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Intohispath
View more presentations from georgecduke.
A MAN CALLED FRED (MY BOOK) 3/10/08
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COPY AND PASTE ABOVE TO SEE AND HEAR FREDS TESTIMONY ON YOU TUBE
A man called Fred
While pioneering and Pastor of the church in High Wycombe England we had various conferences that we attended in the British Isles. Our fellowship churches which were all fairly small would come together in the midlands in a town north of Derby called Swanick. Swanick was near the village of Matlock. I remember a lot of great times attending the conference which became a yearly event. On being able to go there you were assured of meeting a lot of new converts to our faith and also the other ministers and Pastors in the district along with others of the our faith. It was at this conference that I came in contact with Brother Fred Plumb and Brother Mogg and his wife. Brother Mogg had been a missionary to Sri Lanka with a Trinitarian group and had met the Missionaries of the United Pentecostal Church who presented him with the Oneness doctrine and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Apparently he did something that many do not do and that was to research the word to find out if it was true. After his research he was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ along with his wife and became a minister of the UPC.
One day at the conference I met a young man by the name of Fred. For many years that was what we called him was just simply Brother Fred. His full name was Fredric Plumb and he was from Battersea in London. Fred had a very strong cockney accent and was hard to understand unless you had become accustomed to the cockney words, The number three was heard to sound like free and there were many other words that were pronounced a lot different from the average British person. Of course the English people were normally correcting me for my improper use of the English language with my American southern pronunciations. I think they thought there was still hope for me and had given up on changing the pronunciation of the Cockneys. Cockneys were thought of as being the lower class people around London that worked the shops and stalls.
As I learned later from Brother Fred,he had been brought up in West London and along with his brother Frankie they were always in trouble. In his early years Fred had been a youth gang leader among a small gang in the West end. He and Frankie had a real likable way about them and people would take to them right away. It was this that helped them to be able to obtain jobs window washing and enabled them to rob people of their valuables. He explained that Frankie would engage the Lady of the home in conversation while he was washing the windows. While they were chatting at the front door he would slip through the window into the home and plunder items that were easily taken of value. Of course they would eventually get caught and Frankie had the misfortune of being sent to prison. During Frankie’s prison sentence he came in contact with the Kray twins who were notoriously famous in London for their crimes. The Krays were like the mafia in the west end of London. After Frankie was released from prison he and Fred continued their life of criminal activity. As you can well understand by now I and Fred were complete opposites. I had been a cop and law and order was in my blood while Fred had lived by disobeying the law and lived a life of disorder. Apparently though God had something else in mind for Fred than a life of crime.
One day Fred and Frankie was strolling through Battersea park when they came in contact with a religious group from the UPC church in Battersea. They were singing and playing musical instruments and talking about Jesus Christ. Battersea church had some great men of God along with a great musical group. In that street or should we call it park service God touched Fred and Frankie and they were taken back to the church and were prayed for and God filled them with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave the utterance. Wow! Fred had never had anything like this to happen. It changed his life and he would never be the same. Both he and Frankie left the church that day saying I am going to come back and serve the Lord. Fred came back and he began to really dedicate his life to Christ. Frankie chose not to and he returned to his life of crime. When Fred got back to his house he told his wife what had happened and she looked at him like he had gone bonkers. (crazy) Fred started going to church and trying to clean up his life as best as he knew how. He also got involved in the church and outreach. During one of the outreach programs they were carrying placards and singing in the park when some communist youth walked up to him and began screaming at him and denouncing Jesus, Brother Fred said I took all I could take and as he tried to take my placard away I hit him with it as hard as I could. He fell to the ground. When I saw him on the ground I felt bad about hitting him and left the group and ran back to the church where I ran to the alter and fell on my knees asking God to forgive me, Fred pastor James Dallas spoke to him about his actions and had to explain to the hit youth that Fred was a new convert and had made a mistake by striking him with the placard.
