In this sermon, the preacher shares a powerful testimony of a man who had lived a life of violence and crime. The man confesses to being a murderer and expresses a desire to be saved by God. Miraculously, God does save him, demonstrating His ability to transform even the most hardened hearts. The preacher also shares about a specific incident where God instructed him to have an organ in the church, despite the congregation's initial resistance. The sermon concludes with a call to spread the message of revival and to expect great miracles through prayer.

This is J.D. Brogdon. I'm going to try to tell you an experience that happened in my life in 1960, in the month of September. One of the greatest experiences that I've ever known, personally, happened in my life and to the church that I was pastoring and to the county and the surrounding area in western North Carolina in September 1960. I've been asked many, many times. I've had people to ask me to write out a manuscript or to write out the story or to record it or put it down somewhere that it might be shared with other Christians, especially other pastors and other preachers, that, like all of us, get discouraged. We get sometimes to thinking, well, the time of great spiritual experiences and supernatural experiences with God must be a thing of the past. I have a great number of young preachers that I am constantly in contact with now that I feel like this would be a blessing to them because they know me and they have depended on me for strength and leadership and encouragement down through the years. So I'm going to try, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to try to relate to you what happened. This all happened at the Turkey Creek Baptist Church in Pennsylvania County in western North Carolina in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm sure some of you have been to the Asheville area and the Cherokee and Gatlinburg and all of the tourist areas. Well, Brevard, North Carolina is in Transylvania County and it's both industrial and a lot of retired people in the area and it's just a mixture of cultures of people. And that's why I wanted to say this, that you wouldn't think that we were just dealing with one particular class of people because we have all classes. We have professionals, we have the theater, we have all kinds of sports and we have just a general mixture of people. All the weather was so beautiful in this September of 1960 and our church was just in a state of spiritual excitement. You know, we've been for some time having an experience with the Lord and it seemed like our church had just reached a place where we was expecting anything from the Lord. I believe whatever the Lord had sent us, it wouldn't have caught us off guard. And I believe that you are going to have to get yourself in a state of expectancy. I believe you're going to have to get prayed up. I believe you're going to have to get on talking terms with God to where you can have this intimate relationship with Jesus. You know, I believe you must expect something from God if you ever get it. Now, I am an evangelist now. I'm also pastoring a church. But I've been an evangelist for some 30 years. And I've traveled all over, especially the eastern part of the United States. And I am with so many precious men of God, preachers, pastors, that I'll be honest with you, they're not expecting anything. They're not expecting anything of God. I'll go there the first night or so, the pastor will start discouraging it. Brother J.D., just don't expect a whole lot to happen. Our church is just down and bust and so. And you know, that's a perfect admittance that the pastor is discouraged, he's lost faith, and he's not expecting anything from God. Now, unless you're expecting something. Jesus said you have not because you ask not. So I'm going to add proverb to that, that you're not going to get anything unless you're expecting something. Now, I don't mean that we were worthy and we had come to a spiritual plateau of any peculiar state. Now, I am just a plain, everyday preacher of the gospel. I'm not a professional preacher. I'm one of the most unlikely persons in the world, seemingly, that God could have called to preach the gospel. I have had the most exciting life. My whole life is like a storybook. I've traveled all over the world. There's not very many places, continents, places on the main continents that I haven't been. As the old saying is, I've seen everything, I've done everything. So I'm not just trying to shoot you a line, so to speak. What I'm saying is from my heart, they are documented facts, and it's to help you, encourage you, that it is being done, it can be done, and you can have this experience if you're willing to pay the price. Now, we had got to this sinless, perfected state, which is impossible in this life, regardless of what some people think and some people say. Now, we had gotten to a place. We had moved to Turkey Creek Baptist Church, and we've had a lot of fun out of the name of the church, Turkey Creek Baptist Church, back up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was in a large church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the preacher got up to introduce me, and he said, we're so happy to have Brother J.D. Broughton, pastor of a little one-room white church up on the side of a mountain, back in the Appalachian Mountains, et cetera, et cetera. And when I got up to speak, I said, Brother Pastor, there's one of two things. You've either got the wrong preacher, or your publicity man has made a bad, bad mistake, because this little Turkey Creek one-room white church up on the side of the mountain is a half-a-million-dollar facility with 300 and Sunday schools and a state of excitement continually. And I said, there's something wrong about our communications here. So, Turkey Creek Baptist Church. It got its name because it was built right on the bank of one of the most beautiful mountain streams that you've ever seen. And they named the church after the stream. Now, we had moved to Turkey Creek three years prior to this, and where we had moved from, they had a wonderful youth program known as Inspiration for