I Preached Another Man's Sermon

Yesterday (4/26/26), I preached another man’s sermon!  Last week, my good friend, Pastor Jason Calhoun told me about a sermon that Pastor Nathan Holmes of the First Pentecostal Church of North Little Rock had preached.  He preached it on their mid-week service about the fear of the Lord from Proverbs 9:10. I didn’t catch it until Friday morning of that week, but I ended up listening to it twice that day and then again, another time on Saturday.  It was so compelling that I ended up transcribing it and preaching it on Sunday here in Dothan.  We rarely hear this kind of content being preached from our pulpits these days.  There were times in the past when the fear of the Lord used to be a very common subject.  I can remember being deeply moved by O.R. Fauss, Curtis Spears, and A.D. Spears preaching at the Alabama camp meetings at the old Pike Road schoolhouse back in late 1970’s and early 1980’s on the matters of the fear of the Lord and subjects like that.  They were incredibly convicting and sobering messages to hear.  I look back and perhaps some of it is nostalgic feelings but at the same time, those messages impacted me in such a way that I understand now they were greatly directional for me.      

Old Holiness Writings

Last week, I had written about an old preacher who had prayed for me when I was working a medical intensive care unit before he passed on.  My mind has been drawn to that event several times since I wrote about it.  Around that same time, our church hosted a preaching workshop that was an effort to help bivocational pastors with resources and inspiration to help with preaching.  I suppose that as the miles have clicked up in ministry, I have come to an observation that if we are called to preach, if we believe that preaching is important, and if it is one of the most regular things that pastors do, why aren’t their more efforts to help us get better at it?  I have preached more than my share of “bad” sermons, but it is not because I have neglected the efforts to improve.  I cannot even count the number of books I have read on preaching, the Logos mobile ed units I’ve worked through, the You Tube videos that I have watched, and have listened to probably thousands of sermons.

"I Pray the Spirit of Holiness on You"

I love hospitals!  Perhaps that is a strange confession to make but I spent almost 30 years of my life working in four hospitals.  The bulk of those years were spent in Flowers Hospital here in Dothan.  There is another hospital here in Dothan which a few of the old-timers remember as General Hospital, which became Southeast Alabama Medical Center, and has now morphed into Southeast Health.  I worked in their emergency department for a brief period on a PRN (as needed) basis in the late ‘80’s.  When I was in Houston attending Texas Bible College, I worked for a year at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital/Texas Heart Institute in a very busy CVICU.  It was there that the famed Dr. Denton Cooley carved out an international reputation as one of the world’s premier cardiovascular surgeons.  He had some excellent partners who did not have international notoriety but were very skilled in their craft as well.  People from all over the nation and the world came to Texas Heart Institute for their surgeries and transplants. 

O God, Please Save Me from Myself

I am presently in the process of working and preaching through Paul’s letter to the Romans. One of the most powerful things about Scripture is how that it speaks to every single aspect of the ancient church and to the modern one as well. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul wrote this epistle around 54-56 AD according to the range that many biblical scholars have placed it. As of this moment (3/4/2026), I have preached twelve messages from this and the scrutiny by which he writes is discovered with every hour of time that I spend praying and studying through the text. While I was thinking, meditating, writing, and even wrestling with the section of Romans 2:12-16 which I called, The Courtroom of the Conscience, a divine laser light began to burn through me in verse 16. It very well needs to be a standalone sermon, but I did not do so. The sharp focus has not left me now almost three days after I have finished preaching it. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ! Let that sink in for a moment!

Follow Up on the Letter that Got Me in Trouble

Last week, I wrote about one of the early Barnabas Letters that got me in trouble.  The earliest letters were all mailed out with envelopes and stamps before email was even a thing.  Then as I finally figured out email, I started gathering email addresses from various places.   If you are old enough to remember this activity, it was almost as exciting as the first login to America On-Line.  Back in the day, that was an early form of Facebook.  AOL was passed out on the small floppy disks back when our hard drives were huge sitting at forty megabytes.  I can remember getting a floppy from a cereal box and signing up with the login name “barnabas14” because “barnabas” had already been taken.  The seeming innocence of AOL was because we lived in a world where naivete was the king of the day.  As much as I have benefited from all the technology that changed our world since then, as I have aged and read and researched about the detrimental effect it has had on our world it gives me pause to think about the future.  What it holds for my grandchildren is the greatest concern that I have now.

A Story Behind this Barnabas Letter from September 12, 1995

I am reposting a Barnabas Letter that I wrote over thirty years ago.  Recently when I was trying to track down some Bible study notes, I found a treasure.  It was a three-ring binder that was full of letters that I had written to others and that had been written to me.  A long time ago, we used to write letters to each other and frankly I do miss some of those days.  I can remember the first prominent minister that I wrote a letter to.  It was to T.F. Tenney, the long-time district superintendent of Louisiana.  I had heard him preach in 1994 at our UPCI General Conference and in that message, he had mentioned that he wrote letters to young preachers and so I wrote to him one after I got back home.  I found that letter along with several others that he had written to me that had the Louisiana district letterhead on it. Two of those letters were personal letters and five others were ones that he had written to other young men. 

The Crucial Impact of Some Early Teachers

Lately the seriousness of approaching my seventh decade of life has been profitable and sobering.  I think that one of the specific marks of aging is that you can look back and see with greater clarity and insight as to why you are walking the present path you are on.  I have had some excellent teachers who have contributed greatly to my life.  Some of the early teachers from middle school and high school years deserve another day of recollection to honor them.  But my thoughts have been with three of them in the range of 1985-86 when I was in RN school.  It is almost shocking when December of 2026 arrives that I graduated from RN school forty years ago.  I am in a different place now than what I anticipated on that night that I shook that hand of Dr. Nathan Hodges at that commencement ceremony.  But I can acknowledge clearly that the Lord has directed everything in my life to this point and I am in belief that He will continue to do the same until I reach the finish line. 

The three teachers that my reminiscing recalled were all biology teachers at Wallace Community College in Dothan.  Back then everything was on a quarter system, not a semester structure as it is now.   It was the winter quarter of 1985 and I was barely eighteen years old.  That time stamp allowed me to be dropped into the first of two required quarters of Anatomy and Physiology.  The teacher of A&P showed up late that January morning, I think it may have been 15-20 minutes or so before he arrived.  I had heard about him by reputation but had not seen him until that morning.  He was a tall burly guy named Gerald Bryant.  He shows up in a beaded and fringed-sleeved deer skin jacket, a red checked flannel shirt, blue Levi’s, and some of the craziest looking boots that came just below his knees.  He had his Levi’s tucked into them and he looked more equipped for a mountain hike than to teach an A&P class.  Long-haired with a massive Duck Dynasty beard thirty years before Robertson boys ever showed up.  It was a little shocking for me due to my very sheltered upbringing at home and the classes at Rehobeth High School. 

2026 Goals/Resolutions--Number 4

I look forward to every New Year’s Day on January 1.  Sometime when I was in my early 20’s my mother-in-law bought me a Day-Timer leather calendar with the annual insert.  It was the A5 size and I used it almost religiously for years until the upgraded electronic gadgets and calendars took over.  I can remember using both Day-Timer and the Franklin Covey planners simultaneously trying to keep up with time management.  During those days, you had to order them with a catalog usually by late October and early November so you would be able to have it ready by January.  I can remember when they went from the basic calendar packages to themed settings—leadership, patriotic, travelers, and so forth.  The Franklin Covey inserts were really high end and would be sent to you in a metal tin box so you could save them after the year had ended.  I have several of them packed away from years ago. 

Another thing that I started doing was around the beginning of December, I would start mapping out a list of sorts to sort of move me in a direction to accomplish some goals.  I can remember reading Stephen Covey’s books about the seven habits of highly effective people and what he later wrote about—the eighth habit.  Other time management authors like David Allen, Peter Drucker, Brian Tracy, Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson, and Jim Collins were books that I found myself tracking through.  Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that however you spend your time is how you spend your life.  I know that might not be so profound, but its simplicity makes it worth digging into. 

Lessons from Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan--Part 2--Vanity Fair & It's Challenges to Us in 2026

I am writing another continuation of the previous post about the lessons we can learn from Pilgrim’s Progress in 2026.  Specifically, I want to go back to the treacherous trap called Vanity Fair.  A dangerous city that all travelers must go through on their way to the Celestial City. 

Just as a brief reference point, the whole seed of the idea for this was a sermon/Bible study that I developed after a late-night conversation with Pastor Douglas Walker.  He had moved to Calgary, Alberta to take the pastoral leadership at Truth Church.  The conversation had stirred my soul and mind with some thoughts concerning modesty.  That word is somewhat ancient for a lot of us now and I really believe that we are lesser for it both spiritually and mentally.      

Lessons from Pilgrim's Progress--Vanity Fair & Its Challenge to Us in 2026

In and around the Barnabas Blog you will find a host of references to Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.  Part one was written in 1678 and part two was published in 1684.  Over the years I have collected various copies of it.  The nicest one is the one published by Easton Press and the oldest one is from the 1890’s that I found in a used bookstore in North Platte, Nebraska when I was with Pastor Myron Powell (DSupt/NE).  I have multiple copies of paperbacks by Oxford Press, Penguin Classics, Barnes & Noble Classics series, Baker Books, Dover, and several independent publishers that serve the homeschool community.  I am always interested to find copies in used bookstores that have marked up margins, highlights, and scribbled notes on the inside of the front/back covers.

As I have written several times, I am indebted to Pastor John Harrell who was the long-time pastor of the Bridge City UPC in Bridge City, Texas who encouraged me to read it.  I can remember the copy that I bought in a Family Christian bookstore in Dothan.  It was The Pilgrim’s Progress in Modern English published by Bridge-Logos Publishers.  It was a paperback copy that weathered multiple backpack journeys with me to and from Flowers Hospital when I was still working full-time in one of the IR cath labs.  I look at the copy now after 25 years and the highlights and marginal notes serve almost as landmarks of a spiritual journey moving on toward the Celestial City.  If you have read it, some of this may be a bit redundant to you, however, I am going to focus on some points that brings in and around the vicious town of Vanity Fair.     

