Colin J, Cooper

Colin J. Cooper is now a retired pastor and has an amazing story to tell of how he got to know Jesus. He is now the chairman at MFG (www.ministersfellowshipglobal.co.uk) and is author of Strong Church Foundations.   

Transcript

Nicola: Welcome to Coldwater Podcast. I'm Nicola Halton. We all know the importance of getting out there and doing a great work for Jesus. In this podcast, we will learn more about the people who are involved in changing lives for good for God. I would like to welcome Colin Cooper to the Coldwater podcast. Hi Colin. 

Colin: Hey Nicola, its good to be here.  

Nicola: Hello. It's lovely. Yes. You've got a very, very interesting testimony. Would you like to share it with us? 

Colin: Sure. You mean how I met Jesus. Yes, Right. Okay. Well, I never knew anything about Christianity because it was a non-Christian home and my mum, she believed he was a witch. Now when I'd say witch I don't mean Harry Potter kind.

Nicola: No

Colin: She was a genuine witch. I can remember how she could put curses on people. 

Nicola: Yeah

Colin: They actually worked. 

Nicola: Right

Colin: Outside of Christ they do have power you see. But you know it's a long story but I'll just give you the nuts and balls of it. 

Nicola: Yes. 

Colin: And my father died.  I loved my father and I remember, I was only seven.  He died my sister disappeared and my brother, he was three years older than me. He was drowned in the River Tyne in Newcastle. And I remember all these things had a had an effect and my mother she more and more got involved in the occult and I don't know if you know what ectoplasm is.

Nicola: No 

Colin: Ectoplasm, is like a mist that comes out of the orifices of the body and she could produce this mist. And remember, I was just a young boy and a white pillar or a grey white pillar would form, and then out of that, a body would appear and my mum would name, the bodies of the dead people. Now, I know as a Christian, you can't come back from the dead because Jesus said you can't. But what we saw was counterfeit and they really did look like dead people on my mother would then say, “Colin, go and shake hands with them.” And I remember there's a little boy, shaking hands with this appearance of a dead person. And, you know, Nicola the body was a solid as yours. If I shook your hand.

Nicola: Right.

Colin: But it was very cold and it was like sticky and cold. And so that kind of environment I grew up in and strange things would happen in the house. You know, the furniture would move and the pictures would move on the wall, and this had a real effect on my mother  3.21

Now. And I think, you know, when you really get involved in things like that, it not only affects your spirit and soul, but it must do something to your mind as well.

Nicola: Yeah, 

Colin: because my mother, she tried to once murder me with a big sharp knife, a carving knife, and it was only seconds that she was pressing down as she pinned me to the settee. It must have just been seconds but it felt like half an hour.  And then she seemed to snap out of it and walk away and she would try and teach me to conjure up images of Satan in the mirror now. And I remember some things I saw in the mirror, I don't think it really was Satan but now being a Christian now, but I know it was something bad and this was not kind of abnormal to me. Looking back now I think man, that was pretty weird but that's what we grew up in it was..

Nicola: yeah 

Colin: happening a regular happening all the time but then my mum. She came in one day and she said, “Colin I'm going to die.” And I remember looking at her. I was just this. I was14 at this age and she says, “It’s because I saw your brother in the kitchen and I was talking to him.” Now, I say, “My brother, but mum he's dead. He was drowned in the river Tyne and she said, “I know, but I saw him.” Now those who live in the occult and work in the occult, this is what they believe. If you see a relative like that, that comes back to you and talks to you, it means that you are going to die. And but of course, you see being not in a Christian family. Satan is very real and he holds power over those who don't know the Lord Jesus. Now I know is a Christian, Satan has no power over us in any shape or form but to those who are not Christian, then you're very vulnerable and just within a month, my mum was dead. And I remember just looking up into the sky and just as a 14 year old didn't know what to do, what to say and that was just totally lost. So my mother had gone. My father had gone. My brother had gone. My sister had disappeared and I was all alone and so I went to live in a house over in a place called Newburn. And this old lady who are really didn't understand teenagers. She took me and bless her. But as a teenager, I don't know, maybe my lifestyle, I was sometimes naughty and I wouldn't come in when I was supposed to come in and I was always, I remember sneaking through the window at 12 o'clock at night and one night. She was there waiting for me with a broom. She hit me with a broom

Nicola: Awww

Colin: And I remember running around the house and it reminded me because my mum when she was alive, she’d beat me and she would beat me with a chain. Until the there … it was like a dog chain, like a leader, across my legs, and blood would run down my legs 

