Evangelist Stephen Jeffreys read

Chapter 24 from Pentecostal Pioneers and our subject is Stephen Jeffreys. Stephen Jeffreys was born on the 2nd of September 1876 in Maesteg, a mining town in South Wales. Stephen was the third of 12 children. Stephen went to work in the coal mines with his father at the age of 12. For the 23 years he spent every day working and almost every week underground from Monday to Friday and each Saturday until lunchtime. During wintertime, the miners only caught sight of the daylight on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. This was a gruelling and tough life, but this was the very lifestyle that gave Stephen his strong, stocky build that would later carry him through his preaching ministry. His father, Thomas, died in September 1895 at the age of 47 of chronic bronchitis and cardiac failure because of prolonged exposure to the appalling conditions of the Welsh mines in which he'd worked nearly all his life. Stephen was 19 years old at the time of his father's death and his mother, Kezia, was the daughter of a Baptist minister who passed on his passionate fiery nature to Stephen. Kezia was noted for her intolerance of compromise. She could never have imagined or foreseen that three of her sons, William, Stephen and George, would be used of God to win tens of thousands of souls to Christ, to pioneer hundreds of new and see vast multitudes healed from every sickness imaginable. Two of her grandsons were also powerful evangelists, but all of this lay far in the future. Geoffrey's family attended Different Chapel, a congregational church in Maesteg. One of the sisters said that as the family grew in size, they would move home. Eventually, the family had lived in 28 different homes within the same area. One of these house moves was from Different Chapel to Shiloh Chapel at Nantiffilon, just a mile or two from Maesteg. Both chapels were associated and frequently had the same minister overseeing them. Stephen was a nominal churchgoer, worldly in mind and heart, but he did attend church faithfully and was a member of the church flute band. It is important to note that at the beginning of the 20th century, 90% of all Welsh people spoke the national Welsh tongue in their homes, at work and in their churches, but English was the language of education used in their schools. On Boxing Day 1898, Stephen married Elizabeth Ann Lewis, whose father was a deacon in Shiloh Chapel. They soon settled down into their new home opposite Different Chapel in Maesteg. They continued in a very typical Welsh manner, rearing their family and working in the mine until the Welsh revival broke out in the town of Loch Coel, about 20 miles to the west of them. It began on Sunday 13 November 1904, and its influence was almost immediately felt in Stephen's coal mine. That very week, he was struck with terrible and unbearable conviction of sin, which made him miserable. It was an awful week in Stephen's life. Other workmates, who had already been converted, were now filled with the joy of the Lord, but not Stephen. On Thursday night, during the first week of the revival, he attended a meeting in Shiloh Chapel, where his conviction of sin increased, and on Sunday 20 November, as he sat listening to his minister, the Reverend Glasnant Jones, preach the gospel in Different Chapel, he was mightily converted. He immediately experienced the wonderful joy of salvation, and to add to his joy, his younger brother George was saved that very night. 28-year-old Stephen was a new man in Christ, with a new heart and a new future. He immediately joined Shiloh Chapel as an official member under the ministry of Reverend Jones, and attended all prayer meetings with a burning passion and desire for more of God. His chief joy was open air meetings, in which the church was very active. Shortly after his conversion, he preached for the first time in the open air in Talbot Street, Maisteg, by himself. A crowd gathered to hear him, and one old lady, who was deeply moved by the fiery message, fetched an old broken chair for him to stand on, and this became Stephen's first pulpit. As it grew dark, she also fetched a miner's lamp, which he held as he preached, until he became hoarse. His preaching began with fire and passion, and it would continue to mark all his preaching throughout his ministry. After a hard day's work in the mine, he would rush home, get bathed, then attend an open air meeting in the area. As a result, he frequently caught colds. Wherever a prayer meeting was being held, you could depend on the Jeffreys being there. He continued to work in the mine for several more years. While there, he constantly witnessed to his workmates concerning their need of salvation in Christ. It was in the mine that he had the joy of leading his first precious souls to Christ. Now, the Pentecostal movement began in Britain in September 1907, with meetings being held in Sunderland, in the northeast of England. It reached the town of Gwent in Wales, 45 miles to the north of Maesteg, during November and December of that same year. The first Pentecostal meetings were then held in a congregational church. When news of this new tongue-talking movement reached the Jeffreys brothers, they were opposed to it, and in fact, they