Youth. And Janie, my wife, and my daughter Ann, we only have one daughter, and we wanted to start some kind of youth work. I had been elected to five offices in the Transylvania Baptist Association, and one of my offices was Chairman of Evangelism. And we wanted to start some kind of work for our young people. So, I asked the pastors, would they cooperate with me in organizing this Inspiration for Youth of Christ work in our association with the cooperation of all the churches, and we would rotate the services from church to church. And I couldn't get one pastor in 34 churches. We had 34 churches. I couldn't get one pastor to agree with me that that was the thing to do. They were all afraid if I started something like that, that it would get out of hand and the children would run rampant and just bring chaos to the church. So, they said that they didn't think that was the thing to do, but I felt so strongly about it. So, I told Janie, I said, let's just start one in our church, and we'll have one Saturday night a month. So, we started, and it didn't take on too good. The first meeting, we didn't have a handful. So, I said, well, we won't be out done. We'll have it again next month. So, we had next month, and a few came, and we had it another month, and a good little crowd comes. And it began to create interest, and they said, why don't we have it every two weeks? So, we had it every two weeks. Then they said, why don't we have it every Saturday night? So, we started having it every Saturday night, and the momentum had grown and picked up until we were running somewhere around 200 on Saturday night. We had lively singing. We had lively music. I mean, it was Christian. None of this jivy stuff. Back in those days, of course, I realized young people were easier to deal with. I realize that now, Pastor. I'm still a pastor now, and I still deal with young people now. In fact, to the business, God has given me some of the most wonderful privilege to speak at high schools and colleges all over this country, and I am fully aware of what's going on among young people. I keep up with it right up to date. Of course, I can't say that I understand it. If you noticed, I said I keep up with it. No, I can't say I keep up with it. I kind of know what's going on. Amen? I couldn't keep up with young people. I wouldn't try. But things were so exciting, and we had five young men to dedicate themselves to God, to preach the gospel, and we had a great number of precious young girls to dedicate themselves to God and commit their lives to serving God. So you can see the setting now. This was a state of excitement. People were being saved. People were being blessed. These young people, they're not like us older people. Now, they have the bright, and they have the energy, and they'll try anything. And that's what it takes, along with some older people, to kind of keep the boat steady and not let it turn over. Now, I want you to go with me. A friend of mine was going to begin a revival meeting in his church. But before the date came, he resigned his work there. And he told me one day, he said, J.D., I've resigned, and I'm going to cancel my revival meeting with Dr. Percy Ray from Myrtle, Mississippi. Well, Percy Ray and I had become real close friends. In my opinion, one of the greatest preachers in America, and he still is. Percy Ray, in my opinion, has done more for the advancement and the cause of Jesus Christ as any other one man in the United States or the history of the Baptist denomination. Now, I know there's some that's went down in the history book. I know there's some that's went down in the halls of fame. But Percy Ray, I feel like, could be added to Hebrews 11 and to God's hall of fame as a man that's an unsung hero of God, a man that's done great and wondrous things in the kingdom of God's work here on earth. So I got on the telephone, and I called Percy, and I said, Percy, could you give me that cancellation? And he said, I'd love to, J.D., but I promised the first cancellation to six different preachers. And he said, I'll call these preachers, and I'll get back with you on Sunday morning. This was along about Friday. So Sunday morning, 8 o'clock, he called and said, I'll call all six of these preachers and can't a one of them take me at this date. So if God wills, I'll be there Tuesday afternoon, and we'll start the meeting on Tuesday night. Well, then I went on to church that morning, and I said, we're going to start a revival Tuesday night at 730. Now, I thank God for a church that'll let the pastor be the pastor. Now, I didn't have to call my deacons and said, can we have a revival? Would it be all right with you if I invited Dr. Percy Ray? I didn't have to call any committee or what have you. I just simply made the arrangement, announced it to the church, and they said, praise the Lord. You know, I thank God for a church that'll let a pastor be the pastor, let him follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and then designate the work to his deacons to assist and aid in the work of the church instead of dictating to what everything can be done and what can't be done in the church when God didn't call them to do that. God called them to aid and assist in the church, and he called the pastor to be the under-shepherd under Jesus Christ in the local church. So, Tuesday evening, about 5 o'clock, Dr. Percy Ray rolled up in the yard, got out and stretched a little bit, ate a huge supper, and we went on to the church. We lived near the church. Now, our young people had become so excited about this. Oh, they had just become so excited. It was just like Jesus was there. The young people would hurry home from school and throw their books in the house and come on to the church late in the afternoon, and we'd start some type of excitement. We didn't have any program particular, but they'd come on to the church, and the first night of the meeting, the house was packed out. Our little auditorium would hold about 350 or 400 people, and it was packed out, and five precious souls were saved that first night. Well, then that just set the young people on fire. Now, we hadn't had any preparation. We hadn't had any prayer