Book Recommendation--Stockholm Syndrome Christianity (Why Christian Leaders are Failing--and What We Can Do About It)--John G. West

I grew up reading books.  I am not sure if it was expected that I should read books but once I learned how to read, books became things that took my mind and spirit to places I had never been before.  I read all the Hardy Boys series, many of the biographies that were prevalent in the children’s library in Dothan, a host of stories about the advancement of America toward the west, and sports stories.  Duane Decker was a fictional writer that wrote about fictional major league baseball teams and the ups and downs of the players.  Beverly Cleary’s books about Henry Huggins were another big hit for me. 

Then I started reading the westerns that were written by Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey which led to Peter McCurtin and his Sundance series.  As I got older, I found Stephen Ambrose (recommended to me by Harold Hoffman) and read Undaunted Courage about Lewis and Clark and their expedition.  Then I started working through his books on World War II and that opened more books about the great war in the European theater.  Biographies by McCollough, Meachum, Chernow, and others were another avenue that I went down. 

Mixed in was another writer that I found about the time I started in RN school whose books captivated me for more than a decade—Robin Cook!  He has written more than 40 books, and I have read at least 35 of them, some of them multiple times.  Somewhere along the way I accidentally found A. J. Cronin whose writing, even to this day I find incredibly intriguing especially the two that I have read several times, The Citadel and The Keys to the Kingdom.  Another similar incidental find is The Lords of Discipline and The Great Santini by Pat Conroy, which pushed me to read all his other books—deep, melancholy, and provoking characters and twisting plots that have stayed with me for the long years since I have read any of his books.  I could go on and on about books and authors but that is not what this blog is supposed to be about—it is a book recommendation—so I shall commence with that task.

The Kitchen Table

I have spent a bit of time reading back through some of the old Barnabas Blog posts to stir up my thoughts and memories.  One of the series that created a “time warp” was those that I had written about the various characters of Pilgrim’s Progress.  Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was initially recommended to me by Brother Harrell, the long-time pastor in Bridge City, Texas.  As I mused on that character series, I was pulled back toward a kitchen table.  In fact, I went back and looked through my preaching record in Excel to pinpoint the exact dates that I spent at a specific kitchen table.  These dates (3/2/96; 11/22/97; 6/20/98; 12/15/01; 6/1/02; 7/26/03) were the times that I spent with the Raggio’s in Birmingham, Alabama.  These specific dates were on Saturday nights prior to me preaching at Bible Tabernacle where Brother Ken Raggio was the pastor.  All these dates were when I was still working at Flowers Hospital here in Dothan.  He would invite me up to preach and I would usually make the drive on a mid-afternoon on Saturday and stay in their home.  We would go eat somewhere and then be back at their home by 7-7:30. 

Then we would gather up at the kitchen table in their home.  These were the days when study Bibles were not nearly as available as they are now.  So, for me, I had my “go to” Thompson Chain KJV which has been my primary sword of choice for a long time now.  Brother and Sister Raggio also had Thompson’s as well.  I can’t even begin to tell you how rich the experience was at that time.  Even now, time pulls me back to those powerful moments of fellowship over the Word.  You may think that the description of powerful is an exaggeration but in my mind that word doesn’t even nearly tap what all that we would get into as far as biblical content.  Another memory that I cannot shake free of is Sister Raggio’s Bible, I have only seen one other woman’s Bible to this day that has been as marked up as what hers was.  It was a Thompson as well and there was no doubt in my mind that her proficiency with the Word was incredible.  Not only did her contributions to the discussion bear that out but her Bible was unbelievable.  The golden gilted page edges were no longer there because of constant use and there were marks all through the Scripture columns in the classic Thompson text block.  But here is another matter, she also had marked up the index and the charts that were in the back of it.  Brother Raggio’s Bible was in the same condition, well-used, marked up, prayed over and preached with.  I look back at those times with great fondness with my only regret being that I was not actively journaling at that time, so the details are now lost to time.

 

My Poor Blog!

January 17, 2026

 

Twenty years ago, I started the Barnabas Blog on a whim.  At the time, blogs or weblogs were sort of coming into existence from a variety of amateur writers and a few more serious ones on the religious scene.  I can remember there were two blogs that I do not even remember how I found them, but they had a very strong influence on my thinking at the time.  One of them is still in existence and the other one has long been reduced to an inactive state.  So, once I sort of gathered my “sea legs” so to speak, I started writing about things that piqued my interest and what I thought might gather a small following of preachers and ministers. 