Nicola: Awww

Colin: and well, this was the kind of childhood I had. And so I used to…. she threw me out of the house and I remember, I had nowhere to live, so I lived here and lived there and I, I just got myself into trouble and I'd been out one night and I got into a fight. Now, my mother, she taught me how to fight because those who can’t see me. I am mixed race. And in the days…. Now I grew up in the, I was a young boy in the 50s and teenager in the 60s. And so, I had a brown face and where I lived, there wasn't another brown face for miles and miles. So of course, the boys on the estate would come and call me nigga, get back to your own country and all kinds of things because what we didn't have any race religions in those days and I used to go running into my mum. “Mum, mum, mum they are picking on me.”  Now what she would say to me was, “Now you go out there and you fight them and if you don’t fight them I’m going to thrash you.”  Now the way my mother thrashed me with a chain, I thought I don't want that. I'd rather face these boys who are coming into my garden and calling me all these terrible names. So I remember one name. I don't know if you're still around Thomas but his name was Thomas Dafter.  If you are Thomas getting touched with me and Thomas Dafter and he was like the ring leader. 

Nicola: Yeah. 

Colin: And I remember he came in and he was poking me and pushing me. And I remember what my mum said, “You fight them and if you don't thrash them, I will thrash you.” So I remember clenching my fist and I punched him as hard as I could right on the nose and the blood poured out of his nose and he looked at me and ran shouting mama. And I remember feeling so good. So my mother actually taught me how to fight. 

Nicola: Yeah. 

Colin: And so one day I was in the city centre of Newcastle and I got into a fight and I remember breaking a beer glass over this other teenagers head and the police came and the arrested me and they put me in jail and I remember being in jail. Now this is where I guess a spiritual journey began. Although I didn't know it and I was in those days, they used to call it a hard sharp shock and there was not was not like the hotels, you have today.

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin: The bed was like a hard log cut in half and the pillow was like a log also. So there's no comfort and there was nothing else in the room. And I was thinking, when I get out here, you know what, I'm gonna change? 

Nicola: Yeah. 

Colin: And I want to turn over into a new person. I'm gonna get a job and I'm gonna just be normal, But do you know this Nicola? The leopard cannot change its own spots. 

Nicola: No. 

Colin:  And so I remember walking out the back door of the jail and all my friends were there and they used to say it to me. “Unless you've been in jail, you're not a man.” Now it's that is rubbish and foolish. Now, remember when you're young, you believe these.

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin: I walked out and thinking, I'm a man and all my friends will pat me on the back, But I had nowhere to live. And so I used to try to get apartments and I knocked on the doors for apartments and because I had a brown face that made a difficult but the way I dressed also, because then, now I know, looking at me now I don’t have that much hair, but in those days, they call them “freak out” and it was like a mass of hair on the top of your head and it actually looked like an explosion in a mattress factory. Well, I had all this hair and I had a Elmer Gantry velvet jacket, past my knees with velvet trousers and I had these earrings now all the guys today wear earrings, but in the mid 60s, that was really far out, guys didn't do it. So my visual appearance stopped me finding a flat. I would go to places, knock on the door. They would look at me and say, “I'm sorry it's gone. “ I said, “But I just rang up and you said come up.” And they said, “I'm sorry it's gone,” and so I used to sleep on the streets of Newcastle.

Nicola: Right.

Colin: And it was rough, you know, and the winter, cold, it's wet and I remember sleeping one night in a coalhouse. Now the younger generation are probably thinking, what is a coalhouse? Well, like a little hut that stored fuel coal that we used for the fires, for those who are born in the 90s and the naughties, but I was sleeping on this coal in the coal shed and the wind was blowing and the door was opening. I tried to keep it shut with a piece of string and I was, because of my lifestyle my whole body was shaking. 

Nicola: Yeah. 

Colin: Now, this is where I believe Nicola. There is no such thing as an athiest because the Lord God has put in every human being something in us that says I am here. And even the word,  athiest means destitute without the Lord God. And there I was, this guy who didn't know anything about Jesus. Now, listen, I said a prayer. I'd never been to church. I never see the prayer book. I didn't know what a hymn was, but I said a prayer because God said this clock in motion. Now, if I said this prayer today in church, they would probably tell me to be quiet or shut up, because I didn't know how to pray. This is how I went Nicola. I said, “Hey, if there's a God up there. You get me somewhere to live then I might believe in you.” That was pure blackmail but you see, a loving gracious. God put that prayer in my heart. I didn't know any fancy words. That's all I knew. And do you know, after a whole year of looking for a flat, not been able to get one, the very next day I was a bedsitter. 

Nicola: Oh, wow.

