the audible voice of the Lord,
“I will show you on the sides of the rock, I will show you on top of the
rock and I will show you inside of the rock.”

I
was looking for a man who knew the scriptures and knew what he is talking
about. I never found that man in George Phillips, my first pastor. I never
found that man in Ternel Joshua Nelson, my first presbyter, nor Jeremiah
Prescott, my second presbyter, nor Marcus Roberts, my third presbyter; nor in
Barker, Leebec, Alexander, Rayon, White or the whole host of them, in my time.

But
when I came to Bethel,
and sat and listened, I concluded that this is not man, but this is God. This
is His Word, and this is what I had been searching for.

Brother Bruce is the first preacher that
troubled and interfered with my

soul and gave me hope. He is not a quack. He has and
knows God’s plan and programme for the hour. He knows what it takes to
save a soul.

I
have seen him over the years, answer our questions, and sometimes when I think
that he cannot handle this question and he is going to burst up on this one, I
see the Lord comes and gives him the right answers, time and time again. The
Bible says that the right answer cometh from the Lord.

Our
pastor knows what he is about. He knows God’s redemptive plan and program
for the hour. He knows how to get a man born again and how to prepare him to
receive another outpouring of the Spirit like on the day of Pentecost. And that
is why he has challenged the world over, and no one has yet  been able to take up the challenge, to
prove him wrong on what he teaches in the Word of God. He has our full support,
our full cooperation, and as far as I am concerned, Brother Bruce is a man sent
from God and he is able to face the oppositions and heresies of the enemy
coming from all quarters today.

Brother
Bruce was shown three men in a vision: Brother Branham was in the middle. And
he was told, “As your body is stiff upon this bed, so shall you walk with
this man’s message. And from since then, he has been walking straight
with the message. He has never one day changed
his doctrine and he has continued for all these decades to run a straight line
on God’s Word and the message of Brother Branham. God has shown him this
message of William Branham and he has passed it on to us. He has not shunned to
declare unto us the whole counsel of God.

I
am here because God brought me here through an invitation that was given to
Brother Chandler by Brother Jackson, which was extended to me. I thought I was
just coming to that meeting and move on to the evangelistic field, because a
group of us were planning to go through the Caribbean and South
America. I held almost every position
in the church. I was a preacher for ten years up until I came to Bethel. But God had better
plans for me and for you. When I heard the Word of God the first time, I wanted
to hear more. When I heard It the second time, I wanted to hear more, and
continued to want more. And even up to now, I still want to hear more. I am
never tired of hearing the Word of God.

When
I came here, the first thing that the Word took away from me was my false water
baptism. I subsequently got re-baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
thought that was all, but as I continued to sit under the Word, It took away my
birth. That is what pushed me into desperation after Life, until I came to
clear cut understanding on the Rock revelation of the Son of Man.

As
I continued to follow on, the Word came and took away my Baptism of the Holy
Ghost that I received in Pentecost. I lost my water baptism; I lost my new
birth and my baptism of the Holy Ghost. And tonight, and I am contending for
the genuine baptism of the Holy Ghost that the apostles received on the day of
Pentecost, and I am going to receive it

I,
Roy Barrow, a former Pentecostal for thirteen years: 1964 to1977, do solemnly
and truly declare that this series of ten
messages preached at U.S.A. and at Bethel, Trinidad, W.I., by our beloved
pastor and shepherd, Dalton Bruce, on the commemoration of  one hundred years of Pentecostalism, is
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I
confirm, fully support and endorse all the things that were preached by
God’s servant on 100 years of Pentecostalism, to be true, for I was among
them.

The
things that I am about to speak is not hear-say, nor did anyone prompt or asked
me to say these things to pull down, castigate, criticize or degrade anyone,
but these are the facts and my experiences.

I
was born in Belle Garden, Zion Hill, Tobago.
Five years after my conversion to Christianity, I migrated to the twin Island
state of my country called Trinidad and lived
at Abel Street,
Diego Martin. Four years later I got married and lived at Church St. Petit
Valley.

In
1977, I came in contact with Brother Branham’s message and seven years
later I went to live in a place called Freeport,
where the Word of God is preached in its purity by God’s humble servant,
Brother Dalton Bruce, and where the holiness standards of the message are
highly upheld and kept by God’s people. No television, no sports, No bath
suits, no mixed bathing, no high heeled shoes, no immodest dressing etc.

I
can look back and say that I was not born in Mt.
Zion by chance, nor did I live at Abel
and Church Streets by coincidence, and neither am I living at Freeport by chance. Freeport is a free port indeed. It is the
only place that I know of that had and still has the revelation that has set my
sin sick soul free. Jesus said, “Whom the son of man has set free, is
free indeed.” The son of man came to seek and save that which was lost.

In
my Christian travel, the places that I lived, from Zion Hill to Freeport was ordered of
the Lord. The footstep of the righteous are ordered of the Lord.

My
parents were Anglicans but my father leaned towards the Spiritual Baptist and
Ethiopian Orthodox Faith. As a boy, I went to church and to Sunday school,
where I was taught Bible stories and sang sacred songs and choruses.

As
I advanced in age and approached teenage life, I became wild, having my own
way, disobedient, rude and rebellious. I obeyed my parents when they were
around, but when they turned their backs, I would either go to play, or head to
the sea, river or for the fields. I would go there for the rest of the afternoon,
after school and for almost the whole day during the close of the school term.
I was a bad boy. I grumbled when my parents gave me instructions, but not for
them to hear or see me fussing and rebelling against what I was told to do.

I
was such a disobedient boy that my
parent would send my bigger brothers to catch me. They never could have caught
me, and I always outran all of them. And if they happened to take hold of my
shirt, I unbuttoned it so fast and left it in their hands. I was a leopard on
my feet. I outran all my elder brothers. I don’t know how I was not hung
by some cocoa tree limb, badly injured or knocked down by vehicles in my
escapes.

In
order for my mother to catch me to flog me, she acted nice with me

and
then grabbed me and let me have it. I got licks all in my head, because I was
harden, but after a time, in order to flog me, they had to tie me with a rope
while I was sleeping, wake me with blows and let me have it. Both parents used
to beat me.

I
was a fearless teenager. I had loved to dance, go to cinema and I cursed a lot,
but not in the hearing of my parents, or elder brothers. I stole like flies,
meaning that anything my hands fell on was gone. People’s fruits were in
trouble with me. One time I stole my mother’s brook lax, which is a laxative.
I mistook it for chocolate bars and it gave me a purge of my life. The thing
nearly killed me.

I
was such a naughty teenager that anything that happened in my village, they
blamed my two cousins, Anva and Alston, and myself. I was the ringleader. When you saw one you will
see the others. I was such a terrible teenager that my father, on his dying
bed, for days, prayed and cried out to God that he would change me. I
don’t know he saw what was coming for me, but looking back, all I could
see was prison term after prison term, or possibly the hangman loose.

One
year after my father’s death, a Pentecostal known as Brother Hensley
Moore, came to live in the village, and he began to witness to me about how the
Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, bled and died on he cross to save
sinners. At the end of his witnessing to me, he asked me if I wanted to accept
Christ as my Savior, and I said, “Yes”, and I meant it. From that
time a dramatic and drastic change came over my life. It was two weeks after
that I realized that I had stopped cursing I was a “cuss bird”,
lying, stealing and being rebellious in such a way that I was amazed. The
village was shocked and surprised and took note of the change that came into my
life and was glad for me.

I
later got baptized in water in the titles of Father, Son and Holy Ghost at
Goldsborough river Tobago, and where I
continued to serve the Lord. I was told that the next step was for me to get
filled with the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

I wanted the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I recall visiting the Scarborough church for the first time, where there was a
white evangelist, an alter call was made for all those who wanted the baptism
of the Holy Ghost. I went up, the evangelist laid his hands on me as I knelt at
the altar and the anointing of the Spirit fell on me. I began to rejoice with
great joy. As I prayed and waited, some grumblings and groanings came out of me
(something almost like tongues) but that night I did not speak in tongues.

Shortly
after, the man who we knew, in the Pentecostal circles, as the Holy Ghost man,
Pastor Hector, came to Pembroke Tobago, and on a Friday night meeting he was
tarrying with those who did not have the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

He
told me, “Just say, ‘hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,
hallelujah. Say it faster, faster and faster’”, until an anointing
came upon me and I began to speak in tongues. From thereon I spoke in tongues, prayed in tongues,
sang in tongues above many youths my equal: and even the adults in my church,
until I came to Bethel,
where the Word took away my tongues and put it in its place. I never practiced
speaking in tongues. I could speak in tongues but I am waiting on what
Peter, James and John had. Pentecost is built upon tongues and not the genuine
baptism of the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2:1 and I Corinthians 13.

As
a Pentecostal, I was full of zeal, zest and impetus for Christ. I was hungry
and thirsty for God. I wanted God to use me. I wanted every spiritual gift and
I wanted to be used of God.

As a young believer I ate God’s Word,
I memorised my scriptures and I was a “praying mantis”. When I
prayed, you could have heard me in the distance calling upon God and speaking
in tongues like an automatic pistol. I hardly prayed without speaking in tongues.
When that anointing came up me and I
spoke in tongues, I used to feel way up in the Spirit, and I felt I could have
taken on any devil, but it never worked.

I
fasted but never for more than two to three days. I desired power to heal the
sick and to cast out demons. I prayed and laid hands on the crippled and they
remained crippled. I prayed for the demon possessed and they remained demon
possessed. A demon possessed man form Pembroke who used to drink a large tin of
tea and ate two to three bakes, was prayed for and the man continued to drink
his tin of tea and ate his bakes. I knew of another demon-possessed case, when the evil spirit came upon that man, he
became extremely strong.

On
one occasion he ripped opened a bolted door and lifted up the back of a Bedford truck and was
running through the village shouting and saying all kinds of things. They were
prayed for and remained and died demon possessed. We still continued to claim
the baptism of the Holy Ghost but it was not
working like the one they received on the day of Pentecost.

As
a Pentecostal, I was not ashamed to walk the streets with my Bible, distribute
tracts and witness to people. As long as there was a gathering of people,
Brother Moore and I would grab the opportunity to speak to these people. We,
along with one or two of the other men, spearheaded every crusade, which was
undertaken by my church. I held almost every position in the church and I was a
fireball for God. I was a little ram skipping on the mountain for God. I hardly
knew what it was to be in the valley, except when I did wrong. But I quickly
rose and was at it again. I never knew what it was to stay down.

As
a young man, I would jump on my bicycle, ride to Speyside and Roxborough to
preach to young people, and rode all those lonely roads back at 9:30 –10:30, all by myself, in the night. The roads
were so dark that I could not see the palm of my hands. As a young boy certain
fears used to attack you, but I pushed it back as I passed by the graveyards.

I
attended many street meetings in the Leeward district of Tobago with a group of
young men from the Scarborough church. After
the street meetings, we ended up in the church and prayed all night.

EXPERIENCE

I recall one of my experiences that took place in one of the services.
It was a Sunday morning, the meeting was so charged with the anointing of the
Spirit that when I came from that meeting, I felt numb in my entire body, I
felt air borne, I felt not on the earth. I was speaking to my brethren but I
was in another sphere or a heavenly realm. In that sphere I felt serene,
peaceful, sweet and holy with an awe upon me.

I was a little fearful and
scared. To bring myself out of that experience, I began to jump, and stamped my
feet several times to snap out of it and to return to my normal feeling, but it
still lingered for some time and then vanished away.

VISION

I recall one night as I knelt to pray on the
side of my bed, I broke into a vision where I saw myself on a green plain, and
out in the distance I saw a white horse galloping toward me with a rider and a
sword hanging on his side. As the rider came closer to me, I recognized him to
be the devil. He came off his white horse and tied his horse on a wooden rail.
From the same direction, way in the distance, I saw the Lord Jesus Christ, the
identical figure of the Hoffman’s
head, coming toward me. The devil was angered and pulled his sword. I became
fearful and fell on my knees. The devil started to charge his sword at Jesus, and
he walked right through that charging sword without any harm coming to him. At
that stage I was still on my knees where he laid his hand on me and he appeared
to be praying for me, within his heart, without words.

In
the drama I opened my eyes to find out what was happening. Then I discovered it
was a vision. I closed back my eyes to see if it would continue but I saw
nothing.

Thank
God for breaking the power of that white horse rider, the devil, in my life and
for laying his hand upon my life and praying for me.

I
heard men and woman spoke in all kinds of tongues, I heard interpretations of
tongues. I heard men and woman agonized, and travailed and shouted in the
spirit. I heard men and women prophesied. I also agonized, travailed and
shouted in the Spirit. The usual prophecy was, “The Lord is coming soon
and we must be prepared to meet Him.”

TONGUES

One of the things that amazed and baffled me
as a young believer was a brother by the name of Brother Caruth who spoke in a
powerful unknown tongue. He used to vibrate and shake down the place with froth
on both sides of his mouth and spittle flying all over the place. But I came to
find out that he was living in fornication
with an unsaved woman. That troubled me until I came to the message, where we
were taught that the rain falleth on the just and unjust. Sad to say, this
brother, when he was exposed for his sin, lost his mind. In his insane state,
at times, he claimed to be God, and other times he claimed to be St. Paul, and he said I
was Timothy, but I never believe him to be Paul, much more for him being God.
He ended up in the mental asylum.

PASTORS’ ADULTERY

I knew of pastors living in adultery and still
speaking in tongues. I knew of a good minister friend of mine whose wife was
living in adultery with his fellow
minister friend. That minister still preaches the gospel and has a big church
in the city of Port of Spain.
He still lives that adulterous life, speak in tongues like an automatic pistol
and now claims to have tremendous healings and supernatural signs and wonder in
his ministry.

He
groans and behaves as a hog in his preaching and when praying for the sick. I
know that he is demon possessed. It is not now he is an adulterer. He has been
so for quite sometime.

You
cannot preach, groan, agonize and travail in the Spirit like him. He has a
silver tongue and is full with a lot of drama in his preaching, but he is a
stinking, nasty, filthy adulterer. It always baffled me how a man could be
filled with the Holy Spirit and live such an unholy life. How a man could live
such life and still stand behind the sacred desk and talk about God, and look
right in the faces of the women with whom he committed the act. It is beyond
me. Such ministers have more guts than a calabash. Such ministers ought to step
down.

My
minister friend had to run from this country with his wife to get away from
this other minister that used to live with his wife. I witnessed for myself my
minister friend’s wife’s face and hands used to be blue and black
from blows that he used to put on
her, and the minister and this woman claimed to have had the Baptism of the
Holy Ghost. This minister always says that “God has a miracle for you
with your name written on it.” A bunch of devils! I cannot be such a
hypocrite and claim that God is using me to heal the sick and cast out demons.
You are a lair, you are living a false life and you are a make believer. Hell
is too good for you! Repent or perish!

I knew of a minister who had no children
with his wife, who went out and committed adultery and had a child outside of his wife. And is still
pastoring and claim to have the baptism of the Spirit and is still speaking in
tongues. He was one of the first pastors in Roxborough, Tobago.
Is this the experience of Acts 2:1-4? No! It is what they received at Azusa Street.
It’s the rain falling on the just and unjust. What the apostles received
in Acts 2: 1-4, they never went and committed fornication and adultery with it.
No man could have charged them with such sexual sins, for they were built-up
right and they had the genuine baptism of the Holy Spirit. (Joel 2:28).

I
now understand what it means for the rain to fall on the just and the unjust,
and power apart form Christlike character is satanic. What they received at Azusa Street was
power apart from Christlike character. That is why they could have gone out and
committed fornication, adultery, sexual perversions and pulled for money with
it. But what they received in Acts 2:1-4 was genuine and they could not have
lived such wicked lives with it.

I knew of a case in Charlotville, that my
pastor at Pembroke had the oversight, where a brother and sister got married in
the spirit. This couple, along with others, used to shut away in the church and
pray a lot. This woman and this man claimed that they were married in the
spirit. “The Lord joins together.” They used to speak in tongues,
claimed to have the baptism of the Holy Ghost and went out and started to live
in fornication and claimed they were married. They quoted the scriptures,
“What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder.” That was fornication, that was
lust that came over that couple.

I
knew of Brother Barber from the Diego Martin church. He used to speak in all
kinds of tongues. He left his wife and went out and was living with another woman.
He fell sick and before his death his brethren encouraged him to repent and
make his life right, which he reluctantly did and went back home.

EARLY PENTECOSTALISM
– HOLINESS STANDARDS

In the early Pentecostal days, you could not
be living in sin and coming to church. You would have been put out or stopped
at the door. The ministers now, have no shame. They beg for money like
shameless dogs. They rob the poor people of their little money that they have
to go by. They will make you empty your pockets and put your travelling money
in the offering.

Pentecost
taught us that John the Baptist was the last prophet and quoted Hebrews 1:1,
and, “The law and the prophets were until John.” (Luke 16:16). If the last prophet was
John, then who were Jesus and the prophets in the early church like Agabus?
Pentecostal ministers condemned Brother Branham as a prophet and preached him
down as a false prophet and said that he went out of his mind. Brother Branham
was God’s prophet of the hour. He was Malachi 4:5-6, Revelation 10: 7,
Revelation 3:14-22 and Matthew 17: 11. They, who condemned him, now claim to be
apostles and prophets. But they are false apostles and false prophets.

