W. B. Godbey: "Holiness Commando"

Rev. Godbey was born into a long and Godly line. The line is so old that the actual name is a French corruption of "Godly". He was born again at the age of three. While a young visiting preacher he overheard a saintly old woman beg the pastor to "get rid of this boring young fop". This drove him to his knees since he was convicted to the heart. He was soon sanctified and shortly transformed into "a converting machine" that brought revival wherever he went. The following illustrates how he dealt with a church that had stoutly resisted revival for thirty years:

"I had preached for a week straight, constantly on Hell and holiness, proving clearly that they all had to have one or the other. Without a clear and unmistakable experience of justification, there was an impassable mountain and unbridgeable river between them and the attitude in which it was possible to seek sanctification."

"I continued to take Mount Sinai for my pulpit, pleading with God to furnish all the ammunition He wanted me to use, and promising faithfully to "cry aloud and spare not, showing Israel their sins and His people their transgressions." Therefore, responsive to the prayers of the presiding elder, God gave me a regular gattling gun, loaded to the muzzle with red-hot shot and shell. This I used for four days with all my might. God wonderfully helping me. The arrival of the presiding elder and his presence in the meetings seemed to help the congregation, and seemed to augment the conviction which had already settled upon the people like a nightmare. Still I made no altar calls, but conducted the meeting with preaching, much prayer for conviction on the people, and free testimony for everybody who had grace enough to give it"

"I preached no more on Hell and damnation, as I felt so sorry for the people writhing under conviction, which had settled down on them like a nightmare from the eternal world. -- They looked pale as corpses and in spirit were as blue as indigo. Despair was hovering over them on raven pinions and claiming them for her victims. Now my theme became the wonderful and glorious vicarious atonement wrought on Calvary by the dying agonies of God's humiliated Son, who vacated the throne of His glory, and descended to this dark, lost world, spontaneously to die for the Hell-deserving millions of this Satan-dominated earth; and all because He loved us so."

"The people could hardly believe that I was the same man who had so ferociously exposed all their sins, sparing nobody and nothing, but so ferreting out their black iniquity, which they thought nobody knew, that many were puzzled and bewildered to know who had told me all about their black and crooked lives."

"While I was always flooded with calls, I made it a rule never unduly to expedite the work, thus going ahead of the Holy Ghost. Consequently other calls had to wait till I could reach them. I made it a rule to preach Sinai till conviction settled on the people like a nightmare. Then it was easy to get them brightly and triumphantly converted. I have closed many a meeting without any altar call, when I knew that they would crowd it if I gave them an invitation, but I wanted the Spirit to have time to do His work. I have frequently gone on till the sinners would come to me, trembling like Belshazzar, and say, "Preacher; are you never going to have a mourner's bench? I feel that I will be dead and in Hell before the sun goes down, if you do not give me a chance to seek the Lord." Then of course I would open the altar."

He brought powerful and lasting revivals in such a reliable fashion that his overseers sent him to any church or region that did not have revival. Rev. Godbey was a Holiness Commando with a keen gift of discerning spirits. Behind him there remained only God’s all-out revival or the cautionary smoking ruins of a fearful judgment.

Let us adventure together as we follow this truly invincible warhorse throughout the land; causing both lynch mobs and holiness-hating overseers to fall in conviction before His glorious saving and sanctifying power! See exactly why the Midwest and Southern States have a Godly heritage yet today! 52 pages.
 

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