Colin: and you might say it's coincidence that, just coincidence, but the biggest coincidence was, it was right opposite a church called Bethshan in those day, Bethshan Tabernacle in the centre of Newcastle up the top of Westgate Hill. And so it was like the Lord put me there for that purpose. 

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin: And one day at an open air service, someone invited me to church and he said, the shocking thing was when he arranged to meet me I turned up because he looked at me and thought I would never turn up. But I did. That day. I gave my life to Jesus. I didn't fully understand it. I didn't even know what it meant, but it's something inside of me, said, it's right. 

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin: I remember when I walked out of that church, I felt so happy. 

Nicola: Yes.

Colin:  The joy came over me that I can't explain theologically. 

Nicola: Yes

Colin: I can’t explain any other way other than the Lord God touched something inside of me. Now, what happened was this in this bed sit, I shared this bed fit with a student, they call them Raymond Murray and he would get high on drugs and he would sniff, he kept his hashish a daffodil vase and then he put daffodils in it to camouflage it and he would come into the room at night and they called me Cas then, which was short for Cassius. And I'm sure all the old guys up in Newcastle, those who knew me will remember Cassius because it was always in fights. So they called me Cassius and he said, “Come on, switch on Cas, switch on.” Now I remember saying to him Raymond, “I don't do things like that, you know, because I'm a Christian now and I've stopped doing anything like that,” and he would just look at me as if I was something from another planet. Now, this night one night, I was leaving and this is where the real change came into my life. He said, ”I need to talk to you Colin.” He says, “My girlfriend has finished with me and he said, I feel like I'm on a black rock, this earth is a black rock drifting and a black void.” And I said, “Ah, Raymond, listen, I will talk to you when I get back alright, because I'm going to a party,” (or a disco as it was called back then) “So I’ll talk to you when I get back.” Now you here old people saying, “I remember this as if it was yesterday.”

Nicola: Yes

Colin:  Well actually I remember this as if it was yesterday. I went of to my party and I came back and I was police all over the place and the came to me and the said., “Are you Raymond's flatmate?” I said, “Yeah,” and they said, “We have some bad news, he’s drank a bottle of chloroform. Because he was a student in the university and from the laboratories,  he would steal chloroform. People don't do it so much now and you will get high on chloroform. He says, “He's drank a bottle of chloroform and he's committed suicide.” And I went into my room and I fell on my knees and it wasn't out of holiness. It was just, I was so shattered. And the reason was this. I’d invited him to church. I’d gave him a little tracked which explained about the wonderful gospel of Jesus, but I personally never told him about the amazing person and the fantastic saving grace of Jesus Christ. I just give them the tract and give them an invitation. And I said, then Lord, if there's an opportunity anywhere anytime anywhere in the world, again, I'm promising you this. I will never never miss that opportunity again and Nicola, that's why I'm here tonight. 

Nicola: Yes, thank you. 

Colin: Why I'm doing what I'm doing? 

Nicola: Yes.

Colin: Because my greatest desire is to see people like me to know this amazing person called Jesus Christ. And I don't even know if there is people here, perhaps just looking in and I would just say don't be religious. Jesus is not interested in the religious, but those, he loves and asks them to come into their lives. And when you ask Jesus, it’s not being a Protestant or a Catholic or a Methodist, it's asking Jesus to come in and forgive us because we've all done the wrong things. And if I asked, you have you told a little white lie, you'll probably say, oh, yeah. Because we've all done that. Even that is sin, and it just stops us connecting with God, but when we say, Lord, Jesus, just forgive me for all the worst things that we've done. You know what, he comes in and like that night, I had an encounter with Jesus and the joy, that overwhelmed me was amazing. So get in touch with Nicola. She will tell you and point you the way to a church in your area get involved in a church. That was the key. It was the saving grace for me and it was the best thing that I have ever done in all my life and it'll be your best thing. 

Nicola: Yeah, I must admit. I'm very guilty of that. You don't realise how many opportunities I may have missed. We do the small talk. We'll talk about kids, we'll talk about, but we don't talk about Christ and I miss the opportunity, and I'm in a very difficult…. Now, you've got an outstanding outstanding testimony and, you know, we don't want people to have that type of testimony because there's a lot of pain there. How would you, you've obviously let go, how would you encourage Christians to let go, of baggage of the past and it is easier said than done for many people. How would you encourage that?

Colin: You know, I had the myriad of things called hangups and, you know, I wouldn't walk under ladders. And if there was, this is how I was brought up with superstition. We didn't believe in God, but we believed in all these superstitious things. So, I wouldn't walk. Under ladders. There was a dog howling in the garden - someone was going to die. A crow flew over the house, and it was all groom and dom. And then when I remember I met Jesus for the first time. 