I
knew of a pathetic case in my church where the senior deacon fell sick and his
wife wanted to take him to the obeah man (Soothsayer). He was against it but it
appeared that he began to give in to his wife. He being sick, his wife a
Pentecostal, was pushing him to go to the obeah man, because she believed
somebody did him something. Everything the brother ate he just kept

passing it out.

I
stood up against the sister wanting to take her husband to the obeah man and
she lambasted me and called me all kinds of filthy names but I stood my
grounds. The brother lost his mind and ended up in the mental home, where he
was treated and recovered. He was my best friend. This brother worked hard and
fasted a lot and did not eat the way he ought to, and he hardly took vitamins,
which resulted in him falling ill.

The women in Pentecost never practised mixed
bathing, never wore swimsuits and bikinis and never wore immodest clothing.
They wore full dresses, skirts and bodices. You could not have seen the
impression of their underclothing, but now it is a beauty show, it is a circus.
You can see the impression of the women’s underclothing on the outside.
No reason to doubt that’s why the ministers and lay members are falling
in so much fornication and adultery.

In
my early Pentecostal days a woman could not wear jewellery, never straightened
their hair, never wore lipsticks and painted
their faces. The women could not wear pants, coulette and slacks. They hardly
wore gold, except a ring, if they were married.

I saw woman slain by the Holy Ghost, fell
down on the floor, their clothes lifted up where their underclothing were exposed, and men and women had to cover them
with sheets. If that was the Holy Ghost, it would have kept their clothes down
and not exposed their underclothing. It is a rude ghost. After they were slain,
they were embarrassed to know they were rudely exposed like that.

In 1964, my life was miraculously,
supernaturally and dramatically spun around. I lost taste for dancing that I
had loved very much, for partying and for carnival, which is a National
Festival that takes place in this country for two days annually. I lost taste
for calypso music, country and western and sentimental songs, and all worldly
music. I stopped going to cinemas. I stop chasing girls and I began living for
Christ.

As a Pentecostal I attended almost every
service, which was five times a week, plus other departmental meetings. In
those days, I walked three miles to church and back with some of the brethren.
As we walked those lonely roads, we sang those sacred songs and choruses,
bubbling with joy and great happiness. I cannot forget those days. They were
some of the best days in my life.

Beloved the Pentecostal world has perverted
all those sacred songs and have brought calypso, rock, soca and dub into the
church to see if they can win the world. You cannot win the world like that.
The world has to adjust to suit the Word, and not the church adjusting to suit
the world. This is the reason why the world has gotten into the church, and you
cannot make out or distinguish whether it is a worldly song or a sacred song
that is being sung.

I am against all these worldly music that Pentecost has brought into
the church. They have desecrated the Holy songs and have put all these worldly
beats to them.

In
my church, the week was filled with all kinds of activities. There

was hardly a day in the week without some kind of
activity. On Sunday I taught a Sunday school class in the morning. Two Sunday
school classes in the evening, and together with that, hit the streets for open
air meeting, before attending the evangelistic service in my church for 7: 00 pm. I was a workhorse in
Pentecost thinking I was fulfilling the great commission of Matthew 28-16.

One
of the hallmarks in my Christian experience is that I can vividly remember when
the burden and the load of sin were rolled away from my life as I surrendered
my life to Christ. From thereon I experienced a peace, a joy and a happiness
that I never had. I knew when my fetters, my chains and the shackles of sins
were broken in my life and the prison in which Satan held me swung opened and I
was set free.

I
knew when the load and the burden of sin left me as I wept and looked away to
the one dying on the cross for me. I felt like tons rolled off of my back, I
felt light and I felt when the weight of sin was lifted from my life.

Jesus in Matthew 11: 28 said, <Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.>

My village was glad
when they heard of my change and that I was living for Christ. After which I
was invited by Brother Moore to a service at Pembroke Tobago and from that time
have not turned back to my vomit, like a dog and wallowing in the mire and mud
like a hog.

Azusa Street was not a return
of Acts 2: 1-4, but a restoration on the gifts.

I said all that to
say this: Just before I came to Christ, Brother Moore started speaking to me
about accepting Christ as my saviour, and this night in particular, I dressed
up and went to dance, and all of a sudden the music meant nothing to me, and as
if it was way in a distance. I left the dance and I went home without missing
anything. I felt something like a hush, a calm or peace come over me. One day I
was sent by my mother for something and on my returning, I felt something came
upon me and reminded me: “You stopped cursing”, and I felt so good,
so happy and a joy came over me and strengthened me to go on.

I heard and seen Arturo Skinner, Oswald Davis and
Judith Brown. Later, the televangelist Benny Hinn. They all make a mockery of
the discerning of spirits. They
always make mistakes and blunders as they try to tell people their sick
conditions, and it is not so. They are a bunch of quacks and impersonators of
Brother Branham who discerned the hearts and lives of the people for many years
and never one day made one blunder in his discernment. Check his books and
tapes. None of his discernment ever failed.

We are not going to
settle for any shakes, quakes and quivers. We are not going for tongues, which
is the least of all spiritual gifts. We want the genuine Holy Ghost baptism
like Peter, James and John and the church at Pentecost. We want the same signs,
the same wonders and same miracles, and added to that, a speak the word
creative ministry. In Jude1: 3, Jude exhorted that <ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered
unto the saints.>

In Ezekiel 47: 1-5, there are four
measurements of water. There was an ankle measurement, a feet measurement, a
loins measurement and an overflowing measurement. Luther, by the Revelation of
the just shall live by faith, received the ankle measurement of the Spirit.
Wesley, by the Revelation of living a sanctified and holy life, received the
feet measurement of the Spirit.

1906 Pentecostalism, by the outpouring of
the Spirit and restoration of the gifts of the Spirit, received the loins
measurement of the Spirit. The Bride, by the revelation of Christ, will receive
the overflowing measurement of the Spirit, the river of the baptism of the Holy
Ghost, to swim in and display such power as the world has never seen, then go
away in the rapture.

There is much more power in here, than
Moses used to open the Red Sea. There is much
more power in here, than Joshua used to open the Jordan. There is much more power in
here, than Joshua used to stop the sun in its track. There is much more power
in here, than what created the sun, moon and the great galaxies. There is such
power in here that can roll worlds outside there and you can go and live upon
them. The power that is in here can give a man eternal life, where you cannot
die, just as God cannot die. There is a power in here that can change your evil
nature, your sinful appetites and desires for sin. There is a power in this
service that can give you the new birth and eternal life and can change you
from within and without, where you will not have any desires for sin. There is
a power in here to make you a Son of God and give you the power of the baptism
of the Holy Ghost. Amen!

GERALD
RENNER - MINISTER & RETIRED ACCOUNTANT

Acts 2:1-4 <And when the day
of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And
suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and
it filled all the house where they were sitting.

And there
appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them.

And
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.>

I am Associate Pastor here at Grace Covenant
Church in Middletown, Connecticut U.S.A.  I was born in October, 1934 in a small
farming community in south central Florida.  My first recollections of religion,
church going and Pentecostalism begin in the late 1930s when I was but a small
child.

I have come not to preach but to
relate some of my experiences and also some of the things that my wife, Norma,
remembers.  Some of our experiences
are related for the benefit of people who may hear by tape or see the videos or
who may read the book, “Pentecostalism—100 Years, in which The 1906
Revival is compared to True Pentecost.”

Brother Dalton Bruce has abundantly
proven, both by the Holy Scriptures, the message of the prophet/messenger of
Malachi 4:5-6, William Marrion Branham, and the history of the Pentecostal
movement over the last one hundred years, that the 1906 Azusa Street revival
that resulted in an Outpouring of the Holy Ghost, said to be a return of
Pentecost, was based upon a faulty doctrinal foundation that was established by
men who, themselves, were not in “one accord,” and some of whom
were in an apostate condition.
True, some of the men were sincere, God-fearing and devout and God
honored their sincerity and honesty.
Nevertheless, the manifestations, or lack of certain manifestations in
the 1906 revival make it evident that the outpouring was not that which we
expect and that which is required to prepare the end-time Bride of Christ to be
taken up from the earth in the “Rapture of the Saints.”  The end-time Bride of Christ must be
prepared by a return of True Pentecost.
Therefore, the true return to the Pentecost of the time of the Apostles
is yet before us.  We seek It and we
expect It with all our hearts.

Our experiences illustrate the extent
to which the Pentecostal organizations have strayed from Holiness Standards without which no man shall see the
Lord.  (Hebrews 12:14)  (Much
less, go in the rapture.)  I will
speak particularly about the organization called “The Church of
God,” which, I believe, is similar in most respects to “The
Assemblies of God,” “The Pentecostal Holiness Church” and
other denominational churches.
There are also many independent congregations that are similar in their
doctrine.  I will also mention some
experiences in a “Jesus’ Name” church whose pastor was a
member of the International Ministerial Association (“IMA”) and
whose doctrine is similar to that of the “United Pentecostal
Church,” that is, they baptize in water in Jesus’ Name—not
triune titles of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  Otherwise, outside of the baptism, the
“Jesus Name” groups seem similar to the Trinitarian Pentecostal
organizations.

My recollections begin around 1938 or
1939 in the Church of God congregation that was located in Arcadia,
Florida, a small farming and cattle-raising
area in south central Florida.  This was only thirty-two or thirty-three
years after the beginning of the 1906
Azusa Street revival.  I recall the strong, powerful preaching
but not what was said.   But I
can remember some of the manifestations that preaching brought of
“tongues,” most of it unknown
tongues.  Of course, the only tongue
I knew was English and not very much of that.  But there were “tongues” and
“interpretations,” shouting, dancing in the aisles and crying and
repenting—and some falling over the seats.  And I can remember, as a small child,
sometimes we would sleep under the seats and when some of this began to happen,
we small ones would cower under the seats in fear that we might get stepped on.

I will be referring to
“pastors” and “teachers” and
“evangelists.”  I
don’t refer to them in the sense that these are part of the five-fold ministry.  That has not been set in order.  But those terms are the terms that were
used in the churches that we attended over the years.  They called the people,
“pastors” and “evangelists” and “teachers,”
“overseers,” etc.

HOLINESS STANDARDS

The Church of God
organization originally subscribed to very high and strict standards of holy
living including: modest dress with
long sleeves for women.  “Long
sleeves” became a controversy: “Does that mean a full length down
to your wrist or does that mean a three-quarter length sleeve, half way down
from your elbow?”  As time
went on it became elbow-length sleeves and still later it became half way to
the elbow from the shoulder.  And
then it went further than that.

Those standards included no jewellery—not even a wedding
band; watches with decorative bands were frowned upon.  Normally, if a man wore a wrist watch,
it would have a plain leather or cloth band.  Nothing fancy at all.  It was there for utility, not for
looks.  Women were not to wear pants, even at home, no drinking of
coffee or soda drinks (like Coke or Pepsi Cola), no lipstick or make-up and no
cutting of women’s hair, no smoking or use of alcoholic drinks.  “Divorce” was considered a
dirty word.  Adultery and
fornication were strictly forbidden.
There was to be no mixed bathing.
Breaking of some of these rules could be cause to be “turned
out” (that is, dismissed) from the church.  Tithe paying was taught and expected as
were fasting and daily prayer.
People who broke these rules were considered to be in a
“backslidden” condition and, in the absence of repentance, were
considered “lost.”

BASIC DOCTRINAL
TEACHINGS

The organization taught,
and we heard this from Brother Bruce concerning the early Pentecostal fathers,
when he talked about Mr. Parham, Mr. Seymour and others who subscribed
basically to the same doctrines.
The organization taught, as did Charles Parham a generation earlier,
three distinct works of Grace: Justification, Sanctification and the Baptism
with the Holy Ghost.  Speaking in
other tongues was the “initial evidence” of the Baptism of the Holy
Ghost in a person.  They also
believed in the pre-millennial rapture of the saints.  They also taught a Trinitarian form of
water baptism by immersion (“according to Matthew 28:19” which we
just read).  And they allowed and
ordained women as preachers.

Now, the baptism was immersion in
water but the formula, the thing that was said over the people, was according
to Matthew 28:19.  The belief was
stated, as I heard many times, that they would rather baptize the way Jesus taught than the way Peter said
it should be done.  Of course, they
forget that Peter was the one with the keys to the Kingdom.  Also, most of them do not realize that
the “Kingdom” was the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

They had a lot of rules, a lot of strict
standards, but rules and standards
do not guarantee adherence either to the letter or the spirit of the
rules.  By the early 1940s, the Arcadia pastor had begun
to favor certain younger sisters and would not be corrected.  I do not recall the specifics of what
was going on but my parents, because of this, being greatly disturbed and
grieved by the situation, left the church but they began to drift
spiritually.  In late 1944 or early
1945, the U.S. we moved to Miami.  Around that time, we, as a family visited
a local revival where we met my future wife, Norma, and her family.  I was about ten years old at that
time.  We moved back to the farm for
a period of one year in 1946/47.
Farming was difficult and costly the weather was bad, my dad lost all
the money that he had saved previously trying to farm and we had to go back to Miami.

ATTENDED BROTHER BRANHAM’S MEETINGS

In February 1948, our
family attended the meetings of a boy
preacher, called “Little David” Walker and also Brother William
Marrion Branham.  After Little David
preached, Brother Branham gave a fifteen or twenty minute faith-building sermon
and then called a healing line.  I
think we were there every night.
The reason I wanted to go was that I wanted to be saved.  At the meetings we witnessed many
healings:  crippled legs were made
well, deaf ears were opened, blind eyes were made to see and
“Water-head” babies were healed.  (“Hydrocephalus.”  This is a condition where water
accumulates around the brain and the head actually swells bigger and
bigger.)  Brother Branham would tell
the people to wrap a string around the baby’s head, cut off the string
and note each day how much less string it took to go around the baby’s
head.  They were healed all under
the mighty Power of the Holy Ghost in a man.  And we heard about Brother
Branham’s vision of a boy, killed in an accident, who was to be raised
from the dead.  (This was fulfilled
in Finland
some two years later.)  An
outstanding feature of theses meetings that made a lasting impression on me was
the great humility exhibited by Brother Branham.  Although we attended the meetings and
saw these wonderful things, I did not accept salvation until, perhaps, three
months later.

During the 1948 Miami meetings, Norma’s father, Andrew
Collins, who is well known to many, received salvation, threw away his
cigarettes and went on a fast to seek the Will of the Lord.  He became a life-long supporter of
Brother Branham’s ministry.
Also, in 1948, Brother F.F. Bosworth heard and met Brother Branham for
the first time and, for a time, was his campaign manager.

After I accepted salvation in 1948, I
began to seek sanctification, the second “definite work of Grace,”
as was taught by the Church
of God.  After a time I received an experience
that I accepted as sanctification and began to seek the Baptism of the Holy
Ghost at around thirteen or fourteen years old.

Those seeking the Baptism of the Holy
Ghost were invited to the altar to pray.
Those who were already filled were invited to pray with them.  Various methods were used to help
“pray you through” to the Holy Ghost.  On person would tell you to say,
“Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord,” as fast as you
can.  Another might tell you to say
whatever came into your mind, while a third might tell you to say, “Abba,
babba, babba,” and just make babbling sounds and continue to do it until
you had lost control of your tongue.
Some seekers would be so earnest and try so hard that they would work up
a sweat and literally get sick, go out and throw up and come back to pray some
more!  Sincerity!

A few people would claim to be
“saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost” all in one
night.  However, many of those same
people would soon go back to the sins that they had tried to escape—“like
a dog to its vomit.”  The
church believed that you could be saved and lost and saved and lost any number
of times.  Also, you could receive
the Holy Ghost and lose it to go through the cycle again.  I never understood that.  It didn’t seem to fit with
Ephesians 1:13-14.  However, I
continued to seek for the Baptism.
But what I eventually received was not like the original Pentecost.

Seemingly, all my young church
friends received the Baptism after only a short time of prayer and, having
received it, several announced that they had a “call” to be a
missionary, an evangelist or to have some other form of ministry.  However, I did not receive the Baptism
for several years (1952 or 1953), although I went to the altar to pray at
almost every opportunity.  When,
finally, although I was baptized in water in a triune baptism, I did receive
the “Baptism of the Holy Ghost”—the 1906 version—but I
thought it was the article of Pentecost. Following this experience, I was sure
that the Spirit would be strong in me to fulfil John 14:12 and Mark 16:17.  But within three days, I knew something
was wrong.  It didn’t
work!  It didn’t work!  The Baptism in me did not do what It did
in the Apostles; It did not do what Jesus said It should do and I felt no call
to any ministry.  It did not do what
I had seen in Brother Branham’s ministry.  It didn’t work!  There was something wrong and I
didn’t understand what it was.
But I continued to claim that Baptism of the Holy Ghost for a number of
years, until about 1964 when I essentially made a public confession that I
didn’t have It.  That led to
“problems” that I have told about before.