spoke against it. In the summer of 1909, Stephen's ten-year-old son, Edward, returned home from special meetings held in Cross Hands, 30 miles to the northwest, and informed them that he'd been filled with the Spirit and spoken in tongues. This was a shock to Stephen, but his son manifested such remarkable signs of spirituality that he was compelled to return to the written scriptures to study things afresh. Pastor W.S. Hill, a godly and gifted preacher whom God used during the Welsh Revival of 1904 and 1905, moved to the Calfaria Welsh Baptist Church in Maesteg in November 1908, and it was on the 3rd of June 1910, while visiting a Pentecostal church in Cross Hands, that he was also baptized in the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues. He resigned from the Baptist church and began holding midweek meetings in a home on Bridge End Road. He also held Sunday meetings in Oakwood Day School. Stephen and his young brother George attended the midweek meetings at Bridge End Road. It was at special meetings preached by Pastor Price Davis of Dallas that Stephen was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Pastor Hill moved away from Maesteg the following year, but the brothers continued in the blessing of Pentecost, and as members of the Congregational Church, Pastor Price Davis returned to Maesteg in 1911 to baptize Stephen and his son William in water. His brother George was baptized one week later. This act of water baptism cut these men off from any hope of formal ministry within the Congregational Church, where infant sprinkling was practiced. In 1912, Stephen was invited to preach for a small group of 15 believers at the Trauglin Mission in Comterk near Swansea. This was his first time to preach in a church building. It went well, so he was invited back to hold a three-day gospel campaign at Christmas time. When leaving the mine to travel to Comterk, he turned to a friend and said, well Billy, if God blesses me this time, I shall never return to the coal mine. Well, God did bless him, and those meetings continued day after day into weeks, with souls getting saved each night. Local newspapers carried the story of the mission and began to call him another Evan Roberts. Mature godly preachers who attended the meeting said it was like 1904 all over again. His message did not contain a new revelation, or a new style, or a new strategy. It was an old-fashioned message of blood atonement through Christ alone, with strong warnings to flee the wrath to come. As the meetings continued, he realized that he needed help with the preaching, so he sent for his younger brother George, who was then at Bible school in Preston in the north of England. The meetings eventually lasted for several weeks. About 145 souls turned to Christ, the sick were healed, and at least 30 people were baptized in the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues. Stephen never returned to the coal mine, and George never returned to Bible school. This campaign marked the beginning of full-time evangelistic ministry for both brothers. They received a call from Mid Wales to go to Pennymont in Radnorshire. When they arrived, they found that the meetings were to be held in a 300-year-old Quaker meeting house in a remote part of the countryside, with no houses anywhere near it. The first night opened on the 12th of February, with only 12 people sitting in the building. It was hard and cold and formal, but the two brothers returned to preach each night with fire and clarity. Their favorite hymn at the mission was, Send the Light, Send the Light, There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save, Send the Light. They sang it frequently and fervently. At this mission, the brothers experienced their very first notable and instantaneous miracle. Edith Carr was a young lady with a diseased foot who had not walked for nine months and was under threat of amputation. She sent for the evangelists who anointed her with oil and then laid hands on her in the name of Jesus. She was instantly healed, and that night she testified at the meeting. Being a good pianist, she offered her services for the rest of the mission. This was the breakthrough they needed in this hard, isolated place. As the news spread, people came from all over. As numbers grew, they used several different buildings in the area to accommodate the meetings. There were at least 51 people who believed on Christ. One visitor noted that the evangelists did not urge people to respond publicly to go to the front or lift hands or visit any inquiry room. Rather, the work of conversion was left to the Holy Spirit. Great faith came into Stephen's heart to believe God for greater things still. This was just the beginning of pioneer evangelism for him. Cecil Polhill and A. A. Boddy heard of these campaigns and came to see for themselves. They carried the testimonies and reports in their magazines. While talking personally with Boddy during the mission, the brothers emphasized their passion and burden to see the ministry of the evangelist raised up in the young Pentecostal movement and to see the movement grow by soul winning. Boddy reported that Stephen had said, I want to go all the way with the Lord and he will make me a flame of fire. Because