Rev. David Powell

"David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep..." -Acts 13:36
VETERAN Assembly of God pastor, David Powell has been promoted to glory. The funeral was convened by resident pastor James McGeachie on March 2nd in the Rotherham Pentecostal Church where Mr Powell was pastor for more than 40 years and which he saw grow from a handful of people to one of the larger AoG fellowships in Britain.
Recently David Powell was awarded a rare Millennium Roll of Honour certificate for services rendered to his fellow-man in helping the under privileged and disadvantaged youth of the area. The hundreds who gathered to show their respect were there to pay tribute to a friend, pastor and colleague who was courageous in his stance for truth and supportive of genuine followers of Christ.
Members of the family who live in Australasia were unable to be present. Philip Powell wrote on their behalf. The following is part of his tribute, which was read to the gathering:
"Don't you know that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?" -2 Samuel 3:38
"David Morgan Powell was unique, a good and faithful shepherd of God's people, an inspiring preacher and teacher of God's Word and, for us as a family, a respected uncle and great uncle to three generations.
Through his life and witness my own father was soundly saved and was held in the Father's hand to the end when, at 87, he passed into the presence of his Lord. Now almost three years later his older brother has followed him. When God saved David Powell He did a lasting work, which has influenced many inside and outside of his flesh and blood family. We bow before the sovereign Lord and give thanks.
The Psalmist prayed - "Uphold me according to thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope" (Psalm 119:116) and this as much as any part of the bible brings into focus the major features of Uncle Dave's life and ministry - PRAYER and the WORD OF GOD. Both undoubtedly contributed to the lucid mind that he had until his home call. The large physical frame gave way to the ravages of age and time but his spirit and mind remained strong as ever, maintained and upheld by the wondrous strength generated through constant prayer and meditation upon God's Word.
It is only the physical David Powell that has fallen and for those of us who knew him best he was indeed a prince with God and a great man. But the real David Powell has not fallen but been lifted into the presence of His Saviour and Lord, without whom none of us is anything.
Across more than 10,000 miles we extend our sympathy to all who need it, but more importantly our prayers and sincere desire that everyone will know and follow the same Lord who met and changed David Powell from a self-seeking ambitious young man to become an earnest and sincere servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well done - David Powell and the Lord Jesus Christ. Together you made it."
His devoted wife, Margaret, daughters Priscilla and Eunice, plus six grand-children and five great-grandchildren survive David Powell, who will be greatly missed.
~ For tribute by Jacob Prasch -- read on...

Pentecostal Preacher and Bible Expositor

A tribute and modern history lesson

By JACOB PRASCH
of MORIEL INTERNATIONAL

WHEN I learned that my friend David, at nearly 92 years of age, had gone to be with Jesus, after scrambling to find the telephone number of his eldest daughter Priscilla and his nephew Philip Powell in Australia (former Assemblies of God General Secretary, now director of Christian Witness Ministries, a partner ministry of Moriel), I went upstairs and opened the bible we keep on top of the piano. I don't usually lend much credence to such things, but this time I was sure it was The Lord speaking, as the bible just flicked open to Isaiah 57:1 - "The righteous man perishes and no one takes it to heart."

Although David was an elder statesman of British Pentecostalism, the largely backslidden religious establishment of what is today called Pentecostalism (bearing no resemblance to the biblical Pentecostalism of David Powell) largely ignored him. The reason being that in an era of the compromise of truth and righteousness euphemistically called `political correctness' David Powell was rather biblically, spiritually, and ethically correct.

David cared too much about what God thought to be concerned about what the backslidden latter day Sanhedrin of Pentecostal executives thought. David loved the Lord, the church, and the lost too much to be either a Caiaphas or a coward. He stood on the Word of God and stand he did.

Every movement has its prophetic voice that heralds the warnings of what the consequences will be of departing from the Word of the Lord and the Lord of the Word, and, like the ancient Hebrew prophets, are usually ignored.

John Wesley warned of the demise of Methodism because of ignoring the reading and exposition of the Word of God, just as Bishop J.C. Ryle similarly warned the Church of England. Charles Spurgeon foresaw the liberalism and ecumenical cancer that would one day spiritually murder the Baptist Union, which later indeed came to pass under Bernard Green and Douglas MacBaine who willingly accommodated such deception. In the very pulpit where R.T. Kendall would endorse the Toronto deception and sanction the Kansas City False Prophets despite their proven track record of failed prophetic prediction, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones warned what would become of the charismatic movement due to experiential theology, which is no theology at all.

What Wesley was to the Methodists, Ryle was to the Anglicans, Spurgeon was to the Baptists, and Lloyd-Jones was to the Charismatics, David Powell was to the Pentecostals. It was nearly 30 years ago when money preacher T.L. Osborne first infiltrated UK Pentecostalism with his heretical hype artistry. On the floor of the Assemblies of God Conference, it was David Powell who loudly and clearly declared that this hyper Pentecostalism was "A Combination Of Emotionalism, Mysticism and Demonism"! Now under the leadership of UK Assemblies of God
General Superintendent Paul Weaver, the mysticism, emotionalism, and demonism David Powell warned of has become mainstream Pentecostalism as that movement follows Elim down the cesspool of religious apostasy. All over the world there are those biblical Pentecostals who are growing afresh as witness the moves of God in New York with David Wilkerson and Jim Simbola, to Augustus Topi in Italy, to various Calvary Chapels, to David Jones & Jacky Boyd and the Gypsy Missions _ a new, independent bible based Pentecostalism is growing and developing, and David Powell was among the very first to envision this coming to
replace the dying movements who departed from the Word of the Lord. David knew early on that the Assemblies of God of the days of William Burton, Howard and John Carter and John Nelson Parr no longer existed. David Powell's warnings of what this combination of demonism, emotionalism, and mysticism would bring have alas come to pass just as did the warnings of Ryle, Spurgeon, Wesley, and Lloyd Jones.

In the aftermath of the collapse and split of their Pensacola charade, 16% in the numbers of Pentecostals and Charismatics since Toronto according to The Brierly Report and 22% decline in UK church attendance in the last 10 years since the beginning of the unbiblical Alpha courses, Paul Weaver is featuring a cast of characters at their upcoming AoG conference who would make T.L. Osborne appear nearly doctrinally orthodox in comparison. Among others is Tommy Tenney, who demeans the epistles as ancient letters no longer central to today's church, Colin Dye who continued to promote Morris Cerullo after the televised scandals which saw Cerullo resigning from The Evangelical Alliance after he was found guilty of all four charges against him by the UK Advertising Standards Council and the Crown coroner announced on TV that a young woman who ceased vital medication after Cerullo falsely pronounced her healed would be alive if she never went to a Cerullo crusade.

Refer also to M Cerullo Court case
Gerald Coates, the arch advocate of Toronto and Pensacola and opponent of the doctrine of the rapture whose proven false prophetic predictions stretch from New Zealand to the doors of Westminster Chapel is also an Assemblies of God UK conference speaker.

Wolves in sheep's clothing like Colin Dye, proven false prophets like Gerald Coates, who, in South Africa spoke of `the insufficiency of scripture', and open heretics belittling the Word of God like Tommy Tenney are perhaps not surprising, and neither is their promoter Paul Weaver (whose track record of proven failure includes his JIM CHALLENGE). Jesus warned such men would come to deceive in the Last Days. What is surprising are the hirelings whom Jesus identified as those who would not protect the sheep from the wolves. Within the Assemblies of God are those like Harry Letsin and David Petts, the conference chairman, who should know such things are wrong but will still go along with them. The only thing a hireling will ever take a stand against is not a heretic or a false prophet or a wolf come to devour the sheep, but rather they will take a stand only against those who are prepared to take a stand. They would rather compromise with heresy and deception even though they know it to be wrong simply because that is what a hireling does. David Powell however was no hireling. He did not believe in protecting the wolves, (let alone feeding the sheep to them) he was rather a shepherd who believed in protecting the sheep from the wolves.

But if backslidden Israel never heeded Amos, Ezekiel, Jeremiah or Hosea and backslidden church movements never heeded Wesley, Spurgeon, Ryle, or Lloyd-Jones, why should they have heeded David Powell? The Assemblies of God would not be in the declining state they are today had they listened to Brother Powell, yet once more as Isaiah said, "A righteous man perishes, and no one takes it to heart".

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Appeared in Issue 13 March 2001
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3