Nicola: Yeah

Colin: Instead that really, if we are in Christ with free indeed and it reminds me, you see of something, a story, which I tell in a minute but I was then free. And I remember looking just the week after I was free and I saw some ladders and they had been telling me I was free and so my inclination was to go around the ladder, but I said, no I'm not. Jesus has set me free either, he has set me free or he's a liar. So I walked under the ladder and as I walked under the ladder, I shouted 13, 13, 13. 

Nicola: laughs

Colin: Because that was supposed to be bad luck. So I walked under the ladder, and I went against the grain, you know, because mind is conditioned, even when you meet Jesus, your mind is being conditioned. Your spirit has been saved in your set, free with your mind is conditioned. So, it's taking the freedom that Christ gives us and going against the grain. And then saying, “Lord, God, you're with me, you've promised I've been set free and I…” you know, John this is the story, John Bunyan. You remember he talked about pilgrim, he had the big heavy load on his shoulders and then he came to Jesus. And as he looked up to Jesus, the load fell off his back, and he was free. And I think, you know, I really encourage those Christians, which have perhaps brought over from the old life, the baggage into new life, to take hold of the baggage. Lay this at the foot of the cross. And the Lord says, you know, we've actually got authority to do that through Christ Jesus and I didn't quite understand it, but I was actually using the authority that Lord Jesus gave me. I would not have been able to do it myself. The Lord says, “I am with you.”

Nicola: Yes.

Colin: “I have come to set you free and you're free indeed.”

Nicola: Yes

Colin:  Be free. 

Nicola: Yeah

Colin: Sweep that burden,lay it at the foot of the cross. Jesus keeps HIs promises 

Nicola: and and the Bible is … you know we will be transformed by the renewing of our mind and the Bible is the way… He renews our Spirit. You know. I I don't read as much as I should and I read books about the Bible but sometimes I need to get back into the word but getting into the word really, really helps us doesn’t it. It renews our mind. So yeah. Thank you. Colin. I'm confessing now and there's another question. How do you feel? Because you were encouraged to go into Bethshan and how do you feel about outreach into your community? 

Colin: Oh, you know, actually the church exists, we are not supposed to be blessed by great sermons, although we do get blessed by great sermons and fellowship and all that. But the church exists to be a light on earth and to reach out to those who don't know, the Lord Jesus. And one of the greatest commands that Jesus gave was to go. And, you know how, I actually was taken into church, I would never have gone in on my own but a young man called John McKale and you probably know him

Nicola: John McKale

Colin: Yes from Newcastle. He would get up in the morning and he would say, “Lord who do you want me to talk to today?” Because we waste tons of energy of talking and talking. But he said, “Who Lord? and he would try to keep a sensitive spirit.  Now remember, I knew nothing about Jesus at all and I had no understanding that I needed God. And so, I was walking along the street minding my own business, and the holy spirit, and I really believe in the work of the Holy Spirit. So that he said, John, “That's the one,” and I thought, ”Who?”“That’s him there,” because he thought the Lord do so. And so, John came to me with strength and boldness. And now this is how they talked in those days in the sixties. He says, “Young man? If you were to die tonight, where will you go?  And I went, “What hahah,” and I laughed at him. Now normally you would recoil when somebody laughs at us or tries to pull our legs but he didn't. With boldness he kept on and he explained the gospel and as something, something I didn't understand what he was talking about but something was different and he arranged to meet me and of course the following week, he took me to the church and that's when I became a clear Christian. And so, you know, I would rather go, when people invite me to speak to churches, I would rather go and just preach the gospel in that church, because the Lord's giving me that little bit of gifting. I’d rather see souls saved, people brought to Jesus, than give them the best sermon I could ever give them.

Nicola: Right? 

Colin: When one soul! And if you're depressed, anybody listen to this, 

Nicola: Yes.

Colin: One person to Jesus, and I defy, you, you will, you will, it's impossible to be depressed again, because when you lead somebody to Jesus, it's the greatest joy in all the world, but I think we in a generation we forgotten how did the fishers of men? And I think the Lord wants to teach us all over again. 

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin: Lead somebody to Jesus and see the joy of the Lord come all over your life.

Nicola: That's wonderful. Thank you. That's absolutely brilliant. And you your pastor is that right? Would you like to talk about …

Colin: Well I handed the church over five years ago now.

Nicola: Right? Okay.

Colin: Now I'm with my, we built cathedral house the 2100 seater. 