meetings, although we'd been praying. We prayed all the time. We was kind of like the old lady was, sitting on the front porch rocking, and a tornado was coming, and the people were all running to get in their storm shelters, and this dear old saint of God was sitting out on the front porch rocking, and they said, Aunt Susie, you'd better run for your life. Said, you'd better get to praying. Said, there's a tornado coming. Said, you'd better get to praying. She said, Lord, honey, I prayed when the sun was shining. I ain't afraid of that tornado. So, that's exactly the way it was in our church. We'd been praying. We'd been looking forward to it. We'd been expecting it. So, we'd been seeing great miracles as a result of prayer. So, this experience was just more or less expected. We was expecting something great and unusual and miraculous to happen. Now, the meeting went on every night, house full, souls saved. Well, three or four nights, along about the last of the week, people were coming. We couldn't see them. We had every chair that we could get out in the way, and I'm glad the fire warden didn't come. He had me to close the whole thing down because you couldn't get in or out or anything else. The vestibule was full of chairs. You couldn't get in the house. You couldn't get out. And after, along about the last of the week, they even got to standing in the banister back behind the pulpit. People were coming till we couldn't see them. We had every chair and every bench and everything else. By the weekend, we had such an overflow crowd till we just couldn't do anything with it. On Sunday morning, we had too many people. We couldn't park the cars. And on Sunday night, well, that was just, that was just, we didn't know what to do with it. Now, the second week started. Now, every night, we were having souls saved, 25, 30 people being saved, great host of people coming, getting problems in their lives, straightened out. We heard and experienced some of the most unusual, unbelievable confessions to sin and seen God forgive people and seen God clean up people's lives and set them on the right road and head them out in the right direction. And that's been 20 years and some of them are still Sunday school teachers, deacons, leaders in the churches. They've never gone back in sin since then, many of them, hundreds of them, hundreds of them. We estimated somewhere between 500 and 700 people were saved. Now, you see, we couldn't keep account of them because there were so many people being saved. They were saved out in the yard. They were saved in the Sunday school rooms. They were saved in the vestibule. They were saved, it got to where there wasn't any altar because the people were all sitting in the altar. So wherever a person was arrested by the Holy Spirit, a personal worker would get to them and just deal with them there because there was no stirring around. I suppose we were having about, on an average of about 50 conversions a night by the second week. And by the last of the second week, everything had just got out of our control and we'd just give up and turn it over to the Lord. While we had to have a great host of police to direct traffic, we had to have police escorts, we had to have record service, we had to have people to keep order out in the yards. Now, can you imagine us having somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people in a church that seated about 350 or 400 people? And we had to have someone out there patrolling to take care of the tumult. While there were con artists, there were thieves, there was everything you could think of accumulating. You see, when something like this happens, it's so unusual. And nobody can explain it. Nobody knows what's going to happen next. It's unpredictable. So nobody can plan anything because you don't even know what's going to happen next. So we just finally turned it over to God. While they tore the restrooms up, they tore up the other facilities, they was tearing the chairs up, they was tearing the benches down. And we thought the bad street was going to fall in with all the people just standing just as thick as you could stand in the bad street. So we just said, Lord, we just can't preserve this any longer. It's your building. It's your facilities. Now we're just going to turn it over to you. In fact, about all we know to do now is get out of the way. Just get out of the way. Oh, how it reminded me of the Pentecostal experience. Now, I know God doesn't have but one Pentecostal experience as recorded there in the book of Acts. But I believe God has many great outpourings of his Holy Spirit. Now, I've got sense enough to know, and I know enough about the Bible, that God's not going to send another exact experience because that was the coming of the Holy Spirit to take up his ministry here on earth. Now, I know I'm not calling this a Pentecostal, a Pentecost experience. But this was a coming in great power of the Holy Spirit of God where the people acted peculiar, where people didn't know what was going to happen next, and I suppose if there'd have been foreigners there, they'd all been talking in their native tongue. Now, there's just no way that I can relate to you what a state of excitement, of ecstasy, that you couldn't explain. You could get in this, and you'd say things and do things that you didn't even realize what you were doing. You didn't realize what you were saying. I've seen business professional men and women come and weep and confess their sins to God and ask God to forgive them and for God to help them with their warped and tangled lives. They wouldn't have done that under ordinary circumstances for nothing in this world. Now, we had people coming from North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, while there was one group of people chartered a plane from Tampa, Florida and flew in to get in this great excitement. I met a missionary last week. Now, I'm taping this around Christmas time and he was home and I just happened to meet up with him and he said, Brother J.D., oh, let me tell you how this experience, along with you, changed our lives. He and his wife were young people and they dedicated their lives to God to