During my teen years, I learned that
you cannot necessarily believe something just because it is written in the
Sunday School lesson book or just because a preacher says it in a sermon.  In a Sunday School lesson concerning
Jesus’ crucifixion, the writer of the lesson text, a well-known minister
of the church, wrote that when they nailed the hands and feet of Jesus,
“You could hear the crunch of the bones.”  Immediately, I remembered the Scripture
that says, “A bone of Him shall not be broken.”  (John 19:36)  I began to learn to be critical of
things that preachers said, even though I was so caught up in the church
doctrine that I did not then question many major errors in doctrine that the
church held.  It took time.  As Isaiah 28 says, “It’s
line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.  It took time—years.

MANIFESTATIONS OF
“POWER”

During these years, I
observed men and women shake under what was believed to be the Power of
God.  Women danced until their hair
pins came out and their hair fell down.
Sometimes men and women would be “slain in the Spirit” and
someone would have to come and cover the exposed legs of the women because they
were exposed indecently.  Sometimes
the men, shaking under this power would fall over the seats, the benches, the
pews, whatever was there.  They
would fall over it and things would go flying.  If people happened to be sitting there,
all of a sudden they had a lap full of somebody that was “slain under the
Power of the Spirit.”  Somehow
those things were kind of hard to reconcile, too.

People often spoke in
“tongues” but never in a language that I could understand or even
recognize.  My mother’s
parents were German.  I could have
recognized the language if I had heard it.
I would have recognized Spanish.
I think I would have recognized French.  I was in high school where French was
taught.  I never heard a language
that I could understand or even recognize.
Sometimes the “message in tongues” would consist of a couple
of words, sometimes repeated.  Often
such a “message” would be “interpreted” but the
“interpretation” usually was far longer than the message in
tongues.  The message might go for
two or three or half a dozen words; the interpretation might go on for five or
ten minutes.  My wife can attest to
this.  Occasionally, a
“message in tongues” would be lengthy, as was also the
“interpretation.
Interpretations were almost always quotations or paraphrases of
Scriptures or general warnings of judgment coming upon the land—nothing
in the way of specifics as Brother Branham taught and the way he tried to put
it in place in his church.

Sometimes the “Spirit”
would begin to move in the song service or in a period of testimonies.  Then praise and worship would extend
until almost noon (on a
Sunday).  Usually the minister, at
that point, would get up and say that the song service or the worship was so good that there was no need for any
preaching—“So, we’ll let you go a little early!”  Somehow, that seemed to put things just
backwards.  As Brother Bruce was
pointing out today, the Word is first.
That is not to say that a service should not be set aside to come and
worship God.

Other times the minister would, in the
course of giving his sermon, begin to speak in tongues and
“prophesy.”  This might
set off a period of unchecked “prophesying” by several people.  (“Prophesying” meaning
speaking in unknown tongues.)  Since
there was no church order to put it in place, the minister would have to quit
his sermon and give an altar call or close the service.  People would still say how wonderful the
service was even in the absence of a completed sermon.  You remember that just today, Brother
Bruce told of women that would begin to prophesy and speak in tongues and even
displace the minister from the pulpit!

Often the service would degenerate
into a babble of people speaking in unknown tongues with no
interpretation.  As Brother Bruce
pointed out, in I Corinthians 14, such “babble” was not
Scriptural.  Paul said that, if
there are tongues in church, there needs to be an interpretation so that the
church can be edified.  There might
be several people speaking in tongues at the same time.  Paul said that it should be only one or
two or maybe three, at the most, and that should be “in
order.”  And, if there is no
interpreter, no interpretation, be quiet.
Keep silence.  If there is no
interpreter, let him keep silence in the church.  (I Corinthians 14)

It has often been said that, among
Pentecostals, their knowledge of the Scriptures is woefully inadequate.  Why?  Because they don’t care that much
about the Word.  They go more on
feelings and emotions.  A lot of
times, as Pentecostals, we would “look down our noses” at Baptists
and Methodists and Presbyterians and people like that, because “they
didn’t believe in the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the initial evidence
of speaking in tongues.”  But
I learned, over the years, that those people had a better knowledge and
understanding of the Scriptures, generally, than the Pentecostals had.  The Pentecostals liked their feelings
and emotionalism better than the Word of God.

Over time, it became obvious that the
pastor’s sermons followed some centrally organized schedule.  Often, as I learned, the sermon at the Church of God was essentially the same as that at
the local Baptist church or the Presbyterian church and used the same
Scriptures and illustrations.  That
was often the case.  And then I
found that many ministers purchased their sermon outlines—some through
the church official documents and some through other organizations that
weren’t even Pentecostals.

MONEY COLLECTIONS

There was a strong emphasis
on money in the Church
of God, and, I am sure,
in the other Pentecostal churches (and in most churches, generally, I
think.)  There seemed to be a
preoccupation with money, especially the getting of it.  There often seemed to be some project
that required money—a building addition, a new piano or organ, a new
sound system, a new Sunday School bus, money to pay for Radio broadcasts, money
to send the pastor, the youth director, their wives and certain youths to
special youth meetings, money to send the pastor’s family to the annual
“camp meeting” or to the general conference of pastors and
overseers, or money to pay visiting evangelists or to send to the mission
fields.  There was no end of
“needs” for money.
Seemingly, none of these things could be budgeted to come out of the
general fund of tithes and offerings.

To pay for special “needs,”
a deacon or minister would go before the congregation and tell the people,
first, how good they were, how wonderful it was that they were so generous and
willing to help with past projects.
They would then explain the present “need” and how much was
required.  Then they would ask for
pledges beginning with $100.  After
collecting several $100 bills, they would go to $50 and then $20 or even $10.  After this, the offering plate would be
passed to collect all the odds and ends, if there was any left.  While the pledges were being made they
would have someone counting the money as it came in and, if not enough was
given, they would start over again—the same day!  Pledges did not usually have to be paid
on the spot but people were encouraged to give what they did not have and often
what they had no prospect of getting short of taking a second job or sending
the wife out to work.  There were
often calls for a “silent offering.”  They did not want to bother with loose
change, they wanted bills.  We
think, “Well, a dollar is not worth much.”  It was worth a lot more in those
days.  In the 1930s and in the early
1940s, you could buy a week’s groceries for a family of four for five
dollars.  You can’t fill a
grocery bag for five dollars now.  A
silent offering, they didn’t want to bother with the change.  Seemingly, they forgot that Jesus
commended that widow woman that put her two mites in the offering.  He said that she had given more than
them all.  (Mark 12:42).

DONUT SALES

During the mid-1960s, we
attended a Jesus’ Name church in Tampa.  Since the church “needed” a
school bus to bring children and others to Sunday School, it was determined to
raise the money by selling donuts.
Each Saturday, several adults would take a few children and quite a few
boxes of donuts in their car, go to several different neighbourhoods and they
would send the children door to door to sell donuts.  Over a period of time, this bought the
Sunday school bus.

I recall that Brother Bob Lambert
said something about donuts.  He said
that, in Louisiana,
a donut shop was completely ruined by a church going into the donut business
and one furniture store operator was heard to say that he hoped the church did
not decide to go into the furniture business!

Pentecostalism!  Those things were almost fifty years
ago.  What is it now?

BIRTHDAY OFFERINGS

Those celebrating birthdays
at the Church of God were asked to put in one penny for
each year of life.  Some churches
had a small replica of a church that they would bring out and set on the
altar.  There was a bell inside so
placed that when the pennies were dropped, the bell would ring.  The congregation would count and see how
old you were.  Some of the more
“mature” people circumvented this.  They would hold the pennies in a certain
way so that when they dropped, they would go
“r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ring,” so no one could count.  And they would sing “Happy
Birthday.”  The pennies so collected
were to be used for missions.  The
average birthday offering on a given Sunday was probably not much more than a
dollar.

DAVID TERRILL’S GUITAR CASE

Tent
“evangelist,” David Terrill, held a meeting in Tampa around 1969.  He preached and prophesied and played
his guitar.  Brother Carlton McGahee
wanted to see Terrill and give him a Church Age Book with the hope of
influencing him to follow Brother Branham’s message.  He and I, together with our families,
went to an evening service and witnessed an amazing sight.  Following several congregational songs,
Terrill came to the platform (which was about five feet high from the floor)
bringing a guitar case.  He took out
the guitar and began to play it as he sang portions of a song and to
“prophesy.”  All of the
prophecy concerned money and how that the economy was going to fail, that the
money people had in their bank accounts would be no good and that they should
put it into the ministry of the Gospel—his ministry.  He “discerned” that someone
out in the audience had a $100 bill in their billfold and that it should be put
into the offering.  He
“prophesied” that he would put his guitar case on the platform
floor and that the people would fill it up!  You know, David Terrill was a true
prophet.  He went on for forty-five
minutes or more in this vein as the people under the tent walked forward and
put their cash, their checks and their “I.O.U.s” into the
case.  Before they were finished,
the money could be seen mounded up higher than the side of the guitar
case!  Brother McGahee and I and our
families witnessed that.

Terrill’s pull for money should
be contrasted with Brother Branham, who said he never took up an offering in
his life.  In fact, more than once,
Brother Branham “fired” people who made a pull for money in his
campaigns.  One of the people that
he “fired” was the wife of F.F. Bosworth, who may have been his
campaign manager at the time.  The
meeting was being held at a Christian Missionary Alliance church in Miami in 1949.  She made a big pull for money and He
said, “That’s enough of that.
We won’t do that any more.”

SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS OFFERINGS

After we had been living in
Miami for a few years, around 1953 we still had
a lot of family in the Arcadia,
Florida area and I visited the
Arcadia Church of God once again, the same church where I had been as a small
boy.  We were there for a Sunday
service so I joined a Sunday School class of older teenagers and young
adults.  At the beginning of the
class, the teacher, a woman, took the roll and asked someone to take up the
class offering after explaining the current need.  When that was done, she asked someone
else to give a report on the class fund that was to be used to pay for class
social activities.  They discussed
some things that might be done and took up another offering.  When that was finished, someone
remembered the “flower fund.”
So, another report was given, another discussion and another offering
collected.  When this was done, the
bell rang signalling the end of the class period.  They didn’t so much as read a
verse of Scripture of the lesson that was supposed to have been studied during
that forty-five minute period!  In
giving her apology for not getting to the Sunday School lesson, the teacher
said, “Well, these things are important, too!”  Money!  Preoccupation with “money.”

PASTOR APPRECIATION DAY AND LOVE OFFERING

Pastor Appreciation Day was
observed once a year.  Some official
would tell how great and wonderful the pastor and wife were and then call the
people to show their appreciation by making an offering and coming forward to
pin it to their clothes.  Naturally,
everybody would want to be seen to love and support their pastor and his
wife.  Contrast this with Matthew
6:1-4:

<¶ Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in
heaven.

Therefore when thou doest [thine]
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in
secret himself shall reward thee openly.>

PASTOR’S SALARY AT MIAMI CHURCH
OF GOD

The Church of God
pastor’s salary is based upon church membership.

Sometime around 1950 my father “got
saved” again and began regular church attendance.  After a time, he was appointed to the
church’s Finance Committee.
At one meeting, he raised the question concerning many members being
listed on the church rolls who had not attended church in years, some living in
“open sin” and some were not even known to the members of the
Finance Committee.  It had been a
long time since they had been to church.
My father thought that the membership rolls should be cleaned up and
inactive names be eliminated.  This
evidently pinched the preacher a little and he commented, “Those people
were members before I came and they’re gonna be members when I
leave!”

“Pentecostalism!”  I think you get the gist of it.  These things illustrate some of the
things that Brother Bruce has been talking in the several messages that we have
heard lately.  What he has been
saying is right on line.  It’s
the truth.  Pentecostalism that
developed out of that 1906 revival was based upon faulty doctrine, faulty
standards, faulty foundations to start with.  We could talk about sexual misconduct,
dishonesty among preachers, etc.

We appreciate that the Lord has seen
fit to use us in a small way to support this ministry that is going out through
the E.O.D.H. books, the Expositions of Damnable Heresies, around the
world.  We thank the Lord that
we’re elected to be a part of that.
We look for a fulfilment of God’s Promise at any time.  Praise God!

HOLINESS

Hebrews 12:14 <Follow peace with all men, and holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord.>

Holiness is a big word and we who are
trying to live a holy life have our work cut out for us.  All around us, every day, is all sorts
of unholiness, all sorts of sins and iniquities.  The Bible says, “As it was in the
days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.  As it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah,
so shall it be….”  And
we see that all around us.  The
Bible says that, in the days of Noah they married, they gave in marriage, they
builded, they did all sorts of things.
They lived unholy lives.  Not
that there is anything necessarily wrong with marriage.  Paul said that marriage is honorable and
the bed is undefiled but there must have been something dishonorable in what
they were doing in the days of Noah.

Many of the Pentecostal churches have
taken it upon themselves to call themselves, “Holiness
Churches.”  At one time in the
early days of “Holiness,” that fit.  It fit very well because they were very
strict in they way they acted, the way they appeared, they way they dressed,
the way they conducted their lives, but, I’m afraid, in too many cases
that has long since been forgotten.

LET-DOWN OF HOLINESS
STANDARDS

All of you have heard of
Oral Roberts and his ministry.  He
had a very powerful ministry that came after Brother Branham.  In fact, he went to Brother Branham and
asked if he thought the Lord would bless him in a ministry.  Brother Branham told him to go ahead.  Around 1951 or 1952, my mother was
healed of a severe and very painful case of arthritis in his meeting.  You heard from Brother Bruce how his
stand degenerated into a call for $8 million or God would kill him and how he,
in later life, embraced the Methodist church.

In the early 1950s, Oral
Roberts’ father and mother visited Miami,
probably in a denominational Pentecostal Holiness church.  They were members of the Pentecostal
Holiness organization and he was a minister.  They seemed like very sincere people,
very nice, very humble; dressed modestly.
I don’t recall the subject of the sermon but Brother Roberts
preached a message that we appreciated.

By the 1950s, and particularly in the
urban churches, holiness standards had begun to be let down.  Women began to wear high-heeled shoes
and you know some of the things that Brother Branham said about high-heeled
shoes—it throws the shape of your body off and it causes men to lust
after you women.  It also does
things to your body that will cause leg and back problems.  People began to wear jewellery on their
clothes, a pin, a brooch, a necklace.
Sometimes a wedding band was to be seen.  Men began to wear flashy
watchbands.  Young men began to
participate in organized sports at local high schools—football, basketball,
baseball.  Somehow, in my coming
through high school those things did not attract me.  I thank the Lord for it.  And it was frowned on.  It was frowned on but people began to do
it anyway.  The people who did it
were not chastised; they were not thrown out of church or anything like
that.  They just went their own way
and did it.  But they were still
“Christians.”  Remember
that the Pentecostals placed more emphasis on feelings and emotions than the
Word of God.

In the mid 1960s, we observed young
women, older girls, wearing short skirts, several inches above the knees, to
church.  That was right along the
line of something Brother Branham said.
Somebody asked him a question, one time, about “scandal
skirts.”  He inquired to find
out what a “scandal skirt” was.  Apparently this was a combination of a
long ruffled underskirt (slip or petticoat) worn under a shorter outer skirt so
the ruffled slip can be seen.
Brother Branham made a comment about that.  He said he couldn’t understand why
a woman would want to go around with her underclothes showing.  I think that is still good to remember.

Recently at a large Pentecostal
church that I know of, there were men, apparently officials in the church,
wearing their long hair in pigtails, braided pigtails down their back, not real
long but they were there.  Some
women, on the other hand, had very short hair, cut really close.  If you didn’t notice what kind of
clothes they were wearing, you weren’t sure whether they were men or
women.  Women wore lipstick and
other makeup.  Many women wore
dresses but they were often very tight, very revealing.  Many women wore shorts or pants.  At least one person, a grown woman, had
on what I would call a “playsuit.”  And when the “Spirit” began
to move in the church and people all around began to speak in tongues and
“prophesy,” this woman in the playsuit began to speak in tongues
and “prophesy.” Some men were observed wearing gold chains and
earrings.  Women wore earrings and
gaudy finger rings.  The choir
members all had on fancy robes.

In the late 1940s, after one of my
uncles was saved, he came to the Lord, he had a television set.  Do you remember what Brother Branham
said he would do if he had one?  My
uncle literally did that.  He took it
out in the yard, got his shotgun out and shot the thing!  He knew television was wrong and he
never again had one.  Now, however,
most Pentecostals have their television sets.

WOMEN PREACHERS

As long as I can remember,
there were women preachers in the Church
of God and the pastor’s wife at
a Jesus’ Name church in Tampa
that we attended in the mid-1960s was also an ordained minister.  I noticed that, while these women were
ordained ministers, in most of those churches you did not often see them
preach.  I suspect, although I never
heard it discussed very much, that they realized that it was a controversial
issue and that the Bible has some things to say about that.  Paul said, “I suffer not a woman
to teach nor to usurp authority over the man.”  He said, “Let a woman be in subjection.”  How can a woman be in subjection and be
up there preaching trying to exhort the whole congregation?  I Timothy 2:12 strictly prohibits it.

We noticed that if the leader of the
assembly has a particular problem, for example, he or she was divorced and
remarried, then there is likely to be a large number of people in the
congregation with the same problem.
Whatever spirit is on the leader attracts similar spirits among the
congregation.  If you find a
congregation where the pastor is preaching under the Spirit of God, you are
going to find people that want to hear the things that God spoke and the things
that will make you eligible to go in the rapture.  We don’t want any of those evil
spirits around here.  So, if there
is a divorced woman who remarried and is pastoring a church, there likely will
be a high percentage of divorced women in the church and, possible, not very
many men.  And we have seen that.