Nicola: Yes.

Colin: In the centre of Huddersfield and we call it Cathedral House. We filled it with people. Most of them we saw as souls saved from the streets, because we would go out regularly on the streets like, we learned up in Newcastle. To get people in.

Nicola: Yes

Colin:  And but now I'm with my son in Wellingborough and it's called Compass Church. So my son is the pastor of Compass Church and he planted it, I think about five or six years ago and it's a growing church. People are getting saved, mother’s are getting saved with the children and so I'm down there and my son now, is my pastor. What do you think about that? 

Nicola: That wonderful. That's absolutely brilliant. Thank you. If anyone isn't a Christian listening which you’ve already chatted to them, we're going to finish on this one. What would be their final message you'd reinforce? 

Colin: I would say, the Bible says this, “ Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And if I offered Nicola, say a guava to eat and she might say, “I don't think I'd like that guava.” I’d say, “But taste it!” “All right,” so she bit into the guava and then she said, “Oh wow, that is one of the nicest things I've ever tasted.” That's what the Bible says. You taste and see that the Lord is good and when you do that, He’ll come into your life.  You can do it tonight by your bed. Say, “Jesus, change me, come into my life. I'm sorry for anything I've done wrong. Here I am,” and you know what? Jesus will come in. Get in touch with Nicola and she'll point you to a church in your area. 

Nicola: Amen, thank you. 

Colin: The Lord is good. 

Nicola: I just wanted to ask you one more question, we're going to sneak another question in and I just wanted to know. Did you find it easy to forgive?

Colin: Well, forgiveness, obviously, it's a command in the Bible, which says, if you don't forgive then, you won't be forgiven. So, it's pretty serious. And because of my background, I founded hard to forgive people and forgiveness, in fact is, you know,  some people can forgive so easy because that's their genetic make up. It's not that they're more holy than me, they're just, that's them, they can forgive easily. But I had a heart that wouldn't forgive, I guess maybe all the names I was called as a kid and the things that… because I only told you a tiny bit of my testimony, so I found it very hard to forgive. And so I used to ask the Lord, “Lord help me, please help me.” Now, the Lord is more than willing to help us on forgiveness because then I saw the scriptures – so If you don't forgive you've been forgiven, much, You deserve to go to a lost eternity, but because I forgive you, I opened up heaven for you. So, if you don't forgive, you won’t be forgiven. And I said, “Oh my.” But then I asked the Lord, but then, I realised, I had to do something. And I started, I remember John McKale something that was said, he upset me and I remember that the Lord just gently, you know how the Lord gently speaks. It's not like in cinema scope, ”My son, I command!”  Just a gentle voice, “Just go and say sorry,” and I thought, “I haven't done anything. It's him.” “Just go and say sorry,” It wasn’t me? It was him. “Say sorry.” And I remember going[NH1]  to him, with my, through my teeth and I said, “I want you to know John, I'm sorry,” but in saying I'm thinking, “but it wasn't me, but I'm sorry,” and, you know, we've been, he might not even remember this because it was he was a more mature Christian and further along the road than me. But I remember that day and it was from that time, I started to learn, I had to do something as well. The Lord will help you and empower you. But I've gonna let some things go up. But now the more you preach the word, I mean, everything I said today not everybody's gonna be happy with what I said and they'll get angry, but I've learnt not to take it personally. So it's I've learnt to lay these things down at the foot of the cross when someone upsets me well Lord, here it is because you've commanded us to let it go. It's at the foot of the cross. Now it's His problem if you know what I mean.  

Nicola: Yes sorry. 

Colin: It's one of the most difficult things with all of us really. But if we don't forgive and actually affects us in a negative way. 

Nicola: Yeah. And those who have the given much love much  and I think that's very true.

Colin:  and I know I've been forgiven for a heap of stuff, and I don't deserve to be forgiven. You know, some people are nice people and the still even though they're nice they still need to be forgiven. 

Nicola: Yeah.

Colin:  Well I wasn't the nice person, I really was sinner and I needed to be forgiven. So I was forgiven a lot and, you know, Nicola I think, when people come into church and some of the Christians don't have time for them because these people are a pain in the neck. I think what the Lord has done in me because of my background, he's given me a lot of patience, and I'll just walk with them and walk with them, and walk with them and walk with them, because I think whatever the Lord has done for me, he can do for these people. What ever he Lord has done for me he can do it for anybody. 

Nicola: Yes Thank you Colin. Thank Thank you.

Colin: Oh, you're so welcome. 

Nicola: Thank you, Thank you for listening to the cold water podcast, Please remember to subscribe and join next week. 

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