 

It has been ages since I have written anything besides sermon notes and Bible studies that primarily are for where I pastor in Dothan, Alabama.  On this rainy, cold Saturday night, once again I am in my study at the Pentecostals of Dothan.  It is much larger and has a whole lot more volumes in my library than it did twenty years ago.  Twenty years ago, I was literally working out of a small room that had become a cleaning closet for the old fellowship hall.  In December 2005, I had made the transition from working full-time in an Interventional Radiology Cath lab as an RN to a very part-time basis that I would continue until the fall of 2014.  So, I had gone from a high-tech medical procedure lab to a dusty, dilapidated “broom closet” and that is where the Barnabas Blog started.  The space was 12 feet by 16 feet with a noisy window unit that cranked out very cold air but also sprayed mildew all over creation as well.  In those simple surroundings, I wrote and prayed, wrote some more and prayed some more, and wrote even more and prayed even more.  Prayer is far more important than writing, however prayer will set your mind and pen on fire while you are writing.  So, I wrote!  Honestly, I had no idea how many people would come to read the Barnabas Blog in that first decade.  It never crossed my mind that it would inspire, convict, encourage, and in some cases aggravate.  So many people came up to me at various conferences and introduced themselves as readers, to the degree that it was amazing.  Once there was a time when I got hemmed in by a couple of preachers who felt like I had no business writing content like I did.  I look back at those days and ask myself what I asked just before I started this blog post: Why did you quit writing?! 

 

Take Care Fellow Travelers

This is a snail mail letter that I send out to about 80 ministers.  

June 10, 2025

Dear Fellow Traveler,

I hope that all is well with you and with these letters I try not to clutter up your life too much with junk mail.  I frequently am in conversation with pastors and ministers throughout the apostolic movement both in and out of various organizations.  Wherever you may be serving, you need to know that I have never seen the pressure that the ministry is under at this current time so don’t fall into the lie that something is wrong with you, this is the spirit of the age.  There is much resistance to almost any kind of spiritual leadership these days and some are dealing with outright rebellion in their local assemblies.  At times it is mind-numbing and soul-withering what we have to soldier on through.  But if you are wondering, I do have your name in my prayer journal and I pray for you on a regular basis.  To some degree I was texting some of you on our prayer revival nights in a group text but have backed off from that since there were times that I felt that it was perhaps self-serving to do so.  We need the strength of the Spirit and the power of the Word to surround us because we cannot accomplish the purpose of God without it. 

North Dakota District UPCI--Day 5--Bible Study Notes--Philip Harrelson

The following notes are the actual notes that I used in the July 14, 2023 session.  As you can see there is a lot more content than what was covered in the session.  

The Saint Builds, Prays & Remains—vv. 20-21

 

• A true saint will be one who builds his life on the Word of God (v. 20a).

• A true saint will pray in the Spirit (v. 20b).

• A true saint will remain in the love of God (v. 21).

 

Jude affirms that the Holy Ghost helps us to pray.  While we are praying, there is a steady flow of the grace of God given to those who would pray.  Zechariah 12:10 is notable for its promise that a spirit of grace and supplication will come to those who are given to prayer.  A regenerate man should be drawn very easily into the presence of the Lord during his times of prayer.  The priests were to wash in the laver before they went to the altar of incense in the Tabernacle, therefore a New Testament believer needs to come to the laver of regeneration by the work of the renewal of the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5).  However, even though we are regenerated we still do not pray as we ought (Rom. 8:26) so Jude urges us to pray in the Spirit because of the need to earnestly contend for the faith.   

 

The Certainty of Death

There are times that I wonder why over the years that I have felt such clarity about the matter of life and death. The theme of the brevity of life and the length of eternity has worked its way into much of my preaching for more than 30 years. Sometimes the weighty subject of death has caused more than a few to wonder why I get so intense about it. I am now at the age where I know that my life is more than half over.
That is not necessarily a morbid thought—at least it shouldn’t be—but it is one that needs to press to the forefront of my mind so that there is little wasted time with what I have left. I am also at the age where I am looking back in a contemplative manner at some of the roads that I have traveled and some of the choices that I have made. There are some regrets I have gathered and there are some victories that are along the way. Maybe this is the pattern with most people who are at mid-life and beyond. 

Having read a lot of the works of the Puritans over the years I am reminded that throughout their many sermons and biblical writings that death was a frequent subject that they were very familiar with. Many of the people who lived during that time era knew what it was to have children to die, sometimes several children, mothers would die in childbirth, they knew what it was like for farming accidents to take the lives of loved ones, diseases that are now easily eradicated with modern medicine was not as available to them, therefore death was the great enemy that lurked about their daily lives regularly. Preachers did not shrink back from that subject in their preaching. It also caused them to fill their sermons with theological matters of heaven and the afterlife far more than what our modern pulpits do, and I think that we are theologically, spiritually, and morally poorer for that choice. 

