INTERVIEW WITH 85 YEAR YOUNG DICK MILLS


Tuesday, September 25, 2007

    A Life of Ministry
    Gifted Bible teacher and preacher, the Rev. Dick Mills, has passed away, aged 90 
    By Aubrey Beauchamp, R.N.
    Special to ASSIST News Service
ANZA, CA (ANS) -- The Christian world recently lost one of its most unique and gifted Bible teachers and preacher: the Rev. Dick Mills who passed away at his home in Anza, CA on May 25th. He was 90 years old.
Dick Mills


Thousands of people still carry Scripture verses in their Bibles being given by Dick and written down by his wife, Betty. These prophetic scriptures, Dick always stressed were not just for a particular individual but for everyone. However, often a specific word was needed for one person for a particular need. Dick had memorized a huge number of scriptures which he easily recalled at any given moment. His knowledge of root words and their meaning was phenomena.
Dick grew up in Stockton, California and enlisted in the US Air Force, serving during WWII. After the war he enrolled in L.I.F.E. Bible College and graduated in 1949. In the 1950’s he pastured churches in Saugus and Oceanside, CA, then became an evangelist, eventually preaching to churches throughout the USA and Canada as well as mission work in Central America and Cuba.
In the mid-60s, he began to be in demand as a quest speaker and teacher the world over. Rev. Mills was also known as a prolific writer, authoring books such as “He Spoke and I Was Strengthened”, his daily Devotional in two Volumes, the Greek word studies and the Spirit-filled Life Bible and co-authored with his son, David, “Messiah and the Hebrew Alphabet”.
In the 1970, Dick was as Adjunct Professor at the Melodyland Bible School in Anaheim, CA and served for the next two decades as guest lecturer at Christian Colleges and Training Centers throughout the USA and Canada. He was also an occasionally guest on TBN and the 700 Club.

Over the course of a lifetime, he completed a vast personal library of Bible translations, commentaries, and Bible dictionaries, books from antiquity, lexicons, and devotional books.
Betty and Dick Mills












Dick Mills is survived by his loving wife of 55 years, Betty, his son David Michael, daughter, Deborah, seven grandchildren and three great-grand children. Dick’s memorial service was held on Friday, June 1, at The Dwelling Place Church in Hemet, California. It was attended by pastors and leaders from across the nation, including Pastor Jack Hayford of Church-on-the-Way and singer/pastor Chico Holliday who sang “On the Wings of a Dove". Dick’s late mother, Pauline Mills, who composed the well-known song, “Thou Art Worthy” was sung at the close of the Memorial Service.
The Body of Christ has lost a powerful prophet of God who spent his life seeking the Lord and serving Him in a pure and upright way. He will be missed by a vast number of people worldwide to whom he ministered personally in his 62 years of active traveling. He is greatly loved by many people, as the volume of expressions of appreciation currently coming in attest to. His devotion to the Lord and to people has been a hallmark of his life for many decades.
    Dick, you are one of the all-time great Christian evangelists with one of the strongest prophetic gifting in the 20th Century. How did God call you into all this?

God called me when I was 15. I was in high school. He called me to go to Life Bible College in Los Angeles. But I was a kid. What did I know? I wanted to have fun. It wasn’t until I was 22 on April 15, 1943, that He asked me a second time. I still think of Jonah when I share that because God gave him a second chance, too. I can only wonder what would’ve happened in my life that would have added to His use of me throughout the rest of my life if I'd obeyed Him on His first call. By the time God gave me a second chance I was in the Air Force and had to take my first year of Bible College by correspondence. But I went to Life as a sophomore and graduated from there in 1949.

  1. How does your gift of being quickened to verses for people take place in your mind?

Herbert Lockyer said in one of his books that there were 7700 promises God made to man. When I read that as a young person it totally intrigued me. I can’t say that I had a visitation by the Holy Spirit that called me to do what I did next, but it certainly happened as I studied God’s Word. In 1950 I found in the back of the Thompson Chain Bible something called “menemics.” Menemics is a way to color code all of the various categories of God’s promises. I used different colors for each category of promises. Then I got up sometime between 4:30 and 5 a.m. every morning to spend an hour memorizing God's various promises – all 7700 of them. On New Year’s Eve 1950 I was teaching at a church meeting and began giving three or four verses to a number of people as I felt quickened to give them a word from the Lord. That never stopped.

