{"id":8124,"date":"2016-09-28T20:24:19","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=8124"},"modified":"2016-09-28T20:24:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:24:19","slug":"nicknames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/8124\/nicknames\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicknames"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

This morning, I remembered a conversation that I once had with a man that I used to work part-time for, many years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

He started telling me that day about a fellow that (I assume) he used to look to as a friend. A person that he said, used to make use of his business regularly, (it was a gym, for athletic training).<\/span><\/p>\n

He told me that this fellow, “used to come in here everyday, and was a pretty decent guy, but then, next thing you know, the fellow disappears and is out handling snakes”. I said, “really?” with excitement. He said, “No. It’s just a figure of speech”.<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought he was saying his friend had found the power of God!\u00a0 I had never in my short lifetime heard someone say,\u00a0that<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0as a derogatory “figure of speech”.\u00a0 I have only heard it in the sense of:\u00a0<\/em>they were full of the holy Ghost and were able to handle snakes under the power that Jesus talked about in Mark, chapter 16.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

His answer disappointed me, I thought he knew a man who had forsook sin and found the way of holiness. I wanted to locate him \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

I have not considered that conversation in maybe a decade, not until this morning. And the reality of what that man was saying to me that day, when he said “It is just a figure of speech”,\u00a0 hit me. \u00a0In saying what he said to me, he was showing that the Pentecostal movement used to be so prevalent in this country and that holiness had made such an impression on people then, that when people went from living their sinful life, and made a sudden and abrupt life change, folk would equate that as to what happened during the Pentecostal movement!<\/span><\/p>\n

What an impact the outpouring of God’s Spirit must have had on this Country then! To become a “slur” in everyday speech, at least for that generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I imagine the Azusa street blessings contributed to that.\u00a0 And the work of your father, Preacher Clark,\u00a0 traveling this country with the power of the Gospel. And brother Frank, and sister Mae, and brother Oral Roberts, and others that we read about.<\/span><\/p>\n

My how times and people change!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But God does not.<\/span><\/p>\n

I appreciate experiencing that this morning. It excited me to consider that the power of God had that kind of impact on the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Jerry. The term “holy roller” is the another example of Pentecostal influence on our culture. \u00a0I wish we (God’s people everywhere) were so full of the Spirit now that men would come up with some similar names for us. \u00a0God, let it be!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

jdc<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, This morning, I remembered a conversation that I once had with a man that I used to work part-time for, many years ago. He started telling me that day about a fellow that (I assume) he used to look to as a friend. A person that he said, used to make use of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}