5 Jessop Sutton’s story.

Jessop Sutton’s story.

We all came together at Harfield Road Assembly of God but how we got there is via a uniquely different path for each of us and, since I don’t believe much in pure chance, I know that God was in for each one of us all the way.

My preparation for it started in 1963 when a President of the USofA was assassinated and a quotation from the Bible appeared in a newspaper. President JF Kennedy had a Scripture on his desk in the Oval Office:

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

I read it in the paper — and at about ten o’clock in the morning, on the floor of Woolworths store in Durban where I was a manager-in-training, I prayed “Forgive me God, I am a great fool. President Kennedy believed in you but I didn’t. Forgive me.” And He did.

A Congregational Church minister then told me how the Lord Jesus died for me on the Cross. I understood, and became a follower of Jesus. Then I was transferred to Cape Town and we lived in Harfield Road and walked passed the Assembly of God when we went to the Congregational Church in Claremont. I felt the call to the ministry, was accepted and set to study part-time, was then invited as a student pastor to a church in Durban. But someone had lent Dorothy a book, “They Speak With Other Tongues”, and I hungered for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

In Durban there was, waiting for me at a neighboring church, the only Congregational minister who spoke in tongues and, in his congregation, was a family who went to Bible Studies at the AOG in Durban!

I went to the Annual General Meeting of the Congregational churches in Port Elizabeth and there the other minister and I went to a Full Gospel Church campaign one evening. I went for prayer for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t filled that time, but I was delivered from smoking and learnt a lesson in faith.

Back in Durban, at a meeting of the Full Gospel Business Mens Fellowship, the preacher was the minister from the neighboring Full Gospel church. He preached on Jesus the Saviour, healer, deliverer and baptizer with the Holy Spirit. I went forward, was overflowed with the Spirit, sang in tongues — and was filled with inexpressible joy. Later the same FG pastor baptized me and Dorothy in water.

Dorothy and I went one evening to a meeting at the AOG and I experienced the congregation all singing in tongues. It  sounded like an Angel choir. The AOG was getting to me.

I got involved with Youth For Christ in arranging an outreach in Durban and two of the speakers were converted Hippies from Cape Town — Brian and Sandra O’donnell — in their Hippie getup.

With the baptism in the Holy Spirit and water baptism now part of my testimony, I ran into trouble with the leaders of the church and had to leave — but God had arranged for me to have my job back with Woolworths in Cape Town. A friend found us a flat in Harfield Village — almost right opposite the AOG! On the Sunday, I went to the Congregational church but Dorothy went to the AOG across the line. The next time, I went with Dorothy and found myself right in the middle of the Hippie Revival with Brian in the forefront.

Out of the blue, John Bond asked me to take some Bible Studies at the Headquarters Club. That launched me into regular Thursday evenings with the Hippies and involvement with Brian and the Hippies in activities of the Revival.

The Thursday evening meetings moved from the Headquarters Club to the Coffee Bar run by Dave Valentine in the Hippie Market, then to the Crypt of St George’s Cathedral, from there to Loop Street above Top Ten Car Sales.

Then at lunch times we were in Green Market Square preaching and testifying, and then onward to the Give God A Chance outreach with street activity, stickers, posters, marches in Town, all building up to a big meeting in Greenpoint Stadium. The Spirit of God was moving in the City.

There were miracles of Grace. God gave grace to the Dean of the Cathedral to allow us to use the Crypt there, He also gave grace to the Catholic Archbishop to send one or two of his Nun’s on his staff to come to the AOG; Sister Peter and another Nun also came to the Thursday evening meetings at the Market to find out and report to the Archbishop ‘what God was doing’.

Living as we were just across the line from the AOG, Dorothy  and I got to know more intimately several of the Hippies and friends of the Hippies who came over for coffee in our flat after the evening Gospel meetings, forming friendships that endured even after the Revival was over and the Hippies were all ex-Hippies moving up into successful careers.

It is a lasting regret that the last of the Hippies, a man and and a woman referred to as  the Sack People, never came through for Jesus. They eventually died, both of them, while living somewhere in Muizenberg.  If anyone can tell us more about them, that will help to bring closure.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to  be paused in the congregation of His people.

Jessop.

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