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
AMONG THE MINISTRY

In Miami, a woman, a preacher, although I
don’t recall ever hearing her preach, was also a lesbian.  It seemed to be common knowledge that
she was a sexual pervert, even though the church had strict rules against
that.  But no one would investigate
the matter.  No one, no officials
would do anything about it.  They
left her strictly alone—and she preyed on some of the younger sisters in
the church, especially those who didn’t have any parents in the
church.  She would make friends with
those.

There was a pastor of a large urban
Pentecostal church in Tampa
Florida where my sister went and
still goes. Three or four years ago he gave a heretical sermon.  I was there and when he gave the title
of his sermon, I realized that he was “barking up the wrong
tree.”  He was dead
wrong.  When he took his text, I
just flipped over in my Bible.  He
told the people they didn’t have to follow him in their Bibles, but I
looked at the chapter and glanced down the verses and I saw a verse that
totally destroyed his entire sermon—in the very chapter that he was
using.  One verse destroyed the
whole sermon.  But he went ahead, he
preached verse by verse—from memory.
Every time he finished with a verse he would go on to the next one,
repeat the verse from memory and comment on it to support his thesis, his
primary point—until he came to that one verse.  I wondered what he would do with it.  Very simple.  He skipped it!  He could do that because nobody was
looking on, nobody was reading their Bibles. You don’t have to worry
about that here.  We’re not
going to bring a message and find out down the page and our whole message is
destroyed.  No.  No.
You don’t have to worry about that here.  When he skipped that verse and went
right on the next on, He never skipped a beat, just went right on.  I said to myself, “There is a
dishonest preacher!”  In less
than two years he saw fit to run off with a man’s wife.  He left his own wife, ran off with the
other man’s wife.  This is the
pastor of a big church, Pentecostals, “Holy Ghost” filled
preacher!  He could quote Scripture,
as Brother Branham said, “Like peas rolling down a dry
cowhide.”  It nearly destroyed
the congregation.

That’s not the end of the
story.  The church officials got
together.  This was a big
problem.  What were they going to do
about this man?  This man is very
smart, very bright, very influential, had a great program going at the church
and was very well looked up to in the neighbourhood, in the community.  The church officials put together a
program to rehabilitate this
preacher, this minister.  They were
going to rehabilitate him within two years so that he could go back to the
ministry—but he refused.  He
didn’t want to wait two years.
He left the church; he went down the road and started a new church.  I don’t know how they ever put
that in the Scripture.  I
don’t know how they excused themselves for trying to bring back somebody
like that.  It’s wrong.  But, apparently, that is the way they do
things.

PASTOR APPOINTMENT

In the Church of God,
pastor appointment, “appointment” is for two years.
At the end of two years the pastor either leaves and goes somewhere
else, or the church might vote on him and reappoint him for another two
years.  If the church is tired of
the way he preaches and his sermons are too long or they pinch too hard, they
might just have the deacon board tell him that he won’t be reappointed.  So he leaves and they begin to look
around for somebody that is more to their liking.  The get names; they call the state
general overseer and they get names of preachers that are available and they
begin to interview these preachers, get their resumes, and settle on two or
three.  They will invite them for a
weekend of services.  The preacher
comes and preaches Sunday morning and Sunday evening services and goes back
home.  After the deacon board has
heard two or three of these candidates over successive weekends, they get
together and decide to “invite” one of the preachers to be the
pastor.  Or, if they are not
satisfied, they might ask for more candidates.  (That’s not the way Paul told
Titus to do it.)  When they call him
and offer him the position of pastor of thus-and-thus church and he
“prays” about it.  He waits
a few days.  He’s got to fast
and pray about this—and see if he gets another letter in the mail from
some other church with a better offer.
That’s the way it’s done.

MINISTERS JOKING

Probably the most filthy
joke that I ever heard in my entire life—I was in the U.S. Army for three
years and I heard people tell things—but, probably, the most filthy joke
that I ever heard in my entire life was from the pastor of a Pentecostal
church.  I can tell you that
whatever respect I had for that man was destroyed.   It was destroyed.  That was quite a few years ago.

One time there was a Pentecostal
group that had an older building but it was in serviceable condition, I
thought.  The pastor got a letter
from the city zoning board.  The
letter stated that the building had been inspected, was in need of repairs, the
cost of repair was more than the value of the building, therefore, the building
had to be torn down and removed and the lot cleared within thirty days.  I saw the letter.  I read the letter to the congregation.  I had it in my hands.  I wish I had made a copy of it.  The pastor, the next day went down to
the city officials to inquire about this and find out, “Is this really
true?”  They looked at it and
said, “Yes sir, it’s true.
Your building is going to cost more to repair than it’s worth so
it must be torn down in thirty days.”  “Well, who can I talk
to.”  “Well that’s
the way it is.  You are going to
have to do it.”  Then the
pastor got a little hot under the collar and he said, “Well, I’ll
have you know that I am a member of an organization that has churches in forty
different countries and we have papers and magazines in every one of them and
I’ll see that a copy of this letter goes in every one of them!”  So they said, “Oh, well, Reverend,
let me see that.”  They took
the letter back in the other room and in a few minutes they came back and said,
“Reverend, it was all a mistake.
It was all a mistake.  That
letter should never have gone out!”
The church was not torn down—at least, not then.

Later, I questioned the pastor about
that and he gave me an answer that I thought was very unusual.  What I was questioning was his calling
on the power of his organization.
He claimed to be an independent Pentecostal preacher, a Jesus’
Name preacher.  When confronting the
zoning board, he called on this organization, the IMA.  He said, “Well, I found out I had
to have a covering for my head.”
“I found out I had to have a covering for my head!”  Now, what does the Bible say about a
covering for the head?  Our covering
for

our
head is Christ—not some man-made organization.

Norma and I used to loan out Spoken
Word books to some of the people in the congregation if they showed any
interest at all.  Some sounded like
they might be interested and we’d loan the books.  When the books didn’t come back
and we would ask about them.
“Well, we never got around to reading it.”  “Well, I don’t know just
where it is.  Maybe I can find
it.”  We told people that we
had tapes of Brother Branham.
We gladly would have loaned those around to people to hear them.  Nobody had any interest in those tapes
or in the books.  After a while we
decided that we were wasting our time.
So we didn’t bother any more.

AMERICANA HOTEL CONVENTION,
1961

Those of you who have read
the “First Martyr” Book have seen some of this but I’ll say
it for the benefit of those who may listen to this tape or whoever might read
this testimony in the new E.O.D.H. book that is being prepared now.

The Full Gospel Business Men’s
Fellowship International (FGBMFI) had a convention in the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida,
about May of 1961.  This was right
after Brother Bob Lambert had been in Sarasota,
Florida, at Gerald
Derstine’s convention.
Brother Bob had gone down there under the leading of the Lord.  The Lord met him there and many of you
have seen a copy of the tract that was written describing his experience,
“God Spoke.”  That was
at the end of January 1961.

Norma’s parents attended.  We happened to be in Miami, at the time, and we determined to
attend the FGBMFI convention.
Brother Bob Lambert was there.
He had been invited to preach but they did not let him preach.  I guess somebody heard that he had some
controversial doctrine about Baptism in Jesus’ Name and people
didn’t have the Holy Ghost the way they claimed.  In their meetings, they had a number of
“converts.”  On Sunday
afternoon, they planned to baptize these people.  On Miami
Beach, the nearest fresh water (more or less) was in
the hotel swimming pool.  The hotel
did not allow anyone who was clothed to go into the swimming pool; they had to
wear a bathing suit.

The announcement was made that there
would be a baptism service in the swimming pool but everyone would have to wear
a bathing suit!  Norma and I heard
about it, probably being invited, but we
determined not to go.
We did not go.  That was an
evidence of a corrupted excuse for a
holy sacrament of God—one of the sacraments—baptism in water.  We are commanded to baptize but we are not
commanded to go out and make
ourselves naked before the world!

Brother Bob said, “I was so
disappointed at the Americana
convention.”  He said,
“Shame, shame, shame upon those ministers down there, public bathing,
it’s a disgrace to our God.
Carried their Jesus down there in the presence of those ungodly women,
naked, bathed themselves and talked and chatted with them.  Even invited me.  I shuddered and was scared to my shoes.  My toes would curl up.”

And he was talking to some young
minister and he said, “Brother, you don’t have enough money to hire
me to come in public swimming with you.
Son, you’re not fit to preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
if you don’t know that much.
If your Holy Spirit in you hasn’t possessed you enough that
you’re not sensitive enough in the Spirit to something that terrible,
Brother, you had better get back to your prayer closet and make you a contact
with God.”  Full Gospel
Business Men!

Brother Branham preached a message,
“The Seed Is Not Heir With The Shuck,” and he talked about how the
corn comes up with the sprout, the stalk and the tassel, etc.  I think it was Brother Branham that
someone asked, “You know, you talked about Luther and Wesley and
Pentecostals, what is the Full Gospel Businessmen?”  Brother Branham is said to have replied,
“Well, that’s the fungus on the shuck!”

I think that pretty well covers my
testimony.  There are many other
things that could be said.  We are
looking for something real.  We are
looking for a return of the same Pentecostal experience that the one hundred
and twenty had on the Day of Pentecost, almost 2000 years ago.  The substitute that the 1906
“Pentecostal Fathers” accepted will not take us in the rapture;
indeed it will not even keep many from smoking, lying, cheating, stealing or
committing adultery and fornication.
The Prophet, Joel, spoke of an Outpouring of the Spirit of God to come
in the last days.  The Apostle,
Peter, who spoke to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost, said that “This
Promise is unto you and to your children and to them that are afar off even as
many as the Lord our God shall call.”  That means even down to our day.  To accept anything less than what they
received is to condemn our own souls to the great tribulation. Amen!

ALDWYN
CHANDLER
– MINISTER &

SECURITY
OFFICER

I am a citizen of Trinidad &
Tobago by birth. I lived a life of drugs and sexual immoralities. At the age of
seventeen I was at home when I had an experience with the Lord that led me to
repentance. While on my knees weeping, my sins came up before me. I wept until
my heart became soft. My desires for drugs and immoral living left. I just
wanted to serve the Lord. A few days after, a cousin invited me to a crusade at
the Church of God Deliverance Centre. I accepted the
Lord Jesus as my Savoir and it was a wonderful feeling; my sins were forgiven.
I felt at peace with God.

I never
saw people like that. I only knew about Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist,
Anglican and Catholic. I witnessed singing and dancing in the Spirit, speaking
in tongues and interpretations. There were prophecies, greeting one another
with a holy kiss; brothers and
sisters, both young and old. To me, that was love. I was baptized in the titles
of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They preached about the Holy Ghost and I wanted
it more than ever, for I was powerless.

There was a
sister from Tobago who came to us for
deliverance from demons. They were grunting as pigs and I, with other ministers,
was in prayer and fasting. They had the Holy Ghost but I did not. They left me
with this sister. She was big and fat and in her fifties. All I had to do was
command the devils to work and they would start to make the woman pass out
something like mucus, which was green, yellow and off-white in colour. I
emptied buckets of it. The demons spoke with a man’s voice and one said to me, “You have a commanding spirit, but
you better get the Holy Ghost. Why don’t you go and cast the devil out of
your brother who is in prison?” How they knew those things, I did not
know, but it was the truth, for I had a brother who at that time was in prison.
I started to plead the Blood and commanded the demons to work. They never left
and she returned home.

RECEIVED 1906 BAPTISM – MANIFESTED GIFTS

Some months after, I was in a “tarry
meeting” for the Holy Spirit; which I believed I received after speaking
an unknown language. This was a great thing, for I received power to do the
works of Christ. I started preaching on the streets and anywhere I could; going
to the hospital, praying for the sick, casting out devils, signs, wonders and
all the gifts of the Spirit working in me.

One
time, I went into a Catholic Church, which was filled to capacity. The priest
was coming to the altar and I was walking up the aisle, calling the people to
come out of Babylon.
The priest fled as I stood there. Then two men held me by my arms, and being
thrown, I was in mid air moving very fast and landed outside of the church. I
was wrong and it was zeal without knowledge.

I had an
anointing that came on me very strongly whenever the Lord was going to use me,
and It told me things before they came to pass, and they did. One time I was
praying in the church, preparing for a youth rally and we had a speaker for
that night, a pastor, and a wonderful preacher. The anointing came on me and
revealed to me that I was going to preach that night. No one told me anything
up until I had taken the offering and was in the room looking for the minister.
Then the youth leader told me that I would be preaching, the other minister
could not make it. Another time in Tobago, a
brother and myself were praying, fasting and seeking the Lord. On that Sunday
morning, we were all ready and waiting for the vehicle to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. When it was 8.30 a.m. no car showed up. So, I
told them to wait, and I went to a room where I prayed and asked the Lord to reveal to me, by the anointing, whether
the vehicle would come for us or not? The anointing came and said that the
vehicle would come and I would be the preacher that morning. I told them that
the car is coming. It came and we arrived just before the time of preaching of
the Word. I had never seen the people before and the sister told the pastor
that I was from Trinidad. He went to the
pulpit and called me to preach.

One night,
after a prayer meeting, while going home, I came out of the bus and the anointing
came on me. I knew that the Lord was going to use me. I kept on walking and He
said, “Stand up here and preach.” There was no one there at the
corner of Charlotte and Duke Streets. I started to preach and then one young
man came and stood up. He was a backslider. I preached with
boldness and he accepted the Lord. After some days of praying, fasting and
tarrying for the Holy Ghost, I laid hands on him and he received the baptism of
the Holy Ghost. Today he is still serving the Lord, on that experience. That
anointing would not stay around if I did anything unholy, but if I repented and
drew near, It would come. I was “teacher, pastor, evangelist, prophet and
apostle.” Something was wrong but I could not put my hands on it.

One night, my
sister came to church and decided to pretend
that she was demon possessed, screaming with a loud voice. I was not aware that
she was pretending. The bishop began to speak in an unknown language:
“Umbadah humbadah humbadahhi”, and commanded the devil to come
out. Then I leaned over her, she was on the ground, and I put my hands around
her neck and started to command that devil to come out. I was choking her and
did not realize until she opened one eye and said, “Aldwyn, you are
choking me.” It was then I realized she was just acting. No one else knew
what happened. I told her to say, “Jesus” and she really said, “Jesus”.

1906 BAPTISM DID NOT OPERATE AS THAT OF ACTS 2

There was a man who
accepted the Lord after an open-air meeting. He was a bodybuilder. As we prayed
for him, he began to vibrate and a demon spoke out of him and
said, “I am not leaving this strong body.  I am not coming out.”
I said, “In the name of Jesus Christ come out of the man.” But the
demon never did. I was ashamed and said, “This kind goeth not out but by
prayer and fasting.” I was trying to cast out a devil from a sister and
the spirit in her was so strong that about four of us had to hold her down. She
held on to my tie and began to choke me.
I escaped by the grace of God.

I had
the chance to see and hear the renowned “Apostle” Arturo Skinner, a
preacher.  The same sister from Tobago, who had those demons in the form
of pigs, having heard of the reputation of Skinner, came to Trinidad. I thought, “We would have the
victory.”

One
Sunday, at the Queen’s Hall, the “apostle” was having a
meeting and after preaching they brought the sister for the
“apostle” to cast the devils out. He was dressed all in white and
said, “Ocaparshanda.” It was an unknown language.  He made a lot of noise for about fifteen
minutes or more, and commanded the devils to come out, but nothing happened,
they refused to leave. Then he said, “This kind goeth not out but by
prayer and fasting”, which we were doing all the time. I did not know
that Skinner was an impersonator of Brother Branham, until I came to the
message of the hour. But there were also impersonators of Skinner; an evangeline
(woman evangelist) and two evangelists who are now “apostles” and “doctors
of divinity.”

The evangeline
was at the church trying to discern the people. I was next in line to a woman
who looked as though she was with child and nearing time to deliver. I heard
the evangeline tell the woman that she was having problems with the child she
is pregnant with. The woman answered, “No lady, I am not pregnant.”
Being next in line, all the faith I had just left. On another occasion a man
was told that he could not eat because of a stomach problem; the man replied,
“Not so, I can eat anything, even you.” One of the evangelists went
three places and made a guess about a woman, whose name he said was,
“Lois or Loicy or Loiceana.” No one showed up and at each place and
on each occasion he said, “The spirit is crossed.”

Then
there was this brother who was filled with the Holy Ghost. Sometimes different
parts of his body would twitch and vibrate and he would say that it is the Holy
Spirit and he would pray until all his clothes would be wet. He ended up in prison
for having sex with his daughter.

MIXED-BATHING – THE WORLD CREPT IN

Brothers and sisters go be
mixed-bathing at the beaches. Sisters in their bikinis and brothers in their
shorts. Though I was involved, I felt as a hypocrite, for we preached against
women wearing pants, and that they should dress modestly, but here we allowed
them to be almost naked in public and said nothing against it. To me, we
strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. We did not go to the Carnival but we
enjoyed the “parade of the bands” and the shows at home on the
television. The music of the world crept into the church with the fashions and
there was competition in dressing. The women cut their hair and used a hat or
some kind of cloth to cover their head. I am
not saying these things to be nasty. There are people, as far as I know, lived
a holy life, even more than I. But I just want to bear witness to the truth
that the Holy Spirit that we received was only an anointing on the flesh and on
the spirit of man, but never touched the soul to change that evil nature.

I came
to find out about water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and women preaching,
and took a stand, and was therefore forbidden to preach or take any active part
in the church. One year after, the “apostle” of the church sent for
me. I went and he told me that he wanted to hand over the church to me because
he knew where he stood with me. I told him that I could not accept his offer
because I believed in baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and that a woman
should not preach and he did not believe those things. I told him that two
cannot walk together except they agree. He said, “This is why I called
you because you are the only one that I could trust. The others are underneath
but I

know where I stand with you.”

On one
occasion, I was preaching at another minister’s church. The other
ministers used to sit behind the minister on the pulpit. While preaching
against certain wrongs that were taking place in his church, the pastor there
started to pull on my jacket to
indicate to me that I should stop what I was doing. The more he pulled on my
jacket, was the more I preached against the wrongs in his church.

Then, I
was exposed to some of the books of the prophet. I wanted to come to the
message but I did not want to be identified with the shame brought on by a
backslidden preacher of the message who came from Pentecost with the baptism
but his nature never was changed.

I went
to the “Church of our Lord Jesus Christ” where I met an old friend known
as Brother Jackson. We spent some time there and stood for the teachings of Brother
Branham, and they could not prevail over us. One of the deacons got in a rage
in a meeting and said, “Chandler,
I hate you! I don’t like your head!” The bishop of the church, in that
meeting, had to agree with us that the evidence of the Holy Spirit was not
speaking in tongues. He said that he believed Brother Branham was a prophet but
he died. I asked him, “What about his message?” He could not
answer. Brother Jackson left and I continued there as pastor of the
church in D’abadie and preached on the radio. By this time I was
convinced that the Holy Spirit that was in me was not working as it did in the apostles.

I baptized
myself several times trying to master my evil nature. Oh what a wretched man I
was. On the outside professing to be a Christian, but on the inside a prisoner
to sin, a sheep on the outside but on the inside a ravenous wolf; reformed, but
my soul was never touched. I changed the dressing of the
women, but some rebelled.

FOUND THE TRUE MESSAGE OF THE BAPTISM OF

THE HOLY GHOST

I was just about to be ordained
as pastor, when I received an invitation from Brother Jackson who told me that
God was using a brother in the message of the hour, not with signs and wonders
but with the Word. I was so excited. I told Brother Barrow and another brother,
and we came to Bethel.
We did not get to hear Brother Bruce, but he sent two of his taped messages to
me by Brother Jackson, something that he never did. My God, when I heard those
messages, “Empty vessels” and “Seeking the kingdom”,
that settled it for me. I told the church, “I have found a man with the
true message of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” I wrote a letter of resignation and told my wife,
“I have found the thing I had been searching for all the days of my
life. If you want to follow me, as Sarah did Abraham, you are free to do so. But,
as for me, I am going to follow this message.” This was around September
of 1977.

Brother Bruce asked me to go and
visit the church that I pastored, so he and I went. On arrival they greeted us
with open arms and asked me to preach. I told them that I was no longer
preaching, as I said before I left. I told them about Brother Bruce and they
asked him to preach. It was the hottest message they ever heard. He did not
spare anyone. After the message, they said that they were blessed and wanted
him to come again.

About two nights after, I took
Brother Bruce to the head church and the bishop was preaching. When he saw us
he stopped his message and greeted us. He said that he was one of us and he
believed the message of Brother Branham and that he is in possession of the
books. At this point in time he had no knowledge that we had been to the other
church and Brother Bruce had preached there. He hugged us and shook our hands.
Days after, he found out that we were there and all the “brotherly love”
turned into wrath. He wrote me a letter in red
and charged us not to step our feet on that compound or he would take us to
court. I showed the letter to Brother Bruce. He read the letter and said,
“The blood of those people shall be upon the bishop’s hand.”

I sat down
in Bethel and
never did preach until five years
after. I am now  assistant pastor of
Guayaguayare, South Trinidad, also a deacon
and a songleader. The Lord has used me to minister to some of the churches in
the Caribbean and in the U.S.A.
I am under the tutorship of Brother Dalton Bruce, whose life is blameless
before all. A man who lives what he teaches. One of the only preachers in the
entire world who gives to the people while others beg the people. The people are
not perfect but are striving towards perfection. Our doctrine has never changed
and will never change. Thank God, for our ministers are of one mind, humble and
are against pride. I have fully given over my spirit to the truth of
God’s Word under Brother Dalton Bruce. I am now contending for the true
Pentecost, and challenge both the living and the dead, and none can stand and
prevail against this because it is God.

The
whole creation is groaning until now, waiting for this outpouring. It would
take a whole book to tell of all my experiences, good or bad. I thank the Lord
Jesus for bringing me out of the Laodicean condition I was in. Praise be to God
for his message by the seventh angel messenger to the churches in Laodicea. Thank God for a
gift in this hour, for bringing me out of Pentecostalism and taking it out of
me. These things are true. I am a witness and I am contending for the outpouring of the Spirit.

The
message of “One hundred years of Pentecostalism”, preached by
Brother Dalton Bruce is the most powerful message I have ever heard. The
clarity and dividing line, the exposition of Lucifer to Satan, in my own life;
even the place that Judas sat in and still was lost. I never saw the children
of Israel
in the book of Corinthians or the Azusa
Street experience. I have heard many messages
preached by Brother Bruce, but this was a collection of them all. There was
such an anointing and simplicity and revelation that left no room for unbelief.
To me it is the message of the kingdom, and this same message, if never preach
again, shall lead us into the great outpouring.

This,
to me, is what I call the headstone message. It has revealed my

darkness, wretchedness, nakedness,
blindness, poverty, and the miserable person I was, though religious. Surely it
is the goodness of the Lord that has led us to repentance. It is as though I am
being born all over again by the incorruptible seed Word from the opening of
the seals, and now, obedience of faith is leading me to the token.

There
is enough power behind these messages
to raise all the dead from the grave. I testify that all the ministers that
have submitted themselves unto this ministry under Brother Bruce, are all of
one mind, they are not after money, women or popularity, but are set for the defence
of this token message.

Our
assistant pastor, Sookdeo Ramnarine, is a very humble man indeed. Pastor of Grace Covenant
Church in the U.S.A,
Brother Kenny Mcgahee, is also a very humble person. I greet you all in India, Africa, Europe, Philippines, South America, the Caribbean, and wherever God’s children are. Brother
Bruce has never changed his doctrine. At no time had he gone into fanaticism. He
has always stayed in the middle of the road running a straight line.

There
is a being that is connected to Brother Bruce that loves me very much. I can
sing all the songs. I am so revived; a love spirit is around me to love
all. Whatever I do it is from the inspiration of this message. It has lifted me
up to a place that I have no desire to leave except it is to go higher. Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Let us
pray. Oh Lord, Father God, the voices of innumerable company of angels cannot
express our gratitude. All that we are, we owe it all to Thee. Lord Jesus,
thank you for this great deliverance. Oh Lord, I bear witness that your Word is
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I bear witness that this
revelation shall go into all the world and catch the elect in this end time
here. I thank you for the mercy that has come along with this exercise, Lord. Oh
God, for truly, by mercy and truth iniquity is purged and by the fear of the
Lord men depart from evil. Thank you for thy servant, Brother Bruce; your
goodness and mercy bottled up in the simplicity of human flesh. Thank you
Father for the Word you have put into his heart that he may speak it unto us,
Lord, for without that gift we could not even hear. “How can we hear
without a preacher?” We thank you for him. We ask you to bless him; yea,
we put all our faith together, all our strength, all of our minds. Anoint your
gift, anoint your servant, protect him Lord and use him mightily, use him to
shake down the kingdom
of Satan. Lord, already I
can see the impact of these messages out there, much more when they are
anointed by the true outpouring of the Holy Ghost. I believe this will be a
forerunner.

All I
want to do is sing and shout and dance and praise the Lord. It has put life
into my soul; it has rekindled my
zeal in me as when I first started out under Pentecostalism. Lord, I feel I can
run with the footmen, the horsemen and with the swelling of Jordan,
as if I can run through a troop and take the land. I say, “We are more
than able; let us go up at once and take the land.” Forgive me, if I have
over-expressed myself, Lord, but this is just bubbling in me. I pray that the
same inspiration on me would pass on to others. Much has been forgiven and we
shall love much. Thank you for this great deliverance. May you guide and
protect your people from all evil that shall come against us because of these
messages. I know it shall do damage to the kingdom of Satan
and he would not like that, but you are greater than the devil, Lord, and shall
lift up a standard for us. I commit all things into thy hands, in Jesus
precious name. Amen.

SISTER MYRNA BOXHILL - WIDOW

I was a witness of these things from a very young
child. I grew up in Pentecost and I was sincere as a child. I believed in the
baptism of the Holy Ghost, however, I was very confused about the behavioural
pattern of those who claimed they had the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

PEOPLE MANIFESTED GIFTS
OF THE SPIRIT YET THEIR LIVES WERE NOT RIGHT

I knew of people who spoke
in tongues yet their lives were not straight. I knew of others who spoke in
tongues, had the manifestation of different gifts of the Spirit and were living
very clean lives. I knew of one woman who acted very strange when she said the
Holy Ghost came upon her. Her voice was distorted as that of a man. She would
disturb the song service, singing very loudly and out of chord. She did not use
a microphone yet people would hear her from a distance. She had a very strange
tongue which made me wonder as a youth. One night we had a prayer meeting and
this woman started acting very strange. My mother, who was fasting at the time,
drew closer to this woman and started praying for her. The next thing we knew
is that the woman was stretching out on the ground and the spirit started
speaking out of her in a man’s voice saying, “My time is
expired”. My mother started praying more, realising that it was not the
Holy Spirit. The woman, by this time, was so distorted in her face, that her
eyes were bulging out of her head. She took out her wedding band and said,
“Give this to my husband.” She felt she was going to die.

With much prayer that night the
entire church bound themselves together and insisted that the demon had to
leave this woman. The battle was fierce and long. As children, we were very
fearful. It was an awesome experience. For days, this woman was very sick,
until supernaturally the hand of the Lord did intervene and helped the woman. I
saw others climbed on chairs hysterically, supposing to be filled with the Holy
Spirit. Others lying on the ground, supposedly filled with the Holy Spirit,
their wigs flying off their heads, women running with sheets to cover their nakedness.
Then I thought to myself, “I would like to have to the Holy Ghost but not
in that fashion.” I did not want to blaspheme against the Holy Ghost but
I was very troubled in my mind and I knew some were genuine, I knew some were
demon possessed and I also knew some of them were working up themselves in a
frenzy. So, I took a position where I did not doubt that there is the genuine
anointing but I had problems with those who spoke in tongues and lived
nothing.

After a while I became very formal. I was a good
observer and was afraid to yield myself to any spirit I was not sure about.
Just then I felt very drained as if I had reached the end of my Christian walk,
but I knew I did not reach my final destination and I did not know where to
turn.   I stopped going to
church as regular as I used to go because from the pulpit to the pew needed a
revival. As God had it, I changed residence and came in contact with my
precious Sister Cindy who has gone on. She invited me to Bethel (The House of God).  I heard things I had not heard before,
yet something within was saying, “I believe this is the truth.” I
understood quickly what was required. I had to make my decision. The price was
heavy and hard, however, His grace is sufficient for me. I understood clearly
now what organisation had and still has, what the early church had on the day
of Pentecost and what we are now looking forward to.   As the prophet said, "The
Token or Perish", I now press towards the mark of the high calling in
Christ Jesus.

SAMUEL
JONES – MINISTER & RETIRED

ESTATE
SEARGENT

I am
from Bethel, Trinidad.
I grew up under Baptist parentage. Having no choice, I went along with my
parents in obedience. As I grew older and read the Bible, I found out that
practices of "The Faith", as it was termed, were contrary to what I
read. I then questioned the immoral lifestyles of fornication and adultery of
some of the leaders and members (a condition I had left in the world) and the
purpose of their rituals. This caused disturbances which resulted in many
heated debates, for a long time.

Around that
time, we met and joined with some other Baptist brethren, who were having
similar problems. With the quest for
truth, we all got together and formed a study group, and assumed a name:
"Free Baptist." We met a Preacher from South
Trinidad, by the name of Dr. Peter Francis, who had also come out
from the Spiritual Baptist faith and became a Full Gospel Minister. This
association took us to several Full Gospel Churches throughout the country. We
grew in numbers and established a Fellowship, with Brother Errol Edwards as the
pastor.

Some time
later, Brother Errol was introduced to “Apostle” Baird of Faith
Revival Ministries, who is a renowned Bible Teacher in this country. He advised
us to attend an "Advanced Ministry Class" for two years at his
Assembly for a better Pentecostal understanding. Brother Edwards, Brother
Aldwyn James and I complied, from which we attained Certificates from that exercise.

THEY
TAUGHT US HOW TO RECEIVE THE HOLY GHOST

Out of this association we had Ministers from Faith
Revival visiting us from time to time who taught us how to receive the Holy
Ghost, and after tarrying with us, some of the Brethren received it, and spoke
in tongues. This, we believed then, was "the initial evidence".

We then
registered under the name of CHRIST GOSPEL ASSEMBLY LTD. at Montrose Village,
Chaguanas, in Central Trinidad, with
“Apostle” Baird being one of the Directors.

We then came
in contact with an Evangelist from New Jersey,
U.S.A.
by the name of Jacob James, who preached to us knowledge on the scriptures that
we never heard before. This birthed much confidence in our hearts towards him,
and because of this, we allowed him to have the oversight over our group when
he was in Trinidad.

My wife and I had
the opportunity to visit his assembly in New Jersey,
U.S.A.
in the eighties, where he showed us a plot of land that he said was once
occupied by followers of Brother Branham, and when he was at my home I saw some
Spoken Word Books in his Bible case. I later found out that the
"Truths” by which he had influenced our minds were obtained from the
messages of our prophet, William
Marrion Branham, which he hybridized with Pentecostalism.

Pastor James came
to Trinidad and held some meetings, during
which he rebaptized most of the believers, in the Name of Jesus Christ.

A special
"cottage meeting" was called for those who needed to be filled with the Holy Ghost. In that
meeting he taught on the Holy Ghost baptism, which we tarried for, under his
watchful eyes. We were taught to say, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! repeatedly”, which we did. I experienced uttering strange
sounds, while the tutor complimented us, to continue, and prompted us and said,
“Give it sound! Give it sound! Speak no English! Speak no English! No
English! No English!” In the space of half an hour everyone in the house
was speaking in tongues and crying.
Our voices then somehow were amplified by the tongues with much rejoicing. It
was a wonderful experience. We were then assured that we had the baptism of the
Holy Ghost, and we all believed that.

We were advised by
him that from then on we must continue to speak our new language whenever we
are alone in our cars, wind up our windows and fellowship with the Spirit.

Out of these
experiences, Sisters Jones and Daly were outstanding in speaking in tongues and
interpretations, respectively. Brother Daly was the only brother in the
assembly who never received the “Holy Ghost”. This got him
frustrated that he almost backslid. Had it not been for our beloved Pastor
Dalton Bruce, whom the Lord had sent our way, the brother would have no longer
been with us.

DISSATISFACTION

After
several years of praying and fasting
with hope to see the reality of the power of God we read of in the Bible, we
were dissatisfied and wondered what next must be done because we desired to go
on. A deeper hunger and thirst stepped in, but was not fulfilled.

On Pastor James return, I
asked him, “How is it that we who now have the Holy Ghost are unable to
experience and to do the things the apostles did?” His answer was that
“After Jesus was baptized, He went into the wilderness, fasted, and then
came out in the power of the Spirit.” This answer brought about a greater
desperation to further seek God.

About that same time Brother Errol
preached to us that we “have to make a turn.” Some time after a
co-worker named Mungal Ramnarine, a deacon at bethel, extended an invitation to
me to attend some special meetings. I attended those meetings and while the
preacher, Brother Dalton Bruce, was delivering his message, he said,
“There are some people who jumped out from a denominational ship, jumped
in a Pirogue and are going around in circles with no sense of direction.

Immediately, I knew that I was
that man in the Pirogue. Something about the atmosphere in that place brought about a peace in me. Right there
and then I concluded that I was not returning to my former Assembly, but in
obedience, I went for a short while to encourage the brethren to come and hear
this great truth. I also invited Pastor Edwards who gladly accepted the
invitation and complied. After the meeting he expressed thankfulness and
desired to have his congregation hear what he had heard.

Around that same time, Pastor
James from the U.S.A.,
surprisingly called informing us of an unexpected visit. We suspected that he
was informed about our new move and wanted to stop it, but continued to attend
the meetings. He was greatly disappointed, and had no other choice but to
accompany us.

On that particular
night, the Lord had Pastor Dalton Bruce to speak about all the "ills"
of Pentecostalism, which had the evangelist a nervous man on his seat. On our return home he lectured to me all
through the night until the morning, trying to turn me away from what I had
heard. When he realized that he was unable to do so, he cut short his visit.

