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Showing posts with label Donald Murphy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Murphy. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

How it started - the basic facts

A lot of things are said on the internet about the Latter Rain Movement of 1948 - and a lot of it is not true. The aim of this blog is to set the record straight.

First, the faith healer William Branham was never part of this movement - never. Some of the early Latter Rain preachers were influenced by Branham but he was never part of the LRM. Ernest Gentile, an author who participated in Latter Rain meetings beginning in 1950, writes:

"Branham is considered by many the initiator and pacesetter of the healing revivals in 1947, as well as the precursor of the entirely separate Latter Rain movement of 1948" (Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy: Prophetic Gifts in Ministry Today).

The movement started at a bible school in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada. This will be covered in a post down the road (UPDATE: the North Battleford story is now available in three articles on this website: "The North Battleford story", "Jim Watt recalls the LRM's earliest history", and "The Latter Rain Movement in its context").

Reg Layzell
A pastor in Vancouver, Canada named Reg Layzell invited the ministers from the revival site in Saskatchewan to his church (Glad Tidings) in November 1948.

A pastor from Detroit, Michigan named Myrtle D. "Mom" Beall whose church (Bethesda Missionary Temple) was at that time affiliated with the Assemblies of God went out to Vancouver to see what the revival reports were all about. This what she wrote after attending those meetings:

"Everything we saw in the meetings was scriptural and beautiful. We left the meeting with a new touch of God upon our souls and ministry. We certainly feel transformed by the power of God. Never in our lives had we ever felt the power of God as we do now and we feel we are carrying something back to our assembly we never had before" (Sharon Star magazine).

Moses Vegh, a prophet who pastored and traveled the world during his ministry that spanned decades, writes:

"At that meeting the word of the Lord given to 'Mom' Beall, through the prophetic presbytery, was a powerful confirmation of all that the Lord had spoken to her about the 'armory' in Detroit" (The Chronicles of Moses: Acts of an Apostolic Journey)

Hugh Layzell, Reg Layzell's son, was an eyewitness of the prophecy and he confirms the story this way:

"After a day or two, the brethren agreed to minister to her in presbytery. Audrey and I remember this incident very well. As soon as she knelt before the presbyters, Ern Hawtin began to prophesy. He said, (something like this) 'Has not the Lord called you to build for Him an armory, where His last day army will be trained and equipped with the gifts of the Spirit in order to take the gospel to the ends of the earth in these last days?' This was, in effect, the very word she had received from the Lord concerning the Church in Detroit" (Sons of His Purpose: The Interweaving of the Ministry of Reg Layzell, and His Son, Hugh, During a Season of Revival)

When she got back to her church the next month the revival exploded there.

The momentum of the revival thus shifted from its early site in Saskatchewan to Vancouver and Detroit. From Vancouver the revival spread to west coast cities like Portland and Los Angeles, and Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan tells about the importance of Detroit to the LRM:

Myrtle Beall
"A large center of the revival outside of Canada was the Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, Michigan pastored by Myrtle Beall. From Detroit, the movement spread across the United States like prairie wildfire"  (An Eyewitness Remembers the Century of the Holy Spirit)

Following is a list of some of the ministers involved in the early days of the Latter Rain Movement (absent are the names: William Branham ... Earl Paulk ... Paul Cain - because they were not part of the Latter Rain Movement of 1948! Branham and Cain are more accurately associated with the Healing Revival that swept across the United States in the 1940s and 1950s ... back then Paulk was a minister in the Church of God denomination, Cleveland, Tennessee ... he would later go independent. What is true is that Branham's ministry was an influence on the North Battleford ministers, and Cain and Paulk came to have friends that were in the LRM. But the three were not part of the LRM).

      ~ highlighting indicates the individual is still alive ~ 
Example of Latter Rain ministers (1952)



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