be missionaries. So they came and got in this meeting and spent this time in this meeting and their lives have never been the same. He said the experience of this meeting so challenged and motivated them that they've both been on the mission field now in South America for over 20 years. And I was thinking about another experience. One of my dearest spiritual friends, Carl Triplett. Carl Triplett was pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Kingsport, Tennessee and he didn't know about this. So he stopped by to see me one day. He was going through the AM and he stopped by to see me one day and we told him what was going on. So he said, Well, I believe I'll stay for the services tonight. So he stayed for the services that night and got so caught up in them till he went to the telephone and called his home and associate pastor and said, Pastor, you take over. Pastor said, I've got in something here that I've just become hypnotized and I can't get away. I must, as Paul would have said, I am compelled to stay here. I am compelled to stay here to see what's going to happen. So he stayed for two or three days and they had a tremendous explosion at the Eastman plant there in Kingsport and several of his members was hurt. So he said, I'll run home and see about those that are hurt and I'll be back as quick as I can. So he went home and did his pastoral duties and came right back. Oh, I'll tell you, each night was a new explosive experience. There was no two nights alike. Every night was a new experience, high explosive experience. People were coming in their sins, murderers, prostitutes, actresses, business and professional people, coming unashamed, weeping, confessing their sins, asking God to forgive them. People would come three or four o'clock in the afternoon and park out in the parking lot and they'd bring their little bag lunch for supper and along about five or six o'clock they'd eat supper. They wanted to get somewhere close enough to the church. They didn't care about getting out. They were just worrying about getting in. Now, you know, most people when you go to a football game or you go to a Bible conference or a convention, you can't enjoy it like you should worrying about trying to get out of all that traffic entanglement. Well, people were so concerned about getting in, they said they'd worry about getting out when the time come because they didn't care what time they got out. It might have been two or three or four o'clock in the morning before they got out anyway. So people would come two or three or four o'clock in the afternoon and bring their lunch and have a little early lunch and people would get out of the car. They'd step out of the car and fall under deep conviction and begin weeping and saying, Oh, God, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me, God, and forgive me of my sins. The property was so electrified with the spirit of God till people would step out of their car and fall under conviction. Our house was right near the church. It stayed open day and night for almost a month. People would bring food. People would bake a ham and bake a hen and fry up a whole bunch of chicken and make potato salad and make gallons of tea and bring fresh milk and buttermilk and that person could eat a whole pound of cornbread and half a gallon of buttermilk just almost any evening. And tomatoes were still in and I can see them till now just break a tomato open and put a little salt on it and eat those tomatoes and cornbread and buttermilk and tell the folks just keep that cornbread and buttermilk coming in. But no one, there's no one, I don't suppose anybody but Jamie and Ann and Percy and me really knew the heart or the core of this situation because we was trying to live in the house and people are coming and going, people we'd never seen before, didn't know who they were, they'd just come in and make theirself at home and eat and sit around, lounge around and it was just kind of like a USO club and I don't know if you can imagine this going on 24 hours a day now for over three weeks, for about three weeks. And the church building stayed open night and day while they was coming and going all hours of the night, all hours of the day, night after night, Percy and me and some of the other workers, we prayed all night. My knees were so swollen and so blue till I walked around stiff-legged like both legs was broke, like I had a brace on both of my legs and that Percy, I've seen him stay on his knees for the hours and hours and hours. It was nothing to stay all night. People get under conviction and they couldn't leave. I've seen people stand under conviction, under such deep conviction that their body was as stiff as a wooden chair. I've seen them stand and hold on to the back of the bench till 12 o'clock or after midnight. They couldn't let go of the bench, they wouldn't let go of their sins, they wouldn't surrender to God and they stood there under a spell and just wringing wet with perspiration and standing hold to the seat there from say 9 or 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock. People would go around and pray for them, they'd try to talk to them and the person was just under seemingly a hypnotic spell. And until that person made some kind of a decision to either say yes to God or no to God, they'd have to stand there till they'd finally say no to God, I'm not going to accept Christ. Then they would begin to come to and leave. Or they would either say yes, I will accept Jesus as my savior. Then God Almighty would just loosen and flood their soul with joy. I've seen a lady one night, she was trying to go home, it was about, well, she was trying to go to work. She was supposed to go to work at 12 o'clock. One of our big plants, Olin-Mackelson plant, their shift changed at 12 o'clock and she stayed just as long as she could. She was under deep, deep conviction. And she said, I'm going, I'm leaving. And we begged her not to leave in the condition that she was in. We went with her, we prayed with her and now this was, say like 11.30 and she said, I have to go to work. And I am leaving, I'm not staying any longer. And I seen her and we have witnesses that