Before
leaving he asked to speak to the believers, with departing words as "I am
not a Prophet, but I am prophesying that this Fellowship would not be the same
again, mark my words".

DELIVERANCE
FROM RELIGIOUS DECEPTION

Brother Bruce came to our assembly at the request of
our then Pastor Edwards, after the special meetings at Bethel, and ministered to the Saints for
three services. He rightly divided the Word of truth, which mightily delivered
us from religious deception. The Word we heard from Pastor Bruce stripped us of
all we thought we had known.

Ninety
Percent of the
congregation went over to fellowship at Bethel
and were rebaptized in the only form of Christian baptism, which is in the Name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. After listening to Pastor Dalton Bruce’s
messages on “Pentecostalism – One Hundred Years”, where he
stated that 1906 was a mixture of the genuine anointing and demon power,
looking back at the spiritual manifestations I had seen and experienced in both
Baptist and so-called Pentecost, I was identified in that statement.

Thank God who had given me ears to hear and
a heart to believe when the unadulterated Word was delivered to me. Amazing
Grace would always be my song of praise. My Pentecostal experience could not
have qualified me for the rapture. I am sure that what I am now contending for
is more than able to do so, as I must have the token or perish, according to
the message of Malachi 4:5-6. Amen!

VINCENT
JOSEPH – RETIRED ENGINEER

I was born in the Catholic institution and
could never understand what the priest was saying.

After
I got to the age where I felt I could now chose my way of life, the climax of
dissatisfaction for the church ended on an Old Years night. After hours of
waiting for the priest to come to the altar, I saw some officers leading the
priest through a back door into his presbytery. He was drunk so they had to
lead him to the altar. I got up and never went back to that church. I was
convinced that all along he had alcohol on his breath in the confession box.

I
bought a Bible and read such words of comfort but I tried to join church by
listening from the outside and watching the lives of their members.

I
migrated to the U.S. in 1970
and visited my two sisters in Youngstown, Ohio where I entered the
Pentecostal church my sisters attended. I heard speaking in tongues and saw
most women and girls fell as they got what they called the “Holy
Ghost”. The older women had sheets at hand to cover their legs on the
floor.

Pastor
Wagner was very vibrant and highly articulated. His congregation had about
fifteen hundred people and his emphasis was on baptism in Jesus’ name and
speaking in tongues if you are to go in the rapture. He also preached that
women should not wear britches which are pants, but they wore

coulettes
which is a pants-dress, that has legs.

I
asked questions about the receiving of the “Holy Ghost” and was
told that I must be baptized in Jesus name and then go up to the upper room in
the church.

I was baptized and after much prayer and
fasting I did not receive the “Holy Ghost.” There were three
sisters in the room to witness you receiving the “Holy Ghost”. It
took a long time exercising the speaking of the word “Halleluiah”
quickly. Months went by as I tried to get this gift and could not get it. After
this, I then tried saying, “Ahleluiah” and I still did not receive
it, until one night while I was chanting “Halleluiah, Halleluiah,
Halleluiah”, and the Halleluiah turned into something else. I had finally
received it. So the church rejoiced and everyone was happy.

TONGUES COPIED AND
IMITATED

I felt renewed, but after a while I noticed
that all the ministers were speaking the same words the chief Pastor Wagner was
saying. They began their preaching most of the time with the words
“AH-SHAT-TA-MOYA”, but no one knew the meaning.

I
had some personal experiences on business matters with Pastor Wagner. He had
intended to erect a school and office building. I was asked to help with this
project because of my knowledge in construction and engineering.  During the course of the construction of
the building, I was asked to order some building material on my company’s
name. I did so without questioning the method of refund of cash for the bills.
After awhile, I approached Pastor Wagner on the bills incurred on my
company’s name. He sent me to the church treasurer who was also a
preacher. The treasurer then sent me to a deacon and after much run around I
had no success. The bills began to pile up until one of the lumber stores
called me in and asked, why weren’t my bills paid. I then told them I had
taken the lumber for Mt.
Calvary Pentecostal
Church. They then told me
that they too had been having problems for payment from the same church and as
a result many other stores had them on their records as bad creditors. This is
when I saw how dishonest a man who preached God could be. I had given thousands
of dollars in job tithes, even before I had completed a job.

I
had a treasurer minister who took care of my accounts for the business and to
write the checks. In preparing the pay sheets for my office staff and tradesmen
he always showed deductions for taxes, but the state never received it, as I
found out later. I knew then I had to get out of this mess.

IMMORAL, SPEAKING IN
TONGUES & SINGING IN THE CHOIR

Our choir director invited me over to her
apartment telling me that

other brethren would be there also. I knew
how she strong she stood for holiness, preached, spoke in tongues and was well
respected. She also had her doctorate in music. I decided to go a little late
and when I got there, there was no one else there but me. I asked, “Where
are the others?” and she replied, “They will be here soon.”  The table was all laid. I realized it
was a trick when she went and changed her clothing so I then got up and started
for the door when she blocked me and told me, “We are adults.” I
had to then push my way through to escape that trap. The next day she was
shamelessly leading the choir, and speaking in tongues as usual. I did have a
few other encounters like that one but thank God he saw me through.

Recently, I visited Youngstown, Ohio
and was shocked to see the pastor’s daughter in shorts in a fund raising
meeting. He has lost all his credibility in Ohio and even the three-floor school
building and offices due to his dishonesty with man and God.

I want to thank God for
delivering me from Pentecost, opening my eyes to truth and bringing me to where
it is being preached. Thank God for an honest and true minister of God and for
his imparting the knowledge on how to receive the true baptism of the Holy
Ghost. I know there are many sincere people in Pentecost and pray that they too
will be delivered from the many deceptions that have them bounded.

KEITH BACHAN
– MINISTER & HEALTH WORKER

I am from Grace
Covenant Church
at Point Fortin, Trinidad. I came to the
message in 1974. I started preaching in 1985, when the pastor fell in adultery.

We
were already aligned to the New York Christian Assembly, therefore, when I took
over I continued that trend. I attended the dedication and convention of Pastor
Wesco’s church in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1985 and Pastor Coleman’s convention in Penharris, Pennsylvania
in 1986.

I
bring to you the testimony of a true witness of what took place.

FALSE THUNDERS
SEALING-HEADSTONE REVIVAL

There was a “sealing revival” in
progress. We had been receiving videos from the New York
church on a regular basis; therefore, we were updated on all the activities
that were taking place, whether in Puerto Rico, South Africa, Leon,
France,
and the conventions held before.

The
theme of the convention was “Charity, the headstone is here.” There was a big banner with the words,
“Charity, the headstone is here.”

The
songs were sung in a Pentecostal rhythm and flavour. The New

York church sings very fast and just like
Pentecostals, they seem to enjoy songs that are very fast and have a lot of
action. At that time African and Spanish songs were very popular among them.
They considered themselves a church of action. Some of the songs had nice
meanings and most were sung in an upbeat tempo.

The
New York
church is a very noisy church. They had found a quotation from the message
which said that the Pentecostal church was a noisy church. They majored on
quoting it often.

The church in New York has an attendance of about seven
hundred members. They operate a shift system to accommodate the members. Pastor
Coleman preaches in the morning and the evening shift looks at the video.

In
the convention, the auditorium was big enough to hold everybody. There was
plenty of noise and wild worship. There is a conception among them that the
more noise you have is more of the Spirit there is in the building. Many a
times it is not.

PENTECOSTALISM UNDER THE
MESSAGE

After the song service and preaching, there
were long lines formed to receive the seal of God. In the convention that year
they were preaching “Pentecost has returned
and we are in a sealing revival. Charity the headstone is here.” Not
coming but “is here, sealing the believers with the true baptism of the
Holy Ghost.”

People
seemed to program themselves to fall when hands were laid on them. You were
told that when you pass through the line and hands were laid on you, you will
be slain when receiving the seal of God. I wanted that thing so badly that I
programmed myself. I knew I was going to fall before I got there. When I
finally reached the minister who was laying on hands, his hands barely touched
me and I was on the ground. I was glad about that because they were preaching
that if you were no slain, something was wrong in your life. Therefore,
everybody seemed to be receiving the seal of God: little children, three years
old, middle age and old people. We really thought we were in a revival.

Just
as you have heard on these messages, there was a lot of confusion and conflicts
taking place; those who fell on the ground were uncontrollable. Sometimes women
and men fell upon each other, rolling over each other etc. The helpers with
sheets were kept busy, sometimes unable to cope with the amount of brethren on
the ground.

I
saw a lot of accidents take place, as women clashed with men on the ground:
glasses were broken, people’s clothing were ripped. A sister fell on the
guitar and amplifier and damaged her back. Another sister who was a helper with
the sheets said that a sister with a high heel damaged her foot.

Sometimes
things got totally out of order. The people were so hard to

control that the helpers had much difficulty to keep
order. In rage and vexation they roughed up some people. The lines were long
and everybody that attended the convention was asked to pass through the lines.
With all that noise and confusion there is no power. No miracles or healing were taking place.

We
took a sister from Trinidad on a wheelchair to
the convention and we brought her back the same way.

I
did not see any visible manifestation of healings or miracle, though they claimed
that the dead were raised and the crippled were coming out of their wheelchairs.

I
was part of that revival. I did believe back then that it was a true move of
God and I supported and defended that revival until I was delivered.

When
I was in Florida
in 1985, the half an hour silence was a big subject.

In
1986 the emphasis was on filling and refilling. Those who were filled the night
before had to come the next day for a refilling.

WORLIDNESS &
UNHOLINESS ACCOMPANIED  NEW YORK THUNDERS,
SEALING REVIVAL

Worldliness took over the convention. In
fact, the New York
church is a very worldly church. It was nicknamed the Corinthian church in the
message.

We
were shocked to see the pastor’s
wife and daughter in such high heels, tight dresses, and people in the
church who were members with makeup on their faces.

In
the plain message, up to that time, we had a higher standard of holiness,
although we did not have the revelation of the son of man.

Being
surprised by what we saw, we put in a question about the heels, dressing and
makeup. The answer from the ministry was that “Trinidadians are a fast
and inquisitive people; we do not like too many questions around here. What you
see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, leave it right here!!!”
Their favourite quotation was, “Here in New York, we are not on legalism.”

The
lifestyles of the believers at home is another story. It was no big deal to see
a sister come out with a nightie to
serve coffee and sandwiches. We never saw that in Trinidad.
They put on their television and
watched “Sex in the City”, wrestling and whatever was showing. Even
the children looked at anything.

Another
sister was wearing lipstick. She
said that her job allows her to wear that. She was an airhostess.

Something
is wrong. A Christian man and woman have to make a better stand than that.
Sometimes it may mean you have to leave a certain job. Amen.

When
they take you out they visit all types of places, even saying

“When you are in Rome you do as the Romans do.”

At
first, we regarded the New York
church as the most spiritual church in the message. We knew that pastor Coleman
was ordained by Brother Branham and therefore allowed ourselves to be
indoctrinated by him, and that the black man being the most spiritual man, we
actually believed that he was the man of the hour. Yes.

The worldliness got us upset at first, but
as time went by we started adjusting
to the worldliness. When I came back to Trinidad
the Port-of-Spain pastor called me up to a meeting. He discussed certain things
with me. Then he came down to Cedros and had a meeting with the entire church.
In that meeting he made it clear that the sisters could wear any size of heels except spike heels,
we could have television and sports etc. Certain sisters from the Cedros church
responded very well.

I
was influenced and I passed on that influence to the church and just like New York and
Port-of-Spain, we started saying that we did not believe in legalism.

I
am saying this to show how the influence of one you trust as a servant of God
could fall upon another minister and his congregation. I believe that the
influence of the pastor of the Christian Assembly in New York contaminated a lot of believers
worldwide.

Now
that we were in Trinidad, fresh from the
convention where we received the “seal of God”, we had our own
three days of meetings where all the groups that associated with Pastor Coleman
came together so the believers could receive the seal of God. The same things
that happened in New York and Pennsylvania happened here in Trinidad.
As they laid hands on the people they fell to the ground, they were slain, they
rolled, they screamed, they clashed on each other etc.

UNHOLY MANIFESTATIONS
& FANATICISMS

An outstanding case was a sister who could
not be controlled in the song service. She would pull up her dress to her waistline, and the deacons would quickly
pull it down. Her behaviour got one of the deacons so mad that he pulled off
his belt from his waist and strapped her down to the bench of the church. She
tried to resist but he tightened the belt and kept her under control. The song
leader said that he thank God that the sealing angel had started sealing the
people already.

The
brethren went off into fanaticism.
The people started seeing all kinds of supernatural things appearing to them: “the
cloud with the face of Jesus, the pillar of fire, the rainbow, and some even
saw written messages in the sky.” The pillar of fire was as common as the
sunrise every morning.

I
don’t say this to make a joke: we were all in church one night when we
heard a loud scream outside the church. Someone said a sister just saw a pillar
of fire and it is there right now. We rushed out only to find a fire-fighter
truck with the red light revolving and blinking. They had become so fanatical  that everything was spiritualised.

BACKSLIDINGS

That fanaticism went on for a while until
the people started backsliding. I called the minister in Port-of-Spain and told
him that many of the people in Cedros who received the “seal” were
backsliding. He said that the same thing was happening there in Port-of-Spain.

Something is wrong with that kind of seal.
The Bible said, “We are sealed until the day of our redemption.”
The seal is supposed to keep you. That seal had no keeping power.

I asked that pastor for an explanation and
he said that he did not know, but he would call New York to find out. He called New York and they said
that the same thing was happening there. He told me that his assistant minister backslid.

The Port-of-Spain pastor said, “Maybe
some of the people were not truly sanctified”. I told him that was
strange because we were saying from the pulpit, “nineteen were sealed
tonight, and forty were sealed Sunday.” How could we take back our word now,
and say differently.

The ministry among us then had sanctioned
the seal. The people who were “sealed” were giving testimonies of
their experiences. Some had tremendous experiences and manifestations. One
sister said that she became so desperate for the seal that she told the Lord
she was not moving until she got it and she did. Another said as she looked up
she saw her name written in the sky,  with these words, “You will be
sealed on such date” and she did received the seal on that date.

The
pastor’s wife told me personally that since her son received his sealing
they were not having any trouble with him again. It was not long after that her
son backslid and left the church.

It
was as though Sodom and Gomorrah had taken over the assemblies. It affected the unity between us
ministers that we started to go our separate ways. That is when I started
accepting invitations to preach in other places like Bethlehem Tabernacle etc.

This
was a junction in my life where I was really confused and started searching the
prophet’s words for logical explanations on a number of issues.

I
started preaching that “The shout was the prophet, the voice is the Bride,
and the trumpet – dead saints. The seven thunders is not something to
preach but a manifestation.”

I
realized in my own life that I was as powerless as a doornail and started
doubting my sealing. Although I believed and experienced falling to the ground,
there was this question: “Why are we so powerless?” We tried to manufacture something by fasting for
three days but there simply was no power. No miracles were taking place to
accompany this great “sealing revival.”

I
am saying today that that “seven thunders revival” has proven
itself to be of the devil. In a nutshell, the manifestation is the
interpretation.

Sometime
ago I met this pastor and we were discussing some of these things. I reminded
him of the banner they brought to Cedros written, “Charity, the Headstone
is here.” Concerning the incident about the sister who was strapped to
the bench in the church, I confirmed to him, as a witness. I asked him on the
phone about the people who were sealed with the “true baptism of the Holy
Ghost”, “how is it that they backslid?” He could not answer.
Then he said, “Maybe we were not referring to the true baptism of the
Holy Ghost. Probably it was about the many fillings.” I said, “No,
the banner was not saying Charity, the headstone is coming, but Charity, the
Headstone is here.

Brother,
the Lord so allowed it. I had taken some pictures and on one of the pictures the banner came out plain:
“Charity, the headstone is here.” I said, “Look at
that”, and he said, “But, it is true.” I said, “Of
course it is true.” He then said, “In life, you have many
experiences. That was a phase we went through. We have revived ourselves and we
are moving on.” I said, “I myself am moving on.”

That
was of the devil! Anybody who has to move on from that must confess that was of
the devil. We denounced it and started over afresh.

You
just can’t say, that was a bad phase, and continue to serve the Lord. It
doesn’t work so. You have to confess that that “seven thunders,
seventh seal revival” was of the devil and not of God. When you confess
that, you then accept truth to move on.

Thank
God, that many years ago I confessed that it was of the devil. When truth came
my way, I received truth and I moved on. I am moving on by the grace of God.

DELIVERANCE PASSED OUR
WAY

I give God thanks and praise for His servant
who had passed our way at Point Fortin and Cedros. We give God thanks and
praise. What would have happened to my mind if I had stayed with that revival?
Probably I would have gotten a nervous breakdown.

I
give God special thanks for His servant who passed our way, and preached the
revelation of the son of man that delivered me and those of Christian Assembly
in Cedros, who wanted truth.

When we heard truth, the Words of Life,
the revelation of the son of man, we came out realizing, “Here is a man
truly preaching the holiness message.”

