Sid: My guest Lindell Cooley who’s the worship leader of one of the greatest revivals of one of the revivals of the 20th century. It’s called the Pensacola Revival, Pensacola, Florida, the Brownsville Church. And Lindell on yesterday’s broadcast I talked about a vision that you had at age 14. God literally told you to start playing an instrument and you got on the piano and you found out that you had a supernatural gift. You just hear a song and you’re able to play it. That’s a phenomenal gift.
Lindell: Yes sir and that’s how it happened, yes.
Sid: When did you realize that you had that gift?
Lindell: Well at 14 actually because I played drums before that since I was 5 so I had the rhythm in me but I just the Lord spoke to me “I want you to take music, I want you to take worship to the nations,” that’s what he spoke to me at 14. You have to understand Sid that I grew up in a town with 2000 people in North Alabama right on the Mississippi, Alabama state line. So the world you know was a big charge so I just felt that I needed to play. And I sat down at the piano and my ear just worked well I would just hear a song and I could just figure out how to find the chords and it just came to me that way without lessons.
Sid: And of course you’re talking to a guy that can’t even carry a tune so no wonder I rave about a gift like that. And then at age 18 you had another vision tell me about it.
Lindell: That was another one on a service night we were ministering to the Lord at the end of the service and the Lord gave me a vision at this point. And at this point in history there weren’t CD’s there were cassettes. And I had never been a studio that actually I could see a studio recorder console with faders and sliders and knobs and I had never seen that. And I was at the altar and I saw a cassette superimposed over a mixing console and the Lord said “I’m going to use the music I’m going to give you to test the nations.” He said it again to me but at this time with a vision. And began to show me that literally that there will come a time when they’ll be houses and places and stadiums all over the world that will be filled with worshipers. And that happened too when I was 18 years old.
Sid: Well you didn’t have to wait too long for that vision to happen when you were the worship leader of the great Brownsville Revival. But on yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about the music you did there and there was one song. Why do you think the song “Enemy’s Camp, Look What the Lord has Done” affects people so radically?
Lindell: I think it’s so simple Sid and the rhythm is so strong that it kind of catches them unaware and they find them clapping their hands regardless of where they come from they’re clapping their hands, it’s got a joyful sound to it. But it also got a sound of deliverance to it and it’s a sound of praise. “Look what the Lord has down, He healed my body, He touched my mind, He saved me just in time.” The message of it is deliverance. So I just feel like all of it together just creates this moment of freedom and deliverance and chains being broken in peoples’ lives.
Sid: And speaking of chains being broken you spoke about a relative of Dave Wilkerson that came to the revival meeting, saw a nice sign “No dancing allowed on the balcony.” Because you were afraid that it wouldn’t survive everyone dancing up there and there’d be a problem. And so she said “I’m going there because I don’t want this craziness.” And tell me again what happened to her while she was listening to this song we’re about ready to play?
Lindell: She was listening to the song “Look What the Lord has Done” and said the Holy Spirit spoke to her. She was very dry and the Holy Spirit spoke to her and said “If you go down those stairs and dance I’m going to touch you I want you to go dance.” And she argued with the Lord and I kept singing the song and every step she said “I don’t want to do this Lord.” And the Lord said “Do this.” She gets to the bottom and she starts to dance and she said every time my feet would hit the floor and I would jump in the air it felt like just years of things were breaking off of me.” And I don’t understand how God does that Sid except I know there’s power in praise, I know there’s power in it.
Sid: Well and I know people’s chains are going to fall off and enjoy yourself but if you’re driving pull over to the side of the road.
“Enemies Camp.” Excerpt.
Sid: Well look at what the Lord has done wait until you find out what the Lord did Lindell Cooley before he became the great Worship Leader, the great Brownsville Revival at Pensacola, Florida. You were a Worship Leader of a major church in Nashville, you were doing work with Dolly Parton, with Garth Brooks and little by little you spend more time with non-believers. And actually it’s hard for me to believe because you were raised with parents that all they did was talk to you about miracles you saw miracles all your life. But you actually… would you say a spirit of this world came on you and you didn’t… and it caused doubt and unbelief in what you had seen with your own eyes your whole life.
Lindell: Absolutely, yes sir.
Sid: How can this happen because I see this happening to Christian people that are raised with Christian families, that are raised with God they go to college and it just seems that it just gets striped from them.
Lindell: You know I heard a friend say one day Sid that every child every son, every daughter of a believer a follower of Christ has to find the Lord for themselves. You can’t live vicariously off of the experience of your parents, you just can’t. I’d just come off of a wonderful experience at the church there in Nashville because it’s a great church and there’s no problem there, but I went into a year, a year and 3 months of really a dark place. I can’t explain it, I have no way to understand it other than I began to read books, I began to read a lot more psychologically based books. I started studying psychology and there’s nothing wrong with that either. But for me I just started exploring things and I began to ponder things in the mind. You know the battlefield of the mind is critical and these days in particularly. Because those thoughts that are anti-God, anti-Messiah, anti-Lord are all over us. And it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known the Lord those things swim through the air consistently because the Bible calls Satan the prince of the air.
Sid: And not only that the media supports it, the professors support it, your pears in college support it. I mean it’s powerful but you weren’t… you didn’t go into addictions or anything, but you just became intellectual. So intellectual you even doubted speaking in tongues which your family did your whole life and you did too.
Lindell: Absolutely.
Sid: Oh, absolutely out of time right now.