of these reports in Boddy's Confidence magazine and through reports in the Welsh newspapers, invitations began to arrive for Stephen to preach elsewhere. But Stephen's great burden was for Wales. After a campaign in Llanelli, he decided to settle there. He raised up a work called Island Place Mission, which he used as a base for the next seven years. These were the happiest days of his life. Shortly after he came to Llanelli on a Sunday night in July 1914, something very strange happened. As he preached on the text that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, there appeared on the wall behind him a vision. All in the meeting could see it. It was only when Stephen finished preaching and sat down by his wife that he saw it too. First it was a picture of a lamb, which then turned into the appearance of the face of Christ depicted as the man of sorrows. This lasted for about six hours and many hundreds personally witnessed it. Even when the lights were turned out, it could still be seen. Those who were sceptics tried everything to expose it and explain it, but finally had to confess it was beyond explanation and must be of God. One week later, he preached on this is the beginning of sorrows. Two weeks later, he preached on Christ as the man of sorrows. That very week, the First World War broke out and lasted for the next four years. He later surmised that this was granted as a sign from the Lord to mark the beginning of the end of the age. His zeal in proclaiming the soon coming of Christ burned bright in his heart and message. He believed in a personal, literal and sudden return of Christ for his church according to the scriptures. There is no doubt that as he looked at the signs of the times, such as the First World War, which began in 1914 and left 16 million dead, the Communist Russian Revolution, which began in 1917, the liberation of Jerusalem in 1917, and of course the Great Pentecostal Revival, which then spread across the world, that he had good reason to believe that the Lord was coming soon. He wholly believed that Christ would return for the same church that he had left behind. It would be a holy church that walked in the fear of God. It would also be a church preaching a pure gospel, confirmed with signs and wonders following. He lived in an atmosphere of urgency, faith and expectancy. During his years as pastor of Island Place, he never closed the doors of the church. Meetings were held every night and were filled with Pentecostal blessing. The people would pack in and even sit in the windowsills or around the pulpit. His preaching brought terrible conviction of sin to those in need of Christ. He preached with a deep awareness that there was a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. He made people smell sulfur. Regular open air meetings were also held on the Presbyterian Square in the town. He would also head off on short trips, often to struggling missions with few people in attendance, to help break hard ground. He would pray, preach and persevere until a breakthrough came. He would then return home rejoicing with fresh testimonies but totally worn out. A powerful move of God took place under his ministry in one of these missions in Aberamon in December 1919. When he arrived, it was an assembly of just nine believers. But when he left, there were over 300 believers and most of these were young people. One older brother attending the meetings, who had lived through three revivals, said this was the greatest one yet. People trembled under the preaching of the word and then wept their way to Christ. In preaching Christ's work on the cross, Jeffreys continually warned sinners to flee the wrath to come. He was not an organizer, he was not a letter writer or a bookkeeper or a planner. These were the gifts of his younger brother George. And apart from his work in the mine, he was not practical. He was a man of one task. God had called him to stand in the pulpit and preach with fire, power and holy ghost conviction. In his preaching he hammered modernism, liberalism and dead religion. His preaching was simple, clear, direct, impassioned, powerful, scriptural and deeply convicting. Yet he was a humble and a meek man. During the early years of his ministry, he wore an Inverness cloak, which gave him the appearance of a mantled prophet. He soon discarded this garment, but he continued to wear a white clerical collar throughout his entire ministry, which was common amongst Welsh congregational ministers. Stephen only ever possessed a few Christian books. He loved to read old Welsh sermons, especially those of John Elias, a revivalist from North Wales who lived in the previous century and stirred his entire region by winning many thousands to Christ. His favorite contemporary preacher was R.B. Jones, who preached during the Welsh Revival and at Keswick. He took every opportunity to hear him and considered him to be the greatest preacher that had ever lived. As the Pentecostal revival spread in the land, many rose up to oppose it and to preach against it. Once, while attending a meeting to hear a powerful Bible expositor whom he greatly admired, he was faced with scathing public remarks from the preacher who recognized him, but all he did in response was smile