FOUR CHURCHES near SANDY FLAT, SC, HOLD AUTUMN 2023 REVIVAL!
PASTOR PHIL LORD kicked off an AUTUMN 2023 Four-Day Revival where four pastors preached. One pastor spoke each night in a neighboring church’s pulpit as four congregations mingled at four different locations: Living Branch Ministries (LBM); Faith Temple Church (FTC); Destination Church of God (DCG); and Calvary Christian Fellowship (CCF).
Pastor Lord of CCF preached at LBM at 5:00 pm on Sun., Oct. 8. His message was “How to Live in Perilous Times.”
“The Lord tells us what to expect in perilous times and how to live during those times,” Lord said, citing 2 Tim. 3:1-17: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come… .”
“I came to speak as a watchman on the wall,” he said. “Don’t be caught with your spiritual head in the sand. Luke 21:34: ‘And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.’ Jesus is talking. Are you listening? If it [some activity] is taking more time than Jesus is getting, I’ve got to give it up.”
Each day, we should examine ourselves through the light of Scripture and get rid of the dross and impurity, Lord said.
“Let go of whatever or whoever is hindering your spiritual growth,” he said. “Watch ye therefore and pray always… People are being seduced at an alarming rate — I’m talking about in the church! Deception opens the door to more deception. Matt. 7:13: ‘Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.’”
He said that grace is not a license to sin; Satan uses false doctrine in the Church; don’t follow the path of least resistance; stick with what the Word says; souls are at stake!
PASTOR TREY THOMPSON of DCG preached at FTC at 7:00 pm on Mon., Oct. 9.
“Every eye across the world will be able to see him [Jesus],” he said, adding that people doubted that Bible statement found in Rev. 1:7, but technology will allow it to come to pass.
Satan hates the Scripture, but the Bible tells where Satan is going to end up, Thompson said, adding, “He’s the liar of all liars. Greater is he [Jesus] that is in me, than he [Satan] that is in the world!… We’re made priests unto God [Rev. 1:6]. You’ve already been bought by the price of the blood of Calvary… Thank God you’re from a royal bloodline that will never die!… He called you out of darkness into his marvelous light… He’s not the great ‘I was.’ He’s the great ‘I AM.’”
Thompson said he gets calls from people who are depressed and that we need to pray for our brothers and sisters. “John cast aside the burden of banishment and began to worship,” he said about John who wrote the Book of Revelation when he was a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos.
When Thompson’s mother passed away, he suffered depression even while preaching revivals and church services. “I was going through the motions, but inside I was tormented,” he says. “I questioned. I knew the Scriptures, but until the night I put aside everything Satan had bombarded my mind with, I never got victory.”
Sleeping little, he was miserable for months before opening his Bible to his favorite Scripture, Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
He recalled, “I said, ‘God, I don’t have the strength. I’m going to lay on your word.’ And I laid across the Bible at Isaiah 53:5… I said, ‘God, I know your blood is sufficient. That night, I re-grasped and gathered the truth in my mind to claim the victory over what was in my mind. Will you worship when the chaos is running rampant?… Push through the things around us and trust God!”
PASTOR DONNIE O'SHIELDS of LBM preached at DCG at 7:00 pm on Tues., Oct. 10. His message was “Get Ready! It’s Coming!”
“And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain” (1 Kings 18:41).
“There’s a famine of the Word in the land!” O’Shields said about today’s spiritual starvation, compared to Israel’s 3-year physical famine during Ahab’s time. Many Israelites then worshipped the idol Baal.
Elijah challenged Baal’s prophets to an animal-sacrifice contest. They prayed and no fire fell. Elijah prayed, and fire fell from heaven, burned up sacrifices on an altar, and proved God real and Baal powerless. Elijah killed 450 prophets of Baal. The famine ended; rain fell. Jezebel, Ahab’s queen-wife, vowed to kill Elijah. Even after his victory, fear gripped Elijah because of Jezebel, but he was delivered and she met a tragic death.
“We got to get ready, church,” O’Shields said alluding to persecution. “Pastors, we’ve got to preach it [the Word]. Don’t we have the gifts of the Spirit inside of us? We need to pray like never before. We need to pray for Israel [alluding to a recent attack on Israel]… If you faith is lacking, get in the Word… God inhabits the praises of his people. There’s no telling what he’s liable to do if you keep praising him!”
O’Shields said he attended, years ago, a church, where he felt that a hand touched him on his shoulder. He looked around and saw no one. He mentioned this to the minister, who said, “That happens a lot in here. You’ve just been knighted by the Sword of the Spirit!”
O’Shields asked several pastors to join him in praying for the sick and needy. A long line formed, and intense prayer and the “laying on of hands” was offered. “God, heal her in the name above all names” was heard as ministers laid hands on a lady. Several people appeared to be “slain in the Spirit.”
PASTOR RAYMOND D. BURROWS of FTC preached at CCF at 7:00 pm on Wed., Oct. 11.
Introducing Pastor Burrows, Pastor Phil Lord said, “The hillbillies have all preached. Tonight, we’re going to hear the prince of preachers.”
Burrows preached from: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Gal. 5:14); “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2); and “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith,” (Gal. 6:9-10).
Burrows told of Charles Wesley, the 18th and youngest child of his family. Wesley, a brother of John Wesley, wrote hymns. Charles and his wife saw the death of 5 of their 8 children over a 15-year span. Charles wrote around 6500 songs, including “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing My Great Redeemer’s Praise.”
“Though children were lost, hymns flowed from Wesley,” Burrows said.
He told of the Good Samaritan who showed mercy to a wounded traveler. “Talk is cheap unless it’s substantiated by action,” he said.
Burrows said St. Paul may have thought of “those who wanted a law to keep” when he said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the ‘law of Christ.’”
Burrows told of four friends who let their “sick of the palsy” friend down through a roof to get to Jesus for healing (Mark 2). “They were bearing the burden of this man,” Burrows said. He offered examples of people who bore burdens and acted on behalf for others: a centurion; Peter and John in Acts 3:3; Moses for the Israelites; Samuel for Saul and Israel; Jesus for Peter; and others.
“If you’re going to bear burdens, it will be partly through prayer,” he said. Jesus told Peter, “Satan desires to sift you, but I have prayed for you.”
Burrows said that if you’re going to get under somebody’s burden, there are going to be “works.” He told of Mr. Tony McCall, a house painter/remodeler, who offered help to a handicapped senior citizen who needs to sell his house. He praised Pastors Donnie and Dana O’Shields of LBM for their church’s food bank ministry. He told of Simon of Cyrene, a Jew visiting Jerusalem during Passover. Roman soldiers forced Simon to carry the cross Jesus was trying to carry. Simon appears to have willingly bore the cross.
“Fulfilling the ‘law’ of Christ has to do with getting under the burdens of each other,” Burrows said. He referred to this statement ascribed to the late Pastor Charles H. Cookman, an Assembly of God minister: “No one deserves to succeed until he is committed to the success of another.”
Burrows asked Pastors Lord, O’Shields, and Thompson to join him onstage. Each minister offered a prayer.
“We’re stronger when we stand together,” Burrows said.
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