she went to the big double back door of the church. And when she tried to get through that door, it was just like it had a, a transparent screen over it. She would hit something and back up. And she tried again and she couldn't get through the door. And we went back there and talked to her and she said, I must go. And she'd start again and she'd get to that door and she couldn't get through the door. So she finally told her sister to go and call in and tell them that it was impossible for her to get to work that night. Now, every day now, can you imagine how young people was getting higher and higher. They were leading people to Jesus. They got to where it's school. They'd go to school every morning and they were so kept up on this spiritual experience till they'd stay at the church sometimes till 12 or 1 o'clock and then you know they had to get up at 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock and be at school at 8 o'clock. And they'd get in school and they would be so excited. They began to want to tell what had happened. They'd ask the teacher could they tell the class what had happened to them the night before. And it got the school in such a state of excitement that every day the teachers complained about their classes being so disrupted by those fanatical children from Turkey Creek Church. Now, it got to where that there was 5 or 10 school, high school students saved a day. They went around singing praises to God. So the principal finally just gave them a room and says would you please confine all this fanaticism to that one room. So they would go in there and they would sing and they would take unsaved boys and girls in there and deal with them. I bought them all New Testament and marked them the places where they could find it readily. And it got the school in such a state the school board met and the superintendent of education called me and he said, Mr. Brogdon. I said, yes sir. He said, you come down here. The school board wants to meet with you in such and such a place. And we must meet with you. And I said, well what seems to be the trouble? And they said, you're causing such a disruption in the school system that something's got to be done and the school board has instructed me to have you to come down that they wanted to meet with you. And I said, well now brother, if you want to meet with me you'll have to come out here and see what's going on and see who's causing all that trouble. And I'll be glad to talk to you, bring the whole school board and come out here anytime it's convenient with me, but I'm not coming down there with you and your school board. If you want to see me you'll have to come out here to the church. Now, I want you to notice they wouldn't come. They wouldn't come within a mile of that place. When I'd go to camp I could look up when I got into a little town I could look up in my mirror in just a few minutes and I'd find a police car following me. And I'd turn to the right and the police car would turn to the right. I'd turn to the left and the police car would turn to the left. And they'd follow me all the time I was in town. So, one day the children called from school and says, could you bring us about 25 New Testaments, said we could really use them, said we've got several we've led to the Lord and said we'd like to give them a New Testament and I said I'll be down there in just a few minutes. So I started high school and I was going down the road and I just happened to look up and there was a patrol car behind me and he sounded his siren and I pulled over and I said, what's the trouble, officer? He said, the trouble is with you. He said, you're speeding. I said, you're kidding. He said, yes you are. And I said, how fast was I going? I was speeding five miles an hour, he said. I don't know. I couldn't say I was, couldn't say I was. But he said I was speeding five miles an hour. So he arrested me and took me to the county jail and booked me and I had to get a bondsman to come and go my bond to keep them from locking me up in the county jail. I got a regular bondsman to come and go my bond so that I wouldn't have to be locked up. And they tried me in superior court. They tried me with the murderers and all the more serious. Superior court is the last court before you go to the state supreme court. And they tried me in superior court for speeding five miles an hour over the speed limit. And when the judge read the warrant, he said, what in the world is this? And it provoked him so that he rebuked the officer and threw it out of court. But it took me three months of legal processing and all of this mumbo-jumbo to get out. Well, that's exactly what they intended to do. You see, when you get the name of being a troublemaker, and I had really caused them a lot of trouble, they say, because boys and girls were getting saved and teachers were getting upset about their sins and church members of all these other churches in the county, they'd come out to our revival and get under such deep conviction and they'd go home and wrestle with it until three or four o'clock in the morning and get up and call their pastor and the pastor would have to get up and go to their home at three or four o'clock in the morning or even the person would come to the pastor's home at three or four o'clock in the morning. And they said, oh, that J.D. Brockton, what he needs is running out of the country. And if they could have gotten any grounds, that's exactly what they'd done because it was taught. Several of the fellows tried to figure out some way that I could be ostracized from the fellowship, etc. But they never did come up with anything. The school board didn't and the law didn't and the ministerial association didn't. But I must have really been making a lot of people miserable. Now, they were blaming it all on me. Now, all of these religious leaders, why didn't they blame God with that? I tried to explain to them that I had no control. I didn't start it. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't control it. But they still said that I was to blame for it. And I took the blame, glory to God. Oh, let me tell you something. As Paul the apostle says, I counted a great honor, a great privilege, just to bear the suffering of my Lord. Now, Jesus did so much for me. I'm not comparing this with his experience. God forbid. And don't you misunderstand me either. But I'm saying this. Unless you know what you're getting into, if I was you, I wouldn't pray for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now, if you don't have some spiritual fortitude, if you're the type of person that you can't take it. Now, I'm serious. If I was you, I wouldn't pray for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Because when he comes in mighty power, he's going to change your routine. He's going to change your church. He's going to change your community. And he's going to change your popularity. Because the Holy Spirit, believe it or not, my brother, my sister, is not as popular as you think he might be. Because Jesus said when he'd come, he would be a divider. He would divide families. He would divide friends. He would bring a sword, he said. So, as I said a while ago, we were having somewhere around 1,500 to 2,000 people. So the yard, the parking lot, the highway, and everything was so full that we had everything that you could think of going on outside the church while the service was going on while Percy was preaching in the church. Now, we had little services going on all outside the church, and there were people getting saved. I'd say there were 20 to 25 people getting saved outside the church or maybe more than that. Because see, most of the people were outside the church building. So I'd say that, well, I'd say that 30 out of 50 a night was getting saved outside the altar, back in the Sunday school rooms or wherever they could get somebody along to talk to them, take them out to their cell. And we had personal workers all over the place. I thank God. You see, God had been preparing us just like he prepared Moses to go in and lead his people out of bondage in Egypt. God had been preparing us for this. Because I had taught these young people how to lead people to Christ. And I had a great number of young people that were experienced in soul winning. Now, I won't ever forget, I won't ever forget some of the services that we had. They went down in my mind and I'll go to my grave with these very vivid experiences still in my memory. I know one night a man came down and I met him and I said, Sir, why did you come? And he said, Preacher, I said, I'm a criminal. He said, I'm a murderer. For 17 years, he said, I've been running jute joints and taverns and all around this area. He said, I've beat up and I've cut and I've shot people all around this country. But said, he told the date. Said, I killed a man and I'm out on bond now, he said, waiting to be tried for murder. But he said, something strange has been happening to me here lately. And said, I heard about this meeting over here and I've come tonight to see if God would save a murderer like me. Well, to save time and a long story, God saved him. God saved him and the man left that night, a saved man. One night, Percy gave the invitation and I couldn't get down in the altar section and this beautiful young lady, she started coming down the aisle and trying to work her way to the front. When she got to the front, she just come right up on the stage, grabbed me around the neck and went to weeping and wailing and crying. And she said, oh God have mercy on me. Well, I got to calm down enough to talk to her. And she said, I'm acting in summer stock. I'm acting in the theater. And she said, several years ago, I accepted Christ as my personal savior. Then I took up this life and went away from the Lord. And she said, something has happened to me tonight that is absolutely crushing my soul and I must, I must make things right with God. And she did. One night, a young man, about 18 years old, he came down and I met him and he said he was lost. I knelt with him. Now this was in the tent after we had moved to the tent. And I knelt with him and I prayed and prayed with him, went through the plan of salvation with him, showed him in the Bible how to be saved. And he said, preacher, there's just no use. He said, I can't accept Jesus Christ as my savior and go to heaven and my mother and daddy's lost and they'll go to hell. And he said, I just can't stand the thoughts of going to heaven and my mother and daddy go to hell. But he said, I tell you what, I'd be willing to go to hell if God had saved my mother and daddy. I said, where is your mother and daddy, son? And he raised up and pointed to his mother and daddy back in the audience. I went back and it just so happened that the daddy and mother were sitting on the end of the bench. And I told the daddy exactly what his son had said. And I said, sir, could you stand back with such love and compassion as this that your son said he'd be willing to go to hell if God had saved you? And I said, would you not come and accept Christ? He said, yes, I will. He'd come out and I went with him down to the altar and he made a professional faith. I went back and told the mother the same thing. She came and was saved. And then I turned to the boy and I said, son, now God saved your daddy and mother. Now then, would you accept him? And he was saved also. I just want to give you some real experiences that was happening every night. Something like this was happening every night. Now, we had one young man. He's a pastor of a large church in the state of Texas. He got the captain of the football team to come one night. Now, in a little town with a red-hot football team is just about the most elevated position you can be in. So he got this young man to come and when the invitation was given, Bob got him to come on the invitation and he was trying to get him to accept Christ and he said, Bob, all of my folks are Presbyterian. My grandparents, my parents are Presbyterian. And he said, if I ever get saved, I'll get saved in a Presbyterian church. He said, I can't be saved in a Baptist church. That would tear my people up. He said, if I ever get saved, I'll get saved in a Presbyterian church. Bob said, get up. And they got up and they made their way out of the church. Bob put him in his car, took him all the way