In every generation there have been revivals, massive moves of the spirit that changed the course of history. In every revival, there were believers like you who chose to answer the call to become the one in their generation. Discover your call. To be the one in your generation. Welcome to Revival Radio. I'm Gene Bailey and here again with Vep Ellis Jr. So let's pick up the story now with with Vep Ellis senior. Talk to me about him. I want to know that story.
My dad of course, would be the third generation. And my grandfather was one of James Benton's sons. Right. He had 13, I think kids three of those became preachers, two Nazarene preachers, Church of God preachers. And of course, my my grandfather was an executive in the Church of God, State overseer. That's right. Over several states. And pastor and all my dad's siblings were in the ministry. Two brothers and and his sister was married to a preacher
and state overseer. But. And then so that's it just flows right through. You know, we know that God doesn't have any grandchildren and step-children. We're all children of God, right? But families, God first and or God said he, bless Abraham and his children and his children's children and children and children. And that blessing can come through, and God can anoint people and our generations. And I'm fourth generation, and now we're into the sixth generation.
And my brothers, I have two brothers that have been in the ministry and now my kids. I have one, my oldest daughter and her husband in the ministry, and my cousins, of course, David David Ellis, which is a cousin of mine, plays the piano for Brother Copeland, sure, great musician and a minister and his own he’s a minister as well. So is the the anointing that God has is just flowing.
But my dad, when he was called to the ministry, the first person that he went to and of course he loved his dad, but the first person he told was his great grandfather, I mean his grandfather. Sure. JB Ellis and, I remember what my dad said. I told him that I was called in the ministry, and he heard me preach my first sermon, and afterwards he said, well, son, you did a good job.
He said, and you know, all the things that I've gone through in my life, you know, my story and how that I, I was shot at, you know, I was threatened, thrown in jail. But he said the thing you say your generation in the next generations are going to going to be facing are going to be much tougher than what I went through. Mine were physical, but your your warfare is going to be more right. It's going to be even more difficult, he said. But God will bless you.
And he's a pretty good fella to work for. So he said it. But he is. But anyway, so that's my dad. He, he was a young man, probably in his early 20s when he received a call to the ministry. And his dad was, of course, the state overseer, the state overseer of Florida for the Church of God. And dad had been traveling around in churches and holding singing and singing conferences. Whether is call singing normal or something, right? He'd go to churches and teach them how to sing. Did you read music?
And, and out of some of those, out of those experiences, JD Sumner. Was sure. They had taught him music, gave him his first voice lessons, put him his first quartet, James Blackwood was and his family with and went to the church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where dad was, when dad was a teenager, he met my mother, and James Black was about five years younger than dad. And James told me, says, you know, your dad treated me like I was his kid brother and said I'd follow him around.
We'd hang around together all the time. But when dad was called to the ministry, he was already married. But he was just holding these music schools. So before we go any further, did music really kind of blossom with your dad, or was there something back with JB Ellis or where did that happen? You know, James Benton, I mentioned earlier that when he when James Benton Ellis, my great grandfather, he set up a pattern and a plan right for living out his Christian life.
He would read the Bible, he would sing hymns, and he would pray. Right. This was he never got away from this plan. Every day, every day. And so he he would sing hymns. This method to hymns. Sure. They would come to his heart and he would sing them. And then he wrote a few songs. And of course, dad, being a musician, he would take those songs and write the harmonies. And they had dad was a music editor for the Church of God for many years. And and so dad would put those songs in print, you know.
Right. And, so that's my. And my grandfather, dad said above the door, when he come in into to the mail, they'd have the the scale above the door. My grandfather had that up there and the kids would sing, sing the scales is coming in. Before they would sit down and eat. Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do, and they'd learn they had learned the scales. Sure. And so my grandfather was, of course, was a strong in this area, wasn't necessarily a musician.
He didn't sing, but he made sure that his kids could sing and play instruments. In fact, my dad was so he dad, you know, there's some people that just have such a gift, right? Well, my dad was that gifted. He he he could play just about anything he set his mind to. And, dad was not a real good teacher as far as teaching. Me to do instruments, but he was a good coach. I remember when he when I wanted to learn to the trumpet, he just wrote the scales out on a piece of paper and I got practice.
Yeah. And, and our family, of course, we didn't have a choice. We all had to sing and play instruments. But my dad, when he was, when it was called of the ministry, he was doing those music normal. So the music schools and the churches. But he would on a Sunday, for example. Then he would get up and he he'd sit down and talk, you know, and he was called to the ministry, but it was just kind of a slow process for him. Right.