One
of the outstanding things back there when Brother Bruce came was his first
message, ‘I was not Disobedient to
the Heavenly Vision.’ I had never met a man in the message who met
the pillar of fire face to face and heard the audible voice of God. Today,
every dog and cat in the message is making claims.

Since
we came across this what we now believe, the people are so satisfied, they have
a revelation in their heart, they know where they are at now and where they are
going.

The
plan of salvation is so clear to us. We know what we believe and what we have
to receive.

Together
with the church from Point Fortin, I thank God for His marvellous and wonderful
servant, Brother Dalton Bruce. We always wanted to go right but we were deceived. May God again bless His
servant, strengthen and anoint him as he leads us to the true outpouring of the
Holy Ghost.

Through
this series of meetings on “Pentecostalism – One hundred years”,
such a burden came in my heart for some Mexican people who I met in Texas. They are a lovely
bunch of people who are trying to uphold the standards of the plain message. My
heart’s desire for them is that what we have been hearing can somehow be
translated in Spanish that they can be blessed also. May the Lord bring it to
pass is my prayer.

GARY
KELLMAN – MINISTER & BUILDING CONTRACTOR

I was born in Guyana. In the year 1977, on the 12th
of June at the age of 16, I gave my heart to the Lord. I remember going up to
the altar and repenting for my sins as they rolled through my mind. A great
weight was lifted from my shoulders and I cried all day thinking of Calvary. I was then told that I must visit converts or
baptismal classes which lasted for about six weeks. Later on I was baptized,
went on to receive the baptism of
the Holy Ghost and spoke with tongues.
After water baptism I was asked which duties I would like to perform in
the church. I wanted to play music and to be a treasurer. This was my first
encounter with the envelopes that had written on them: offerings, tithes, radio
funds, missionary funds, love offerings and your name.

One service night, a sister came up to the altar. The pastor said she
had seven devils. He told us, “Get under the bl-oo-d”, “Plead
the bl-oo-d”, “Sing the bl-oo-d”. We had to stress on:
“The bl-oo-d, the bl-oo-d, the bl-oo-d of Jee-sus”

After many hours the pastor came to the pulpit and
said, “We cast out three devils and next service night we will cast out
the other four devils”.

On
one occasion my nephew had a stiff-neck, I prayed for him and almost broke his
neck. In my zeal I also prayed for a dying baby and told the father of the
child not to take the child to the hospital because the child is healed. The
child died and I became his enemy unto this day.

The same brother who had led me into Pentecostalism had just accepted

the messenger and he led me to the message. After a
few months he went back into the world after a preacher preached him down as a
sower of discrepancy. Later on a sister came up with a revelation that five
brothers were serpent-seeds. I was one of those brothers. We were a bit shaken
and our only consolation was prayer. We had to face this spirit for a few
services. This sister also influenced others not to shake our hands in spite of
our efforts. One night after service as I was walking home with a sister called
Patsy, I made another attempt to shake the sister’s hand. But she
refused, shook herself up and walked off in anger. At this point I remembered
that I had encountered such a spirit in the Pentecostal church and I told her
that she had an old Pentecostal Devil!
At the next service, to my surprise, the sister shook my hand and the others came
also to apologize.

PENTECOSTAL FANATICISM
– MESSAGE MINISTER

In
the year 1996, on the 22nd of December I went to visit a church in Trinidad located at El Socorro. Together with me was a
brother, his little son and daughter. Our purpose was to meet the brethren in
the message. Arrangements for our visit were made via telephone with one Deacon
Desmond and confirmed by another Deacon Rodney. They were informed that a party
of four were coming to visit. My pastor, Brother Dalton Bruce, was away from
church from the 11th - 28th December 1996 and had no
knowledge of our visit nor did he send us to visit the church. We were given an
invitation to visit by another brother. During our visit there was a prophecy
made by the pastor of the church - Sham Ali.

Before he prophesied, he started cackling
like a hen, and crowing like a cock. This went on for about half an hour. He
“prophesied” saying, “I see, I see, I see, I see”.  “I am seeing things”.
“Do you want to hear what I see?” “I see three brothers are
here amongst us. They are not here to worship, they are spies sent to visit
churches. They have been sent by one. I know him. He is their pastor. His name
is Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. His name is Dalton Bruce, he is their
pastor. He sent them, he who it is that sent them. He has held my people in
bondage. He is being worshipped as God by my people. He never give the glory to
God but had built himself a kingdom. His kingdom will come down. I will bring
down his kingdom saith the Lord and set my people free. He has held many of my
people in bondage. You brothers can be set free this morning. Thus saith the
Lord, you can be set free. Accept your deliverance.”

During the meeting he claimed to have spoken a new bone into a sister’s hand, whose name was Gita. The
sister died and never received her new bone.

He
also called a couple up to the altar and told the sister that she will have a
baby in her old age like Sarah and Abraham.

He
further went on to tell a brother that he will be healed of his kidney

problem, and that the swollen veins in his hand will
go down as a sign from the Lord.

He
then prophesied again of a brother having doubts about his ministry.

Pastor Sham said, “If these things are true you
will scream at the top of your
voice”. I noticed that after Pastor Sham had requested three times for
the brother to scream, the brother then made several attempts to scream.

After the service I was questioned by Pastor Sham: “Were my
prophesies of God or of the devil?”

I replied, “It is of the
devil”. I also made it clear to him that I did not want to get into any
argument and that I never came to spy.

Later
on I wrote Deacon Rodney a letter. These are some excerpts of what I wrote.

“I have known Brother Bruce for the past thirteen years. I never
saw or heard of anyone worshipping
Brother Bruce and never heard him claim any such thing or try to lift up
himself as anybody. If I ever met a man of God, he is one. One who is in love
with Brother Branham’s holiness message, love God’s word and his
people, stands for this message and is persecuted the most for such. He never
had to repent for adultery or taking the sheep’s wool or for fanaticism
on the message. He does not desire wealth, fame or any kingdom here on earth. I
know better; I am a true witness.”

“I never confronted your pastor, Sham Ali. I do not want to be
rebuked by Brother Dalton Bruce if any would give such untrue report. We
appreciate the attitude of the sheep towards us in making us feel welcome but
not the pastor’s attitude which was most unwelcoming. I am on scriptural
grounds in bringing this matter to your attention as a Deacon, seeing I have
already declared myself to your pastor, Sham Ali.”

“The prophecies were questionable to us since it cannot be
justified by the Word or the message. I cannot understand how his first
prophecy could be false and the other four true, if it is the Spirit of God
speaking. We are closely monitoring these other prophecies and await their fulfilment.
If they are of God, they will come to pass. I hope I am free to visit again,
especially to confirm the fulfilment of these prophecies. Your brother, Pastor
Kellman.”

YOUR ADVERSARY

R. L.
LAMBERT - THE FIRST MARTYR

28-01 1971

Many more are wiser today concerning a final
outpouring of the Holy Spirit for rapture power, than when the prophet W.M.
Branham first declared that marvellous promise and concluded the same with his
highlight message called the token. This vision was passed on to a humble
little man R. L. Lambert, who kept it alive and sealed his testimony with his
blood, contending for the token and many other truths of the message.

However, ministers who proclaim that vision
of the token are not aware of preparations which must be made before the church
receives it. When E.O.D.H presented the truth, many, because of selfish motives,
desire for independency in trying to shun the Nicolaitan system and spirit, which is prevalent around the
message and perhaps previously dominated them.  Some began preaching the token, claiming
that revelation first handed. However, they only have half of the truth

To help those precious brethren who mean
well, I state honestly and sincerely that our system is not based upon Nicolaitanism,
but it is based upon scriptural order. We allow each local pastor to be led of
the Spirit and not make him accountable to us: financially, doctrinally or
otherwise. We deal with thousands around the world and do not have the time for
such Nicoliatanism. However, if
there arises a question which we can answer, we try to help in that respect,
especially if questions are based upon our teachings. We shun fanaticism, cults
and isms and do not hold ourselves accountable for those who identify
themselves with E.O.D.H for the wrong purpose, and who preach contrary to the
message and truth which we proclaim.
The following quotations were taken from a message of the first martyr,
preached in 1971. We trust that this will be of edification to all as it had
been to us at Bethel,
GCC and other churches.

“Now, if you ever held
steady, hold real steady.  Satan has moved up in heavy force and I
have been standing my post of duty in prayer and consecration that God would
move back the pressure and He has.
How many felt the pressure roll back here?  How many know it was great pressure
moved up right after I closed this service out during the week?  How many felt it?  How many feel it move back, now?  I know that we’ve got the victory
over the enemy.

And so I certainly have
appreciated the great Power of the Holy Spirit that has been in our midst and
everything that was done was led by the Lord Jesus.  There were no mistakes, no
mistakes.  Everything was right on
time.  And it was wonderful that the
Lord led us that way because it certainly helped us.  How many, it helped each one of
you?  To show you that it is a total
impossibility to receive that Token unless you come God’s provided
way—no other way.  And the
desperation is not desperation praying for the Token to come but the
desperation is being desperate for you to come God’s provided way to get
the Token.  You could get desperate
for the Token to come and it would never come to you unless you come God’s provided way for that Token
Promise to come.

Now, we are going to be
continually in a closer walk with the Lord Jesus that we might be ready at that
chosen season that He will come.
And then if we are not ready when He comes, I believe it will be our own
fault because He will give each and every one ample time to prepare himself for
that great event.

So we want to keep our Assembly
just as reverent, just as reverent as we possibly can.  And of course there are times when you have to whisper.  There are some times when an emergency
arises with the children or something that you have to whisper, and we
understand that.  But we should come
under here with great expectation that we are in the Presence of Jehovah God
and He is investigating our lives.

I believe that, in these few
days, the investigating Angel, (that supernatural Presence that you felt)
passed by here investigating your lives and He didn’t find that you were
able to be sealed.  If He had found
it, He would have sealed you.  So
then, you ought to be thankful because if He had Sealed a couple, then it could
have been disastrous.

Demons are real

Let me tell you
something, Brother and Sister, the devil is a real devil.  He is a real, live person and his demons
are real, live.  They are real live;
it’s not just in your thinking.
There are real live demon forces.
There is a devil and he’s Your Adversary and he’s out to
devour you.  And so what I’m
doing?  I’m warning you in the
Name of the Lord that if you have ever walked close to Christ, walk close to
Him now because something has happened.

Oh, how we need to pray that
prayer, “Lord….”
Humble yourself, sanctify the Lord God in your heart daily.  Be prayed up every hour of the day.  Be prayed
up every hour of the day.  Be led of the Holy Spirit every hour and
every day.  Be led by the Holy
Spirit.  Did you know that if you
are not being led by the Holy Spirit every day, that if you are not prayed up
and you are not consecrated to God and being led of the Holy Spirit every day
that you are taking an organization life
in you and it’s organizing you?
We must be led of the Holy Spirit every day of our lives.  We must be led step by step, step by
step, closer to the Promise of the hour.
How many believe that?

We have an adversary, the
devil, and he’s a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may
devour.  And I have got to warn this
congregation, if I have ever in my life, for the past few days, if I ever seen
the activity of demon power that is trying to get at this assembly, it has been
in the last week!  And listen.  Whatever you do, you make sure that you
live above sin because this Revelation, if you don’t mean business to go
on with God….

I don’t know how to say
it but when you come up around where that Revelation is, you are moving up
around something where all the demon activity and all the power of the devil is
at.  Don’t you realize that if
God didn’t have an office there and had not lifted that poor little
brother up there to stand in that place, he would lose his mind, that no man
could stand against the demon power that is around that Revelation, trying to
destroy it?  Then don’t you
know that if you come and sit under that ministry that you’re right
there, that you’re a target of every demon?

BREAKING DOWN THE WORD WITHOUT AN OFFICE - DANGER

But when you see
men coming in—especially preachers!
Watch those preachers!  Watch
any man that wants to be a preacher—there’s where the devil is
laying.  Watch it!  Let me tell you something,
Children.  How many are going to do
what Brother Bob tells you?  Why
would you men here want to gather yourself together in houses and talk over a
Revelation that God has not called you to handle?  Knowing that if you add one word to this Revelation that God
brought and if you take one word away from the Revelation, don’t you
realize that you could have already taken your name out of the Book of
Life?  Supposing you think you got
the Revelation down pat and you begin to try to teach your brothers in their
homes when you’re eating dinner with them or when you are out in the car,
and you begin to try to bring out the Revelation of this and the Revelation of
that.  Just supposing that you make
a mistake?  Supposing that you add one word to
it—He’ll take your name out of the Book!

Have not I warned you
continually, year after year and year after year that “I’m the
preacher!  I’m the preacher;
I’m the preacher!
You’re not the preacher!
You are not the preacher; you’re only supposed to
believe!”  And let me tell you
something: when you men go to one another’s houses and you sit there and
you start breaking down this Revelation to one another, supposing that you
break it down wrong?  Do you have an
office down in there?  Do you have an office from God Almighty
that is able to catch that Revelation and teach one another?  Then the Bible said, “Be not many
teachers [masters] among your congregation, knowing that ye shall receive the
greater condemnation.”  (James
3:1)  Come on now!  When you gather together for fellowship
and some of you raise up and begin to start to explain the Revelation, what
you’re doing, you are making yourself a preacher whether you believe it
or not!  (And remember, if you add
one word to the Revelation or take one word away from it, He’ll take your
name out of the Book of Life.)

CHRIST IS THE VOICE OF GOD

Now, here, let me
just explain it here this way.  How
many love Brother Bob?  [Amen!]  I would rather ten of the biggest men in
this congregation come over to my house and with their bare fists, each take
their turn and beat me to a pulp until I had no eyes, no mouth, no nose, break
every rib I got, break both my arms and both my legs.  I would rather you do it than to
verbally be voicing by your mouth, “I think Brother Bob’s
this.  I think Brother Bob’s
that.  I believe he’s the
Voice.”

I am not the Voice of God!  The Lord
Jesus Christ is the Voice of God!  I
am a sinner saved by grace!  A
wretched, filthy, dirty, nasty sinner that was cleansed by the Blood of God!

OVEREMOTIONALISM – INSANITY SPIRITS

Let me tell you
something.  What we need to do is to
harness up ourselves.  Watch that over-emotionalism.  Balance yourself with that
over-emotionalism.  If you get out
of cater with emotionalism, the devil will take a hold of you real quick.  Be emotional—sure!  Be emotional; love the Lord; praise
Him.  But watch out when you get
real emotional and get loose with your tongue, and then the devil will just hit
you (See?) he’ll hit you bad.

Precious Brothers, don’t
preach to one another.  Don’t
preach to one another.  When you get
together, say, “Isn’t the Lord Jesus wonderful?  Oh, I love Him with all my heart!  I prayed; I sought the Lord this
morning.  I found His Presence.  Oh, I love Him; I just love His Word!  I can hardly wait to get back to
service.  God bless you, Brother,
how are you doing?  I’m
praying for you!  Oh Lord, encourage
you and bless you!”

But now, when you start talking
about those deep things—about that Voice of God and about all of those
deep things that you have been hearing—oh, don’t do that,
Honey!  Don’t try to handle
that.  Don’t try to explain
that.  You are not able.  I tell you right now, you are not able
to do it!  Let me tell you
something, if it wasn’t a super, supernatural act from Almighty God,
there is no way in the world that I could run that straight.  It’s too, great!

Now Children, insanity spirits
are loosed!  Insanity spirits.  Let
me tell you something, you don’t realize it, the devil will take a hold
of you real quick now if you don’t walk real careful; throw your mind in
a confusion.  You reach up there and
you try to get that Revelation and you’ll try; and then the next thing
you know, your mind will start giving way!

BRIDLE YOUR TOUNGE

How many here (I
want to see your hands.) you want to bridle your tongue?  See, everybody.  I used to have a loose tongue.  I’d try to tell a few secrets of
the Lord.  God gave me visitation
from the Lord and I saw Brother Branham.
He walked right up to me, just as stern as could be, and took that
finger right there, and here he came with that
finger, walking right toward me; come right to me!  He pressed it right down on me.  I tell you,
he got through to me!  I said,
“God, have mercy, bridle my tongue!
God, bridle my tongue.”

HEAVENLY MINDED –
NO EARTHLY VALUE

Don’t try to
be so heavenly minded, you are of no earthly value.  Do like the Lord said the other day,
“Get a job, work.  If you
don’t need the money, go work that you might give to others,” the
Bible said.  (Amen?)  Work that you might give to others.  Brother Branham said, “Plant your
corn.  Plant your potatoes.”

And don’t try to be a
superhuman.  God will make you
spiritual as you are able to receive it.
What happened?  Look at all
those guys out here that went off in rooms and closed the door and stayed in
there, fasted and prayed.  Every one
of them went cuckoo.  (The devil
tried to take me down that road.)
No, just be yourself; just be yourself.  Be sweet and kind, and be the kind of
person that people like to be around.
Be a good listener; smile and be a good listener.  And people will say, “I just love
to be around that person; there’s just something about them!”  Let the other person do the
talking.  And then, if you want to
fast and pray and seek the Lord—wonderful!  You ought to.  Fast two or three days; wait upon the
Lord hours; wait upon Him lots.
But, you see, when you try and get to pulling and trying to shove God
into something you can’t do that!
(See?)  Just day by day, grow
in grace and become more like Him day by day.  Be real steady.  Do you understand what Brother Bob is
saying?