Death from a Thousand Tiny Cuts

I was sitting across from a good friend of mine, Pastor Ben Weeks, in Sonny’s BBQ in Thomasville, Georgia, when he dropped a spiritual MOAB on me.  The picture that his words had painted were clear, obvious, direct, and almost shocking to me.  So much so that I could hardly even say anything for a good 30 seconds or a minute, the missile had pegged me right where I lived on that day.  I can remember the conversation leading up to the moment that day.  My world had been marked by some personal major health issues, an incredibly challenging building program filled with trouble, and the general hectic pace of moving through church life and my own private spiritual world.  It was on that day he told me a parable of sorts that continues to resonate even now despite the fact that it has been more than two years ago.  It had been a day of shoptalk for two Spirit-filled preachers about the need for revival, the hunger for conversions and spiritual growth among those who we were seeking to pastor, and the necessary disciplines of personal spiritual progress.  He had mentioned some sermons he had recently listened to and some that he had preached.  He also had spent some time with a couple of notable elders among us and shared with me some of their wisdom that he had gleaned.  We also talked about one of our favorite subjects as well; books—both secular and spiritual—and about the craft, the art, the work, and the discipline of preaching and sermon preparation.  What he and I both have discovered long ago about preaching is that it is more a work of the soul than of the actual preaching event itself.  (If you are wondering how I could remember these details from two and half years ago, it is not a good memory but a good journal and fountain pen) There are demands that are made on the life of every preacher from the mental, the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual zones of our lives.  

A Man Sent from God

One of the benefits of pastoring the church that you grew up in is the grasp of local church history that you are able to look to.  As a disclaimer, it was never my intention to be the pastor of the church I grew up in, it just sort of happened with God opening doors but mainly closing the ones I wanted to exit through.  My parents moved to Dothan, Alabama in the summer of 1968 which was about nine months after Brother and Sister Patterson had initially planted the church.  I was not quite two years old at the time and literally from that point on, my life was completely intertwined in the Apostolic Faith United Pentecostal Church which would later become the Pentecostals of Dothan.  My parents and the Patterson’s became so close that it was almost as if they were our extended family.  I know many of the ups and downs, the victories and losses, and saints and devils that have walked through the doors of the church over the years. 

 

In our almost fifty-five-year history, there have been a number of revivals that our church were involved in.  As a kid, I remember some of these evangelists coming through but especially those who appeared on the scene in the 1970-80s.   Revivals in those days would begin on Sunday morning and go through the following Sunday night and if the Spirit was moving, we would extend them with perhaps a rest night on Monday.  The world was a different place back then with very little distractions compared to what we are contending with now.  Seven-day revivals were pretty much the norm for a lot of churches back in the day, as they say.  Men like Aubrey Jackson, Tom Mitchell, Danny Perdew, Tom Sorrells, Reggie Dees, and others whose names have long dropped out of my memory came our way.  Some were seasoned full-time evangelists and others were young ministers trying to get their start in the ministry.  I realize now that some were showman, and some were powerful men of God.  Thankfully, the showmen were in the minority although at the time, I didn’t have the spiritual discernment to know they were showman.  In fact, I thought the showmen were pretty cool, but time has proved much about who and what they were about.  At the same time, the powerful ones deeply impacted my life even at a young age and it was in the innocence of those early altars that shaped much of who I am and what I have become now.  They fostered something deeply spiritual to which there was an almost visceral feeling that accompanied what took place in that old house on South Saint Andrews, and the old house at 1516 East Cottonwood before we finally moved into the church that was dedicated in 1976. 

 

In the almost fifty-five years our church has been in existence, there are three revivals that stand out to me like none of the others.  One of them was when Aubrey Jackson came through sometime around 1977 or 1978 or so when I was in the sixth grade.  I had no idea what the gifts of the Spirit were even about then but looking back, there is an absolute certainty that Brother Jackson was used by the gifts.  Some of the things that he prophesied had ominous outcomes on some people in our congregation and as life unfolded, it was clear that he had a gift and was very anointed by God.  But there was also the encouraging and edifying element of the gifts that Brother Jackson walked in as well and it ministered to some who are still walking faithfully for the Lord.  Another revival took place around 1979-1980 when a wild-eyed converted drug dealer came through our third building (we are now in our fourth one that was completed in August 2019).  His name was John Bliss and we had a revival that lasted for three solid weeks, every night, no rest nights, marked by prayer meetings prior to the nightly services, and it had noticeable great spiritual power.  It took our church about three days to get used to him because he was so wild-eyed.  He wasn’t a screamer that I recall but his preaching was definitely not the normal standard we were used to.  He and his wife both had come from the drug scene and it was clear that if they would have continued down that path, they would have come to a very bad end.  During that revival, there were a number of people who received the Holy Ghost and a lot who experienced spiritual renewal as well.  John Bliss had a powerful impact on our youth group at the time too.  I can remember one Sunday morning that the altar service continued well on into the afternoon and finally subsided around three o’clock.  During those days our Sunday night service started at seven o’clock with choir practice beginning at five-thirty.  On that Sunday night the church came back that night and the revival went on.  It was not abnormal for revival services to last until 9:30-10:00 at night and our church was greatly moved by the Spirit.  We still have a few people who attended the revival by Brother Bliss.  Brother Bliss was the first preacher that I can remember who always had a bottle of anointing oil in his jacket pocket and he would anoint people and pray for them no matter where they were.    