And so that developed to the fact where he people wanted to hear him talk to. So then he would just begin to share. And before long, he was preaching. In fact, my uncle Woodrow Byrd, who was also full time minister, a great overseer, and eventually became one of the assistant general overseers of the Church of God. Woodrow Byrd from Lake City, from Lakeland, Florida.
Here's where they were from, mostly, he said, you know, when your dad was young and I was young, we would go around, I was moody and he was Sankey. He said, I preached, in your day, we do the music. How about that? He said, we go anywhere. We get into a church and preach. When we're in Bible school. And so that's kind of the way it started. But dads, there is something more down inside of that than just the music. And it was the call to preach. So he eventually began to pastor churches.
Let's don't let's don't leave the music just yet because he wrote, how many songs did he write. Between 500 and 600 gospel songs? Publish them? I just wrote them. He published them and he recorded maybe I know, but between 100 and 200 he recorded them. Now you've got an album here or something I do. All right. So this is, in the garden of my heart, babe. Ellis and fella sings Oral Roberts Crusade favorite. So let's talk about, the connection with Oral Roberts. How did that happen?
We're thankful for the ministry of Oral Roberts. I don't know when dad actually met Oral, but dad, when he was probably 28, had had a, physical problem. We as a family didn't know about it. But dad was sitting into organ and he's getting ready to produce a radio program for the church with my grandfather being the teacher. And he said, all of a sudden I felt the strength leave my body. My hands became numb. Pain. I just got so weak I can barely get up, get down off the organ, said.
I went home, he said, I've got feel better. But years later he was diagnosed. Diagnosed with a I think they call it incipient epilepsy. It was the beginning of epilepsy, right. But he kept that hidden from us until Lake City, Florida, where where he was pastoring. And he built a church there. One night at dinner table, he passed out, My mother said, run and get the deacons. Your dad needs prayer. Yeah. You know, I was I was about eight.
Well, I can remember I was either 7 or 8, and my brother and I, we ran down that dirt road, knocking on the deacons at home said, come to the parsonage. My dad and his prayer. You know, you can remember things like that. It was traumatic. So we ran and gathered, they can say, came and prayed for dad and he got feeling better. Then we moved to Tampa, Florida, which he pastored, the Sulfur Springs Church of God. And it was at that time, Oral Roberts came and brought his big tent to Tampa, Florida.
And of course, the Ministerial Association was sponsoring the meeting. The week before he came, dad had another episode at the church, and he went home and told mother, my ministry is over. What I feared has happened. It happened in public, he said. And you know, they will not want a pastor who has epilepsy. He said But I'm committed to sponsor this meeting, Brother Roberts, so I will go ahead with that. But said we're going to have to leave the ministry.
I guess he was thinking just being music the rest of his life when Oral Roberts spread that big tent, probably 3000 people out there. I don't know if it made him before, but he talked to Oral and he said, this is what I'm dealing with. And Oral looked him up later and said, Vep on the night that you feel like it's a night for you to be healed. You let us know. We'll put you in the front of the line. So the last day was coming at the last day of the meeting that had not been prayed for.
They had woke up on that last morning and he felt like he said, I heard the Lord say, this is the day. He said, you know that. He said, the devil fought me all day long and people need to realize this. You know, the devil is not going to go down easy. Right? All day long, he said, I started feeling bad. He's had some of the worst pains and numbness in my body, my neck, my back, he said. I felt the worst I had felt in a long time, he said. Then I had a wedding come up. It was not planned.
I had to do, he said. Then it was a funeral that came up. I had to do, he said. By that night I was not only feeling bad, but I had had so many interruptions of the day. I didn't get to the tent meeting until Oral was halfway through. His message.
Oral preached, and when he Oral stood back after the invitation, as people are streaming to the audience for salvation or a look at me and I said, this is the day, he said, when Oral looked at me, looked back at me with that confidence and that calmness with his eyes. It was confirmation Oral call for an usher to put in front of the line, he said. I got on the line and when I got when Oral got ready to pray for me, he laid his hands on me. He said I didn't feel a thing.
He said, I've seen people fall into the power I felt, you know. But he said I didn't feel a thing, but I knew it was healed. Interesting. You don't go on feelings. That’s right! The Lord had already spoken to him. He already knew the word. He already knew it. He said that when I walked off that ramp, I knew it was healed. Although I didn't feel a thing, but all my pain was gone by the time I got to the bottom of the ramp. How about that?
