Our Guest Lindell Cooley
Sid: Well my guest has no choice he’s got to be red hot for the Messiah because he was the Worship Leader for one of the greatest revivals that has occurred in the 20th century and Pensacola, Florida the great Brownsville Revival. Lindell Cooley approximately how many people came to that revival from literally from all over the world.?
Lindell: I think the approximate number is about 4 million people Sid over a 5 year period.
Sid: And I’m going to take you back so that people know a little bit about you your parents were in ministry, they actually on occasion led worship for A.A. Allen and the tent meetings that he had. You grew up hearing about miracles. As a matter of fact, you were telling me about your Grandmother came over your house because she was dying from pancreatic cancer. She was down to like 89 pounds, tell me about that.
Lindell: Yes sir, my grandmother lived in Missouri and with my parents here in North Alabama and my Aunt brought her to my home. She had been through a couple of rounds of chemo, she had lost her hair and she was down to 89 pounds. And basically they had given her a death sentence. Now I certainly don’t recommend that everybody do this but with my grandmother was a woman of faith and she really believed that if she could get alone and hear from the Lord and go on a fast that she could receive a miracle. And she came to my home and my aunt and my mother helped her in the door. And she basically said to my mother whose name is Shirley she said “Shirley I need my room here and I need you to let me go in the room and let me hear from the Lord.” And then looked at me and I was about 15 years old and she said “Lindell, I want you to bring me a pitcher of water and a glass to my door every morning and every evening. And I’m going to go into that room and I’m going to pray until I hear from the Lord, and I’m believing that God’s going to give me a miracle.” And she stayed in that room about 10 days Sid and we would check on her periodically because she was in a very frail condition. At about 10 days somewhere around there one morning I was checking on her and I heard her feeble voice asking me to come help her get up. I went into the room we helped her get up, brought her to the table, she said “I’ve heard from God, the Lord has given me a miracle, tell your mother to fix me some broth I’m ready to start eating.” I was fifteen she was probably 69 years old and my grandmother passed away in her 90’s and she didn’t die with cancer so it was an amazing for me.
Sid: Did that have a real impact on you as a young child?
Lindell: Absolutely, absolutely because my mother is the same type of woman.
Sid: As a matter of fact you shouldn’t even be here the doctors told you’re mother not to have a child; she had 2 miscarriages she almost died in the second one. She was in a coma literally dying and what happened?
Lindell: Well the second one was actually a stillborn and a full-term stillborn and when that happened she hemorrhaged and went into a time of hemorrhaging and they could not stop the bleeding. And the doctors told my father that she had lost so much blood and it had to have affected her brain and they gave him the prognosis that she would be in a vegetated coma indefinitely, and if she came out of it she would not function as she had before that she would be in a vegetated state. And they were part of a church and they lived in St. Louis, Missouri at the time and that church brought the prayer team down the prayer team down to the hospital and they lined the aisles of the hospital, the halls of the hospital and prayer. And after 8, 9 days the Lord raised my mother up and probably a few months later or a year later or so she was totally restored. God healed her raised her completely up and the story of my birth basically happened because they were told that the couldn’t have any more children it just couldn’t happen because of all she’d been through the hemorrhaging and losing the children it just was not going to happen.
Sid: Or I assume if she tried she could die.
Lindell: She could die yes. So literally along about that time my mother was at home, my dad was working at the factory worker. And they lived in a third floor apartment in north St. Louis. She saw a woman walking down the street with twin babies in a carriage. And when the lady got to the corner a lot of the old cities have taverns on every corner and she wheeled the babies into the tavern. And my mother really called out to the Lord and she told me she said “God if you gave me a child I wouldn’t take them into places like that, I’d raise them in Your house. If you give me a child.” And a few weeks later she was having persistent morning sickness, she went to the doctor and the rest is history I was on my way. (Laughing)
Sid: You know that reminds me of a Bible story with Samuel who was very similar with his mom.
Lindell: Very much so. As a matter a fact Sid when I wrote my first book I had not heard that story in all of my life believe it or not. In 1995 or 6 I wrote a book it was semi-autobiographical and I needed a story to start the book so I called my mother on the phone and I said “Is there anything about my childhood you didn’t tell me?” And she started crying and she said “Yes.” And I said “Why would you not tell me this all my life?” She said “Son, I wanted you to find your calling on your own, I wanted you to find the Lord, I wanted you to follow Him because He had called you; I did not want you to do the work of the ministry and fall into ministry because I called you to be in the ministry; I wanted you to find that on your own.” It’s a phenomenal story, exactly like Hannah in the scripture.
Sid: Well you know we were talking last night and you told me you did so many wonderful songs during the revival, but the one that I think would be appropriate right now because these are songs done in the midst of the greatest outpouring of God’s Spirit in the 20th century. And the song you said that changes people the most it actually surprised you it’s “The Enemies Camp, Look What the Lord has Done.” And tell me what types of reports you get from people that heard that song.
Lindell: Well there’s many because it’s one of those songs as a musician… I’ve studied for years to try to be a good musician, tried to be a student of music and it’s kind of music it’s not a musical challenge to play it. So musicians can be snobs you know, we can be snobs. So I never really wanted to play it, but I started to play “Look at what the Lord has done part” people would just be freed from things and it just shocked me. One story was a musician friend of mine that actually came down to visit the revival and both of them were very bad spiritual state we’ll say it that way and they had heard about revival and they came to be spectators and check it out and see if it was God or not or whatever. And we had a sign at Brownsville that you couldn’t dance in the balcony because we were afraid of the structural integrity of the balcony it wasn’t designed for people to be jumping up and down. So we had no dancing in the balcony so this friend of mine and her husband she said “I’m sitting up there because I’m not going to be in the middle of all of this dancing and any of this stuff that’s going on I’m just going to watch.” And she’s actually kin to David Wilkerson who’s gone on to be with the Lord; she’s like a distant niece of something like that. She came up and sat down in the balcony and we started singing “Look at What the Lord has Done.” And she said “I sat there and I actually stood there and the Holy Spirit said “Lisa, I want you to go down the steps and dance.” And she said “I started arguing with God.” She said “I don’t do this anymore this is not what I’m into I’m not interested in this, I don’t want to do this.” And the Lord said “I want you to go downstairs and dance.” And she said she argued with the Lord all the way down the stairs and took her time thinking that I would end the song but I didn’t I just kept singing it.” And she said when she stepped on the floor she said “I jumped up and down the first time and she said “when I first hit the floor I felt the presence of the Lord and tears started coming to my eyes.” And she said I jumped up again and she said “Every time I would jump up and every time my feet would hit the ground she said it felt like chains and things were falling off of me.” So stories like that, something about that song and that freedom that it brings it just would break things off of people…
Sid: You know what I said we’re going to play it today but our time is escaping, we’ll do it on tomorrow’s broadcast… tell me about the vision you had at age 14.
Lindell: I was in my parents church here and on a Sunday night I was at the altar and the Lord began to speak to my heart. He spoke to me clearly He said “I want to use you to lead my people in worship.” And when I was 14 the word worship didn’t mean what it means now and I didn’t understand it I played drums. I got up from that altar and I didn’t understand fully what He meant at 14 years old. I just had this urgency that I need to learn how to play an instrument. I played the drums, which is an instrument, but something in me said “You got to learn to play the guitar, piano, something so that you can sing along with it.” And I just started playing piano I don’t really…
Sid: And I’m amazed at the supernatural gifting that God gave you on piano, we’ll talk about that on tomorrow’s broadcast.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth