Many of you know dear brother Brian Long. This is just a post to let everyone know what is going on down in Oklahoma. Many will remember that Brian was the Pastor of the church where sermonindex had their revival conference last year in Barnsdall Oklahoma. He was also a speaker at the conference in Wales and is an upcoming speaker in Dallas. I had the privilege of Brian joining me last year in Scotland for the Times Square outreach, then we traveled down to Wales together. We already knew each other well as we have been praying together every Tuesday night for the last two years on the prayer conference call and had wonderful fellowship last year at the revival conference.
Now, in order for Brian to be able to come to Britain, he had to sell a rabbit breeding business he had. The significance of that will become apparent in a minute. Brian came to Scotland at great personal cost. His son was very sick at the time, in fact, just a month or so after returning his son would face death. Yet, the Lord had spoken to my dear brother and he was obedient to go to Britain where the Lord used him mightily. We lost count of the number of divine encounters that we had, we felt like two Apostles :)
On his return to Oklahoma, Brian and his wife faced one of the deepest and most fearful trials of all, their son was staring death in the face. He spent months in the children's hospital . He received a bone marrow transplant from his sister and a couple of brutal rounds of chemo. Yet all along, even although my brother and sister would be tested, they held onto Jesus in faith. Their son eventually recovered and has made remarkable progress, shocking the doctors at every turn, praise the Lord.
At the very same time, Brian was preaching boldly in his church. Now, that does not always end well. He continued to point the body of believers toward Jesus and Him alone and that Jesus must have the pre-eminence. He met stiff resistance, although there was a group who embraced the message. His continual challenge and drawing a line on the sand eventually brought things to a head. In the end, Brian resigned. Sometimes we have to draw lines in the sand.
The very next Wednesday night, Brian held a service in his barn, the barn where the rabbits had been! Now, this was the barn where the rabbits were bred. There were over 50 people in the barn that night. I had the privilege of sharing the following Sunday. The following Sunday after that they broke bread and there was an even larger crowd. There is a hungry and thirsty remnant out there who are definitely tired of business as usual. Now there seems to be too many people for the barn. So enquiries were made about a building in town that is situated between two bars. The lady who owned the building, called them back and said they could have the building for free for two years. They can do anything they want with it, praise God.
Last Sunday a journalist from a local paper came along to do a story about these people in the barn. Turns out she was an atheist. She ended up spending several hours. She seemed to enjoy it and told them that those three hours seemed like one. The story that she ended up writing, which was on the front page, ended up being a favorable one. It was entitled " Humble beginnings." Brian is mailing me a copy, I will scan it and post it here when I get it. Something is stirring in Barnsdall, we can see God in every part of what is going on down there. If you get a chance and the Lord leads, pray for that area, that the Holy Spirit would work mightily and that Jesus would be magnified as He draws believers together from all different backgrounds...........brother Frank