And he said, I never had another episode of epilepsy from that period on, to God be the glory. And at that meeting, Oral Robert's mother came up to me and said, Vep you are supposed to be with Oral. See dad had been making records. And he was already well known for dad was a legend in music in the 40s, 50s and 60s. There was nobody in gospel music that was more well known to my dad.
Right. 11 years later, in 1962, he began to be the crusade soloist for the Oral Roberts Crusade to God be the glory. If you do any research like we have on, revivals through the years, you keep running into Oral Roberts, and usually there's Bob DeWeese and Vep Ellis. You know, you can't go far until you keep running headlong into, a Vep Ellis in there.
Talk about how his relationship with Bob DeWeese, because, I mean, he started he wanted to be, he was singing, but he didn't want to do just that. Talk about that. Yeah. My dad, of course, he he valued. They called it the Ministry. Sure. And he, of course, he was called to write music and saying and record and, and and had great influence. And nobody was more influential in music than my dad in the 40s and 50s and 60s.
But, he and Bob became great friends, and Bob was the associate minister for the Oral Roberts ministry, the Crusades. Right. And in the afternoon, they would have afternoon meetings, and Bob DeWeese would preach one day, and Oral Roberts and my dad, Vep Senior, would preach on the next day. They would alternate in the afternoon meetings. They'd preach. They pray for the sick. And so that's the way they started.
But but Bob DeWeese and and my dad became so close friends, of course, they all played golf, you know, and they, they didn't like, of course, Bob DeWeese, he he had been chosen for the Olympics from California. And, along with Johnny Weissmuller, who was the first Tarzan. You know, they were on the same team together. That was great athlete. They played golf, all of that. But competition, they they play golf all the time. They compete. One day they had played two rounds of golf.
One of them one the first 18 holes, the other one the next 18 holes. So they had to play a third round. This is how close friends they were, but compared so they played three rounds. I never heard who won the third round. Yeah, but they were competitive. But Bob, when they stopped doing crusades, Bob basically retired from the from traveling with Oral just like dad did and they and and Bob went back to pastoring some churches. He pastor up there in Ohio. But dad eventually invited Bob to come.
Why don't she just come down here? See when dad left Oral because the Crusades were discontinued. Dad went back to Florida, as we've mentioned, talked about earlier, then began to pastor that church there in Largo on Indian Rocks Road 688 and it was called Harvest Temple. And so then it started pastoring that church of 30 people. It grew to 3000 before the dad retired in about. I think dad retired in about 18, not 18, 1986, 85, somewhere in there.
But Bob came and was dad's associate for several years. I couldn't imagine what it was like being on that staff. I can say those two guys were powerful preachers, great friends, and it was a it had to be a riot every day at work because they were they were fun to be around, you know.
But anyway, so they that that relationship was very close and and, and in fact even and when Bob moved back to, to Tulsa and I would play golf with Bob, play racquetball with golf with him, play tennis ball with with Bob DeWeese And it was always a story that he would tell about about my dad and him playing golf, you know, was a great, great friendship. And that's as how they got along. They got along just great. Now this picture, this is, this is your dad. Yes.
In this is, 1958. He was 41 years old. Was this at, any idea where this would have been? I think that that particular picture, say my dad bought a tent and about 1956, and dad started traveling the country and preaching, tent revival. His own tent revival, his. Own tent revival. Dad was a great camp meeting speaker. Yeah, for the Church of God. He spoke one summer. He spoke. He preached nine camp meetings, and they each were one week at a time.
Wow. He was he broke a record of preaching nine camp meetings and one summer. That's amazing. And he took the family with him. But anyway, that's kind of the background. And when then when dad, 11 years later, Oral invited dad to be the crusade soloist. We we had moved to California and dad was working with the full gospel businessmen, and Demos Shakarian traveling the West Coast, speaking in the chapters in the international meetings. And it was a tremendous time.
I was in my second year of college then, but boy, they we talk about revival now. It's I, I'm my family, my generation. So blessed to reap the benefits. Right. Of the of the move of God around 1900. My my great grandfather. Yeah, absolutely. I mean and then there was the latter day movement. Well, I don't want to get into that just because I want to save that for a little bit. But, you know, there I saw the story and some of the research here at the anybody would remember from years ago.
William Morris Talent Agency brought your your dad to New York City to audition for a CBS TV show. Now, that's got to be that's a big deal. There was no like him. He was unique, but he was unique as a father to sure. He wanted his family with him when he traveled. I was in one of those nine meetings. Oh, the whole family. Well, I have four siblings and he he involved us in the ministry. He would have us sitting. On the platform. Yeah. He didn't just want us with him. He had a singer.
I can remember singing on the radio when I was nine, right when my and my older brother was making records, when he was in high school with dad, then mom back that up on records. So, I mean, this is the and dad was so influential. He was the he was the he changed the way some of the gospel music was written. Really. He was the first one to have a Christian record club. He, he he was the first one to do multiple recordings. Now, this will lead me into your question.
He was already nationally known for his his song, his compositions, his preaching, for his writing, his recordings. He wrote a song of the year at the end of the trail, but he did multiple recordings. Now you'll you'll appreciate this. This is before tracks. Yeah. We have we got 16 tracks. We got 18 tracks. We can put everything in here we want. This is before that he made recordings and he was an RCA recording artist. Right? He was an SESAC composer.
So William Morris Agency was very aware of his talent. Yeah. And had been on radio for years and but he was the first one to he had to write his own songs and record him. And he sang every part. So the engineer and dad were quite creative, really, to be able to then sing all the parts and play that into all the instruments. This was the same year that Patsy Cline sang a duet with herself, right? Which made which made the news. She sang a duet herself.
And that same year dad did a multiple recording singing all four parts and playing the instruments. I still have those multiple recordings. Oh, wow. RCA got Ahold of that and they sent their engineers down to Cleveland, Tennessee, to the to the recording studio there at Church of God of Prophecy, where Tom, I can't remember Tom's last name right now. He was engineer.
That's where did a lot of those recordings he had recorded in Hollywood over the years and also in New York, but the William Morris Morse Talent Agency knew dead, and that had been on, like I say, on radio and all those did All those recordings brought dad to New York, and they did a national radio program. They did a I guess it was a trial, right. They national radio program nationwide. They got so much feedback, they told my dad said, we want you to we want you to go on TV.
So we're drawing up the contracts. We want you to come back tomorrow. Then we'll talk about, a TV program. So he came back the next day, and the slot they had was primetime Saturday night. They said, now we've got the contract. The lawyers were there, and they said, so we're excited about it. You'll make more money than you ever dreamed. Everybody in America will know who you are before the year's out, you were a household word.
And so they had listened to all this story and they said, but there's only one thing we don't want you to sing just Christian song. We don't we don't want that to be the main theme. And dad looked at and said, well, you don't want me, because I can't abandon the one who has brought me this far. Amen. I cannot do that. And they looked at him and said, but you make more money and talk to it. They tried to persuade him with money and with fame. There's a they can't do it.
They looked at him and said, well. You'll just be a poor man's Bing Crosby. Dad looked at them and said, you know what? I will not be anybody's poor man. I'm rich in ways that you will never know. Wow. And dad turned it down and it walked away. And they gave that slot on Friday, on Saturday night to Gunsmoke. Yeah. And the rest is history. As they would say. But, you know, dad left there and came home. We were living in Cleveland. That was in 1950, I think.
Now marriage is around 55. 1955 or 56, probably 55 could have been 54. But, you know, I wasn't old enough to pay attention. But anyway, they got food poisoning on the way home that that year developed nodules on his throat. He had never had a problem. He had camp meetings to preach. And then the Washington camp meeting. Dad was preaching that summer. God healed him of his. The nodules of the throat never had another problem. All right.
There's so much more to this story that you're going to have to hear next week. The time just flies by, but I still see this common thread going through this whole story with Vep Ellis and JB Ellis and you there, and we have even gotten to you yet, with, with your family, how God takes what you give him and it and it expands and it expands and it expands. And the legacy of faith keeps going on and on. Do you want that? Listen, you can have exactly that.
And you want to be able to talk to somebody. We've got a phone number right there on the screen. You can call someone right there to pray with you. Maybe you don't know who Jesus is, and somehow you got Ahold of this video or this television program and you need to know, call that number, someone's there, ready to pray with you and walk you through it. It's not weird. Not spooky. You'll understand what it really means, but let me pray for you real, real quick before we go.
Heavenly father, I thank you, Lord, for every person watching this program, whether it's live or years down the road, that every person that watches this show feel the power of God come through the airwaves, that they are able to quicken themselves to you, give their hearts to you and be encouraged, edified, built up that we're going to see great things happen in their lives. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you for watching Revival Radio TV. Thank you for supporting us.
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