meekly. When slandered and criticized, either from the press, Jeffries would simply ignore it and get on with the great task of winning souls and stirring churches. His mission angered both priests and pub owners, and when opposition was great against him, then God's power seemed to rest upon him in a greater way. Cecil Poulhill arranged for him to preach a campaign at Hawberry Chapel in the West End of London during October 1921 for the Reverend F.W. Pitt. Poulhill brought the young, the unknown Donald G. from Edinburgh to play the piano during the campaign. The meetings continued for several weeks with many souls converted and bodies healed. On just one of these evenings, over 60 people responded to the gospel. One of the healings during the mission was a man who had used crutches for 20 years, but was immediately healed after prayer. London was a stark contrast to the valleys of Wales, but this mission proved that Jeffries could minister in any environment. Pitt was very eager in proposing that Stephen should move to London as his assistant, which he planned would take place in 1922. During the preparation time, Pitt printed an article in a popular Christian magazine strongly attacking the Pentecostal revival and its gift of tongues. He knew that Jeffries spoke in tongues, yet had never approached him on the issue personally or privately. Stephen was shocked by this and pulled out of the arrangement. Pitt fumed as he still wanted Jeffries to come, but Jeffries refused to work with a man who acted with so little integrity. The work went into decline and eventually closed. The building was later purchased by George Jeffries in 1930 and was renamed Kensington Temple. Stephen was greatly used of God within the Elam alliance when his brother George brought it from the north of Ireland to Britain. Stephen had of course previously preached at an Elam tent campaign in 1917 in Belfast, and he had also served as a member of the Elam alliance council. While he was still at Ireland Place in Llanelli, he ministered twice in Dallas near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales, first in December 1919 and then again in April 1920. Hearts were hungry, lives were changed, and God was calling him to move to Dallas. Before leaving Llanelli, he held one last powerful tent campaign. The church in Dallas became the first Elam church in Wales and Stephen became its first pastor. Hundreds of people were saved, healed and filled with the Holy Spirit through this new work. His brother George joined him for a brief time and the work blazed. He remained in Dallas as pastor until November 1924. From this new base, he continued his travels to other towns. Together, the Jeffreys brothers, like the Wesley brothers before them, filled the largest and most famous halls in all of Britain. Place after place was reached with mighty results. Grimsby, Hull, Swansea, Barking, Hendon and many more. During the early 20s, he was the foremost evangelist in Elam in Britain. The places and miracles are too numerous to mention, but here is a taste. Typical of healing testimonies that came out of these campaigns were the following. One 44-year-old crippled lady who had never walked was instantly healed. A well-known local deaf and dumb man was healed after 40 years of affliction. All who knew this man confirmed it. A little girl who attended one campaign had one empty eye socket, but after prayer she had a beautiful new blue eye. The crowds, including local denominational ministers, witnessed it firsthand. Her doctors were dumbfounded. Many sceptics criticised Jeffreys, but God was saving souls, healing the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb and the diseased through him. Many leaders of great experience believed that he had the greatest healing ministry of any man in the Pentecostal movement of that generation. It has been said of him that he rarely preached on healing because his priority was the souls of men. It was God who confirmed his word with signs following. You could always be sure of seeing many people kneeling in the penitent form seeking salvation wherever he preached. He was back in Belfast ministering in glorious meetings in May and June of 1923. Then in autumn he travelled with his brother George to Sweden, Germany and Holland to minister the word. In June 1924 he travelled to Canada and America for several months of ministry again with his brother and a revival team where they ministered salvation and healing in many of the main cities in both lands with multitudes turning to Christ. While he was there he was invited to minister at a Bible school and on a radio which was a rare treat for this Welshman from the valleys. Stephen embarked on a new campaign embarking London in January 1925, but only a few people attended the first two meetings. Suddenly the Lord moved with thousands attending meetings and remarkable results. The impact of this campaign spread into East Ham, Ilford and Canning Town. This was followed in March by a large Elam campaign in the city with Stephen and George preaching side by side backed up and supported by a band of Elam evangelists. They rented the derelict old Surrey Tabernacle with the seating capacity of 2,000. Believers from new Elam churches in other towns