to Brevard, and just, it was on a Saturday night, and just as God would have it, the front door of the Presbyterian church was open. So they went in the Presbyterian church, went down to the altar, bowed in the altar. Bob went through the plan of salvation with him. He accepted it and they got up and they come back to Turkey Creek and announced his salvation. Now, our church building was a brick building. It was a good, strong building, but two weeks of this had just about ramshacked it. Now, it looked like a tornado or something had happened. Chairs were turned over and scattered all over the building, benches turned crossways, tables out of their place. Wasn't anything that seemed like in its place. So Percy said, I think the thing we ought to do is send for my tent. It seats 1,500 people. So he set down and Nathan Smith brought his tent up on a truck. And the day it got there, I'll never forget. That was one of the most exciting days of all my life. We went out there in a big field behind the church and spread that big old canvas out and Mrs. Whitmire, she made a pot full. Now, when I say a pot full, it's more like a wash pot full, not just a little teeny pot. And she made a pot full of dumplings, chicken dumplings, enough for everybody there. And we worked on that tent. Man, we had a great host of people. People were just in such a state of excitement and we were saying and praising God. Now, the meeting had been going on for two weeks. And Whitmire family was serving them chicken and dumplings and I mean, well, it was just something that you can't imagine what it was like. And there was a certain place that we were all walking. We took a fence down. We took a fence down and it was just an old fence row and there was little old grass and weeds there where the fence had been. And all of us had been stepping over there. And one man said, Preacher, come here a minute. And I went over there and he said, look over there. And a huge copperhead snake was clawed up right where all of us had been stepping over him all that time. I guess three or four hours we'd been stepping over that little path. We'd been stepping over that copperhead and God had paralyzed that copperhead and he hadn't even attempted to bite anybody. So, the place was so supercharged with the power of God even the snake couldn't even bite. Now, one of my members, he said, Preacher, I'm just going to bring my tractor over here and just leave it. He said, there's so much getting stuck and hung up with cars and needing cars drug out and can't get started. So he just brought his tractor over and left it. And we just worked it good trying to get people started and out of jams and out of ditches and everything else. Now, this had gone on nearly a month, nearly the whole month of September. And Brother Ray said, Brother J.D., I think that God would have us to close your dam. I think we need to start closing out because I feel like that this would be pleasing to the Lord. I think God is ready for us to start winding down. So, we began winding down and I know the day that we tore the tent down, that was one of the saddest days. You're talking about a happy experience when we put it up. It was just as sad when we took it down. And we took the seats up and hauled them away. But, let me assure you that the Spirit didn't leave. Now, the Spirit wasn't ready to quit. The Spirit was just going up, up, up and miracles, miracles, miracles. That was the most miraculous but that's what scared people. You see, you was either with it or you just absolutely couldn't comprehend it. You couldn't cope with it. You was either with it or you just couldn't cope with it at all. Let me tell you two or three things to explain what I'm trying to talk about. One Thursday night, after the meeting was over, God said to somebody, we didn't have an organ because our people didn't like organs and they just said they didn't feel like that the church ought to have an organ. So, I hadn't insisted on them getting one. So, the Lord said, I want an organ in that church and I've laid it on the heart of these people to give the church an organ. So, you get up on Sunday morning and tell them that the ones that I have told to donate an organ to this church, I want it done today. And I said, Lord, I can't do that. They don't like organs. They don't want an organ. And, I won't do anything but stir up trouble if I try to insist. The Lord said, I'm in charge of this. You just tell them what I've told you to tell them and I'll do the rest. So, Sunday morning, I got up and I said, I have a message for someone in the audience. It's not someone in the community, but it's someone in the audience. That God has told them to give an organ to this church. And now, I've told you. Now, whoever you are, then now the responsibility is yours. So, when I gave the invitation, just as quick as the invitation started, this lovely mother and wife came down and she said, Pastor, I'm the one that God told to give the organ. She said, God's been dealing with me to give it, but she said, I didn't think that it was really the Lord. I thought it was just me and my emotions, but she said, the organ will be here by next Sunday. So, she went to work on Monday and the devil told her that the preacher had just got her excited and that really wasn't of the Lord. So, she said, Lord, if you'll just, when I get home from work this afternoon, you let them be advertising in the newspaper about organs and that I won't question you anymore. And when she got home, she ran to the paper box, got the paper out of the box, ran in the house, opened up the paper and there was a quarter page ad advertising Baldwin organs. And she said, Lord, I'll never question you again about this. She said, I'm going over to see about buying an organ. So, the young man went with her and she said, she didn't even know where the, she looked in the paper and got the address, but she'd never been to the store before. And she said, going over there, the Lord showed her, now, she's not an emotional person. She is just not the type of person that gets all shook up and highly emotional. But she said, while they were traveling to Asheville, that the Lord had