The White Garments

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. - Revelation 3:5

I was fortunate to have come to Pentecostal Holiness back when the revivals were good and would last for a week or so. I remember that people would fall out in the Spirit and sometimes would have to carried out of church. I have been to Pentecostal Holiness churches where people would shout, run out of church, run down the road a piece, and them come back in.

But, not only was there a noise, emotion, and activity... But there was an unexplainable richness there as well. The people lived like the Waltons. There was a sense of love and community There was also a decency. When I came in as a teenager I literally had all of that born within my Spirit. I was like... Holy Smokes! Now I have got the Holy Spirit speaking to me too!


I remember, after great revivals, and with much activity around the alter, that the people would begin to sing...

The windows of heaven are open!
The blessings are flowing tonight!
There is Joy! Joy! Joy! in my heart
Since Jesus made everything right!
I gave him my old tattered garments!
He gave me a robe of pure white!
I am feasting on manna from Heaven!
That is why I am so happy tonight!

My gosh! How the Spirit would break out like a floodtide after singing such songs! Like fingers of light shining down on a cloudy day beautifying the scenery of God's landscape!

As a teenager I felt white garments after participating in such good religion. As a Star Wars fan I have often wondered what a glorious outfit is awaiting for us in heaven! All that Holy Spirit made me feel as tall as Luke Skywalker as a teenager!


There is a Pentecostal Holiness church by the old community of Norris Run where people would run down the road a spell!

Thanks... UHCAlan... Much joy experienced with that song! What people do not realize about times a century ago is that there was not much in the form of entertainment in these mountains. No cable TV, Internet, you may get two channels if the sky was clear enough,no amusement parks, as the counties were dry no bars. Pentecostalism was our entertainment. My grandfather use to attend revivals that would last for weeks. Granny said that sometimes he would not get home until 3 AM, but would have no problem rising for work a couple of hours later. I am told that these mountains would ring with prayer. What kind of entertainment the Holy Spirit gave us is better than anything this world has to offer. My Grannie's dad died when she was twelve and they were on hard times. There was an old gentlemen that would come up the holler singing, "You can't do wrong and get by because the all seeing eye is watching you!" She remembered those words all her life and would tell me a many of time, "Son, you can't do wrong and get by!"

My experience came with a lightsaber by the way :lol:



A century ago there was not much in the form of entertainment in these mountains. No cable TV, Internet, you may get two channels if the sky was clear enough,no amusement parks, as the counties were dry no bars. Pentecostalism was our entertainment. My grandfather use to attend revivals that would last for weeks. Granny said that sometimes he would not get home until 3 AM, but would have no problem rising for work a couple of hours later. I am told that these mountains would ring with prayer. What kind of entertainment the Holy Spirit gave us is better than anything this world has to offer. My Grannie's dad died when she was twelve and they were on hard times. There was an old gentlemen that would come up the holler singing, "You can't do wrong and get by because the all seeing eye is watching you!" She remembered those words all her life and would tell me a many of time, "Son, you can't do wrong and get by!"

These revivals were nearly identical to the Methodist revivals of the 1800's. I did a devotion on one of the saints named Robert Sheffey, who was as closest as the old Saint Francis of Assisi as I could find...

http://www.christianityboard.com/topic/18564-the-life-of-george-clark-rankin/?p=203287

There was a man named George Clark Rankin who records this account in his "The Story of My Life or More Than a Half Century as I Have Lived It and Seen It Lived" George Clark Rankin. The Story of My Life Or More Than a Half Century As I Have Lived It and Seen It Lived Written by Myself at My Own Suggestion and That of Many Others Who Have Known and Loved Me who was the only other one to have recorded anything of the old Cripple Creek Meetings.

Page 240

The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.

I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

Page 241

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.


Robert Sheffey... Virginian Saint

Revelation 16:15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.