Later Bro Dallas who Pastored the Battersea church along with the UPC International decided they would have a bible school in the Battersea church in London. Foreign Missions appointed Brother Henry and Sharon Richie to come to London and set up the bible college. it was Brother Richie that asked me to come down once a week and teach some classes on the Life of Christ. I remember getting up at 4:00 am and driving to London. I was located about 45 miles from where the Battersea church was in London. I got up early and made the trip in beffore traffic built up. It was a horror to drive in during the busy hours. I would arrive at the church around 6:00 am and sit in the car till it was time for classes. The first year that I taught at the bible school I remember a lot of fine young men attending. Some of these included now Pastors Charlton Patterson,Jimmy Austin, Billy Cross, and Fred Plumb. The following year a fine young man Bro Leroy Francis now Pastor of the Battersea church attended the bible school and I had the honor of teaching the same class the Life of Christ. During my teaching on the life of Christ I would get carried away on who Jesus was and the necessity of knowing him and the importance of his name Jesus in deliverance, Healing, miracles and Baptism. I really tried my best to share the importance with the class as i knew there were some ministers in our fellowship that was not strong on the importance of using his name in water Baptism. Col. 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 2 Co. 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
While speaking with Fred I learned that he had a great testimony and invited him to come to High Wycombe and share it with our church there. This was the beginning of a close friendship between Brother Fred and I. One that would last even till today as I write this story. When Brother Fred came and spoke he did a great job and I believe that this led him into the Ministry as he continued on and became an evangelist. The one problem that Fred had was he had been raised a crook, lived as a crook, and had a lot of crooked ways built within him. I am sure all of you understand we are all products of our upbringing. It was hard for Brother Fred to rid himself of some of his ways and actions because they were inbred in him. Even today there are some of his old ways that are still there and many people find it hard to understand. I tried to understand Fred and his ways as I remember the head of Texas Bible college Reverend Fred Foster telling us students that it was not where a person was at the moment but how far God had brought him from. He let us know that many of us had never been druggies, Alcoholics, crooks or the such but that we had been sinners with good standards and God did not have to bring us as far as the person that was in the deep dredges of sin.
I remember speaking to Fred in regards to the necessity of the new birth. We spoke at great length on the subject as I really believed that a person needed to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins and to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance just as they did in the bible in the book of Acts. Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Not only that but I also believe that people to be a legitimate Son of God must know that in Jesus Christ is all of the fullness of the Godhead.
Col. 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 2:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Fred and I would talk about theses beliefs and he readily agreed that these were biblical and he preached the same doctrine that I did. One day Fred asked me direct do you really believe all of this is essential? I said yes.John 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
He said do you believe that a person needs to be rebaptized in the name of Jesus if he has been baptized the other way. I looked at him and said if they want the only name that has the power to wash their sins away they do. He then looked at me and said my Pastor does not preach that. I found out later that there were other young men wanting to be used in the ministry that would tell me the same thing in regards to their Pastor. Listen if the word of God is true then we need to listen and obey it as it is written. You see God is a Spirit and Jesus was God from the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. The name of Jesus is the only saving name there is just as it is the healing and delivering name. From what Fred told me about his Pastor that day made me understand why I was never asked to speak in many of the churches in the UK. I believed the doctrine to much. I was on the general board of the church in the British Isles and got to know that there were many Ministers that had a reservation in regards to the necessity of the new birth. They believed in baptism in Jesus name but not the essentiality. One of the finest men we had on the board left our organization in regards to this doctrine and took a church in Scotland that did not believe it. His conscience was strong on his baptizing in the name but not rebaptizing those that had been baptized incorrectly. When he took the church though when he had a new convert to be baptized he would baptize them in Jesus name and it caused a great controversy which led to his giving the church up and returning to the UPC. I am glad to say that Fred embraced the bible doctrine rather than the doctrine of men, preached it and defended it.
I would have Fred down at various times to preach and
Fred began to preach and witness everywhere he went and years later he and Brother Mogg would help me start the church in Oxford England.
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