I like that saying,
“Don’t try to be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly
value.”  You see, you want to
be of earthly value.  The Bible
said, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:20)  Now, how can you lay up any treasures in
heaven if all of us go over and find out a big patch of woods and go over and
hide in the woods; none of us work?
Suppose that everybody in the congregation say, “Well, just
working, and we might as well just quit!”  Well, what is going to happen?  Stop the program of God!  You say, “Well, God will create the
food!”  No, He
won’t!  He’ll let you
starve!  “Oh, Praise the Lord!  We got faith.  We’ll go over there and God will
create a loaf of bread!”  No,
you’ll go hungry and you’ll starve!  (I’m telling you the truth!)

I know a sister, a good beloved
sister of mine, Brother Branham said, “Sister, you ought to go and have
that tumor cut out.”  She
said, “I’d rather commit adultery on my husband before I’d go
to a doctor and let him cut that out!”  Well, she almost died!  She should have gone and had it cut out.  Now what was she trying to do?  She was trying to be so heavenly minded
that she was of no earthly value.
God wasn’t pleased with that.
Now it was just the mercies of God that He didn’t let her
die.  What we got to do
is….

Like we were out in the woods
with Brother Branham…I was out in the woods with Brother Branham, we all
had beards and bloody clothes and everything, but when we got to town, Brother
Branham said, “Preachers, shave!”  Why?  Because, Don’t be conspicuous!  A Christian should never be conspicuous.

Did you ever see somebody that
would try to act really spiritual in the congregation to get everybody’s
attention?  That is hypocrisy.  You know, some people like to pray on
the streets but Jesus said, “They don’t want to pray in their
prayer closet because they only want to pray to be seen of man.”  See, that man is trying to be
spiritually minded but he’s of no earthly value.  But now, why couldn’t we just
be….

I think, to me, Brother Branham
was a prime example for us to follow.
I never did see Brother Branham, as many times as I ever shook hands
with him, when I went up and shook hands with him, I never did hear him say,
“Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!”
Not one time did he ever do it, not one time!  Every time I ever met him he said,
“Why Bob, how are you?
You’re looking to me like you’re gaining weight, Boy.  It’s good to see you!”

… Now, we have formed a religious
habit of praising the Lord for things that we shouldn’t praise Him
for.  (See?)  When we meet somebody, we automatically
say, “Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!”  Well, now but you’re not really
saying that sincerely.  You are
saying that out of habit.  It’s a habit.  I know a certain minister who said,
“Why, I called a brother on the phone and he didn’t even say,
‘Praise the Lord!’  Such
a sour spirit!”

DANGER OF PREACHING

And I know if the
devil can get somebody that thinks he is a

preacher, he can do great damage with
him.  There is a great danger to think that you are called when you are not because the devil….
You’ve got to be really sure that you are called and you’ve
got to watch that because the devil will really lay it on us.  So, leave the preaching to the preacher.

Now watch this here.  Now let me just show you something.  All right.  Let’s suppose that a brother has a
true Revelation; he has the real true Revelation of what I’m trying to
get to you; and he comes over to your house and he begins to try to explain
that to you.  Let’s say that
he tries to explain it to you and then you explain it back to him and he says,
“I believe you’ve got it now!”  Do you know what you have?  You’ve got a third-hand religion.
You’ve done passed it down two ways and now you’ve got a
third-hand religion.  How many say,
“Amen?”

But now, look here.  “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
the Word of God” from the man that God called to hear it.  Listen now.  The Word of God is of no private
interpretation.  No one has any
right—no right whatsoever—to try to interpret the Revelation of
this hour.  God is His own
interpreter and it has to be God doing the interpreting.  And then if it is God doing the
interpreting, then it’s perfect!
But then if it is handed down through the congregation and they begin to
hand it to one another (then it has changed hands two or three times) and then
what do you have?  Then you warp
that person’s thinking.  When,
if everyone will sit in the congregation and keep hearing that ministry, keep
hearing that ministry coming forth and then, when the Holy Ghost overshadows
them, it drops down in their heart—a Revelation—they’ll have
it just like the preacher has got it—by a Revelation from God.  Then you’re standing solid but
then if you try to hand it back and forth.

KNOWING
YOUR ENEMY

R. L.
LAMBERT - THE FIRST MARTYR

19-05-71

REVELATION ON THE DEVIL’S
STRATEGY

We have revelation on the Godhead but, we
need revelation on the devil.  You
can know who Jesus is but you need to know all about the devil.

Back in so-called Pentecost they
didn’t talk about the devil. I don’t know how come they get that
way but they never talk about the devil!
They say, “Don’t mention the devil in here!”  Well, because that they didn’t
mention the devil, the devil took the churches over and the devil baptized them with his spirit and the
devil spoke in tongues and done all kind of things because the ministry
didn’t want to talk about the devil.
Well, I talk a lot about the devil!

And I believe this is an hour when the
Bride of Christ for the first time, for the first time the elected Bride of
Christ, since Jesus Christ died at Calvary, is
to get a complete victory over the
devil.  And you can’t get a
complete victory over the devil unless you have a revelation of the devil.
You must have revelation on the devil and how the devil works and how he
moves.  We know how the apostle Paul
said, “We are not ignorant of
his devices.”  [II
Corinthians 2:11]  And that word,
“devices,” means we are not ignorant of Satan’s
strategy.

I find that there is a great danger in that
Satan can take somebody that is just so sincere just like a baby, just as
sincere, as sincere can be, and be
so in love with the Lord Jesus—and then turn right around and deceive
that person and just beat them to death.
It’s because that sheep must have a shepherd to watch over them
and lead them.

OUTPOURING BY GRACE

Now, how are we going to get this revival
that we have been preaching about all these years?  How are we going to get an outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

Number one: it is predestinated; it’s
foreordained and predestinated of God.
God, in sovereign Grace, has let us see into His plan for this
hour—by sovereign Grace.
That’s the only difference.
There’s no other way you could even see into God’s plan in
this hour other than being foreordained and predestinated to see it.

I believe that what we have to do is be so
wise and so Scripturally trained that we’ll know the tactics of the devil.

Now let me just say it like this.  It is a total impossibility for any
assembly to get an Outpouring of the Holy Ghost unless God has elected that
assembly to get it.  In the first
place, the Outpouring has got to be in the Word of God.  Is that right?  Now look what they had out at Azusa Street—that
wasn’t Pentecost.  That
wasn’t Pentecost at all!  But
here we have a Promise to return to the original Power that fell on the hundred
and twenty on the Day of Pentecost.
We got that Promise so we’re coming to God, not because we just
want that in our heart, but because He promised it in His Word.

That’s the way that you stand in faith in
Christ, as you stand on the Word of God and confess what the Word says.  It’s not so much how you feel, or
whether you’re up today or down tomorrow.  This revival, this Outpouring of the Holy
Ghost, this Bride of Christ that is to come forth, a super Church, it isn’t rested on whether or not you and I are
up today or down tomorrow, or whether you feel like it’s coming today or
tomorrow.  It’s God’s
Promise!  God’s sovereign Grace
promised that there would be a supernatural Bride Church
here and there is nothing can stop it!

REVELATION OF THE WORD TO
FIGHT SATAN

I never had enough wisdom and revelation on
the Scriptures to know how to fight the devil.  See, you can’t just fight the
devil with tears; you can’t
just fight the devil down on your knees crying and praying to the Lord; you can’t
fight the devil like that!  The only
thing that will back up the devil is the revealed Word of God.  (See?)  You say, “The Power,”
that’s right!  But Power
without the revealed Word of God won’t do it.  It has to be the revealed Word of God.  Just the revealed Word of God will put
him to flight.  And I didn’t have enough of the
Word of God to fight the devil, he just tormented me all the time that I was
going to lose my ministry—oh, it was just terrible! (Ch. Ages p-13-16).

SINCERE - RIGHT
LEADERSHIP

The sovereign Grace of God has predestinated
a Church; He has predestinated a Bride; He has predestinated believers who are
going to receive the Token of God; and that is what we have to rest in.  It doesn’t make any difference
whether it tarries six months or a year.
It will be here anyway.  The
thing about us, let us make sure that we believe it and we are here to receive
It; no matter when it is, God is going to do it.

But what is it going to take?  I think the only thing that will stand
against the tactics of the devil in this hour and his strategy, is having the right leadership.  I believe it all hinges on the right
leadership.

It is because and what I find out is that
no matter how spiritual and how anointed—the best that you have in the
laity—they are no match for the devil!  I have watched people go (and let them
go) and see how they go this way; and
I have to go to them and straighten them out this way.  I see them go
this way.  I let them go a month or
so and come back here and they will just be, (if we didn’t put a hand to
it and straighten it out) they would be just in disaster —and be just as sincere, as sincere as can be and love
the Lord Jesus—I mean right down love Him and be living the life!  See?

You can’t try to make yourself
something you are not.  You
can’t make yourself spiritual.  You can’t study the Word of God
and figure it out, see.

But how are you going to know the tactics of the enemy?
Just have the right leadership and just be what you are.  Be honest, you see.  Don’t try to put on
something.  (See?)  Don’t try to make people think
you’re spiritual; don’t try to act spiritual; just be a normal
human being; just love the Lord and read your Bible and pray.

PRAYER & FAST - WRONG
MOTIVE

I had one man say to me, “You mean to tell
me I went back there on that hill, Brother Lambert, and I sought the Lord and
now I got deceived?”
“Yes sir, sure did!
You got deceived.”  See
where does it all....  It’s in
the sovereign Grace of God, the sovereign Grace of God.  God
seeks after you; God seeks after you, then you pray and seek the Lord, but
if your heart isn’t right when you are praying and seeking
God….

What are people seeking God for?  I have seen many men seeking God and
praying and fasting but their motive and their objective to what they were
praying and fasting for wasn’t right with the Word of God or the Spirit
of Christ.  (See?)  What are these men praying and fasting
for?  Is it to make themselves have
great Power with God?  I believe you
could fast until you’re just skin over your bones and you would have no
Power with God.  No sir.  It doesn’t come that way.  It comes by the sovereign Grace of the
Lord Jesus.  Now you
could….

That’s why that I say, in this hour,
that when many men….  I have
seen several say, “Brother Bob, I just want to go off in the woods and I
don’t want to work and I don’t want to be out in the world, and I
just want to get down and just pray and fast, and pray and fast.”  I wouldn’t advise that at
all.  In fact, I surely say, as I
said before, I don’t believe, in this hour, that a person ought to fast
over two, three or four days.  How
many say, “Amen” to that?
You can’t….  Why
there is people overseas and in caves, up in those mountains, over there in Palestine, monks that fast
and pray and spend their whole lives there in prayer.  What good does it ever do?  They never come to the knowledge of the
Truth.

But no matter how sincere you are, the
enemy is too much of a match for any preacher that doesn’t have an office
inside of him.  If he isn’t
predestinated and ordained of God, the devil is too much for that preacher and
he is too much for the laity.  The
devil is too much of a match for any person in the laity.  I don’t care how spiritual they
may think they are or you may think they are; they are no match for the devil.

THE DEVIL WORKS IN
EXTREME LONG FASTS

You can make some mistakes like that and you
get so scared, then you start fasting and fasting, praying and praying and
praying and praying and praying, and think you get a little revelation, and
then what is he doing?  Then the
next thing you know, you are going along (and God will bless you like that a
little bit) and next thing you know, then you will begin to get impressions and
imagine the Lord is telling you
something; the Lord is saying this and the Lord is saying that.  Then, he has got you on that side now.  (See?  How many understand what I am
saying?)

The devil is all the time right there to
get you sidetracked, to get you

going down this way, gets you to go down this extreme, that extreme.  The devil works in extremes.  He will get
you to work in extremes.  He will
get you to where you won’t read your Bible at all; won’t pray.  Or then you get so lopsided….  I have seen people get so lopsided the
other way.

I heard one man (a family man) say “I
am going to get a forty day leave of absence from work and I am going to go
fast and pray until I hear from God.”  Everybody and the people that
aren’t spiritual say, “Isn’t that wonderful?  Isn’t that wonderful?”  I don’t think it is wonderful at
all!  The poor brother ought to go
on to working and take care of his family and everything.

Then what does he do?  Go over there and then what
happens?  Everybody knows he is over
there trying to fast forty days.  He
isn’t going to get one thing out of it: he is going to miss all those pay
days for forty days; he is going to lose a lot of weight; he is going to go
through all kinds of tormenting things; he will look awfully hollowed-eyed and
peaked and he may die.

“If I were you, I would throw that
old nasty book away that you have been reading, “Atomic Power with God
Through Fasting” and throw it in the trash can because that is the
biggest tool of the devil that I know of.”

Come to find out that he was actually
reading that book!

He could make—you can just get so
desperate to see God move, then you could go into fasting and fasting and
fasting and fasting and fasting, then all at once you just watch and then in
your mind, your mind, your mind will
begin to get weak.  And then
you’ll begin to imagine that the Lord is speaking to you and imagining
that you’re seeing things in the Spirit and you’re not.  That’s right!  The devil tried to take me down that
road many years ago.  The Lord Jesus
let the prophet of God speak to me.
He said, “Robert, stay away from those long fasts.
They’ll put you in an insane asylum!”  I said, “Yes sir!”  And that ended it right there; that ended
it right there.

Boy, I believe God is looking for a people
that are so established upon the Word of God, they look it over; they look at
it real good; they’re established
upon the Word of God.  They are sure
and steady; they want to know what they are excited about.  How many say, “Amen” to
that?  The only thing that’s
going to stand is a real Scripturally trained people to the line because you
don’t know what kind of test the enemy has got waiting down the road on
you here.

SCRIPTURALLY TRAINED
CHURCH

The only hope that we’ve got to know
the tactics of the enemy is that God has released Seven Seals of mystery that
we might have a Divine revelation upon
the antichrist.  As long as we keep
that Promise before us and realize that that Promise is coming by the sovereign
Grace of God.

So as we go on in this journey, Children,
we are going to have to be Scripturally trained to the line.  And if you have it up here, if you only have it up here in the
head, surely, as surely as I stand here, there is going to be something in the
future is going to flip you and turn
you the other way.  You have
to!  It has to come that place to
you because if it’s not a revelation down in your heart (you just
don’t have it there) there has to be some test there for you that will
break you down.  So it’s going
to be the sovereign Grace of God by Divine revelation.  We don’t know how it will be, when is He going to do it.  That, Children, believe me, I
don’t know when He is going to do it; I don’t now how He is going to do it.

OUTPOURING LIKE DAY OF
PENTECOST

It wasn’t just coming up to the altar
and saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Praise

the Lord.
Praise the Lord.”  No
sir!  It’s being led and being
prepared to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Then Jesus was led to the Jordan
and received it; went into the wilderness for His great testing; He came out
with the Power of God upon Him and then, great signs and wonders and miracles
took place.  But He knew the tactics
of the enemy, the devil.  As long as
we wait on the Lord, wait on the Lord then we are on safe ground.  As long as we don’t try to do it but as long as we wait for Him to do it.  After all, Children, we’ve seen
enough imitation and enough of so-called this and that, that we ought to wait
for something real.

Like I said, I wouldn’t be satisfied
if the Holy Ghost fell and everybody spoke with tongues—that
wouldn’t satisfy me.  I want
to see happen just exactly what happened on the Day of Pentecost and if God
brought a Sound then, He will have
to bring a Sound again.  If the
Pillar of Fire came, it will have to come again; and if the people were filled
the Holy Ghost like they were there, it has to do it again; and it has to write
another Book of Acts out behind it. There has to be an exact Church, an exact
Bride, just exactly like that one or it isn’t the Bride.

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD -
WORSHIP

You go into a service, I believe, where a
real spiritual assembly is, people worship the Lord the way they want to.  If you don’t want to raise your
hands and praise God, don’t raise them; if you don’t want to,
don’t raise them.  If you want
to sit there and cry and whisper and make love to the Lord like that,
that’s all right.  But, you
see, just because maybe this brother over here does this certain way,
don’t you do it that way, if you don’t want to.  (See?)  You worship the Lord the way you want
to, then you have freedom of the Spirit and then you won’t be too noisy
and you won’t be too….
Then you go in some assemblies where there are some in there that want
to praise the Lord, (then you go in there) but certain things are said, then they
are all too scared to worship the Lord on account of “church
order.”  To me now, that
congregation is bound—no liberty of the Holy Spirit—but (See?):
tactics of the devil.  What is it?  To get your congregation cold.

And then, if you go the other hand, until
you get it in a bunch of fanaticism—just no quality of the Holy
Spirit—just noise….
But, oh Lord, for a people to go down the middle of the road today.  If we could….  God, the sovereign Grace of God, take us
down the middle of the road: that we’ll love the Lord; we’ll read
our Bible—not read our Bible and come up with some kind of a personal
revelation—but just love the Lord and read the Bible.  You will get revelation if you love the
Lord.  Just read the Bible; just
pray; give up some meals for the Lord, fast, pray; read your Bible; come to
service and wait, wait.  The
commission is wait there for the Holy Spirit to come.  Oh, I don’t know how to tell
it!  But I wish that I could just
impart to people how that I think that you can just walk down the middle of the
road.  (See?)  You worry about people.

Conclusion
>>>