However there is one revival that stands out in my mind as probably the greatest in the history of our church.  It took place in May 2006 and there were 35 people who received the Holy Ghost during that period of time.  I can point out ten of those who have remained since that time that are still serving the Lord.  The evangelist was perhaps one of the greatest the modern apostolic movement has had in recent times.  The ministry of this man touched people coast-to-coast and from north to south in the United States.  We came into contact with him because Brother Patterson was on the steering committee for a district revival conference for a number of years and this man was one of the regular ministers at that meeting.  He first came to our church in October 2005 for three nights beginning on Friday and going through Sunday night.  There was no warm-up at all for our church with him, he walked in and the Lord immediately started using him in ways that were completely without pretense or theatrics, everything was authentic and powerful.  He preached incredible biblical messages that rarely went over 30 minutes, he was a worshipper prior to the preaching, and he worked the altars like a man driven with an incredible anointing.  I am convinced that Keith Clark was a man sent from God that touched our church in the years from 2005-2008.  After 2008, it became increasingly more difficult to schedule him because he was primarily preaching on the West Coast.  But not only did he have an impact on our church, but he influenced me in a very positive way during my times of being around him.  Much of this took place after the night services and when I was taking him to and from the airport to fly back to Houston or various other places around the nation. 

 

He was with us for the entire month of May 2006 which was five weekends because that happened to fall on a time when there were five Sundays in the month.  We would start on Friday night and conclude on Sunday night.  We regularly packed in 180-200+ people into a building that was only meant to seat a max of around 150 people.  There were people everywhere!  Chairs lined the aisles; the choir loft was packed, and we added rows of chairs in the front that as soon as the altar service started, they were quickly folded up and laid on the first two rows of pews.  Our church was literally on fire with Pentecostal fire!  People receiving the Spirit, people being renewed, life situations being worked out by the Spirit and there were even people who had demons cast out of them.  On a side note, we have almost reached a place where our churches have gotten so devoid of power that those who have unclean spirits rarely feel out of place and the devil has the ability to ride under the cover of our talented entertainment.  If we think that unclean spirits have disappeared from our days and they were only in the 1^st century we have forgotten what the Scriptures say.  Our days demand apostolic churches that are anchored by praying, anointed ministers and saints who have spiritual authority resident.  These kinds of churches are not going to be built by distracted and disinterested, prayerless, unanointed pastors and saints. 

 

Brother Clark stayed in the little apartment attached to our church and he tapped into the Spirit (and spirit) of that place.  I am convinced that churches take on attitudes, habits, and bents of the pastor, the spiritual leaders, and the people who worship there.  One of the things that Pastor John Harrell, formerly of Bridge City, told me one time was the importance of a pastor (if he was full-time) about being in the building every day and walking the halls, going through the classrooms, and moving around the sanctuary.  A pastor, a man of God, who is praying and just being in place where God had called that man to serve has a great impact on the physical plant.  That apartment was a place that many global missionaries had stayed, and I believe their own devotion had bled into the walls of that place as well.  There is something spiritual about an apostolic church that immerses itself in the presence of God and a commitment to apostolic doctrine.  That presence lingers all throughout that sanctuary during the week.  But back to Brother Clark; God would visit him with dreams and visions in our church, and it would pour out of his preaching and the Spirit of God would engulf both saint and sinner.  There were several times that he preached deeply convicting messages and would share something the Lord had shown him about individuals or even the church at large that would profoundly affect everyone who responded to the Holy Ghost.  We must continue to have that kind of ministry in 2021 and beyond.  The American and western apostolic church needs to respond to a serious call to desire and devotion to prayer, fasting, holiness, and doctrine.  We have to literally fight in the trenches against the materialism and spiritual apathy that would do its best to choke the life out of us!

 

Our church is loaded with medical professionals and one our members invited a young woman who worked in surgery at one of the hospitals in our area.  Brother Clark preached that morning and the presence of God was palpable in the building so that the entire sanctuary was turned into an altar area.  People everywhere praying, seeking, hungering for God from the front row to the back wall.  I saw Brother Clark almost literally wading through the congregation and praying for people here and there and he started moving toward the left side of the sanctuary about two-thirds of the way back.  All of this was taking place while Brother Patterson and I and many others were praying with and for people as well.  Here is Brother Clark is climbing over pews because there is no room to walk in the aisles until he gets to this young woman.  I watched him lean over and say something to her so that she was the only one who could hear what he was saying.  I saw her nod her head and then he started talking to her even more.  All of this was taking place in less than a two-minute time frame.  The next thing I see is that her hands were up, tears pouring down her face and she was praying, seeking, believing, and letting the Spirit minister to her.  Brooke Redden, who still attends our church, had brought her that morning and she was praying with her as well.  The next day at work, the young woman asked Brooke how that Brother Clark had known about her situation with such detail.  She wanted to know if Brooke, or I, or Brother Patterson had told him what was going on in her life.  Honestly, I had never laid eyes on her, Brooke had never said anything to me about her.  It was the Spirit of God working to restore and bring salvation to a person who desperately needed it.  Brooke told her that God had revealed all of this to Brother Clark.  How our churches and ministries desperately need this to be a constant in our churches!  Whatever we have to do to pray or pay the price, it is all worth it in the end. 