showed her the inside of that music store and it showed her where she'd come in the front door and where to go and where the organ was. So, she said, when she opened the front door and walked in, said it looked familiar. So, she just walked right on in the store and walked right up to the organ and the man come up and said, could I help you? And she said, yes, I want to buy this organ right here. So, she bought the organ, had it delivered and it was a little spinet, a French provincial spinet ballroom organ. But it made such beautiful music. Oh, it was just beautiful. And we had a mahogany piano and two or three weeks went by and I asked her one day, I said, could I have your permission to take this organ back and exchange it for a mahogany organ that will match our other instrument? She said, Pastor, I've done what God told me to do and I'm through with it. She said, now, that's up to you and God for the rest of it. So, I contacted the music store and asked them, could I exchange the organ for a mahogany one? They said, well, certainly. So, they brought a piece of music. It went to growling. It went to popping. It went to carrying on. She didn't know whether it was going to come out like she was playing it or not. So, when the music part of the program was over, she went and sat down and every little bit the organ would start growling. Oh, it made an awful fuss and popping and cracking. And the organ would growl and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack crack and and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and crack and and crack crack and crack crack and crack and crack and crack and crack crack and crack crack say a few words about the aftermath of the meeting. Now, I told you about the great tumult that took place in the school. I've become one of the most despised persons in all of this area. Other preachers didn't want to be seen talking to me. People were afraid of me. I had one member that ran a beauty shop, a large beauty shop, and she told me one day, laughingly, she said, let me tell you what I heard yesterday. I heard these two ladies talking. One of them said, do you know J.D. Brogdon? The other one said, yeah, I know him. She said, well, they tell me that he is a demon. And she said, you know what they tell me? That if you look him in the eyes when he's talking to you, you'll begin to feel so peculiar and he'll put a spell on you. She said, if he ever starts to talk to you, she said, look off and don't look him in the eye. Well, the school board was on the outs with me. The faculty at the school was on the outs with me. The ministerial association was on the outs with me. So I've never in all of my life spent such a dark and lonely time for the next about two years. Now, I know, I know what it is to live like old John the Beloved on the Isle of Patmos. Unless you've ever had an experience like this, you don't understand what I'm talking about. And at the end of the 1960-61 school term, the faculty got together and all agreed that the greatest thing that had happened in that school year was the revival that changed the conduct and changed the spirit and atmosphere of that school. And they voted that that was the greatest thing that had happened in that school year in that school. But you know, they never did tell me. They never did tell me that they appreciated. You see, they said I caused it, but then they never turned around and told me the good part about it. I was an outcast by my brother preachers. They didn't want to be seen with me in public. They made jokes about me. There was a period that I only had my Heavenly Father to comfort me and to walk with me and to love me. I got threatening letters. They wrote threatening letters to school about my daughter that was in high school, accused her of all kinds of unchristian things. They made attacks on her in school. They made attacks on us. Preachers canceled their revivals with me. They said that they couldn't have me because of all the things that had happened. And I suppose that this was the darkest days of my life. But you know, the darker the days, the brighter Jesus shined. I've never had such intimate relationship with Jesus. You know, there was an old song, Jesus and Me. You know, I've never known this intimate relationship with God like this before because I guess I had too many earthly friends and activities. So I finally gave it up about 1963 and left Brevard. But you know, God was so big and great and miraculous in my life. God let me move on to build three great churches. Brother Bill Chapman has become a dear friend of mine in the last little while. And he's been affiliated with one of the churches in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He knows what I'm talking about when I say God built in a great church. I'm talking about within and without. My life seemed like has been supercharged with the Spirit of God. It seems that I just live in a state of excitement. I believe if I had to get down on a low level with the mediocre Christians, that I'd rather be dead. Now, I'm convinced that heaven's not going to be such a shock to me, for I've had a little taste of glory. I've had a little taste of heaven experience. And I don't feel like Jesus is going to be a stranger to me because he and I have spent so much time alone together that I know he knows me and I know him. So when I get to heaven, I'm not going to have a hard time of getting acquainted and climatized because God has been so good and so gracious to this unworthy Christian, this unworthy child of God. I have said nothing boastfully. I have said nothing to exalt myself, to God be the glory and the honor and the praise forever and forever. Amen. Well, I'm quite sure that your heart has been greatly thrilled by listening to this account of the Turkey Creek Revival. Evangelist Bill Chapman gave me this tape and gave me permission to copy it so that others could hear and be encouraged in terms of revival in our day. I'd like to thank Brother Chapman for giving me permission to copy this tape and pass it on to you. And let me encourage you to pass it on to other pastors and Christians that their hearts might be stirred for revival.