  1. When you think of the Charismatic Movement, who comes to mind first? Who, to you, are the greatest Generals?

Three names come quickly to mind – Father Dennis Bennett who was used by God to release the entire movement from his pulpit at an Episcopalian Church in Van Nuys, California. Single-handedly, Dennis led more than 300,000 people into the same baptism with tongues that he had received; Harald Bredesen, who led over 300,000 people of every denomination into the baptism in the Holy Spirit; and Dr. David DuPlessis, who stood the Catholics on their ears as he brought multitudes of priests into speaking in tongues. The gifts of the Holy Spirit poured powerfully through these three men. I’d definitely add Iverna Tompkins to that list. She still has a ministry in Phoenix.

  1. In your vast library, what books on the moves of the Holy
Spirit stand out in your mind?

Two books are by women: Maria Etter’s Life, Work And Experience of Maria Beulah Etter, Evangelist; and Aimee Semple McPherson’s classic,This Is That. But I have a vast Holy Spirit library that would make any Christian professor or pastor drool. I’ve spent a large portion of my life in bookstores all over the planet in order to find great books to add to my collection. It is a collection gathered over 57 years. To name one book is to leave another out. I’ve read them all and afterwards eliminated only the ones that I felt weren’t worthy of my collection

  1. As you look at America in the next several years, what do
you see happening to this country?
America will be brought to its knees for its materialism. It has become a vast wasteland of parties and stupidity Friday nights till Monday morning. However, I believe the people, without needing nuclear bombs to wake them up are suddenly going to become saturated and totally disgusted with their wasted lives. Then I believe churches all over America will fill to the brim with people seeking Christ. The Holy Spirit remains the joy all humans are looking for.

  1. How do you compare the Charismatic Movement with what is
happening in the move called “the River” right now?

The River originated with Rodney Howard Brown. I was in Johannesburg, South Africa, and prophesied to Rodney while he pastored there that he would come to America and release the Holy Spirit with powerful manifestations that would spread throughout the world. The Toronto Blessing came shortly after Rodney came to America and began doing that. The River is the name today of Rodney’s church in Florida. The powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit that he released are everywhere.

  1. What affect did the success of Melodyland have on the
Charismatic Movement?

Just as John the Baptist was the forerunner to Jesus, so Melodyland was the forerunner to a great deal that went on through the Holy Spirit during the Charismatic Movement. Reverend Ralph Wilkerson was the catalyst as today Bethel Church in Redding is the catalyst. David Wilkerson’s powerful book, The Cross And The Switchblade, brought the Catholics into deeply desiring the Holy Spirit. Multitudes of priests came to Melodyland, or were introduced to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, through teachers who frequented there. Melodyland was the “Who’s Who In The Holy Spirit.”

  1. What effect did the sad fall of Melodyland's pastor, Ralph Wilkerson, have on the Charismatic Movement?

I, of course, could say a lot about that. I prefer instead to simply say the cloud moved and Ralph didn’t follow.

  1. What is the greatest miracle or what are the greatest miracles you have ever seen?

A woman with an Ms sat in a wheelchair in Pasadena and was literally dying eight different ways. She was SO sick. Betty (Dick’s wife) and I laid hands on her and prayed. She was instantly healed. I could go on and on like that, but I’d rather talk about what other people are doing. Years ago when the first two million dollar 747 airplane was rolled out on the red carpet at Boeing in Seattle all kinds of media hoopla greeted it. But everyone on the Boeing team was humiliated because no one could get the airplane to start. The situation appeared hopeless. Then a Christian junior executive went into a private room and prayed. God gave him a vision of the control panel on the 747 and two switches that had each been put in the wrong place. They only needed to switch the wires with each other. He went to the flight manager and asked him if he would look and see whether those switches were incorrectly placed. The flight manager did and found that was the exact problem. Boeing saved face because God saved it for them. I’ve been blessed to watch God do that kind of thing, healing physically and performing miracles, all through my lifetime.

  1. When you finally go home to be with the Lord, how would
you like to be remembered?

When people speak of me I hope they will say that I was “an encourager” not a prophet. I never predict anything. But I have been blessed to bless others wherever I have gone. Also, I was privileged to write three pages in the Foursquare book on systematic theology, edited by Guy Duffield. I’d love to know after I’m gone that people are still reading that. It’s some of the best writing the Lord ever worked through me.
  1. What message would you like to leave this world when you go home?

I would urge them with my dying breath, “Be filled with the
Holy Spirit and with God’s Word.” That is the only way in this world that a human being can have life and that more
abundantly.