 

At some point later, Brother Clark and I were in one of the back-corner booths at our Red Lobster and I started asking him about how the Spirit operated in his life.  I specifically brought up this situation with this young woman because what he had said to her had been so precise that it had stunned her to know the Lord was concerned about her life.  The dreams and visions the Lord had shown him about our church were too detailed for it to have been just some generalized, vague “word” that could have fit any church in the nation.  The depth of his anointing had even caused some of our members to tell Brother Patterson and I that they did not want to come while Brother Clark was there to preach because they were afraid the Lord might reveal something to him about their secret sins and private life.  I will never forget the day that I said, “Brother Clark, how in the world have you gotten this gift, this anointing, and this power in your life?”  This kind of anointing was something beyond the norm that required more than just a perfunctory nod at God and the ministry. 

 

When I asked him that question, it was almost as if time stood still, and for a long, long time it seemed, he didn’t answer me.  I don’t know if a minute passed or two minutes but huge tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down over his cheeks and he finally answered me.  He simply said, “Pain.”  Pain in his life had ushered him into a place that most men can only dream about having with God.  Pain had pushed him to prayer.  Pain had forced him to the Word.  Pain had pulled worship out of him.  Pain had caused him to go for days without food.  Pain had removed every trapping of human relationship that he had.  He told me that pain had brought some of the most terrible and lonely hours of his existence.  Pain had left him alone with God.  Most would have dropped off into a pit of resentment and bitterness but not this man.  Pain is the forgotten gift that too many of us in the modern apostolic movement have tried to evade and shake off.  There were some challenges that Brother Clark had faced in his life that he told me about that I have often contemplated and wondered if I would have been able to stand up to them as well as he did.  I won’t divulge any of the details of it, but this pain was not just a “one and done deal” but there were several times in his life that he experienced deep setbacks and losses.  But during those days of deep mental and spiritual pain, there were some very unique visitations of the Spirit that sustained and helped him.    

 

In my Bible college days, long before I ever really knew Brother Clark, Brother Ensey had related to us some things about him that few people knew.  While Brother Ensey never divulged anything that would have been considered confidential, he was stressing to us that spiritual power and strength is often ushered into our lives by great loss and deep emotional pain.  Brother Clark had a close relationship with Brother Urshan who had helped him through the terrible time when his wife died at such a young age in the early 1970s.  Brother Urshan had been a steady voice of advice for him.  In fact, there was a period of time that Brother Urshan told Brother Clark that he did not want him to make any decisions at all until he had cleared them with him.  Too many of us scoff at allowing someone to have that much authority in our life and practice and that is perhaps why there are so few who reach the heights that God fully intended for them to have.  There were other men who guided him as well along the way to his usefulness and blessing to many.  The providence of God is always at work in our lives if we are willing to submit to the sometimes seemingly dead ends that leap up in our path.  Don’t forget that God uses will use the righteous and the rogues to help you get to the place you need to be.  Submission is a critical key for spiritual success to take place.    

 

May it be in our world that there can be a man or a woman who has been sent from God to come our way. . . but you can count on it that if they are truly one who has been sent by God, there has been some pain in their path. . . and may it be that we are going to be one of those who is sent by God! 

 

Thanks for reading. . .

 

Philip Harrelson

January 25, 2021

 

 

 

        

Why You Should Have a Prayer Bible

In a previous blog to encourage you to pray effectively, I wrote about the importance of having a prayer journal.  They are extremely useful for recording some of your prayer needs and answers to prayers as well.  A prayer journal is greatly encouraging because it can help you see the prayer needs that are being met and it can be convicting as well when it shows the way that we neglect meaningful prayer.  We are commanded to pray but it will require great discipline on our part to do so (1 Tim. 4:7-8).  There are a host of commands that we find in the Word of calls to prayer.  A prayer journal can help you to become more focused and more disciplined in your prayers. 

 

I think that most of the people who read this blog are familiar with the Pentecostals of Alexandria in Louisiana.  It is led by Pastor Anthony Mangun who has been there since the early ‘80’s and prior to that, his father, Bishop G. A. Mangun was the pastor.  One of the most important ministries of that church is the 24-hour prayer chain that has been ongoing since 1968 or so.  It is designed to follow 3-hour shifts.  A number of years ago at Because of the Times, I saw the signup sheets that are used.  They have at least three people present and praying around the clock.  Over the years, I have dropped in to pray at POA several times at varying times of the day when I was passing through the city.  I have been in there in the late evening and also in the early morning hours and there is always someone in the prayer area.  The prayer rooms used to be located in the G. A. Mangun center, but they have been moved now to the newer building that houses the sanctuary.  Two prayer areas are located to the sides of the sanctuary and in one of them is a layout of the Tabernacle where you are encouraged to pray through it as a patterned prayer.  They also have a table that has a large glass container to place written prayer needs in it.  Various prayer guides are also available and there are also framed pictures on the walls that are themed toward prayer.  It was during one of those times that I had slipped in to pray probably in the early ‘90’s that I saw several of the older saints who had open Bibles laying on the prayer altars that were in the room.  So that I would not be a nosy soul, I occasionally would slip a furtive glance over at them to see what they were doing with the Bibles.  After watching and listening to them, I realized they were praying through the Psalms.  That was the first time that I had observed this practice taking place and struck me in a very powerful way.  Some time passed before I started practicing it as well, greatly to my benefit.  I will never ever forget one Saturday night at our church that I made an effort pray the Word.  It was pushing midnight and I was alone in our old church on the front row sitting under one of the sidelights which barely illuminated the old sanctuary.  The following Scriptures were the ones I started praying through:

1 Timothy 6:11–16 (KJV)  ¹¹ But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. ¹² Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. ¹³ I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; ¹⁴ That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: ¹⁵ Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; ¹⁶ Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

 

I prayed about the things I wanted to flee from which are in the previous verses (even chapters of 1 Timothy), particularly about the trap that money can bring into the lives of ministers.  But the thought of praying about things I wanted to flee from expanded and things that I would not have normally thought of began to enter my prayers.  Next, the focus of the prayer turned to the things I wanted to follow after which are character traits that need to be evident in my life.  The same thing happened, and other character traits entered my requests to the Lord.  Then the prayer moved on to the things I wanted to fight for, and this really opened up the avenues of thought for prayer.  Finally, I let Paul help me to see what an incredibly sobering moment it would be for me to stand before the Lord and given an answer for the charge that had been laid out to all apostolic ministers who have been called into service.  From that time on, I paddled around in the shallows of having a Bible with me at all times when I was praying especially in the private times of prayer. 

Once I started praying with a Bible, I adopted a small Nelson KJV and used it much.  The only regret I have was during those days, I thought that writing in a Bible was anathema.  Even though I had seen Brother Griffin’s well-used Oxford Wide-Margin KJV and also his Dugan Reference Bible which had been very much marked up, there was still some hesitation on my part to do so.  I am now guessing that probably 25 years ago, I started marking up my Bibles.  More and more I have come to believe that marked up Bibles can help us to see spiritual progress that we are making as time marches on.  This is just food for thought; I doubt your family is going to want your iPhone, iPad, or Android when you finally pass on from this life, but they will treasure a well-marked, prayed through, and wept over Bible. 

 

What are some things you should mark up in a “prayer” Bible?  If you have a personal library either physical or digital, make your books work for you.  Look at your books as if they are tools, or even soldiers that are under your command, and get the most out of them.  Herbert Lockyer’s All the Prayers in the Bible, E. M. Bounds single volume works on prayer, Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer, Dr. Jim Rosscup’s four volumes on prayer (given to me by Pastor Tony Mansinho) of all the prayers in the OT/NT, and John Eckhardt’s prayer books are all very good tools to push you into a direction of biblically driven praying.  Read through those prayers and then outline them in your Bible.  On another practical tip as well, use Flair marker pens and take the colors and use them for a variety of themes.  However, to keep track of your colors, mark them in the front of the Bible so you don’t just begin to haphazardly mismark your Bible.  Some of the different colors I use are for doctrinal content, holiness themes, spiritual warfare, and the kingdom of God.  One of the mistakes I made early on was not have a precise color system.  What the color choices do is help you to look through a “prayer” Bible and pick up on particular themes of prayer that you need to give yourself to:  intercession, supplication, repentance, empowerment, enlightenment, and discernment. 

 

Another one of the things that praying the Scriptures will do is force you to look at verses in their proper context.  For instance, there are four prayers that Paul prayed as given in his prison epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians) that confronted some faulty understanding that I had of how God operates in the churches.  Paul prayed for doctrinal understanding, a proper foundation in Christian living, to be filled with holiness, and spiritual understanding.  When you began to pray for this in your local church especially if you are a pastor or in some role as a spiritual leader, it can really move you to a place of clarity as to what we should be praying for.  In my thoughts, perhaps the majority of our prayers are focused more on material and physical needs than for the spiritual work both individually and corporately for the kingdom of God.  There is also a wealth of instruction that can be mined out by looking at what is commonly referred to as the Lord’s prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6) which is really the disciple’s prayer.  If you truly want to look at the Lord’s prayer, go to John 17 and work through that during your prayer time and it can add so much to your understanding as to what the Lord really wanted to see happen in our lives and the forward movement of the apostolic church. 

 

Lastly, I would encourage you to let your “prayer” Bible be perhaps a different translation that you do not normally use.  I have picked up an ESV that I have set aside to use specifically as a “prayer” Bible in an effort to do all that I can to help me deepen my own work in prayer.  Next week, I will lobby for the need to have regular prayer revivals and other matters that will encourage you to foster a prayerful spirit in your local church. 

 

Again, thanks for dropping by. . .         

 

Philip Harrelson

January 7, 2021