and cities gathered for one of the largest and most important Pentecostal campaigns in the City of London thus far. In this great capital Stephen continued to hammer the modernist gospel that was being preached in the pulpits of the denominations and to challenge its widespread influence. He said, it is to be feared that many of our academics produce more cynics than saints, more parrots than thinkers. Jeffreys continued to campaign during the rest of that year in the towns of Ashbourne, Derbyshire in England, in Pontypridd in South Wales, as well as Forest Hill, Notting Hill and Sydenham in London. One great problem with Jeffreys was his disorganisation. He was prone to double book meetings, to make ministry commitments he could not fulfil or change plans at the last moment. George attempted to put more structure into his schedule but this failed and caused friction between the brothers. There were also further problems in moving Stephen from Wales and housing the family in London. They finally settled in Leoncy, an hour east of London in early 1925. Rather than joining and supporting the local Eden church he started a new church four miles away holding a spontaneous mission. In June that year the full Gospel Forward Movement Council was created with E.J. Phillips, E.C.W. Bolton and Ludwig Naumann overseeing Stephen's schedule, his funding and his bookings. This was like trying to cage an eagle. Stephen resented such confines as well as the growing legislation from within Elam headquarters. Third parties also began to sow seeds of division in Stephen's mind towards his brother George. By the end of that year he left and departed from Elam. The brothers had little contact with each other during the following several years but fellowship was restored by 1933. By March 1926 he was working with Assemblies of God which had only been recently formed in 1924. He became their main pioneer evangelist holding campaigns throughout Britain establishing new assemblies and helping small missions that had struggled for years which suddenly grew to be the biggest churches in the AOG. This vital ministry gave the AOG an evangelistic pioneer thrust at an early age and vital stage that moulded its future. These were probably Stephen's greatest days of ministry. In his meetings men would literally grip the pews under deep conviction of sin as he preached and many were instantly healed as he anointed them with oil and laid hands on them praying the prayer of faith for healing. One brother who became a timely help and support in these campaigns was T.D. Dorling a member of the AOG executive. Dorling very wisely took over Geoffrey's diary and arrangements when he came into the Assemblies of God but in an almost unnoticed way. It was very normal to see these two men ministering together to the sick after meetings. Geoffrey's would be wet with perspiration and Dorling would be in his shirt sleeves as they laid hands on people to pray for them. Dorling often played the piano in these meetings and led to the singing. He frequently broke into the song give me oil and my lamp keep me burning which was then carried out into the streets after the meetings and sung for all to hear. For most of 1926 Stephen traversed the southern region of England covering numbers of cities and towns but in August he made his only journey north of the border into Scotland to minister for Donald G in Edinburgh. Then he returned to the south of England and into Wales. At the beginning of 1927 he ministered in the south of England again and then worked his way north to County Durham by March of that year. In Bishop Auckland during a six-week campaign about 2,000 people responded to the gospel. In these meetings one young girl of just 13 years old who was born blind received her sight. A church of 1,200 people was soon established. This was to mark the beginning of a remarkable period of evangelism. Geoffrey's moved to Sunderland in September which was a high point in his ministry. Over 3,000 souls responded to the gospel within a month. One of the two churches initially established out of this campaign had a regular congregation of 1,000 people. Few people realized that during these meetings Geoffrey's was suffering. He was weak and exhausted. When he was not on the platform preaching with great zeal or praying for the sick he was flat on his back in bed. Each town and city visited in these days produced thousands of converts. In Spinneymoor there were over 1,300, in Chesterfield over 1,500 and in Bury there was over 2,000. Several new assemblies were pioneered which later became the biggest churches in the Assemblies of God. He held numbers of campaigns like those ones across the land and during these first two years with Assemblies of God it was soon said of him that he could have a revival in a wilderness. In December 1927 he went to Manchester to campaign for J. N. Parr, one of the founders of Assemblies of God. Parr booked Levenshulme Town Hall. For the first 10 days 50 people sat in an empty building that could hold 600. Parr was very discouraged and worried but suddenly the breakthrough came. The heavens opened and God worked mightily. By the end of the campaign the building was filled and hundreds were queuing outside, unable to get