DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT WEDNESDAY - A TRUE SERVANT OF GOD. Part 1.

Pastor Tom Whiting 31st January 1916 - 10th August 2006.

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' - Mat 25:21.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of an old friend and fellow Pastor, Tom Whiting, who passed on to be with the lord aged 90. He was a wonderful Christian, and of all the people I have ever met, I consider Pastor Tom to be one of the finest. Here are some excerpts from a small booklet that each person was given at the service…

THE WELSH REVIVAL
I was born in Blackwood near Newport, South Wales on 31st January 1916. My Mother, my grandmother, and my aunts were all involved in the Welsh Revival.

I followed my father into the mine, a tradition in the Welsh villages that probably continues even today. In the mine I had to work with the pit horses.

MY CONVERSION
As a result of my mother's prayers, I was invited to attend a Baptist Church to hear a guest speaker. I still have a vivid recollection of the service and of the sermon he preached which was on the "Burning Bush".

A few days later, while walking home from the coal pit at 3.30 pm, I began to think about the statement the preacher had made. So I lifted up my head to heaven and said "God, the preacher says that you are up there. If I will believe that you sent your Son to die on the Cross, and ask you to change me, you will do it. God, I will believe in you, and am willing to believe that your Son died on the Cross. Please change me", I then continued to walk home, and as I did, I felt something had happened within me. A very short while later, on my sixteenth birthday, I was baptized in water in the Baptist Church.

JOINING THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD
A week or so after that my mother took me to an Assembly of God Church service held in a small, shabby very dark building called the Ivybush Hall. The lights had to be on, even in the daytime, as all the windows had been completely boarded up. This church group was known by the local people as "The Second-Comers" because they used to preach on the second coming of Christ.

At the second meeting I attended, I felt God speak to the center of my being. He said, "I would like you to join with these believers". That was my commencement of my fellowship with the Assemblies of God and my friendship with the late W.T.H. Richards.

VISION OF THE GLOBE OF THE WORLD
In one of these services Pastor Will Richards experienced a supernatural vision in which he saw a globe of the world and heard the voice of the Lord saying, "The influence of the Oakdale Assembly would encircle the earth". Both myself and Bill Richards felt God's call into full-time ministry.

Together the influence of our ministries has encircled the earth. With W.T.H. Richards, we made the most of every opportunity in the Church and in the community to witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. When I was aged sixteen and a half we both preached on one Sunday evening, our joint efforts resulted in a sermon, which lasted for twenty minutes!

TOM MERCY PROPHESIED
At a May Day Rally in 1938, Pastor Tom Mercy of the Crosskeys Assembly said of Billy and myself that we would reach great heights in the ministry.

HOWARD CARTER BIBLE COLLEGE
I was nearing the age of twenty-one when the Pastor of our small Assembly suggested that I should consider enrolling at the Howard Carter Bible College in North London. He said that the Church would pay my train fare to London and the first four weeks of the College fees. After that I would have to trust God for money to pay for the remainder.
In January 1937, on the weekend of my twenty-first birthday, I left the coal pit for the pulpit. I was appointed Assistant Minister of the Howard Carter Bible College Church.

My life was impacted by various leading ministries including, Howard Carter, Harold Horton, Smith Wigglesworth, Donald Gee, David Powell and many others. Together with the other young men, I was prayed over with a prayer of Ordination. When I left the Bible College I went to assist one of the ministers for three months at Hammersmith where we were overseeing two churches between us.

HOUNSLOW
It was in January 1939 when I became Pastor of my first church at Hounslow Assembly of God in West London, as a single young man nearing my twenty-third birthday. The outbreak of war came shortly after. I worked on the premise that even though I was exempt from war service because I was a Minister, I ran my life with the same commitment and by the same code that was imposed upon service men.

MARRIAGE TO VIOLET HEWSON
It was about five years after I entered the Ministry that I married Violet Hewson in Folkestone on Boxing Day 1941. Violet also came from a Christian family, her father was a Deacon in the local Baptist Church. Her mother was a Pentecostal, being the only convert at a Stephen Jefferies crusade held in Folkestone.

In part 2 tomorrow, stories from pastor Tom doing the work of an evangelist on the streets and much more, don’t miss it!

Loving Father, help me by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be a Godly influence to those around me, and to those I meet in my day to day life, just as Pastor Tom was. I ask this, in the wonderful name of Jesus and for His glory! Amen!

Be encouraged!
GBYAY