into the meeting. Over 500 souls had sought salvation and many had been healed including those with cancer, those that were deaf and others that were crippled. In March 1928 Geoffrey was back again ministering for Parr. This time they booked the Cavengers Chapel in a different part of the city which could seat about 1,700 people. The first night 45 souls responded to the gospel. After a two-week campaign 800 souls had come to Christ. The last day of the mission was held in the Free Trade Hall with seating for 4,000 people. In less than a few months Parr's church had grown from 50 people to a regular weekly gathering of several hundred. For many years Stephen had believed that God would open the door for him to go to many other nations. Accompanied by his wife and his nephew Tom Thomas he embarked on a world tour in 1928 beginning in America where he preached in Springfield where the Assemblies of God Headquarters was based that July. He preached daily for 22 days in the Gospel Tabernacle to 3,000 people with many queuing from the morning for the afternoon meetings. Then he moved to Los Angeles where the Azusa revival had begun in 1906 where crowds of several thousand gathered daily to hear the Word of God. From there he went to New Zealand where he began a campaign with a congregation of 1,200 people in Wellington. After several different missions in the land he spoke at the Assemblies of God annual conference. One unusual meeting of interest was with a gathering of about 300 Maoris. Their chief was very sick and on the verge of death. After Geoffrey's laid hands upon the chief and prayed the prayer of faith he immediately jumped up totally made whole. All the Maoris fell on their faces and cried out to God for salvation. He then traveled to Australia. At one meeting a well-known deaf and dumb man was brought into the meeting as a practical joke by his friends but the man was healed and he ran out into the streets witnessing to all who knew him and of course the crowds gathered. Last of all he traveled to South Africa where he campaigned for over three months. At one campaign in Johannesburg two movements the Full Gospel Church and the Apostolic Faith Mission joined together and put up a tent which held 3,000 people. It was filled throughout the campaign. At these meetings black and white believers worshipped together which was a rare sight in South Africa at the time. When he arrived back in Britain in 1931 he moved to Ilford near London. He named his new home Gwalior, an ancient name for Wales. While he was away on these travels his brother William was greatly used in campaigning in many places in Britain and William's son Stephen's nephew also followed the same trail. Stephen's son Edward who had traveled and ministered with his father during the 1920s came to the fore in the 1930s with the same powerful evangelistic healing ministry. This family was truly endowed of God with an evangelistic call and fire. In 1932 he was invited to return to South Africa which he did. He remained there for most of the year preaching the gospel with real power. He often preached with an interpreter and at times with three or four. In 1933 he had the privilege to minister in Sweden at Llyvig Petrus' church which was the biggest Pentecostal church in the world at that time. They became very close friends and he later returned there to preach. He was also very well received in Norway at T.B. Barrett's church. Barrett said that he had rarely heard such a message as the one preached by Jeffreys. This fearless and tireless rugged preacher who was often said to be like Elijah or John the Baptist or one of the prophets, wore himself out in abundant labors. For many years he had labored almost night and day for months on end without proper breaks. Doctors had warned him to slow down but he found it hard to do so when the calls were so urgent. Quite suddenly in 1935 at the age of 59 he came to a standstill with failing health. His weight suddenly fell from 12 stone to nine. His breathing became hard and his strength started to go. For the next eight years he was to be set aside from the great task which he'd labored in so faithfully and fruitfully. What was amazing was during these physically weak years his holy ghost joy never waned. His voice remained as strong as ever and no one ever heard him complain. In 1939 he was flown to Western Super Mayor, that's in Somerset, for the Assemblies of God General Conference where he spoke with a strong voice filled with zeal but his body was a sorry sight. Friends and family were grieved as they looked upon his form which was frail and bent and his hands which had once been laid upon people boldly and strongly praying for the sick bodies of multitudes who had received instant healing were now twisted and crippled with arthritis. Stephen and his wife moved back to Porthcawl in Wales then to Cardiff and finally to the place of his birth, Llanelli. Old friends from his mining days from the 1904 revival and from the Pentecostal movement frequently visited him in his home. His brother George made numbers of visits to see him in between his campaigns and their old disputes long forgiven were and now forgotten. His wife cared for him faithfully never leaving him even for one day during those years of sickness. She herself slowly became almost totally blind but she continued to care for him diligently. A terrible blow came to Stephen in January 1941 when his wife died. He moved to the Mumbles to stay in a bungalow with his daughter who cared for him for the last two years of his life. He lived near the Rees Howells Bible School. Many of the staff were a wonderful help to him in these last needy years and days. After his brother George resigned from the leadership of Elam and formed the Bible Pattern Fellowship in 1941, Stephen gladly joined in supporting him in his stance for the sovereignty of each local assembly and the decentralizing of denominational control. It can only be imagined how glorious it would have been if God had touched Stephen one last time and used both these brothers in the land as in earlier years. Stephen preached his last sermon in a much weakened state at the age of 67, less than a month before he died. It was the Elam church in Pontidoulas in Wales. His message was, we beheld his glory from the text of John chapter 1 and 14 and the word was made flesh. He began to expound, this is a quote, on great occasions kings put on their finest apparel but God wrapped himself in dust when he entered the world. His voice was strong and his message passionate. After the message he caught a chill which developed into pneumonia confining him to bed. He died on the 17th of November 1943, almost 39 years from the time of his conversion. John Carter of the Assemblies of God conducted the funeral at the Bethel Baptist Church in my state. Leaders from the Bible Pattern, Elam, Assemblies of God and the Apostolic Church as well as other church denominations attended the funeral and took part in the service acknowledging how gracious God had been in using a son of Wales in such a profound and mighty way in the ministry of evangelists in winning souls to Christ. It was a funeral with a revival atmosphere. As the coffin was lowered the crowd gathered and sang, in the sweet by and by we shall meet on that beautiful shore. Now before we leave this testimony we must respond to a few false accusations. Howard Carter and in turn Lester Sumrall, Carter's protégé, shared certain stories about Stephen Jeffreys that lack evidence or confirmation and in fact there are good reasons to reject them. Carter claimed or rather Sumrall made or repeated the claim that Jeffreys had grown rich through ministry and proud in his success. He also claimed that Carter had once heard Jeffreys say publicly in one of his South African campaigns quote ladies and gentlemen the world is at my feet close quote and as a result was later struck down with illness. In yet another place Sumrall claimed that Jeffreys had said quote the world is at my feet to worship me close quote. These claims on Carter's part fall into the realm of jealousy and false accusation. Carter admitted elsewhere that he had desired and had been jealous of the gifted ministry of the evangelist which he was never granted. Carter also falsely accused Jay in par of similar things. Such stories should at the very least be questioned. Sumrall also said that he once visited Jeffreys in Wales during his sickness and that Jeffreys had been deserted with no visits from any old friends. This is also not true. I personally take Sumrall's retelling of facts with a pinch of salt. Stephen Jeffreys was truly and rightly known as the beloved evangelist. Like first century Stephen he was a man full of the Holy Ghost, another Evan Roberts, another John the Baptist and even an Old Testament Elijah. He was a burning and a shining light. This man was gifted of God and as an evangelist. From the early days when he first came into sight amongst the Pentecostals his burden was to see true Pentecostal evangelists of the book of Acts kind restored to the church again. Jeffreys demonstrated what a true evangelist was in his ministry, his message and his character. He was indeed a rare man. He was rare in ministry, rare in humility, rare in humour, rare in character, rare in his Welshness and then finally rare in obscurity and sickness. Most could keep the victory amidst the success of ministry but very few could keep the victory if set aside for eight years of sickness and inactivity. But Stephen did. He frequently preached about Paul and Silas singing at the midnight hour. In his last days he truly practiced like very few men ever have. Stephen Jeffreys did not leave a trail of false conversions or supposed miracles. No, it was a God-confirmed ministry. His message was pure, his heart was pure and the results were pure. We must learn again that if we are to have true conversions, truly transformed lives, we must again preach a pure gospel. Stephen Jeffreys preached a pure gospel and left the results to God. When first stepping out in ministry he knew that success depended upon God's blessing and not upon special techniques invented by men. All his days he remained faithful to preach the word of God and to preach the person and the work of Christ, not a denomination, not a doctrine and not a system. Never has Britain, Ireland or the world so desperately needed the gifted ministry of the evangelist as now. May God raise them up once again in our time. Amen.